Cymfony's Influence 2.0

Blog Bits - Week of September 26th

A recent MediaPostPublications article, Blog Champions: High Click-Throughs Offset Low Reach, discusses the growing importance of getting involved in consumer-generated media and how it can offer a relatively high ROI.  At the OMMA East Conference on Wednesday, Panelist Brian Clark, CEO of GMD Studios, said, "blogs and other consumer-generated media channels can be extremely cost-effective in driving Web traffic to campaign sites and creating interest." Through many companies fear the blogosphere and the potential damage caused by CGM, Clark argues that "companies can't afford to ignore consumer-generated media simply because they fear consumers might have unflattering things to say.  If you're afraid of what users are going to say, there are two strategies: You get involved in the discussion, or you stick your fingers in your ears and pretend it doesn't exist," he said.  "People are talking about you whether you're listening or not.

Corporate Engagement points to a great post on Global PR Blog Week 2.0 - "Adding Your Voice to the Conversation. Why CEOs Should Blog" by Jeneane D. Sessum.  Sessum challenges Seth Godin's theory on why CEOs should NOT blog because blogs work best on timeliness, pithiness, candor, urgency and controversy and Godin says "Does this sound like a CEO to you?" Sessum argues that many CEO-turned-bloggers are in fact "making the time and having a good time using the very characteristics Godin lists as what makes blogging successful." In the post, Sessum covers how CEOs are finding time to blog, how they are "unleashing" their inner blogger and much more...

Even though it's been a month since Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast - victims still need our help and members of the New Orleans Chapter of AMA are some of them.  John Cass of PR Communications is currently the president of the Boston Chapter of AMA and has expressed concern about the New Orleans' members and their current work situations.  Cass is putting together one site where all chapters of AMA from around the country can post specific jobs that they have available for New Orleans' Chapter Members.

Fighting Comment Spam

This is your blog public service announcement for today. If you've been a blogger for a while now, you know from first-hand experience that comment spam is becoming a bigger problem in the blogosphere today (it's starting to become a major pain in the you-know-what for our blog). TypePad, our blog hosting service, offers some suggestions for what to do about it here:

http://help.typepad.com/faq/comment_spam.html

Unfortunately, most of these suggestions either place additional burden on bloggers in maintaining their sites or have a negative effect on the user experience of their readers and commenters. Most bloggers want to have as low a barrier as possible for readers to engage them on their site.

If your blog runs on WordPress, there's good news. There's a free WordPress plugin available called Spam Karma that will automatically detect comment spam and prevent them from appearing on your blog. For each new comment made, it uses a number of different criteria to help determine whether it is likely a comment made by a valid user or if it is probably spam. I've been using it on a number of other blogs I maintain for a few months and it's had a 100% success rate so far. If the multitude of features available in the free, open-source WordPress package hasn't convinced you to switch yet, Spam Karma may be the thing that finally pulls you over.

Fear and Threats to Corporate Reputation in the Blogosphere

I came across this survey on PR and Blog relations thanks to Business Weeks' Blogspotting.  Although, as Stephen Baker points out, there is no trending information in this survey, it's still interesting to look at any new info available on how PR views blogging. The survey was conducted by Matthew Lynn and Hugh Fraser, two British business journalists who have experience working for media organizations including Bloomberg, the BBC and the Sunday Times.  They write on their Angel blog that the most striking conclusion is that PR Pros see blogs as posing a significant threat to corporate reputations. 64% agree that a disgruntled employee or a dissatisfied customer could use a blog to ignite a full blown crisis. And 58% of respondents agree that businesses have not yet woken up to the threat posed by blogs.  Although I don't have specific numbers, many of the PR professionals from Fortune 1000 companies that we speak with at Cymfony initially come to us out of fear or possible threats to their reputation.

They want to find out how to best capture all of the information that is being discussed online about their company and brands.  As these firms soon discover there is much more intelligence that can be gathered and many ways look at the blogosphere - which is not all negative.  At this point, monitoring consumer generated media or content should be a no-brainer for the pr professional.  A dissatisfied customer or disgruntled employee can have serious ramifications that can damage brand equity quickly even if its not necessarily accurate.  Yet, there are also pages and pages of information available that can be used for the positive or seen as an opportunity.   And the opportunity is not just for the PR or communications departments, it's also for the marketing, CI, research and branding or consumer insight departments as well.

What our clients come to learn is that gathering unfiltered opinions, preferences, employee's concerns, competitors strengths and weaknesses as well as emerging threats and opportunities can be utilized in many ways.  Some key areas we look at include:

• yes, reputation management
• but also, customer behavior analysis - when, for instance, are mom's talking about buying that new Dyson vacuum vs. when they actually buy and where
• Product launches - Apple ipod, need i say more?
• and what about product monitoring and analysis - might be interesting for Dell to learn that teen aged girls are using their Dell DJ's in Dad's new car (cross-marketing promotion perhaps?)
• or campaign and event analysis - we all know that GM's employee discount campaign took off, early indicators can show when a message is going to stick or flop.
• Competitive Intelligence - as more and more companies are becoming transparent there is more and more information at our fingertips.

As the survey reveals, fear and threats to corporate reputation may be the driver for PR professionals to start to look at consumer generated media - but that's not the only reason to dive in.

public relations marketing word of mouth

New Tool Measures Blog Influence

ClickZ published an article this morning on PubSubs new site ranking tool called "LinkRanks".  The tool will help marketing, PR and communications professionals "determine the approximate reach and influence of a particular Web page based on the sites that link to that page, either on a daily basis or over a period of weeks."  PubSub describes LinkRanks as PubSub's method of measuring the strength, persistence, and vitality of links appearing in over 16 million sources that PubSub monitors.

ssPubSub has also launched a series of category-based site rankings, essentially that will measure influence by category.  According to CTO Bob Wyman, it's first one is on Fashion with hopes to do more with PR blogs, law blogs, marketing blogs, etc., "as soon as we can find the domain experts who can maintain those lists."  I'm sure we know a few folks who could help out.  Look forward to checking out the services. 

81% of Consumer (Age 30-64) Research Products/Services on the Web

Global PR Week 2.0 is over and has left behind a nice round up and interesting articles/thoughts on topics such as community blogging, reaching customers through corporate blogging, wikis, blog monitoring, blog relations and much much more....

One particular post of interest is from Joel Cere of Hill and Knowlton and author of the BeyondPR blog on "Consumer Generated: From Mayham to Marketing".

Really well thought out piece on how we got to this point and the changing relationship with consumers, brands and the way we market.  He states that CGM is born out of consumer empowerment, frustration and a long memory.  And describes what he means in 3 easy to following paragraphs - First, consumers talk to each other more because they can and self-publishing tools and enhanced/user-friendly communication technologies have made consumer generated content increasingly popular. Second, the trust bond between businesses and consumers is fading and consumer-to-consumer relations have become a viable alternative.  And Third, the Internet has a long memory and that 81% of consumers aged 30 to 64 years old use the web to research products or services.  Additionally, Joel offers 7 tips for getting into the game.  This article should make the rounds.

blogging marketing public relations

Blog Bits - Week of September 19th

Can brands ignore blogs? Market Sentinel addresses "that in the world of newspapers and broadcast soundbites there may be a good case for PRs and Customer Relations departments not to become involved in public disputes about their company or product" but that's all changing with the new world of blogs.  "Unhappy customers who complaints are not dealt with rapidly can, and do reach a wide audience - from potential customers to those who have suffered similar problems and want to talk about it.  The effect can be viral, with awareness growing rapidly the longer the issues are not addressed."  In a recent study by Market Sentinel of ACNielsen's top 50 UK grocery brands - they found that 40% of them had critical or negative commentary in the top 10 Google results. Some of the brands with critical commentary included Coco-Cola, Mars Bars and Bird's Eye.  This is definitely something that brands can't ignore.

BL Ochman points us to a guide on writing better comments on blogs by Lifehacker's editor Gina Trapani.  Some of Trapani's tips include:

• Stay on topic
• Make the tone of your message clear
• Don't post when you are angry, upset, drunk or emotional
• Own your comment
• Remember that nobody likes a know-it-all

BL Ochman adds a few tips of her own:

• Provide your full name and email address that can be verified
• Don't lie, you'll be found out
• Use clear language- none of the $5 words
• Follow what is being said about you and your company and respond quickly

Elizabeth Albrycht, a fellow panelist of Andrew Bernstein's at the PRSA conference in Miami Florida wrote the following article in Global PR Blog Week 2.0 about Is Transparency the Key to Improving PR's Reputation?  It revolves around her idea that :the ethical practice of public relations: that truth and transparency are two very different things, and that in the difference lies great potential for taking steps to improve the practice of public relations, result in more positive public reputation."  She concludes that "transparency may just give the ability to prove our innocence, thus improving the reputation of PR as a whole."

Here's the link to read other posts and comments from Global Blog week.

The Year of Measurement?

Since I began working in the PR industry eight years ago, it seems every year I have seen a similar headline in one of the trade publications or at a conference:  "This is the Year of PR Measurement".  While it's true that many more companies have implemented PR measurement in recent years, we haven't yet seen anything that I would categorize as a Year of PR Measurement.  Why, you may ask?

Well, I think PR measurement is more complex than many firms initially realize.  When they endeavor to implement a measurement program, some companies believe they can just flip a switch (or call their agency) and see the results.  Sure, there are simple ways to measure - like counting clips and using spreadsheets to configure charts.  That might be all an agency needs to report back to its client.  It might also suffice for a PR manager's update to the CEO, but I'm talking about something deeper and more useful than that.

In my opinion, measurement should answer questions like What do the results tell us about our program or campaign?  What did we do well? How are we stacking up against the competition - not just in numbers? Are we telling a good story to the marketplace?

These will sound pretty standard to PR pros.  I point them out because you cannot answer them with a clip book or by producing a static chart.  A meaningful measurement program enables you to investigate and get your hands dirty, look beyond the numbers.

Anecdotally, I've heard many more recent RFPs issued by companies to PR agencies include measurement as more than a checklist item.  It seems that companies are becoming wise to the value of measurement as an intelligence tool, not just a reporting function.  And, they realize they will need to pay for it, too.

Dare I say it - Who knows, maybe this year?

marketing pr measurement

How Marketers Are Using Consumer Generated Content and Online Discussion

The New York Times published an article yesterday about how Initiative Media is looking at online discussion to predict "hits" for this falls television line up. The motivation for Initiative Media (and others) to do so is to help media buyers or ad buyers scoop up coveted space during hot new shows.  "Last year, when "Lost" defied all expectations by demonstrating a clatter of attention on the Web, Initiative began questioning whether the passive examination they were doing of the chat sites was simply not a proper way to measure advance audience interest in television shows, said Stacey Lynn Koerner, the executive vice president of global research for the agency, a unit of the Interpublic Group of Companies."

Basically, the network executives expected the show to fail due to the nature of the drama, the 8pm time slot and premiering on a failing network.  "I looked at the data for the show and it was No. 1 in terms of positive buzz," Ms. Koerner said. "I said, 'Ah, shoot, this thing doesn't work.' " - don't you just love this quote...

It is becoming more and more critical for marketing professionals, including advertisers, market researchers, brand managers, communications and CI professionals to look at online discussion or consumer-generated content to capture unfiltered information on consumer behavior, the new focus group if you will.  Here at Cymfony we've been using our automated technology as well as business analysts to monitoring and analyze information from blogs, message boards, chat rooms, etc. for Fortune 1000 clients and talking about the valuable information companies can "discover" for a while.  The intelligence gathered from this new medium can be used in a number of ways depending on what department is using the services.  I thought it would be beneficial to break out the way different marketing functions are using Cymfony's tools to analyze consumer created content or online discussion. This gives a good illustration of how marketers, in general, are using CGM across the board (and many of these overlap by title). For example:

Product or Brand Marketing Managers are monitoring and analyzing blogs, message boards, chat rooms, etc. to:

1. Monitor customer reactions and feedback to their product or services (in-real time)
2. Evaluate if their product is serving their customers needs
3. Ensure that they are building and delivering the right products to target markets
4. Identify new product ideas, suggestions and product improvements
5. Identify critical product issues and complaints
6. Monitor consumer reaction to handling of product issues (customer service)
7. Learn about new or unplanned uses of their product or service
8. Specifically - around a product launch, clients are monitoring and analyzing consumer and media buzz before, during and after a product launch to assess the performance of a marketing and PR campaign
9. To be alerted to potential launch issues, product-related or messaging-related issues and to address them before they impact the success of their launch

Communications/PR Professionals or Marketing - focused on Media Measurement

1. To easily report results on media coverage and online conversations all within one product - such as downloading graphs and charts to report to senior management
2. Share media/blog coverage to internal team members
3. Monitor coverage of competitors
4. Benchmark and measure coverage
5. Discover trends, threats and opportunities to help develop their media relations strategy
6. Understand the number of Internet users viewing discussion related to their company

Competitive Intelligence or Analysis Professionals look at CGM to:

1. Monitor discussion relating to competitor and competitive products - as well as entire market sector
2. To identify competitive threats
3. To identify opportunities through the analysis of discussion relating to competitors
4. Identify emerging consumer trends and themes within their industry
5. Monitor media and consumer reaction to products

Marketing professionals responsible for reputation management:

1. To track how the company, CEO, senior managers, partners or corporate representatives are perceived in the market
2. Ensure positive perception by fine-tuning their messages
3. For crisis monitoring - to help circumvent potential  crises or be alerted to them
4. To identify media or possible blog relations outreach opportunities
5. Identify key influencers that are having a major impact on the company's reputation
6. Identify misinformation, rumors or actual issues that are being disseminated online
7. To identify employees, partners or others who are sharing confidential company info

PR or Marketing professionals responsible for campaign and event analysis:

1. To immediately find out and compare the results of their message traction around a specific campaign (whether is an print ad, viral ad or TV ad campaign)
2. To test ideas or campaigns
3. Measure the success of each campaign or event - by benchmarking messaging, buzz, spokesperson effectiveness, etc. to determine if their budget dollars are worth it for future investment
4. Identify the use of key messages within consumer discussion
5. Understand the terminology used by consumers to improve repackage outreach and message development

Market Researchers or Marketers focused on customer behavior analysis

1. To learn more about their customers preferences including likes, dislikes, emerging trends, opportunities, threats and competitive intelligence (or quite simply understand likes, dislikes, wants, needs, etc. of their customers)
2. To analyze the effectiveness of marketing ad or messages shaping consumer perception
3. To identify threats and opportunities to take action to adjust strategy (done in real-time)
4. To personally go into an application to immediately leverage automated analysis to understand and discover patterns, trends, issues and topics that surface - without having to wait for a report (unless of course they want a report)
5. Identify key product attributes discussed by consumers

And this is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what can be done and what we can learn from consumer created content as well as traditional media.  For instance, the NYTimes article mentioned that Initiative was also monitoring "talent conversations" on the Web, tracking the number of mentions for stars such as Martha Stewart, Geena Davis and Jennifer Love Hewitt which could help indicate if their respective new shows will do well.  This can also been done by using tools such as technorati or icerocket or pubsub.  Cymfony's Dashboard product Digital Consumer Insight (DCI) also provides information on mentions but dives into much deeper analytics and tends to focus on brands rather than entertainment or hollywood. 

marketing pr measurement blogs

Target and Wal-Mart Find Brand Loyalty Differs in Customer Base

As a working mother of one who admittedly loves Target, I can't help posting about a press release I just read from Scarborough Research on a new study issued today. The release entitled "In the Battle for Discount Shoppers, Target and Wal-Mart Find Brand Loyalty in Different Customer Groups" reveals that the shopping patterns of the Wal-Mart-exclusive shopper are much different than those of the Target-exclusive shopper (a fact that has been seemingly evident for sometime, just look at the current TV ad campaigns for each retailer).

"The Scarborough analysis confirms what has been a hot topic of conversation in retail circles and on Wall Street:  that Wal-Mart and Target shoppers are discount shopping, but they have different mindsets when it comes to defining 'value'.  Convenience and price are important to the Wal-mart-exclusive shopper, whereas style and selection appear to hold more weight with the Target-exclusive shopper." - Alisa Joseph, VP, Advertiser Marketing Services, Scarborough Research.

I would suspect that both Target and Wal-Mart are using studies such as the one conducted by Scarborough Research to develop their marketing campaigns to appeal to their targeted consumer.  But I still wonder, as did my colleague Julie Woods in a recent post, if either retailer is looking at online consumer discussion to gain a deeper understanding of how customers think about their company, products or competitors?  Julie had some great ideas specific for Target marketers in her post - a call to action originated from Robert Scoble.

marketing online marketing

Blog Bits - Week of September 12th

“The Train has left the station,” “the weight of consumer-shared opinion is greater than our advertising power,” and “keep people happy,” are three words of wisdom from Andy Sernovitz, CEO of  WOMMA. When looking at the internet today and how it impacts the corporate arena, he created three new realities for today's marketers. “People are already talking about us. Are we going to join the conversation? There's no choice here. Ignore word of mouth and take the hits, or engage and turn it in your favor.” Are you going to hop on and ride the train?

The battle is on, the giant Google blog search in the right hand corner of the ring, Technorati in the other, the crowd waiting anxiously to watch the giant clobber any competition..  Who will the winner be? It is impossible to write up blog bits this week without giving a mention to Google’s blog search tool launch and the effect it will have for competitors like Technorati.  Many comments were made discussing the doom and gloom for Technorati, but I found an article which was able to look on the ‘bright side.’  The Telegraph online’s Shane Richmond put both tools through two rounds of tests, declaring in the end a narrow win for Technorati. This is only the beginning of the match, but a narrow win, but a win none the less!

What is a major challenge that faces all bloggers?  Being able to “clearly communicate and explain the power that these tools offer to the non-technical person” says James Torio who has written his Master’s thesis Blogs - A Global Conversation on the Social Phenomenon of Blogs. What Blogs Are: A Collaborative, Open Model for Information Exchange wrote that James has “taken on the challenge to write about blogs and media phenomenon they represent.” An interesting read and something that might help guide you when talking to those non bloggers.

More Than 50% of Journalists Use Blogs

I just learned that EuroRSG with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism released its 11th Annual Survey of the Media (thanks to Andy Lark for this one). The executive summary of the report explains that reporters are struggling to define the role of blogs in journalism and the changing media landscape.

"The most useful thing is not so much the quality of the reporting with blogs but that they use the internet for what it is best at - that is linking up back through sources.  So that if you are coming up with a story, and don't necessarily believe the spin you've been given, you can normally find your way back to where it originated."  - Dan Roberts, Financial Times

The report reveals that journalists cannot admit to trusting info on blogs but that they still turn to them in large numbers.  Basically reporters are cautious of bloggers and are still reluctant to acknowledge blogs as a legitimate source of information. Of course there are still the "A" list bloggers or bloggers that reporters have deemed credible such as BL Ochman, Steve Rubel or Jeremy Pepper in the PR/Marketing space that have been repeatedly quoted. 

Other highlights include:

• 51% of journalists use blogs regularly

Of those journalists who use blogs:

• 70% do so for work-related purposes
• 53% use blogs to find story ideas
• 42% use blogs for research and references
• 36% do so to find sources for their stories
• 28% of journalists often or sometimes rely on blogs in their day-to-day reporting
• 16% often or sometimes use information from blogs in their routine stories (I wonder if its attributed?)
• 68% of journalists believe that blogs will become a more popular corporate tool for reaching consumers
• 22% believe they will become a valuable journalistic tool
• 60% point to disclosures of non-government or corporate payments to independent bloggers as having a very strong or strong effect on the credibility of the media suggesting that "journalists really do see bloggers as a part of the mainstream media - whether they admit to it or not."
• 45% of journalists are less trusting of the professional behavior of their own colleagues – up from 34% in 2003

Phew, lots of good stuff here. Much more info in the report...

Google Releases Blog Search

As someone commented on Slashdot, this is the day Technorati and friends have had nightmares about.

Google has just launched Blog Search, which utilizes Google search technology to specifically search blog content.

You can find more details at Search Engine Watch and Google's Blog Search FAQ.

September Event Line-Up

Wow, I just took another look at the fall conference calendar and it's really swinging into high gear. It's nice to see that more and more events have added discussions around blogging to the agenda including PRSA's "Blogging 101 for PRPros" presented by Elizabeth Albrycht on Sept. 16th and IABC's teleseminar on "The Importance of Analyzing CGM" by Sam Whitmore on Sept. 22nd.  Cymfony will be sponsoring and/or speaking at a number of events as well in September including CMO Perspectives, AMA's Marketing Research Conference, MEDIA magazine's Forecast 2006, Business Intelligence, Summit on Measurement and NYMega Tech Day. Info on these event and more can be found here.

Of Marx, machines, and democracy

In college and beyond I spent some time pondering a very Marxian problem. (Both an ironic and appropriate thing to do at an institution dedicated to the promulgation of capitalism and founded by an oligarch of the industrial revolution.) As technology improves, and manufacturing becomes increasingly automated, the workers no longer control the means of production. Capital thus becomes the only scarce or non-replaceable resource along the production cycle, which means that the suppliers of said capital, i.e. the owners of the machines, will be able to extract most of the "value" in the value chain, depressing wages for low-skilled production jobs to a subsistence level. A small pool of marginally well-paid highly-skilled operators or technicians would be necessary to run these machines, but their wages would be supported only be the effort required to obtain the necessary technical capabilities. Everything else accrues to the capital owners.

Apart from the evident problem of no one being able to buy anything if almost everyone is poorly paid, this trend would lead to an increasingly stratified society, and other such very bad things. We've already seen this occurring, and generally, when I'd think about these issues, I'd become depressed.

Recently, however, I was reading this, and I realized I'd forgotten something. Machines can make machines, which will lower their cost and drive down initial capital requirements, meaning that everyone will have the ability to become a manufacturer. The only missing component then is the knowledge required to design and operate said machinery.

I used to say the Internet was cool, and then it was killed by shopping. And for a time, in the boom years, this was true. The real potential of the Internet isn't coming up with better ways to monetize content, or ever more efficient marketplaces, or even the development of new sales channels. The potential of the Internet is democracy, of which CGM is just a small part of the CGC (Consumer Generated Content) landscape. The boom had to die in order for the Internet to bloom, and blooming it is. CGM is democratizing the media and empowering the consumer. Wikis are democratizing knowledge, VOIP is democratizing telecom, and the open-source movement is democratizing software.

The Internet fills the missing components in the production cycle, information, by making that resource universally available. Add to that a generation increasingly comfortable with the idea that sharing knowledge improves life for all, and one finds a transformative shift in marketplace dynamics taking place. Workers won't just control the means of production, workers will *be* the means of production.

Welcome to the people's republic of technology.

Blog Bits - Week of September 5th

Looking for a way to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina? Boston's chapter of AMA is celebrating its 65th Birthday and is hosting a fundraiser to celebrate.  The fundraiser will be held on September 22nd, 2005 in Boston, MA. The cost is $15/person and $10 of that will go to Hurricane victims.  Not only will you be donating to a good cause - you will have the chance to network with Boston's best marketing professionals, meet AMA board members and above all - have a good time!

When searching for a company in Google - most companies have the hits directed to their homepage.  Wayne Hurlbert of Blog Business World suggests a different strategy for marketing those clicks count.  In his post, Hurlbert points out that website landing pages are often the most neglected sales points and that having a targeted landing page can turn visitors into customers. Hurlbert offers advice on the importance of landing pages and how to make the landing page conversation.

If you spend time writing your own blogs, reading other people's blogs, blogging on other blogs and trying to keep on top of the developments in the blogosphere, take a moment to read Seth Godin's new free ebook on blogging titled Who's There. Godin comments, "Who's There is not an ebook about how to write better or how to follow the traditional conventions about formatting and building a blog.  It's not designed to sell you one service instead of another, either.  Instead, I divide the blog world into three groups and turn my attention to one.  And in particular, I try to sell you hard on how building a blog asset can have a spectacular impact on you, your career, your organization and your ideas."

Looking for the Default Blog Search Engine

"The race is on to become the Google of blogs."  Well, no surprises here and I'd suspect that most people reading this blog would agree.  Nevertheless, I thought I'd share since the WSJ.com has kindly aggregated some blog search engines in a recent article written by Vauhini Vara entitled "New Search Engines Help Users Find Blogs".  Although no real winners emerge in the article, Vara does a decent job of describing some of the subtle content differences of the listed providers including Technorati, IceRocket, Feedster, Daypop and Bloglines.  The article also offers a nice visual to illustrate what sets the engines apart.  I'm not going to bash the article but I was extremely surprised not to see PubSub mentioned in the piece.  PubSub is doing some innovative things around matching and prospective search.

Basically from what I know Google, Yahoo, MSN, Technorati, BlogPulse, IceRocket, etc. are all retrospective search tools, meaning they take your query and answer it with historical information - what's already out there.  PubSub is a prospective matching engine, meaning it's only concerned with information you want to be alerted to from this very moment forward.  I'm by no means the expert here just really fascinated with what PubSub is doing. 

Since most of the new search engines are less than a year old, it will be interesting to watch how all this plays out. 

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I guess this means Greasemonkey has gone mainstream, or at least as mainstream as Wired’s print publication. That should put it, in marketing lingo, somewhere between the innovator and early adopter stage.

What is Greasemonkey, you ask? Boiled down, it’s a tool (primarily for Firefox) that allows users to modify the display of web pages. Those of you with long memory may recall that this isn’t the first time that something like this has been tried. A company called Third Voice attempted web overlays in 1999, which allowed people who had installed their software to view others comments at a given web address or add their own.

Except Greasemonkey is different. While both pieces of software function (or functioned) to shift the power structure of the web by giving the end user more control over the content of a webpage, Greasemonkey, unlike Third Voice, is functional. People have written Greasemonkey scripts that overlay competing store’s prices when shopping on Amazon, or rework the layout of Gmail (Google’s mail service).

Being realistic, for the moment Greasemonkey is a bit too esoteric and involved to force any real paradigm change. But the idea is here to stay, and over time, it’s going to become easier to alter, or, to put it in modern parlance, remix, web content (Meta-shopping sites have done this for some time, but I’m referring to another level of alteration, a level of personal, not mass customization). We’ve already seen that start to happen in other spaces, Tivo being a prime example of users taking prepackaged content and breaking apart the bundle.

Wise purveyors of more or less any form of content would do well to embrace this customization. There’s more money to be made embracing change than there is fighting it.

Building a Word of Mouth Marketing Campaign

In the Sept. online edition of CMO magazine's "Analyst View", Forrester analysts Michele Bouquet, Jim Nail with Fiona McDonnell and Jaap Favier provide a step by step guide on how to build a word of mouth campaign.  All agree that the terminology around a WOM campaign is a bit confusing at the moment, but as Paris Hilton would say, WOM marketing is still "hot".

(The Word of Mouth Marketing Association has attempted to address this issue with the recent release of the WOM terminology framework). 

The Forrester analysts suggest that planning a successful word of mouth campaign comes down to 4 basic marketing concepts:  the audience, the message, the vehicle, and the metrics.

Without providing too much editorial content on the article, most marketing need to look at 3 different areas when starting to create buzz around a company, product launch or campaign including:

• Who to target - Forrester suggests Evangelists or influencers.  The key is to target the right influencers - which are most likely different for each market segment or industry.  They can also be different by product lines within one company.  I like the way the authors define evangelists or influencers:  "Influencers use rational arguments while spreading the word, as opposed to evangelists, who are emotive."
• Look at every channel option available: viral or traditional. The traditional way can be defined simply by talking, spreading news or buzz in whatever form that may take - including on the the soccer field or at the local pub or lunch room.  Forrester tells us new channel options include the Internet, mobile phones, and MP3 players. I would also add more specifically email, blogs, podcasts, ect.
• Content: anything consumers want to share. The actual content and creating a message that consumers will WANT to share and feel passionate about sharing is critical.

There are also "four stages of planning" as well as some great case studies on Virgin Mobile, Audi and ebookers.com found in the article. 

Send Cash, It's Easy

My mother gets upset when someone gives cash as a gift.  She believes that by giving cash a person is taking the easy way out, not putting enough time or thought into actually going out and buying a present.  But that's exactly what the American Red Cross is asking everyone to do in response to Hurricane Katrina.  And I'm all for it.  Typepad posted instructions to add a donation badge/banner to typepad blogs here.  I think this is one instance mom would agree she is wrong. 

Blog Bits - Week of August 29th

What’s your favorite marketing, PR or advertising blog?  MarketingSherpa announced the top 10 Best Blogs on the topics of marketing, advertising and public relations according to their readership.  There were 52 nominees judged by 2,065 readers.  Some of the categories and winners included:

·         Best individual blog on the general topic of marketing and advertising

o      Awarded to: Seth Godin’s Blog

·         Best B-to-B marketing topic blog

o      Winner: Guerilla Consulting

·         Best blog on Niche Marketing

o      Winners (tie): Ypulse – Media for the next generation & WonderBranding - Marketing to women

For the rest of the categories, winners, and information on how the Best Blogs were chosen go to MarketingSherpa.com.

A recent post that has received many comments is “The most important word in marketing is…” posted by Scott Ginsberg on Hello, My name is BLOG.  Ginsberg’s original answer was “I have no idea” but then dug deeper into Google to help find some answers.  According to Google, the five most common answers when typing in the exact phrase “most important word in marketing” are:  you, why, commitment, new and free.  Ginsberg follows this list with the question “What do you think is the most important word in marketing?” 

Can you imagine a world where you could produce a product that your consumers really want while avoiding the multiple variables of using a focus group?  It appears more companies are starting to jump onto the WOM and blogging bandwagon, and this isn’t a world that is too far out of reach. Strategic Public Relations addresses the benefits and the feasibility of this concept by presenting Decker’s model of a word of mouth company.