It is particularly true today.  The Internet has empowered consumers to challenge, advocate and interact with the companies of their choosing via readily available and inexpensive forms of mass media.

Marketing conversations were largely one dimensionl pre-Internet.  Regular and hopefully relevant messages were filtered via various marketing channels and disciplines to the end customer.  They were generally self serving:

Look at this new product!
Take up this offer on this new package!
Here’s what we think about this. Aren’t we smart/committed/interesting?

The conversations were intermittent and short lived – more often than not the communication existed to drive sales, acquire new customers or build a brand image.  Budgets and marketing finance decisions were similarly focused on near-term outcomes.  Business priorities  were identified at the beginning of the year and then in quarterly planning cycles.  Dollars, Pounds, Rupee, Dinar etc. would be allocated.

Most companies still manage their marketing programs in this way today.

At the end of the fiscal year, if the marketing department has done its ‘job’ properly, all of the dollars are spent.   Like a deciduous tree all of the leaves have fallen off and the tree remains bare for a period of time .

The conversation goes on hold.

This isn’t a problem if the company is continually talking about itself but if the company has been successful in initiating a conversation, then consumer’s will notice – unhappily.

Many well established marketing practices are no longer relevant or useful in the context of social media, including traditional approaches to budgeting.  Social media demands that brands commit fully to the online conversation – you can’t pull in and pull out when it suits you.

One way for companies to tackle this issue is to embed social media engagement (and related costs) inside standard business process.

Ford has a plan to have 2% of its workforce telling the story of their lives at Ford via social media.  This combined with a dedicated resource for social media strategy and measurement allows the company to engage in authentic conversation over the l0ng term.

Failure to identify the necessary resources for social media engagement is one of the main reasons why projects fail to get off the ground, in my experience.  Lack of resources is one issue but cultural and procedural structural barriers to the long term view are another.

Senior marketing professionals need to adjust their mindset, and that of their organisation, to the new dynamics of social media and continuous conversation.

Related posts:

1. Customer centricity is the basis for authentic engagement and conversations in the social Web
2. Ad:tech agenda dominated by branded competitions rather than conversations with brands #atsyd
3. Sponsored conversations not legit for organic search, says Google

Until this week.

On Friday, during the Chilcott inquiry, Brown described the decision to go to war in Iraq as “the right decision for the right reasons”. 

As chief cheque signer, he probably didn’t have much choice.  

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Each media site has its own visibility rating based on a combination of data points, the site’s physical characteristics (i.e. location, lumination etc.) and eye tracking data, which is charted on Move’s Opportunity To See (OTS) and Likelihood To See (LTS) metric.  

Could such a system be applied to PR measurement online?  What is the Likelihood To See (LTS) of a blog post (a product review for example) or a recommendation on Twitter?  The PR industry is hamstrung by the Advertising Value Equivalence measurement model, which serves it poorly.

There is a need for the PR industry to develop an industry standard for measurement, which isn’t related to advertising spend.  Every campaign has its own set of objectives but there should be some foundation metrics in place for measuring the impact of PR campaigns that result in online coverage and social media activity.    

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According to comScore, Google still has nearly two-thirds of the U.S. search market, but dropped a fraction of a percent from 65.7% in Dec 2009 to 65.4% in Jan 2010 [source: Information Week]. While Google is still the leader in the search space, and Facebook only accounted for just under 400 million searches in January, that is a gain of 13% over December. If this trend continues, Google may have ample reason to fear Facebook.   

The Compete data shows that Facebook is the second most popular site in the US with 134m unique visiter in January 2010, ahead of Yahoo! and just behind Google.

Facebook is in the ascendancy but the company must make changes to its own Search engine if it is to become a genuine rival to Google, the vastly dominant player in the space. 

Facebook, like other social networks, represents opportunity for brands because of the simple fact that this is where a lot of the action is taking place online, as demonstrated by slews and rising traffic.  Switched on brands are  already tapping into the Facebook community.  But Facebook Search serves marketers poorly today as a place of discovery.  Check out my search results for ‘mobile handset’:

Not particularly useful.  Three users groups with 210 members between them.

No sign of the brand sponsored pages where Facebook Users can learn about new products, participate in competitions and promotions, chat with other users and potential customers, communicate directly with the company and link through to relevant pages on the Web.

The Sony Ericsson WorldPage has more than 445,ooo Fans (Sony Ericsson is a client) but the way that Facebook Search works prevents this page, which is clearly relevant to the search term, from appearing. 

This is an issue for Facebook.  

We see the same issue if we run a search for ’sneakers’:

The retailer Sole Provider Sneakers comes out on top here, simply by virtue of having the search term embedded in its company name (also the name of the Page).  Yet Sole Provider Sneakers sells a lot of Nike trainers and a search for ‘Nike’ would not have produced their Page in its results.

Facebook has to play a delicate balancing act here.  Ultimately, user activity, personal profiles, user content, sharing and discussion are the currency of social networks such as Facebook.  The company needs to avoid giving users the impression that they are being marketed to via the network, failure to do this could well become its undoing.

One way around this could be for Facebook to adopt a model similar to Google’s Universal Search, which would allow users to chose and filter the types of results that are presented to them via Facebook Search.  This could be built into the privacy settings that Facebook has been so keen to promote recently.

Interestingly, Google listed Facebook as a formal competitor for the first time in a recent 10K filing, as reported by SearchEngineLand:

Our business is characterized by rapid change and converging, as well as new and disruptive, technologies. We face formidable competition in every aspect of our business, particularly from companies that seek to connect people with information on the web and provide them with relevant advertising. We face competition from:

•   Traditional search engines, such as Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corporation’s Bing.
• Vertical search engines and e-commerce sites, such as WebMD (for health queries), Kayak (travel queries), Monster.com (job queries), and Amazon.com and eBay (commerce). We compete with these sites because they, like us, are trying to attract users to their web sites to search for product or service information, and some users will navigate directly to those sites rather than go through Google.  
• Social networks, such as Facebook, Yelp, or Twitter. Some users are relying more on social networks for product or service referrals, rather than seeking information through traditional search engines. (my emphasis)

Some subtle and simple changes to Facebook Search would accelerate the trend towards Facebook and other social networks as a primary channel for Search. 

The challenge for marketers will (continue to be) to resist the tempation to sell via social networks and to engage with social networking users in a way that adds value, build relationships, earns trust and facilitates creativity and connectivity.  Facebook will have to manage the sensitivities of its users delicately but if managed well Facebook could become a natural home to Search, delivering value to users and marketers alike. 

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The book charts the development of the military in the America from Lincoln up to the present day, pretty much, starting with the establishment of the West Point, the famous military academy. 

The book explains that many of the Founding Fathers resisted the idea of a military force for the purposes of expansion, empire building and control believing that democracy rightfully implemented would not require enforcement via military powers. 

The first graduates of West Point were trained in civil engineering as much as they were in military strategy.  The books focuses on Montgomery C. Meigs (1816 to 1892), a total legend by all accounts who built monuments, public works (aqueducts, bridges etc.) and served as Quartermaster General of the US Army during and after the American Civil War. Montgomery C. Meigs was by all accounts a very civilised, progressive, noble and talented individual.

The great thing about Schama’s writing in this book (the first that I have read) is the way he identifies individuals and uses them to convey the events of the day. It makes reading history very engaging. 

The book deals in detail with the abolitionist movement and the multi-culturalisation of North America, covering the experience of Mexicans, the native Americans, Chinese immigrants, the Irish and African Americans.  

I thought Schama sat on the fence somewhat in his analysis of the American military machine while acknowledging that the military basically exists to fulfil the nation’s desire to consume, conquer, extend its borders and enslave. In other words to look after its own. 

He takes the view that anything can happen in America and leaves us on a hopeful note in relation to the likely use of its power (diminishing as it is). On finishing this book, I immediately purchased ‘A History of Britain – At the Edge of the World?‘ by the same author. If you’ve read it please don’t tell me what happens.  

Lets hope that sane people remain at the helm in the United States for the foreseeable future.       

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1. A pragmatic future

The challenge for this year’s competition, which is supported by the United Nations, is biodiversity.  The challenge for entrants is to communicate that our lifestyle and consumption habits have to change if we want to stop the destruction of our ecosystems and keep our planet alive.

The brief is wide open for creative interpretation.  Students must respond to the following criteria:

1. One big idea executed in a poster format.  This could be as an 8-sheet, 30-sheet or transit poster.
2. Entrants are requested to create a branding device or logo that can be instantly and international identified with biodiversity.
3. Taglines and headlines provide instant information on a topic.  Entrants should include either or both of these on their poster.
4. Entrants must support their ideas with a compelling rationale that identifies your target audience and explains the inspiration for the idea (max. 300 words).
5. Poster and rationale must be in English.
6. Entrants should not include either the IAA or Dentsu logos in their work.
7. Entries must be submitted by 1 March 2010.

Full details for the second IAA-Dentsu Global Student Poster Competition are available here.

The Global Winner will receive a trophy, cash prize of US$1,000 and the opportunity to present their work at the United Nations. 

• A travel allowance of US$3,000 is also included in the prize.
• The second prize is US$500
• The third prize is US$300

Regional Finalists will receive trophies and all entrants will receive an IAA-Dentsu Global Student Poster Competition certificates.

The Global Winner will be announced on May 1st 2010.  And, the top three winning entries will be exhibited at the 2010 IAA World Congress May 12th-14th 2010 in Moscow, and at the 2010 Cannes Lions.  The competition provides a great opportunity for aspiring talent to show off their creativity, insights and art work on a global industry stage.

The first Global Poster Competition focused on the issue of climate change.  The first prize (World Champion) went to Matias Fernandez, Universidad Argentina de la  in Buenos Aires for a piece of work entitled Thermometer.  

I am a Board Member for the Australian Chapter of the International Advertising Association. 

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• The Australian: Big Brands Are Failing Social Media Test (Simon Canning)
• Marketing Magazine: Social Media Still Misunderstood by Brands
• Campaign Brief: Australian Social Media Study of Top 20 Brands Shows a High Number of Inactive Accounts

One of the challenges that we encountered with this study was sourcing a list of the top brands in Australia.  Initially, our intention was to survey the ASX100 but this presented us with a few challenges, not least the increase in project scope that this would lead to.  Many of the companies in the ASX100 own multiple brands and so we would have been presented with a challenge of what to include and what not to include.  Including everything was not an option.

Ultimately, we opted for the Interbrand Top Twenty Australian Brands report for 2009.  Although relatively limited in scope we felt that this was a good option as it covered a broad spectrum of Australian brands in various sectors while enabling us to identify some industry sector trends in financial services and retail. 

Our thoughts on the findings are included in the media coverage and in our release/ report. 

Ultimately, my view is that many social media campaigns continue to be the preserve of the PR and marketing department.  I don’t believe that business leaders have recognised the need for authentic communications or the benefits of social media, as a component of PR strategy.  The vast majority seem focused on the risk over the reward.  The US is a different story.  Corporations are far more advanced when it comes to social media.  Its becoming ingrained within standard business and comms practice, we’re yet to see this in Australia. 

I think there are a couple of reasons for this if we put the fact that Australia has a more conservative business culture to one side.  First, the majority of the world’s IT industry is based in the US.  Clearly, the IT sector has been an early adopter, leading the way for many other American industries. 

Second, many large American corporations faced serious PR and reputational issues as a result of the GFC and social media provided them with the tools they needed to begin re-building and re-orienting their reputations and corporate culture. 

Neither of these factors apply in Australia. 

We’re seeing a lot of interest from our clients and are actively engaged in this space with many organisations.  I am looking forward to seeing a more flattended, transparent and communicative corporate culture in Australia.  We are hoping to speed up the process by providing good advice and compelling insights. 

The fact that corporate blogging is virtually non-existent is evidence, for me, that we are yet to see this change at the highest levels of Australian business.

We produced the following report of the results and developed a media release, which was offered to The Australian as an exclusive. There’s more where this came from. B-M Australia will be announcing additional research over the coming weeks and months.  

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I wrote an article in favour of these guidelines for Mumbrella.

BzzAgent refers to its network members as volunteers.  I thought volunteers worked for not-for-profits.  I think its inevitable that the WOM agencies will have to make full disclosure and transparency core to their service offering in order to stay on the right side of the FTC and similar enforcement agencies in other countries and for the reasons that I pointed out in the article for Mumbrella.

This graphic from BzzAgent provides a neat summary of the obligations under the FTC Guides and the steps that PR professionals and marketers can take to ensure compliance.

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Related posts:

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• Facebook has 250 million active users to Twitter’s 19 million (eMarketer research via Mashable)
• A large number of users quite within the first month (Nielsen)
• Twitter has no revenue stream

So, is Twitter the new attention dashboard? I have my doubts. I think that’s a very limited view of the conversations that are occurring online.

Will the real-time Web be a major influence on communication in the future? Absolutely.

The focus on the newness of things, the tool and its features and the immediacy of information (Twitter beat CNN to the Tiger Woods story this week by 45 mins) is compelling – but only to a point.  Beyond that point, Twitter discussions tend to become rather sycophantic, repetitive, tactical and/or theoretical.

This stuff is important though; The immediacy of micro-blogs like Twitter influences the way that we value information and perceive it.  It speeds up the news cycle and makes information even more of a commodity.

In a presentation at the recent Media140 event in Sydney Barry Saunders spoke about the danger of not considering context when we use the real-time Web as a primary source of information.  This is among the most insightul and interesting things that I’ve heard said about this space.  Its a very valid point, which is – along with others -  being overlooked in a plethora of hype fuelled conversations about Twitter.  Mr. Saunders make some additional points on related topics here.

The Twitter purists consider Twitter to be a conversational tool but many organisations are, in my experience, approaching it is a broadcast medium, as research that we are releasing tomorrow will show.

I will leave you with this analysis from BlogPulse, which shows comparative mentions of ‘Twitter’, ‘Unemployment’ and ‘Iraq’ in all forms of consumer generated media over the past six months:

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This conjures up some amusing / disturbing images of breakfast at the hotel with patrons munching away and imbibing (via straws) at various stages in their recovery with a multitude of bits and pieces bandaged, stitched and stretched.

The over 55s: A sizeable and wealthy segment of the Australian population with an increasing penchant for all things Internet.

I am not planning on cosmetic surgery.

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