Just received this Shanghai Expo-related job offer.

The person will be responsible for the production of press materials, audiovisual reports and web contents, as well as advising with the digital communication strategy.

Language: Chinese (mother tongue), English (fluent), Spanish (not 100% necessary, but highly appreciated).

Training: Ideally, a journalist, broadcast or communications degree.

Background: Three years minimum experience in China in digital communication and social media, as a TV or web journalist.

Skills: Knowledge of broadcast production (video and sound storytelling and editing), multimedia skills in Flash, HTML and Javascript. Excellent writing in Chinese with a creative approach. Able to work under pressure or very tight deadlines. Good communication skills. Ready to work in a team and in a multicultural environment. Highly motivated, responsible and organized.

Offered: Local contract, from April 1st, 2010 to October 31st, 2010. Competitive salary. Insurance. Possibility of assisting with visa for non-Chinese applicants.

Kindly send résumé and cover letter, in English or Spanish, with a clear contact phone number, to presspavilion at expo-int.com

Technorati Tags: Shanghai

This year’s SXSWi was a cacophony of parties, cowboy hatted street teams and networking with a few panels and prepared speakers tucked in between. My extreme desire to sift logic from chaos and the peace of a few hours of distance has left me mulling the following 4 takeaways:

Content Creators Must Get Paid – If you braved the distraction of a fire alarm and came back into the building, you were privy to an educated man’s verbal smackdown the likes of which I had not previously seen in public – Marc Cuban vs. Boxee’s Avner Ronen. Cuban artfully beat the drum that pay tv is going to continue to dominate (and that cash is king –  jabbing at Boxee’s “revenue free” model again and again). Avner had a bit of a “home audience” advantage being surrounded by self-admitted geeks who don’t like paying for anything. But if stolen internet content wins – who will pay for great content to still be created? TV shows do not have the same tour-for-cash out that music artists have used to weather the a la carte iTunes model. Later speaker Ze Frank also mused this same dilemma – being unable to monetize his awesome web content, but unable to break into the Hollywood revenue model in a meaningful way. I have no idea what the future holds, but someone needs to get paid or the only shows being made will be for the least common denominator.

Publicizing Public Information is a Violation of Privacy – If you followed the tweetstream from Austin this weekend, you probably saw that the most substantive traffic from any session seemed to come from the very meaty presentation from MSFT-based social network researcher danah boyd (@zephoria). This is a talk that will be worth watching in its entirety (read the transcript here), but if I was struck by one takeaway it is the difference between “public” information – information that can be obtained in some way – and information that we want publicized. danah boyd strongly believes that taking something that someone has written on a public site – say a forum about travel – and using it an ad or republishing it on an aggregator – is a violation of the author’s privacy because it violates the social norms and reasonable assumptions under which the author originally shared. It was a great reminder to begin all digital strategies with the purpose of adding value to all audiences – readers and content creators alike.

QR Codes are Coming – Previously categorized as “big in Asia”, SXSW badges boasted QR codes that, with the addition of an “app for that”, allowed users to share their information with the capture of an encoded 2D barcode. The advent of this technology is just another reason to think about danahboyd’s talk and what you decide to keep private, public, or publicize in social media.

Geolocation is a Foregone Conclusion – While pre-SXSW discussion seemed to be dominated by “geolocation is the new Twitter” discussion, by the time we got to the event, it was simply accepted as a given and everyone was on to the next topic. The only discussion I did hear was a bit of debate between hometown fave Gowalla and Foursquare.

This year’s SXSWi was a cacophony of parties, cowboy hatted street teams and networking with a few panels and prepared speakers tucked in between. My extreme desire to sift logic from chaos and the peace of a few hours of distance has left me mulling the following 4 takeaways:

Content Creators Must Get Paid – If you braved the distraction of a fire alarm and came back into the building, you were privy to an educated man’s verbal smackdown the likes of which I had not previously seen in public – Marc Cuban vs. Boxee’s Avner Ronen. Cuban artfully beat the drum that pay tv is going to continue to dominate (and that cash is king –  jabbing at Boxee’s “revenue free” model again and again). Avner had a bit of a “home audience” advantage being surrounded by self-admitted geeks who don’t like paying for anything. But if stolen internet content wins – who will pay for great content to still be created? TV shows do not have the same tour-for-cash out that music artists have used to weather the a la carte iTunes model. Later speaker Ze Frank also mused this same dilemma – being unable to monetize his awesome web content, but unable to break into the Hollywood revenue model in a meaningful way. I have no idea what the future holds, but someone needs to get paid or the only shows being made will be for the least common denominator.

Publicizing Public Information is a Violation of Privacy – If you followed the tweetstream from Austin this weekend, you probably saw that the most substantive traffic from any session seemed to come from the very meaty presentation from MSFT-based social network researcher danah boyd (@zephoria). This is a talk that will be worth watching in its entirety (read the transcript here), but if I was struck by one takeaway it is the difference between “public” information – information that can be obtained in some way – and information that we want publicized. danah boyd strongly believes that taking something that someone has written on a public site – say a forum about travel – and using it an ad or republishing it on an aggregator – is a violation of the author’s privacy because it violates the social norms and reasonable assumptions under which the author originally shared. It was a great reminder to begin all digital strategies with the purpose of adding value to all audiences – readers and content creators alike.

QR Codes are Coming – Previously categorized as “big in Asia”, SXSW badges boasted QR codes that, with the addition of an “app for that”, allowed users to share their information with the capture of an encoded 2D barcode. The advent of this technology is just another reason to think about danahboyd’s talk and what you decide to keep private, public, or publicize in social media.

Geolocation is a Foregone Conclusion – While pre-SXSW discussion seemed to be dominated by “geolocation is the new Twitter” discussion, by the time we got to the event, it was simply accepted as a given and everyone was on to the next topic. The only discussion I did hear was a bit of debate between hometown fave Gowalla and Foursquare.

Word of mouth practitioners often find themselves in uncharted territory. The majority of the digitally led programs being developed or put into the marketplace simply could not have existed two years ago.  Sometimes not even two months ago.

As a result, planners and strategists in our industry rely on piles of research to gain insights into what’s likely to work for a particular audience. Some of that research comes from inside our own walls, sometimes we consult outside experts and publishers to make sure we know as much as humanly possible about a particular topic. The latter can come from peer-reviewed academic journals or independent publishers like eMarketer or Forrester.

Beyond those sources, though, there’s been a sharp uptick in research from a new universe of resources.  Some doing great work.  Some not.

Here are a few warning signs that suggest you could be relying on some shaky data…

Ghost Towns

Look out for research that relies on a low number of participants. This number is sometimes expressed by the variable (n = ) in the methodology section. There’s no hard and fast rule about the minimum number of participants in a valid survey but use the audience segment as a guide. A 100 person survey charting the online behavior of commercial architects? That’s probably okay. A 100 person survey asking moms about their favorite websites? Alarm bell central.

Rookies

Whenever I land on a new piece of research, I immediately go to the about section, especially if the publisher isn’t one I’ve come across before. New publisher doesn’t always mean bad research, but be extra cautious with research from an unfamiliar source and ask yourself “is there really no way to get this same data point from the likes of Pew or eMarketer?

Fish Hooks

Don’t bite on a campaign that’s cloaked as research. There’s nothing to prevent an organization from publishing data that’s not representative of a comprehensive audience segment. Selective sampling creates catchy headlines (e.g. 9 out of 10 doctors…) but you’ll get burned if you rely on this sort of thing for a communications program. To avoid getting hooked, simply ask yourself: Who conducted the poll and who paid for it?

Fuzzy Math

Before getting too deep in the data, flip to the methodology to make sure all the vital signs of a healthy research document are present. These include a date range, number of participants (see #1) and margin of error (indicative of sample size).

Also look for the confidence interval (CI) which tells you the reliability of the data set. A margin of error of 2.5% and a confidence interval of 95% simply means that if you ran the same survey 100 times, 95 of those would land within 2.5% of the original results. Think of this as a stress test for the research.

Conclusion Leaps

Simply put, watch out for leaps between the data and interpretation of data. I tend to focus on the raw results and let my specific project, client, and audience determine what it means in a particular instance. Though often times, the raw results are intermingled along with pieces of editorializing. Make sure you know the difference.

What other guidelines or tips do you use in your own research?

[Hat tip to Ogilvy's Dr. Jennifer Scott, Managing Director of Research & Insights, for her counsel in this post and general research assessments]

Every year in March I make my annual trek to Austin to be part of the South By Southwest Interactive show, one of the biggest gatherings of people working in all aspects of the web in the world. For those who have been, they might describe the event as a simultaneous assault of information, networking and back to back parties. It has become the Everest of social media events, and in my fourth year of attending I realized that there are techniques for surviving a large event that I have been using and adding to each year. Here's my list of the top 5 lessons that I would share to help anyone survive SXSW or any other large conference they may find themselves attending:

1. High-res Photo Note Taking - One of the tough things about a big event (aside from choosing which sessions to attend) is how to best take notes to bring information back to your internal colleagues who didn't attend the event, or publish your own take on the sessions. A technique I have started using is taking high-res photos of key slides from presenters. It takes just a second, and it's the easiest form of note taking as the slide becomes a reminder of a key point to write about later. To augment, sometimes I will also think of taking notes in terms of Twitter posts (140 character max). That format forces you to just focus on the key points of a session instead of just trying to capture everything a speaker says.
2. Brochure Collecting - At an event like SXSW, there are lots of sites and new innovations that are interesting and worth looking at ... but time is limited at the event. Instead of trying to write down every URL, I collect their brochures or postcards and save them. That way I have a visual reminder to check out a particular site later when I am back in the office and have a free moment. Last year after SXSW, it took me a few months to get through looking at all the sites I found interesting - but I had a constant reminder of those sites through the stack of postcards and brochures and it helped me to stay organized.
3. Plan B Sessions - Your time is valuable and at a large conference usually you will be drawn in multiple directions. At SXSW a common complaint is that for every timeslot there are several sessions that you might be interested in seeing. Ultimately, you need to pick one, but my long time advice for attendees of a conference like this has been that if you find a session is not useful after the first 10 or 15 minutes, you should feel empowered to leave and go to your "plan B session." For every time you go to a session, you should always have a second option - just in case. That way you can maximize your time and what you learn from the event, and be flexible enough to correct a mistake without wasting an entire hour (or more).
4. Influencer Tracking - When you are not necessarily connected to every event or happening at an event, it can be tough to know what you might be missing. One useful way to track the events that you may want to be part of is by creating your own short list of people who you know will be attending all the best events. If they are active social media users (as they tend to be at an event like SXSW), you can see where they are headed and mirror some of your own choices of where to go based on this information. Even if they are not active with social media, this technique can work by talking to them or others to see where they will going.
5. Eating Left Handed - As promised in the title of this post, the last tip is about eating left handed. Chances are, you just spent a good part of the day shaking people's hands and accumulating some kind of unwanted germs (no offense to the people you met, but facts are facts). We should all get more diligent about using that hand sanitizing stuff - but if you are like me and usually forget to do it, a good technique to teach yourself is to always eat left handed (ie - with your "non-shaking hand").

For those big event or SXSW veterans, feel free to suggest some other tips to help someone survive at a large conference in the comments ... they might help me survive the last day of SXSW too!

Someone was recently talking about how their use of Twitter changed once they accrued a few thousand followers and about 30% as many folks who they were following. They lost interest. The stream became too cluttered and full of people they knew only marginally (I believe the Dunbar number may expand for some in the future but its basic premise about the limits of our ability to "maintain active relationships" with only so many people remains sound).

There is a danger that FourSquare will get too big for each of us and lose its intimacy. I have already turned off push alerts on my phone which is a shame as I was able to see last week that I was in the same airport as a friend at the same time. We couldn't meet up but I enjoyed knowing she was a few gates away. But now the alerts from the growing list of folks I follow is cluttering up my view.

Mashable reports that FourSquare turned oneand reached 500k+ users. (on a side note, I find it interesting that the top referrer(33%) to the domain foursquare.com is Facebook which is often eclipsing Google (22%) as the source for traffic). Will FourSquare accelerate in terms of acquiring users and activity (they are at 15m+ check-ins)? Looptis somewhere north of 3m users and probably 1/10 the buzz of FourSquare. Is that because they don't have the same gaming quality or does something happen to friend/location-based services when they get big? I would love to see the growth trends for FourSquare, Loopt and Gowalla side-by-side to see if there is any common plateau by overall user base (does the site slow down growth after a million users?) or any patterns of average follower-per-user.

My hypothesis is that, beyond sheer novelty drop-off, once the service gets big and the average follower-per-user grows past fifty than usage drops off as people become overwhelmed by check-ins. (this is smaller than the Dunbar number as I believe there are fewer people that we want to track throughout he day) Only a core group will remain game-junkies vying for mayoral bragging rights to LaGuardia Marine Terminal.  (lets watch the insane mayoral competition in Austin this week for SXSWi...)

Geographic Spread
"Too big" is a relative term. I mean too big for me. Any of these services increase their utility based upon how geographically ubiquitous they are in my life. I travel a bunch. Checking in overseas (like at the Blue Mosque in Istanbul) still is pretty special. Shane Snow had a great wayto think about Foursquare vs. Gowalla in this respect:

"If this were the board game Risk, Foursquare would be the guy who’s got 1,000 armies in Australia while Gowalla has one army everywhere else. Unless Gowalla is really lucky with the dice, it’s probably only a matter of time before it gets edged out everywhere else too"

These check-in services have one value in-town for me and another on the road. Makes me wonder if a simple toggle -like on my email inbox - could allow me to switch between my travel status and then receive a slightly different pattern of updates.

Will Brands Deliver More Value or...
The last question I have about any of these services is whether the introduction of brands delivering value based upon our location will enhance the experience and cause us all to stick with it regardless of our friend/follower overload. Loopt has been delivering coupons. Starbucks, bless their forward-thinking retailer heart, has jumped in with a Barista badge we can all earn by checking in. And we have heard of many businesses, some quite small, who see the value of FourSquare as the new loyalty platform. See this recap from our own Christine Ngo about Intel's use of FourSquare at CES.

Four Final Words

• Location-based friend services will grow too big for individuals but...
• They will adopt filtering and status-toggles that will allow us each to limit the notifications to our inner ring or those we need to stay connected with more
• They will continue to merge with review sites (e.g. Yelp) but not replace stand-alone review sites
• Four Square, Gowalla, Loopt and other location-based services remain on my top three trends to watch and explore for 2010

Last week, I attended a webinar from WOMMA where WOMMA General Counsel Tony DiResta discussed the importance of disclosure across social media. This conversation normally focuses on brand-blogger relationships but the same best practices and government guidelines may also affect your Facebook Page.

Here are five things to keep in mind about your brand and disclosure on Facebook.

1. Employment is “Consideration”: The FTC requires that any consideration from an endorser be disclosed; “consideration” includes anything that might sway endorsers’ words and this includes employment. Make it clear to employees that posting an endorsement or review on your Facebook Page without disclosing that they are employees is unacceptable, this also includes commenting on other Facebook Pages or Facebook content just as it does commenting on blogs.
2. Video Contests: If you are soliciting Facebook videos about how much fans love your product to be in the running for a million dollar prize treat this the same as you would if you were requiring a blog post about your product as a contest entry. Help fans by requiring that they include a link to your contest rules or a including the contest name in the video description- this disclosure will protect your fans and will raise awareness of the contest.
3. Disclosure in Celebrity Status Updates: Status for Sale is forbidden by the Facebook User Guidelines but do make sure that any celebrity spokes people disclose their relationship with you should they be posting about your products a lot. There is no standard format for this disclosure, the status update might include (sponsor) in the text or the celebrity might list the sponsorship or spokesperson relationship prominently on their Page information.
4. Disclosure of Celebrity Photos: If celebrities and influencers are seen using your products in paid advertisements or at your events it’s understood that these are paid endorsements and no disclosure is needed but a photo of a celebrity using your product lacking any description or context is more ambiguous. To be safe, if you are posting photos of paid celebrities or event attendees using your products make sure to add a note to the album description or under each photo as to where the photo came from.
5. Disclosure in Foursquare: One great question from the webinar was around Foursquare and whether free products or gifts given to a Mayor needed to be disclosed- Tony confirmed that they do. Since many people are now using Facebook and Foursquare together I thought this was worth including.

Remember to use common sense with social media campaigns just as you do traditional advertising campaigns and keep your customers’ best interest in mind. And no matter how much you study this stuff don’t forget the gut check: if you think you might need to be disclosing something you probably do.

A special thanks to Tony DiResta for his input on this- for continued discussion and updates about best practices and guidelines check out Tony DiResta’s blog on the WOMMA website see the full disclosure webinar here.

When SXSW, one of the largest gatherings of minds and enthusiasts in the digital world, didn’t feature more than a handful of panels on the intersection between health and social media - an “unconference” event called SXSH sprung up to fill the void. Yesterday that event came together in Austin and included speakers and pioneers in using social media to communicate for health issues in regional hospitals, government agencies, health insurers, nonprofits, epatients and pharma companies. Just about every part of the healthcare world had some sort of voice in the discussion as everyone gathered to share ideas on how the industry as a whole might use social media more effectively by building greater trust.

The day long discussion featured many highlights, starting with a talk from Doug Ulman, CEO of Livestrong about the power of health based communities online and how important real time information is to improving healthcare and the patient experience. Greg Matthews from Humana shared how a health insurer can innovate internally and use that to improve patient relationships and Jenn Texada from MD Anderson shared how she and her communications team use social media tools to interact directly with patients for customer service. David Hale from the National Library of Medicine presented an innovative new database to help identify unknown pills called Pillbox and Fabio Gratton shared how to build a movement through a case study of the success of the #FDASM movement in November of last year around the FDA hearings. In the “unconference” part of the day, companies such as ReachMD and WEGO Health talked about their communities and content and how they help bridge the gaps between patients, doctors and healthcare providers.

In the final session of the day, I tackled the question of trust. A central issue in healthcare communications, the session posed the question: why don’t people trust us? Or more specifically, what creates the culture of distrust online that so often causes negativity towards some companies in healthcare and what could we as an industry do to combat this? Our aim in the session was to brainstorm ways that healthcare organizations could overcome these barriers and build more trust and credibility. The entire room then selected what they felt the strongest ideas were and I promised to compile the results into a single blog post - which you’ll find below. In the spirit of the unconference, all of us who managed to be part of the great discussion would love to hear your thoughts on any other ideas that we could add to this list too …

1. Listen to and implement ideas from the community. Being part of a community or interacting with individuals is a great first step, but the real trust that can be built from this comes when people see some sort of action come as a result of the participation in a community. It is not the act of listening, but the impact of that listening which makes it real.
2. Have shared values on good health. Often the distrust in healthcare organizations stems from a belief that priorities are mismatched. Our priority as a patient is to get healthy, and their priority seems to be offering more medication or delivering care in a more “efficient” way. In order to build trust, it is crucial that people feel our ultimate goals are aligned toward making them healthier. We need to focus on prevention instead of promotion.
3. Answer your patient’s or customer’s concerns directly. With social media tools, people have the ability to broadcast their thoughts and desires. Often they are doing so because they are seeking a response. Having a smart listening program that can help you find these queries and a strategy for responding goes a long way towards demonstrating that you care and truly want to help.
4. Aggregate or curate useful information. Sometimes the problem isn’t a lack of information online, but a dearth of it. When information is scattered all over, it can become very confusing about what is credibile and which things to trust. One of the simplest roles for any healthcare organization to take is that of a curator of great content. By doing this, you can create resources for people that will be useful and demonstrate your commitment to their needs.
5. Serve as a resource or guide for the community. One of the things that many organizations neglect is actively using the experts that you may have internally. When it comes to marketing and communications, part of the role should be to unlock the best voices from within an organization (many of whom may not necessarily be in the marketing or PR departments). By bringing these voices out and encouraging them to share information, you can connect patients and customers to the individuals who can truly bring insight and deliver thoughtful and useful information.
6. Set expectations on what you do and why. Lack of trust can be based on a misunderstanding of motivations. There are times when people may assume that a policy or practice is done simply for financial reasons or because of legal motives when actually there are other concerns they don’t know. Being as transparent as possible about your decision process and thinking can go a long way to remove this misunderstanding.
7. Focus on setting a clear mission for employees. The most trustworthy organizations often are the ones that have a very specific and defined vision that everyone is working to implement. When the message coming from employees is consistent, it goes a long way towards establishing a belief in the organization from outsiders because they know what the group stands for.
8. Communicate results and outcomes. Large organizations in particular are often good about communicating outcomes or results in financial terms on a quarterly basis or some kind of cost related metric, but not as good about communicating impact of their efforts in human terms. To inspire belief, it is often the results in human terms that people respond to far more than the financial ones - so refocusing on how that story is told becomes vital.
9. Recognize both sides of the issue or data. Many people inherently believe that data and reports presented by many healthcare groups (and pharma in particular) is delivered with a strong bias towards whatever is most self serving for the group. When information is not presented in a more balanced way, the likelihood that people will not believe it is entirely credible goes up.
10. Build trusted long term relationships. Beyond all the other suggestions, the one thing that establishes a foundation for everything you do are the trusted relationships with influencers and individuals that you build online. You need a group of people who know enough about what you do and the real philosophy and thinking behind your actions that they can serve as vocal advocates for your brand if needed.

Note: This article and recap was originally posted on the Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence blog. For more pharma and healthcare related posts, check out our Healthcare featured archive on the Ogilvy site.

When SXSW, one of the largest gatherings of minds and enthusiasts in the digital world, didn’t feature more than a handful of panels on the intersection between health and social media - an “unconference” event called SXSH sprung up to fill the void. Yesterday that event came together in Austin and included speakers and pioneers in using social media to communicate for health issues in regional hospitals, government agencies, health insurers, nonprofits, epatients and pharma companies. Just about every part of the healthcare world had some sort of voice in the discussion as everyone gathered to share ideas on how the industry as a whole might use social media more effectively by building greater trust.

The day long discussion featured many highlights, starting with a talk from Doug Ulman, CEO of Livestrong about the power of health based communities online and how important real time information is to improving healthcare and the patient experience. Greg Matthews from Humana shared how a health insurer can innovate internally and use that to improve patient relationships and Jenn Texada from MD Anderson shared how she and her communications team use social media tools to interact directly with patients for customer service. David Hale from the National Library of Medicine presented an innovative new database to help identify unknown pills called Pillbox and Fabio Gratton shared how to build a movement through a case study of the success of the #FDASM movement in November of last year around the FDA hearings. In the “unconference” part of the day, companies such as ReachMD and WEGO Health talked about their communities and content and how they help bridge the gaps between patients, doctors and healthcare providers.

In the final session of the day, I tackled the question of trust. A central issue in healthcare communications, the session posed the question: why don’t people trust us? Or more specifically, what creates the culture of distrust online that so often causes negativity towards some companies in healthcare and what could we as an industry do to combat this? Our aim in the session was to brainstorm ways that healthcare organizations could overcome these barriers and build more trust and credibility. The entire room then selected what they felt the strongest ideas were and I promised to compile the results into a single blog post - which you’ll find below. In the spirit of the unconference, all of us who managed to be part of the great discussion would love to hear your thoughts on any other ideas that we could add to this list too …

1. Listen to and implement ideas from the community. Being part of a community or interacting with individuals is a great first step, but the real trust that can be built from this comes when people see some sort of action come as a result of the participation in a community. It is not the act of listening, but the impact of that listening which makes it real.
2. Have shared values on good health. Often the distrust in healthcare organizations stems from a belief that priorities are mismatched. Our priority as a patient is to get healthy, and their priority seems to be offering more medication or delivering care in a more “efficient” way. In order to build trust, it is crucial that people feel our ultimate goals are aligned toward making them healthier. We need to focus on prevention instead of promotion.
3. Answer your patient’s or customer’s concerns directly. With social media tools, people have the ability to broadcast their thoughts and desires. Often they are doing so because they are seeking a response. Having a smart listening program that can help you find these queries and a strategy for responding goes a long way towards demonstrating that you care and truly want to help.
4. Aggregate or curate useful information. Sometimes the problem isn’t a lack of information online, but a dearth of it. When information is scattered all over, it can become very confusing about what is credibile and which things to trust. One of the simplest roles for any healthcare organization to take is that of a curator of great content. By doing this, you can create resources for people that will be useful and demonstrate your commitment to their needs.
5. Serve as a resource or guide for the community. One of the things that many organizations neglect is actively using the experts that you may have internally. When it comes to marketing and communications, part of the role should be to unlock the best voices from within an organization (many of whom may not necessarily be in the marketing or PR departments). By bringing these voices out and encouraging them to share information, you can connect patients and customers to the individuals who can truly bring insight and deliver thoughtful and useful information.
6. Set expectations on what you do and why. Lack of trust can be based on a misunderstanding of motivations. There are times when people may assume that a policy or practice is done simply for financial reasons or because of legal motives when actually there are other concerns they don’t know. Being as transparent as possible about your decision process and thinking can go a long way to remove this misunderstanding.
7. Focus on setting a clear mission for employees. The most trustworthy organizations often are the ones that have a very specific and defined vision that everyone is working to implement. When the message coming from employees is consistent, it goes a long way towards establishing a belief in the organization from outsiders because they know what the group stands for.
8. Communicate results and outcomes. Large organizations in particular are often good about communicating outcomes or results in financial terms on a quarterly basis or some kind of cost related metric, but not as good about communicating impact of their efforts in human terms. To inspire belief, it is often the results in human terms that people respond to far more than the financial ones - so refocusing on how that story is told becomes vital.
9. Recognize both sides of the issue or data. Many people inherently believe that data and reports presented by many healthcare groups (and pharma in particular) is delivered with a strong bias towards whatever is most self serving for the group. When information is not presented in a more balanced way, the likelihood that people will not believe it is entirely credible goes up.
10. Build trusted long term relationships. Beyond all the other suggestions, the one thing that establishes a foundation for everything you do are the trusted relationships with influencers and individuals that you build online. You need a group of people who know enough about what you do and the real philosophy and thinking behind your actions that they can serve as vocal advocates for your brand if needed.

Several months ago I read a piece of research in the Journal of Marketing that I found both surprising and believable at the same time. In fact, the conclusion of this research made such an impression, I clipped a report of it and put it on the board beside my desk as a reminder of one important difference when marketing to women versus men that many small businesses completely ignore or forget about.  The research explored the idea of customer loyalty, and uncovered that (on average) men were far more loyal to an organization or group than any single individual within it – and for women this finding was the opposite.

What this means is that for businesses such as a hair salon or barber shop – men are more likely to be loyal to the establishment itself, while women would be more likely to follow the individual stylist from salon to salon. As the research notes, “Women tend to view themselves as being connected with and dependent on a few specific individual others. In contrast, men tend to view themselves as being connected with and dependent on larger groups of people and organizations. Because individual relationships are more important to women, they are more likely to develop loyal customer relationships with individual service providers.”

If you believe in this research, then it has obvious implications for your small business no matter what industry you are in. Here are a few practical tips and advice that you may want to consider to take advantage of this knowledge of the gender difference in loyalty:

1. Rotate your employees – If you can make it work for your business, there may be a large value in rotating the employees that your best customers deal with on a daily or weekly basis. For men, this may be easier – but in either case having a range of employees working with any customer (male or female) can help insulate you against one employee leaving, and taking your customers with them.
2. Establish two methods for referrals – Knowing that referrals are often the lifeblood of many small businesses … this study also offers a clue to how you might want to slightly modify how you pursue getting referrals from a client based on their gender. For female customers you may want to encourage the main employee who works with them to ask for referrals – whereas for male customers, you might ask more on behalf of your company.
3. Balance your recommendations – When online reviews or ratings are a part of your business, you may find that they go in one direction or the other in relation to talking about your people versus your business as a whole. To get a better balance, try to illicit these reviews from a more even spit of male and female customers and you can add more balance to the reviews and ratings about your business that are appearing online.

NOTE: This post is part of Small Business Friday (SBF) - a weekly feature to share marketing ideas for small businesses and was originally published on the Amex Open Forum site.

Like to Surf after you Tweet? This may be the job for you! Our Social Media team in Sydney is looking to expand soonest. We are also looking for people in Hong Kong and Singapore, for those markets please email me directly at thomas.crampton at ogilvy dot com.

We need a Digital Influence Analyst in our Sydney office who knows how to engage people online, can do great outreach to bloggers, knows that listening is about more than just data, and knows a thing or two about Facebook and Twitter.

This is a hands-on experience for a sharp professional who understands the new era of “earned media.” That knows that listening is about more than just data and can spot trends and draw insights that lead to great engagement programs.

You will have proven strength in understanding research, developing relationships with influencers, and managing interactive programs that leverage social media and word of mouth. You are someone who participates in and knows social media - not just the theory.

Join the team that is defining the next marcom discipline around social media and digital marketing to drive word of mouth and action. We are the word of mouth agency (within an agency) focused on creating conversations online, engaging with new influencers and building community. You are going to need at least 1-2 years experience developing digital solutions for clients.

Contact:  Brian Giesen at brian.giesen@ogilvy.com.au or Graham White graham@howorth.com.au
Visit our blog: http://www.asiadigitalmap.com
Join our Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/ogilvypraustralia
Follow Us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ogilvypraus

Technorati Tags: australia, social media

I caught up with our own Thomas Crampton last week in Istanbul. Thomas runs our teams across Asia and one of the big events coming up this year is the Shanghai World Expo.  To help inform our work and our clients who will participate in some way or another, Thomas developed some great research on the current buzz throughout Chinese social media on the Expo. I had a chance to ask him about what he found:

Q: Can you tell us briefly what the Shanghai World Expo is and what it may mean to China, its government, business leaders and even the people there?
A: Shanghai Expo has been billed as one of the largest events of its kind in China. While people outside of China may not have heard of the event, the organizers expect a extremely large domestic audience.

Q: You did a unique survey of what the Chinese people were saying online via social media about the Expo, what surprised you most?
A: One of the biggest surprises about the discussions online was the intensity of discussion taking place more than three months before the event began. While you might expect sponsor and the government to speak about the event, it was interesting to see the level of discussion going on among China’s netizens.

Q: Can you tell two of the insights in the survey?
A: The report gives insights into how individual citizens and companies are already gearing up for the Expo. In terms of Chinese citizens, the report shows that they are concerned about ticket prices and taking action. Among the initiatives are group purchasing of tickets and rural citizens asking for advice on how to buy tickets.

Q: How could brands engaging in the Expo use this survey to their advantage?
A: By understanding the concerns of consumers looking at the Expo, companies can find ways of offering value to those who may visit the Expo. One interesting example in relation to the ticket prices is one company, , that is offering tickets to Expo at the original price. The promotion costs them very little - the difference in ticket price is very small - but the publicity and discussion about it has been fairly extensive. As we follow the Expo with these publicly available reports, companies will be able to see possible hooks for their own Social Media strategy.

Shanghai Expo Chinese-language Social Media Buzz

View more documents from 360 Digital Influence, Ogilvy PR Worldwide.

Am I the only person who feels ill every time I hear the word “passion” at work?

This doesn’t mean I am not committed or do sloppy work. I am a classic Type A overachiever. But to me, passion is personal. It’s what I feel for my husband, for the old schoolhouse we’re restoring, for the sweet peas I’m sprouting, for world peace, and – okay, just a little – for Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama. It is NOT what I feel about work.

I feel a lot of things about work – interested, challenged, even excited – but the best word is probably committed. I am fortunate that I have been paid fairly and given opportunities to do interesting, creative things in my career. I have very high standards for anything that goes through my shop – so much so that veterans on my team warn newbies who join up. I am super dedicated and I really enjoy my job. But I am not passionate about it. To me, that’s a word for a different time and place. 

I think small business owners are different. Most of those I have met ARE passionate about the businesses they’ve started. But for those of us who work for someone else, it doesn’t feel like the right word. At work, I don’t want passion – I want intelligence, creativity, dedication, stamina, and, yes, PLEASE, the ability to proofread. In fact if someone told me in a job interview that their job was their passion, I would question their truthfulness, not to mention their sanity. 

Am I crazy? Am I merely splitting semantic hairs? Or is passion at work overrated?

This post is part of Make A Referral Week - an innovative project from John Jantsch at Duct Tape Marketing to generate 1000 referred leads to 1000 deserving small businesses.

If I were to ask you what the secret was to getting someone to recommend and refer your business, what would you say? Perhaps you might focus on the experience that you provide. Or you might believe that this is a behaviour that you should focus on illiciting from only your best customers. Now what if I told you that the single biggest reason someone chooses whether or not to refer your business has very little to do with their experience with you? That seems counter intuitive. Yet if this were false, then everyone who had a positive experience would share it with someone else. And everyone who had a negative one would do the same.

The point is, people don’t inherently share positive or negative experiences – they need an incentive to do it. The main problem is that anger or frustration IS an incentive. That’s why you hear the often repeated adage that it is much easier to get a customer to post a negative review than it is to post a positive one. Satisfaction, apparently, is not as powerful of a motivator as dissatisfaction. Yet despite this behaviour, there are ways to stack the odds in your favor. You probably already know that online opinions make a difference for your business. So the question you need to ask yourself (especially for Referral Week) is how you can make YOUR business easier for someone to share with a friend, family member or colleague. In other words, you need to be easier to recommend!

Here are 5 tips you should consider to help you achieve that:

1. Ask at the right moment. There is one moment when your customer is likely to be happiest of all, and that is the moment right after they buy something. The decision has been made, and anticipation is likely to follow. Why not ask them to share their experience with a friend right in that moment? Use a post-purchase survey online or encourage your customer to write a review or even take some extra business cards with them as they walk out of your retail location. The more you can do to get someone to recommend your business right after purchase, the more referrals you can generate.
2. Create different levels. It is tempting to think of recommendations and referrals in strict terms. Say online review, and your mind probably goes straight to the sort of review you might find on Amazon or TripAdvisor. In reality, there are many different levels of engagement when it comes to online reviews, and hand written experiences are the most extreme. A much simpler style is what you may have seen on Facebook … the simple thumbs up or thumbs down. Star ratings are another easy method. The lesson is simple … to create more likely situations where people will share their opinion, try to accommodate for different levels of effort and complexity.
3. Let them save your details. The magnet for your fridge that your real estate agent always gives you is the prime example of this idea. The opposing idea to #1, the philosophy behind letting your customers save your details easily is that you want to be there in the moment when they do get asked by someone to refer a business or service. Aside from fridge magnets, for the growing digital savvy customer, another way you may be able to stand out is to always include important keywords in your email communications (and always send email receipts). Then your customer can search their email account and even if they don’t remember your business name or have your card handy, you’re just a simple email search away.
4. Have a personality. The basic fact is that people don’t generally remember businesses, they remember other people. For this reason, having a personality is of paramount importance. When you can foster a personal connections with your business, you give them a reason to remember and recommend you to others. This is the power of word of mouth referrals, that we will remember working with someone who we respected and will be more likely to actively recommend that person and their business in any relevant situation.
5. Admit failure. This last tip will seem like an odd addition to the list. After all, we are generally taught to hide (or at least never admit) our failures for fear that it may make us or our businesses appear vulnerable. The surprising fact is that admitting a mistake can be one of the unintentionally best ways to humanize your business. We all make mistakes, but how you deal with them is the real question. Nothing can endear your business more to a customer than making a mistake an going overboard to correct it (and not making the same mistake again, of course). So the next time you or one of your employees makes a mistake, own up to it and actively fix it. You may find that in the process you converted an unhappy customer into a brand evangelist for life.

Not too long ago, the NY Times ran a very interesting story that covered the emerging new marketing buzzword — Curate.  This week Steve Rosenbaum added a new perspective in the Huffington Post introducing the notion of a Curation Nation.  Fascinating read.

Certainly the concept and theme around agreggation as well as compiling and sharing content is nothing new, but the art and technology around this process is certainly changing.  It has evolved to the point where we’re all becoming curators without even realizing it — whether that is through Twitter lists, Foursquare, Facebook or a seemingly endless array of platforms.

For brands the challenge remains how they can either move beyond simple content aggregation for aggregation sake and add value to the chain…or find a way to be an essential element in the content that is being curated.  In other words, do you create the content that is curated or do you curate the content yourself? 

I happen to believe that, for most bands, the best approach will be a blend of the two where they can deliver an experience that intersects the conversation around a particular area while creating and sharing relevant original content that adds to the dialogue.  Its not about “owning” a topic or subject, its more about being a relevant listener and contributor to the conversation around that topic or subject.

Happy curating.

NOTE: This post was originally published on the AMEX Open Forum website, where I write a weekly piece on marketing advice for small business owners.

Whether you believe in karma or not, using social media successfully for your small business often has a lot to do with a series of seemingly disconnected events.  Every comment you post online, every person you contact and every piece of content you upload adds to the sum total of your efforts in the blogosphere.  Building relationships is important in any industry, but social media karma is the idea that what you do and how you behave will ultimately have an effect on you directly or indirectly. 

Social media karma is not often written about, but very often spoken about by bloggers, especially successful ones.  Here are 10 ways you can improve your social media karma:  

1. Be real.  This is the first and foremost principle of furthering your social media karma that I could think of.  Being real involves not lying, being transparent about who you are and what you believe, and sharing an honest voice.  People trust others that have an authentic voice, and are more likely to refer them to others or help when asked. 
2. Respond to emails. This is tough when you have a high volume of unsolicited emails, but the idea that someone took time to write directly to you should make it enough of a priority to respond.  Obviously, this applies to personally written messages, and not to email blasts of press releases.  Those are rarely worth a response.
3. Offer exclusives.  Maybe you aren't breaking "news" online, but the idea of exclusives is not limited to that.  If you are going to write about or post something interesting, whether related to your business or not, offer a preview to others in your network.  Share ideas as they happen and offer the chance for others to say it first.  Exclusives are gold in the blogosphere ... everyone wants them.
4. Make connections. In social settings, the gold standard for making connections is introducing two people to one another who later get married.  Social media is no different.  If you can be the person making these connections between individuals that may not have met otherwise, you will be remembered by both for your efforts.
5. Join networks.  This is not just about publishing networks, but about social networks of people who are interested in the same things you are.  Joining groups like this, and actively participating adds value to the group.  As a member, it probably won't be long before you take something useful from the group – and hopefully add something useful as well.
6. Avoid snark. Snarkiness is the enemy of good karma.  Being rude, uselessly opinionated or arrogant are all rising behaviours from people in social media that add to the sea of needless commentary online.  The price for this may not be apparent, as unfortunately, snarkiness does sometimes result in conversation sometimes (who can't avoid watching a car crash?) -- but eventually the snark will catch up to you.
7. Forgive mistakes. Most bloggers or others in social media are not journalists and don't have the time or necessity for checking every fact or argument before making it.  This does result in mistakes, and people do screw up.  Correcting them without holding a grudge is a big deal.  Mistakes are made, people are sorry.  If they fixed the error, then get over it.
8. Post to contact. Email is not the only way to get in touch with someone.  Posting about something they have written and linking to their blog offers an indirect route to contact, as most bloggers pay attention to who is linking to them.  Writing about one of my posts is still the best way to get onto my radar, and I suspect most bloggers are the same way.  Communicating in this way avoids the email filter and starts the dialogue.
9. Comment and participate.  This may be part of earlier suggestions, however the idea that you need to be a participant online rather than just an observer is key to this belief.  If you expect others to communicate and add comments to your blog, you need to be online doing the same for others.  Without participation, it is difficult to belong to a community online or build relationships with others.
10. Show gratitude. Often mentioned as an important factor in connecting with users, showing gratitude for someone interacting with some content you have posted or a comment you have shared, linking to you, or offering some other effort on your behalf is vital.  Appreciation makes someone more likely to believe that you think their efforts are significant and as a result, connect more strongly with you and your blog.

NOTE: This post is part of Small Business Friday (SBF) - a weekly feature to share marketing ideas for small businesses and was originally published on the Amex Open Forum site.

Posted via email from rohitbhargava's posterous

Where exactly is Japan’s Internet activity taking place? What are the Japanese looking at, searching in and blogging on?

My colleagues in the Tokyo Ogilvy Digital Influence team compiled a list of some of the most widely visited websites in Japan. You can download the list from Slideshare here.

Some editorial and qualitative judgments were made in compiling the list. There are certainly more highly accessed sites than the ones chosen; adult sites were omitted, for example. The focus has is on a sampling of portals, blogs and web destinations that matter most and resonate with a Japan audience.

The aim is to provide a sample listing to help people better understand what Japan is viewing and where the conversations are taking place.

The main source for the data is alexa, with editing done by Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide (Japan).

Top 50 Japanese Websites View more documents from 360digitalinfluence.

Technorati Tags: Internet, Japan

I used to hate slideshows. Not Powerpoint as many people call slideshows today, but the old style of slideshow. The one where you set up a carousel projector to show lots of little negatives encased in small cardboard frames to unwilling family and friends. If you are under a certain age, you probably won't know what I'm talking about - but that moment of having to sit through someone's vacation photos with the narration of "and this is us in front of the <insert random place name here>" is unfortunately familiar. The problem isn't that the trip itself was boring, or that you're a cold unfeeling person because you struggle to sit through the shared holiday experience of someone you usually care about. The real problem is that the way the story was told left much to be desired. A trip is something no one cares about except the people who took it.

A journey, on the other hand is more significant. It is something that invites you to take part. Something that has a destination or vision in mind for where someone is headed or what they are trying to do. A journey is a story that matters. This was my thought when I came across Monisha and Harald's journey. They are travelling across India on 80 trains in 3 months and are in the midst of their journey right now. As their site describes,the chaotically efficient Indian railway system is "the largest civilian employer in the world, featuring luxury trains, toy trains, a hospital on wheels, the steepest, the slowest, and the second longest train journeys in the world." Chances are, you're already intrigued by their journey as I was when I first read about it. 

Yet, I don't actually know Monisha or Harald. They aren't personal contacts of mine, and though I might hear back from them if they read this - it is not necessarily about having a personal connection. You might watch a slide show from a family member who you love and find it difficult to get involved in their story, yet reading Monish and Harald's journey is interesting. You can follow them in real time on Twitter at @80trains and share it with others. That is the power of having a journey - it lets others get involved. How many travel brands could inspire this kind of content? Or what about small businesses sharing the story of the evolution of their business? When someone cares about the outcome of any story, they are more likely to try to help and be part of it. So what journey are you taking?

Credit: Thanks to Arun Rajagopal for sharing this link to the 80 Trains Project.

I used to hate slideshows. Not Powerpoint as many people call slideshows today, but the old style of slideshow. The one where you set up a carousel projector to show lots of little negatives encased in small cardboard frames to... Rohit