More and more retailers are starting to insert elements of social shopping to their web sites. Social shopping is the concept of involving a customer’s friends or other customers in the shopping experience by for example letting their recommendations influence what items are shown first on a site.

Here is an example. When you enter the US version of Urban Outfitters’ site, a giant thumb is currently being displayed.  Once you click on the image you can sort items (women’s, men’s or apartement) after which ones have been liked the most by people on Facebook. The top women’s item is a cardigan that has been “liked” 90 times. So if you want to know what clothes that currently are in fashion, this is a neat service. If you want a unique look, you probably should start searching among the least liked items.

Via Market.se (in Swedish).

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Last post I proposed benchmarks for what percentage of a B2C marcom budget should be spent on social media. The next logical question is how to allocate that spend. Clearly every product, business goal, world market and end user target will impact that answer. Despite the recent gains in more seniors adopting digital habits, I still wouldn't use the Old Spice video strategy to reach 65 and over Americans. Context matters.

Two ways to spend

Looking at just traditional marcom efforts (leaving out functions like customer care), there are two ways to spend on social media marcom. The first is campaign spending. This is what we awere all trained to do. It is also the only thing any of the awards programs out there pay attention to. The second is the sustained, persistent support of always-on platforms Like facebook and Twitter. We call it everyday engagement. Call it whatever you want but it has a lot to do with successfully building a direct relationship with customers and followers.

They are not exclusive. They work well together. It's tempting to put all the money in the campaign spend - the big YouTube play, the cgm/ugc contest, the unique Facebook tab. This is what will get you noticed inside and outside the company. But without the foundation of the everyday engagement, you may never keep that hard-won fanbase.

Like any new venture, building a foundation in social media requires investment in the early years. To get the "center for excellence," and its primary programs, off the ground, you need to hire some staff, spend on some first-time expenses, and learn from experience. Most of the everyday engagement effort - creating and publishing content, monitoring cgm, responding to people and customer care triage - do not require a big one-time cost. They require a recurring cost in human time and some expense.

The First Three Years

Year one - in the first year of true commitment to social media marcom, you can expect splitting a budget with most going to campaigns

campaign 80%   everyday engagement 20%

Year two - now you can invest in some infrastructure. You have gained campaign success, earned points for social customer care Twitter handles, and generally proven to leadership that this is worth doing. Now is the time to get a Buddy Media or Vitrue license, trade-up on your Listening post, and float some more sophisticated campaigns

campaign 50%   everyday engagement 50%

 

Year three: - truth is you will never dial back on your everyday engagement. What you will likely do is ramp up your paid media integrations with your truly "earned" social media efforts. It may not be fair to lump those in the equation here but I have. That's what explains the flop back in favor of campaign spend.

campaign* 80%   everyday engagement 20%

How do you split your spending?

*includes some media spend. Take that out and your back to 50/50 or even 40/60

Last week I announced the launch of the 360 DI series on Gov 2.0 and our upcoming DI Ogilvy Exchange. There has been a phenomenal response to the upcoming panel. The following panelists are confirmed Ari Melber, The Nation and Politico; Mark Murray from NBC Universal; Lovisa Williams, Deputy Director from the State Department’s Office of Innovative Engagement; Alex Howard, O’Reilly’s Gov 2.0 correspondent; Micah Sifry, co-founder of the Personal Democracy Forum. The date is set for Monday September 27th.

As we enter the second week of our series of posts on Gov 2.0, we wanted to highlight/introduce some of the other members of the DI team interested in this space and their musings on Gov 2.0.

Kelly Ferraro-

In 2008, how I connected to the world began to change during the presidential election. A graduate student, I was more than familiar with the word-of-mouth power of Facebook, and was an early adopter and avid user. But at that time, I had been using social media simply to communicate with my law school peers, and keep in touch with family and friends.

Enter the election of 2008.

Suddenly, a platform that I had used to stay connected with people became a news resource for campaigns, expressing political views, sharing articles, and making donations. Instead of reading the New York Times or the Washington Post online, I would log in to Facebook for my daily news. There, I would find the latest campaign development through a shared article, or a conversation thread about a candidate.

But more importantly, Facebook coupled with other social media tools  helped Barack Obama secure the presidency. With the use of various digital platforms, Barack Obama rejected public financing and raised a record-breaking $650 million, largely from private, individual on-line donations. And now, for the first time ever, we have a President who is accessible via Facebook, Twitter, and a blog.

To me, this shift means two things: ACCESSS and POWER.

In my view, Gov 2.0 is about the power and ability of citizens to gain access to government like never before. Gone are the days when writing a letter to Congress helped voice an issue. Today, you can send a 140-character message that’s publicly available to every follower of a Congressman.

Think about the bargaining power that holds! You can publish your message not just to the leader with whom you want to speak, but to every person paying attention to every move that leader makes. The pressure on the figure to respond is heightened when he or she is up for re-election, or is working on a contentious issue. In this sense, Gov 2.0 not only gives citizens greater access to their government, but also gives them greater power to leverage their voice and perhaps a greater change of  getting a response.

The hope is that this heightened access and power will lead to action, and ultimately, change. I believe that is what will define the next iteration: Gov 3.0

Jackie Titus-

My Georgetown colleague, Mike Rupert, a Communications Director for a major government agency in DC was the first to introduce me to Gov 2.0 communications. By watching his work I learned about the power behind social media and digital communications for Government agencies. Mike changed the way his agency communicated with college students through a new website www.thisshouldbeillegal.com – the goal of the page is simple, “Helping Keep College Students Safe and Healthy in DC”. What I love about this work is the core mission of the agency stayed the same but the new approach facilitated a more direct conversation with the target audience.

At its core Gov 2.0 is taking the information the public is entitled to and makes it more accessible. However we know that this new form of communication is not just about pushing out more information and providing more access, it is also about a dialogue. Government agencies can scale their approach use it to raise widespread awareness or communicate at the local level about public safety and neighborhood alerts.

Charlie Tansill-

Integrating social media into government agencies will be a mammoth challenge. Bureaucracy, special interest organizations, national security, and resistance to change all present incredible obstacles; however, it is crucial that these challenges are overcome and that government begin to incorporate social media for many reasons.

1. Transparency: Especially in a democracy where officials are elected, it is crucial that the government be as transparent as possible. Citizens are not comforted by a government that is trying to hide their operations; rather, when a government is open, it breeds trust and confidence. Social media does exactly that: facilitates a more open, translucent, corruption-free and accountable government. Obama is a huge proponent of transparency and its importance in holding officials and policies accountable for their actions. There are even international organizations that exist for this very purpose such as Transparency International!

2. Empowerment: For the most part, social media is inexpensive, simple and mobile and, because of this, it brings a voice to more people; it provides another outlet through which common citizens can share a voice and be empowered. It encourages the power of Collective Intelligence!

3. Collaboration: Social media tools allow for quick information-sharing between international organizations, agencies, politicians, and humanitarian agencies, which allows for more partnerships and collaboration. Especially at a time when special interest groups have so much influence, social media tools could be used to combat this trend so that organizations can cross boundaries and work together toward the collective good.

These are just a few of the reasons I believe social media is critical to the future of government.

More details, including the launch of the Eventbrite are forthcoming. Please stay tuned to our blog for further information. Thank you for all your interest and support. We are very excited about the upcoming event.

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The interest in the online sharing platform FriendFeed decreased considerably after Facebook acquired the company, but the service is by no means dead. Here is an interesting infographic with statistics about FriendFeed. It shows for example that Swedish is one of the top ten languages on the service.

Via We Are Social.

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My friendship with the marketing agency Brains on Fire began in March of 2005. That’s when I heard Geno Church, word-of-mouth practitioner from Brains on Fire, share the Rage Against the Haze case study. Instead of a multi-million advertising campaign to convince teens in South Carolina to stop smoking, Geno showed how building a grassroots marketing movement was able to make a significant difference in reducing teenage smoking rates in the state.

From there, Brains on Fire built another grassroots marketing movement for Fiskars, the makers of the well-known but not necessarily talkable orange handled scissors. This movement was and still is led by thousands of scrapbookers known as The Fiskateers.

I’ve been fortunate to work directly with Brains on Fire and each time we work together, my fondness grows deeper for what they do — build marketing movements.

Writing in their just-published book, BRAINS ON FIRE: Igniting Powerful, Sustainable, Word of Mouth Movements, we learn exactly how they define a marketing movement.

“No, we’re not going to pull out the dictionary. We’re just going to let you know that—for the purposes of what’s ahead—we have developed our own working definition of what a movement is: A movement elevates and empowers people to unite a community around a common cause, passion, brand, or organization.”

“So let’s take it a step further, since we’re talking about sustainable movements here: A sustainable move happens when customers and employees share their passion for a business or cause and become a self-perpetuating force for excitement, ideas, communication, and growth.

Throughout the book, we learn of ten lessons Brains on Fire follows to ignite and fan the flames of customer evangelism. It’s a worthy read for any marketer, especially marketers rooted in the evolutionist marketing mindset.

Robbin Phillips, the courageous leader of Brains on Fire as well as a co-author of the book, answered a few of my questions about the book and her company's approach to igniting marketing movements.In the book you talk about the “quiet leaders” of movements. Why is this and where can a marketer find, among its brand fans, these silent leaders.

ROBBIN PHILLIPS [RP]: “First of all, let me back up and say this out loud: Movements need inspirational leaders. If no one is expected to lead, no one will.

With the rise of social media, companies and organizations all too often seem to get focused on finding and reaching out to the “influencers.” We don’t buy it. Many times, those folks are driven by ego and a desire to create more influence. They are not necessarily motivated by the desire to move a passion or a cause forward."

"Quiet leaders leave ego by the wayside. Diversity of leadership is important - it creates a quilt of inspiration. You need some folks who can make some noise and comfortably stand on the rooftops and shout. But the quiet leaders are important because often times they are the do-ers.

They also elevate those around them instead of always elevating themselves. And when you elevate others they never forget it. They stay engaged. They are loyal and often happy to return the gesture."

You write, “One of the secret sauces we’ve discovered igniting movements is that barrier of entry is vital. Yes, we want to keep people out of the movement; in fact, it’s a key to success, growth and sustainability.” Explain what you mean.
RP: “The barrier of entry notion gets a lot of push back from traditional marketers. But it is just so logical. A barrier of entry calls us to know what we don’t know.

Think back to the number of online communities you’ve signed up for. You go there, create a user name and password, click around a bit and never return. Often you can’t even remember your user name or your password. We call it password amnesia. If you’ve done any kind of social networking you’ve probably experienced it.

On the other hand, If you want to join the Fiskateers, one of the movements we highlight in the book, you have to be wiling to read the bio of a lead and connect with one of them personally. They usually ask you a question about your interest. We lose 50% of folks right there. Which is great."

"That’s why large numbers don’t impress us. We’d rather go for engagement and participation. Jay Gillespie of VP of Brand Marketing at Fiskars says it well, ‘For me it’s not about the numbers, it’s about growing even deeper relationships.’”

Outside of the work Brains on Fire has done with its clients, share a marketing “movement” that someone else has ignited that you wish Brains on Fire had been a part of.

RP: “I picked up INC. magazine the other day while traveling. And I stumbled on an interview with Leslie Blodgett, the CEO of Bare Escentuals. I got so excited, I wanted to call her on the spot. She understands the passion conversation (Lesson #1). It’s not about product, the makeup. Women just want feel pretty.

She also understand that movements live both offline and online (Lesson #8). When her products were first being sold they were different and often women had questions. She didn’t have time to answer everyone online and she began to notice that other women were answering for her. She embraced them and started to hold training events and sharing knowledge (Lesson #5) at her salons. That led to cruises or “giant slumber parties” as she calls them. Her success validated some very important lessons we have learned.

She also cherishes her love letters. And says, ‘I read these letters before I go to sleep at night. They remind me of what we do. It's powerful. I don't want to be a business. I want to be a community.’"

"So that is just one example I’m recently happy to have found. I also hope this book introduces us to even more successful movements and new lessons learned. We have a Lesson 11 in the book and genuinely hope that others will help us write the rest of the story. And that the learning will go on and on and on.”

When marketing on behalf of regulated industries (such as the healthcare companies that I spend the majority of my time focusing on), working within strict guidelines is a large part of the process - both from an external perspective (FDA, FTC, HIPPA, etc) but often internally as well.  Legal and regulatory experts work to help companies stay within safe boundaries by providing review and oversight, which can often challenge marketers who want to be cutting edge as they draw attention and appeal to their target audiences.

Using new communications channels, such as social media, can provide new challenges for those working to keep their companies safe. But regulation and innovation don’t need to be at odds with one another. Below are just a few sample ways marketers can work with those providing regulatory and legal oversight to leverage the Social tools their customers are rapidly consuming.

• Partner early and often with regulators to develop guidelines: by developing guidelines together of what is acceptable use of social media, and the precautions the company will take, marketers and legal/regulatory specialists can both become invested in the rules of the road. The teams can and should work together to update the guidelines as new channels are used, leveraged in new ways, and new media emerge (as they frequently do these days…)

• Get regulatory specialists to weigh in and become a part of the development process - and not just be a “reviewer”: involve regulatory experts throughout the process - from concept development through to final review - to incorporate their feedback, guidance and best practices. Often other groups in the company have worked on similar concepts or ideas where best practices or even sample language can be shared by review groups.

• Provide real and relevant examples: showing what others in the industry - or related industries - have done before can help alleviate fears or help provide precedent to move forward. Things have been done before are inherently less scary - especially to those tasked with keeping their employers away from risk. When making a case to regulatory and legal teams, we often look for similar examples from those in the industry working in other specializations - or tap into colleagues who work in fields that are similarly regulated.

• Provide samples: Beyond showing examples, nothing helps sell-in a concept than providing samples of how a project will look and feel. Demonstrating a user experience with samples takes concepts out of others’ imagination (where you have no control) and brings them to life. Proposing a microsite? Develop wireframes to demonstrate. Integrating Twitter in your campaign? Mock up sample tweets that show the range and types of information you’ll communicate. Driving your target to YouTube? In addition to storyboarding out your video concepts, show regulators channels that are laid out and have similar controls (such as turning off comments) to what you are proposing so they can interact with a similar idea.

• Have an issues management review and response plan in place: As the boy scouts say, be prepared. Reviewing the risks - and having a plan in place to address them - from smallest issue to biggest crisis, can help alleviate some of the fear around the unknown. And working with legal/regulatory experts to develop the response plan can help bring them around to feeling a smart approach is in place.

As the Swedish football striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic this weekend declared that he is leaving FC Barcelona for AC Milan, my blog posts about the fake “Ibra” on Twitter” has gotten tons of traffic. I guess it’s a natural reaction nowadays – a player is discussed frequently in the media and fans want to know if he is on Twitter so that they can follow his updates directly.

However, the first result in a Google search is a Twitter account: “@zlatans_official”, but is not the real “Ibra”. Now that doesn’t stop 9,000 people from following the fake account on Twitter. The prankster got almost 600 new followers yesterday and has gained more than 1,500 new followers in the last two months. And the account is not even active. I think that demonstrates the strong demand among consumers for direct communication from celebrities. That, and the fact that we’re all very easy to fool. (Ping AP!)

Stats from Twittercounter.com. I’m @kullin on Twitter by the way. I might not be spectacular, but I’m real.

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What percentage of a B2C or B2B brand's budget should be spent in strategies and tactics that we would label "social media-related?" Within that percentage, how should the money really be applied with the big amorphous box we all call social media? Big questions. I find it hard to generalize while at the same time am driven to try and do just that. I want to establish some benchmarks based upon all of the brand work I have seen or touched in my job. Clearly what is right for a Unilever may be very different than what is right for a Siemens. Selling cars (Ford) is dramatically different than mobile phones (LG). Running your business in North America may be very different than China.

All these differences aside. I do see a common trajectory of 'spend' at least as applied to B2C and separately to B2B. That path has more to do with increased experience in social media tactics, the adoption of, what I will call, a social media business mindset and the integration path for social media going forward.

Experience in social media tactics - For simplicity's sake, lets look at what most marketers go through (including this one). Here are three stages of adoption:

• Social Media Experiments - usually the first year or two of unconnected social media programs involving bloggers, video content distribution, cgm/ugc contests and other tactics.
• Adoption and Integration - in the following years, the value or success of social media is felt within and there is a push to do more and integrate it with more people and disciplines.
• Go 'Big' - after some experience and success following integration, brands can't help but want to "go big" either with a substantial facebook campaign or a more impactful integration (e.g. committing to 20 people in social customer care via Twitter and Live chat). usually these brands have sketched out a measurement model that reassures them the effort is smart business.

Social media business mindset - Is using social media an obligation due to outside pressures (your CEO, board, competitors all told you to do it in one way or another)? Or do you see a way - perhaps murky now - but a way that all of the implied qualities of social media may actually change your business? I see plenty of CMOs and CCOs who fit into both camps. So, the choice is between social media as obligation or social media as quest.

Integration path - The future value of social media is integrated in every discipline. Just as all marketers hoped that "digital" would be the new normal in marketing (it pretty much has), we expect that social strategies and tactics will be integrated in many disciplines. Look at Coach's The Poppy Project. Anchored by a microsite and a "Stumble Upon-like" tour of great fashion blogs, how much of this is social media vs. what we consider digital marketing? How much was the whole project spend and what would you label it? You could probably do it if you had the numbers. Now think ahead into the future. As programs get more complex, Facebook Open Graph becomes ubiquitous, brands adopt Social IRM - what can be distinguished as social media and therefore "budgeted" becomes harder and harder.

In many cases, brands will likely embrace the most valuable output of social media - advocacy (or word of mouth) and engagement - as 'must haves' for every program and brand. Key activities will continue to be labeled social media while more and more social elements will get baked into PR, user experience, digital marketing and more. In this way social budgets will be dispersed in the organization.

Rilla Delorier, CMO of Suntrust Bank, mentioned via AdAge:

"The great thing is less than 5% of my total spend is in social media. We've reached over a million customers this year through that mechanism. It's a very efficient way to get feedback on what's working and what's not."

She said this in context of a program called Live Solid. This features a microsite with embedded YouTube videos, a Facebook page and a Twitter handle amongst may other online tactics (SEO? SEM? Display? CRM?) and likely some related offline programs as well.

I don't have an inside view of Suntrust's experience. As a customer, this is the first remotely social program I have experienced. I figure that they are in the Experiments/Quest or Adoption/Obligation quadrant. What I can't tell from her quote is whether Rilla is a believer on a quest or proud of the fact that she only spent >5% to be able to check the "social" box.

Spend Matrix

Here's my view of total spend in single market from a prototypical $10m B2C marcom budget (modest to some, inadequate for big brands)

 

Mindset

Obligation

Quest

Well-Integrated*

Stage

 

Experiments

1%

5%

na

Adoption

5%

10%

6% (12%)

“Go Big”

7%

12%

10% (17%)

 

Percentage of prototypical $10m marcom budget

 

*budgets get lower as money is integrated into other functions. Total percentage is in ()

If you haven’t yet seen the Emmy winning Old Spice commercials in action and haven’t quoted the Old Spice Guy at least once in conversation over the past few months, you must be sleeping under a rock (well, okay, maybe only a few fanatics are actually quoting the commercials…).

Never-the-less, the Old Spice phenomenon has created a surge of conversation around virality and brand engagement with the online audience. But let’s talk about the brand personality, because - to me - that’s one of the main things that really made this campaign go big.

So, what makes a great brand personality?

- Authenticity: Companies like Sharpie and VTech (an Ogilvy client) have recruited either internal brand fans (like @SharpieSusan) or external fans to actively get involved in social media conversation. These individuals are fully transparent with the audience, helping the audience to understand where they come from and how they can relate. Maria Pilar Clark, the VTech Mom, is a mom of two and loves helping her kids learn, so she has a great connection with other moms interested in VTech toys.

- Consistency: Talk about consistency - how does 205 Old Spice videos sound?? Whatever your brand personality is, make sure you keep it consistent. Don’t be the voice of the Old Spice Guy one day and Jimmy Fallon the next. Think about the conversations you plan to have through the eyes of your brand personality. Answer a few of the questions from Brian’s Solis’ new book, Engage:

If the brand was a person, how would it appear? How would it sound? How would it interact with others? How would others describe it?

Then keep that in mind whenever you create your content and conversation.

- Engagement: As John Bell mentioned in his CNN Commentary, the Old Spice campaign actively listened to the audience and engaged on a one-on-one basis with some of the audience members through direct video response.)

- Entertainment Factor:Whether you are creating a new drama skit every day/week like the Old Spice Guy, sharing new Sharpie art work or simply bantering back and forth with others, your audience will come back if they like what you’re giving them. This goes back to the ever-present value exchange — what is your audience looking for? What will make them come back to your brand time and again? Now add in your brand personality and ‘voila!’ you may just have entertainment!

- Versatility: Expand your brand personality’s horizons from commercials to direct response viral videos, from a Twitter handle to a personality column in the consumer e-newsletter. (*LIGHTBULB*) From an online presence to an offline presence! A great example: If your bored, or need some more Old Spice entertainment, go ahead and create your personalized Old Spice voicemail…

Of course all this goes back to your brand definition. Make sure you understand your brand’s core values, it’s history, it’s business and communication objectives as you look to define (or spice up) the brand personality in social media. To help with this understanding, check out Brian Solis’s Brand Reflection Style - a great way to map out your brand’s personality and persona.

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