Buzz Canuck

Community Building - Goals & Measures

Some recent work from Beeline, Deloitte and The Society of New Communications Research on the Tribalization of Business from data collected from 120 community managers.

The value of online communities:

• Increasing word-of-mouth (35 percent)
• Increasing brand awareness (28 percent)
• Bringing new ideas into the organization faster (24 percent)
• Increasing customer loyalty (24 percent)

The biggest obstacles managing communities is:

• Getting people involved in the community (51 percent)
• Finding enough time to manage the community (45 percent)
• Attracting people to the community (34 percent)

The features of a community shown to be most effective:

• Ability for community members to connect with other like-minded people: 54 percent
• Ability for members to help others: 43 percent
• The community is focused around a hot topic or issue: 41 percent
• Quality of the community manager/community management team: 33 percent

The top business measures being used:

• Greater awareness: 49 percent
• Number of new ideas from the community: 41 percent
• More referrals: 28 percent
• Increased sales attributable to the community: 26 percent

The top analytic measures being used :

• Number of visitors: 63 percent
• Number of "active" users: 58 percent
• How often people post/comment: 57 percent
• Number of registered users: 49 percent
• How often people visit: 45 percent

Insanely Passionate Word of Mouth Interns

We expect the same reactions when hiring word of mouth interns for Agent Wildfire - currently hiring two equally passionate candidates as the one profiled in the video attached. Thanks for this one Chrissy - too funny.

Shaw Launches "The Frame"

Having been such a fan of Fire Log during the past YuleTide seasons, I love the idea of The Frame - television channel. Artwork images are broadcasted and rotated every 30 seconds and scenes change every 30 minutes on your very own broadcast TV.

Beyond my green orientation which states that when you leave a room, you should turn things off, I'm  excited about the idea - it may spawn a new generation of art and photography lovers. I hope that they have a Group of Seven leg - if so, I have no qualms with their Canadian content whatsoever. You can find it on Channel 225 in Calgary and then it rolls out nationally.

With the costs of big screen TVs dropping through the floor, it's interesting how we have all but written off the TV and yet it finds its utility is going way up as it takes on the extended persona of a large computer screen, a vibrant wall image,  a house sensor, a gaming centre, a family scheduler and planner...etc.. Now if it could emit burnt vanilla, lavendar or citrus scent to the beat of a Sarah McLaughlin song - it could provide the complete sensory and mood experience.

By the way, my favourite Group of Seven artists in order of favourites:
Lawren Harris
Franklin Carmichael
A.J. Casson
F.H. Varley
Arthur Lismer
A.Y. Jackson
J.E.H.Macdonald
With Tom Thomson, the James Dean of Canadian art,  taking an honorary second place...and yes, I'm a bit of a Canadian art geek (Hint: I'm a sucker for trips to the McMichael Gallery)

And in other news....Hooters Buzz in New Brunswick

Hooters + Calisthenics + Driving in Dartmouth - buzzable marketing or potentially fatal traffic distraction?

Must have been a slow news day or not enough cats stuck up in trees being rescued - the gripping details from CTV.

Marketing Profs Retort: Why The 6 Reasons that Word of Mouth Doesn't Work is Wrong

Marketing Profs published a post yesterday called "Six Reasons Word of Mouth Marketing Doesn't Work" by Michael Antman. Given my company Agent Wildfire's specialty, I received about 12 notes from various friends and colleagues shuffling this post off to me with the half embarrassed cover note "I thought you should see this" , akin to one of your relatives showing up in the daily newspaper accused of a crime.

I'm used to seeing this form of journalism (all opinion, no stats, no corroborating evidence) - so I dispassionately took apart the 6 reasons stated in its thesis, and I may have even agreed to half of one of them. Most of it however was straight out of a 1965 textbook on marketing.

As background, my forensics on the author Michael Antman is as a self-described "veteran ad creative director" and "principal of brand positioning firm". Nothing wrong with that at all but are we surprised that he's would come out on the other side of this word of mouth debate - his role and firm's success depends on marketers acting in the same way they have done for the last two generations. I just wished he had bought a stronger gun to make his points.

So here goes - the marketing version of:  Lincoln vs. Douglas, Evolutionism vs, Creationism, Rowe vs. Wade....maybe I'm overstating perhaps more Mondale vs. Reagan or "Great taste, less Filling" debate.   

1) Word of Mouth is inherently subjective, especially when it comes to B-to-B (WRONG) - I hate to disagree off the bat, but a study conducted by Jack Morton in 2007 argues that word of mouth from business colleagues and friends far exceeds the influence of meetings, trade shows, sales reps, the internet or direct mailin the B-to-B world.  Subjective or not, word of mouth sells and because of the long sales cycle all the more reason to harness a steady flow of it vs. transient media.  Unlike Mr. Antman's argument, advertising may get people aware of a brand but word of mouth is activating and actually closes the deal - a separate study by Keller Fay suggests 70% of conversations make people act - conversely,  what percentage of ads or direct mail could say that?

2) Word of Mouth is Uncontrollable (WRONG) - this is always the losing, command and control man's argument. If it's positive (which word of mouth generally is by a 7-to-1 ratio - Keller Fay) then why would you want to control it?   Regardless of the outmoded notion that ads actually "control" the message, ask Apple. ask Harley. ask Google, ask Mozilla - you will find very little broken telephone between what they do and how  people talk about them. A marketer's goal should not be to control, it should be stoke the fires that are there.

3) Word of mouth is limited in reach (1/2 wrong) - I nearly wanted to agree Michael's point but once again it was 1/2 false. The article is right in the fact that the decline from first to second generation drops off considerably. However, remember if you invite 10 friends to check out something and they tell just two people, guess what?  There are 20 outer ring people who may be talking about you two generations away from the initial conversation vs. the 10 you started with. In aggregate, it doesn't take too much of a multiplier to extend out. The other oversight is the web - if comfort and familiarity is required for a message to be adopted,  how do explain viral phenomenon? - surely 5 million people didn't know Randy Pausch individually, or 9 million people get intimate with Obama Girl or 95 million know the guy from Evolution of Dance. The concept of "weak ties" and the web that puts you in touch with them, makes word of mouth have potentially unlimited reach - whereas with ads, you get what you pay for and sometimes not even that.

4) Word of Mouth is easy to subvert (WRONG) - say what? So a genuine expression of referral and endorsement can be easily overcome by hmmm...a street team... or no, no - buttons at a convention or perhaps those slick glossy ads tucked in that massively popular trade journal - sure we only put it on page 18  - but people really read this stuff and believe it, right.  Yes, a company is served by having great ethics, service model and quality - those are table stakes - no arguments there. But we're talking getting your message out and Bain, London School of Economics, Cap Gemini, McKinsey and many others having proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the most forceful, influential force in purchase decision making is word of mouth. So how is competitor X going to subvert company Y's word of mouth efforts again?

5) Word of mouth is limited in launching new stuff (VERY WRONG) - Antman completely misses the bus on this one. Our own surveys have proved that the #1 thing people like to talk about is stuff that is new and innovative. This creates social currency for the sender and the receiver. The exact counter to the point is true - word of mouth is most effective when you are trying to launch something new, attracting a new audience or adding something onto what's already there. It's the traditional forms of marketing communication that get met with resistance with how people already see a company - as a positioning expert, Antman should know that. Word of mouth because it is two way, answers questions and is frequently about new stuff that allows brands to break out of that conventional box.

6) Word of mouth in non-replicable ..maybe (WRONG) -  the argument got a little muddled here but I think the article believes amplified vs. organic word of mouth is more scalable but paints a brush on both and suggests implicitly to get reach, you have to mass communicate. He's right - if you're looking for mere awareness , advertising is an efficient vehicle - however, if you're looking for inquiry, sales and advocacy, mass communications tactics fall well short - most studies peg ad campaigns return on value between $0.03 to $0.53 on the dollar and if you look at the inflationary and cluttered ad environment, at no other time in the last century have marketers been spending more and more for less and less trust, attention and time/space. So yes, use ads to get your name out but support it with more engaging, more credible word of mouth strategies that drive traffic and sales and consequently success in business.

Ironically, I love Marketing Profs but I found there tagline above the article "Smart Thinking...pass it on" - kind of an implicit endorsement of word of mouth. I applaud them for expressing a balance of viewpoints but sadly, on this article, the caption logo should have read "Old Thinking...keep it to yourself". Here's another article from Marketing Profs you should vest your time in from a writer with a wealth of experience on the subject.

Word of Mouth Firestarter: Speaking Gun for Hire

Not being affiliated with a speaking bureau (at least not yet) has its pros and cons.

The pros: I can speak wherever I want, whenever I want for whatever price I want and not be concerned about previous arrangements/contracts and not feeling pressured into taking gigs I might not otherwise want.

The cons: I have to process through the administration of getting booked and paid and unfortunately, missing out on some good opportunities, particularly internationally, that can cross my way but don't since speaking is not my day job.

So for those interested in hosting conferences/seminars in exotic destinations, over-the-top hotel rooms and can furnish suitcases filled with unmarked 20s (and of course, other gigs too) here's my deal:

Who Am I: Sean Moffitt, President, Agent Wildfire - former senior marketing executive having worked on some of Canada's most loved brands and best, innovative companies, now founder and chief evangelist of a unique marketing, media and research services firms , positioned as Canada's Word of Mouth expert

Why Me:  there's no way to make this not appear like a shameless self-promotion, so here goes
- a new marketing/media practitioner, strategist and speaker - a rare combination - I have no book to push, just a lot of white paper and an unrequited passion for the subject
- a senior executive level marketer with a pedigree of business success and given our company orientation - a full breadth and understanding on most subjects relating to new media, marketing, innovation and research
- working affiliations with the Canadian Marketing Association, IAB, IABC and nGenera (the people behind Wikinomics)
- the leader of The League of Kickass Business Folk (a boutique senior-level networking group) and Canada's 1% Army (Canada's top media/marketing/digital bloggers)
- a top-rated speaker at conferences and corporate team sessions attended - enthusiastic delivery and interesting, fresh content served up in nice interesting packages, backed by being able to put insights/new concepts into context
- author of this popular blog - Buzz Canuck - you have 500 posts here to decide whether you think I know what I'm talking about
- I don't just talk about this stuff - professionally, we practice what we preach by running one of Canada's leading independent marketing/media research firms and personally, I am addicted to my:  blog, Twitter, Facebook, flickr, LinkedIn and FriendFeed amongst other social and collaborative activity
- connected to other giants - frequently I help conference and seminar organizers find other well-regarded speakers that I know through my web of contacts
- tailored content - avoid like the plague the one-stop shop presentation and ensure the content and delivery of my stuff fits the audience

My Rider Policy :) :
- Green M&Ms in a fish bowl (only green though)
- A hotel with a nice Gym, high threadcount sheets and good morning coffee

Why I Really Like Speaking:
- making new relationships with interesting, intelligent people from diverse universes
- genuinely helping people perform better in their marketing, media and research activities
-  exchanging ideas and dialogue with people doing interesting work
- I like to stay current and practice what I'm good at- this is one of them

What I'm Currently Speaking About:
- Wiki Brands - Reinventing Your Brand in a Customer Controlled Marketplace
- THE ABCs of What's Next in Marketing and Media
- It Takes a Campaign not a Community to Build a Brand - The Whos, Whats, Whys, Hows of Hosting Your Very Own Brand Network
- Community Chest - The 50 Elements of a Well-Lit Brand Community
- What's the Buzz - The 30 Things to Get Right in a Word of Mouth Program
- Igniting the Grapevine - The 36 Reasons why People Talk about You
- The Influencers are Coming - How To Find, Target and Keep Your Top 1% Happy
- Social Media Measurement - The 10 Somewhat Immutable Laws of Measuring Your Socialness
- Building the Buzz - Putting a Word of Mouth Marketing Plan together
- Customer Experience Gold - Marketing is What You Do, Not What You Say You Do
- The Great, the Good, The Bad, The Ugly - Deep Thougghts on What to Get Right in Social Media and Word of Mouth
- The Crazy Canucks - Celebrating the most Progressive Marketers in Canada
- Marketing 2010 - How will Building and Marketing Brands Change
- Corporate Workshops - Making the First Steps to 2.0
- Executive Seminars -  The Guide to Becoming a Peer-to-Peer Driven Organization
- Innovation Edgecraft - Building Ideas and Products that People Talk About and Buy
- WOM 101 - Profiling the 9 Key Types of Word of Mouth - Opportunities and Watchouts
- WOM 201 -  Digging through the Word of Mouth Playbook
- The Buzz Report - the latest research on new marketing, media, innovation and research

Upcoming:  Watch out for-
Executive Fall WOM Bootcamp - in three cities across Canada
TrendCity and the 2009 Trends Report - An exchange of Style, Ideas and What's Next

1.3 Billion Now Registered to the Top 60 Social Networks

Always a challenge to get validated and public information from social networks....ironic given that they suggest they are so open and transparent in their dealings. Whatever.

With the help from one of my favourite Wikipedia pages, we believe 1.3 billion people are registered users on some of the top 60 social networking sites indicated here (and yes, I recognize some of the biggies are missing here and we're talking registered users, not visitors and not regular users).

Now here's a better question, "how many servers do you think are powering the networks below?":

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

Social   Network	Registered Users (M)
Windows   Live Spaces	120
Facebook	115
MySpace	110
Habbo	100
hi5	70
Orkut	67
Friendster	65
Flixster	63
Classmates.com	50
Bebo	40
Netlog	36
Reunion.com	32
Tagged.com	30
flickr	27.4
Xanga	27
imeem	26
Adult   FriendFinder	22.3
LinkedIn	22
Skyrock Blog	22
BlackPlanet	20
Friends   Reunited	19
Mixi	18
Sonico.com	17
V Kontakte	16
Fotolog	15
Geni.com	15
LiveJournal	15
Plaxo	15
Badoo	13
Nasza-klasa.pl	11
Buzznet	10
Odnoklassniki.ru	10
WAYN	10
Multiply	9
Care2	8.9
PerfSpot	8
StudiVZ	8
myYearbook	5.1
XING	5
Hyves	4
MiGente.com	2.8
Cyworld	2.1
MocoSpace	2
Stickam	2
iWiW	1.7
Fubar	1.2
Twitter	1
Gather	0.5
IRC-Galleria	0.5
Ryze	0.5
LibraryThing	0.4
aSmallWorld	0.3
Bahu	0.3
Broadcaster.com	0.3
Hospitality   Club	0.3
Elftown	0.2
Faceparty	0.2
MyChurch	0.14
TakingITGlobal	0.1
Ravelry	0.08
	1313.32

Digital Women -25 Factoids to Consider...

Given the recent BlogHer conference, I found it interesting how little we know about the gender divide digitally. I came across a number of stats that suggest the tide is large, different and turning:

- depending on the source, 71-73% of women (representing 51-53% of the population) go online - many believe in North America they have surpassed men on this count (MORI, USC, Arbitron, Comscore) - the incidence levels are up 12 percentage points since 2000

- 33% of all women in the U.S. aged 18 to 75 participate in the blogosphere at least once a week (Compass Partners)

- 15 million women write blogs -  of online women, 53% read blogs, 37% post comments to blogs and 28% write or update blogs  (Compass Partners)

- 14% of men and 11% of women blog (Pew Internet)

- 46% of women-authored blogs are political or issue-driven

- BlogHer now has 26,000 members and 15,000 female-authored blogs listed in their directory (BlogHer)

- Women, young women in particular, are much more active on social networks (Rapleaf)
    - they tend to be more relationship and less transactional driven
    - the dollars spent to acquire a female user goes much further
       Facebook/My Space - 63% female
        LinkedIn    - 36% female
        Plaxo - 62% female
        hi-5 - 60% female

- Reasons why women blog (Compass Partners)
    - 65% for fun
    - 60% self-expression
    - 46% to get info
    - 41% to stay up to date
    - 40% connect with others
    - 39% keep a diary
    - 28% to participate in the blogosphere

- In lieu of visiting their favourite blogs, hardcore digital women would give up: (Compass Partners)
    - Alcohol - 53%
    - Newspaper/magazines - 43%
    - iPod - 42%
    - Chocolate - 20%

- 37% of women need their cell phone within reach 24 hours/day

- 70% of ringtones that are purchased are from women

- the fourth most interesting category of blogs are women's blogs - up 35% in 2007

- women are much more likely to look for health info online

- when purchasing online, men stick to their mission, women expand their mission -women take three times more tangents than men while shopping online and 65% consider online shopping to be window shopping (vs. 46% for men) (Nielsen)

- the Internet is considered a women's third favourite leisure activity after sleep and family (Yahoo)

- 42% of online women visited a social network last month (vs. 41% of men) (SRG)

- when social networking, men use it as a podium and women use it as a tool for dialogue
        - averagely across the 6 big social networks - women have 81 friends and men 78 (but women's relationships in networks also tend to be deeper)

- 40% of gamers and 64% of online gamers are women (Nielsen)

- 1/2 of the women who visit blogs are influenced by them for their purchase decisions (Compass Partners)

- 15% of women stream TV shows from network TV sites (vs. 11% for men) (SRG)

- women have 83 word of mouth conversations every week and more pass along stuff of interest than general public (55% vs. 51%) and purchase is influenced by WOM (53% vs. 49%) (Keller Fay)

- 2/3rds of men are comfortable showing creative work online and only 1/3rd of women are similarly comfortable (Northwestern)

- working women spend 9 hours on work-related and 1.5 hours on non-work related sites at work each week -slightly below men on both counts (Harris Interactive)

- as a sober reminder, women were more numerous than men online only in two countries (US and the UK)

And given my testosterone, couldn't leave this piece of trivia out - 42% of NASCAR fans and 33% of NFL fans and 28% of Major League Baseball are women.

The 3 Social Media Elephants in the Room & Social Media as The New Research Department

When placing social media in business discussion, there are usually three elephants in the room that need to be addressed:

1) it is not a mass medium - it's an intimacy medium - at least in it's current form - it has still not attracted the mainstream in totality or at any frequency to stand by itself - thus, if you want "reach" as a marketing objective, you must complement it with publicity and messaging in traditional media outlets; regardless, most marketing efforts spend nearly close enough to the marketing value trapped in these social media outlets but social media zealots have it wrong too - not everybody likes, participates or enjoys Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, Wordpress, insert favorite social network here - these people may in fact be the great unwashed, but if you're running a business, you invariably need to cater to them

2) It is a tactic - it's not the end objective - although it's a bright shiny thing that is often praised, monitored by the press and frequently misunderstood, social media in its classic definition (blogs, podcasts, social networks) is one of only a long list of peer-generated tactics that drive a company's goals, that's why my company Agent Wildfire, although social media practitioners, never specialize in it - we provide more value by being a full service provider of influencer campaigns, community building, influencer programs, product seeding, social media applications, blogger outreach, buzz and viral marketing, experiential initiatives, user generated content, advisory panel building and a wealth of other forms of alternative strategies and tactics that together lead to company and brand impact. I can count many industry people who don't put social media in the perspective it requires (and why would they given their level of social media specialization and vested interests?)

3) it is insight driven - not principally a sales driver - most active social media people are what we call Tastemakers and Trendspotters- they are quick to jump on new things and like to create and navigate through the wealth of change - they usually have profound talents in spotting interesting new stuff, identifying why its cool, mashing it up with other things they've seen and providing a roster of content to be associated with the next big thing - conversely the social media hardcore can be seen my mainstream audiences as highly discredible, partisan, unstable and unbankable, thus it's a tough road to hew from great blog posts to instant sales (yes, TechCrunch is one blog that is bankabale), as marketing execs around the world seem to concur.

It is however a great tool to be used for generating insights. Note the graph attached by  a TNS-Cymfony study  that states that 33% of senior marketing execs view social media's biggest role as an insight driver, followed by awareness, loyalty and reputation. 

Much as clients and ad agencies have tried   to ask their traditional media and ads to achieve way more than it can handle, as digital and social media experts, let's not demand social media to impact more than it is set up to do.

If you look at the other chart in the survey, in marketing execs view, social media's impact is in 6 key company areas:

• Filtering social media genuine insights and perceptions (65%) - the research department
• Creating word of mouth through influential online sources (62%) - the marketing department
• Social media publicity (45%) - the PR department/agency
• Posting on  video sites and complementing traditional ad channels (35%) - the creative department
• Participating in social networks (34%) - the community-building department
• Hosting a brand/corporate blog (31%) - the communications department

The notion that "social media" represents the future research department for smart companies gets  limited air play. Part of the reason is that by and large, research companies aren't the most progressive of organizations themselves and haven't embraced this concept yet (perhaps there's less incentive in monitoring conversation than hosting it themselves). And the other reason, not many companies let their research departments go near steering the company social media car.

So down with focus groups and mercenary online panels and cheers to social media - the future research department of smart companies.

Word of Mouth - Monopoly Edition