Web Strategy Blog

Live Blog: Session on Twitter from Community Unconference

I have been Tweeting on Twitter for awhile and I really enjoyed this session on Microblogging and Twitter: who's using Twitter and for what? Use cases, whats the business value?

Some current uses of Twitter from the group:

• Drive Traffic to other web content - such as blogs, announcements, articles, etc.
• Promotion - PR - push out/ broadcast announcements, events, etc.
• News, breaking news, awareness
• Social Filtering - getting your news via Twitter now - some rely on Twitter now to get general news.
• Communication efficiency - the nature of the brief and frequent posts, its efficient and effective
• Brand Cachet - for those who are currently on Twitter
• Work streaming - updates, status,
• Reports from the field, live messaging
• Member support
• Conversation monitoring/ brand tracking

Twitter etiquette - "Twitiquette"

Things to think about...

• Tweet Formats: A lot of discussion about "is it acceptable to have multiple persona's on Twitter?" General consensus was yes, similar to having multiple emails.
• Do you Twitter professionally vs. personally? Public persona's - some people are experimenting with multiple identities in Twitter (personal vs. private). There are examples at companies like Zappos where there are many employees with "Zappos" in the Twitter name alias.
• What happens when a "fan" takes over your brand name on Twitter?
• When do you use Twitter to broadcast only vs. get into dialog?
• Signal to Noise: What makes a good tweet? Consensus: Succinct, pithy, poetic posts
  •  If your reply isn't pithy - then maybe it should be a direct message instead
    • If your reply is relevant to others (not just the receiver) its ok to broadcast it to everyone
  • Frequency of Tweets - what is too much? 7x/ hr
• Does anything go on your personal account? general consensus is yes.
• How do you decide who to follow? General consensus is that you can easily reach overload so you need to be selective about who you follow. Jeremiah Owyang uses Friend Feed.
  •  Is it fair expectation that if someone follows me when I am following them? Consensus was yes. Some people are weirded out with "branded persona's" who follow them out of nowhere.
  • Some people are experimenting with Twitter around events. Experimenting with importing participant lists and doing follow up on Twitter post event.

Where is this going? When Twitter grows up...

• Support needed for different persona's/ roles in your life (personal, private, hobbies). Its possibly a matter of both privacy and managing the data.
• Up time more? Badly needed reliability
• Monetization? What about advertising within Twitter clients? Would people pay for premium services? -> general consensus was yes, especially if it included improved uptime.

Webby Awards - five word speeches are the highlight of the show

Tuesday was the 12th annual Webby Awards. For many of the winners, the famous "five word speech" tradition for acceptance speeches is a fun and challenging part of the event. Here are some of my favorites from this year:

• Person of the Year - Steven Colbert: "Me, me, me, me, me!!!"
• Guides/Ratings/Reviews - ConsumerReports.org - : "It pays not to advertise."
• Social/Networking - Flock The Social Web Browser - Webby: "No s*it! We beat Facebook?"
• Broadband - ABC.com Full Episode Player - : "TV? Online? Never happen, kid."
• Lifestyle - epicurious.com - : "The icing on the cake."
• Youth - Nick.com - : "Sponge Bob is our sugar daddy."
• IT Hardware/Software - IBM - : "See you at the after party."
• Retail - Ikea Mattress - : "We enjoy sleeping with you."
• News - NYTimes.com - Webby: "No longer a newspaper site."
• Banking/Bill Paying -Mint - : "Get your money for nothing."
• Blog - Political - The Huffington Post - : "President Obama... Sounds good, right?"
• Government - Transport for London - : "A to B made easy."
• Science - nature.com - Webby: "Nature -- the natural selection."

What would your five word acceptance speech be for a Webby award?

2008 Color trends - Blue Iris and Bamboo - will they translate into web design?

Every year I eagerly await the forecasted color trends. This is a legacy from my fashion background, but today I look at color trends to see whats coming down the road for web design. These forecasts influence a multitude of design for everything from fashion to interior design to technology. Ever wonder how colors get chosen? See this video clip from a color forecaster

According to Pantone the HOT color of 2008 is Blue Iris... “From a color forecasting perspective, we have chosen PANTONE 18-3943 Blue Iris as the color of the year, as it best represents color direction in 2008 for fashion, cosmetics and home products,” explains Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “As a reflection of the times, Blue Iris brings together the dependable aspect of blue, underscored by a strong, soul-searching purple cast.”

Not everyone agrees with Pantone's choice, Margaret Walsh, Director of the Color Association says her choice is Bamboo - representing a leaning towards more "green" and ecologically sound color palettes. “My color for 2008 is bamboo.” A yellowed green, chosen from the association’s interior palette, she said, it “represents the stable green that is most on people’s minds.” She said it’s similar to a hue called Vineyard, adding: “I feel it just has a power. You know, these are very insecure times.”

Currently Crimson is doing market research on web design color trends for clients and it will be interesting to see how color forecasts get translated into web design.

What color trends are you seeing in web design?

In response to "Social Media Is a Hammer, But I Am Not a Nail"

I loved Cyndy Aleo-Carreira's blog post on why we don't need a social network for every product! I do agree that we don't need a social network for every product! I always like to view social media from the perspective of the user - and often when I don't see the value, its usually because I can't relate to the network, they charge for what I can get for free elsewhere, or the user experience is so poor that I don't bother.

There are a few social networks that come to mind that I just don't see the value in: Classmates.com (They charge for what Facebook provides for free); PMSBuddy (I don't feel the need to share this info with friends!) - though I am sure I am going to be flooded with emails on why these sites are incredibly useful. I have seen over time that there is a social network for everyone, but personally I don't want to socialize around every product or topic. Instead what I would like to see is social media tools (comment, rate, send to a friend, RSS, embed URL) become an integrated feature of most web based content.

My favorite social networks include: Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN, Experts-Exchange, Etsy and Pleoworld. Full Disclosure that I am biased when it comes to Ugobe/ Pleoworld - Crimson advises Ugobe on the strategy amd management of the Pleoworld community!

What Flavor of Web Strategist Do You Need?

I've been working in web for 12 years now - I built my first community strategy for a client in 1996. If its one thing I have learned its that everyone considers themselves to be a "strategist". Having said that, when you are working on web initiatives of any significant size you are working as a part of a team, an eco-system of people who all bring something important to the table.

In a conversation with a client we were reviewing just how many different flavors of web strategists there are - and how do clients determine what kind of web strategist they need?

General Web Strategist - this kind of web strategist has a broad and deep experience base, has usually come from an agency or consulting background... has really "been there and done that" with almost any kind of web project or business model. They are experienced enough to be flexible to work on most kinds of web projects and the best ones have implemented their strategies.

Web Marketing Strategist - a strategist who is focused on outbound web marketing techniques. They live and die by data and results.

PR Strategist - a PR professional who leverages social media and web marketing as an integrated part of PR strategy. Could include monitoring conversations, identifying influencers, syndicating content using social media for PR purposes

Brand Strategist - usually focused on more of the creative, UI and brand elements of web. These strategists usually come from a creative or agency background.

Advertising Strategist (Media, SEO, SEM, WOM) Focused on media and online advertising.

CRM/ Web Strategist - a strategist focused on the customer contact strategy, customer touchpoints and CRM. A sub-set of this can be relationship marketers or database marketers. It will be interesting to see how this role evolves given how social media has changed the touchpoints companies have with customers.

Web Analytics Strategist - focused on the measurement and analytics of web. Could encompass everything from basic web analytics to rich media, community and social media analytics. Like web marketers, for this strategist - data is king.

User Experience Strategist - a strategist that looks at the audience in detail and optimizes the overall user experience. Often these strategists come from an information architecture or creative background.

Content Strategist - plans the overall content in a web site - which could include editorial, third party content or user-generated content. Considerations such as assessing audience content needs, publishing strategy, licensing, syndication of content are all considerations.

Technical Web Strategist - sometimes referred to as a "Solutions Architect" Looks at the technology and infrastructure needs, technical requirements and informs the development needs. Typically these strategists come from a consulting or developer background.

Subject Matter Experts - Web strategists focused on a specific industry (SMB), point solution (wikis. blogs) or audience segment (Gen Y).

Community Strategist - A strategist that understands the complex interactions between community members and the ongoing needs, opportunities and dynamics of online communites. A sub-set of this could also be Community Managers who are very hand-on yet closely tied to the strategy of how to build, grow and manage the community.

Social Media Strategist - focused on leveraging social media for marketing purposes. In my opinion the best social media strategists are those that walk their talk - they actually blog, they use Twitter, they belong to social networks and communities.

I don't agree with Steve Rubel that the need for these roles will eventually disappear - I think that’s a wishful-thinking PR perspective. I have seen increasing demand in our enterprise client base for web and social media skills. While I do agree that these skills will eventually become required for all marketers, I believe that there is always room for experienced, quality consultants. Jeremiah Owyang did a post on the need for the social media manager and two distinct roles that Forrester sees emerging: the social media manager and the community manager.

Most enterprise marketers are just beginning to experiment with social media and I believe its a long way off before they acquire deep skills. In the meantime, when leveraging the skills of a web strategist, its important to ensure that you are engaging the right kind of strategist to meet your objectives.