Web Strategy Blog

Microsoft Windows new IT Pro Campaign "Talking About Windows"

Microsoft just launched a new campaign called Talking About Windows focused on IT Pro's where they are opening up the conversation about Windows 7. It includes interviews with Microsoft's top Windows 7 Engineers including Jon DeVaan, Mark Russinovich, Gabe Aul and others as well as some great Windows 7 early adoption companies.

 

TalkingaboutWindows.com offers IT professionals genuine insight on Windows 7 from the Microsoft engineers who helped build the product. Featured are video's and discussions about why product decisions and feature trade-offs were made. Also, IT Pro's can get real-world commentary from IT professionals as they share their Windows deployment and adoption experiences. If you are an IT Pro, check out this forum to express your opinions, discuss Windows and share adoption stories.

As a marketer, I am very interested to see the conversation around Windows 7 and the IT Pro customer is a great place to start.

Crimson Social Media Marketing Approach

In the spirit of "if you get it, share it" we’ve decided to start publishing some of the approaches, methodologies and marketing strategies that we are doing in the Crimson Consulting Interactive Services group, for which I am the lead Partner. We’ve worked hard over the past few years at creating and refining some approaches we have used across both F500 clients and some startups - particularly around Social Media Marketing.

In many ways this goes against the traditional management consulting and agency practice of treating everything as proprietary, but if there is one thing I have learned in the new modern marketing environment, its that sharing your approaches has a lot of advantages. The feedback, recognition and collaboration we have received when we have done this is invaluable and I am hoping that as I publish some of our approaches that other people will share theirs also. As a result we can all learn from each other, what is working, what isn’t and what is still experimental.

 

Here is the first framework - its the basic approach that we use for planning Social Media Marketing initiatives:

Crimson Consulting Social Media Marketing Framework: A repeatable approach for planning social media marketing initiatives

View more presentations from Karen Obrien.

What Do Obama and David Hasselhoff have in Common?

In the theme of "do we really need another social network?" comes a bold move by celebrity David Hasselhoff who has started his own social network called Hoffspace in late August. Since then I've been watching it to see the reaction and have been surprised by both the response and the amount of activity its getting. I won't get into the multitude of social tools, UGC and activity in his social network - because we all know its not about the technology - bottom line is his fans have enthusiastically responded. The user experience is train wreck - but that doesn't seem to matter, from my experience when you have an enthusiastic following people will tolerate a lot of UX issues. Its been publicly reported that over 13,000 users signed up on the first day.

Whats so new about a celebrity doing social networking? Many celebrities are prominent on large social networks and many leverage social tools/ social marketing in their promotions. The difference is that I haven't seen celebrities building a dedicated social network around THEMSELVES as a brand! I suppose you could argue that the current politicians running for election are doing just that EG: Obama. It begs the question - is the Hoff just another self-obsessed celebrity or a social networking pioneer?

   

On the business side - will we start to see social networks created around CEO's or tech celebrities? Or are the Robert Scobles of the world already social networks unto themselves? Who would you like to see create their own social network? Is this the end or the explosion of social networks as we know it?

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.

Events, Social Media and Chocolate

Today I spent the morning attending an amazing event in San Francisco: The Chocolate Salon at Fort Mason and it got me thinking about how dramatically the promotion of local events has changed in the past few years with the prevalence of social media and Web 2.0 technologies. Its a topic that appeals to both the chocoholic and web strategist in me.

The event itself was fantastic - a chocolatey, gooey and somewhat indulgent day for people who love everything chocolate. I checked out the Chocolate Salon site and hit cacao nirvana when I discovered TasteTV's "Chocolate TV" video segments!!! On it you can see every imaginable story around chocolate and the event: some examples of chocolate couture, chocolate hairstyles, stories about some of the fantastic chocolate manufacturers and retailers that we have right here in San Francisco.

How does social media play into it? For starters, like a lot of things I go to these days I learned about the event from both upcoming.org and meetup.com from my friends listing it as something that they were going to.

Here is a list of basic social tools that likely will (or should be used) to promote and report on the event before, during and after:

- Blogging - I'm blogging about it and so are others

- Comments on the event sites, blogs, etc.

- Twitter - attendees were twittering about the event

- Flickr - I uploaded photos to Flickr from the event and many others did too

- Groups , reviews, ratings and forums were formed in sites such as Yelp

- Video's and podcasts were created around the event

- E-Commerce - of course a lot of the local manufacturers and vendors have websites with e-commerce

and then there is the use of so many "sharing" tools that are inherent in many of the above that create a viral effect: "send to a friend", tagging, send a message, get link, get code.

What else could have been done? Social bookmarking on sites like Delicio.us or Ma.gnolia, recipe sharing, links to food or chocolate blogs, a wiki on chocolate related topics, mobile alerts, FaceBook groups ...the list goes on and on. What social tools do you use for events?

Forrester: Online Community Best Practices

Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester, just released a report on Online Community Best Practices. Its one of the most comprehensive and practical reports on building community that I have seen in a long time.

From my experience, the biggest challenges with online communities is to get a critical mass of traffic and consistent activity momentum amongst the members. I like the conceptual model of "Life Process of a Successful Community" and would add to that that the hockey-stick growth isn't always so consistent. Instead, most of the high-activity communities that I have helped to create have been more of an upward growth with large spikes of activity that were in direct relationship with major product and/ or marketing initiatives. Often, communities are unprepared to deal with increased community activity spikes and all of the associated needs that accompany it (site performance, moderation needs, spammers, increased support, etc).

I've seen many a community effort fail because of a belief that "If we build it, they will come". Successful communities require ongoing planning, management and MARKETING! So many companies underestimate the need for community marketing. In addition, some tolerance for trial and error until you optimize a good balance between the engineered platform experience and the organic member experience is required. As the report suggests - when building a community its important to plan and take a phased approach....and to conservatively drink the koolaid in terms of forecasting growth. At the same time at Crimson Consulting we counsel our clients to plan marketing activities that will help to fuel community activity and be prepared for the increased management necessary to support growth.   

B2B Marketing Budgets 2008 - How Will Online and Social Media Fare?

There has been a lot of talk about marketing budgets and our clients are asking us what they should be doing in the event of a downturn. In general, we aren't seeing a slow-down in terms of online marketing spending... some areas of interactive may hold up better than others if a true recession hits.

What's Happening with B2B Marketing Budgets? A recent survey by B2B Magazine taken at the end of Jan 08 shows that the majority (58%) of B2B marketers are not revising their 2008 budgets. Of those marketers (29%) that are reducing their marketing spend, the biggest cuts are not surprisingly in print (-45%). At the same time 12% of marketers are increasing their budgets and online marketing is the largest area of increase (+48%).

What About Social Media? Last week Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff stimulated a lot of discussion with his post on Why Social Applications will Thrive in a Recession and his report on Strategies for Interactive Marketing in a Recession where he predicts that social applications could actually thrive - note: Social Applications - not social media in general. The main point being that the first online marketing efforts to be cut will be mass-media awareness building marketing - while social applications (blogs, community, social networking sites, word-of-mouth marketing) engage the audience in the consideration phase and are relatively less expensive when compared to traditional marketing or PR.

What this means for B2B Marketers:

1. Focus on Social Applications - At a minimum, get involved in communities and social networks where your customers are already engaged. If your budget allows, include outreach to key influencers and optimizing your content and social applications for syndication.

2. Focus on a few things and do them well - the desire to experiment in social marketing sometimes leads to the temptation to just throw together some initiatives and see what sticks. Marketers would do better to focus on a few strategic initiatives that will drive their objectives and make them successful.   

3. Invest in Social Metrics, all of your social initiatives should have clear measurement and payoff. Many of the social influence tools can also be used to help marketers identify influencers and buzz which can in turn help you to optimize your social marketing. At Crimson we have been using BuzzLogic and Buzz Metrics with our clients with great success. Having said that, most of these tools are still fairly new and the reporting is of most value when overlayed with more traditional web metrics. Picking the right tool will depend on your objectives - and as with any online marketing metrics tool - analysis, insight and refinement are key.

My colleague Glenn Gow recently posted on Five Tips for Marketing in a Recession. I believe his points about Spending Smarter (showing clear ROI) and Fighting for your Resources are critical for B2B online marketing - and are very closely tied. Showing clear ROI will make it much easier to make a business case for retaining your marketing budget and resources.

Silicon Valley AMA Marketing Thought Event/ Contest

I attended the Silicon Valley AMA Marketing Thought Event at the Santa Clara Convention Center. The event was focused on ideas or concepts that solves the challenges we face today. What is the next big idea to change the face of marketing? Many thanks to President Gene Hall and the folks at SVAMA for putting on such an inspirational event.

There was an associated marketing thought publishing contest for the best idea. I was deeply honored when my entry "Web 2.0 Makes You ReThink the Basics" was chosen as the winner! The model below will be published in a book on Marketing Thought in September.

This is a model that I often use with Crimson clients in the Interactive Practice when doing web strategy or web marketing. It provides us with an innovative way to think about the more traditional "acquisition, retention and growth" marketing model in a modern way. It was great validation of the work we are doing in Web 2.0. There was a lot of fantastic marketing ideas submitted in the contest - you can see all of them in the SVAMA's blog.

There were many fabulous speakers at the event: Robert Goodwin from Gartner Research shared his insights on the "Ten most Effective Marketing Activities" and Tony Palazzo of Jack Morton talked about nGuage a new analytics measurement tool. Andy Sernovitz spoke about Word of Mouth Marketing - I loved his comment that "Advertising is the Price of Being Boring" ... basically that everyone should have something compelling that can be said about them that can be leveraged in WOM marketing! I picked up his book and I will do a review of it at some point. Guy Kawasaki told us about his new venture Truemors, which he was proud to tell us he launched in 7 days for a total of $12,107.09... in his lively talk there was a good lesson - which is that anyone can bootstrap a Web 2.0 company these days at minimum cost and in record time.

L to R:  Andy Sernovitz and Guy Kawasaki

The Retail Experience - I love browsing!

I finally had a chance to view Steve Ballmer of Microsoft's video of retail of the future from the NRF. It shows a woman managing her shopping list through her cell phone and using that to navigate through the aisles in an efficient way. It made me laugh because I actually know someone that has most of the aisles mapped out at the local grocery store to a shopping list. I have made fun of his obsessiveness of mastering the granular details of store layout, and this video validates his process! I'm not sure that this would be very appealing for a lot of people (including a lot of women I know) who actually like - oh dare I say - prefer to browse! I guess it depends on your perspective of the retail experience, I find shopping fun and entertaining. Others find shopping a chore that needs to be made as efficient as possible.

David vs. Goliath

In a recent discussion about brands that dominate a market, I was struck by how many examples are emerging in Web 2.0 companies similar to the David vs. Goliath story.  iTunes, YouTube, MySpace, Google all dominate - yet there are emerging competitors that threaten to put a crack in the foundation of what seems like an insurmountable advantage.

I have a belief that there are a few ways that smaller players can still have a differentiated offering and thrive:

• Focus on the user experience, make it dead-easy to use - Was iTunes the first to offer music downloads or even movie/ TV downloads for that matter? Of course not! There were a multitude of legal and P2P download sites before iTunes. The brilliance of iTunes is the sheer no-brainer ease-of-use and the way that you are able to keep purchasing downloads without even feeling like you are spending money.
• Pick a niche and serve it well - You don't need to have 80% of a viable market to have a thriving company. By choosing a focused niche within the market and going deep rather than broad - you can have an advantage over the dominant player. How will you know when you have been successful? When your brand becomes synonymous with that niche, and when you start seeing competitors imitating you. 
• Let users needs guide the direction - Craig's List that now dominates online classifieds has refused to take advertising revenues - why? According to Craigslist President and Chief Executive Jim Buckmaster "No users have been requesting that we run ads'' The now wildly successful Craigslist.com used to run head-to-head against large newspapers and by focusing on the needs of its users it is now considered a threat to the newspaper industry. 
• Make good use of your marketing $ - In order to get above-average response from your marketing investments, I have a strong belief that they need to be driven by BIG ideas. Web 2.0 companies have a clear advantage in this area where so many of the fundamentals of their business are well-suited to interesting and unique marketing initiatives that involve the user and new media. Everything from contests to recognition programs to initiatives that allow member expression - Web 2.0 companies have an opportunity to get returns and buzz with their marketing that more traditional companies envy.