Fission or Fusion A Different Way to Look at Social Marketing

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privledge of speaking at Webtrends Engage 2010, their annual user conference. Each speaker was given 5 minutes to present a keynote. Here’s the link to the video http://tiny.cc/P2xgp

Look beyond Websites and start thinking, Integrated Digital Experience

My company, Ascentium, was named by Forrester Research, as one of the top web design agencies in the country last summer. It was an honor and I think a fair reflection of some great Web sites we’ve been building. But at the risk of diminishing the importance of Web site, I believe we’ve entered a new era, when producing a great web site is not enough to have an effective web presence and to keep up with your customer’s digital experiences.

The other week, I had the privilege of speaking at the first annual Integrated Marketing Communications conference in Kansas City. My topic was the introduction of the Integrated Digital Experience concept. Its premise is fairly simple and does not represent rocket science. But like most important concepts, its not the understanding that’s difficult, it’s the implementation that’s hard.

I’ve uploaded my slide deck to SlideShare and in future posts, will begin elaborating on what IDE means and what are some easy steps to making it happen. Check it out at http://www.slideshare.net/jkottcamp/the-digital-experience .

Privacy is at the core of what every marketer needs to think about

I’ve been given the privilege of speaking on a panel at next week’s Digital Hollywood in Los Angeles. The topic is Consumer Privacy, Tracking & Targeting: Consumer Rights and Enhanced Technology and Commerce Services. I’m being joined by a great group including Dan Palmer, VP, Atigeo, Bant Breen, President, Initiative, Dave Morgan, CEO, Simulmedia, Michael Dougherty, CEO, Jelli, Shai Samet, CEO, Samet Privacy LLC, Jason Cieslak, Managing Director, Siegel & Gale and moderated by Mark J. Kapczynski, Chief Operating Officer, Kontrol Media.

I will be tweeting from Digital Hollywood as well as posting after our panel discussion. It looks like it’s going to be a lively topic and I’m excited to be participating.

Social Media; The Battle between Hype and Reality

I had the opportunity to speak to the Forrester Research Technology Marketing Executive Council recently in conjunction with the Technology Forum in Chicago. The central theme of my talk was simply stated, as marketers, we need to start integrating social media into the rest of your marketing strategy and programs and stop treating Social Media as some magical new quasi religion.

I do not mean that there are not unique attributes of each of the various new channels, media and technologies that comprise social media; blogs, social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn, Twitter that we must examine, learn how to use and take advantage of in creating dynamic and meaningful experiences for consumers and businesses alike.

What I do mean is that instead of starting off with the attitude of “I’ve got to get me some of that Social Media stuff,” and invariably jumping right into figuring out which technology you need to buy, install and staff up to support, marketers needs to go back to their overall marketing strategies and figure out how each of the facets of social media can be leveraged to support their strategies, not drive them.

At this Forrester Research event, I had the privilege of delivering my talk on the heels of a presentation by Peter Burris, a research director at Forrester and a really smart and articulate guy. Peter’s theme was based on his recently released piece, Turning Your B2B Web Site Into A Community Hub. His premise, which I completely agree with, is that you need to start looking at how you integrate social media into your corporate Web presence. It is also related to the presentation I did at the Integrated Marketing Communications conference in Kansas City (see my post entitled, It’s time to look beyond Websites and start looking at an Integrated Digital Experience).

I won’t go through my entire presentation here, I’ve uploaded it at SlideShare and I encourage you to take a look. http://www.slideshare.net/jkottcamp/marketing-and-social-media-tmec-oct09

Jury Trials and Social Media: They’re not so different after all

I was on jury duty last week. I won’t go into all the details, but suffice it to say it was a criminal case and we ended up finding the defendant guilty. He will probably go to prison and it’s sobering to realize that you may have had something to do with sealing his fate. Choice does matter, though sometimes more than others.

So what do juries have to do with marketing and what is the connection between jury trials and social media? Well there’s the obvious, that a jury is just like any other audience and the lawyers are like competing brand marketers trying to spin their narrative so that you will choose one side over the other. But I think it goes a little deeper than that. Being a juror, I was not only a member of the target audience, but also a key influencer on the decision of the rest of the audience; the jury.

The attorneys did their best to convince us, from their opening statements where they each painted vastly different scenarios, through the presentation of evidence and down to their closing arguments where they tried to make the sale. But, back in the jury room, we saw right through the manipulations of “facts” and in the end pretty much discounted everything the lawyers said and relied on our own judgments and the perceptions and persuasiveness of our fellow jurors. We believed each other because we knew we had no vested interest in the outcome, except for making the right choice.

Again, what does this have to do with social media? Well, to my mind, the lawyers were like traditional advertising. They sure looked sharp when they were presenting, but after you got out of the room, their pitches went right out the door. What prevailed was the common sense and back and forth examination of the evidence and intelligent choices made by consensus. To me, this is a perfect embodiment of what social media is all about. Social media gives us the opportunity to reach out to our fellow consumers (jurors), listen to each other’s arguments and through discussion and interaction, reach a conclusion that results in a choice being made. In this case, the choice was guilty or not. For consumers it may one brand over another.

I left the jury room feeling I had made the best choice I could have and I was supported in that decision by my fellow jurors. I only hope I will feel that way next month when I start looking for a new wireless carrier.

Socialnomics Video – a fun “shift happens” style video for social media

I just looked at a very good short video making the case for the importance of Social Media in today’s world. it’s done ala the Shift Happens videos of a couple of years ago and you have to dig into the blog to find the sources of the some of the statements, not all of which appear to be as documented as I’d like to see. However it still is a good way to spend 4 minutes of your day and puts social media into a context most people haven’t grasped yet. check it out at http://socialnomics.net/2009/08/11/statistics-show-social-media-is-bigger-than-you-think/

Who’s Really the Competition

Who’s minding the competition?
I just wanted to pass along a personal anecdote about buying a book. Last weekend we had some friends over and my wife and a couple of friends started talking about a great new book they wanted to read. All I heard was that it was from the same author of The Shadow of the Wind.

To make a long story short, I went into a nearby Barnes and Noble today to buy the book for my wife. Since I didn’t know the name of the book, I binged (the verb to Google is sold school) the shadow of the wind from my mobile and got sent to Amazon. From there it was easy to click on the author’s name, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and find the name of his new novel, the Angel’s Game.

On Amazon it was $16.17. Staring in front of me at Barnes and Noble, it was $26.95, or 40% more. So wanting to save some money and a bit out of principle, I walked out of the store, planning to buy the book online when I got back to the office.

On the way back to the office, I stopped into the Deli counter of my local grocery store, QFC, to buy a sandwich to take back to my office. Walking through the store, I see an end cap display of new books including The Angel’s Game, at 25% off the suggested retail price. I ended up leaving the store with a roast beef sandwich and a copy of the book. I saved almost 7 dollars and I had the book in my hand instead of waiting for shipment.

The moral of the story is, well… purchase behavior is a fleeting thing. I represent a modern multi-channel shopper. I used a mobile interface to help me find what I wanted and compared prices. And the significant discount online was enough to alter my purchase intent. But then a completely different channel became open to me, one that provided me with enough of a discount to get me purchase on the spot and change my typical behavior. In the end, the grocery store won my book purchase. Knowing the competition isn’t always enough.

Other agencies aren’t the real competition, IBM is

I just read a very good report prepared by the IBM Institute for Business Value entitled, “Beyond Advertising, Choosing a strategic path to the digital consumer.” While the article itself doesn’t contain and new thinking, that I haven’t heard discussed across many of my peer networks and among the analyst community like Forrester Research, what does stand out is that IBM, a technology and business consulting company demonstrates it understands what most agencies and marketing services companies still fail to grasp. What it tells me is that instead of worrying about other agencies, especially the large traditional holding company ad agencies, my real competition is going to become more and more the big consulting firms who see the challenges of marketers for what they really are, business issues, that affect the very core of how a company operates and what will make it successful in the future.

The only solace I can have is the fact that while the big consulting firms can do a good job of identifying the problems, they are not equipped to actually produce integrated brands, marketing programs and technological infrastructure necessary to achieve the solutions they will recommend. That still leaves an open field to companies like Ascentium and Sapient and a handful of others. But we had better not slow down the innovation we bring to our clients, or Big Blue will be pushing us out the door.

It’s Still Marketing versus Sales

I was attending a peer conference today, with CMOs, VPs of Marketing and fellow Marketing Services practioners.  We discussed the state of marketing today and exchanged thoughts on the challenges we all are facing.

On the surface, it was surprising to me, how little the issues have changed over the last decade.  The central issues were still a lack of resources and budget and the tensions between marketing and sales.  But once we got beyond these issues, the real dicussions started.  Is there any meat to Web2.0 tactics?  Is role-based marketing something really new, or is it 1 to 1 marketing in new clothes?  Which marketing automation tools are worthwhile and should we be investing in more PR?

The consensus?  The jury is still out, but at least there’s comfort in knowing we’re all facing the same issues and can still come together to share ideas and experiences.

Tomorrow start the Forrester Research Marketing Forum. 

Omniture buys Visual Science, Great news for whom?

All summer, I’ve been planning to jump back into the blogosphere and look what finally pushes me back into writing.  Omniture is acquiring Visual Science; two of the best web analytics firms are joining forces.  But what am I supposed to make of it all.  I had heard the rumors for awhile.  It was no secret that Visual Science was looking for a suitor.  However the real question is who wins from this deal?

Visual Science customers?  I doubt it.  They will most likely either be forced to migrate to another platform or suffer the lingering death of diminishing support for a no longer offered product.  That assumes that Omniture decides to consolidate products.  If they don’t what have they gained?  If I were a Visual Science customer, I’d probably be visiting www.webtrends.com soon.  I’d love to see what their internal analytics show about their site traffic over the next few weeks.

Omniture- Well, they now are a much bigger company with far more customers.  But they also have 2 salesforces, 2 accounting systems, 2 partner networks and all the other duplication that occurs when two competitors merge, especially when most of the product offering overlaps with the other company’s.

WebTrends - I think they may be the winner in the short term.  They would be foolish not to get out and call on every single Visual Science customer and feed on their uncertainty.

The Analytics Industry - yes, we will all probably win in the long term if you believe consolidation breeds uniform standards which in turn promotes growth.  No we won’t win if oyu believe that consolidation of a market can also stifle innovation.

I guess time will tell, and despite all my questions, I wish everyone good luck with it.