The Net-Savvy Executive

Moving to our new home!

2006-09-20T21:16:00.000-04:00

After five months on Blogger, the Net-Savvy Executive is moving to a new home at net-savvy.com/executive/. The new domain goes along with some ideas I'm working on, and I hope to do a lot more with it. I expect to have an announcement of the next piece soon.

The archive will remain here at Blogspot, so any links to specific posts will continue to work. If you've subscribed to the feed at Feedburner, or if you receive updates by email, those will continue to work, too.

Please join us at net-savvy.com for the next chapter.

How not to succeed online

2006-09-19T11:48:00.000-04:00

I was thinking about "how to" articles on the Internet this morning. Writing a "how to" post is a popular tactic for getting attention for a blog, and everyone does it. This morning, I came across a "how not to" post that got me thinking about how they're different. I have a great "how not to" example for business, too.

I wrote how not to handle confidential information last week. This morning I came across Joe Wikert's post on how not to solve the "DVR problem." I haven't seen anything on how not to talk like a pirate, though.

And then there's the case of the Belgian court decision that requires Google to remove Belgian newspaper stories from its services. Is anyone really surprised that Google followed the court order to the letter and removed the newspapers entirely from Google Belgium? How not to succeed in Internet marketing, in one easy lesson. There's a whole industry built on optimizing a site's placement in search engine results, but in this case, some media companies used the court to achieve the opposite.

Who else has a good "how not to" story?

Tags: howto hownotto Google seo

Company research at LinkedIn

2006-09-19T10:16:00.000-04:00

LinkedIn has a new company page feature that promises to grow into a useful feature for profiling companies (via Vincent Wright). Would you like to know where a company's employees went to school or worked before? How about their average length of employment with the company? I assume the data are based on the information LinkedIn members have volunteered, so don't get too literal with the statistics, but still...

LinkedIn's strength is finding personal connections, and the bulk of the company page is a list of employees by function, with some text links to speed the kind of searches that have always been possible.

Only a few companies are listed today—Accenture, AMD, Apple, Cisco, Dell, IBM, JP Morgan Chase, Nortel and Pfizer—but this has a lot of potential.

Tags: LinkedIn intelligence

Forrester on Brand Monitoring

2006-09-13T18:02:00.000-04:00

Forrester Research has released their "Wave" report on seven brand monitoring services. They rank Nielsen BuzzMetrics and Cymfony as market leaders; MotiveQuest, Biz360, Factiva, and Umbria as strong performers; and Brandimensions as a contender. Only $995 for the complete report.

If your priorities and budget don't add up for a high-end brand monitoring service, you have other options for tracking your company's online reputation.

Update: Here's Peter Kim's summary, which includes a nice graphical summary.

Update2: I've published a broader look at the companies in this space, the Guide to Social Media Analysis, which includes profiles of 31 companies from 9 countries.

Tags: Forrester research reputation ORM

How not to handle confidential information

2006-09-06T21:24:00.000-04:00

We can talk about protecting yourself on the Internet, but if you say too much in front of your competitors, what's the point? John Andrews relates a little story about the risks of speaking in public (via David Churbuck):

You probably won’t listen to me if I suggest you keep your voice lower, not discuss tactical or strategic issues in a public forum, or speak in secret code, so this is the least I can offer you. If you finish your overly loud public “search marketing” pitch and walk out leaving your dream client behind, I will feel compelled to hand her my business card and offer her a free review of your written proposal. Like I just did.

I worked briefly for a large company that included information security in its new employee training sequence. Among other things, we were warned not to discuss the company or its business in public, and to avoid the accidental sharing of reading materials and computer files on airplanes. Our instructor, of course, had just enjoyed a long discussion of a competitor's business on her flight, courtesy of the competitor's employees sitting right behind her.

We pay a lot of attention to new risks online, but the old ones are still in the game.

Tags: intelligence security secret

Real-time research

2006-09-05T11:49:00.000-04:00

Can you type and talk at the same time?

I once had a help desk job that required taking notes on a computer while talking to the people who called us. We used abbreviations for some common phrases (such as whbd for "what has been done"), and we didn't bother with capitalization, but we summarized the conversation and recorded key details during the call. The key piece of equipment that made it work was the telephone headset, which gave us both hands for the computer and better sound quality for the phone call. Today's wireless headsets are even better, allowing movement around the room during a call.

How is that useful away from the help desk? When I have telephone conversations, I usually have a browser open. I can perform a quick search on the people and topics that come up and get more information while still in the conversation. I can look at company web sites when I talk to their people, and I can conduct a quick background check on cold callers. I get the benefit of some of the research I could do after the call without having to wait, which can change how I conduct the call.

Sometimes, it's not what you know, it's what you can look up. Just don't get so distracted by the computer that you fall out of the conversation on the phone. People can't really multitask, so this is only productive if your online activities mesh with your conversation. If the computer distracts you from the call too much, remember which connection includes an actual person and focus on the call.

Social media for marketing, PR, communications

2006-08-31T16:46:00.000-04:00

When you think of social media in business, do you focus on opportunities to improve the business, or do you worry about losing control of information and decisionmaking? Jerry Bowles expresses the perceived risks to senior executives in why CEOs are afraid of social media:

Large-scale adoption of the architectures of participation would represent a revolutionary change in organizational dynamics because–by giving lots of individuals a voice and audience through a networked platform–they force decisionmaking to be more transparent, democratic and consensus-based. [...]

In my experience, most leaders do not want to operate their organizations as experiments in democracy or collective intelligence. Not even our Presidents and Congresspeople want to do that. That’s why resistance to Enterprise Web 2.0 technologies is likely to be understated, but fierce, at the upper levels.

To gain a foothold, the new collaboration platform vendors are going to have to initially target already receptive areas like marketing, PR and corporate communications departments or divisions with specific projects which need networking and collaboration.

I like Jerry's conclusion, because my focus is on social media and search for market intelligence, which is geared toward... marketing, PR and corporate communications (and a few others).

It's also interesting to see the focus on social media for collaboration; there are so many ways to look at this stuff. I'm not entirely disagreeing with his concerns, but there are many ways to start using social media in the enterprise. Companies should be able to take advantage of the benefits without undermining management. Just think through the consequences before you use all the new toys.

Another way to avoid triggering CEO anxiety could be to focus on applications that don't threaten existing power structures (and a few features that might even enhance the CEO's influence in the company). Rather than going all-out for the revolutionary applications of electronic collaboration, look for areas where new technologies can help people do their current jobs more effectively and efficiently. It doesn't have to be dangerous.

Tags: social media marketing

Jargon 2.0

2006-08-30T14:18:00.000-04:00

It's becoming popular to complain about Web 2.0 even while using it. David Berkowitz says Web 2.0 "reeks of dot-com geek elitism," but it has the frustrating property of being useful—for framing his article, for example. He's not alone in disliking the term, but I haven't seen a good alternative, and we do need a shorthand to refer to the trends. At this point, Web 2.0 has momentum, and it will take a convincing argument to replace it.

Jargon is specialized language that people use to communicate efficiently within specialties. If I pitched an article on, let's say, HR 2.0, the people who most dislike the whole "Web 2.0" family of terms would have a good idea of what I meant. The alternative is to spend time and effort reciting the philosophy and technologies that make up the universe of Web 2.oh, look, a post on Recruitment 2.0. And here I was, trying to be hypothetical. Here are a few more 2.0 references:

PR 2.0
News 2.0
Office 2.0
Small Business 2.0
TV 2.0
Dead 2.0 and Bubble 2.0—don't ignore the contrarians!

Does this matter to your business? Whether you like the terminology or not, things are changing on the Internet, which is increasingly embedded in people's lives. It's not hard to see how changes in the online environment will affect your business sooner or later (and my money's on sooner).

For those who need an introduction to Web 2.0, here are a few links to get you started:

Tim O'Reilly's definition
the conference
the trademark controversy
Troy Angrignon's ChangeThis manifesto combines a solid background on Web 2.0 with applications for business.

We seem to have a number of discussions about terminology going on—about Web 2.0, RSS versus feeds, social media versus CGM, Google as a verb—the debates only prove that people are interested in these topics, and that the whole Internet environment isn't mature yet. Vigorous discussion of terminology is just part of the growth process.

I won't try to defend Web 3.0, though.

Tags: jargon web2.0

Social media use and Google

2006-08-25T16:52:00.000-04:00

Neil Patel did some searching and came up with 10 things Google knows about you. It's not so much what Google knows—they know even more, such as your search history. It's what Google will share with the world, and it's not just Google, it's Internet search in general.

Social bookmarking sites you use
Photo sharing sites you use
Your favorite blogs
Your MySpace presence
Where you blog
Your Wikipedia entries
Forums you participate in
Books you have written
Podcasts you have been on
Your LinkedIn presence

I see three things to take from this list. First—and you really should have done this already—Google yourself (yes, I still use Google as a verb). You should never be surprised by anything someone learns about you online. Set up alerts and vanity feeds to keep track of new references that appear. Then, think about how you can use your visibility in search results to your advantage.

Second, don't use your real name if you want to separate your public image from some of your personal activities (such as personal blogs or photos on Flickr). Don't be surprised if your secret identity is revealed eventually, though. If you really want to keep a secret, don't let it play on the Internet.

Third, turn the list around. These are examples of things Google (and the others) can tell you about other people. If it feels like an invasion of privacy to you, don't do it, but there's useful information out there, and refusing to discover it could be a competitive disadvantage.

The bottom line on privacy is that every new service you use potentially adds detail to your online reputation. You can worry about the loss of privacy, or you can focus on the benefits of visibility. Just remember the level playing field of search: anything "they" can find, you can find, too.

Tags: privacy intelligence google social media

Strategies for online reputation monitoring

2006-08-15T15:36:00.000-04:00

Are you paying attention to what your brand is doing online? You should. Bloggers write about their experiences as customers, and the news isn't always good. The list of famous examples is short and overexposed but informative. Bad publicity from a blog can lead to real-world consequences (in Kryptonite's case, around $10 million worth). By now you should be monitoring your online reputation. Here are the different ways you can do it.

Do it yourself (or assign it internally).
Grab a feed reader, set up some vanity search subscriptions, and look through the results. If your company is small enough, or has a low profile, this may be all you need.
Hire a consultant.
Hire an outsider who will use the same types of tools you could use yourself. The difference comes from hiring someone with expertise in social media and Internet search, who will not be learning the technologies and culture on your dime. Choose this option if you don't have the time or expertise to do it yourself and your exposure doesn't justify the cost of high-end services.
Hire an agency.
Monitoring social media on behalf of their clients is a fast-growing specialty of many interactive marketing and PR agencies. The proprietary tools they claim to have may be nothing more than a feed reader and an analyst, but these firms should at least be good at connecting the brand monitoring service with your other marketing activities. This approach may be best when you use the same agency for their other services.
Subscribe to an automated monitoring and analysis service.
At some point, the quantity of search results becomes overwhelming. If your search terms (company name, brand name, products, etc.) appear many times a day or get lost in a sea of irrelevant search results, you need a computer to do the initial screening. Umbria and Biz360 offer software-based services that move beyond simple keyword matching into natural language processing and other advanced analytical techniques. You'll need a budget that approaches the cost of a mid-level marketing employee, but this is the inexpensive way to escape the limits of manual methods.
Contract with a high-end monitoring service.
If you have a big budget (reportedly 7 figures) and a well-known brand, look into the high-end services from Nielsen BuzzMetrics and Cymfony. Both start with data mining and analytical technologies similar to Umbria's, but they add the services of human analysts. Large corporations and high-profile brands are most likely to have both the need and the budget for these services.

Frankly, the companies who are likely to sign up with these companies are the ones who already subscribe to multiple research services, so I wouldn't be surprised if they work with multiple reputation-tracking services, too. These companies are most likely to benefit from an intelligence delivery system to manage the distribution of multiple intelligence sources.

When selecting your approach, consider these questions:

What's your budget? We might as well start with the obvious question. These approaches vary from free (except for the cost of your time) to over a million dollars, and budget constraints will eliminate the high-end options for many companies.
What's your visibility? Companies aren't equally visible, online or otherwise. If your company has a low profile, the manual processes (1,2,3) may be adequate. If your name appears thousands of times daily, you need automated help (4 or 5).
What's your exposure? If a negative story about your company or products were to appear, would it affect your business? How many constituencies do you need to keep happy?
How much analysis do you want done for you? The five approaches are listed in order of increasing service and analysis provided. For example, the difference between Umbria and the most expensive services is the expert analysis added to the software analysis.
Are you already working with a company that offers these services? If their service is appropriate to your needs, you can benefit from what they already know about your business.

If this seems like a good idea but a lot to sort out, I can help. Send an email to info@socialtarget.com to get things started. Doing nothing is the only approach that is wrong for everyone.

P.S. Reputation-monitoring companies should be quick to find references to themselves online, right? I wonder how quick? The current time to beat is 150 minutes.

Update: You'll find more on this topic under reputation at the new Net-Savvy Executive.

Tags: reputation intelligence umbria biz360 buzzmetrics cymfony

What does "google" mean to you?

2006-08-09T15:22:00.000-04:00

Google's in the dictionary, and they don't like it (or at least their trademark lawyer doesn't like it). I see their point; they don't want to be the next example of a company losing its trademark protection because their name became synonymous with their category. What do you think? When you use google as a verb, are you referring to Google or using the term as a generic term for Internet search?

Contrast the Google story with Digg and Furl, which encourage the use of their names as verbs. Bad for the trademark, good for promotion?

Tags: Google trademark poll

Don't google Google

2006-08-08T13:21:00.000-04:00

You might ask why they aren't excited by the recognition and shout, "Yahoo!" But unlike companies whose names come from common words, Google needs to protect its trademark—now in the dictionary—from becoming a generic word. They'd really like it if, instead of suggesting that you Google yourself (even with the capitalization), I suggest you look yourself up with the Google search engine.

From The Seattle Times, the reaction to a note from Google's trademark lawyer (via SEW via Andy Beal):

Google, evidently, took offense to a passage in The [Washington] Post article: "Google, the word, now takes its place alongside the handful of proper nouns that have moved beyond a particular product to become descriptors of an entire sector—generic trademarks."

This characterization, the letter warned, is "genericide" and should be avoided.

This is a necessary part of protecting a trademark and a sign of the company's success. It's ironic that only the companies with innovative names have this problem. And then there are the companies that encourage the use of their names (digg, furl) as a verb, not generically, but referring specifically to their service. Is google as a verb really becoming generic, or does it refer specifically to the Google search engine?

Extra credit: Anyone can send an email. When you really want to get someone's attention, do something different. The Internet's 800-pound gorilla sent the newspaper a hand-addressed letter, which was unusual enough to be mentioned in the story.

Tags: Google trademark

Feeds for market intelligence delivery

2006-07-31T14:55:00.000-04:00

I've been working on an idea to improve the delivery of market intelligence within companies by combining feeds and some specialized services from various Web 2.0 companies. The goal is to create an intelligence environment that helps companies extract more value from information they already pay for, and to leverage the open-source intelligence capabilities of specialized search services. The original idea grew out of the personal dashboard I've kept since 1997.

I've worked in companies with major investments in outside research. To get to the information, we had to go to an internal web site to find out how to connect to each research firms' results. Then we had to go to each outside site with a different password and search through the research firm's results to find anything useful. The process all but guaranteed that most managers wouldn't have time to learn what was available. With feeds, the research can come to its audience, instead of waiting for people to find it.

The process starts by combining internal and external sources of market intelligence, such as internally generated competitive intelligence, analyst reports, news sites, and blog monitoring services. Add a capability for internal analysts to tag and prioritize entries, and deliver the result to multiple channels based on per-user, per-tag preferences. The end product is an individually customized intelligence environment, where information is available on web sites, feed readers, email clients, and mobile devices, and the most urgent information can be pushed to mobile phones via SMS.

You could build a system like this with a combination of free web-based services, but companies need to be able to keep the information confidential. What's needed is a system that does it all inside the firewall.

I was thinking of starting a company to build this system, but then I discovered that you can do most of it with NewsGator Enterprise Server. Maybe I should work with them, instead.

Tags: RSS intelligence NewsGator

Aside: What's the guess on how long it'll be before this post gets its first visit from newsgator.com? Clock starts... now.

Update: Just over 2.5 hours.

Can't keep bad habits secret

2006-07-27T21:57:00.000-04:00

If you pay any attention to blogs and their impact on business (and it's getting harder to ignore), you'll see a tendency among bloggers to attack companies that have problems or bad habits. Showing the world a friendly face while hiding customer-hostile policies behind the "company confidential" veil isn't a lasting strategy in our age of involuntary transparency. If your business processes and policies are making enemies for you, expect embarassing facts to come out eventually. Bloggers especially seem to enjoy shining a light where companies don't want it shone.

A plain manila envelope arrived on our desk this week. Inside was the eighty-one paged "Enhanced Sales Training for AOL Retention Consultants" manual. Upon opening, the flowchart, "Guide to a World-Class Retention Call," fell out.

Consumerist, AOL Retention Manual Revealed

Shel Holtz summarizes with this observation: "There are no secrets anymore, just information the audience doesn't yet have."

Tags: secrecy PR

Need help using Google?

2006-07-27T21:20:00.000-04:00

Having trouble figuring out all the different services on Google? You could click on more to see a list of services, or you could try the new Google Help, which provides an introduction to their many services (via Google Blog, of all places). There's also an alphabetical list. Besides being useful for getting help on specific topics, this is also a good way to discover Google's services beyond web search.

If all you need is a few tips on search techniques, the cheat sheet is a good place to start. When you're ready for the advanced lessons, try Google Hacks. If you want more detail than that, contact Google HR—they'll want to talk to you.

Yahoo and Ask have search help pages, too, but Google has all the buzz.

Tags: Google search help

4 1/2 ways to find people

2006-07-26T22:37:00.000-04:00

I went to a reunion last weekend—actually, I organized it. About three years ago, I started tracking down people from a summer camp program we all attended in 1981. I started with a 25-year old address book and a web site. By now, 21 of the original 25 have been located, and we've been catching up online, on the phone, and in person. How it happened is an example of how a research project can combine online and offline techniques.

Here are four and a half free techniques I used to find these people from my past. If you want to spend money, it's even easier.

Reverse vanity search
The whole project started when one of my old friends found himself on one of my web pages. He was conducting a vanity search—looking himself up on Google. A reverse vanity search uses this tendency of people to look themselves up to find them. You create a web page that includes the names of people you want to find, and caption it with something like, "if you find yourself on this list, send me a note!" I've found a couple of people this way, but it's obviously slow and unreliable.

A chance encounter
I ran across another of the guys in the office parking lot after lunch. I hadn't seen him since the mid-80s, but we were working at the same company in 2000. I don't count this as a research technique, but it made a big contribution to the overall success of the project.

Google, Yahoo, and the rest
Finding people on Google, Yahoo and the rest was a major effort that led directly to a few people and contributed to finding more. Nobody was all that easy to find, but when I knew a little something—an employer, or where they went to school—I was able to add search terms that sometimes led to the right people. I knew everyone's age, so I sometimes searched on name and assumed graduation year (high school and college). I knew home towns, so I added those for other searches. If I found a reference to a city, I moved on to the phone book.

Phone book
Local phone numbers are easily available from many web sites. I always forget the URL, and I haven't bookmarked it, so I usually start at Excite and follow the white pages link. (The actual lookup is at InfoSpace. Maybe I'll remember it now.)

I was starting with 25-year old addresses, and in a few cases, my friends' parents were still there. Those were easy. In other cases, I guessed or followed leads on states of residence and starting combing the online phonebooks. I apologized for wrong numbers when I guessed wrong, and I found a lot of the people I was looking for.

Networking
The guy in the parking lot knew an email address for a woman who had moved to Seattle. The one who found me through his vanity search knew of another who had been a Marine pilot and had become a lawyer. Some others were still in touch or able to find people later in the project. The nice thing about finding people in an old social network is the help the others add as you progress. Even if they don't know how to reach someone, they may be able to add enough information to make the other search techniques work.

The other kind of offline networking involved finding and contacting people and organizations who knew how to reach my friends. From a quote in a newspaper article (found in a Google search), I determined that the ex-Marine lawyer is back on active duty. The Marine Locator Service had useful information that pointed in the right general direction. From there, I called several bases and offices in the Navy and Marine Corps until I found someone who looked him up in a directory and gave me a work phone number. I got phone numbers and email addresses from the alumni affairs offices at a few universities, once I knew where someone went to school, and in a few cases, I found a relative who knew how to reach the right person.

Most of the networking searches combined telephone contacts and Internet searches based on what I learned on the phone. It was usually an iterative process, not a single step.

The final four
There you have it. Four and a half techniques that reunited 21 of the original 25 participants in a summer program 25 years ago. The remaining four are women, probably married with new surnames. One was named Smith, which is one of the most effective ways to hide on the Internet or in the phone book. None has family at the old address, and all of my search tricks haven't worked. The reverse vanity search is still in place, and we still hope to add them to our ongoing activities.

I like to help people learn how to make more effective use of the Internet search tools available to them. There's a lot more to Internet search than typing a simple word or phrase in Google. In addition to the fancy techniques, though, the most important attributes of a successful search are persistence and iteration. As you research a topic, you learn bits and pieces that can help you refine your search or guide you in new directions. A little applied curiosity can lead to a lot of useful information with today's tools.

We had a very nice weekend in the mountains.

Tags: search people reunion

Yahoo RSS Feeds

2006-07-26T11:11:00.000-04:00

Want to follow a topic from the world of Yahoo? Grab a feed from the big list of Yahoo RSS feeds—from Ask Yahoo to Yahooligans, 36 different types of feeds in all (via Steve Rubel).

Tags: RSS Yahoo

Admin: better commenting

2006-07-14T11:39:00.000-04:00

I noticed this morning that some of the comments settings on this blog weren't what I thought they were. I've fixed them, so Blogger membership is no longer required to comment, and I'll be notified by email when comments are posted. My apologies to those whose comments I missed at the time.

Yesterday was also the day that I accidentally disabled site statistics for about 8 hours. Naturally, it was a day that saw probably ten times the usual traffic (based on AdSense impressions). Oh, well.

What can you do with RSS?

2006-07-13T18:27:00.000-04:00

RSS publishing isn't just for blogs. Paul Gibler has some examples of other RSS applications in No RSS feed? You're fired! (via Joe Wikert). See his article for examples of each:

Auction Feeds
Promotional Feeds
Job Feed
Local and Global Content Feeds
Public Relations Feed
Weather Feed

For the individual RSS user, some of the most powerful feeds come from search engines, tagging sites, and job boards (which can be useful sources of information even if you're not on the market).

Then there's the original idea for RSS, which finds updated content on the web sites you subscribe to. Using RSS to read blogs is the obvious use. Traditional media outlets are also offering feeds. Look at the Business Journals feeds page for an example of how they can tailor their feeds to your interests.

Tags: rss

Listening to social media

2006-07-13T17:07:00.000-04:00

Blogging as an outbound marketing tool gets all the attention, but listening to social media can make you more effective in your job even if you're not in a positon to create a company blog. While business blogging is something for senior management and marketing types to decide, listening is available—and useful—to everyone.

In my simple dichotomy, speaking refers to blog publishing, online marketing, personal branding, and any other things companies and individuals can do to increase their visibility online. Speaking is when you contribute content or communicate your message. Blogging, commenting, and tagging are speaking.

Listening is paying attention to what others are speaking, using social media to build and maintain your knowledge or expertise, learning about people and companies by what they and others have to say. This is one of the major themes of my work: how to use social media and related technologies as sources of market intelligence.

First, let's define social media. It's a new term that refers to a variety of online media, such as blogs, message boards, and social tagging sites. Social networking, mailing lists, and Usenet newsgroups also belong on the list. The ability of any reader to become a publisher or editor is what makes these media social. Hence, social media.

So, what is it about listening that is interesting? For one thing, these are tools that a majority of Internet users don't know about. It's easy to dismiss them as toys for geeks, but those who explore them will find real value, regardless of functional role. Here's a sampling of what you can do by listening to social media:

Learn from experts in your field. Experts use their Internet presence to promote themselves, to share their knowledge, to express their creative side... Really, it doesn't matter why they're writing. Whatever you do for a living, especially if expertise is important, someone is probably giving away bits of knowledge on a blog, in a discussion forum, on a mailing list, or in online articles.
Create your own news clipping service. Use RSS feeds from search engines and online news sources to follow news in your industry as it happens. Or subscribe to a free news clipping service by email.
Catch trends early. Bloggers are an early-adopter crowd that skews young. If you want to know what's coming next, look online.
Discover the right people. While you're sampling the tasty bits of knowledge scattered around the Internet, you'll find people in your field. The comments fields on their blogs are an invitation to connect. A link to them from your blog is an even better invitation. Social networking sites like LinkedIn can also help you find people you'd like to know but don't generally provide a strong introduction.
Find potential partners and customers. Search the web, blogs and social networking sites to find the companies and people who are a match for your business. Avoid surprises by using online tools to learn more about them before you make initial contact.
Protect your brand online. This starts to blur the distinction between listening and speaking, but we've seen enough incidents to prove that blogger relations is now a required part of a company's PR activities.
Monitor blogs with an eye toward customer service. Most of the painful company/blog conflicts have started with customer-service complaints. Head off the painful media exposure by finding the complaints on blogs and addressing the issues they identify.

OK, this is getting long. The point is, you can do a lot with emerging Internet services, and you don't have to be in a technology role or company to benefit from them. If you want help finding the benefits for your company, email me.

Tags: social media market intelligence competitive intelligence career

The first rule of social media

2006-07-07T12:05:00.000-04:00

What's that Demotivators line—"It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others." The entertainment industry seems to want that role on the Internet. This time it's Paramount providing an object lesson in dealing with bloggers.

For those just entering the discussion, here's an easy-to-remember first rule for dealing with bloggers who write about you, your company, or your products:

Don't be stupid.

OK, that's simplistic, but you know the problem with common sense: it's not so common. An alternative might be, "First, do no harm." Or, perhaps, "Look for the opportunity first, then the threat."

I won't retell the story; it's all over the place. The short version is that Paramount's lawyers attacked a movie blog that was promoting an upcoming Paramount movie. This isn't a case of dealing with criticism online; it started with favorable coverage. Because of Paramount's actions, the coverage is now decidedly negative.

Here's Mack Collier's bottom line for marketers:

What Paramount did, was fail to realize that they are no longer the only source for their marketing message. Their lack of understanding about the viral nature of blogs and the internet, made them believe that if they shut-down a blog, they shut-down the problem... Paramount didn't see John as their marketing partner, they saw him as their enemy. And because of their actions, now that's exactly what he is.

Attacking your supporters is just stupid. Apparently, it's necessary to warn against stupidity before going into the finer points of blogger relations. And, for the Hollywood types:

Get with the program. Paramount and others have used web sites to market their movies for years. Whether you create movie-centric blogs or work with outside bloggers, blogs are a natural communication channel for a mass-market business. That's especially true with movies that appeal to a young, tech-savvy audience. You just need to learn how they work.
Don't mistake your lobbying position for reality. Not every unlicensed use of your content is theft. Your overly aggressive legal posture caused this mess.
Still pictures are not your product. A few unauthorized stills that help sell the movie shouldn't be a problem. That's why you have that love/hate relationship with the tabloids.
Pre-release publicity is a good thing. Especially when it's positive. Ask your marketing people.

Y'know, I'm looking for the deep insights, but I keep seeing these examples of companies blowing the basics. Don't be one of 'em, ok?

Update: Paramount has apologized. Smart move. When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is stop digging. Apparently, taking down The Movie Blog was an accident.

The interesting question now is, how long does this episode reverberate? Even assuming Paramount does all the right things (which appears to be what they're now doing), what are the longer-term effects? Accepting that this was an accident, what does it say about their legal tactics? Accidents tend to happen when you play with loaded weapons.

The staying power of business-oriented social networking

2006-07-06T22:22:00.000-04:00

The business-oriented social networking site LinkedIn has generated a substantial following, lots of hype, privacy concerns from skeptics, and disdain from other skeptics. Is it a useful tool for making connections in business or an overhyped exercise in narcissism?

I'm a fan of LinkedIn. I can't point to any particular business success I can attribute to LinkedIn, but it has helped me learn about people and companies I've encountered in the real world, and I continue to build my LinkedIn network. I'm aware of the privacy concerns, and I've been turned down by people who don't like the whole idea, but I'm careful about what information I share in the system.

I do question the likelihood that people will maintain an involvement in more than one social network. The student-oriented Facebook and more social MySpace don't really compete with LinkedIn, but there are other business-oriented networking sites, like Ryze and Ecademy. I can't comment on their relative merits, because I haven't spent any time with them. Although I have an account on Ryze, I just can't see duplicating the effort that has gone into my LinkedIn network. I also can't imagine inviting the same people into multiple social networking sites. Claiming more than 6 million members—compared to 250,000 for Ryze and 80,000 for Ecademy—LinkedIn seems to be the winner for now.

A link from a comment on Andy Beal's blog took me from Jeremiah Owyang to Guy Kawasaki and eventually to an interesting variety of perspectives on social networking. Tristan Louis takes both sides of the discussion with 5 reasons why social networks fail and 5 reasons why social networks can succeed. Fred Stutzman raises an interesting challenge to LinkedIn in situational relevance in social networking websites:

Unfortunately for LinkedIn, the only time people strongly rely on their personal-professional secondary social network are in times of need. When someone has a comfortable job, there is limited incentive to invest much time in a site like LinkedIn. While LinkedIn serves a real need, its users will never be simultaneously vested in the system the way Facebook's users are.

Fortunately for those networkers in need, recruiters have discovered the value in LinkedIn. I think the value is there for other functions, too, especially those who interact with other companies—and anyone who might end up visiting the job market some day. The best time to build your network is before you need it, and LinkedIn is a good tool with a variety of uses.

Tags: linkedin networking social+networking

Reminder: Everything is global online

2006-06-28T21:17:00.000-04:00

The old Usenet client, rn, has a warning about thinking before you post, because thousands (later, millions) of people will see your post. The web is just like that, but without the need to learn a different way to connect to the Internet. You never know where your reader may be.

A few days ago, I (in North Carolina) posted a few comments on Liz Strauss's (Chicago) blog. Now, Mirona Iliescu has written a follow-up post linking to both Liz and me from Bucharest, Romania: Yay! I'm an octagon!

I'm used to seeing international traffic on my web site, because of the international affairs site I've run since 1995. A broadband over powerline report I wrote in 2004 still gets visitors from around the world, too. But this is the first time (I think) that my blogging has generated links outside North America.

The Death of Distance, indeed.

Blogs are becoming standard on corporate web sites?

2006-06-26T13:40:00.000-04:00

Adotas reports on a new study of corporate blogging in Corporate blogs to grow through end of 2006:

According to JupiterKagan’s “Corporate Weblogs: Deployment, Promotion, and Measurement” report, 35% of big companies will create corporate blogs this year. By the end of 2006, 70% of corporate websites will contain blogs.

I've always been a fan of the equalizing power of technology—how new applications like desktop publishing, broadband Internet and e-commerce gave smaller companies capabilities that had been beyond their budgets. As corporations adopt off-the-shelf blogging platforms for their own use, this looks like a reversal of the process—big business taking advantage of capabilities that were developed for individuals first.

The tools are widely available. Is this the year that your company should start blogging? Are your customers conversing without you? I'm not completely sold on the idea that every company should have a blog (I can think of some that probably shouldn't), but I do think that every company should make an informed decision about blogging before so many companies start blogging that customers start to expect it from everyone.

This isn't the year for informed executives to wonder what a blog is.

Update: Jupiter's report has generated some skeptical discussion and a negative review from one blogger who went out and bought it. So, let's not put too much trust in those optimistic numbers.

Is poor customer service a brand attribute?

2006-06-21T23:21:00.000-04:00

There's only so much you can do to counteract bad publicity—online or otherwise—if your business operation is generating gems like this:

While Comcast was sleeping

Comcast technician falls asleep on the customer's couch while on hold with Comcast. Customer puts video of sleeping tech on the Internet. Oops.

Comcast generated lots of heat last August with a customer invoice addressed to bitch dog. For their sake, let's hope this isn't a new summer tradition.

Update: I like Jim's advice to Comcast.

Update2: "Your Call Is Important to Us. Please Stay Awake," The New York Times.

Blogger relations in a nutshell

2006-06-20T21:57:00.000-04:00

WOMMA's Andy Sernovitz summarizes blog PR in blogs are upside down (via Applied Blogging Workshop):

Five steps to earn a good reputation with bloggers
Follow the conversation
Participate
Show that you are listening
Convert critics when you can
Write for the record

Short, sweet and essential reading.

Blog monitoring for proactive customer service

2006-06-20T20:53:00.000-04:00

What's the point of monitoring blogs? I'm not referring to reading blogs that interest you, or that are relevant to your business. I'm referring to the practice of using search tools and feeds to discover blogs that mention you, your company, or your products.

The obvious answer, which is supported by popular examples such as Dell Hell and the Kryptonite bike lock debacle, is to be aware of negative comments that can gain traction in the blogosphere long before they appear in mainstream media. Catch 'em early, and you have an opportunity to correct the problem, defuse the complaint, and avert the crisis. Miss it altogether or react badly, and "why you're bad" becomes part of your image online. That's the "paranoid defense" school of blog monitoring, though the standard paranoia observation applies (just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you).

David Churbuck has suggested blog monitoring to provide proactive tech support (via Naked Conversations):

A month ago I posted a modest proposal of using blog monitoring to proactively deal with service issues rather than using monitoring as a paranoid defense against assaults by product haters.

...So, on a daily basis, me and a bunch of people look at Blogistan to see who is saying nice and naughty things about us and our products.

(Go to the original post for the long, but very worthwhile, explanation.)

Now, if your product is a high-end PC (Churbuck's is the ThinkPad), your market is more likely than most to include bloggers (and highly-opinionated customers). But it's a great approach to interacting with blogging customers. Just extend the notion of tech support to customer service as it applies to your business.

If you already plan to monitor blogs in the defensive mode, catching these opportunities to provide customer service is a tiny additional effort. As you screen the results of your vanity feeds for PR opportunities, forward the customer service items to someone who can take care of them. Your blog monitoring activity becomes another point of contact into your service activity. Do this well, and you could even start generating the other kind of blog PR—the positive kind.

Review: The Radical Edge

2006-06-08T11:50:00.000-04:00

My review of Steve Farber's book, The Radical Edge, is up at the 800-CEO-READ blog.

Using RSS is like having a 28-hour day

2006-06-07T20:37:00.000-04:00

When I talk about social media and Internet-based market intelligence tactics, I try to avoid too much tech-talk. I'm showing non-technical business people how these tools can make them more effective and efficient in their work, and for the most part, it's not really a technology topic. You can do most of what I talk about with your web browser and e-mail client. All you have to learn are a few new web sites and, more importantly, a way of thinking about how these services can be useful.

The one exception is RSS. A feed reader with relevant subscriptions converts your web-based information habits from a tool that you use to an autonomous system that actively scans the Internet for the information you want. I've always been a fan of letting the computer do work for me whenever possible, and this is a big step in that direction.

RSS automates information-gathering tasks, freeing you to focus on things that matter. The simplest use of RSS is to gather the latest updates from sites you follow, so instead of visiting each site with your web browser to see what's changed, your feed reader retrieves it for quick scanning. RSS is growing in popularity, so you're likely to find it in a wide variety of sites relevant to your role or business.

What kinds of sources can you track? Trade journals (both print and online-only). Local and regional news media. News services for items about your company, competitors, customers, or partners. Blogs from industry insiders, analysts or observers. Professional associations and their newsletters. And the big one is search engines, which now offer subscriptions to search results through RSS and e-mail. Your feed reader is the tool that allows you to track topics of interest as soon as new items appear on the Internet.

Sound useful? That's why RSS is the exception to my goal of avoiding tech-talk when I discuss new Internet tools for business. It's still an early-adopter tool. Most Internet users are unaware of RSS, and some IT departments would rather block RSS feeds as a waste of resouces (see HR and legal perspectives). But it's a powerful tool for anyone who values the efficient gathering of pertinent information.

If expertise and current knowledge are relevant in your position, you need to learn how to use RSS.

DIY Due Diligence

2006-06-02T10:13:00.000-04:00

The word is spreading that companies are using Internet search techniques in a sort of do-it-yourself background check. The message is directed most strongly at college students, who may be posting pictures and stories about their youthful indiscretions that can come back to haunt them at job interview time. The same technique can provide valuable information in other business relationships, too.

A new report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project finds that 35% of all internet users have posted content online (via Emergence Marketing). It's even higher among younger users and home broadband users (and broadband penetration is still increasing). So, in addition to the information already available from corporate web sites, trade show speaker bios, and trade press articles, the people you interact with are becoming more likely to publish something about themselves.

That suggests that an increasing number of the people you interact with in business have posted original content somewhere online. Spend a little time with some search engines, and you can gain insights that you wouldn't get from the usual, guarded business contact. You might find the types of problematic content referred to above, but you may also learn something about their interests, hobbies, or professional lives. In other words, you may learn about the human being you're dealing with.

Of course, it's useful to check up on candidates in the hiring process (and assume that they do the same check on you). I recommend doing the same with the other people you interact with—customers, suppliers, partners. You'll learn more about them professionally, and you may discover just the right personal connection.

Marketers experimenting with social media

2006-05-22T22:22:00.000-04:00

A new report from Forrester Research, Interactive Marketing Channels To Watch In 2006 looks into interactive marketers' plans to add social media to their communications plans. Half plan to use blogs or social networks (versus 93% using email), although I would be very interested to ask the follow-up question of how they plan to use them. (Report shows marketers stick with proven interactive media, via Micro Persuasion)

Steve Rubel's comment on the article cuts to the chase: "Marketers are going to have to shift from pushing messages out to guiding/facilitating peer-to-peer conversations." How do you plan to use new media that operate in the Cluetrain "markets are conversations" world? Have you learned where the landmines are? As you explore opportunities to add social media to your marketing communications plans, be sure to start with a solid understanding of the conversational mindset. Reading influential blogs is a good start.

In addition to the switch that Steve identifies, I think one of the major challenges social media pose for companies is their tendency to cross functional lines, while the specialists are looking at them from separate functional silos. It's natural for the specialists to bring their experience to social media, but customers don't care about interacting with departments. They want what they want from the company, and the conversational nature of social media gives them a voice that's not restricted to traditional inbound channels.

Engaging bloggers and responding to posts could involve marketing, PR, or customer service, depending on how you tilt your head. When a product problem leads into a complaint about customer service and is blogged, leading to negative coverage in the mainstream press, how do the specialists describe the problem? When companies decide to engage social media, they should take a holistic approach and be prepared to follow the implications across internal boundaries. After all, customers don't do business with just your outbound marcom.

Review: Naked Conversations

2006-05-21T22:28:00.000-04:00

If you want to understand blogging and what it means to your business, start with Naked Conversations, by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. Written for the non-technical business audience with a heavy dose of high-profile case studies, the book gives an excellent view of how blogs are changing the communication environment for business. Just plan to read it near your computer, because almost every page includes a reference to a blog that you may want to read.

Those blog references come directly from the core strength of this book—all those case studies and interviews. While the authors aren't shy in their enthusiasm for blogging, their stories about its impact come from real-life examples. Advice from the experts that the experts listen to (Seth Godin or Lawrence Lessig, for example) is followed by the blogging experience of, for example, General Motors or Boeing. One chapter deals with the power of blogs to extend the reach of small companies like Stonyfield Farm or Clip-n-Seal. Another deals with the challenges facing public relations in an era when anyone can reach a global audience. Whatever kind of business you're in, you'll find examples that apply.

If you don't understand blogging yet, this book provides a good introduction, focusing on the what and why of blogging, not the how that more technical books will offer. What it does give you is a solid understanding of the conventions of the blogosphere, benefits of joining the ongoing conversational marketplace, and how to avoid the painful missteps that await the clued-out newcomer. It's everything except the technical how-to that is readily available in the computer section or your IT department.

If you know blogging already, read this book for the profiles of bloggers from many fields and around the world. You may already understand the social environment and its norms, but the stories of bloggers in other countries or fields may give you your next big idea. If nothing else, you'll discover more blogs worth checking out.

This is a book about blogging, and in their enthusiasm, the authors occasionally reveal some arrogance toward corporate functions that may be threatened by the open communication of the blogosphere. The most blatant example is their definition of PR as "a command-and-control system disliked or even hated by those whom it targets." Some friction between those who want to change the world and those who represent the system is to be expected, but it's not necessary to assume bad will on the part of professionals outside our own departments.

Actually, I enjoyed the times that I spotted some bias in the book. As with a good blog, the writing reminds the reader that a person (two, in this case) wrote the book. The problems don't diminish the great job the Scoble and Israel have done making blogs relevant to a general business audience. Regardless of your current level of understanding of the topic, I strongly recommend Naked Conversations.

Technorati tags: books blogging reviews

Even faster search

2006-05-17T21:31:00.000-04:00

Inquisitor (via Steve Rubel) looks like a nice timesaver. Like lots of great tools, it doesn't do much that you couldn't already do, but it makes everything just a bit easier. When you enter a search term on Inquisitor, it starts searching Google as soon as you start typing. As you continue to type in your search term, it runs additional searches, in effect refining your search as you complete your query. It also suggests possible search terms based on what you've typed, another way to refine your search.

If you want to search something other than Google, it lists other search services below your query. Click on one, and it performs the same search on the new source. Quick, simple, and a convenient reminder of some of the other tools for searching the Net.

Less typing, and you don't need to press <Enter> to start the search. Nice!

Attack of the dissatisfied customer blog

2006-05-02T10:17:00.000-04:00

Francois Gossieaux had some trouble with his Mercedes E320 recently, but he really has a problem with the blame the customer response he got from Mercedes and the dealer (note the follow-ups at the end of the post). If English isn't your first language, the story is available on a French blog, too.

B.L. Ochman went public with her dissatisfaction in "My Bag is Lost and I'm Stuck in American Airlines Customer Service Hell." She got her bag back, but the blog describes in detail her unhappy experience with the process.

Jeff Jarvis made headlines with his Dell Hell posts last year. Now it seems that bloggers are consciously using their blogs early and often to escalate their complaints.

What's all this, then?

2006-04-26T21:05:00.000-04:00

It's easy to assume that keeping up with new developments on the Internet is someone else's job—probably somebody in IT. But some of the experiments of the last few years are becoming useful tools for business. Some are maturing into places where people share their opinions with global audiences, bypassing the traditional media gatekeepers. Some have become powerful market intelligence resources. And some really are a waste of time. So many new sites keep popping up, and it's just too much to keep up with if it's not your job.

Welcome to the Net-Savvy Executive. A blog that makes technology innovations relevant for non-technical business leaders. Because this stuff is much too important to leave to someone in IT. This is customers taking control of your brand, publishing their opinions of your company, sharing their worst experiences—or making stuff up. It's a world of powerful new tools for keeping tabs on your market. It's your computer bringing information to you, rather than waiting for you to ask for it.