12 Nov 08 Social media and Obama victory
The New York Times has a great read on how Obama embraced social media to help win the election.
Thomas Jefferson used newspapers to win the presidency, F.D.R. used radio to change the way he governed, J.F.K. was the first president to understand television…Senator Barack Obama understood that you could use the Web to lower the cost of building a political brand.
Consider the following:
3,099,323 supporters and 527,783 wall messages on an Obama Facebook page.
136,083 subscribers on an Obama YouTube channel.
This user-generated Obama video has 11,696,725 views as of this posting (and is this a good, bad, or neutral brand impression? Does it matter?):
An interesting theory raised in the New York Times article is that by embracing and using social media’s power to organize and influence–and help raise $600 million–traditional party foundations have been irrevocably shaken, if not permanently altered. Similarly, it seems to me that many firms today are in a place where the political parties were pre-Obama: comfortably employing “tried and true” models to promote, build, sustain, and manage their brands.
Yes, entities like Trulia, Zillow, etc, injected much needed creativity and transparency into the historically balkanized and feudal-like operations of the real estate industry. But the industry has now largely absorbed the impact these entities had and is now challenging them in certain ways (e.g., by demanding accountability in terms of lead quality and conversion as opposed to just click volumes). However, it’s social media that will change the foundations of the real estate industry, just like it did in the recent presidential campaign.
Further, what’s brilliant about social media is that in and of itself it’s transparent. You want the inside scoop on Obama’s strategy? It’s no secret, really, because you can just see what his team put together. That is, you can model your own social media strategy on Obama’s (e.g., look at how the Obama team structured its Facebook page and YouTube channel) and deduce what strategic choices were made by studying the tactics employed. For more strategies, I encourage you to also visit Owyang’s blog.
Tags: marketing, social network marketing, swarm creativity, viral marketing
11 Nov 08 Innovation considerations for real estate firms
Real estate professionals looking for sources of inspiration should consider the following quip from the book Chasing Cool:
The next time someone says they want to be the iPod of their industry, ask them this: before he came up with the iPod, did Steve Jobs walk around telling people he wanted to be the Sony Walkman of his industry?
The Chasing Cool book goes on to explain that innovators have a knack at assessing where a potential market “is” and what this potential market wants or needs, even though this potential market may be incognizant of such, because innovators employ various forms of focus groups (from the traditional, to the mostly non-traditional) along with intuitive insights.
Following this thread, in the paper Permanently Beta: Responsive Organization in the Internet Era, researchers point out that continual testing is a way to gauge user feedback and gain invaluable break-throughs in product innovation (the development of Linux is an example of this). Nevertheless, this article (abstract) looked at software company start-up success and found that prolonged beta phases and collaborations with universities delay product launch but that team tenure and experience favor faster product development and launch. This finding corroborates a premise in Chasing Cool that looking within rather than without (i.e., consultants) often drives true insight and innovation.
What does this mean for real estate firms striving for innovation? Perform a 365 degree analysis on your team and products and services. Analyze your company through the eyes of a competitor to better understand your weaknesses. Quit strategically as Seth Godin admonishes in the book The Dip.
Tags: books to read, innovation, research
10 Nov 08 Adding blog functionality to real estate websites
This Universal McCann study states that
- Blogs are a mainstream media world-wide and as a collective rival any traditional media
- The blogsphere is becoming increasingly participatory, now 184m bloggers world-wide
And as recently referred to in my previous post on the long tail, the New York Times discusses the power of blogs for real estate firms.
So why are many real estate brokerage web sites so un-blog-like? It seems to me that if consumers are familiar with blogs, frequently read and interact with blogs, brokerage sites ought to adopt “blog-like” functionality on their web sites so as to give consumers modes of “familiarity” when they visit (it’s probably safe to say that consumers interact with non-real estate sites on a much more frequent basis and, thus, their expectations for best-in-class web site experiences are set by these non-real estate sites).
For example, brokerages could create a popular search cloud. Similarly, firms could create a listings type cloud based on property type, location, lifestyle, time-on-market, foreclosure, and price. As demonstrated by Amazon’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” product recommendation success, consumers want to know what other consumers are doing and thinking. Thus, a search cloud lets consumers take a pulse of the market by quickly perusing the cloud. Second, a listings cloud quickly lets consumers see what type and how much inventory exists without having to perform a search to get this information.
One click into either cloud quickly sifts the database and returns a results set to the consumer, and from there he/she could further refine a search; thus, reinforcing that the firm’s website is functional, speedily returns results, and respects consumers’ time. Further, these two features would go a long way towards giving consumers something “familiar” while enhancing real estate website functionality and data accessibility. All of the above combines to increase marketing penetration and consumer loyalty.
Tags: consumer loyalty, multi-channel marketing, web 2.0 marketing
07 Nov 08 Long tail search data
Despite the sentiments expressed by Google’s CEO about long tail search (see previous post), Bill Tancer of Hitwise presents an intriguing alternative view. Tancer shows that despite brand-centric search saturation in the head, the long tail presents a panoply of opportunities to online marketers willing to invest the strategic and tactical resources necessary to leverage such.
Top 100 Search Terms by Percentage of All Search Traffic
And, according to the New York Times real estate blogs offer consumers some of the best information available about real estate.
For brokers, blogs are, of course, a handy marketing tool: they’re economical, practical and easy to update. But for prospective buyers, a sophisticated blog — one with more than an agent’s plea, “check out my new listing” — can help potential buyers forge a connection to a faraway community, learn the landscape of an area and, ultimately, make informed purchasing decisions.
Since blogs are long tail feed machines, real estate professionals ought to embrace blogging as a viable online marketing channel.
30 Oct 08 Long-tail in a multi-channel strategy
This is a great video interview of Google’s CEO by McKinsey & Company Consulting. Read this definition of Zipf’s Law first, however, if you don’t know what Zipf’s law is. What’s especially intriguing is the interview segment that discusses the long-tail versus the head. Schmidt does not dismiss the long-tail as a search marketing strategy, but he does implicitly decry its value. My take-away from his comments, however, is that no single strategy is the marketing silver bullet; rather it’s a blending of marketing strategies that makes sense. Abandon the long-tail as a strategy? No. Augment your firm’s short-tail and primary brand promotion strategy with a concerted long-tail marketing strategy powered by blogs? Absolutely. This study leads credence to this augment, where it states that blogs have just as much reach as mainstream media.
Tags: Google, long tail, multi-channel marketing
07 Oct 08 Reality mining in real estate services
As always I am grateful to Owyang to lend his insight and foresight. Here’s another excellent missive on the “Intelligent Web”. In summary, he posits that machines will begin extrapolating relationships and driving recommendations for connections from the juxtapositions and nexus between “our behaviors, context, and preferences”. Sounds a bit like the semantic web. Spinning through the comments on this post brought me to the Innovation Insight blog where Guy Hagen explores MIT research related to “reality mining”, which you can find more about on the MIT Web site. And this research paper out of UC DAVIS demonstrates how the MIT Reality Mining data set was utilized in tracking behaviour via mobile phones.
Imagine an iPhone application overlayed on a real estate firm’s listing data set, where the iPhone reports back over time thousands of user’s mobile browsing habits (i.e., driving around looking at homes for sale or rent). Having such data would allow firms to target advertising, Web site promotions, and give predictive insight over their competitors with respect to fluctuating markets (e.g., patterns will emerge over time that will tell a firm which neighborhoods, etc, are capturing consumer interest, thus enabling a firm to deploy marketing and agent resources towards these locations ahead of their competition).
Tags: database marketing, reality mining, semantic web
06 Oct 08 Measuring marketing influence
This research paper by Deloitte is an excellent summary of important considerations firms should make when re-valuing their marketing team’s contributions. The gist of the article is that it’s incumbent upon firms to set up a marketing measurement scorecard that accounts for the systemic impact marketing expenditures have on the bottom line.
The paper argues that the measurement system needs to go beyond typical CRM-system level reporting (i.e., moving beyond just measuring ROI as the primary indicator of marketing performance) and align with overall company strategy, account for competitive influences on a product or service’s marketplace success or failure, eliminate silos between separate business units, and measure across product development and roll-out lifecycles.
03 Sep 08 Facebook Engagement Advertising for Real Estate
Owyang delivers an excellent summary of Facebook’s new “Engagement Advertising” tool. This tool seems well-suited to real estate brands that want to showcase a particular niche or market they serve, particular the “Fan Style” ad targeting luxury verticals (it could also be interesting to allow the Facebook community to “gift” someone a $50,000,000 property to generate buzz on that property using the “Virtual Gifts Style” ad platform).
Tags: facebook, web 2.0 marketing
30 Aug 08 Keyword influences on paid search click-through rates
This research paper investigated how specific keyword characteristics affect click-through rates. By modeling a set of keywords in a pay-per-click environment, the researchers found that searches conducted by brand-loyal consumers, typified by “retailer-name” searches, had the highest predictive value relative to click-through rates. The researchers noted that when consumers searched for specific brand names, however, click-through rates on paid searches were not as easy to predict. The researchers surmised that this is because consumers were more likely conducting “competitive” searches–surveying the market–and were not swayed by clever calls to action but focused more on securing the lowest price.
Tags: search marketing tactics
25 Aug 08 Mitigating bad press through viral marketing
Here is an excellent thesis on how public relations professionals can use viral marketing tactics powered by social media to mitigate bad press. The author states that viral public relations campaigns “are less overt and therefore better received” because consumers perceive they are in control. (p56) Viral marketing tactics allow professionals to listen, build relationships with customers, and hopefully build brand ambassadors.
Yet despite proffering evidence that viral marketing–if deployed strategically–can yield a high gain return in managing and preserving a firm’s reputation, the author points out that public relations professionals are loathe to abandon traditional methodologies. The author does point out some tactics, however, that public relations professionals can adopt from the advertising world: target marketing, integrated communications plans, deft handling and understanding of niche marketing principles, and embracing consumer control over and transmogrification of brand identity and meaning.
Tags: blog pr, viral marketing
18 Aug 08 Brand considerations in social media marketing
This paper argues that allowing consumers to “co-create” or “co-author” products–i.e., directly engaging and encouraging consumers to participate in new product development processes–taps vast wells of creativity while exploiting certain cost efficiencies in terms of labor. Similarly, this paper explores how Web 2.0 will fundamentally (has fundamentally) changed the manner by which companies must brand themselves. Gone is a command and control ethos. Emerging is an empowerment and transparency ethos:
- engagement replaces interruption
- diversity and self-expression replace conformism and unity
- the media of the masses replace mass media
- granular insights and rich data replaces generalisation
- conversations in marketing replace control
As examples of this new paradigm, the paper points to Dove’s (note too the related contra-positive consumer-generated videos) and Nike’s strategic Web 2.0 marketing successes.
Tags: semantic web, social network marketing, web 2.0 marketing
15 Aug 08 Revenue considerations of social networks
This paper points out that social network sites such as MySpace and Facebook have huge potential for high advertising revenue gains because “the cost of gaining new customers is practically nothing [since] users join voluntarily and provide their own content through their profiles. In addition, the cost of running the sites’ web servers is relatively low.”
The authors do point out, however, that significant revenue gains might be limited because these sites must constantly innovate to retain and attract new “customers”, it’s easy to launch rival social networks, and consumers have lots of choices as to which social networks to use.
Tags: facebook, research, social network marketing
13 Aug 08 Managing online “spillover” reputational crises
This paper includes an interesting analysis of online reputation management. It discusses “reputation spillover”, which is defined as a “reputational crisis that impacts a focal organization [and] spread[s] to others.”
Reputation crises are triggered by financial crises or accidents and spread virally because consumer “link” like firms together, even if one of the “linked” firms has nothing to do with the crisis. The paper limits its analysis to “within-industry effects”. For example, a large player in an industry can casts a wide reputational reverb:
In the mid-1980s, the FDA released the results of a study that showed an unusually strong link between a tampon manufactured by Procter & Gamble and toxic shock syndrome (TSS) – a rare, life-threatening bacterial infection (Behr, 1980). The cause of TSS seemed to stem from a unique and innovative material used by Procter & Gamble (but by none of its rivals). In response, Procter & Gamble began a recall of their product from store shelves. Interestingly however, Tampax, the next largest rival in the product category, also began to experience declining market valuation, even while their product was recording record revenues (Metz, 1980). Arguably, had the crisis struck not Procter & Gamble but a much smaller organization, rivals would probably not have faced the same generalized and negative reactions.
- Behr, P. (1980) ‘Toxic shocks, tampons under scrutiny’, The Washington Post, L1, Washington, DC.
- Metz, R. (1980) ‘Toxic shock and Tampax’, The New York Times, 8, New York.
The paper points out that “any organization is at risk for a negative impact aimed at its reputation due to the actions of others in its competitive environment.” In response, the paper suggests that managers should have response plans in place along “marketing and public relations, legal and technical considerations.”
Tags: online reputation
10 Jul 08 Planning longtail media campaigns with Google AdPlanner
Google’s AdPlanner (need to register for the beta) has the potential to unleash the power of traditional demographic marketing analysis to long-tail search strategies. This is a great tool because it allows media planners to target niche sites in a highly effective manner while focusing on distinct consumer segments. For example, let’s say that I’m targeting cycling enthusiasts and want to know which niche sites appeal to a male demographic with a HHI between $100,000 and $125,000. By using Google AdPlanner I have good idea where to start: roadbikereview.com and cyclingnews.com (see screenshot below).
Tags: long tail
15 Jun 08 Zip+4 Targeting: Online Advertiser Demographic Segmentation
Assume you’re a brokerage firm with a wide distribution of properties over several zip codes. Aside from basic syndication to online aggregators, what’s another strategy to market your listings? One fee-based option that many aggregators offer is enhanced listings. Before you pay, however, ask them to prove their merit.
Assume you cover these two zip codes 28226 and 28104. According to Claritas, homes in these zip codes have very different consumer attributes (you’ll have to enter the zip codes yourself to get the results).
Armed with the demographic information, you should ask your online aggregator to give you a demographic break-down, at the zip+4 level, of it’s user audience on the search patterns and niche pages/sections of its site. For example, assume a consumer is searching an aggregator’s site in your coverage area (indicated by the consumer entering city name or 5-digit zip code as search criteria). Based on these entries, relevant properties are returned to the consumer. It’s at this moment aggregators give you an opportunity to have an enhanced listing display to this consumer.
Now it’s your turn to push back: ask for the historical demographic breakdown of the users who entered those search criteria: does the demographic base skew towards segment A (assume A is more likely to own an inexpensive American made car and have a household income below $50,000) or segment B (assume B is more likely to own an expensive foreign made car and belong to a country club)? Once you know, you will know which listings to enhance, while including appropriate imagery and content triggers that appeal to the lifestyle attributes of your targeted demographic segment.
For example, if the base skews towards segment B, perhaps you choose to only enhance listings that are 1) above $750,000, 2) close to a country club, and 3) have ample space for a boat.
Thus, you’re consolidating your advertising resources by focusing on high-gain marketing activities that give you a higher chance of getting a high quality click/lead. It’s a win for the advertiser too because they’re serving you better by giving you the opportunity to gain a high value click/lead (thus promoting retention of their services), while legitimately asking for a higher CPM or CPC for such.
Tags: database marketing, zip code optimization
09 Jun 08 Wikia Search versus Google Search: Round 2
After a couple of months, I decided to give Wikia another test. The theme this time is “golf course homes”:
“golf course homes for sale columbus ohio” Google Wikia Winner is Google because it lists relevant, real estate oriented blogs with posts focusing on the specific search query.
“golf course homes sanibel florida” Google Wikia Winner is Wikia because there were more real estate firm sites returned than on Google.
“villas for sale on golf courses valencia spain” Google Wikia Winner is Google because Wikia’s results did not center exclusively on property for sale, while Google’s results did.
“finger lakes ny real estate for sale on golf course” Google Wikia Winner is Google because many search results returned focused exclusively on Finger Lakes real estate firms, whereas Wikia’s results were limited to six results with the first talking about the Sopranos.
Tags: Google, Google vs Wikia, wikia
04 Jun 08 Zip+4 Coding for Real Estate Listings
What does Peter Gabriel’s new online project The Filter have to do with real estate search? (NOTE: I went through the The Filter Q&A and have to say it was eerily prescient).
What if there was a site where a consumer would 1) define the location where they want to live (via natural language, drop down, or map search), 2) answer a simple set of “lifestyle-oriented” questions, the answers to which would bump up against Claritas’ Prizm database and 3) where a real estate broker would have performed a similar zip+4 coding of their listings? When the consumer presses the “Go” button, the answers to the lifestyle questions would peg a PRIZM code to them (via session cookie or registration ID) that would relate to the same PRIZM code tagged to the properties and deliver only those matched properties to the consumer.
The benefit to the consumer is they’ve cut through gobs of listings that may not fit their lifestyle and found the ones that do. The benefit to the broker is they’ve delivered a high value service to the client. If the broker then had live chat, IM, or showing appointment booking features on each listing, there’s a higher chance of getting a conversation started and higher quality inquiry on the listing.
Right result, right time, right for the consumer.
Tags: database marketing, zip code optimization
02 Jun 08 Expanding real estate sphere of influence online
This post on Transparent Real Estate offers a concise, easy-to-follow, tutorial on how to use Twitter and Friendfeed for real estate business development purposes. And this Owyang post further explores these concepts.
Taking Kitano’s and Owyang’s lead, your micro-memes would update your existing, new client, and prospective clients with your market knowledge, your insight, your new listings, etc. A network meme is useful because you can discern what’s important to your clients based on what they’re reading, posting, etc; it’s like taking a pulse, you may not know what makes a body tick or is ailing it, but the pulse helps you decide whether to further explore an issue. You can use macro memes to your advantage by looking at industry trends, topics, etc, and use such as fodder for your micro memes.
For example, let’s say you came across this article on FOX, you could write a micro meme to your network something like this
Just read FOXNews article http://tinyurl.com/5c5pe7 about home auctions & foreclosures & how they affect home prices. See analysis on [link to your blog]
What this does is reinforce to your network that you’re the expert. Second, it demonstrates leadership in that you are keeping them apprised of the market in terms of options. Third, you’re keeping yourself at the center of the equation showing no fear. Fourth, this reinforces that you’re a trusted advisor. Your blog is where you can demonstrate your market prowess.
Tags: online reputation
23 May 08 Yahoo Has New Search Design
Thanks to this SEO blog I found this post, which details a new type of Yahoo! search that’s in beta mode on Yahoo!SearchIndia. I performed the search “mumbai real estate” and got this:
Tags: yahoo
23 May 08 Blog Sentiment and Traditional Media
eMarketer reports that a recent study on traditional media’s use of blogs shows that 57.7% of respondents–US journalists –use blogs to measure sentiment.
Identifying Expressions of Emotion in Text (core study found here, registration required) is an intriguing “blog sentiment” study that identified targeted, emotion-laden words–”seed words”–and retrieved 173 blog posts from the Web that contained such. What the researchers found was that you can algorithmically determine the “emotive pulse” of a blog, or individual blog entries.
Once a product is developed around this method, one practical application of this is that you could quickly cull blog posts that target a certain emotion pertaining to a brand so as to determine positive/neutral/negative sentiment relative to that brand. This is particularly useful for brands concerned about maintaining a “real time” knowledge base as to their status in the blogosphere; thus, enabling brand managers to anticipate/preempt potential public relations crises.
Tags: blog marketing, traditional marketing
21 May 08 Brand-Centricity, Consumer Aversion
This video, sourced from Bring the love back, beautifully illustrates the new dynamic–and power shift–between consumer and brand.
Tags: consumer loyalty, traditional marketing
19 May 08 Managing Online Reputation on Search Engines
This post on the SEOMOZ.org site, is an excellent resource on tactics and considerations as it relates to managing your online reputation. I suggest reading the the SEOMOZ post before clicking on the additional resources listed below.
Interview with a person who specializes in online reputation management issues.
Two big take-aways from this article are use basic SEO tactic to systematically push negative comments of the first page of Google and respond and get involved immediately.
Tags: online reputation
16 May 08 Blog Pay-Per-Click Advertising Opportunities
eMarketer issued a report that blogs are big business (or have the potential to be). According to the article, advertising opportunities abound for traditional advertisers in the blogosphere as the number of blogs grow and readership increases.
And this research paper from MicroSoft adCenterLabs discusses intriguing concepts in tracking blog information flows with an eye towards charging an appropriate fee for a PPC advertisement placed on a blog.
Tags: blog marketing
16 May 08 Classified Ads in the Trash
Epitaph of printed classified advertisements:
And this commentary corroborates the physical evidence.
For newspapers, these are the end times, or something very much like them. Every week provides a new marker on the road to apocalypse: hundreds of layoffs in Los Angeles, circulation scandals in Dallas…
… and …
The rise of the Craigslist model has devastated classified advertising in newspapers, once the only place in a city to sell a used car or list a job opening…why should you spend $100 putting something up for sale in the paper when you can post it on Craigslist for free? Why list a job for $200 when you can list it for $10?
The NYTimes also agrees. And apparently it’s profitable to give consumers–and advertisers–a simple and easy to access, use, and understand forum.
Accordingly, unless you’re really targeting a niche demographic, go with an online vertical advertising venue rather than traditional print classifieds; this saves you money over the long-term, allows you to target your audience more effectively, and measure the performance of your advertising spend.
Tags: traditional marketing
16 May 08 Web 2.0 Resource Guide
Go2Web20 is a great place to view what’s available in Web 2.0 tools and services. To make sense of the madness, read their blog. TransparentRE also lists some great Web2.0 tools.
Tags: research
14 May 08 Competitive Intelligence Using TouchGraph
TouchGraph is an excellent tool that gives you “visual insight” into a site’s external linking structure and relationships, which is a good starting point for website competitive analysis. Let’s compare Redfin, Zillow, and REALTOR.com.
Redfin’s linking relationships
Zillow’s linking relationships
REALTOR.com’s linking relationships
The visual representation of these relationships allows you to quickly explore the link structure of the “affiliated” sites much faster than conducting such an analysis using Google or Yahoo tools. Thus, you can better assess your weaknesses, strengths, and opportunities in cultivating or disabling the same or similar relationships.
Tags: competitive intelligence, semantic web
13 May 08 City Guide Map for iPhone
This new application is similar to Intero’s Terabitz application.
Tags: iPhone, mobile applications
12 May 08 Brand-jacked in Social Media
Another excellent post by Jeremiah Owyang: Social media brand-jacking. The post highlights some interesting brand mishaps in the social media space. Make sure to read to the comments too.
Tags: social network marketing
09 May 08 Trulia Case Study in Online Reputation Management
This post generated 159 comments, and landed in Trulia’s lap on Tuesday, April 29th, 2008, 10:36 am MST. The subject hit at the heart of Trulia’s astounding SEO success. Trulia’s response to this issue is an excellent case study in online reputation management that began with a blog-flame and ended with this MarketWatch interview.
On April 29th, Trulia’s first response was to see how high the flames would go. BHB is a very popular real estate industry blog. If the issue dies on BHB, then it’s likely dead everywhere else too. However, if the issue lives and progresses from birth to adolescence to adulthood in record time, it’s time to respond. And on BHB, “adulthood” was reached in record time. Thus, Trulia responded.
Trulia’s first public response on BHB was April 30th, 2008 9:58 am from Rudy at Trulia. His post did not seem to stem the tide of negative commentary. Thus, Pete Flint, Trulia’s founder and CEO, got in on the action that afternoon. Rudy’s and Pete’s posts were debated, derided, and defended throughout the day and over the next several days, with the issue basically fizzling out on the eighth day–an eternity in the blogosphere. Additionally, in the midst of this, Trulia responded on its own blog; an appropriate tactic and response vehicle in addition to their comments mentioned above.
In analyzing their response tactics in view of a possible PR crisis, Trulia did an excellent job–they jumped into the controversy, debated and tried to clarify points they felt were inaccurate (i.e., through their comments they got their side of the story posted on the BHB blog), and responded in their own forum. This latter tactic get’s their blog post about the controversy a nifty Google search result. For example, the search phrase trulia pagerank debate gives them a higher position on Google than the original BHB posting, and the phrase trulia seo debate gives them a similar great position. Trulia’s final act in the midst of this blog-debate was to issue a press release about their foreclosure survey, which was also picked up by newswires like PR Newswire Eur at 15:47:00 on 5/7/08 and AP Alert - HiTech at 15:49:22 on 5/7/08.
From a PR perspective, what’s masterful about this latter tactic? PR channel management: managing the blog-tech channel as opposed to the traditional press-consumer channel.
Essentially, Trulia ceded the fact that they would not win the blog-tech battle, and appears fine with having their side of the story told. Yet, Trulia appears absolutely focused on maintaining its dominate position in the eyes of the traditional press as the authority on real estate. To this point, what’s some evidence that Trulia has maintained it’s dominance in the eyes of the traditional press? The MarketWatch interview seen above.
Tags: syndication
08 May 08 Storytelling in Web 2.0 marketing
Storytelling is one of the most important marketing concepts in our Web 2.0 world, argues this TrendWatching briefing paper. The key is helping consumers tell other consumers a version of the story that stays true to tenets of the brand.
As more brands (have to) go niche and therefore tell stories that aren’t known to the masses, and as experiences and non-consumption-related expenditures take over from physical (and more visible) status symbols, consumers will increasingly have to tell each other stories to achieve a status dividend from their purchases. Expect a shift from brands telling a story, to brands helping consumers tell status-yielding stories to other consumers.
The briefing paper argues that as niche marketing pressures increase, creating brands that are truly unique is a necessity; yet, these brands must increasingly rely on consumers to “market” the products (ala the Godin Purple Cow argument). Thus, experience marketing is a must have, with “status storytelling” acting as the catalyst, driving towards having consumers create and nurture status spheres:
- Transient Spheres (consumers driven by experiences)
- Online Spheres (social status as determined by who connects to whom)
- Eco Sphere (i.e., praising Prius drivers while scorning SUV owners)
- Giving Spheres (charitable giving)
- Participative Sphere (participation is the new consumption
Other salient tidbits from the status storytelling paper are finding conversation starter icons (like t-shirt designs, weird pins, funky Kleenex boxes, etc) and “life caching” and “life casting” concepts (aligning your product with platforms like uStreamTV).
Here’s an example of ustream.tv, BJ Fogg’s Stanford class called “Psychology of Facebook.
Tags: web 2.0 marketing
06 May 08 Gender bias in e-Loyalty programs
An e-Marketer recent report shows that moms are a major power on the Internet.
Notice how FrontDoor.com leverages this fact. And this research article points out that women adopt e-Service loyalty programs at a higher rate if their enjoyment and perceived social presence of the site is high. Notably, the researchers point out that
In particular, online vendors that cater to females may experience more pronounced and positive impacts of conveying a sense of warmth and sociability on their websites.
Notice that on the FrontDoor.com site that “warmth” and “community” is high. Thus, I’d not be surprised if they have a high loyalty rate.
Tags: consumer loyalty, demographic analysis, segmentation
29 Apr 08 Punk 2.0
T.S.O.L. (True Sounds of Liberty), a 1979 Cali punk band, reached out to their fan base, paid off a legal debt, and is touring again (all according to their website). Punk Social Network = (Passion * Fan base * Clear call-to-action).
18 Apr 08 Phishing and Social Media
The semantic nature of social networking has hit, head-first, the issue of phishing. A research paper by Peter Mika, discusses the semantic and colloquial nature of social networks, the findings of which offer savvy marketers unprecedented opportunities to understand how to incorporate social network folksonomies into their brand strategies. Yet this fundamental tenet–i.e., semantic relationships–that underpins social networks is vulnerable to phishing. Indiana University follows this phishing expedition via this website, which also has this great slide presentation.
Indeed, on Facebook I’ve been poked by phishing’s less sophisticated step-cousin, spam. Spam can occur in several different forms within a social network’s “gated community.” The form that’s arguably the most prevalent is an unsolicited message from a “friend”. In my case, I confirmed a “friend” who referenced a friend whom I trusted. Immediately, my new “friend” sent me an unsolicited offer to buy a new product that he/she was selling. Not a big deal in the scheme of life’s more important moments, but irritating nevertheless.
On the other hand, I welcome messages from Rohit Bhargava promoting his new book Personality Not Included. On Facebook, I joined Rohit’s
Personality Not Included - The Official Reader’s Group and expected to receive such messages, given the fact that he set up the group as a quasi-commercial network. Further, by following Rohit, I’m gaining tips on how to use Facebook groups responsibly so as not to offend anyone who decides to join any groups I create.
Tags: privacy
26 Mar 08 Launching a Web 2.0 campaign
How do you launch a Web 2.0 media campaign? You don’t. If you’re thinking of “launching” “campaigns” in the Web 2.0 media space, you’ve broken your legs out of the starting gate.
How does a corporate brand manager “launch” a Web 2.0 “campaign” to counter (or embrace) a consumer-generated product review like Dirt Devil vs Electrolux found via the “dirt devil mvp comparison to electrolux” Google search (clicking the page 1, position 1 result takes you to the video product review). Let me repeat this: for the search phrase “dirt devil mvp comparison to electrolux”, the first organic result on Google is a consumer-generated YouTube video. How does one forecast for this eventuality, and account for this within the deliberative, plodding, and corporate-controlled product development and roll-out plan? All the push-marketing tactics cannot totally devalue the kitschy product review from a real consumer who’s having a good time making a video. Will “I” trust the brand, or the consumer?
Here are some considerations while pondering the the concept that brands are no longer in control:
Step 1: Educate yourself on new ways of thinking about business (notice I did not suggest topics confined to “Web 2.0″, which is a simple moniker to encapsulate a new way of thinking about business). Here’s a list of books to read to get going: The Black Swan, The Art of the Start, The Four Hour Work Week, Competing on Analytics, Crossing the Chasm, The Innovator’s Dilemma. If you have other books to add, suggest them an I’ll start a formal book list.
Step 2: Step into the abyss. Yes…join a social network. I started with FaceBook. To follow the progress of building a community from the ground up on FaceBook, follow/join the Mighty Tour de Nez FaceBook Group I started about one of the country’s most exciting, innovative, and competitive cycling events. The key take-away with respect to the TDN is that even though this event has been going for over a decade, draws record crowds and record pro cyclists, building a community on the Web does not happen overnight. To see the power of an established Group, look at the Ironman FaceBook Group. Also, while you’re on FaceBook, add me as a friend and I’ll add you back.
Step 3: Go create a mission statement and have a good laugh.
Step 4: Trust yourself to make mistakes and not care that you’ve done so.
Tags: books to read, web 2.0 marketing
21 Mar 08 Wikia Search versus Google Search: Round 1
Test of which service gives a more relevant result for typical real estate searches (of course, relevancy is subjective). For this test, I am defining relevancy as routing me to the local market expert real estate firm or agent in the most expeditious manner.
- “columbia south carolina real estate for sale” : Wikia Google : Winner is Google. The top search results on Google take me to South Carolina.
- “60647 condos for sale” : Wikia Google : Winner is Google since the top search results take me directly to that zip code. Wikia delivered one result.
- “lincoln park luxury homes” : Wikia Google : Tie. Both services presented me with similar results. Wikia was a little scattered in that it showed “lincoln park” results from around the country. Whereas Google directed me mostly to Chicago websites (which was my intent). Interesting note: When I added “illinois” to Wikia, it did not change the results much, and doing so on Google muddied the results (on Google, lots of optimization going on for the combo “lincoln park” in conjunction with “illinois)
Tags: Google, Google vs Wikia, wikia
19 Mar 08 Semantic web optimization?
With social networking sites surpassing search engines in terms of popularity, will the marketing value of search engine optimization diminish over time? This article makes a great case that the usefulness of organic search for consumers may eventually wane.
Interesting question: when a social network community provides answers–as opposed to an algorithm–can anyone really “optimize” their website for social networks? In fact, in this context, one can argue that the concept of “optimization” is a legacy marketing principle more akin to “push” marketing concepts as opposed to “engagement” or “Web 2.0″ marketing concepts.
Let’s consider this phrase “semantic social network”. Via Google, I get this result, and via Wikia Search I get this result; as of this post, I am awaiting help from my FaceBook community.
Obviously, Google and Wikia will return a faster result than the community, and arguably the time I am waiting for the community to respond to my request (if it responds) I can peruse the myriad results via the two search engines. What I am hoping for, though, is that the community will point me in a direction that’s more pointed and vetted via its collective consciousness.
Tags: semantic web
10 Mar 08 SXSW: Marketing without marketing
Summary of Self Replicating Awesomeness: The Marketing of No Marketing:
Panelists:
Tara Hunt www.horsepigcow.com
Chris Heuer www.theconversationgroup.com
Jeremiah Owyang www.web-strategist.com
Deborah Schultz www.deborahschultz.com
Hugh MacLeod www.gapingvoid.com
David Parmet www.marketingbeginsathome.com
Key take-aways:
Passion for people. Put passion into product.
Let go to gain more.
Social objects are the future marketing.
Technology changes, human behavior does not; nothing replaces listening, nothing.
A story without love is not worth telling
Hunt (horsepigcow.com): Way of looking at customers rather than product; process not not product (MY COMMENT: product is the message). Conversations are about marketing, customer service, product development. Dont be afraid, it’s an open opportunity. Art more than a science. Get out of the ivory tower, don’t push, weave (network weaving). Look for customers that love you. Put up a FAQ, marketing, customer service. Go local, keep it local, use global reach to distribute locally. Short term strategy: tell the story. Cultural DNA shift, tactics are great; we are in a relationship economy (exchange of free and sometimes exchange currency); marketing is now a mosaic or a puzzle…the payback is long time in coming.
Heuer (theconversationgroup.com): Idea of community (traditional marketing is now saying “Build me a community I want one tomorrow”; this is not the way to think of this). Interpersonal connections make the community, not the tool. Social media is not new marketing, it simply changes how we relate; i.e., company to customer relationship. Attitudinal shift, stop trying to sell, help me want to buy. Make the service the product when there is an expensive product to market and cannot give away for free (e.g., Audi has WiFi, cleaning services). Share knowledge and facilitate interpersonal communications. SHORT TERM: depends on the quality story; “the brands with the best storytellers win” (said by iProspect guy). How do we give an experience of our product away for free. You are giving away a connection, cultivate a feeling, get away from selling a message.
Owyang (Web-strategist.com): conducts research on this market; online community best practices, clear that companies that let go and let customers take charge have thriving communities, for example, grant private access to an brand “embassy”, let them (evangelists) have access to private data, advocates in the embassy go out and evangelize. HOW DID THEY SELECT THE PASSIONATE ADVOCATES? Blog roles, Technorati rankings, who’s talking most about product, can also use brand monitoring companies, buzz metrics, symphony, buzz logic; the main point is that you can find your “brand lovers”. While at Hitachi, created industry-wide Wiki, let anyone in the community to add to it; became starting points to searches for data storage devices; still in use today.
Schultz (deborahschultz.com) the more one gives away the more business one gets. Social capital is basically the value of the relationships and reputation. But how much do you give away without going broke? Traditional marketing aims to promote a generic spread of a message; whereas Hugh saw great opp in the market of bloggers and geek friends to promote wine; read book BLUE OCEAN STRATEGIES.
Macleod (gapingvoid.com): let them say what they want, no preconditions on reviews, gave out the product (wine) with no conditions aside from asking for FLIKR photos; contextual conversations around the wine (ie., product), create Kula, social object within this group; make social gestures, which beget social objects, which begets social markers (demarking the territory); iPhone is a social marker (i.e., SAMSUNG blackjack is not a marker); come “FLY THE FRIENDLY SKIES” is not a marker (MY COMMENT: the tagline is a lie the first time a flight attendant is rude). What matters is not the iPhone but that we’re friends and that we have objects (iPhone) as a way for social communications; the object is our conversation binding; technology is only a facilitator of communications; go in Apple store, they’ve done lots of little things well; little things inform the big things. Create social objects that are cheap if you have an expensive product.
Parmet (marketingbeginsathome.com): It’s not the message, it’s not the logo, using such is missing the human, and missing the opp to service our fellow humans. “YOU DONT GO VIRAL; THE PRODUCT GOES VIRAL”. You’re not going through an intermediary, why not go to the customers themselves? Put it in the hands of the people who actually use it.
Tags: SXSW
10 Mar 08 SXSW output
SXSW update: Since this is my first SXSW since 1990, I’ve had to re-orient myself to the pace and orgiastic creativity of the scene. Thus, no long posts on the relevancy of this year’s SXSW to the real estate industry until I’ve had a chance to digest properly. Nevertheless, here are the salient take-aways, as I see it:
10 Things We’ve Learned at 37signals: make tiny decisions, tiny decisions are easy to roll-back, easy to make forward progress. Break down problems to their “atomic” levels, which allows one to tackle a whole set of issues in a rational manner. Focus on non-consumers; that is, find the consumers that are not using a specific product but need the salient points of that product (why do I need MS Project, when BaseCamp works just fine, b/c I interested in quick iteration, team collaboration, and forward progress, not a status update using a GANTT chart).
The Science of Designing Interactions: Great conversation between an entrepreneur Ming Yeow Ng and Andreas Weigend, Stanford professor. Quote from Mr. Ng “Discovery is the new cocaine.” Brilliant. As social media hounds, many of us have a bit of Lewis & Clark in us. Discussion focused on how to set up metrics to gauge engagement and use metrics to determine what motivates behavior and how to motivate behavior. Glad I read Owyang here and here as well as Peterson here before this session. Here’s a quick search result from my site for more info.
Core Conversation: 10 Easy Ways To Piss Off A Blogger (And Other Mistakes Marketers Make): Go to Jonny Goldstein’s post on this session, he not only summarized the top 10, he adds relevancy.
Designing for Freedom: Anil Dash added great perspective that “freedom” in a vacuum is not “freedom”; sometimes constraints on user “freedom” actually promotes freedom (e.g., he analogized that the constraints of marriage freed him from the pressure to pursue women). My thoughts: Although the pace and iterative necessities dictated by Silicon Valley pressures force most early-stage companies to focus on product features over customer behavior analytics; it’s the analytics side of the equation that will really allow a company like Ning to create a better product than it already is.
Scoop the Story on Your Blog: This was the most interactive session I attended. What was a brilliant move by the panelists is that all five broke into separate groups and had hallway conversations, which delved deep into the many business applications of Utterz. Owyang challenged my group to focus on weaknesses of the product.
SEO 3.0: Optimizing Search & Social for 2008 and Beyond: For a competitor to beat Google, Google will have to 1) faceplant and 2) the product will have to be better than Google. Not likely to happen anytime soon. Google’s the search engine of choice in much of the world, except for China. Well-written content is the key over the next one to two years, as Google is beginning to “understand” contextual attributes in the penumbra of a site’s content. Online reputation management is important to focus on from a brand perspective (i.e., blogger digs and accolades, trademark infringement, etc).
Tags: SXSW
07 Mar 08 Social media marketing campaign?
Contemplating a social media campaign? Don’t go about it in the “traditional” media planning sense. BuzzMarketing has a titillating thought on this concept. And this social media slide show gives an entertaining and educating primer on why traditional media planning will not work well in a social media context.
05 Mar 08 Innovation, John Kao’s insights
John Kao, author of Innovation Nation, offers a great perspective on innovation (one hour interview). His analogy to jazz performance and composition is especially compelling. With respect to new product development initiatives, he challenges us to embrace a dexterous and daring approach rather than an artless and timid one; a paradigm especially relevant in a Web 2.0 marketing environment.
Tags: international perspectives, interview
04 Mar 08 Social networks, marketing choices
Social networks will change the way real estate professionals interact with their clients. Terms like engagement, conversation, and community underpin social networks. And in “off-line” environments real estate professionals have likely “engaged” in meaningful and relevant “conversations” while building a “community” of long-term clients.
Yet many real estate professionals are reluctant to embrace social networks as a new marketing channel. One refrain I often hear is “it’s hard to get going and sustain my ‘involvement’”. Aside from asking the question, “So when has it ever been easy to earn a client’s trust and payment?”, one also senses a certain fear of not making a mistake, or in not taking the time to fully grasp the profound change that’s occuring.
As to the former issue, fear is, indeed, a legitimate emotion to overcome, but can be overcome with a step-by-step approach to getting involved; and the Social Community section of this Web2.0 map is a great place to begin. With respect to the latter issue, Charlene Li of Forrester Research presents an informative road map of the future of social networks.
Tags: segmentation, social network marketing
29 Feb 08 Privacy and social networks
Research papers:
Identifying inherent privacy conflicts in social network sites
Assessing the privacy risk of sharing anonymized network data
Discusses how rumors, viruses, and ideas propagate over social social networks
Tags: privacy, social network marketing
26 Feb 08 Web 2.0 communities, declining home prices
There will be no online real estate revolution. No tipping point. No tidal wave of change. Just a slow rising tide that swells almost imperceptibly, carrying upon it those who seek, in time, the higher ground. citation
This viewpoint has some synergy to Yale finance professor Robert Shiller’s comments Feb 25, 2008 that lower home prices operate as a net benefit for society. I also agree with Brian that there really is no “killer app”.
But researchers and entrepreneurs are doing great work in creating applications to exploit Web 2.0 communication mediums. For example, this lecture proposes a system for automatically defining communities in social networks, and this lecture details how messaging and surveys could be analyzed to define communities.
Why are these studies important to real estate professionals? Because in about 18 to 24 months the viable models derived from this type of research will see market application. In turn, this means you can then use those models to communicate more effectively with a Web 2.0 audience when the housing market rebounds and consumers–who’ve been feasting on Facebook, MySpace, etc, in the interim–will expect you to communicate with them in a “Web 2.0 savvy” manner.
Tags: internet real estate marketing, web 2.0 marketing
25 Feb 08 Asserting expertise and authority with a blog
You either have high home prices or lower home prices and lower home prices are what we want, and people shouldn’t be afraid of that,” said Robert Shiller, Yale finance professor, in a Reuters interview. Most of us care about our children and grandchildren, and these people have to buy houses so why would we want high home prices. We want economic growth, we don’t want high home prices.
So, as the slow ride down continues, what’s happening in the realm of social media that will help you when the ride hits bottom and the ascent begins anew? For starters, Business Week Online in its Feb 21, 2008 issue, is a great source for ideas.
Go ahead and bellyache about blogs. But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they’re simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the Internet itself. And they’re going to shake up just about every business—including yours. It doesn’t matter whether you’re shipping paper clips, pork bellies, or videos of Britney in a bikini, blogs are a phenomenon that you cannot ignore, postpone, or delegate. Given the changes barreling down upon us, blogs are not a business elective. They’re a prerequisite. citation
Here’s a tip elite athletes adhere to: remember your competition is yourself and those out there who take the time to do one little extra thing, whether it’s one more hand-eye coordination exercise, or 55 more stairs to run, and it’s that one little extra thing that can separate a winner from a loser.
Ideas circulate as fast as scandal. Potential customers are out there, sniffing around for deals and partners. While you may be putting it off, you can bet that your competitors are exploring ways to harvest new ideas from blogs, sprinkle ads into them, and yes, find out what you and other competitors are up to.