Marketing Safari

The Word is Spreading

As of now the number of voters on IfTheWorldCouldVote.com has exceeded the total population in Iceland. We have now 341.000 votes from 198 countries. We have only used social media to spread the word. No ads bought, no links or registrations bought. It's just natural spread on the Internet and traditional media in various countries picking it up.

Sometimes we see a peak in the results from a certain nation. When that happens we check where the traffic came from. Was it a blog (like those from Egypt, Jamaica, USA and here and there, yes, even from Northern Marina Islands), a bookmarking site, a newspaper or just word of mouth? When it's online publicity it's easy to track. But word of mouth off-line is very difficult to track.

Last Saturday I got a great letter all the way from Australia. It's from Bob, a seventy year old guy in Sydney who liked our idea and decided to take the matters in his own hands and really spread the word:

"A couple of days ago I decided to help you further, and in particular Australia. I sat down at the computer and typed up the web address along with a short 4 line message 14 times to fit an A 4 sheet, and then printed multiple copies to yield around 200 units, then cut them up on the guillotine. I carry them in my pocket and hand them out to people in the street or on the bus and invite them to check the web site out. So far I have handed out just over 100, I plan to produce a lot more as I will be participating in an annual bike ride on Sunday where there will be 6 to 7 thousand riders taking part. So after Sunday it is possible that you may see an appreciable increase in the number of votes coming from Australia, if that should be the case you will know the reason why, and I will also feel good about it."

Today it's Tuesday and we've got over 10.000 votes from Australia. When Bob started a few days ago, there where 4.541 votes from Australia. But Bob doesn't just have friends in Australia.

"Then earlier today (Friday) I decided to make a single handed assault on boosting the numbers in one particular country. You may well say how could I possibly do that (I am 70 and not silly) I noted one country (there are a few others) that only had one vote registered, this being Vanuatu, which is a small Pacific Island country which lies North and to the East of Australia which has a population of well under one million. I have been there (3 years ago) and have a good friend who is a local man. He and I correspond quite regularly by email, so I wrote to him and gave him all the details and instructed him to write the details up like I did. Now remember this is a Third world Pacific Paradise, and there are very few computers, and even less people who are connected to an internet service. So I have asked my friend Ben to canvass all the shops and offices in their main (small) capitol city of Port Vila and invite those who have internet access to participate if they wish. He has friends on some of the other islands, and I have asked him to pass the details on to some of them.

 

So if you see some votes starting to arrive in the next few days from Vanuatu, you will know the reason for the sudden increase of interest in the project. I would know how you managed to receive the first vote, there are quite a lot of Expat people from several countries who live in Vanuatu, and it would be safe to say that one of their friends sent them the details in an email."

I've been monitoring Vanuatu for a few days now and it just stood still in 1 vote. Today something happened though and when I checked the numbers, all of a sudden we had 30 votes from Vanuatu. My guess is, Ben read his email :) While writing this email, 9 more have come in from Vanuatu. It may not be big on global scale, but it's big for Vanuatu and all this is a great example of the importance of a single man picking up the cause and spreading the word.

If you have more stories about people going the extra mile to spread the word about our site, please share them. We love to get stories like this one.

Keep up the good work people. We have two weeks to go to the election. We won't manage to get more voters than voted in the last US election, but we are determent in getting more than a million votes. With your help, that is quite possible.

Thank you world, for participating
Hjörtur

If this is your first time on my blog, you might want to consider subscribing to my feed or email updates (here on the left). You can also follow me on Twitter.

Are You a Community Organizer?

(This is not political propaganda - it's actually a post about social media)

There seem to be some mixed feelings about community organizers. Obama is proud to be a community organizer while Sarah Palin laughs at him. So to be sure what it meant to be a community organizer, I looked up on Wikipedia. And guess what, they have a list of famous community organizers like Jesus Christ, Mahatma Gandhi and Barack Obama (I'm not saying Jesus Christ and Barack Obama are equal. I mean, Jesus had only 12 ... oh, never mind ;).

According to Wikipedia

Community organizers generally seek to build groups that are democratic in governance, open and accessible to community members, and concerned with the general health of the community rather than a specific interest group.

So what's that got to do with Social Media Marketing? Everything. As I see it, this is pretty much what companies are dealing with today because of social media. They have to realize that the power is moving from them to their customers. The customers are organizing them selves, the power is being distributed more evenly to all. When companies try to organize a community, they have to be "concerned with the general health of the community rather than a specific interest group." In the case of the company, that specific interest group is the company. Those who succeed in organizing the consumer or customer community are those who will succeed in the market of tomorrow.

Three very different community organizers, Jesus, Obama and Shoemoney. (Before you go bananaz over the images, I just chose the first image that showed up under the name of each in Google's image search. Couldn't be more neutral)

How does it work?
Companies can build up brand communities using support forums, blogs and social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Bloggers can do the same, build a community around their blog, add forums, and connect to readers on Facebook, Twitter and else where.

Jeremy Schoemaker, better known as Shoemoney, is a blogger, and an "online community organizer". He's got over 20.000 subscribers to his blog and over 5.000 followers on Twitter. Last week he announced a competition on his blog where the price is a trip to the ThinkTank 2008 in San Diego, a non-conference gathering with the top names in SEO and Internet Marketing. The event is "by invitation only" so not everybody can attend. He proofed the power of community organizing when he submitted his post to Sphinn - a digg-like bookmarking community of internet marketing professionals, owned by another powerful online community organizer, Danny Sullivan.

Shoemoney tweeted it asking people to sphinn his story and 14 of his followers retweeted it. Within 20 minutes it went hot and made the front page of Sphinn. But there was a clash of communities when several sphinn users objected and the post was removed from Sphinn. Some mean that Shoemoney is exploiting his community. But isn't this what social media marketing is all about? Building up a strong community, (which doesn't happen unless people think you or your brand are worth it) and then reaping the benefits? I'd say it is.

So, my conclusion is that being a community organizer is probably one of the best assets you can have today, both in marketing and elsewhere.

Update: Jesus Christ and Mahatma Gandhi have both been removed from the Wikipedia list of famous community organizers. Hmm...

Hjörtur

ps. Talking about that competition, here are the reasons why you should invite me to the ThinkTank, Jeremy:

- I will not be teaching you any SEO programming secrets, but I should be able to tell you a lot about social media and branding.

- I'm an anthropologist and might share with you my vision on the future of the internet, the future of business and where our society is developing and put it all in context.

- I can share with you my link baiting and buzz making strategies.

- I'm working on a book on social media marketing (but it's still not public, so don't tell anyone) so other participants might get their case into the book.

- I'm a new, fresh breeze into the industry and no one is fed up with my speeches at conferences ;)

- I'm from Iceland and I bet there are not many who attend who actually met a real person from Iceland ;)

- I put you in the same category as Jesus Christ, Barack Obama and Mahatma Ghandi in the post above ;)

Why I want to go?
- Because winter is starting here in Iceland
- Because I bet I can learn a bunch
- And I finally get to meet some of my network in person

Yes, Social Media Marketing Does Matter!

Peter Kim asks some interesting questions on his blog beingpeterkim. One of them is "Does Social Media Marketing Matter?"

To see if it matters, you can take the test and measure your score. In the test he has some excellent examples of social media success and fiasco. There is one problem with the whole thing though. It is a bit like asking if this ad that was published here or there got you to buy this or that to measure the impact of advertising. If you ask people, majority of them will reply that advertising does not affect their buying behaviour. Still, years of research have shown that ads really do affect our buying behaviour. Yes, we trust recommendations from friends the most, but ads still have influence (though it seems to be rapidly declining).

It doesn't work in the way that we buy a product after seeing a single ad or after single interaction with a brand in social media. That's the exception. You need to see ads repeatedly for them to sink in, and you need to interact repeatedly with a brand through social media channels to build up relationships and trust. And that's what social media is about, building relationships and trust and reinforcing the brand. Social media is the perfect medium for that. And you do that by listening more than anything else. When you have built trust, you come much closer to equal recommendations from a personal friend, as we have discussed in my post "Do You Trust a Blogger".

We can take a look at his test and I'll give my view on the questions:

+3 points:

• Switched cable, internet, or phone providers after Comcast Must Die or Sleeping Technician
No, but if I were to switch, this might very likely influence my decision
• Bought a brand other than Nikon after the blogger campaign
Don't know that one
• Bought shoes from Zappos after interacting on Twitter
I'm much more likely to take them to consideration, yes.
• Bought a Blendtec blender
Don't know this one.

+2 points:

• Stopped shopping at Target after the Times Square billboard
Nope, but their disrespect to me as a blogger results in less loyalty. I'm not willing to go through as much effort to shop at Target as before.
• Stopped shopping at Wal-Mart after the fake blog
Nope, but I probably won't trust any bloggers blogging about Wal-Mart for a long time.
• Switched laptops after reading about Dell Hell
I'm a Mac guy and don't expect that to change. But if I were to buy a PC, this would go into the evaluation of a Dell versus another brand.
• Purchased a Kodak product after reading posts from their chief blogger
Don't read their blog, but if I heard about something interesting there, sure.

+1 point:

• Subscribed to a magazine after joining its Facebook group
If I see that all my friends are in the group, I would probably wonder if it wasn't time I subscribed too.
• Eaten at McDonald's after reading their corporate social responsibility blog
It sure makes me feel that my money is better spent then I would otherwise feel, so it raises my price tolerance.




• Booked a flight on Southwest or Delta after reading their blogs
Nope, but it would get me to include them in my price checking.
• Booked a hotel stay at Starwood or Marriott after reading their blogs
Nope, but it would get me to include them in my price checking.

-2 points for any of the following:

• Became a regular viewer of Aqua Teen Hunger Force after the "bomb scare"
Nope, but it did make me curious so if I would have come across an episode, I would have checked it out.
• Bought Doritos after the consumer-generated Super Bowl ad
Nope, but if I would have been one of those generating the ads, I sure would have.
• Joined Facebook after hearing about it on your local evening news
Very unlikely.
• Bought a Sony PSP as a Christmas 2006 gift anyway
Sure.
• Have ever been Rickroll'd
Actually, I have never been Rickroll'd

So how'd you score? Check out BeingPeterKim to see what your score should tell you.

While Peter Kim's article does raise some interesting questions and discussions, it's not realistic, because it assumes that the success we should be measuring is direct sales. While I agree that increasing sales is the marketers end goal, I don't think that it means it should be the goal of social media marketing nor the meter to measure. In both the + points and the - points, it is not enough alone to make me decide whether to buy or not, but it is likely to influence my decision.

So the most important question it leaves us with is how we should measure success of social media marketing. Do we measure sales that links we share in social media generates? Number of subscribers or friends added? Customer service issues solved through social media? Or good tips on improving service and product development that we get?

What metrics do you use to measure your success of social media marketing?

Hjörtur

ps. remember to subscribe to my feed, if you haven't already. You are also welcome to share on Facebook, digg, StumbleUpon or your blog (just remember to link back).

The Anthropology of YouTube

As you may know I'm an anthropologist which has been very helpful in my marketing. The single most important thing I've picked up from anthropology is to always try to figure out the mindset of the target group before I make something. Sounds logical, but way to often people think about the needs of the seller instead of the buyer when creating the marketing material.

I came across a YouTube video on Twitter this morning, that I must share with you. It's a presentation dr. Michael Wesch from Kansas State University did for the Library of Congress on June 23.rd 2008. It's an interesting anthropological analysis on the affect YouTube and social media is having on the way we connect, communicate and recognize ourselves today. If you're into social media you should watch it. There are many excellent examples and quotes in there.

(Note! It is 55 minutes long, but it's worth it. Plus, I haven't been posting in almost three weeks while I've been traveling, so I've been collecting minutes that I can use now ;) Besides, what better things do you have to do on a sunday?)

Hjörtur

ps. Remember to subscribe, if you haven't already.

Riots 2.0 - Riots in the Age of Social Media

Gas prices have been going up here in Iceland, like everywhere else in the world and truck driver's patience has been tested. They are now fed up with the portion the state takes off the gas price and started to protest in an attempt to get the taxes on gas lowered.

Last Wednesday the protest ended in riots when the police decided to remove protestants by force. A group of teenagers started throwing eggs back at them. Unfortunately, one of the news channels didn't catch that live, so when not on camera, the journalist asked a few protestants to throw more eggs when she was going live again. What she didn't realize is that even though she wasn't live on TV, she was being streamed live over the web. Needless to say, she is no longer working at that station.

The police seemed to loose it's temper going forward with unnecessary brutality. One police officer screamed at the protestants and started spraying pepper spray all over the place. That too, was caught on tape and the soundtrack with the officer screaming "GAS! GAS! GAS! CLEAR THE ROAD!" has now become the most downloaded ring tone in Iceland. Remixes are also available on both youtube and elsewhere.

It's interesting to see how social media is changing the landscape of society. It's not only affecting our personal lives or companies, it's affecting everything in society. People are carrying a multimedia device in their pocket with the ability to record whatever happens and transmit it live to any place in the world. A recent example that has been written a lot about lately is the one of James Buck, an american student observing a riot in Mahalla in Egypt. He was arrested and jailed but managed to send out a one word message to his followers on Twitter: Arrested. One of his college back in America who received the message hired a lawyer who got him out with success.

So beware. No matter what you do, when you do it or where you are. It's little brother who's watching. And he will tell!

Hjörtur

Let Customers Run Customer Support

The weather has been fantastic this weekend. The garden was filled with I-don't-know-how-many kids, we had 7 kids for dinner and 6 kids over the night. And when I sat at the dinner table, I was just thinking how little problem it was to have so many kids (only 4 of them are mine though).

People with one or two kids sometimes shake their head in horror when they hear how many I have and ask how I manage. And I point out that it's actually easier to have two young kids, when you have two older ones at the same time, because they help out, babysit and they play together.

When I have many kids, they will also be a great network for each other when they grow older which they can rely on, both in good times or bad. They will always have each other to lean on and go to for support.

Your customers can be the same for your product and brand. Don't try to manage all communication with your customers yourself. Allow them to communicate with each other.

Forums are brilliant for customer support. If you look at how support is for open source software, for Google, Dell or any other of the rising stars of today, you'll see that before you can contact customer service, you're encouraged to look through faq and then you can ask in their forum. In the forum, you are just as likely to get a reply to your question from another customer, as from an employee of the company.

The replies from the customers are often better than the ones you get from customer service because they are from people who have been in exactly the same situation and therefore, know where you're coming from. That gives the other customers a lot better understanding and support than if you have someone at your office, or in India, answering from a manual. Someone that has maybe never even seen the product in action.

If your forum turns out to be a good one where your customers become active, you take a lot of heat off your support team. The more activity there is on your forum, the less work it is to maintain it. Another thing that happens when your customers start to interact is that they build up a relationship, not only with you and your product, but also with each other. They exchange experience and ideas regarding the use of your service or product and you actually start to build a brand community.

Hjörtur

The Value of Personalization

Today is Earth Day. Happy Earth Day, everyone. I'm actively participating in the overpopulation of our planet with my fifth kid on the way (believing that if I raise them right, they will do our Earth more good than bad).

Me and my wife only "multiply" twice a year, in April and late November/early December. So there has been a series of birthdays in the last days. My youngest daughters both wanted new bikes, as summer was coming and their bikes were too small. At first I thought that was a great idea. But then I came to think of all the bikes in my garage. Why should I buy new bikes when I have bikes that are the right size for them? Because they should have the right of getting new bikes that are their's?

After giving this a little thought, we decided not to buy them new bikes. Instead, the oldest siblings took the old bikes, repaired them and gave them a new life. With oil, sandpaper and paint th bikes got a make over. It took me by surprised how enthusiastic the kids were about it. They really loved doing it and put a lot of love and effort into their project and the youngest ones were really looking forward to getting the remade bike that used to belong to the BIG sister.

The result was maybe not the prettiest bike in the street. But it's a unique personalized bike with a story, emotional bonding and care. And it became a much greater gift than if I would have thrown them out and just bought new ones.

It reminded me off one of the principles of marketing in today's commercialized society. Become personal (social media comes in handy for that). Add a personal touch to your product, tell your customers your personal story about why you deliver what you deliver, or give people an opportunity to personalize themselves your product.

We've seen many producers doing this and prolonging the shelf live of their products by offering personalization. Nokia did it by offering phones where you could swap covers and even make your own cover. Crocs did it by offering all sorts of decorations to add to the shoes. And now Volvo is doing it by offering people different sorts of "wallpapers" for their Volvo C30.

It's just like the Christmas presents you've received through the years. Which ones do you remember and keep? Those who were the latest hype or those who were made or chosen with care, with a thought and with your own character in mind?

Hjörtur

Negative Publicity? Seize the Opportunity!

Got negative press lately? Congratulations! Someone cares about what you're doing. Seize the opportunity.

So, how can you transform negative publicity into a positive thing? There are few methods you can use, but for start, let's hope the negative publicity is based on a misunderstanding, an accident or something easily excusable. If you're getting negative publicity because you did something bad, things get a little more tough.

But nothing is impossible. So I am listing up a few methods you can use to grab the opportunity negative publicity brings you.

1. First of all, people are going to be checking you out. And they start by going to your homepage. So expect increased traffic and less sales. There are two things you need to put on your website to be prepared. One thing is info on the bad thing you did and what you're going to do about it and the other thing is an offer they can't deny. Offer your new guests to testdrive your product or service for free for a whole month, to sign up for more news on the progress of your "publicity issue" and other matters or you can even put up some sweepstakes to make them exited about you and your product.

2. Blog. If you don't have a blog already, now is about time to start. That is the best place to show people you are reacting to your crisis, to get YOUR message and reaction to criticism out and allowing people to follow the process. And remember to be honest, or you will just get into more trouble.

3. You've got the attention of the media. Make the most of it. It should be alot easier to get an interview when you are all ready on the news. Practice the message you want to get through so that you can get them there directly after you answer the question you get. Invite them to see with their own eyes what you are doing, what went wrong and what you're doing about it. If you don't know what you are going to do about it, show them your task force that have the mission to find out what to do.

4. SEO. You know people are going to the search engines to dig up your dirt. Use good SEO and make sure that people will find the information you want them to find at the top of the SERPs. Don't forget other search engines such as Google images, Google videos etc.

And a few more if you really messed up.

5. Codes of conduct. Tell people you're making your codes of conduct so that your scandal will not repeat it self. Remember that codes of conduct you can't live up to are likely to do you more harm than good.

6. CSR. This might not be the right time to go into new CSR efforts. That might look like bribery or you pretending to be a good guy. Wait until things cool down a bit and then you can start new CSR efforts but do it low profile.

7. Internal marketing. Don't forget to inform your employees about what went wrong and what you're doing about it. They are going to be answering for you whereever they go, and even their spouse is going to be answering for your company to your employee's mother-in-law. So give them something to say. They need to know they are working for the right company.

8. Your consumers. How can they justify to continue doing business with you? Contact them via direct mail or call them and let them know what is happening. That is likely to strengthen your relationship and shows that you really care about your relationship with them. If you have a strong relationship and trust with your clients they might come to your defence. The value of your consumers or clients standing up and picking up your fight is invaluable and a lot more credible than when you say it yourself.

If you have more ideas on how to react to negative publicity and turn it into something positive, share them with us in the comments.

Hjörtur
ps. if you haven't got negative publicity yet, you're not bringing anything new to the table. Try harder ;)

Three Right Feet in Sneakers Washed Ashore

I don't know if you've heard about the odd discoveries in the Georgia Strait, between Vancouver Island and British Columbia mainland.

Three right feet were found within close proximity and a short period of time. Not only that, they were all dressed in a running shoe, men's size 12. So it is very unlikely to be off the same individual, though it can be from the same individual. Nobody really knows where they come from or how they got there. According to Curtis Ebbesmeyer, a specialist in drifting sneakers, they could come from as far as Alaska or California, even Japan.

You can't help but wonder. Last week I wrote about remarkable drifts including a huge Lego figure and three really big grand pianos wondering if this was place branding. Can the three feet in sneakers be place branding for Vancouver Island? Or a marketing stunt for some sneaker brand proofing that they can outlast the one who weares the shoes?

That would be "bad taste marketing" but considering what desperation gets people to do, you never know. It's not even sure if the men who the feet belonged to are actually dead or "just" amputated. Did someone buy three right feet in India for his marketing campaign like you can do with some other body parts, like kidneys?

I maybe stretching a bit far here. I hope I am.

Hjörtur

Ferrari FXX Evoluzione - Evolution by Consumers

I’m not off topic here. I just found a reason to write about the new red Ferrari.

Ferrari’s Formula F1 driver Michael Schumacher unveiled a brand new Ferrari FXX Evoluzione at the Ferrari World Finals at the Mugello track in Italy this weekend. This new car is a sequel to the earlier Ferrari FXX as the name indicates. And note that they have added Evoluzione to the name.

What makes the FXX series special is the participation of the consumers in its development. Or should we say “evolution”? Just over twenty loyal Ferrari customers where chosen to come and testdrive the FXX at Ferrari’s racetrack in 14 group test sessions and 14 privat sessions. Among them was the legend him self, the ultimate Ferrari driver, Michael Schumacher. So not only did those customers get to test and comment on the design of the next Ferrari, but they get to be a part of the same group as Michael Schumacher.

Now if that doesn’t make those customers evangelists for the brand, I don’t think anything will.

This cooperation between Ferrari’s engineering team, customers and race drivers resulted in several imporvements of the car resulting in the new FXX Evoluzione. The car will be a track car only and selected customers will be invited to test drive it on twelve test track events in three continents in 2008 and 2009.

Hjörtur