Socialising the enterprise: a chat with Ogilvy 360DI’s John Bell

John Bell, global managing director of Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence, visited Australia last week and spoke to BNET about the concept of socialising the enterprise.

John shares his thoughts with BNET’s Phil Dobbie on the opportunities and challenges that business leaders will likely encounter when devising and deploying social media strategies. He also explains the reasons why it’s important to make social media part of the corporate-wide strategy that promotes long term engagement.

Listen to the interview here:

Ogilvy Sydney Event With Radian6 Co-Founder Chris Ramsey

Livewire social network for seriously ill Aussie teenagers

Howorth ensured Livewire – www.livewire.org.au – was the website on everyone’s lips after officially launching the groundbreaking new online community in Australia. The PR campaign led to an immediate 25% increase in membership on launch day and invitations of support from like-minded not for profit companies.

More than 250 stories were placed in a wide range of media across every state in Australia – and even across the globe. Considering Google ranked Livewire as ‘the most searched story’ on launch day, this in no surprise. Highlights included

• Print – The Daily Telegraph, The Australian Financial Review, mX and suburban and regional news in NSW, QLD, VIC, SA and WA.
• Radio – more than 166 stories, inc luding coverage on every ABC station across the country
• Online – more than 55 pieces of coverage across news.com.au, yahoo.com.au, australianit.com.au, couriermail.com.au, heraldsun.com.au, smh.com.au, theage.com.au and more
• Bloggers – overwhelmingly supportive postings from Mum and Dad, tech and health bloggers
• Livewire ranked as ‘the most searched story’ on Google on launch day

As the first initiative of its kind, Livewire provides a free, safe and supportive online social network for Australians aged between 10 and 21, currently living with a serious illness, chronic health condition, or disability. It is a way for Australia’s sickest teenagers to understand that they’re not alone and support does exist for them.

Key steps

Howorth ensured the Livewire story was blasted far and wide across the country by devising a strategic media and blogger engagement plan. Key steps:

• Pre-negotiated interviews with AAP, Radio National, The Daily Telegraph and news.com.au to drive news interest on launch day
• An exclusive launch event featuring the Hon. Senator Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy and Jill Weekes, CEO of The Starlight Children’s Foundation, for over 150 media and corporate partners
• More than 50 interviews organised post-event to drive momentum across radio, print and online news
• Blogger outreach to establish brand evangelists and generate positive word of mouth

Livewire were thrilled with the results of the campaign

“The Howorth team was appointed at short notice. The particular expertise of Vida and her team was their comprehensive knowledge and contacts within the media industry, particularly with online media which was a key strategic area we wanted to target.

“The Howorth team went over and beyond our expectations, and we were delighted with the level of media that was generated. They were always available and, most importantly very quickly established a thorough understanding of what Livewire is all about and what we were hoping to achiev.,”

Omar Khalifa, Managing Director, Livewire.

TweePR: Australia’s PR practitioners on Twitter

I just spotted TweePR.com.au, an interesting initiative driven by the school of marketing/communications at the Queensland University of Technology.

TweePR aims to “give a bird’s eye view of what the nation’s public relations gurus are tweeting about. Watch myriad issues unfold – as interpreted by the nation’s masters of PR – all in one place.”

The river-of-news format is a nice touch, enabling you to see real-time messages being tweeted.

There’s also the tweepr top 100 list, which ranks Australia’s PR practitioners from 1 to 100, calculated based on the number of followers, updates and how recent their tweets are.

Howorth-ians in the list are @bdgiesen, @GWhiteOz, @Ofagirl and @deelau.

Preference-based consumer marketing. Why do we ignore it?

There is a vast amount of research that has been conducted recently regarding the consumers’ preferred method of receiving marketing communication. A recent study by Forrester Research, and commissioned by ExactTarget, highlights that the majority of consumers today still have a strong affinity towards email.

The important take out: Consumers prefer email at a rate of three-to-one when compared with any other avenue for marketing communications such as social media, Instant Messaging, phone and SMS!

Despite the abundance of research that all points towards email being the marketing method of choice for consumers, why do marketers continue to ignore this?

Despite the spike of Internet users using social media, for example three quarters of Australian online adults use social technologies (Forrester: Australian Adult Social Technographics Revealed 2008), consumers in general are NOT open to receiving marketing communication via this channel.

As social media continues to boom with new channels for communication being created everyday with new social networking sites and the like popping up, there is an overreliance and tendency to use this medium for all-purposes in order to reach the masses.

Unfortunately we forego the very fundamental principles of Marketing 101. We need to stop, think, plan and go back to basics:

• Who are our customers?
• Where are they?
• What are their preferences for receiving marketing messages?
• What are the right messages for each customer segment?
• What channel do we use to reach them?

A quick Google search and some top line research is enough to reveal where our customers’ preferences sit. It’s all very simple. Follow the basic principles of marketing and target the appropriate marketing messages to the appropriate consumers based on their preferences using the appropriate channels!

Sadly, we are missing the point! We’re frustrating consumers and, ultimately, not getting the outcomes that we desire!

Spotted: Twitchiker and the Feats of Tweet

Earlier this year, a freelance journalist by the name of Paul Smith (no relation to Paul Smith from the AFR), embarked on an adventure to get from Newcastle to New Zealand in just 30 days.

He put in place a few rules for his journey and unless these were followed, the whole adventure is over and he goes home:

• He’ll only accept help (lifts, a place to stay and food) from other people on Twitter
• He can’t make any plans further than three days in advance
• He can only spend money on food, drink and anything that might fit in his suitcase
• If there’s more than one offer on the table, he gets to choose which he takes. If there’s only one, he has to take it within 48 hours
• If he’s unable to find a way to move on from a location within 48 hours, the challenge is over and he goes home

Fast forward to September, he’s halfway across the globe in much more interesting places than NZ (…sorry Kiwis) and with a whole heap of amazing stories to tell about his travel adventures.

He has also recently embarked on a new project, Feats of Tweet, with an aim of using social media to change the world – one tweet at a time.

These are both great example of social media – used the way that social media is supposed to!

Online communities: think ‘quality NOT quantity’

Nate Cochrane pens his rules for social media etiquette on iTNews. And in a style true to the very fundamentals of social media which encourage active sharing and participation, he has made a point to list the rules he outlines as a work in progress and has opened it up for discussion on the site.

One of the rules that he points out is one that we tend to forget: ‘Quality NOT quantity’. Too often PRs get flack for doing a last minute dash to sign up as many people in their network to become friends/ fans on their clients’ Facebook groups and pages or on their Twitter handles.

As PRs, we need to continue to educate our clients that the real value does not lie in the sheer volume of people we sign up but rather in the quality of the people we engage (even if it’s only a handful!).

Consider who your target audience is, where do they frequent and how to reach them. Who is in your fans/ friends extended networks. Are they the right audience to target?

Using Twitter as an example, it’s important to do the analysis and drill down into who the person is that you want to connect with, get to know them, follow them for a while and find out what they write about. Also have a look into who follows that person, are they the appropriate person for your client to be reaching out to or is there someone in their Twitter network that is better?

The following tool can help you determine the most appropriate people to follow:
http://flowingdata.com/2008/03/12/17-ways-to-visualize-the-twitter-universe/

If we want to get some real and long lasting results for our clients, the key is to make sure that we’re speaking to the right audiences!

The scary side of Social Networking

With the popularity of social networking sites continuing to grow at massive rates, adding thousands of new users every day, we must still tread with caution. Every week we see experts step forward to advise us that platforms like Twitter and Facebook can easily ruin our reputations.

One such recent report is by Zatz Publishing’s editor-in-chief David Gewirtz, which was reported by the Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog.

In the article Gewirtz says that when it comes to social networking, it’s not what you know, or even who you know, it’s who knows you. The report is aptly titled: “The Dark Side of Social Networking.”

Gerwitz adds: “social networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn are the increasingly popular community services that are designed to help people stay in touch.”

The Bulldog article cites research from Nielsen Company that “more than two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visit social networking sites at least once a month, and nearly 10% of all time spent online is devoted to social networking.”

Due to this popularity and growth, and an army of undisciplined users, Gewirtz adds that “social networks are attracting scammers and criminals. The bulk of social networkers are between the ages of 18 and 49 – prime employment years, and ages where a mistake today could haunt them for many years into the future.”

Gewirtz’s report explores the following issues:

• Employment: how social networking can lead to career suicide
• Reputation: how something you say now could haunt you for years into the future.
• Malware, phishing and identity scams: how using services like Facebook and Twitter without caution could cause you serious financial loss
• Physical security and stalking: how social networks give stalkers and other scary people an almost minute-by-minute update on your habits and haunts

As for physical risks, Gerwitz says “the potential for horror is enormous. If a criminal can easily find out where you are, what stores you frequent, what your daily habits are, who your friends are, and even what your personal food, entertainment, and beverage preferences are, you can be targeted with a level of ease never before possible. I worry that there is a deep and dangerous dark side to social networks and I worry about the potential victims.”

Yikes, scary stuff. You have been warned!

(Acknowledgement: Gerwitz’s quotes and observations sources from the Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog article)

The power of social media… chk-chk BOOM!

Thanks to the power of social media and viral campaigns anyone can become a celebrity overnight. You’ve no doubt seen via your email, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter accounts, how 19-year-old, Clare Werbeloff, has become an overnight celebrity for her colourful eyewitness report of a shooting in Kings Cross last Saturday night. She’s received so much media attention she’s hired a PR representative to manage her affairs.

This is a great example of the power of social and digital media campaigns, with rumours of Clare possibly bagging modelling, acting and entertainment reporting contracts from the coverage. Never mind her racist and inarticulate account of the shooting…

Questions have now been raised about this being a marketing stunt for the Toohey’s Extra Dry 6Beers campaign or The Projects marketing agency, as quoted on mUmBRELLA today. This is a highly doubtful scenario because no matter where you point a camera in Kings Cross there’ll be advertisements in the background. It would be a sad day if companies went to the extent of shooting someone for some publicity.

That aside, who knows where this might take Clare, so far she’s got quite the following – the news video was viewed more than 100,000 times this week and Clare now has nearly 900 followers on her Facebook fan page. People with ‘real’ talent can take years – even decades, if that at all – to get this kind of following. While no-one can underestimate the power of social media, it’s fair to say Clare’s no Jana Wendt and only real talent survives these explosive, short-lived bursts of fame (cue Corey Worthington nee Delaney).

I couldn’t help but think if social media (and Clare) were around in the 1980s, given the same situation, could this have even led to Clare becoming the star in John Farnham’s film clip ‘You’re The Voice’… try and understand it?!

The impact of the global recession on social media

I’m keen to understand how the global recession is impacting social media and particularly the North American powerhouse, Silicon Valley. I’m interested in the develpments occurring at Silicon Valley mostly because today we can consider it the backbone behind a lot of the big Web 2.0 companies.

Belts seem to be tightening in all industries across the board – banking, automotive, retail and so on – yet we’re still seeing big injections of capital in many of the Web 2.0 companies.

Take micro-blogging service Twitter for example. It was announced this week that Twitter has managed to raise $35 million in venture capital in spite of the challenging economic climate. This capital has come from Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital.

Are venture capitalists finally seeing the real value of Web 2.0 in helping deal with challenging times ahead?

I think that social media will come out on top in these tough times as people start using it as a means of cost-saving on entertainment. This is especially important at a time when people are becoming increasingly budget-conscious and are rather choosing to bunker indoors and save their pennies.

I’m a good example of this. I seem to find myself on fewer outings to the movies and instead I keep my cinema experience to my lounge room with my LCD TV, entertainment system and complete surround sound system. In fact, I can’t remember the last movie I saw at the cinemas but I could rattle off at least five DVDs that I have watched at home. I also spend less time travelling and more time talking to my friends overseas via Facebook and Twitter.

There are a plethora of online technologies and digital devices out there that provide consumers with their own portal to entertainment. Aside from big screen TVs that bring you a cinema at home, there are also notebook PCs to consider.

Notebooks are another means of cost-effective entertainment to online services such as online gaming, online video, video conferencing and instant connection to friends and family via IM, social networking sites, email or Skype with those embedded with broadband solutions.

Interestingly enough, consumer experts are also already tipping that many Australians will use the planned $950 Rudd Government cash handouts to splurge on games and gadgets, following record spending on electronics last year (as reported by the Courier Mail).

I’ll be watching these developments closely but please feel free to share any information specifically around how you think social media will fare in light of the global recession.

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