My blog has moved to http://blog.philswinney.com

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High School Musical - Me Version!

I have been a huge fan of JibJab for the past 5 years, since the first day I saw their rendition on “Arnold for Governor”. But today, today is an emotional moment for me. Having long been a closet High School Musical Fan hiding in the shadows, ashamed of my connection. The time has come to expose myself to the world! To step out of that closet and to be the man I know I can be! Thanks to JibJab and their wicked digital technology I can now dance with the stars. God, I love the Internet!

Politics, Politicians and Digital Marketing

I absolutely love how the Internet has completely changed the dynamic of the political landscape in world. Thanks to online social media tools, politicians now have a new battle ground for throwing hand grenades at each other. As little as 5 years ago they would have used network television, newsprint and newscasts to fire their rocket launchers at their political adversaries. Now all they have to do is get a movie star like say, Matt Damon to record a two-minute video completely undressing their opponent and BOOM, over 1.5 million people are influenced and engaged within 2 days. It seems in order to win an election today's politician has to be a good public speaker (capable of bullshitting large crowds), a credibility assassin (capable of discrediting his competition) and a digital marketing guru (capable of building online brand with connections in Hollywood). What the hell happen to leadership, ethics and morality?


Sorry, I forgot for a moment that I was talking about politicians. Those words are not top of mind when you discuss our political “leaders”. Why is that? Why do the majority of voters look at the people who run our world as evil, manipulators who conspire to steal our tax dollars? Creditability and trust is obviously a big issue for politicians. Having these two virtues is no doubt the determining factor between winning and losing; hence, why so many candidates have turned to the Internet to build their personal brand online. They want people to get to know the person and the opponent at every level.

Politicians once depended on the physical presence and pole data to gauge their personal brand with constituents. Now they can crawl the web for blog posts, news items, comments and video content measuring opinions and looking for weakness in their opponent’s armor. They hire companies to drill down through all the layers of information online and provide insight. They wage war on one another with captivating online posts that generate immeasurable amounts of "Water Cooler" talk. As a result any close political race today is really undecided until the final bell or shoot across the bow. Unlike the days when candidates had to stop campaigning days before the vote, today they influence opinion right up until the “X” is marked on the ballot. It makes you wonder what hot and juicy tidbits Ohbama and Maclean have in their war chests set aside for the week prior to the vote when they load their Flame Throwers and burn one another.

With the power of digital marketing and the ruthless nature of politics today it amazing that we still have anyone interested in running for office. How many of us could stand the personal attacks and character assassinations that take place in the media. With this new digital battlefield the war seems to have intensified. Voting has become a measurement of who you dislike the least as opposed to who has the leadership skills. So I think I’ll wait until the night before Election Day to make my decision on whom to vote for in our upcoming federal election. I’ll go online, summarize all the news on each candidate, assign a rating using my “Bullshitometer” and glance at their election platform (not like they’re going to stick with it) then decide who best weathered the mine field of rhetoric. Thank God we have the Internet!

Collaboration

I recently had the opportunity to go back and re-read a favorite book of mine call Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams. It was re-release in 2008 so it seemed like a good opportunity to rejuvenate my mind on the topic of collaborative thinking. Tapscott and Williams do a great job of demonstrating how traditional business models are under attack by growing collaborative structures that leverage open sharing of information. They believe that the future for all business is a global model that involves open sharing of intellectual properties (IP) with the goal of increasing innovation. What made the read more interesting this time around is I could compare the book's 2006 predictions to 2008 realities. It's amazing how well they called it.

Tapscott and Williams discussed the Apple iPod and sighted how Apple was under attack by a small group of enthusiastic programmers who want to hack their product. They discussed how a traditional approach to manipulation of a product would be to fire off a lawsuit and shutdown the offenders much like the music industry has done with illegal downloads. In 2006 Apple didn’t know how they were going to deal with this issue. In 2008 we see their response in the iPhone and iTouch products.

Apple looked at the effects of taking a defensive stance on iPod abuse and instead of launching a war with their customers and enthusiasts they decided to collaborate with them and build a better product. Apple looked at the music industry and saw how companies like Sony are alienating their customers. Sony’s defensive position on music and downloads has put them at odds and in some case in court with the people who buy their products. Apple realized it had to find a better way to meet its customer’s demands and create a revenue opportunity. They had to innovate.

Rapid innovation is no easy task. Traditionally it involves a team of company engineers who brainstorm, invent, develop, test market, re-work and launch new products. It can be a lengthy process spanning years and costing millions of dollars. Given today’s rapidly changing global playing field, it’s extremely risky to invest “the farm” in R & D. Today smart companies are doing their homework by asking their customers what they want before they build it. They're listening and learning before they invest. Apple did this when they embarked on the re-design of the iPod and the development of the iPhone. What they heard completely changed the product, challenged the business model and ultimately lead to one the biggest innovations in the history of the company.


Apple created hackable devices. They didn’t go out there and broadcast it, but you can bet they intended to have it happen. Apple realized in 2006 that their enthusiasts, their market influencers, want a piece of hardware they could customize. They were already doing it so it was quite obvious where the new device's development had to go. Apple used a collaborative approach to developing these products. They listen to their customer and found a way to give them what they wanted without bankrupting the iPod division. They could have very easily locked down their device and issued cease and desist letters to their customers. Instead Apple developed a software operating system for handhelds that allowed their customers to write their own apps.

As a result the market has exploded with innovative new tools for the iPhone and iTouch. Apple’s R & D for iApps has become a revenue generator as opposed to an expense. They now have a global network of millions of software engineers who can respond to their customer’s demands for iApps 100 times faster than a group of Apple engineers. Apple simply shares the revenues with the developers and approves their products. The new collaborative model has lead to a windfall for Apple who just announce $3o million in revenue in the last 30 days from iApps and is projecting a gross revenue of over $325 million on the year.

Apple leveraged the collaborative approach by sharing some of their IP with their customers in order to gain the knowledge they knew existed in the iPod community. By sharing their technology they have built a massive new R & D department that doesn't require parking space at head office. This group develops applications because they can and because they want to, not because they're being paid for it. People love their iPhone and iTouch. Christ, I love my iTouch and 3 years ago if you had of asked me about Apple I would have told you it was junk – pretty package with nothing inside! Today I see them as one of the most innovative companies on the planet.

You have to wonder if Steve Jobs didn’t read Wikinomics in 2006 because the direction Apple took parallels perfectly with the Tapscott and Williams model. I think I’ll give Jobs a ring and ask him!

Softball Bat Marketing

First off, this entry has nothing to do with digital marketing, just a note on marketing in general. About 20 years ago I had the opportunity to work for a company by the name of Hillerich & Bradsby (H&B) out of Louisville, Kentucky. H&B is a family owned business that has roots tracing back to the late 1800s. One the company's core product offerings is the baseball bat brand Louisville Slugger. In 1989 when I worked with H & B baseball products they were experiencing a real down turn in the bat business. Young players were realizing a number of other sporting opportunities and as a result registration growth in the sport had begun to stabilize and decline. As a leading supplier to this market, H&B was faced with the challenge of increasing their market share and growing their sales in a period of declining demand. Enter the marketing guys.

When people get tired of a product or a customer base declines a common strategy is to get the consumer to upgrade. Give them a reason to buy a new bat. The first place H & B turned was to their research and development team to give them a competitive edge. They had their engineers scope out a space age material used by NASA in space shuttle fuselage that would help them make high performance bats. Using CU31 alloy, a new bread of high-end bat was created and branded the Louisville Slugger Tournament Pro Series (TPS). The new bat was made from an ultralight weight alloy that supposedly gave the batter a new level of hitting power. No one else had this technology so H&B could charge a premium for their product. They introduce one of the first +$100.00 bat products supporting it with a massive marketing initiative targeted at building brand awareness for TPS.

Speed a head to 2008, the average softball bat is now selling for between $250 and $400 dollars. Those who can't afford the price tag are buying used bats on eBay. Twenty years ago retailers laughed when I told them they should be selling +$100 softball bats. The market didn't understand the value proposition. Today, thanks to a genius marketing strategy, players now feel they need them. What the hell happened?

As volume dropped H & B realized they had to bring the average cost per item up in order to grow bat sales. They saw an opportunity to bring the bat up market by introduce new technology and changing customer perception. They also knew how serious some of the recreational players were about their game and felt that these players would pay a lot more money for a product that would make the ball go further. How much more was the only unknown variable. Over the past twenty years H & B has continually innovated and marketed to this target audience while steadily edging the average cost of the product upwards constantly testing the consumer's price threshold.

Today most players expects to pay $300 for a bat in order to get the edge they need. But here's the interesting thing, the ball diamonds haven't gotten any bigger and the last time I attended a softball game(about 2 weeks ago) I don't remember seeing any home run records set by people using the +$300 bat. Just another proof point for the power of good marketing. If done with great insight marketing can completely change perception. Pretty demand amazing how H & B managed to convince their customers that an aluminum bat is actually worth 300% more in 2008 than it was in 1989.

Olympics go Social

Where better to use Social Media then as part of an Olympic Games marketing campaign. Lenovo, a Worldwide supplier of innovation, is sponsoring a site that allows followers to get an inside perspective on athletes from around the world. Voices of the Olympic Games is a aggregation of blogs with a sorting tool that allows you to quickly and easily sift through the thousands of blog entries be post by hundreds of athletes. Lenovo partnered with Google to create this incredibly real approach to covering the Olympics. The site adheres to the best practices outlined by the Word of Mouth Marketing Association. None of the athletes are required to mention anything about Lenovo. There is no editorial management of the site's content. It's just real content from real athletes who share their thoughts with the rest of the world!

To compliment the blogging, Lenovo created Facebook applications for each country. Users can add the application to their profiles and view the blog posts through the Facebook interface. The application leverages the viral aptitude of Facebook by encourage participants to invite their friends to become fans of the user's country rewarding the user for the number of referrals they generate. It displays a summary view of how many fans there are for each country encouraging the user to invite more friends to elevate their favorite country's ranking . Over 100,000 Facebookites have downloaded the application.

So why do it? Why would Lenovo invest millions of dollars in this initiative? They see the value of connecting their brand to an incredibly powerful information source that will get worldwide exposure. They know that the site will have an extremely high rate of visitor recurrence. They know that it will get passed around to other enthusiasts. They're looking to create online brand awareness and its working because until now I had no idea who they were or what they did.

Serch Engine Optimization Tips

Search engine optimization is becoming very important as more and more people load terabytes of data online. Massive amounts of text, video and photos are being uploaded everyday. I new culture of information sharing is evolving and with it comes a massive spike in the amount of data loaded on the web. As the amount grows it becomes exceedingly important to optimize content for search engines. Unfortunately, the big search engines don’t make this easy with their secret search algorithms. Optimization becomes more of a guessing game with perpetual iterations of change. That said, there are numerous books and opinions on how to generate high rankings, but they're all based on opinion so here's mine.

First off and probably foremost, don’t try to be a hacker. Creating ghost pages on your site packed with keywords or posting hundreds of external links won’t help your cause. Today’s search engine crawlers are very intelligent and have a memory for methods targeted at circumventing the system. They will often demoted or delist a site if there is malicious activity so keep it real.

Focus on the content and how it is laid out. When you create your online presence define a group of descriptors that you feel represent what a searcher would enter if they were looking for your site. Remember that the more generic you are the more challenging it will be to differentiate yourself from the competition. There are many tools available to help you determine what people most often search. A great example of this is Google’s Keyword Tool. It allows the potential Adwords advertiser to get a snapshot of the competitive landscape for keywords. Users can look at individual words or phrases and determine how popular they are in search queries. Close review of these results can help to identify words that you could use in your content to help elevate search results.

When you write the content for your site make sure you pay close attention to the words used. Crawlers look for references that continually occur throughout a site. Make sure your keywords appear as often as possible. When possible use them in page titles. Make sure your page titles are not images, use header tags to ensure the search engine crawler can read the content.

Anchor tag or link text is also very important. The text inside of these tags should contain keywords as well. Avoid the generic “Click Here” line.

Keywords can also be placed in page URLs. With all the dynamic content on the web, URLs have become increasingly complex and quite often completely unrepresentative of their content. They often contain numbers and obscure character strings that mean nothing to a search engine. Where possible use clean URLs that contain keyword descriptions. For example, if you have page containing XYZ widgets the URL to the page should be www.example.com/XYZwidget/ as opposed to www.example.com/?id=41&content/43/32/67 .

Crawlers do just that, they crawl the web looking for content building huge indexes to help people find information. Links to and from your site form the roadway for Crawlers. Much like a spider web, the closer you are to the center the more pathways there are to your location. Since we want the Crawler to visit our site as frequently as possible it makes sense that there be as many pathways as possible. Internal and external linking is a very important part of SEO. Getting other sites to link to your site will help to increase Crawler traffic making it more visibility and elevating its ranking.

But visibility means nothing if a Crawler reaches your site and there isn’t anything new to index. Continually adding and updating your site forces Crawlers to constantly re-index its contents. Continue activity on a site helps to makes it look more popular in the eyes of the search engine. Blogs and other social media devices are great tools for organically growing a site’s content. The UGC created by these tools will also increases the number of internal and external links on the site.

Once you have optimized your site monitor its ranking and make adjustments. The job of optimizing a website for search engines is a perpetual effort. Use tools like Google’s Webmaster Package to see how people are finding your site. Webmaster provides a ranking review and will show you historical information for the past 6 months. When you look at the results watch closely for keywords that you haven’t considered in the past. If applicable incorporate them into the content.

Use analytics to review user patterns on the site. Note how your visitor’s use the site and see if there usage is related to the keywords you have selected. Are they finding the information you want them to find? If not try moving it around or re-writing it. Sometimes what you think is perfectly clear may mean something completely different to the visitor.

Finally, have a look at what your content looks like to a search engine to make sure it can see everything you want it to see. Turn off Javascript and style sheet functionality in your browser window and look at the content. Mozilla’s Firefox has a handy like tool set called Firebug that will allow you to turn off this functionality and see what a search engine sees when it visits your site. A well-built site should show a page of content nicely laid out much like a well-written book. Titles highlighted and content aligned in paragraph form.

So in my opinion organic search engine optimization is all about content. Using the right words in the right places and making sure they are visible to Crawlers is a must. Creating pathways to your site by using external links will help increase Crawler awareness while continually updating content will elevate popularity.

Stressed at Work! Big brother is watching you....

It's amazing how technology is changing how people communicate. This poor guy is obviously having a bad day and absolutely looses it! 4.2 million views and 1053 comments later the community is engaged. The video is viral, but is it real or does that really matter?


Office Worker Goes Absolutely Insane - Watch more free videos

Blogging goes Mainstream

There are over 24 million bloggers in North America. Approximately 14% of Internet users have blogs. According to eMarketer, this number is growing and is on track to reach 35 million over the next 4 years. As more people move online to tell stories and express their opinions more marketers attempt to capitalize on the growing blogger population. In 2007 the US online blog advertising rung in at about 283 million. With the growth in social media and blogging it is expected this figure will triple over the next 4 years. So as a marketer, blogs definitely have my attention.

About 10 years ago I was involved in the snowboard industry working for a guy by the name of Tom Sims. In 1998 Tom was at the forefront of snowboarding and is to this day, seen as one of the inventors of the sport along with Jake Burton. Tom was and remains a hardcore snowboarder who is an iconic in snowboarding culture. Although, Tom didn't make it as big as his buddy Burton, he did pioneer the "cool factor" in that industry.

In 1998 when snowboarding was a bit of a cult I remember having a beer with Tom and discussing the future of the snowboarding business. At that time the majority of boarders thought snowboarding wasn't meant for mainstream. They felt it was a culture that they owned and needed to be protected from commercialization. Although, Tom at the time was the God of this culture, he knew that over the next 10 years snowboarding would shape the fashion world. He understood that there was a tipping point on the horizon. He knew that the masses would eventually shape his culture and make it mainstream.

Bloggers seem to be living is a similar culture these days. There are hardcore Techies who have been blogging for the past 6-8 years. They think all the new guys on the block are just "posers" and don't really get the true culture of blogging. And they maybe right, but as Tom learned and Jake Burton banked on, you cannot underestimate the power of the masses. Especially if the masses are young and they think the culture is "cool".

A recent eMarketer report shows that in the US 35% of youth between the ages of 13-24 are creating personal content (i.e. Blogging, commenting etc.). Over 50% read blogs on a regular basis. 71% of them watch or read user generated content online. As with all cultural shifts, boarding or blogging, there is that point where they become mainstream. When they build enough critical mass to be relevant to everyone. Experience shows that these changes are quite often driven by youth. Blogging is at that point, it is going mainstream and the Techies better look out because there is a culture shock in-store as the masses move in on their territory and change the landscape!

US Online Advertising has Record Year

I'm a big fan of eMarketer and have followed Geoff Ramsey's company for the past 5 years since meeting him at a Interactive to the Max conference in 2003. At that conference Geoff noted a projection by Jupiter Research stating that online advertising would hit 14.8 billion dollars by 2008 in the US. At the time revenues were only 7 billion. As Geoff presented this forecast a theatre of some 200 digital marketing enthusiasts chuckled and began to chatter about the possibility. Doubling revenues in 4 years seemed a bit crazy by any standard. It's 2008 and looking back we can now say that Jupiter was way off!In the past 4 years online advertising spends have tripled!

According to a recent eMarketer report, spends will reach over 25 billion in 2008 for the US market. To put this into context, the US market spends about 149 billion dollars a year on advertising according to TNS Media Intelligence. If you include all aspects of online advertising(Display, Search, broadcast video) as capture in the eMarketer figure, online ad spends will represent almost 16% of the total this year. Assuming network television spending stays flat as predicted, it is likely that online advertising will exceed television in 2008. If Geoff had of told us that story 5 years ago he probably would have had everyone laughing in the aisles.

Despite a struggling US economy, online advertising is well positioned to continue to grow over the next 5 years. According to Forrester Research, it will triple again by 2012 hitting 61 billion in the US. This growth will be driven by the boom in online video advertising as more people use tools like YouTube and Google Video to connect with their audiences.

In order to realize this growth and benefit from it, advertising agencies will have to change how they deliver. The Internet is a consumer-centric medium and although many may debate it, the user is in control. In order to connect online advertisers have to engage the viewer and deliver a relevant message at the appropriate moment. They will have to listen, learn and communicate with the consumer. In order to achieve this level of engagement advertising agencies will have to change how they go to market. Forrester suggests that the future agency model will be a "Connected Agency" where the delivery of the message will move from "Push" to "Pull". Advertisers will no longer broadcast they will "intercasting", engaging consumers in direct conversations through communities and listening closely to their opinions and perceptions.

What is Digital Marketing?

It's sort of funny, but not so much. Turn to the person sitting next to you and ask them to give you a short definition of digital marketing. If you're all alone, write down 2 sentences that you feel defines the term. My experience is that most people don't know. What's even more frightening is that most marketers don't know. Everyone has their own opinion, but few can express it in a concise fashion. They struggle with Internet Marketing, Digital Marketing, Interactive and Online Advertising often using the terms interchangeably. Does anyone know the true meaning of Digital Marketing?

The definition on wikipedia.org states - "Digital Marketing is the practice of promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner." But hold on, that could change as all good Wikis do. Google it and it's pretty evident we like to give out a lot of awards for Digital Marketing - maybe the judges know the meaning! A quick scan of the jurors for the 2006 Canadian Digital Marketing Awards (Came up 2nd on my Google search) and it would appear from their titles that they're not Digital Marketers. Maybe "Yahoo Answers" has some insight. When I type in "What is Digital Marketing?" Yahoo returns 120 answers, obviously a few other people are confused. The top answer is from the "Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog" written by Alan Wolk. Wolk finishes his blog with the line - "So I'll throw the question out to all of you: What is digital advertising?". I would have thought that Marketing Profs would know the answer.

It appears that, like everything online, the true meaning of Digital Marketing is not clearly defined and like the online medium, it's still in a phase of metamorphosis. For now, at this moment, I'm confident in stating that Digital Marketing is any type of marketing that involves or contains an element of technology in the delivery of the message. Technology could be a digital billboard in Time Square or a website. If it's selling and it contains bytes of data it's Digital Marketing! Ask me again tomorrow and I'll likely have a different perspective.

Nike Plus just does it!

Phil Knight, Nike's CEO and founder, has been at the cutting edge of advertising for the past 15 years. Campaigns like "Bo Knows", "Just do it" and "Air Jordan" represent ground breaking strategies that have changed the face of the advertising industry. I recently watched a documentary on Knight produced by CNBC. The show highlighted the history of the company's successes and towards the end they interview Dan Weiden of Weiden & Kennedy the agency responsible for Nike's advertising. Dan made some interesting comments on the future of the company's advertising investments.

Weiden who is credited as having to hard sell Knight on the benefits of using television advertising, gives a candid explanation for why he feels the brand achieved its incredible success. One of the most interesting points Weiden noted was the invention of the tag line "Just do it", 3 words that are now synonymous with the brand. The line was invented to unify a series of television commercial that were in Weiden's word disconnected. "Just Do It" was the common ground used to tie these together. Its original intended use was quickly eclipsed by an overwhelming viral explosion of popularity created by the general public. People saw the tag line as something much bigger than that. It became part of a social and cultural statement that help change people's lives.

At that time the power of the right words and the right medium help fuel a ground swell of brand identity for Nike. Today, because of media fragmentation and changing consumption patterns the company would have a much more difficult time reaching the same level of critical mass seen in the "Just Do It" campaign. Weiden noted that the changing media landscape has Nike investing heavily into online communities. One of the company's recent successes, Nike Plus is an integration of high tech and digital marketing.

Going back to Nike's roots of running, Knight and his marketing geniuses devised an online strategy that leverages the tight knit running community and brings them online. Nike Plus is an integrated solution that allows runners to measure their running achievements and share the results with their group or the whole Nike running community. Its simplicity and integration with the Apple Ipod has help the community to become the world's largest running club. As of February 2008 the site has logged over 14 million runs equating to 50 million miles.

So why is Nike Plus working? It's community is simply an extension of something that has existed in another form for the past 50 years. Having been involved with the running community for more than 30 years, Knight recognized the opportunity to create a unique online experience. Nike Plus does a great job of marrying technology to lifestyle and the basic competitive instinct. With the help of graphs and challenges Nike Plus members can work on achieving their own goals or satisfy their competitive thirst by challenging others in the community. What makes this so uber cool is Knight didn't really invent anything new. He simply extended a behavior that has existed in the running community for years and made the playing field global. What once use to happen in a local running club is now happening online and the world has become a bit smaller as result.

When searching for info on Nike Plus I came across a great You Tube ad that exemplified how the delivery of Nike's advertising is changing. The ad is focused on technology and the Nike Plus experience. Nike product is subtly promoted through the changing wardrobe, but the objective is clear. Drive runners online to learn about Nike Plus. It's a courageous investment that has obviously paid off for the brand.

Both Weiden and Knight realize the power of this approach to the Nike brand. As a result Nike is investing more money in identifying new opportunities to build online community. In a very recent interview on e-consultancy Chris Shimojina, Nike Digital Marketing boss, was asked about Nike's approached to social networks. Chris answered "Nike is very active in making sure we have the right digital channels cultivated. But we are still learning. I don’t think we have quite cracked the code yet. Social networks are a growing channel and we need to understand it better. You have to have an idea of a product story that matches your core market. Start with the right product, listen to your customers, test and learn." Despite the company's success with Nike Plus, they still see themselves as just learning how to leverage the social media space. As I struggle to convince the world of the potential in the social media space, it is somehow comforting to know that a marketing giant like Nike still hasn't "cracked the code"!

I can Relate to That!

Why is online social space growing at such an exponential rate? Yeah it's viral and we all know how quick a virus spreads, but is that why sites like Facebook have profiles for a third of the Canadian population? Social networks have become an extension of lifestyle. They're not a fad, they're a part of how people socialize. Social networks are the new online landscape for social interaction. And like any place where people congregate, it presents an opportunity for Marketers to capture the attention of an audience. How they achieve this will no doubt completely change the future of communication much like the cell phone or the Internet.

Marketers are struggling to define social media and networking. What it means to their business and how they can use it to expand on their marketing strategy. Few have yet to determine why they should use it. Some think it's a PR tool, others believe it's another advertising medium. All know it has the potential to become a powerful influencer.

What Marketers seem to be having a difficult time realizing is that social networks are not another busy street corner where they can hang a billboard. They're much more personal. In order to successfully connect in this space Marketers have to be honest and sometimes they have to get naked in order for others to determine if they want to get involved. It's difficult because who wants to expose themselves on a street corner with 8 million people watching, you have to be pretty confident.

Entering the social media space is really no different than any other type of relationship, you have to be prepared to take risks and put yourself out there for all to see. You can't control the environment so you have to be prepared for criticism and rejection, it's a part of life . But, as with any relationship, when you find the right one it will lead to valuable insight and emotional connection.

When you put this in the context of a brand, Marketers have been building brand relationships for years by telling stories and influencing perception. But its always been a one-way conversation. Brands have personalities, character and emote. These qualities are often contrived based how the brand sees itself or how it wants to be perceived by others. We all have ideas on who we really are or how we would like to others to see us. But, there is sometimes a reality that gets overlooked. We aspire to be something that is beyond the scope of our abilities. Brands are no different, but now with the help of social media, there is opportunity to discover more of the unknown. To reach out and ask people if they see things in the same way. To test ideas, challenge perceptions, influence misconceptions and change opinions. The whole playing field for brand research has been changed. Marketers no longer have to assume that the voice of a select few represents the whole, they can ask the whole and listen for the common thread. When they are implementing change they can engage their core audience with a minimal investment and get honest, real reactions from a community of individuals who share a relationship with the brand.

Social media is creating a huge opportunity for change. Those who embrace it now and determine how to leverage its incredible power will be at the forefront of marketing in the future. Like any relationship, if you ignore someone you will eventually alienate them. If you ignore social media you will eventually alienate everyone.

A tight "Knit" Community

Social networking is not just for kids! Knitters of the world are all over it thanks to Casey and Jessie from Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2004, Jessie who is an avid knitter started writing a blog sharing her thoughts on knitting and looking for input from others who share the same passion. By 2007 she had over 440,000 followers. Recently, with the help of a number of community members, Jessie and Casey fundraised enough cash to built a social networking site called Ravelry. Launched in November 2007 and still in beta release, ravelry.com has over 100,000 members and is growing by more than a 1000 per day! It has a waiting list of 6,800 people who are chomping at the bit to get in the door.

I don’t have the skill required to join this group nor the interest beyond its marketing implications. A friend of mine, who really enjoys knitting, brought it to my attention. She was compelled to tell me about it even though she probably knew I had no interest in knitting. As she described the site you could hear this real sense of genuine excitement in her voice. It was almost like she had met this new friend who shared the same interests. In reality she had met over 100,000 new friends.

When you arrive on the site its façade is very simple, but much like an iceberg, the bulk of its mass is underwater. The first step to seeing this involves putting your name on a waiting list. When I looked at the site there were 6845 people at the pearly gates waiting to be accepted into knitter heaven. People are waiting 6-7 days for there invitations to be processed. Meanwhile, as they chat amongst their social circles, the anticipation of becoming a member is creating all kinds of word-of-mouth awareness for the site. Yeah, I know, hard to imagine people getting that excited about knitting, but believe me there are millions who love it and this site is their Facebook. Go to blogsearch.google.com and search "ravelry", bloggers are buzzing about the site's stickiness.

When you get inside the walls you can understand why there is a line-up at the door. Thousands of free design patterns, groups of people blogging, sharing common interests, and forums with 1000’s of postings on 100’s of different topics. The site is already a thriving online community with a massive resource base and it’s only 6 months old. It is a great example of how online communities can be used to facilitate sharing in a very productive fashion. From a marketers perspective this is a farm of information that is primed for harvesting.

100,000 plus enthusiasts in a community that is designed to facilitate two-way communication. If you’re a multi-million dollar yarn company focused on building brand and innovating this has to be on your marketing radar. It's a huge opportunity to build relationships with the people who have the ability to influence your brand. At a bare minimum you should be listening. The smart brand would be investing.

Why? With all the ambient noise in traditional advertising channels it ‘s hard to reach the true influencers who become champions for a brand. Online communities like ravelry.com are at the forefront of a wave of change. Consumers are tuning out all the noise marketers are making and looking for ways to eliminate irrelevant messages. They expect marketers to know what they want to hear when they want to hear it. Brands that use mass mediums to spray their message all over the place are finding it much more difficult to reach the their core customers. Online communities are helping them connect with their customers and build real one-to-one relationships. The Internet has turned up the volume on the voice of the consumer. Brands have to start listening else they will quickly become extinct. In an early blog post I noted a great example of how one of the world's most coveted brands, Starbucks is leading the way in this arena. (i.e. www.mystarbucksidea.com)

Communities like ravelry.com have purpose that extends beyond socialization. They are aggregates that collect influencers who, thanks to a certain level of social anonymity, are often ready to engage in a conversation with brands that they perceive as relevant to their interests.

Facebook's Instant Messaging

Facebook has recently launched an integrated instant messaging platform that allows its members to chat online with their friends. When you log in to your account a neat little status bar pops up at the base of your Facebook profile page showing you who's online. Could this mean the end of MSN? Not likely, but it will certainly change the dynamic of how Facebook users interact.

If the community embraces the new feature, which I'm sure it will, there is no doubt it will greatly increase the stickiness of Facebook. God knows it wasn't sticky enough to begin with! So now all the hard core "Facebookites" are going to be lurking, connecting and chatting. They'll have to spend more time engaging in real-time conversations. People who you recklessly added to your network will be knocking on your digital door for little chat. It could get a bit scary, especially if these people are not on the top of your favorites list.

I recently polled my 15 year old son on the size of his Facebook network. He has over 400 friends from which he claims over 200 are close enough to have a conversation. His MSN account only has 60-70. Facebook has expanded his real-time social circle by over 500%. Until now his Facebook social circle was more a series of ripples that faded as you move further out from the epicenter. 50% of his friends were added simply for the purpose of lurking or learning. Now these fringe friends are a key stroke away from live interaction. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. Whether the change expands the social fabric or initiate a contraction as fringe friends are removed or blocked.

At this point Zuckerburg (the Facebook brain child) has the chat tool tied directly to a personal profile in order to ensure user privacy. I wonder what Facebook has planned for the Fan pages. Imagine if a Fan was able to initiate a real-time conversation with an advertiser. It could be a tough one to manage, but it would be incredibly powerful if the advertiser was available to all their Fans in real-time.

The blog post launching the Facebook chat tool suggests there will be a number of other features add to the component. I'm sure they will increase social lubrication enabling the community to communicate faster and more frequently.

The Art of Listening

Did you ever think about how different advertising would be if a television commercial could see the viewer? I know, first thought is it sounds a little creepy, but imagine how much more effective it would be if you knew what everyone wanted to know. Car manufacturers could ask car buyers about their favorite colors or more importantly when they are inclined to buy. Just eliminate all the guess work and get to the straight up answers. Marketing would be so much easier if we had the ability to listen first before we blurted out the message!

Social Media is the beginning of a new era of listeners. Web 2.0 tools and social community platforms are enabling marketers to listen and learn before they start to communicate. Each day the information footprint grows as more and more people use blogs and social networks to record their lives. Smart marketers realize this and are developing ways to capitalize on it.

Starbucks, a brand leader, recently launched www.mystarbucksidea.com a website designed to help them listen to their consumers. The site allows visitors to “share”, “vote”, “discuss” and “see” ideas targeted at improving the company's products and services. Starbucks is building a community of followers that will over time, influence the direction of their brand. They’re engaging their loyal customers and listening to their ideas. Real powerful shit!

Recently General Motors, United State’s third largest advertiser, announced that they will be investing half of their 3 billion dollar ad spend on digital marketing initiatives. Most would look at this as desperate move for a company that trying to hang on in a highly competitive business that perceives “American Made” as a negative thing. But think about it for a minute, if your brand is suffering from a social perception issue what’s the best thing you could do? Hire a PR firm to spin it or invest 1.5 billion into connecting with your customer. GM is certainly one to watch over the next 5 years. It will no doubt become a great case study for digital marketers.

In my many years of sales probably the most important thing learned was the art of listening. If you listen you will learn. What you learn will inevitably influence how relationships evolve. Online Web 2.0 innovations have created a new stage for listening with a huge audience who are looking to interact with brands. Marketers need to embrace this and start to live in the space. It will inevitably add value for their clients.

Read more on listening: Are you Marketing or Listening