Citrix Online/Webex - A Social Media Case Study

I am very much encouraging everyone to attend this webinar on July 22nd. It's the summary of a class project at the Social Media Academy.I was an alumni and worked on the brand aspect of the research. It was a great way to apply methods and methodologies that we had learned in class to a real company. Without giving away the findings, all I can tell is that we were in for a surprise and so are you. Sign up and learn from what we learned from looking at two industry leaders and their behavior in the social web.

Sour Grapes

SF Gate did a follow up story about the contest for becoming a wine blogger/CMO for Murphy-Goode. I wrote about it on this blog a couple of months back. In a nutshell, the winery invited the community to chime in and then deftly ignored what they said. It's a good case study for when social media becomes just a marketing gimmick.

The most important lesson is that companies who engage in social media give up control. As figura shows, corporations are still learning to understand what that means by trial and error. You cannot dangle participation in front of a community and not give up at least partial ownership. As important, if you do, be very specific about the rules and regulations and what the effect of social commentary commentary will be (the deciding vote? a guide? nothing but a marketing gimmick?). I don't know anything about the winery, nor do I know their products. I am not going to try them now.

The Future of the Social Web as Seen by Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester

At an event that was jointly organized by the Third Thursday Meetup Group and the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR), Jeremiah presented his thoughts on the future of the social web. These are my notes from the talk and discussion that followed.

Jeremiah identified five eras that are somewhat overlapping: The era of social relationships (people start connecting online and form groups but the individual groups are not connected), of social functionality (applications and widgets appear that were designed with the social web in mind), of social colonization (to start later this year, your friends go with you everywhere, the idea of a shared ID will take hold in the open web), of social context (advertising will be personalized as envisioned in the movie Minority Report), and social commerce (starting in 2011, social network users will band together and actively work on filling a need they all experience. They won’t wait for a company to take the initiative. Obviously, this will work well for consumer technology, not so much for medical devices. Read up on TechCrunch and the CrunchPad for an idea of how it might work).

Other interesting comments were that website registration will go away as people log in into their Facebook page and never leave, even if they view a third-party website. While today, we see a picture of a book, tomorrow, the relevant pages of Amazon will be served up right there on Facebook. Further, more and more websites will allow you to sign in with your FB or LInkedIn ID; omitting the need to register. Facebook Connect is at the beginning of that trend.

Another important issue is privacy. The audience agreed that people will relinquish privacy rights if they get something in return that is valuable to them. That attitude changes depending on where you are in the world. Jeremiah remarked that France is apparently one of the places with the strongest privacy rules.

GM is dead. Long live GM.

Now that the old GM has filed for bankruptcy, the media started talking about the face of the new GM that will emerge from the procedure. The discussion is about which brands will survive, how many dealerships will have to be closed and so on. What not many people talk about is whether consumers will line up to buy GM-made cars in the future.

A big part of the buying decision will be the authenticity of the brand GM that stands behind the vehicle. Today, GM stands for big, traditional American cars. The government pushes a new agenda of higher fuel efficiency and smaller cars. Nobody knows whether the brand GM will be able to adapt, even if the factory floor will. Only if the new-GM brand is believable, then consumers will buy the cars that are being produced. Now would be the time to spend money on smart marketing initiatives to transition people's hearts and minds. Social media could play a critical part in engaging the public. In fact, GM could become the first case study of a major brand transformation using social media.

To Twitter or Not To Twitter

Twitter is an extreme case in that people either seem to like it or hate it.

Granted, recent coverage has been great involving many celebrities using it, numerous interviews with the two founders, tweets from outer space, and speculation about potential deals with Google. Even more recently, there seems to be a backlash and people are starting to bemoan whether Twitter will last. IABC conducted research among its members, critical articles appear here and there. Even if Twitter has lost its luster as the darling of the tech avant-garde, and others like FriendFeed are about to take over, it might be a blessing in disguise. Unrelenting growth can be stifling. If Twitter takes five and sits out a round of celebrity rat race, maybe a few smart people have time to get into a room and decide how to make money off this service.

I still believe Twitter is the fastest way to reach a large audience and someone will put it to good use. In business, growth alone doesn't substitute for substance. Revenue is still king. The next headline should be about Twitter and its revenue model.

Help Wanted Section -- Web 2.0 Style

OK, we all have agreed that the social web is going to change the way companies communicate with customers. Here is yet another example demonstrating that the social web also started influencing the way companies hire people: Murphy Goode Winery is looking for a "Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent.”

Among other things, the winery states that "the most important part of your application is a 60 second (or less) video in English, created by you that shows why you are the best person for the job and exhibits your ability to communicate. It should be entertaining. We are looking for a video that demonstrates your storytelling, personal presentation, video production skills, creative content, enthusiasm, knowledge of Murphy-Goode wines and the Sonoma County Wine Country."

Well, that's a long way from providing writing samples. If you want the job, you have until June 5 to apply. If you get the job and did so because you read this, please send me a case at your convenience. Cheers.

The New Generation of Cookies That Follow You

It used to be that websites put cookies on your computer and that's where they stayed, waiting for you to return to that particular website. Not anymore. The new generation of cookies is following you around. This article summarizes a few ways companies deploy cookies that stick with prospects that browse on their ecommerce site but then move on without buying anything.

Is Social Media Today What Websites Were Ten Years Ago?

Jason Cohen makes an interesting comparison about corporate behavior towards social media. He contrasts today's attitudes with those in the nineties when everyone was talking about the need for a website but not many companies understood why and how. Another interesting tidbit is how websites are always visible but social media activities are sometimes invisible.

I like his thinking. Along the same lines, I wonder whether the raise of e-commerce managers is a good example for a new job in corporate America: the online communications/social media manager?