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Brands aren’t simply brands anymore. They are the center of a maelstrom of social and political dialogue made possible by digital media, said Unilever Chief Marketing Officer Simon Clift, who warned that marketers who do not recognize that — and adapt their marketing — are in grave peril. AdAge Magazine 04/13/09 by Jack Neff
The above remarks are from from Mr. Clift’s keynote speech at the Ad Age Digital Conference in New York.
So how does a brand a plan to ride out this maelstrom of change in the advertising landscape? By looking at new technologies and techniques for reaching their prospective customers. And by investing the time and resources to learn the new rules in the digital landscape.
One aspect that needs particular attention is engaging with customers in the realm of social media. People today are not only empowered by digital media and social media technologies, they are feeling that power. People know that they can talk to brands, and the brands had better listen and respond. If the brand fails to respond people will have the discussion with others in the digital landscape. Brands that fail to engage in that discussion are ceding the territory to their competitors.
Forward thinking and acting brands are finding methods, technologies and people to lead the way into real engagement with customers. An excellent example is Better Homes and Gardens, a Meredith brand. They were recently named one of the Most Engaged Media Brands by Min Online. One of the reasons BH&G was honored was their Mixing Bowl (a Ripple6) social community which was given Honorable Mention for Best of the Web in the Social Community category.
The Better Homes & Gardens brand stays ahead of the curve by creating an online community. This kind of adapting your marketing plan to the new realities is what will keep the Better Homes and Gardens brand in the lead in the years to come. And you can expect some announcements from Ripple6 shortly about other major brand names who are taking leadership positions in social marketing as well.
(For a great perspective on Mixing Bowl check out The Marketing Diva’s interview with Heather Morgan Shott.)
Photo credit: Flickr by pedrosimoes7
On April 2nd the Federal Trade Commission announced revised guidelines on endorsements and testimonials which are now under review and expected to be adopted according to The Financial Times 4/2/09.
These new rules, “…would hold companies liable for untruthful statements made by bloggers and users of social networking sites who receive samples of their products…”, according to the FT article, “…If a blogger received a free sample of skin lotion and then incorrectly claimed the product cured eczema, the FTC could sue the company for making false or unsubstantiated statements. The blogger could be sued for making false representations…”
What remains unclear is the impact this could have upon community owners where users make untrue statements. Can a company that owns and operates a community be liable for the actions of bloggers on their community and liable with an advertiser?
What about the case where the community owner works with an advertiser to distribute free samples of a product and then solicits comments from the user community. Could the advertiser and the community manager be held liable for false advertising if claims were made by users who received free samples in that case? And the situation can get more muddy, what if a blogger receives the free sample and then makes a simple comment on another blog with a misstatement in it? Or what if in a general free sample offer a blogger is inadvertently a recipient of a free sample and subsequently makes a misstatement?
It’s impossible to separate a blogger from non-blogger. Does anyone who writes a comment on a public community site become in effect a “blogger”? What about people who only write comments on other blogs but do it in large volume and develop followings with technologies such as Discus?
The implications for community managers, and brands that wish to advertise and utilize social media marketing techniques can be very serious. You should read the FTC notice and pay close attention to this rule change.
This is going to be a sticky wicket that the FTC will have to figure out and they will need to make sure they understand how it will affect the common man before they move forward.
And finally, since the FTC may be listening, these opinions are those of the author and do not reflect the official opinions of Ripple6 or Gannett Company. Image by Uploaded on August 20, 2005 by dbking on Flickr
Ripple6 is honored to have formed a partnership with Chris Brogan and New Marketing Laboratories to help promote social media to the marketing community. Chris is a thought leader in the field of social media we are very pleased that he has chosen to work with us. You can follow Chris’s ideas and work through his blog and New Marketing Laboratories his company. Our first joint venture with Chris and NML was the American Innovators Road Trip which began like this:
4 bloggers climbed into a borrowed 2010 Ford Escape (Donated by Scott Monty of Ford) to make the drive from Detroit, Michigan to Austin, Texas on their way to SXSW. Along the way they found lots of innovation including some great people at Gannet’s MomsLikeMe.com in Cincinnati. Here is that story (18 minutes):
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You can read all about the (mis)adventures of the bloggers here and each of the bloggers has some personal tales of the trip as well: Colin Browning, Jim Storer, Jeff Cutler, John Johansen
(On a personal note I’m very glad they found Colin in Cincinnati, he went missing for several hours. He’s a personal friend and I would have missed him. Although I did offer to help Chris Brogan in his search to fill the position during Colin’s absence.)
Recently, there have been several reports and articles relating to the fantastic growth of online communities. These trends point to the growing comfort people have with using the Internet as way to connect with others. The fact that people have grown accustomed to working with each other via electronic text (like email, SMS, Twitter, etc.) instead of telephone calls, meetings and other forms of information sharing is fueling the rapid growth of social networks.
As we become more adept in electronic text communications they become more willing to expand our use of it into new areas. Therefore we are moving to where other people are gathering online to expand our repertoire. The biggest place where we are gathering online is member communities.
Community is Growing
Communities are growing over twice as fast as all of the other top sectors of the Internet, according to a Nielsen report on Social Networking’s New Global Footprint: The chart below is from the Nielsen report.
Communication Overtakes Entertainment Online
Netpop Research : Stated simply, 7 million people in the U.S. are contributing content online through six or more activities (uploading photos, publishing blogs, posting ratings/reviews, etc.). These heavies are also connecting with 248 people in a typical week, on average
Time spent online for communication has increased 18% since 2006! (From 27% to 32% of total time online.) While time spent online on entertainment has declined 29% during the same period.
More, More, More
So more people are talking (with each other) more frequently about more things than ever before. We are more comfortable with using the Internet as a form of communication. What does this mean to your brand? You need to be where people are communicating and you need your entire company to be doing the communications.
Consequently, social networks and blogs are eating into the share of time held by other sectors
Because time spent on social networks is growing at a dramatically faster rate than the Internet average, social networks are gaining a larger share of all Internet time. (from the Nielsen Report)
Big Brands Belong
And finally Mashable’s Tom Smith discusses Why We All Benefit From Big Brands Being in Social Media. Tom talks about how social media will change big brands and cause them to conform to the new norms of social media. He sees more transparency, better customer feedback resulting in better products, and the deep pockets of big brands paying the fare for the rest of us- just as they do for TV and Radio. Here are his 8 main points, please read the full article for the details:
1. Social media drives complete transparency:
2. Social media drives quality product:
3. Social media can be a great customer service channel:
4. Social Media creates products that we want:
5. You control the relationship:
6. Big brands keep our access free:
7. Big brands have interesting stories to tell:
8. Users drive the content and conversation:
Our comfort with the Internet and with electronic text communications makes online communities the fastest growing sector on the Internet. Brands and large companies need to be involved with this movement to communities so they can keep a competitive edge or they will go the way of all companies that failed to adapt to changes in technology. The history of business is littered with the names of those failed to adapt.
What are you doing to ensure your company isn’t one of them? Please leave your comments below:
There are lists of the best blogs, the best blogs on social media, and best blogs for Small and Medium Sized Busiensses.
But what if you are one of the hundreds of thousands of social media trail blazers in a large corporation searching for help, guidance and resouces? The problems of the enterprise are in many ways unique compared to those of smaller organizations. And starting a social media outreach effort in an enterprise is a very different proposition compared to starting it in a smaller business.
B4 Social Media
The Best Big Business Blogs
Ripple6 will complile a list of the Best BIG Business Blogs on Social Media hereafter known as B4 Social Media. The first list will be published next week.
Please use the comments section below to tell us the blogs you find most interesting and useful for people in enterprise environments or shoot us an email “marketing (at) ripple6 dot com”, or twitter @Ripple6 . The blog doesn’t need to focus exclusively on large organizations nor exclusively on Social Media, but should have content addressing concerns or issues that are unique to large organizations. Feel free to nominate your own blog.
We will compile the list of the most recommeded blogs and post it here next week. Thereafter, we will review the list regularily and provide updates.
