I just came across the following engagement report from wetpaint and Altimeter and thought the findings were very interesting and relevant. While many companies know they need to be doing something with social media, most aren’t as they usually tend to ask: what’s the benefit?

This report, answers that question and it’s an answer that companies are going to like to hear. Basically, the more you engage with social media the higher your profits and sales can be. Two examples – Starbucks and Dell who interact daily across multiple channels with an audience and have seen stable if not increases profits.

Check out the report here and let me know your thoughts on whether increases sales and profit is the key to pushing more companies into social media. Personally, I don’t think it should be, but you can’t deny the power.

Wikipedia has long been disregarded as unreliable due to the fact that anyone can edit the information to say whatever he wants. College professors and those in education do not consider Wikipedia as a reliable source when conducting research; most accept it as a quick source of common knowledge. However, wikis are gaining recognition as “serious publishing platforms.”

Wetpaint, the wiki website used in my capstone Writing With Web 2.0 Technologies course, recently raised and impressive $40 million in venture capital. This milestone in Web 2.0 technologies brought wikis much respect in the world of business. Enterprises have realized that wikis, much like blogs and podcasts, can be very beneficial.

Let’s face it, there are a lot of wikis and Web 2.0’s out there that are dedicated to pop culture and what most would consider a waste of time and valuable cyberspace. But we also must acknowledge that there is money in entertainment and “showbiz,” so the $40 million has got to return an investment somewhere. In fact, according to Kirkpatrick, enterprises spent $63 million on wikis in 2007, and projected an astounding $451 million for the next four years!

“Wikis Are Now Serious Business” lists 10 reasons while business are using wikis, a few of which I will highlight. One of the most important functions, one I use often as a student, is simple publishing. Google, for example, offers Gmail and Google.docs, wikis that allow users to share documents (rather than use attachments) for the purpose of common communication. Members of a group can post documents, presentations, spreadsheets and more, edit them and save them in real time so that others can immediately access them. This is valuable for group projects, and for any team endeavor.

Another practical wiki is the use of event planners. We saw the Obama campaign utilize this technology during the recent election to organize volunteers. Once again, information can be updated quickly for the benefit of all. On the subject of politics, news writing and discussing public policy are other important aspects of wikis. President Obama has promised “open door politics” and wikis are a great way to accomplish presidential transparency. Wikis allow citizen input in decision making. Technology also allows exposure of research publicly.

Wikis are quickly establishing themselves among professionals, surpassing blogs, podcasts, and widgets. Like social networking, wikis are slowly moving away from the empty Generation Y users to practical professional use. For more information on wikis and their use, refer to Kirkpatrick’s article.

To explore many of the wikis available today (many of which are free) visit WikiMatrix.com.

Written in response to “Wikis Are Now Serious Business” by Marshall Kirkpatrick of Read Write Web.

I have been using Google Chrome since Dr. Benson recommended it last spring.  I have been very pleased with it overall, but have found a couple of quirky things.

IE and Firefox, when it sees an RSS feed, formats and provides an easy way of subscribing to the feed.  However, when Chrome sees a feed, you see this:

http://www.southbaybiblefellowship.org/media/feeder.php Listening, interacting, responding to the Bible for God’s glory. en Copyright Pastor Timothy Conklin, South Bay Bible Fellowship, East Moriches, New York. All rights reserved. 1440 http://www.southbaybiblefellowship.org/media/something2.wma Test File<br> Dr. Timothy Conklin, Pastor-Teacher http://www.southbaybiblefellowship.org/media/something2.wmainfo@southbaybiblefellowship.org (SBBF)  http://www.southbaybiblefellowship.org/media/ActsTen24-48.wma The Book of Acts 10:24-48<br> Sunday, September 20, 2009<br> Dr. Timothy Conklin, Pastor-Teacher http://www.southbaybiblefellowship.org/media/ActsTen24-48.wma info@southbaybiblefellowship.org (SBBF) http://www.southbaybiblefellowship.org/media/ActsEight9-40.wma The Book of Acts 8:9-40<br> Sunday, August 23, 2009<br> Dr. Timothy Conklin, Pastor-Teacher http://www.southbaybiblefellowship.org/media/ActsEight9-40.wma info@southbaybiblefellowship.org (SBBF)…..

Now if one is not familiar with RSS feeds, one wouldn’t have a clue how to proceed.

Last night I was playing with the Wetpaint site that my group is using for our next project.  I was having a heck of a time finding all of the functionality that I had seen demonstrated in our online class.  I couldn’t even get it to create a link!  So I thought, maybe I should try this in IE… and voilà there was all the functionality!

So while Chrome is providing me with a level of safety and security since it is not as widely used and therefore it is not as widely exploited, there are times when the lack of functionality is a hindrance.

Part of the difficulty about being a reflective practitioner is that its often easy to post stories of your successes on here; often its not so easy to discuss and try and pick apart what’s not going so well. Stay with me: hopefully there are lessons here that maybe lessons for you if you are thinking about trying to change the use of multimedia in your school for the better…

A brief recap for those who are first timers to this blog: My aim is to work with other colleagues to encourage them to use new and innnovative forms of multimedia. If they use them with their students: bonus. If they don’t – I might still judge what I am doing a success, mainly because of reflecting on how developing my own Personal Learning Network (PLN) through this blog has improved my use of multimedia in the classroom. Will Richardson writes (see bottom for ref.):

“While there is no doubt my classes were in many ways profoundly changed by blogs and wikis and the like, the bigger truth is that the transformation in my own personal learning practice is what informed my work with students.” (Page 8 )

This is how I feel about the potential of engaging multimedia to enhance the practice of teachers and underpins what I am trying to do at the moment.

What follows is an account of some of the things that have gone, err, wrong since I started trying to change things…

September-October 2009

• I was using wetpaint to develop two wikis for school; one is for teacher reflection, the other was the development of a sports website for the school where the PE staff could provide out of school access to resources for students and allow students to contribute to the website. Unfortunately over the summer, wetpaint upgraded their service, leaving my school, which still uses Internet Explorer 6, unable to access the website properly anymore – they are virtually useless at school. This is a real shame; I have spoken to the IT technician at my school and he thinks it’s unlikely that we will be upgrading IE anytime soon, nor is it a decision that is in his hands. So, at least for a while, its back to the drawing board for me with these two small projects! I would appreciate any suggestions people had…
• Inset – I was originally hoping to give a town-wide inset on using podcasts, wikis and blogs (there are 5 secondary schools in the town where I work). This would have been a fantastic chance to show some of the things I feel I have learnt from using these 3 different multimedia , but unfortunately I have found out that the session will be run in another school, by others. There is little I can do about this and instead I have resolved myself to attend the meetings (which have now been seperated into ‘podcasting’ and ‘blogs/wikis’) and make sure that I take advantage of the fact that there are going to be other colleagues from other secondary schools who clearly have an interest in this area – and see if they are interested in collaborating.

So, technically speaking, my ‘project’ should be finished (as if I’m ever going to stop doing this kind of thing now!) by around February, so the clock is certainly ticking. Still, the chance to reflect in this blog and hopefully develop strategies to build on difficulties should ensure I still have plenty to write about.

Recent Links worth checking out:

- Those who have been interested in my work exploring the use of diigo in the classroom may also be interested to read Katt Blackwell-Starne’s blog. She is planning to use diigo over the coming year to investigate if it can help improve students’ writing to specific audiences.

- Doug Belshaw writes a series of excellent posts about how to use Cool Iris (a fantastic multimedia tool) for presentations; one for beginners, one for advanced. Well worth checking out.

References:

Richardson, W, (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful webtools for classrooms. London: Sage LTD.

Our class group has been creating a WetPaint wiki as a group assignment. The topic we picked has led me to see new possibilities for my historical society.

http://www.floralparkhistorical.org/

We recently had a life long resident speak about growing up in the village. The man was in his 90s and a WW II veteran who had survived Pearl Harbor. His talk was recorded with a FLIP camera that I had been using since January but no one else at the meeting had ever seen one. I am one of the youngest members but the others were all interested and now they want to get a FLIP with some of our grant money. They quickly understood the value of capturing this moment so it could be shared with those that were unable to attend the meeting.

Technology has become so simple that it is making it accessible to people of all ages. My next mission is to show the group our class wiki and challenge them to start one for the society. I think they will be happy to contribute once they see how easy it is to share their experiences with others.

Fuente: Freefoto.com

El éxito de una marca en los medios sociales es el tema que ofrecí tocar en mi último post. Para quienes se aventuran por primera vez en la terminología y en la métrica online, voy a poner enlaces no solamente a todos los artículos y reportes que cito, como es mi costumbre, sino también las definiciones de muchos términos. A los no iniciados les aconsejo hacer el viaje por los enlaces. Es muy instructivo.

Hablé de Starbucks en el post anterior, y dije que el 23 de Julio pasó a Coca Cola como la marca mas popular en Facebook —más de 3.6 millones de fans frente a los 3.5 de Coca Cola— según lo registró Online Media Dayly y apareció en los registros de la empresa que compila los datos Inside Facebook. También resultó ser, en la misma semana, la marca de mejores resultados en términos de engagement en un estudio llevado a cabo conjuntamente por la plataforma de medios sociales ENGAGEMENTdb y por Wetpaint una empresa que provee servicios de redes sociales y alojamiento de wikis (o wiki farm). Los resultados pueden verse en este reporte, analizado por la consultora digital The Altimeter y ENGAGEMENTdb.

Lo interesante del estudio es que analizó las marcas del Ranking de Interbrand y BusinessWeek de Las 100 marcas mas valiosas del 2008. Y que las siguió en 11 distintos medios sociales examinando no solamente su cobertura sino si contestan los comentarios que les hacen en los posts de los distintos blogs.

El “engagement marketing”, para que nos entendamos, otras veces llamado “experiential marketing,” “event marketing”, “live marketing” o “participation marketing” es aquél que se relaciona con los consumidores y los invita a participar en la evolución de una marca, en vez de considerarlos solamente receptores pasivos de mensajes y trata de conectarlos con las marcas dialogando y propiciando la cooperación interactiva.

Ahora entendamos como se logra uno y otro record, valiéndonos de las declaraciones de Alexandra Wheeler, directora de estrategia digital de Starbucks, a Brandweek: Why Starbucks Is the Top Brand on Facebook

Todo empezó en el mes de marzo del año pasado cuando lanzaron My Starbucks Idea una comunidad online donde consumidores y empleados (llamados socios en Starbucks) pueden dejar sugerencias o comentar y votar por las ideas de otros usuarios. Pero quizás lo mas importante sea que se puede ir a ver qué es lo que está haciendo Starbucks con esas ideas en el blog Ideas in Action. Han recibido mas de 75,000 ideas y ha activado 25 en el primer año. No parece mucho, pero hay que tener en cuenta que implementar una buena idea en las más de 16,000 tiendas (o incluso solo en las 12,000 que tienen en EE UU y Canada) es una laboriosa tarea. Alguna tan simples como poner música en los establecimientos y otras más elaboradas incluían nuevas recetas para las bebidas.

Afirma Alexandra Wheeler  que buena parte del éxito en los medios sociales, tiene que ver con conectarse de manera relevante para los que están en ese entorno online y que uno de las formas más poderosas, es compartir contenidos como cuando Howard Schultz, su CEO, viajó a Ruanda y se reunió con los cafetaleros durante el viaje, mientras que al mismo tiempo hacia campaña en pro de la investigación del SIDA. A reglón seguido, la Sra Wheeler hace la declaración posiblemente más importante: que hay que suministrarle al público un buen equilibrio entre contenidos y experiencias, y que ambos deben ser significativos y pertinentes “porque una marca puede hacer un gran esfuerzo de promoción y sin embargo no lograr establecer un número importante de seguidores por la sencilla razón de que no tienen nada detrás de la promoción.  Es decir, que sólo lo están planteando como marketing y no como relaciones. (El problema es, por lo tanto múltiple: la marca debe ser atractiva (tener “glamour”, halo, ser una “Prom King (o Queen)” —como llama a esas marcas muy especiales Allan Wolk, o “Fonzies” como las llamé yo, para que el consumidor acepte conversar con ellas. Además hay que saber intervenir sin molestar la conversación entre consumidores y finalmente hay que sembrar temas de conversación que le interesen a los consumidores.)

Dice también que en Twitter, Starbucks está orientado hacía el Servicio al Cliente y Control de Calidad. Es decir,  a contestar preguntas sobre su tarjeta o  su programa de lealtad (a la marca) o sobre el café en las tiendas, pero que “también se divierten mucho”, mientras que en Facebook el grueso de las conversaciones gira alrededor de las bebidas preferidas por la gente y agrega, que es interesante constatar lo apasionada que es la gente cuando habla de sus bebidas favoritas o de sus rituales en Starbucks. En una encuesta preguntaron “Es complicado su pedido de bebidas? ¿Es corto y dulce? De cinco minutos (de preparación) ¿o de quince? ¿o es usted el tipo de cliente que dice “tengo cierto requerimientos”? y a la gente le encantó y aún sigue enganchada al tema. Las conversaciones pueden abarcar temas que van desde los rituales y los valores (o values) de la marca, las cosas que esta simboliza, la asociación a Product (Red) (para recaudar dinero para el Fondo Mundial para la Lucha contra el SIDA), el viaje a Ruanda, el impacto que tienen los orígenes del café y el hecho de que se abastezcan de los mejores cafés del mundo, la Certificación LEED (el sistema de evaluación LEED® para Interiores Comerciales: LEED®-CI for Commercial Interiors, que es una herramienta de diseño integral utilizada para minimizar el impacto ambiental y maximizar el confort de los ocupantes y el desempeño de los espacios).  Es decir muchos de los diferentes aspectos de la marca.

Y entonces viene, en la entrevista, la pregunta clave.

¿Cómo toman ustedes este chateo online y lo traducen  en ROI real para la marca? ¿Qué están buscando (con el chateo)? Y contesta Alexandra Wheeler:

“Esa es la pregunta del billón de dólares. Hemos hecho muchos progresos en esa área. Buscamos unas cuantas claves. Las marcas se benefician de las conexiones emocionales y las conexiones humanas son puntos importantes de acceso que tenemos mientras experimentamos nuestro camino en este espacio y maduramos dicha experimentación”.

“La otra es interpretación y el aprendizaje de  si estas comunicaciones le agregan valor (o value) a los resultados financieros. Y creemos que sí lo hacen. Un ejemplo de ello es que utilizamos todos nuestros canales digitales para promover el “Día del Pastel Gratis” (Free Pastry Day), el 21 de Julio (en el que hasta las 10:30, los que hubiesen recibido un cupón/invitación incluso en su teléfono móvil, podía reclamar un pastel gratis por la compra de una bebida). Fue un éxito rotundo porque no solamente vinieron muchos clientes fieles sino que vimos muchas caras nuevas en los establecimientos”.

“Otra manera de mirarlo es informarse y escuchar las conversaciones e intervenir de manera que tenga sentido para lo que la gente piensa de ciertas cosas.  Via (el café instantáneo de Starbucks) es un buen ejemplo. Hemos estado escuchando y participando en conversaciones en torno a Via, y ayudando a que la gente recibiera muestras del producto y buscamos la manera de entender qué tipo de experiencias tenermos que ofrecerle al público de forma que podamos sobrepasar ese primer sentimiento de “¿Café instantáneo? Yo nunca lo tomaría” y cambiarlo diciéndole “¡Tienes que probarlo! No es lo que piensas!”. Allí los medios sociales han tenido un rol importante en el mercado de prueba lanzado a principios de año y continuarán teniéndolo en el otoño (del hemisferio norte)”.

Va agotando el tema cuando afirma que no ha habido ningún incidente en los medios sociales en el que se haya considerado que el tiro le salió por la culata a Starbucks. Y relata que mas bien al contrario llevaron a cabo una campaña por el Día Mundial del SIDA, para una evento dentro de los establecimientos, como parte de su asociación con Product (Red). Utilizaron predominantemente Facebook pero también otros canales y medios tradicionales, así como RR PP. Dos de cada diez centavos de cada compra iban a la causa (Red). Fue una manera de crear un conocimiento (awareness) significativo y de conexión con gente alrededor de una idea compartida. Y hacer de ello, algo realmente importante. Fue una campaña record con mas impresiones virales que nunca, no solamente por lo que pagaron para conseguir conocimiento (awareness), sino gracias a la diseminación de la campaña a través de otros medios sociales.

Otra cosa que indica es que tuvieron casi un millón de respuestas de personas que comunicaban fuese que irían o fuese que probablemente irían a un establecimiento, para el Dia Mundial del Sida (es decir aquél en el que además de Facebook y otros canales online, utilizaron medios tradicionales y RR PP). Por otro lado, para el Free Pastry Day respondieron a la invitación unas 600,000 personas.

Finaliza la entrevista comentando que van a seguir desarrollando y aumentando sus activos en el espacio de los medios sociales, ofreciendo una conversación relevante y brindando valor (value) en esos contactos, pero que no estarán en todos los canales. “Es por eso—relevancia y value— asegura Alexandra Wheeler, que fuimos citados en el Altimeter Group como la marca mas engaging o atractiva”. Y sentencia al final: “No es una iniciativa de marketing es una iniciativa de RR PP. Consiste en cultivar los vínculos con el consumidor y crear value para él, estableciendo estupendas relaciones con él/ella. Lo que se puede esperar de Starbucks es que continuemos creando (más de lo mismo) y que con el tiempo lo perfeccionemos en la forma de darle a los consumidores una nueva manera de conversar con la marca.”

Conclusiones:

Nada nuevo bajo el sol. Es más o menos lo mismo del Vicepresidente de Marketing de Kellogg, Jose-Alberto Dueñas: “Si usted encuentra a alguien que haya resuelto el tema de los medios sociales, hágamelo saber”. O “Los nuevos medios no son perfectos para el marketing y no lo serán hasta que encontremos los frijoles mágicos” de Seth Godin.  O la alegoría de Chris Perry, Vicepresidente Ejecutivo de Operaciones y Estrategia Digital de Weber Shandwick, comparando los medios sociales y la Fuerza Aérea después de la II Guerra Mundial. Y eso que Starbucks, sí es una marca amiga o “Prom King (o Queen)” como la llamaría Allan Wolk o “marca Fonzie” como la llamé yo.

O lo que aprendimos de Teusner Wines, Current, Tasti D-lite, CoffeeGroundz, Etsi, Naked Pizza y American Apparel. Pero sobre todo de Dell Outlet, Jet Blue y Pepsi respecto a su uso de los medios sociales en general y de Twitter en particular.

Es decir que es un estupendo mecanismo de comunicación de ida y vuelta con los consumidores —siempre y cuando los consumidores quieran conversar con las marcas— para tratar temas de CRM (Gestión de la Relaciones con los Clientes) y de Control de Calidad y hacer branding siempre que se pueda y lo dejen a uno. A un costo relativamente bajo. Aunque eso depende de lo real que sea el proceso y de que no se establezcan conexiones (o tweets) pagados que, por lo tanto, encarecen la operación.

Digo esto porque en un artículo de Adweek (Get Ready for Pay per Tweet) se anuncia que Izea, antes llamada Pay Per Post, ofrece a los usuarios de Twitter la opción de enviar a sus seguidores mensajes sobre marcas y productos y cobrar por el número de clicks que se reciben de sus mensajes o directamente una tarifa plana por tweet. Ya han hecho varias campañas (por ejemplo para Sea World y para Kmart) en cuyos casos, Izea ha pagado para que los bloggers creen contenido sobre los servicios que ofrecen ambas empresas. Los hashtags de Twitter llevan un prefijo #spon (de sponsored / patrocinado) como en este de Blockbuster (que al momento de escribir este post no estaba activo). Pero Izea no está solo. Magpie también ofrece dinero a los que estén dispuestos a cobrar por colocar mensajes. La diferencia es que le da, además de dinero, libertad para promover las marcas en su propio estilo.

No es extraño que esto suceda. Algo que creo que nos ha quedado claro de la serie de post sobre el “Su marca no es mi amiga”de Allan Wolk es que son pocas las marcas que tienen el suficiente fuerza para poder establecer seguidores que además quieran conversar sobre ellas. Es normal pensar que los que manejan las marcas, quieran comprar lo que estas no pueden lograr por sí solas.

Hoy, Ad Age, para buscar la opinión de sus lectores, ha establecido (ver más arriba) una encuesta en la que preguntan si utilizar el pago para generar tweets hace menos valioso el word of mouth resultante. Y Adweek ha establecido en su página “Tweet Freak” una sección Topics on Twitter: Pay Per Tweet a fin de seguirle la pista a las empresas que contraten servicios de “tweets pagados”.

Es sin duda, por todo lo anterior, que aún…  Las marcas online buscan la publicidad tradicional para crecer .

Si desea suscribirse gratuitamente a Mercaderes Asociados pulse el botón

Title: The world’s most valuable brands. Who’s most engaged? Ranking the Top 100 Global Brands.
Authors: Wetpaint & Altimeter Group
Introduction:

“For the first time ever, Wetpaint/Altimeter Group have gone beyond surface case studies to measure the true financial value of social media.  We conducted our research not just on a small scale, but based on the world’s 100 most valuable brands – these are brands that are widely acknowledged for setting the standards in marketing as measured by BusinessWeek / Interbrand “Best Global Brands 2008” rankings.  And now, we evaluate how well they are engaging their consumers using social media and, even more importantly, how that engagement correlates with their most important financial metrics: revenue and profit.”

Type: Study / White Paper
Source: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/8713606/ENGAGEMENTdb-Most-Engaged-Brands-On-Social-Media

Hey guys, my buddy Ethan has his new blog at www.ethanprime12.wordpress.com so check it out. He ditched his Wetpaint site, copied most of my older posts like “Please Help” and still HASN’T replied to me on Yahoo! Messenger(he’s been idle for an hour). So WHY do I forgive him? Because he’s my friend, and I’m going crazy. LOL.

 Think about this process as developing your own Social Sphere of Influence. Take the aerial view of your business today and where you want it to go in the near future and in the long-term. What are your goals?

Not all elements may be appropriate for your business and you need not tackle every facet all at once. Even pros like Mari Smith, a renowned maven in Facebook, suggest that embracing manageable efforts in sequence might be best for many of us. Dani Babb on Fox Business suggested just getting started and that you may make mistakes along the way.

 The idea is to do some planning. You may want to outsource your online business management at the beginning when the setup is more labor intensive and while you learn. Gradually you can take it over as you are able to accommodate the requirements of time and resources in your organization. Or you may decide to continue with outside guidance as the Social Sphere expands. For example, I heard that Comcast has doubled their social media staff doing customer service from about 7 to 14-15 in the last year. Prepare for success.

Speaking of success, you might like to know about some real results before we get started. “The world’s most valuable brands. Who’s most engaged?,” a study prepared by Wetpaint and Altimeter, demonstrated that revenues increased by 18% by using social media (http://www.engagementdb.com).

So let’s get started. Make a list of what you want and need your Social Sphere of Influence to do for you. What does that list look like?

Consumer connection – Is that:

• Retention
• Finding new consumers
• Education
• Building relationships
• Getting feedback from consumers
• Increasing sales?

Other Initiatives:

• Finding, talking to investors
• Introducing new products, new services

What else do you need to do?

Some of the forms beyond your website that you can put in your Social Sphere might include:

• Blogs
• White papers, articles, newsletters
• Social media: LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and an ever-growing list of large and niche networks

Each choice offers different opportunities. Each offers the possibilities to have different as well as several voices. Formats can be intriguing. Twitter’s short format can be challenging. Each has its own place and may or may not fit with your plan. Any and all can be viral. So a good consumer experience has an excellent chance of being shared.

Take blogs, for instance. Blogs can look like a website with the look and feel, navigation and sections for Services, About, Contact et al. The difference should be the immediacy of news that’s regularly updated from once a month to once a week. This is the Podium point-of-view. Your voice. Representing your company’s voice.

But the blog can be opened up to receive comments from readers, consumers, and the entire Spheriverse. Now it becomes a two-way superhighway of discussion, feedback and response to that feedback. An ongoing conversation. This has the power to be exponentially expansive and rewarding – for both your business and your consumer.

 Articles, white papers, press releases, and newsletters are also a way to put out your voice, your opinions, and your announcements. But your website and all the parts of your Social Sphere will bring conversation back to you. It’s your job to plan the management of receiving and responding to those messages.

The social media each have their own channel of audience to offer. LinkedIn has professionals and folks looking to hire and be hired. There are groups to join to begin conversations. You can seek out and make important connections with people looking for answers. Consumers are everywhere in all the social spaces. Your approach to each will probably be a little different with each one. Certainly the confinement and environment of the formats and technologies of each will impact the messages that you design.

As time goes on, no doubt the Spheriverse will continue to expand at a rapid pace of cyber speed. Choices will increase. But the concept of the two-way dialogue remains constant. The challenge is in managing the communications most effectively. Enjoy and grow with the movement.

8/4/09: I had a website that I used when I first began- www.worldquestions.wetpaint.com  I must warn you that it is in severe need of a makeover! I can’t remember the last time I logged in to it. Anyway- if you want to learn more details about the book – I actually have the questions listed as well as some other people’s answers, the stats (showing which companies have participated) etc. I will update it when i get a chance – but just to get a rough idea- you can check it out if you are bored! -Kary

 Once upon a time a middle-aged librarian, woke up lost in cyberspace. She was adrift in a sea of information and needed a little organization. Organization  being part of compulsive librarianship — she set about looking for the best way to do this. Perhaps what she needed was her own wiki. That way she could share her endeavor with others.

She had tried contributing to a wiki before. It was  confusing. Did the creators intend for users to sdd text, create a page or add to  the discussion thread?  The text editor was kind of like a word processor, but more limited and the results often looked “messy”  She wasn’t sure she actually like wikis.Maybe she just needed a wiki “just right” for her.

  So the  intrepid librarian decided to go on a wiki service hunt.  She wanted her wiki site to have the following features:

1. It would be free.
2. It would be easy to edit.
3. It would look neat and professional.
4. It would be flexible.
5. It would be “educator friendly”

She was inspired by some wikis that other people had created. 

• The File Cabinet created by Kelly Hines, hosted by PBworks
• Twitter for Teachers by  Rodd Lucier, (thecleversheep ) hosted by Wetpaint
• Monarch Library by Keisa Williamshosted by WikiSpaces
• WebTools4u2use created by, Donna Baumbach, (AuntyTech) hosted by Wikispaces

She had three wiki services in her sights.  PbWorks (PBwiki at that time),  Wetpaint, and Wikispaces.

She stopped by Wetpaint first because it seemed to have more “fun features.”  It did not have the look of the old confusing wikis she didn’t like.  It did have very prominent advertising on its free version.  But the discussion threads were really cool and the themes were bright and inviting.  There was advertising saying educators could get free sites with no advertising.  She signed up and created a wiki called The Library Toolbox. But, then she realized that a free educational version was hard to obtain for an elementary educator.  These accounts were only for teachers working with students over 13 who could legally have there own accounts with WetPaint.  The ads were very prominent, as well.  They were full-color.   They flashed and moved.  It would not be a good site to share links with the teachers at her school.  It cost $19.95 per month to have the ads removed.  Once the wiki had been created, it could not be deleted.  Also, though it could be renamed, the URL would reflect the original name.  This was not the most  friendly policy for someone experimenting. 

Next, she visited Wikispaces.  Free personal wikis here, also, contained advertising.  However, these ads were discrete little text ads.  These could be turned off for a mere $5 per month or $50 per year. Also, ad-free wikis for K-12 educational use were free.  Wikis could easily be renamed and deleted.  She signed up for one of these.  There were several themes to choose from. She had a vision for how she would like the page to look, but soon found she had trouble getting lists to appear as “neat” as she wanted.  Sometimes, it was difficult to position inserted objects where she intended them to be.

Finally she checked out PBworks.   She found limited flexibility in the layout of her wiki or “collaborative workspace.”  However, the text editor was slightly more intuitive to her than the one at Wikispaces.  She could insert objects easily here, also.  (She did discover that no wiki allows you to move objects around like a MS Word document.)  There were no ads on a small, personal wiki with 100 or fewer users.  This could be used as a class wiki, also.  A special classroom wiki package with additional benefits was available for $100.  PBWorks pages, always had a clean, neat appearance,  The to-do lists and side-bar options were very appealing, as well.  The librarian chose this site for a personal workspace to house links, create to-do lists and experiment. 

So, now our curious and sometimes befuddled  librarian  had three wiki accounts on different services.  If the PBworks site was to be the home-base she desired, what would she do with the other two accounts?  The Wetpaint site could not be deleted or have its URL changed.   But it was flashy and invited membership and discussion more than the other two sites.  She turned it into a public site to invite other librarians to share experiences and examples in using web 2.0 tools in their libraries.  She kept the original name of all three of her wiki experiments The Library Toolbox. She would love to have you join this site.  The August topic of discussion is wikis.  Please share your wiki stories with others.

The Wikispaces site she renamed the Edison Wishwiki.  She attempted to create a collaborative environment for her school learning community to share requests and suggestions for learning resources needed in her library media center.  She, also, wanted all of her book requests on-line.  She had been trying to banish all little lost sticky notes from her professional life.  Though, our ever hopeful librarian was short on collaborators, during the past school year, the site improved her personal organization immensely!  The addition of a Google form will make it simpler to add requests for those shy about “joining” the wiki this fall. 

The PBworks wiki, The DJProject, became a bit neglected..  It was easier to simply bookmark links in Diigo or add them to her school website than go back to her original plan.  She is still in awe of Kelly Hines and Donna Baumbach in their abilities to organize and share  links with others.  Perhaps she should update her to-do list today.  She finally completed this blog post.  

The librarian  enjoyed her adventure with the three wikis,  learned more than she thought possible. and  developed three very different, useful websites.  Have you gone wiki-hunting yet ?

Firmy aktywnie działające w social media osiągają lepsze wyniki finansowe od pozostałych. Tak wynika z badań przeprowadzonych przez Wetpaint oraz Altimeter Group.

Raport dostępny jest na tej stronie a warto z nim się zapoznać ponieważ próbuje odpowiedzieć na proste pytanie: czy social media są efektywne kosztowo.

Uwzględnione w rankingu firmy z listy TOP 100 2008 BusinessWeek/Interbrand Best Global Brands przedstawiają cały przekrój gospodarki, więc nie można zarzucić jego autorom skupienia się tylko na jednej branży lub firmach, które zechciały zapłacić za udział w nim.

W badaniu analizowano aktywność tych firm na różnych platformach social media takich jak Facebook, Twitter, blogach, wiki i forach internetowych. Następnie uszeregowano je w “skali zaangażowania” z wynikami od najwyższych 127 punktów do najniższego 1 punktu. Na końcu pozostało już tylko zbadanie przychodów tych firm, w wyniku czego ustalono, że firmy z góry rankingu osiągnęły wzrost przychodów w ostatnich latach przekraczający 18 proc. w stosunku do 6 proc. spadków firm z dołu rankingu.

Firmy w rankingu podzielono na 4 grupy pod względem zaangażowania w social media: mavens (marki mocno zaangażowane w siedem i więcej kanałów social media), butterflies (marki zaangażowane w siedem i więcej kanałów social media, jednak skupiające się na kilku z nich bardziej, niż na innych), selectives (sześć lub mniej kanałów, ale angażujące klientów najbardziej w jednym z nich) oraz wallflowers (marki obecne w mniej niż sześciu kanałach i mniej dbające o zaangażowanie się klientów).

Badanie wskazuje również na ciekawą korelację pomiędzy ilością platform social media, na których obecny jest dany brand a pozycją w rankingu. Jego autorzy podsumowują je jednoznacznie: “Nie chodzi o to, aby pracować na nich wszystkich, ale by robić to dobrze”.

Moim zdaniem ten ranking potwierdza jeszcze jeden fakt. Wygrywają Ci, którym się chce zaangażować w swoje działania bardziej niż to dotychczasowe zwyczaje nakazują. Social web polega na bardziej osobistym zaangażowaniu, a to już wymaga zmiany filozofii funkcjonowania przedsiębiorstwa, które musi bardziej zaufać swoim pracownikom oraz klientom. A to oznacza coś więcej, niż tylko zmianę struktury organizacyjnej lub procedur. Znacznie więcej

Ranking więc, według mnie, nie pokazuje tylko tego, że jeśli firma się dobrze zaangażuje w social media to osiągnie sukces. On pokazuje tylko, że jeśli firma wykonują dobrą robotę na wszystkich frontach swojej działalności – łącznie z social web – to osiągnie sukces.

Potwierdzałaby to niska pozycja instytucji finansowych, które mimo posiadania olbrzymich środków i wielkich rzeszy klientów, nie potrafią nawiązać z nimi takich relacji, jakie pozwalają tworzyć prawdziwe społeczności klientów. Kryzys jasno pokazuje, jak podczas odpływu, kto w morzu pływał nago.

Nie dziwi za to wysoka pozycja w ranking firm z sektora mediów (pamiętajmy, że Google też się tam mieści) i technologii czyli sektorów, gdzie struktury organizacyjne są bardziej płaskie, a relacje między pracownikami: mniej formalne oraz technologii (naturalne obycie z nowymi technologiami).

W raporcie dostępne są również casy z funkcjonowania zwycięzcy rankingu, więc chociażby z tego powodu warto go przeczytać w całości.

Ja tylko napiszę, że potwierdzają one moją tezę o tym, że liczy się zaangażowanie samej firmy a nie jej budżet.

It’s easy to get in the social media game. Set up an account, post some content, and there you go.

Sure, it’s more complicated than that. Still, ultimately, the big question many companies what to know is if the investment into social media has a real impact on its brand and does that impact lead to profits.

A new study by Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group, in a joint effort known as Engagementdb, attempts to answer this question in a report titled “The World’s Most Valuable Brands: Who’s Most Engaged?” The report analyzes the social media activities of the 100 most valuable brands, evaluates how that correlates to revenue and profit, and presents examples of best practices for making the most of social media.

The findings indicate the top ten most socially engaged companies are: Starbucks, Dell, eBay, Google, Microsoft, Thompson Reuters, Nike, Amazon, SAP, and there’s a tie in 10th place between Yahoo and Intel.

Big names all; still there are plenty of big name brands, so how come these rise to the top? To make that assessment the report examined several factors including how many channels are used, in what manner are these channels used, and who in the company participates: CEO, marketing, everyone?

Not surprisingly, those that are the most engaged fared the best. According to the study, companies with the greatest breadth and depth in social media increased revenues by 18 percent over the last 12 months. Conversely, companies with the least amount of engagement experienced a 6 percent drop in revenue during that same time period.

But there are nuances regarding what constitutes being engaged. Simply having a presence on one or more platforms is not a social media strategy.

The study offers several case studies detailing how companies in the top-tier engage, and these are certainly worth reading (the full report is downloadable for free at the Engagementdb web site). Meantime, here’s a quickie super-simplified summary of certain key findings that are good to know if you want to follow the leaders:

Be social
This one sounds obvious, after all it’s called social media. However, it cannot be overstated—you must have a dialogue. The idea here is to develop a relationship with your customer. Don’t just post material and monitor comments. Respond to the comments you receive in an open and honest fashion.

Know thy channel
Different channels offer different value propositions and methods of interaction. How you engage on Twitter is likely different than on Facebook. Understand how users of the various platforms interact with one another and what kind of information and/or promotional offer is best suited to each specific channel.

Don’t start something you can’t finish
Setting up an account then rarely making posts is bad practice. So is starting a blog only to be told by higher powers that they don’t want the company to have an online exchange with customers. Make sure you have the resources and support to maintain on ongoing stream of fresh content and that you can keep up your end of the conversation.

It can pay to be selective
It may not make sense to be in a lot of channels. In certain cases, less is more. Deep engagement in a few channels is better than shallow engagement in many channels.

Spread the socializing around
Companies that are the most engaged, and consequently derive the greatest benefit and profit from social media, have more open policies regarding who can contribute to different channels. Rather than keep a tight lid on things let many people contribute in areas where it makes the most sense and where they have appropriate expertise.

- Deni Kasrel

What do You think of this post? Comments welcome.

Sometimes I get the feeling that Charlene Li is on a crusade — a crusade to prove with hard data that social media can have real value for business.  First there was Groundswell, co-authored with Josh Bernoff, which highlighted an array of companies leveraging social media successfully to achieve business objectives.  Now there’s a new study from Charlene’s company, Altimeter Group, and Wetpaint, that shows a correlation between social media engagement and financial performance.

The ENGAGEMENTdb Report looks at the top 100 performing global brands according to the BusinessWeek/Interbrand “Best Global Brands 2008″ ranking and measures and ranks their engagement in a range of social media channels for both depth and breadth.  The analysis shows a clear correlation between social media engagement and financial performance.

While correlation is not the same thing as cause and effect, the data is impressive.  And as Mark Pack points out in a blog post, if one assumes that the world’s top performing companies are run by the world’s most capable managers, it’s noteworthy that these business leaders appear to endorse a deep and committed engagement in social media.

The report concludes with a useful assessment of the best practices of four of the most socially engaged brands — Starbucks, Toyota, SAP and Dell.  It’s interesting that the way companies engage in the space can vary greatly.  For example, while Starbucks only permits a small group of designated employees to speak for the company in social channels, SAP has 1500 employee bloggers.

There are a few details missing from the report that I would like to have seen.  Each company was rated on 40 engagement attributes, but the report doesn’t provide the specific attributes.  What’s more, while it lists the specific social media channels analyzed, there is no analysis of which, or in what depth, each company engaged with the individual channels.  This might have helped to better understand while Apple, a company that doesn’t receive particularly high marks from me for online social engagement, made it to the top third of the ranking.

So, what will be the next station in Charlene Li’s crusade to prove the business value of social media?  I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s already working on the next quantitative study, the one that show not only a correlation, but an actual cause-and-effect relationship between social media engagement and business results.

Some crusades are good.

In a new report, social media guru Charlene Li, in partnership with wetpaint, reviews and charts Interbrand’s top 100 brands based on their social media presence and the level of engagement they have with their customers. It’s an innovative and important report for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the report attempts to actually measure the depth of engagement and provides additional insights on trends by industry and the number of social media channels used by each brand. Next, the report goes on to correlate financial performance of these brands with level of engagement.

Not surprisingly, “Mavens,” (those brands engaged in seven or more social media channels with an above-average engagement score), enjoyed double-digit revenue and margin growth (as a category) in spite of the current economy compared to “Walflowers” (those engaged in six or fewer channels and had a below-average engagement score) who had negative financial performance on those same metrics.

Additional insights from the report include:

• Being there is important: having a presence on social networks and micro-blogging outlets is important. The report goes on to say “social media reach alone may have a positive impact” as the more touchpoints used can cause a “ripple effect”, by increasing or “boosting” brand recognition and driving sales volume.”
• Depth is critical: In some respects focusing on depth over breadth may be an effective strategy as depth gives brands the opportunity to understand customer needs and to react quickly – “which in turn generates pricing power” and drives success.
• Scalability is key: Make the customer and a commitment to social media a part of the culture. “A few minutes each day spent by every employee adds up to a wealth of customer touchpoints.”
• Doing nothing is not an option – but doing it all may not be appropriate: Building a social media strategy depends on many factors including who your target is (remember Forrester’s POST methodology), your industry, etc. However, being where your customers are and a part of their online experience is critical.
• Find your sweet spot: Understand what resonates with your customers and engage with them in the channels they use and prefer. If resources are an issue – start small, lobby for more assets and engage fully.

The report goes on to highlight some very compelling case studies including profiles on Starbucks (ranked #1), Dell (#2), SAP (#9), Toyota (#21) and also includes a complementary website that allows brands to engage further and even complete their own brand’s profile. Another great report from Charlene! However, with the focus being so heavily placed on measurement these days it would be great to better understand the “engagement attributes” used to rank these brands (but I guess that is the secret sauce). Furthermore, I would have liked to see how much of a lift these brands experienced on a series of other metrics. Specifically, in a world where people are turning to other people for a things they need rather than the brands themselves, it would have been great to see if these brands experienced any lift in metrics like satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, likelihood to purchase.

To download the report click here.

‘Til Next Time

Social media’s impact on business:

I recently blogged about how successful companies can build winning reputations. I noted that according to Charles Fombrun of the Reputation Institute, the key factor driving a company’s overall reputation is the perception we have of a company’s products and services.

Engaging in social media can help to positively influence that perception.

A just released study by Wetpaint and the Altimeter Group reported that social media pays off for business. The greater the breadth and depth of social media engagement, the greater the payback.

Key findings incude:

As the number of channels increases, so does overall engagement – the most successful teams evangelize social media across the entire organization to pull in a broad range of stakeholders. These companies view social media as an indispensable tool to help them achieve results, and their approach is conversational.

Emphasize quality, not just quantity – it’s more than setting up a fan page on Facebook and having others write on your wall – you have to build a network and engage with your audience. Post fresh content and respond to comments.

You don’t have to do everything – but decide what’s doable and take the plunge - what you decide to do will depend on your customers and your organization’s readiness – but it’s important to dip your toe in the water – otherwise, you’ll find yourself falling behind.

Make social media part of everyone’s job – in successful organizations, social media is no longer the sole responsibility of a few people within the organization.

Want more info?

Read study co-author Charlene Li’s blog, the full report, or visit the Engagement website.

Photo credit:   Matt Hamm