Community management is a conduit
Excellent article on Community Management on Chris Brogan's site - what essential skills a forum CM requires.
After nearly five years as the CM I've got a knowledge of communities that probably borders on the fanatical - it's probably best that I'm not involved in them day-to-day currently...
However, this knowledge helps underpin my community management reply:
From my years as a community manager I found that it encompassed most of skills listed in Chris’s post, but one important issue not mentioned was being able to go to internal stakeholders and get them to act, for the good of the community. We CMs can talk the talk (perhaps very openly and honestly), but the company behind us also needs to walk the walk for it to be a success.
Community Managers can listen, but a lot of the time they’re seen as conduits to the people that the community *really* want to reach - and if the company at large doesn’t react then the community isn’t working, usually despite the CM’s best efforts.
Yes, personal experience taught me this, but if right person (whether it’s a director, a manager or heck, perhaps even a janitor in some situations) doesn’t understand the power of the community then no amount of listening, party-hosting and bridge-building from the CM will help.
In other words, there has to be an institutional change of emphasis towards a more honest and open regime otherwise (rightly or wrongly) any efforts by CM are seen by the community as little more than lip service.
Great article though!
I think the most important word I wrote was conduit - you may think you're the centre of power as a CM and everyone wants to talk to you, but unless you're the first CEO Forum Community Manager in existence your customers are talking to you, but you're not who they really want to talk to. Oh no - they want to talk to the guys with the power to make real changes.
You're just one of the front of house staff members, one of the girls in the telephone pool that needs to re-route each call. Don't forget that.
Labels: brogan, community, management, online
Exact Target email exactly right
I downloaded an excellent CAN-SPAM Compliance white paper from Exact Target this week (although I can't remember who recommended the link in the first place, sorry whoever that was). It's well worth reading for those of you who may use permission-based emailing to speak to US of A customers/users and who need to be updated on the latest developments from the FTC.
However, "props" go to Joshua Handy, a sales guy at Exact Target, for his follow up email - sometimes these things are an excellent example of the art of B2B online communication.
I read a lot of white papers and, of course, a lot of these are given away free in exchange for B2B details. It's a common method of showing the knowledge a company employs about a subject while promoting their tools or skills. And as I read a lot of these white papers, I get a lot of follow up emails.
But this one was something special, as it:
- Got to the point
- Was concise - not a word wasted
- Was friendly without being full-on
- Was all rather funny
- And importantly, it sold the confidence of the company and its employees incredibly well
Take a read; I hope Joshua doesn't mind:
Hello Peer,
Thank you for taking the time to visit our website, www.exacttarget.com and downloading ExactTarget's Permission-Based Email Whitepaper. In hopes to not take too much of your time, I was hoping to categorize your recent actions. Generally, when folks visit our website they fall into one of three buckets.
1) Thank you for the follow-up and material; however, at this point I am only educating myself on email marketing best practices.
2) While I am educating myself on email marketing, I am also interested in learning more about ExactTarget's email solutions.
3) Please call me as soon as possible. I am looking to switch my current Email Service Provider and take a look at what ExactTarget has to offer.
I'm a firm believer that any one of these answers could be the right answer as long as it is what's best for your business. Your response will allow me to better gauge your interests without bothering you during this busy time. Thanks again for your consideration and I hope to talk with you soon.
Kindest regards,
Joshua D. Handy
ExactTarget
Great B2B email and while on this occasion I don't need anything more from Exact Target, I'm more than happy to sing their praises.
Grrr...assy Knol
Addendum: further to the big Knol v Wikipedia face-off, I did think it was quite amusing that Wikipedia ranks above Knol for the search term "Knol".
Knol's edge on SEO
Today saw Google launch Knol, its answer to Wikipedia (with an added soupçon of Squidoo). And while there's little to talk about at present (as it's still in early beta), one obvious divergence from the world's most famous encyclopaedia is the fact that each article's author is named throughout in Knol, something that Wikipedia has not done previously.My reaction to this idea? Personally I think it's great that there's more chance to learn and to appropriate knowledge from lauded professors and experts in their fields. I'm happy that we can invest a modicum of trust in what they say, something that hasn't always been the case with Wikipedia (despite its best efforts).
However, Wikipedia fans have also voiced their disapproval (oh no, it's first shots of the Encyclopaedia Wars; quick, to the shelters).
From an SEO point of view (oh, there's just always an SEO point of view with me), it's a slightly different matter though. To whit, it's another website that will end up in the mix at the top of the search engine results pages (surely Google will game the algorithm to promote Knol to the top); it's another website to try and overcome when aiming for the top spot. Wikipedia is already there or thereabouts, now we'll have Knol up there as well. Sigh.
I'm not really complaining, after all we're the lucky ones playing with Google's toys for free anyway, and really it's up to us as online marketers to provide good quality content that overcomes the likes of Wikipedia or Knol by appealing more to our readers in our efforts to rise to the top. And down the line there'll hopefully be chances to contribute/syndicate content (with links), something that'll help, especially with Knol lacking content.
The arrival of Knol just makes it that little bit more difficult to reach the top, that's all.
I am? You're not yet
I am disappointed. While in London last week I was impressed to see Orange advertise the weblink for their new multi-million pound global campaign as "search online for I am" - no web address, no URL, nary an AOL keyword to be seen.I am amazed. I was under the impression that to appear at the top the natural search results for "I am" would need some amazing, nay incredible search engine optimisation, of the highest order. It's one of the most basic English phrases of all - Google lists almost 1.2 billion results - and for an advertising campaign of a few months' planning to vault to the head of such a list in such a short amount of time would be a feat of SEO genius.
I am excited. I vowed to check as soon as I got home, to see for myself how Orange rocketed to number one.
I am sad. Perhaps.
I am unsurprised. They didn't get to number one. Of course, they didn't. Apparently they're currently on page 8 of Google for I am, and rather than a brilliant execution of search engine marketing powering their way to the top, it was a much less thrilling, much more prosaic Google Adword advert instead. Something we could all do for "I am", in all of five minutes (in fact, if I could afford it I'd try; trouble is, I'd probably end up getting more clicks than Orange).
I am let down.
I am, of course, trying not to associate Orange with that phrase by writing this blogpost (I am not going to link to them, for example).
I am still disappointed. But I am getting over it. I am, you know.
Bubbles and Burn-Outs: Web 1.0 10 Years On
We all talk "web 2.0" nowadays - social networks, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn (yeah, I know I'm as bad as anyone). But what about web 1.0, those heady days in 1998-2000 when a website idea was worth millions and everyone was going to be rich from the new economy?Well I certainly didn't get rich. I was at ZOOfootball (witness the ZOOfootball 404 error) at the time (a quintessential web start-up) which disappeared in early 2002. While ZOO were actually one of the few to make it to market (the holy grail of internet start-ups at the time) the money I sold my shares for simply augmented my redundancy package from the company.
Heady days? Not likely.
So these past few weeks I've been revisiting the past to wade through the famous (and infamous) start-ups of the time.
Rather than focus on the famous US-based burn-outs (Webvan, Beenz, Pets.com) so expertly covered by CNet recently, I thought I'd do a UK web 1.0 list, with the help from a quaint ZDNet article from 1999, Rory Cellan-Jones' book dot.bomb, originally released during the fallout from the first internet bubble in late 2001, and Boo Hoo, the story of the burn-out to end all web 1.0 burn outs, boo.com.
I originally bought both books with some of my redundancy money. How apposite.
So on with the show - tales of web 1.0 excess, over-valuation and "bloody hell, I'd forgotten about those". Welcome to the turn of the millennium, we're in the midst of dotcom excess and there's a bubble that's about to burst quite spectacularly...
Burn-outs
1. boo - the original and best(-known story of web 1.0 excess that is), boo.com is a case study on what not to do. They burnt through £125 million in six months (it took users just about as long to load the front page it was so Flash-heavy) trying to get their global vision of a clothing/sportswear site live; boo.com originally had a $2bn valuation and was forecast to sell $1bn worth of clothes by 2003. Instead was bust within months of launching, only to reappear briefly in 2001. The URL is now an interactive travel site a la TripAdvisor. Read the entertaining book of the rise and fall of the site, Boo Hoo, and shake your head in disbelief on each and every page at how they thought marketing and partying was more important than, well, building a website.
2. Click Mango - now an advertising site, Click Mango and never actually appeared as a website even though it had valuations in excess of £10 million. Backed by Absolutely Fabulous star Joanna Lumley, Click Mango was supposedly a one-stop health food and vitamins website. In other words, Holland and Barrett. It raised £3m in an eight-day investor drive, such was the manic drive to fund a start-up, any start-up at the time. But again, let's remember the salient point in all of this. It never even launched.
3. Boxman - Swedish site that tried to out-Amazon Amazon. Went under in late 2000 as the bubble burst on internet stocks. I once bought something from Boxman, it took over a week to arrive despite promises of next-day delivery. I personally wasn't surprised when it went under.
See also: Jungle, ChannelFly and iCollector
Gone but not forgotten
4. Freeserve - originally a subsidiary of the Dixons chain of stores in the UK, Freeserve was conceived as a way to sell more PCs, but the offer of free internet access in 1998 was a winner from day one. Freeserve was actually an incredible success; it was the first UK internet IPO, it was worth $2bn at its height. The URL now redirects to the Orange website (unsurprisingly, as Orange, as Wanadoo, bought Freeserve in late 2000 for a staggering £1.65bn, before renaming it)5. QXL (originally Quixell) - the biggest UK auction site originally sold goods directly to the consumer before moving into auctions à la eBay. Famously signed up Hugh Scully (yes, that Hugh Scully) to advise them on selling antiques online with the offer of £3m worth of shares (damn right it was a crazy time). QXL was sold to Naspers (subsequently renamed Tradus), a South African company, and was finally shut down at the end of May.
Amazingly still going
6. First Tuesday - this October sees First Tuesday, the most visual dynamic of the new media "wealth", celebrate 10 years. The venture capitalists and the entrepreneurs have changed, but the company lives on in one form or another, even though the inter-continental idea of concurrent meetings/websites went by the wayside in 2002. A $20 million valuation was briefly mooted in 1999 and in 2000 was amazingly bought by an Israeli company for $50m (who quickly realised they'd been sold a pup, flogging it on a year later for $1.5m, a $48.5m loss).
See also: People Sound, NewsNow and Football365
And finally, thriving...
7. Last Minute - still going strong, the original UK internet darlings Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane Fox still have some say in the site; Lane Fox remains a non-executive director, Hoberman is chairman and chief strategic officer. Of course the site was originally set up to sell off goods with a natural sell-by date - plane tickets for tomorrow, theatre tickets for this evening and so on. And while the business plan changed through the years, you can still see the site's original remit poking through now and again. A worthy survivor of the time.
8. Firebox - It always seemed that Firebox was the start-up cited by BBC News as "geeks in the bedroom done well". Two friends started the site in 1998 in their mother's house; was originally called Hotbox (NFSW link!) before realising that Playboy owned the .com domain and all the traffic they were receiving was looking for something other than chess-set shot glasses. They recently celebrated their 10th anniversary; Firebox is another Great British web 1.0 survivor (Great, if dated, BBC video from the time available to watch on their website)
Hope you enjoyed the trip down memory lane. However, there must be more sites that I've missed - if you've got any more suggestions let me know. Crazy days...
Labels: boo.com, burnout, freeserve, internet, online, startup, web 1.0
LinkedIn adverts - too expensive for me
I've talked about the Facebook adverts recently, but what about the advertising situation at LinkedIn? After all, as ReadWriteWeb mention, "LinkedIn may not be a huge social network, but its user demographics are some of the most financially desirable in the world." LinkedIn [Peer Lawther's profile] is the smooth corporate car to Facebook's souped-up boyracer.But it costs to talk to these people.
Facebook has CPMs of around $0.50 - dirt cheap and something you'd be happy to take a chance with, test and hone. Huge gluts of impressions, but at a price you don't really care about. LinkedIn's prices start at $10, a huge amount considering advertising via social networks aren't yet proven to work.
$10 is high enough, but should you want to target specific demographics (not just random users) then the price rises by up to $9 per 1000. In addition, and irrespective of cost, there's no option to use an accompanying image (the adverts are text only).
And finally, want to target users outside the United States? No can do - continental US only (obviously the deal-breaker for me).
In other words the price jumps to something you just can't dip your toes in and out for, unless you've got a good budget backing you up. Say a conglomerate, a multi-national, a Fortune 500 company.
Which is a pity as if they got the prices right (I feel they should be around half the current price given the unproven nature of social network advertising) LinkedIn would have one hell of an opportunity. At the moment, it's too easy for me - your common-or-garden online social media advertiser willing to risk a sum to test the field - to pass up.
Labels: advertising, linkedin, network, social
Facebook confirms advertising placements for redesign
No sooner did I post up yesterday about Facebook's redesign and what that means for us advertisers than said social network sends me an email...Hi,
Thanks for advertising with Facebook. You may have already heard that Facebook is about to get a new look aimed at making user profiles simpler and more relevant. You can read more overall about the new design here http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/press/releases.php?p=47448, but let's also take a deeper look into what the new design means for you.
While the content on the site will remain the same, the new design will shift the placement of ads on the site. Advertisers won't need to make any changes to the ads they already have created in order for them to appear on the new site design. The look of the ads will remain the same, but they will be located in a different part of the page.
The most basic change that you'll notice is that ads will now appear on the right side of Facebook pages instead of on the left. The new placement integrates the ads into the new site design in a meaningful way. As many as two ads may show at one time on any given page.
In addition to these changes, you will also see a new ad on the home page. This new ad is located just to the right of the News Feed, and will initially run a limited set of advertisers. As this space continues to evolve and improve, we'll provide more details.
If you have questions about your advertising or how it might be affected by the new design, please visit the Help Center at http://www.facebook.com/adshelp or contact our team using the form located here: http://www.facebook.com/adscontact
As always, we welcome any feedback you might have to help us make our advertising products as effective and useful as possible.
Enjoy the new design!
Sincerely,
The Facebook Ads Team
So there we go - the adverts are moving to the right side of the page, which could signal better returns for an advertiser. Eye-tracking has revealed that people tend to view webpages in a clockwise fashion, starting from 10 o'clock.
Previously adverts were at around 7 o'clock, now they're earlier in the cycle, which hopefully will mean they're noticed quicker. And I suppose Google has grown to become an advertising behemoth on the back on right hand side adverts...
As I've mentioned previously on Facebook advertising, the clickthrough rates on Facebook are very poor, so anything is up from the poor returns advertisers currently get (and in an effort to finally monetise the network, Facebook must be hoping moving the adverts will help raise CTRs as well).
Labels: advertising, facebook
Facebook redesign goes live this week
Back after a nice long holiday, to see that Facebook is finally rolling out its new redesign this week.
As an evil advertising type on Facebook, I wonder what new advertising opportunities will be available to reach profiles, and whether the current options (which, truth be told, are poor, as are the clickthrough rates) will be jiggled around a bit. I hope so.
Labels: advertising, facebook
