Last night the Washington Technology Industry Association (WTIA) had their annual awards event where Visible Technologies TruCast solution was nominated for best commercial product of the year. It was a tremendous honor to have even been a finalist. And even greater that we won.

The amazing thing about this years judging was that the instead of the usual jury of peers and industry folks - the vote was put out to the community!

As a technology provider that enables many leading brands the ability to listen, measure, and engage with their customers we were being put to that same test about getting our own community of advocates to vote for us. I can’t thank the community, our employees, friends and supporters for all the outreach, emails, forwards, tweets, re-tweets, LinkedIn and Facebook updates. The community really came through for us and we were up against at least one firm that had 10 times the number of employees we have. It just goes to show that bigger doesn’t necessarily always win and that the power of your community can deliver amazing results for your if interact regularly, add value and appreciate their interaction.

Again, thank you for all the support.

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

Marketers are finally moving into Social Media. It’s been taking a while. Even though millions of users are flocking to social media sites every day, most marketers have stayed away or only been experimenting. Twitter year over year grow exceeded 1300% in a recently published article on site and user growth. Many marketers and organizations either didn’t understand the opportunities inherent in this channel or the how to’s required to join the conversations–without sounding like product/brand pushers.

Things are finally starting to change. Companies are learning how to leverage social media and tap into the rising tide of consumers participating in social network sites, blogs, wikis and Twitter.

According to the “The ROI on Social Media Marketing” report from the Aberdeen Group, that we (Visible Technologies) sponsored, marketers have developed the tools and methodologies to drive marketing ROI by listening to and learning from customers and prospects. As so, the dollars are following this rising tide.

The Aberdeen report found that 63% of the companies in their survey (defined as best-in-class) planned to increase their social media marketing budgets this year.

“Companies use multiple approaches to identify the individuals who wield the greatest amount of influence in any given topic area and to track changes in their influence over time,” said Jeff Zabin of Aberdeen. “Best-in-class companies engage these top influencers as brand evangelists, and then track the impact of their words and actions in terms of return on marketing investment.”

eMarketer estimated that social network advertising alone will rise over 17% this year to $2.35 billion, up from $2 billion in 2008.

But simply because companies are increasing their spending on social media doesn’t mean all the drawbacks have disappeared. Measurement, in particular, is a sticking point.

The Aberdeen research showed that 39% of companies found it somewhat difficult to measure social media, and 20% said it was very difficult.

Please feel free to download the entire report here.

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

There are many who continue to question Twitter, its increasing importance to consumers and brands, or its overall monetization strategies. But, the data of user growth is staggering and brand participation and initial results from brand interaction more than promising. So many brands that we know and interact with like Microsoft, Alaska Air, Southwest, Wachovia, Dell, PCC Markets and others are doing a great job at building loyal followings, creating real-time communication platforms with customers, and the ability to target marketing specials. These interactions and the follower base are what is generating revenue and cost savings — creating more traction than fan pages of yesteryear did for many brands in places like FaceBook or MySpace.

So, this is why Twitter is and will continue to be valuable. In a recent article from Joe Marchese at SocialVibe he writes “Why Google Will Buy Twitter and Make Billions”. Google’s success has been its ability to “organize information on the Web (search results) and to monetize people’s intentions (marketing based on what people are searching for). Simply put, Google is a multibillion-dollar company because it can put marketers in front of people at the right time in the right way. Google has cornered the market on searching the Web for information, and monetizing that behavior.”

Twitter is the growing consumer interaction channel of choice and is now introducing search functionality that when honed and perfected as Joe says “will bring with it all the riches of search marketing…and will make Twitter worth billions — and why Google will (or at least should) buy Twitter.”  The power in Twitter conversations is that it will “help people find out where to find current discussions on a subject.”  Now what is that worth to marketers and advertisers?  Just as Google has been able to monetize around the traffic of search terms Twitter will be able to monetize around events, passions, concerns, etc. Joe writes “People are already fascinated by watching people discuss various events or topics live in real time, using Twitter search and # (hash tags). What these services do is to provide me with information (a stream of people’s thoughts) on any keyword, or series of keywords. Sound familiar.”

Well, if it worked for Google then it could and should work for Twitter.  “Google has proven that if you can provide a useful search experience, then you can provide useful marketing. If you can provide useful marketing, you can return amazing ROI for marketers. If you can provide amazing ROI for marketers, you can make a lot of money, say Joe.”

All these consumer and business conversations be it on Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace, and LinkedIn platforms are where brands and digital investment will continue to flow.  The need for marketers and organizations to understand this new landscape and to build and deploy the people, processes, and technologies to interact with these new channels is impertative.  See my post from a few weeks back with some ‘09 predictions and comments from a Forrester Report.

Nice article Joe.  I agree with you about the opportunity for Twitter or the next platform that may emerge.

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

There’s been volumes written about why and how companies should get involved in social media, so I thought it might be useful to share some surefire signs that your company is NOT ready for social media. So here goes:

• Management Indifference: If you spend more time trying to convince your bosses that social media is worth the time, effort and investment than actually implementing ideas, then it’s better to find another place that suits your beliefs and skills.
• No Strategy Needed: While there is no doubt some of the early trailblazing brands in social media didn’t sit around writing strategic plans prior to launching initiatives, those success stories are more the exception than the rule. Real thinking and planning is required for long-term success.
• It’s a Fad: If that’s a phrase you’ve heard in the hallways around your office coupled with eye rolls, it’s usually not a good sign. People resistant to change and new ways of doing business often peg everything new - from mobile marketing to the iPhone - as a passing fad. The term ’social media’ will pass, but not the underlying fundamental change driving consumer collaboration across the Web.
• Outsource It: If there is a strong belief within your company that your advertising or PR agencies can handle social media without any involvement by your management or people, then you’re clearly not ready for this world.
• No Bad News: If a brand would prefer not to hear about what’s wrong with its products and services, then it’s certainly not a good candidate for social media. In other words - let’s not listen to our customers if we really don’t have to.
• Relationship to Sales: I have been in meetings where brand managers have said that they will not assign any man hours or any marketing budget to social media until it can be linked directly back to a product sale. I think they are the same guys who have been counting Web site clicks since the mid-90s.
• No Technology Needed: OK, I may be a bit bias on this one because we provide a software solution, but if your company thinks it can sift through the millions of blogs and new posts and comments every day with a couple of interns and a spreadsheet, then I would question how serious you really are about social media.
• Afraid of Failure:  If your boss expects that everything is going to go smoothly from the moment you get started, you’re in for a rough time. This is still very much a trial and error business and good brands and marketers know they are going to take some lumps along the way. That’s just part of the innovation roadmap.

Mike Spataro

As a former journalist (six years as a UPI wire guy), I have the utmost respect for the written and unwritten rules that have governed traditional broadcast and print journalism since the beginning of time. In fact, I’m saddened by how much those rules have deteriorated over the years. The day-to-day battles I had during my UPI days with friends and foes at the Associated Press, including the now legendary John King back in the days of Providence, RI, would make for some great posts for another day.

However, this lingering story about NBC’s attempt to delay the news of Tim Russert’s death just bugs me - not because it wasn’t the right thing to do, but it shows the incredible lack of understanding of how much news coverage has changed over the past few years. Without a doubt, attempts to reach Mr. Russert’s family prior to NBC airing the story was the correct course of action. But to chastise an employee at Internet Broadcasting Services for updating Russert’s profile on Wikipedia 11 minutes before the story appeared on NBC is just not right. Like it or not, these are the times we now live in. News no longer waits for anyone.

NBC had no choice but to handle the situation as it did and the network is probably thrilled not to be held accountable for leaking the information early. But to think that breaking news like Mr. Russert’s death will not hit the blogosphere, Twitter and other online sites before traditional media is just insane in this day and age.

Fortunately or unfortunately, I’ve had more than a few front row seats (called jobs) with companies that thought they could stick to their old ways of doing business when times changed, only to find out the hard way that wasn’t such a good idea. UPI was one of those companies. Let’s hope NBC isn’t another.

Mike Spataro