Entries Tagged 'Word of Mouth Marketing' ↓

Today the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) published updated Advertising guidelines calling for increased transparency with respect to online marketing and advertising. Specifically, the FTC made changes to the“Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”. In its commentary, the FTC referenced and adopted the Word-of-Mouth-Marketing Association (WOMMA) guidance in several instances, looking favorably upon the Association’s own Ethics Code, and adopting WOMMA’s suggestion that only “sponsored” communications should fall within the scope of the Guides. Therefore, adherence to the WOMMA Ethics Code is a critical first step for businesses and marketers in complying with the updated FTC Guides.

As a active member of the WOMMA ethics group this is fantastic validation of the hard work we have doing with member input over the past year.  Several fundamental principles of WOMMA’s Ethics Code, such as the importance of transparency, disclosure and honesty across all media, are now required by the FTC. The WOMMA organization is a firm believer that the updated Guides will usher in a new generation word-of-mouth of viral and social media marketers who place the highest priority on ethical practices.

Some additional highlights from the WOMMA press release include:

-  WOMMA, President Elect Paul Rand explaining, “The greatest value we can provide to our 400-plus members is helping them navigate the uncharted waters of social marketing. WOMMA takes great pride in not only equipping members with a venerable compliance ‘how-to,’ but also in the collaborative way we went about influencing policy, itself.”

- WOMMA General Counsel Anthony DiResta of Manatt, Phelps & Philips adding, “These new FTC Guides constitute a sea change for certain marketing practices that are widespread and effective in all industry sectors. It’s clear that confusion will result in their application by bloggers and brands alike, and there are even rumblings that legal challenges may be brought. Thus, in this period of uncertainty, meaningful self-regulation and practical clarity are essential.” Diresta makes one point clear for marketers, “Transparency and honesty are essential in communications by consumers or experts in all media formats.

- WOMMA is confident these Guides will also help the Association enforce its own Ethics Code. According to Joe Chernov, chair of WOMMA’s Member Ethics Advisory Panel, the Association’s primary focus is on educating members on best practices; however, it must also ensure its members are adhering to those practices. Chernov concluded, “Marketing ethics is no longer an ideal. It is now a mandate.”

Over the next several months, WOMMA will lead industry discussions on the topic of what constitutes adequate and meaningful disclosure. This dialogue will culminate in November at the association’s annual Summit in Las Vegas, when WOMMA will dedicate educational sessions to help marketers understand and adhere to these new Guides. In fact, Mr. Chuck Harwood, the FTC’s Deputy Director of the Bureau of Consumer Protection, is a featured speaker.

For those in the advertising industry that use word of mouth, viral marketing, or social media platforms, WOMMA’s Ethics Code is an excellent and practical way to evaluate compliance with these new Guides.

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

Opening keynote of the 2009 NewComm Forum which is organized by the Society of New Communications Research is kicked off by Charles Best the founder of DonorsChoose.org. Charles was inspired while a social studies teacher in the Bronx to create a place where people could donate to charity online and have the donations directed to classrooms projects in need. They have given us all gift cards for us to donate to a classroom or project in need. He initially invested $2,000 dollars to create the version 1x. Quickly the teachers began posting projects and donors were directing micro-donations to specific projects. Word spread among teachers in the Bronx and Charles became the equivilant of “Robin Hood”. Social Media provides a great platform for charity.

Charles shared some amazing “Citizen Philanthropy” stories. One great story was a partnership with Crate and Barrel to provide customers with gift cards to donate on behalf of CB to whatever classroom project of their choosing. Customer feedback was overwhelming and the purchase/loyalty results proved amazing. Crate and Barrel customers who donated actually spent 16% more and even customers that only opened the mailing with the gift card spent 5% more. Social Media ROI via charitable giving. Some, interesting stats from Charles about donorschoose.org - 74% of donors are new to charitable giving.

Great to see the web and social technologies enabling so much good in this world.

Blake Cahill
Visible Technologies

An amazing panel today by Kate Niederhoffer of Dachis Corp. and Marc Smith of Telligent about going beyond buzz measurement. To get beyond Buzz Measurement one needs to understand the social and psychographic dimensions, sentiment, influence, engagement and meanings of social conversations. However, many of these are superficial. It’s time to move beyond the buzz machine and “blackboxing”. It all needs more science.

First, understanding the social network theory is important - social structure emerges from the aggregate relationship (ties) among members”. Second, the Context of the Conversation involves relevance (signal), mindset (person), role (persona), and ecosystem (environment). Ways to measure “signal” are to look at term and network maps around topics, time and look for unique patterns but also look at the data from multiple lens. Glad Visible provides those type of maps for our customers to measure signal and relevance.

Second, measuring Mindset through linguistics like: demographics, emotion, cognitive style and personality also provide many clues and insight into a consumer passion on the social web. More pronouns and more verbs equally more passion especially in reviews. Pay attention to use of “we” and “I” in conversations.

Third, Marc from Telligent is now talking about the “meso” layer. What is the role of persona and ecosystem. Using ecosystems or “Egonets” to determine density of conversations to understand the core connections. There are people like Answer people and Reply magnets. Depending on what you are trying to attract then for your marketing initiative this can be a measure of success of failure if you do or don’t attract the right type of folks to your initiative. Some categories of “persona” are spammer, flame thrower, warrior. Use these to understand who is in your graph and do you have the right mix.

Fourth, looking for ties that bind or blind. Using ecosystems and analysis to best use your lens or variety of lens to determine ROI. “Social media spaces vary and roles are present”. Social media is about collective action. Measuring conversations is about measuring the context in which those conversations arise. Value is and intermediate step in calculating ROI. Moot to bypass it. Techniques from social science help capture “the immeasurable” in social media and the enterprise. The future of conversations - the enterprise being one - is about cultivating the conversations.

Excellent presentation and delivery!

Blake Cahill

Visible Technologies

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

In a new report from Forrester Research analyst, Jeremiah Owyang, entitled “Social Media Playtime is Over” new data supports what many social media providers and evangelists have discussing for sometime. The findings from a recent study show that 53% of marketers plan to increase spending in social media while 42% will remain the same this despite the current economic malaise.

To quote Jeremiah’s report “The recession has put more pressure on interactive marketers to deliver measurable results. While many marketing budgets are being cinched, more than 50% of interactive marketers say they will increase their spending on social marketing. Why? These inexpensive tools can quickly get marketing messages out through interactive discussion and rapid word of mouth and, properly managed, can deliver measurable results. But in this downturn, interactive marketers must move beyond experimentation by making social applications a permanent part of marketing, measuring and demonstrating their value, and integrating them into marketing efforts.”

The main highlights of the report include:

• Many marketers are already using social technologies for marketing, almost all of interactive marketers surveyed are currently using some form of social media and most plan increases despite the recession, starting with investments in social networks, blogs, and user-generated content.
• While social application spending remains small, Fifty-three percent of interactive marketers using social media expect that their budgets for social media marketing will increase as a response to the recession.
• Despite this shift toward social, these budgets remain minute compared with larger expenditures like advertising. Interactive marketers at large companies are still only spending a fraction of their resources on social marketing.
• Social applications aren’t a formalized line item in marketing budgets. Social marketing isn’t yet a formalized line item in the marketing budget, as most social application budgets aren’t predetermined.
• Forrester data suggests that marketers intend to invest more in social media but need to justify larger budgets.
• Marketers shouldn’t continue to invest in social media as an experiment but rather as a long term strategic program/plan.
• Marketers must demonstrate that social investments are effective and how it moves customers down the marketing funnel by measuring awareness, interactions, and intent to buy.
• Social media applications must prove effectiveness in order to pry budgets away from corporate marketing or advertising. Marketers should invest in a listening platform, then integrate social marketing metrics like share of voice and engagement that can reveal ROI through leads and purchase.

Nice report Jeremiah.

Blake Cahill
Visible Technologies