Harnessing The Power Of Social Media May 2008

The Wisdom of CrowdsThe Wisdom of Crowds

© 2008 Prescient Digital Media www.PrescientDigital.com

Harnessing the Power of Influencers

By Toby Ward, Prescient Digital Media

Strictly Confidential © 2008 Prescient Digital Media Not For Distribution 2

The power of ‘group’

Jellybeans in a jar: the average guess of all the guesses is almost always closer than the closest guess


Google ‘gets it’

Utilizes page rankings to gather collective intelligence

The crowd is the influencerThe crowd is the influencer


Social media / Web 2.0

Promote networks of relationships Transforms users into publishers Discuss, share & collaborate From one to many -> many to many


Web 2.0 (adapted from Shel Holtz)

Conversation-enabled publishing platforms Blogs, podcasts, Technorati

Social networks Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace

Social bookmarking Delic.io.us, Digg, StumbleUpon

Democratized content networks Wikipedia, Yahoo! Groups, MyStarbucksIdea

Presence networks (micro-blogging) Jaiku, Twitter, Pownce

Content sharing sites YouTube, Flickr, ePinions.com

Virtual networking platforms Second Life, There.com


Social media revolution6 of the Top 10 most visited sites on the Internet (Feb 2008)

Source: Alexa.com

1. Yahoo!2. YouTube3. Windows Live4. Google5. Myspace6. Facebook7. MSN8. Hi59. Wikipedia10. Orkut


Brodeur/OmniComm Study

61% of reporters say blogs affect story tone 50% say blogs influence editorial copy Three-quarters get story ideas from blogs 20% spend at least an hour per day reading blogs


Corporate Reputation The sum total perception of consumer’s total

interactions with the company Includes:

the intangibles that bridge a product or service promise

the customer’s demand customer’s opinion of that promise

The Internet is one of the most important touch points


Tapping the buzz

McKinsey has found that 54% of all sales are influenced by buzz marketing (or a lack thereof)

Word of mouth is more powerful and technology accelerates word of mouth 1

1 Mark Hughes - Buzzmarketing.com - 2004-20052 Renee Dye - McKinsey & Company, “The Buzz on Buss” 2001


Reputation = Money $$$$

Over 90% of analysts agree: If a company fails to look after its reputation it will

ultimately suffer financially too.

The most reliable information sources: company websites customer research

Source: Hill & Knowlton, Return on Reputation


Failure to communicate

The failure to provide appropriate information will lead to negative ratings:

90% saying that it is fairly likely/very likely/or certain to

Source: Hill & Knowlton, Return on Reputation


“We don’t own the news any more.” -BBC


RedCross.org

Blog postings mentioning “Red Cross” increased by 10 to 20 times after Katrina (source: Intelliseek Blogpulse)

Redcross.org visits jumped to more than 1 million visits – more than 32x the avg. daily

In a few days donations through the website topped $100 million







Intranet Blog

In 400 days, from zero to 4,000 people per day Dramatically improved Google rankings

Prescient is now #1 in the World for: “intranet consultant” and “intranet consulting”

More than 2,300 links Up to 12,000 page view per day Increased corporate consulting revenue by 40% Primary source for many Fortune 500 clients including

HSBC, RBC and Nintendo


Flogging

A fake blog used as sales tool Walmarting Across America Written by two Walmart “fans” Drove RV across US blogging about Walmarts Later revealed they were paid All cooked-up by Edelman PR

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2006/db20061009_579137.htm


WalMart employees weigh-in

“… have watched the company go from a family oriented environment to “who gives a crap make us more money environment.”


Podcasting

Many TV and most radio programs now provide podcast versions

Microsoft, GM and Volvo and many others


“Five Minutes with …”

Source: Innovative Intranet Tools to Captivate Employees, Jean Gaetano, National City


Wiki

Wikis allow everyone to participate Wiki is stripped down CMS Any user can edit any other’s text


Wikipedia.org

9 million files, 75,000 active authors, 250 languages



Wiki-based intranet: Placemaking



Facebook

Facebook quick Facts: Active users: 70 million Monthly new user average: 4 million Daily new user average: 200,000 Page views: Over 15 billion per month Searches: Over 500 million per month Largest networks: London, UK 1,632,273 and

Toronto, Canada 933,960 Traffic rank: 7th most visited website Photos: 2.7 billion



Join the discussion – TripAdvisor.com



YouTube Power


Dove Evolution

One of the Top 15 most-linked-to videos among bloggers (Technorati)

Featured segments on TV shows including: "The View" "Ellen" CNN "Entertainment Tonight" "Geraldo"

Won best commercial of the year at Cannes


Presence - Twitter


Social Bookmarking




Who’s talking about / blogging you? Search the blog services:

Technorati Bloglines MySpace

Search the message boards: Yahoo! AOL MSN epinions.com CNET

Search the bookmarking sites: Deli.cio.us Digg Slashdot


Who’s monitoring the discussion?

• If you don’t have the staff to monitor these services, how do you know what’s being said?



Other Tools

Hitwise's search term analysis - type a phrase and it will list the sites that receive the most traffic and their % share

WhoLinksToMe.com – type in your URL and find out what websites link to your website

WordTracker – competitive analysis tool to seek out the best keywords based on over 300 million keyword phrases

CNW – tracking services


Best Practices

1. Planning – the essential requisite2. Leadership sets the tone3. Engaging the audience4. Evolution, not revolution (pilot)5. Benchmark and cherry-pick from the leaders6. Monitor the conversation7. Keep pace with the trends and best practices 8. Measure, measure, measure


Measures

1. Sales2. Lead conversion3. Google rankings4. Cost savings5. Links to you6. Traffic (visits, page views)7. Good vs Bad Conversation (monitoring)8. User satisfaction / employee engagement


Project Methodology


Toby Ward, Prescient Digital MediaPh: 416.926.8800

email: [email protected]

www.IntranetBlog.comwww.GetStrat.com

www.PrescientDigital.comhttp://blog.ragan.com/contentmatters/

http://intranetreport.libsyn.com/Facebook: “Intranet Global Forum”

Technology

Harnessing The Power Of Social Media May 2008