Unsummit – Interactive Marketing Un-conference

My first unsummit was very insightful. Though extensive audience participation is not typical, this type of events poses more questions than answers. The topic is perfect – nobody is an expert – we are all learning in real time and trying to catch up with interactive marketing universe. 

Interesting points:

Social media: it is important to have a strategy. What are you trying to communicate? Facebook is a tool, not a strategy. The decision “we should be involved into Facebook” can not be considered strategic.

The army experiment (not so good): One group decided to set up a Facebook page. However, the page did not have a following of fans (was not sufficiently promoted to fans) and attracted people who did not support the army. The Facebook page was used as an online “protest;” soon after the Facebook page went live the protest was organized outside of the unit’s building. The protesters most likely used the Facebook page to find each other and organize.  

Another army experiment (good): prospective recruits could ask questions through the website, and soldiers from different parts of the world answered these questions on the video. The video was posted on the site unedited. This approach increased the credibility of the organization.

Internal communication:

Companies are using private Facebook pages and Yammer. Medtronic encourages all new hires to sign up on Yammer during the orientation. Price Waterhouse discovered that Yammer helped people who work in different locations to communicate better and extended the practice to the whole company.

The “intranet” becomes more collaborative… the move is inevitable.

New tools

Drop Box  – a tool that allows saving large files on the cloud to be accessible from different computers.

  Setster – a free tool for adding appointment setting functionality to web sites and blogs. The consultant that recommended the tool noted that his clients are using the tool quite willingly.

  Todoist  – a free tool for creating… to do lists in a quite sophisticated form.

  XMind – a free team brainstorming and mind-mapping tool.

Social media reality check session tried to return the unsummit attendees back “to the real world,” where average person may not be as comfortable with the new tools and ideas as everybody in the room…

We should not try to set trends; we should utilize trends that already exist.

 The most popular tools of the future will be most likely “low friction” tools – the applications that are simple and easy to use.

One of the presenters was working on the real estate iPhone app that allows the person to enter his preferences for a house. When the person would be half a mile from any matching house on sale, the phone would ring and inform about the house on sale.

Personal information right now: the user goes to places (sites) that have his personal information. In the future, the personal information might be stored in the browser, and the sites would “react” to this personal information.

Minnov8  - a podcast done by a local group highlighting innovations of local companies in the interactive space.

The minnov8 group brought up an interesting point: in the past the definition of “genius” was an exceptionally gifted scientist making discoveries by himself. In the future, the definition of “genius” will change to the person who is able to synthesize ideas of many gifted scientists…

 “In the future, it is not what you know, it is what you share.”

Recommendation to review publications of Danah Boyd - Social Media Researcher at Microsoft Research New England and a Fellow at Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society.

Mobile

Development trends: attempts to transpose to mobile what already exist online. This approach does not make sense and can be compared to early paining of children in adult clothes (during the time when children were perceived just small adults).

Mobile is different – “it is not your website squished down.”

But, the question is: How can I get all that content to the mobile?  This question is similar to a more prosaic task: How do I feed a toddler nutritious food if he is not going to sit through a meal?  The answer: Snacks!!   

We need to “snakefy” mobile information for the user. Typical user is not viewing mobile content longer than 5 minutes.

Good example or mobile applications is Ralph Lauren

Mobile resource: Fierce wireless.  The site has a free newsletter subscription and can be searched for verticals topic (health care, etc.) specifically. 

• Prediction: Android devices are expected to outstrip the rest.
• Most people do not read “long form” on a mobile devise; they bookmark something interesting to read later.
• Completion of tasks on mobile devices now is less than 50% (usability issues across devices).
• New term: m-commerce -  mobile commerce. 

Important: to fail fast and cheaply and learn from it (last session).

Unsuccessful examples:

A beer brand created a contest for schools which offered students to send a picture where they were “interacting with the brand.” The brand had a ranking of “party schools” and offered an ultimate prize – a trip to Cancun for a spring break. The problem: colleges and parents did not like it and the campaign had to be stopped.

  Slerpee  created its own branded social network for enthusiasts. The probability that the people would join one more social network is less comparing to adding a possibility of interaction with the brand to the social networks that already exist. Definitely an expensive effort. Better approach would be a Facebook app or a simple Ning site. “Go where the people are…”

 More successful example:

 Kreg tool company created a simple Ning community for people who use their tools. The community is active and can help its members to solve problems in the area of tools (what is important for the brand). This is definitely successful (and inexpensive) effort.

Mobile SaaS and Promotion of Social Media – Social Media Breakfast 19

Social Media Breakfast #19  was as useful as usually. I noticed over last eight events that the audience is changing – it becomes more mainstream and corporate. Acceptance of social media is growing, so is the number of professionally dressed people in the audience…. This is good.

Lisa Foote  started her presentation with the reminder of growing use of mobile. Significant growth of Facebook, Pandora, and Twitter is now coming from Mobile. Socialnomics09  gives more impressive numbers on mobile use and social media in general (video below).

 

80% of mobile phones are not smart phones – this needs to be considered in marketing programs. “Smart” phone is the opposite of “feature phone” – an appropriate definition for “not smart enough” phone  To make applications useful for mobile devices, applications became “light,” most concentrated on content.  

Lisa introduced a new company MixMobi that provides mobile marketing opportunities (and instant analytics!!) on SaaS basis. Social Media Breakfast attendees could see creation of a mobile ad and posting it through Twitter. Attendees could access the ad from their mobile devices and instantly see the metrics on the MixMobi interface. The interface is easy to use, and when available, the service  should start from $19.95 per month…  There were conversations about a totally free version, but it does not seem to be available at this point.

MixMobi created the platform to answer most common requests from customers and provides a very extensive feature set.  The company also emphasized instant and correct analytics (yes, mobile analytics is a problem   ) and ability to promote campaigns quickly in different media. Anybody interested in private beta testing should send Lisa a note.

One of the customers was a company specializing in promotion of private colleges to prospective students – The Lawlor Group who used MixMobi’s technology very successfully. 

In the intermission, Zappos’ culture books were presented to two forward-looking people who run Social Media Breakfast.

Yes, Zappos culture is legendary, but I have not realized that it would be analyzed in a sizable volume…

 

The second part of the event was devoted to promotion of social media in the enterprise. At that point corporate presence in the audience was felt very strongly – in problems that social media enthusiasts had and in their solutions.

Some of the most interesting points:

Internal promotion: focus on a particular task, a business problem that needs to be solved, not the tool. Sometimes, the tool may not even need to be named. Instead of suggesting employees to use Yammer, what could be faced with “oh, one more ‘thing’ I need to learn…” we should tell the user what he/she can do and give username and password. Social media tools are just “new tools to solve business problems.”

Interesting problem solving: Albert  mentioned a situation when two groups worked together in different time and it was not easy to encourage them to communicate. People did not want to go to the same work portal during their time off. However, giving them opportunity to communicate through mobile interface was successful  – it was not considered “work” in the eyes of the employees.

Albert also mentioned Running a Hospital – a blog he believes important for anybody in the health care industry.

Importance of the organizational culture: companies need to have a receptive culture for the social media to be successful. “Culture first” – social media should not be considered as “other” – its use should start from a business gap and how to fill it…

Titles and generations:
The executives are often people who understand the benefits of new approaches to reach business objectives, but middle management can be a problem. Middle managers see employees’ involvement into social media as a distraction from the task of their individual departments. The problem is not to “find executive support,” but to “find us” – the enthusiasts in different parts of the organization.

Boomers – many eager to adopt the tools, but concentrate of the tools rather than their application.
Generation X – “Hooray – we found the tools that allow us to do [something] more efficiently!” X wants to be relevant and (many) happy to embrace the tools.
Generation Y – familiar with the tools, but has no idea how to use them for business, lacks work experience; can not get the content for the tools.

Generations need to cooperate… but the enthusiasts are found in each generation.

Security concern: Yammer has file-sharing capability… it is dangerous… Security concern is a “people” issue, not the technology issues… the same risk existed with typewriters, e-mail, phone, Facebook, Twitter, etc. However, the security needs to be addressed through rules of use and basic education of employees.

Popularity of social media: “internet trends” free class at the library changed to “intro to social media;” Science Museum classes on social media were overbooked since conception.

New tool to investigate: staction a project management (variation on a basecamp) tool that excited one of the attendees of Social Media Breakfast.

New Mobile Marketing group in town: Mobile MSP – seem to have a Twitter account only, but the first meeting is scheduled on September 28 – we will see what happens next…