In the hubbub of our various projects, we've let two three interesting developments in our local social media scene slip by unremarked. And that's doubly unfortunate because they involve friends. (In our defence, we seem to have the kind of friends who are always up to amazing things.)

read more »

Someone needs to tell the folks at Glad: Unless your customers pay for the privilege of wearing your logo, don't build an online community around your brand. That's rule #1 in marketing with social media -- and reason #1 for instead taking an approach we call reflected glory marketing. In reflected glory marketing you create a web site that resonates with your brand, but focuses on something your customer cares passionately about. Think of Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty, or Amex's Members Project. Or think of some of the projects we've launched in-house: BC Hydro's Green Gifts application for Facebook, or Vancity's Change Everything.

read more »

Exciting news: the wonderful Kate Trgovac has invited me to cartoon at One Degree, the premier gathering place for Canadian online marketing types. Their contributors are some of the smartest people I've met in this field, and I'm delighted to join their ranks.

So head on over, subscribe to their feed, and you can get a sneak peek at a selected Noise to Signal cartoon every week! (The first one's right here.)

Three things:

1. You can now listen to a podcast of the panel I was on at the "From Mass To Grass" Word of Mouth Marketing Conference in mid-April. You get to hear me mix it up with three very smart people: David Jones, Steve Osgoode and the panel's moderator, Michael Seaton. We talk about marketing, Web 2.0 and virtual worlds; between my co-panelists' expertise, Michael's moderating and the audience's questions, it was a great session.
2. It's the featured item in an episode of Michael's excellent The Client Side marketing podcast. If you're active in marketing and the social web, you're going to want to subscribe – Michael's brilliant.
3. Any chance I get to attend or take part in a panel moderated by Michael, I'm going to jump at. I've rarely been part of such a deftly animated conversation; he provided exactly the right amount of provocative questioning and insightful observation to make it (definitely) lively, (I hope) informative and (judging by the audience reaction) fun and engaging.

One of the real treats of speaking at the Canadian Marketing Association's Word of Mouth Marketing Conference last week was meeting Mitch Joel, President of Twist Image and the guy behind one of the best podcasts on the Internets.

It's called Six Pixels of Separation, and it focuses on the leading edge of marketing with a strong emphasis on social media. It's spontaneous, engaging, fun and always informative. And it gives you a glimpse into Mitch's fine, fertile and fascinating mind.

I'm a fan, which means life doesn't get much better than this: Mitch and I sat down after a great dinner (yes, fellow Vancouverites, there is great sushi to be had in Toronto, when you have Jennifer Evans hunting it down for you), and he broke out his voice recorder.

For the next eight minutes, he asked really challenging (that's as opposed to aggressive) questions about very big issues. We talked about change, marketing ethics, social trust and the prospects for humane capitalism. It was great, and it was also some of the hardest work I've ever done in an interview; I found myself mulling over the ideas we discussed well into the wee hours that night.

Check out the episode here – and then do yourself a favour and subscribe to Mitch's podcast if you haven't already.

I just wrapped up a panel with David Jones of Fleishman-Hillard and HarperCollins' Steve Osgoode, ably animated by Scotiabank's Michael Seaton. Very smart people, these folks.

The subject was whether it's possible to market in social media and virtual worlds. But one theme kept coming up again and again: risk.

What if users say bad things about us on our blog? What if nobody shows up to participate? What if this flops?

Here's where I come down on those questions:

There's a chance of failure with any project, but the relative newness of social media adds an extra dimension of uncertainty. And while there are answers to all of those questions, there's no avoiding the fact that innovation and risk go hand in hand.

Can you mitigate that risk? Absolutely. Good participation design goes a long way toward avoiding a flop; a smart moderator can encourage productive conversations; a savvy organization can engage its critics.

But here's the thing: when you're charting new territory, then no matter how successful or unsuccessful each venture may be, it always leaves you with something valuable: knowledge.

Engaging audiences in participation and one-to-one / many-to-one / many-to-many conversations is, for most organizations, a completely new skill. The more of it you do, the more you learn; the more you exercise that muscle, the stronger it becomes.

The real risk doesn't lie in having a project that doesn't succeed, or doesn't succeed in quite the way you'd hoped. The real risk is being taken by organizations that aren't investing in learning those conversational skills – because increasingly, the public is coming to expect them. And if a company, organization or agency isn't listening, they'll turn to one that does.

Other bloggers' takes on the conference:

• Joseph Thornley: "Do you know your citizen marketers?"
• Arieh Singer: Liveblogging from the CMA's WOM Conference
• DaniGirl: Dani's day out in Toronto
  
• Scott K. Mac Donald: From Mass to Grass, Reflections on Mass to Grass I and Part II
• Provokat: Our creative director in T.O. for a day (et en français)
• Sean at CrapHammer: CMA my WOM
• Michael Seaton: Gut Marketing
  
• Cybrarian: Mass to Grass: Canada's Word of Mouth Marketing Conference
• ...and impresario Sean Moffitt's look-ahead post
  

Web marketing 1.0 taught companies one simple principle: brand big. Make your brand visible and consistent by spreading your logo and brand message across your site (ideally with a few demonstrations of your web team’s Flash prowess) and throughout the Internet (through the awesome power of banner ads).

That approach worked great – or at least ok – in the era of content push. But while a great Web 1.0 site was as good as the marketing and web team behind it, a good Web 2.0 site is only as good as the people who contribute to it. And that makes all the difference.

You can have the best web developers in the city and the smartest marketers in the country, but if your customers don’t want to play – if they don’t want to put their words, profiles, voices, photos or videos on your site – you’re going to have a hard time creating a Web 2.0 community.

The trick is creating a site where people want to play. For a few lucky brands – like media companies, Nike or Apple – customers care enough about the product or brand that they’re happy to come and talk about your products. For everybody else, the best way to tap the power of Web 2.0 is to create an online community that has intrinsic value, and let the activities of that community reflect positively on the parent company's brand.

read more »

We're just back from two days in Houston as the guests of ttweak, a marketing, communications and design firm that shares our belief that authentic, original voices are the best way to convey a message. ttweak's best-known work is probably their Houston It's Worth It campaign, but their extensive and varied experience also includes a number of video projects that let interview subjects, rather than narrators, tell the story. ttweak principals Randy Twaddle and Dave Thompson proved to us that Houston is indeed worth it, not only for the food (mmm, bbq. I mean mmm, Mexican. I mean, mmm, Cajun.) but even more notably for the almost unbelievably friendly people.

While we were in Houston we had the opportunity to meet with a number of ttweak's clients, all of whom reinforced our impression that Randy and Dave have mastered the art of bottom-up marketing campaigns -- and did so long before us johnny-come-latelys in the Web 2.0 world started yakking on about user-generated content. Here's some of the wisdom we gleaned from their example and their advice:

• Let participants speak for themselves. Don't drown out original voices with heavy-handed narration or moderation.
• Remain tool agnostic. If your goal is to convey a message, you'll need to choose a different medium depending on the message you're delivering.
• Production values matter. Don't kid yourself into thinking that people will see past your barebones interface to appreciate the depth or brilliant of your feature set. Appearance counts.
• Invest in your local community. Even if your business has a national or international reach, a solid reputation with clients in your own city provides a bedrock for growth.
• Build relationships with your client's entire team. During one client visit, we saw how ttweak's introduction counted with the CEO -- but we also saw Dave on hugging terms with the parking valet. We got a warm reception in the boardroom -- and a warm car waiting outside when we were done.
• Client service is the surest way to grow a business. Resist the temptation to cash in by focusing on a single hot product, or cash out by selling your company to the highest bidder.
• Do what you're great at. Over-reaching is the surest way to burn your client -- and your brand.

We're excited to work with a company that realizes Web 2.0 values of user engagement in all of its work. And thanks again to Randy and Dave for introducing us to their wonderful city!