Expanded Interactions Management Center Opens

The trend towards outsourcing the moderation of user-generated content to professional services firms such as ours continues to grow. In order to meet the demand for these services and to accommodate our clients’ needs, Impact Interactions has expanded its operations. Our new Interactions Management Center (IMC) serves as a community management hub for our clients, allowing our teams to share best practices to ensure that our clients’ online interactive strategies succeed.

The ability to generate best practices grows significantly when the interaction teams are able to communicate and report upon what is working and what is not with the interactive sites we manage. These best practices are shared with our clients in an effort to help them refine their strategies which in turn leads to higher return on investment (ROI). Our knowledge also helps our client avoid making costly mis-steps with their communities.

We believe that this is a distinct advantage over firms which hire virtual moderators scattered across the country. In the fast moving world of online management and strategy, it is important to quickly and efficiently capture the knowledge gained by our teams and use that knowledge to help our clients grow and achieve results. Combined with our seven years of experience in launching and managing over 30+ online communities, it’s a powerful combination to build client success. That’s why we’ve centralized our teams and operations here in our Maryland offices.

If you are looking into starting an interactive community or social networking site for your organization, we can help with everything from aligning your goals with the appropriate offerings to technology selection to launch activities and moderation services. If you are looking to reduce your costs of moderation, while increasing your results, we can help.

Please use this link to contact us to learn more about our services or for our free consultation.

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Why You Must Have a Plan for User Generated Content and Rankings

There have been several great posts and comments on the MarketingShift blog regarding the process for promoting user generated content on Digg.com. From their website, Digg states:
Digg is all about user powered content. Every article on digg is submitted and voted on by the digg community. Share, discover, bookmark, and promote the news that’s important to you!

Ah, but according to many users, the system is rigged. See the Digg article “Troubles In Diggville” started by Michael Arrington on TechCrunch. It appears that groups of Digg users have banded together to ensure that articles that represent a particular viewpoint are pushed off the first page (and in some cases further than that…). The political commentator Michelle Malkin was one of the first folks to point this out and to complain to Digg co-founder Kevin Rose.

In response to the growing criticism, Kevin Rose stated that while user groups recommending content is a great thing, Digg will be updating its algorithm which ranks articles submitted for popularity. The goal is to reduce the impact of groups on rankings while increasing the diversity of Digg’s members who impact the rankings. We’ll see if it works.

Way back when in the distant Internet Bubble years, gaming the system to promote content or earn points in communities was rampant. It continues today. If you are implementing a ratings system or other type of rankings which are controlled by members and impact user generated content, you need to be very clear about those who game the system for their own gain. In short, you must give your moderators the ability to short circuit the gamers for the overall good of the site.

Only by having a detailed plan of action covering this type of user behavior (and it is very common) can user generated rankings effectively help promote user generated content. After all, the idea of user generated content is to drive activity for your site and insight to your team. Gaming only leads to more Paris Hiltons… and that dilutes the experience. So be prepared, write out your plan, test it, and be ready if it breaks down…

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Privacy and Trust In The Age of Social Networks

An interesting article describes the reaction of Facebook members to the News Feeds feature added Monday which allow members to be notified when a friend’s site is updated. From a member’s perspective, being updated when friend’s update their pages is a good thing, right? Not if you’re a member of Facebook apparently. Look at the quotes from a members’ petition which has 500,000 members who are protesting this feature’s addition to the Facebook offering:

“News Feed is just too creepy, too stalker-esque, and a feature that has to go,” reads the petition of the newly formed “Students against Facebook News Feed.”

Other comments revolve around the stalking issue as well. Given Facebooks tighter controls (registered users must have a .edu email address or other approved domain email address), this seems like a bit of an over-reaction. MySpace is a completely different deal as there are almost no controls….

BUT HERE IS THE KEY TO THIS — when planning new features, there is a balance between the trust you’ve gained with your members and the functionality improvements you believe you are giving members. The most important reason why Social Networks survived early on was that their members trusted that only people they knew or wanted to know would contact them. There was at least an outward appearance that private information would stay private. But as Social Networking sites have expanded, the value and the trust has declined in members’ eyes. For instance look at LinkedIn… How many of you have been contacted by someone two or more levels away from your contacts? (Think six degrees of separation or the Kevin Bacon game.)

Will the News Feed feature survive at Facebook? I think it will, but the management at Facebook apparently didn’t think the backlash would come as hard as it did. And that is the second lesson from all this. When you are adding features, be prepared for the worst and have plans to help your membership get through the changes. In this case 5.3% of the members of Facebook (500,000 out of 9,500,000) have signed a petition to protest the changes. That is significant. Facebook’s blog responds by posting “Calm. down. breathe. We hear you,” to its members. That might work with students, but it would never work with adults as it comes off as condescending in its tone.

As mentioned in a previous post on our blog titled “Web 2.0 Collaboration Success Comes From Facilitation”, the role of moderators who can effectively facilitate conversations (especially conversations like this) really make the difference between a site which is trusted by its members and one that is not.

Want to learn more about Privacy and Trust in Social Networks? Contact Us and we’d be happy to continue the conversation.

UPDATE 9/9/06 — After much feedback from its userbase, Facebook has made a change… members can now decide through privacy settings what (if any) details will be available on the News Feed that reports updates to their pages. Good going Facebook, but this whole thing could have been avoided with a little planning.

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Internet Strategy Forum: Executive Summit 2006 Observations

This was a very well run event with fabulous speakers. Some of the highlights included:

• Erin Hintz of Symantec speaking about engaging with your customers. Symantec has just started blogging to interact with their customers about security. For example, the Norton Security Blog or the Symantec Security Response Blog. Both are on the right track. But what was even more interesting to me was the launch of a community around Symantec customers featuring digital photo uploads as well as their Safetytown video series. Safetytown has had over 100,000 unique visitors watch their first video.
• Atakan Cetinsoy of MyStrands.com speaking about the convergence of digital media and online communities. Atakan helped get the Apple iTunes store off the ground and is very plugged in to consumer trends in the global media world.
• Adam Freed of Google giving us the update on Google’s use of localization and native language search (up to 113 languages as we speak). What was facinating was the degree to which Google is actively listening to its users. (Best comment at the event was from Adam. He was discussing how his team put together the business case, filled with statistics about demographics and internet usage to determine which languages should be offered by Google globally. This was then presented in a very serious manner to Sergey and Larry, among others. After justifying their view of the world and the projected growth in usage in the languages proposed, Sergey asked “You really have no idea what is going to happen do you?” To which the answer was “No, we don’t.” Very refreshing honesty… )

The event’s audience was also very interested in the interactions that presenter’s companies have with their visitors. From questions about blogging to moderating communities to using interactive tools for ROI, it was nice to see that at least in Portland Oregon the web teams understand that pushing content is no longer working. It’s all about interactions.

If you’d like to download my presentation on Global Online Communities featuring Cisco and SAP, as part of the panel discussion on tools and features of global websites, click here. You’ll find the link to download it on our corporate web site’s home page.

Thanks to the Internet Strategy Forum for inviting me to speak. I enjoyed my trip to Portland.

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Resurgence in Online Community due to Web 2.0?

Web 2.0 is here and there are more and more organizations moving forward with launching online communities to build interactions with their site visitors. That’s the good news.

The bad news is that many of these communities are being launched with a suite of features, but without proper outreach and advertising. This makes them virtually invisible except to the most loyal fans. We’ve seen several communities launch recently which have no traffic and no action other than easily recognized employee seed posts. When searching for information on these organizations’ and their product and services, there are no listing of their communities (from either organic search or PPC). Worse, many of these new communities are feature rich but seemly without a true purpose. Too many offerings dilute your traffic and reduce the organizational effectiveness of your community.

Several of our roundtable members are embarking on upgrading their sites to the illusive Web 2.0 standards. What is encouraging to see with these companies is that they are building upon what they’ve learned from their work with communities and interactive features. Sites such as Cisco.com, SAP.com, and others understand that best practices for interacting with your visitors must be baked into the process. The idea of Web 2.0 is to meet your visitors needs through interactions and collaboration, not just to offer the latest and greatest features. It’s not just about adding blogs or podcasts, but finding out what your visitors really want through careful analysis of metrics, visit patterns, multi-variate A/B testing of pages, and TALKING TO YOUR VISITORS to find out what they really use your site for and what they want!

You’ll only get to Web 2.0 if you truly meet your visitor needs. Forget cool, go for what your visitors need and with what will provide your organization with the best results. Want to discuss how to do this? Contact us for a free consultation about using interactive features to build significant results for your organization.

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Web 2.0 Collaboration Success Comes From Facilitation

Web 2.0 is driving organizations to build and offer more interactive and collaborative sites. That’s a good thing.

We see an upcoming issue though, moderation skills are in short supply. If you search Monster.com for online community, you’ll find several positions open for moderators. Read the job descriptions and you see that the focus is on tasks such as maintaining web pages, enforcing policies, gathering content for newsletters, sending newsletters, etc. This misses the point entirely of what a good community manager does for the community.

In our experience in moderating over 40 online communities, the single most important factor in determining the success or failure of getting your community to deliver results is how well your moderators interact with your online audience. In the training we deliver to online community teams we stress “Keep a light touch and the community grows, use a heavy hand and the community slows.”

Facilitating conversations between members, between members and the organization, and building interactions overall are the key components of a good community moderator. Your moderators should be naturally outgoing people with strong communication skills and a desire to learn from your members. When your visitors are comfortable with how you interact with them, they will unmask themselves and register with their correct information (as opposed to entering garbage into your database because of forced registration requirements). Once they are unmasked and engaging you, your organization will benefit.

Want to learn more about community moderation and management? Contact Us for a free consultation.

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"Industry Leaders" Speak – BtoB’s Interactive Marketing Guide

One of the things that I like best about the online industry overviews such as BtoB’s Interactive Marketing Guide 2006, are the quotes from “industry leaders” who reinforce what many of us have been saying for years. We really like these quotes because they concisely and accurately say what many large consulting companies will not tell their clients for fear of reducing the flow of fees into their bank accounts. For example:

“Ask yourself what the primary goal and objectives are for your Web site and indentify the corresponding metrics that point to success or failure.” Terry Suppers, Sr. VP-interactive marketing, General Electric’s Corporate Financial Services Business

“A blog is a medium, period. But the intent– to develop a community of people with a common or shared interest– is very applicable for b-to-b companies.” Martyn Etherington, VP-marketing, Tektronix Inc.

“Busy business people have stopped saving brochures and advertisements because they can look up the equivalent information on the Web.” Jakob Nielsen, Principal, Nielsen Norman Group

The first quote on metrics tells the audience that not all metrics are important. Rather organizations should focus on specific metrics that demonstrate success or failure. We’ve been helping our clients understand these “success metrics” for years. Forget the hundreds of basic traffic metrics that your WebTrends or Omniture or HitBox package presents. Concentrate on how your organization defines success using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) which can be measured using metrics and metric ratios.

The second quote is important because it tells the audience that it is not the tool (blogs) but the intent of the effort that matters. Too many teams get wrapped up in the latest and greatest tools discussion without moving towards the overall goal of what the organization wants to achieve online. Launching podcasts and blogs may be the cool thing to do, but does it work for your audience? Concentrate on visitor expectations and needs first. Then offer these visitors the fastest way to find information they require to buy your products. It’s not always the most talked about new feature that works best for your audience.

I really like Jakob Nielsen’s quote. It echoes a bullet point from our case study on our engagement with SAP. Business decision makers do not have the time to review multiple collateral pieces. They will search your web site, find what they want and move on. They will skim your message and push the work down to their subordinates. Therefore, you must make your site easy to navigate and full of online collateral that can be found quickly and easily.

So where does your organization stand? Are you working with clearly defined success metrics, tools that meet the needs of your visitors, and providing current relevant information? Are you getting the results you want? If you are unsure, please contact us for a free consultation to move your online efforts forward.

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Online Interactions for the Common Good

We’ve been doing some research for a proposal we’re writing to help a non-profit spread knowledge throughout their “customer base.” Along the way, we’ve found several great resources that are informative and wonderful in their own way, with their own initiatives to connect with people.

We’d like to publicize a couple of them with some ideas:

One Laptop Per Child – A great idea by Nicholas Negroponte, formerly of MIT Media Labs. They have a fact filled Wiki that is updated constantly to ensure complete information on not only the hardware/software side of the project but more importantly how we as regular folks can become involved and also submit ideas.

Emmaus Ministries – A smaller organization that has a very straight forward approach to how you can help. I like the idea of calling out ways to help the non-profit move forward on its mission through a Letterman style top ten list with the appeal for money as the last item. I know the folks at Emmaus and we’re currently working to provide them with some additional interactive ideas to further their mission in a cost effective manner.

Skoll Foundation – Through its Social Edge community, ideas revolving around social entreprenuership are discussed and promoted. While a bit cluttered, the information and stories are impressive.

Too often, we forget that the power of online interactions can have powerful social impact upon those we connect. These organizations and many others are trying to use the power of one to many conversations and knowledge sharing to help others. Truly a good thing.

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Lincoln Zephyr Breaks Online Clutter With Bribery

I received an email from American Airlines today letting me know that I could receive up to 25,000 AAdvantage miles for considering the all new Lincoln Zephyr. A unique proposition for sure. So I went to their link and watched a 30 second ad for the car. For my time, I was rewarded with 250 miles. If I test drive the car I get another 2,500 miles. If I buy one I get another 25,000 miles which is enough for a round-trip ticket in the U.S. Needless to say, this caught my attention.

When I visit Edmunds.com, I see ads for cars all the time. I talk about cars and trucks in their forums and look forward to new models to review. But I have never clicked on an ad for a car on the site. Rather I go to the comparison shopper or the forums to learn about the car.

I see car ads all the time on consumer sites which invite visitors to click through to learn more. But just like millions of visitors, I ignore them when searching for car information on the web. Why? I don’t know, it just seems that I have an aversion to banner ads. Click on Google Ads placed in the right column or below the content? Never. And I suspect that I am not alone in ignoring these online ads.

That’s why Lincoln’s strategy worked with me. The small reward for my time, coming from a company where I am in their loyalty program broke through the clutter.

Bribery marketing works, plain and simple.

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Integrated Marketing Success: HGTV

With the opening of the American Association of Advertising Agencies annual meeting, agency folks are scrambling for ways to demonstrate results for their clients. With the big push for integrated campaigns, clients are telling agencies “Great, prove it works.” Many agencies use traffic measures such as Neilson Ratings and very basic internet measures such as clicks and visits or page views. What nonsense!

These same agencies have difficulty explaining the concept to potential clients using real results, instead they use jargon and talk about creative ideas. They should talk about strategy that really meets the needs of the organizations they are working for… so with that, here is an example.

If you are looking for an integrated media example to demonstrate the power of linking mediums to gain traffic and revenues, look no further than HGTV.com.

With a solid line-up of television shows on its own cable television channel, you might think that E.W. Scripps Company, parent of HGTV would be happy to simply collect the advertising and cable fees. They are way beyond that and are a model for other media companies looking to build their revenues while pushing out their content.

Let’s use the popular show, I Want That!, a half hour of product information for the latest trends in products for your home as an example. The show is really a series of product reviews sponsored by the manufacturers. Recent products featured included everything from $5.00 stick on designs for your ceramic tile backsplash to a $10,000 flat light panel dinner table. Every product discussed on the show is demonstrated and the manufacturer mentioned three to four times in a three minute segment. It’s an informative and fun show to watch.

But then the integrated marketing offer begins. After the products are reviewed, the hostess of the show integrates the offer by telling the audience “Want to learn more about product X? Visit our website on HGTV.com for a complete review of all the products mentioned on our show.” At several points following commercial breaks, the web site is promoted as well. In fact, if you weren’t paying close attention you might think the station is HGTV.com and not just plain HGTV. Very smart.

And assuming that you follow up and go visit HGTV.com you are presented with many features to help you in your organizing, decorating, and designing chores. You are also given many opportunities to click through on sponsored ads such as the banners for ING Direct, which also happens to be a major advertiser on the I Want That! show…

By tracking site metrics against showings of I Want That!, Scripps can determine the popularity of its show for comparision against Neilson ratings. It can also demonstrate to advertisers that the integration works and sell packages of TV and Online ads with hard data about the results. And lastly, by providing links to the manufacturers of these products Scripps is earning additional revenue by click through or online advertising cost per view charges. All of these data points can be utilized to show advertisers in the home products category just how successful advertising on the shows or site can be. With multiple offerings for product placement and ads, Scripps can provide the data necessary to demonstrate the return on investment (ROI) of its offerings.

Very smart, very integrated, and probably very profitable. It’s an excellent use of multiple mediums to achieve organizational goals.

Are you interested in learning more? Contact us and we’d be happy to show you how integrated marketing with solid measurable goals can help your company succeed.

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