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So I think everybody that is online interacts with social media in one way or an another. Whether it is a profile on facebook a community on ning or watching TV on Hulu. Many industries are now starting to somewhat understand the power of social media and are starting to get in to the game.
The one I am going to pick on is the automotive industry as I have been working with it in the last few months. I see trainers attracting followers on ning and pretty much everbody twittering, yet when you look at most dealers websites they are still very one dimensional aside from a few badly designed research tools. However my question is how do these companies define a process that allow them to interact in different channels, understand the social value of their participators and convert them in to product and service evangelists. On top of that how do they start to define the true monetary value of a lurker and translate that in to a life time client value and hence be able to find that ever elusive ROI and cost per sale.Because I am a professional online marketer I could define my own metrix and datamine my analytics for meaningful results that would allow me to understand which channels got a better pickup rate and cross match that with my cost, but most companies do not have the time or knowledge to achieve this and agencies who do this for their clients are far to lean on the ground at this time, because they do not yet fully understand this new medium.
In the last year or so analytics have become far better, but in my opinion there is a long ways to go until tradionally offline and non tech businesses have to tools that are easy to use, understand and act off of to make sound business decisions relating to participation in social media.
There are not many industries that have a more passionate following than the car industry. Everybody knows someone that is involved in it, and lately we all know how it has suffered. While most people have been focused on if GM will file chapter 11 and will Chrysler be speaking Italian by the end of the year the marketing of the automotive industry continues to develop at quite a rate. After all we all still need cars right?
One interesting company is Driva Studios who have modelled every single car for sale in the United States in 3d and have produced an unparrelled library of to be quite frank stunning car and truck images, aimed at dealerships, solution providers and portals. What has drawn my attention to this development is their deployment mechanism. They ahve built a full CDN to deliver video and images anywhere at fast speeds which I feel bears well for future developments the company may undertake considering they are part of the Dealership Driver group of companies there should be no limit to the gadgets they can develop.
Being a Brit, I sit in these situations quite separate from the world going on around me, watching and listening to the local characters with fascination. So, Nascar was discussed, the love of Bar-B-Q and other general topics that surround what happened on a particular drunken night back in 2001. None of this surprised me at all in anyway and I actually enjoyed hearing this different perspective on the world. Just as I thought the conversation could get no more stimulating an interesting topic was launched. The people collectively started speaking about Indian culture, music, communities and media. This seemed slightly out of place until it became apparent that this collective knowledge base was exclusively garnered from social media platforms and especially consisted of video content. All participants were in their twenties and all used social networking to communicate and organize offline events with each other and without exception all used social media videos as an on demand educational resource. The people at this large table showed an interest in viral shock engaging content but also said the search for information was the largest way in which they used social media content. I took away a true appreciation of the global reach and diversity of people who are taking this new media channel and using it in ways of furthering bonds and knowledge of the world around them. I walked away with a couple of bang-rah artists I need to look up and a new network of people. 
Last night I went to a birthday party for a good friend. It was strangely held in a pool hall somewhere in rural florida. The music was 1980's house music and the dress code was come as you are, even if you haven't gotten round to washing your clothes yet this year. You know the kind of place?
I attended the IWOMC conference in Paris hosted by ESCP-EAP (European School of Management) and Nils Andres Brand Science Institute. My schedule has been crazy since I got back but over the next few days I will be making a few posts with some of the concepts delivered on both WOM and Web 2.0. I recommend next years event to anyone wanting cutting edge information as well as well rounded approach to delivering excellent content and great networking opportunities.
From an Emerging Media stand point many new concepts that further layout the future for Web 2.0 were delivered and even though I am very experienced in this field the new demographical data and analytics shared, really shared light on how niche markets are capitalizing on engaging their audiences and creating experiences. A great example would be OSOYOU which is a British social media community specifically geared to women and shopping. I Would suggest you check it out to see how affiliate marketing can be used effectively to engage audiences, create social groups and most importantly build monetization in to social resources.
Creating word of mouth hasn't changed, as always it is about creating engaging content, products or services that are worth talking about. It's also about being involved in news worthy causes or challenging the norm in some way. Viral and buzz marketing are just two attempts at engaging people but any brand worth its salt would be wise to not get to hyped in thinking that the internet is the only channel to generate true wom.
Brand managers everywhere have a duty to remain channel agnostic, and concentrate on the ability to have the conversation being the guide to the most effective messaging channels.
It is good to note print is not dead and the radio still has an audience and advocates and thus a value, the internet is a new channel not a replacement for everything that has come before it.
QG Partnership is growing and has today released it's plan to open a new subsidiary agency dedicated to Word of Mouth Marketing. We cannot yet fully divulge the full nature of our project but you can get clues by popping over to WOM Creative every now and again. More information will follow. WOM Creative
A TRUSTe study released today shows that 42% of people clean out their cookies on a weekly basis, and only 15% of survey respondents reporting that they never clean them out and instead wait for them to naturally expire. Where as this report is not fully unexpected, it is a blow to behavioral target marketing companies who are now left scratching their heads about exactly how they are going to collect the data they need to serve up relevant ads.
We use cookies all the time in web-development for many reasons, not limited to storing sessions where logins are required to indeed target ads. The information received is anonymous and yet privacy concerns prevail with users who do not fully understand the technologies and the benefits cookies can bring to their online experience.
The report suggests that many companies are now trying to harvest personal data posted online by users in social networking profiles and other rich informational properties such as forums, which to me at least is far more big brother and personal than cookies and does bring forth concerns of privacy online.
Practicality aside!
This would be a hard standard to achieve, but I for one would be in support of some kind of database of cookies with quality control and transparency of their purpose to then be shared with adware software companies so that they could discern which cookies to leave in place. We could also work towards browsers and operating systems policing cookies as an outsourced service rather like we do for viruses today. Permission based cookies could then be stored separately and be less prone to being deleted during traditional weekly maintenance of a users system.
The silver lining to this report is that a growing amount of people have positive outlooks on only being shown ads they will find interesting.
