iThnk.com – Business Insight About: Social Media, Co-creation and Free/Style

Over the past 2 years I’ve been on a mission to try and soak up a whole load of info about how the world is changing and how the social web, free and co-creation fit into the future of business. The books below have not only given me a great understanding of both modern business and the social web they’ve also provided me with countless conversations pieces. I strongly recommend these books to anyone who’s looking to get into this space.

1. The World Is Flat

Reading this book changed the way I look at the world, it was the starting point for my interest in the web. Thomas L. Friedman’s most acclaimed book so far, it provides a great foundational understanding of the forces that are changing the world, opening up trade and breaking down barriers. It details the economic rationale behind outsourcing, open source and the beginnings of the free economy. If you’ve read this a great follow up read is Thomas L. Friedman’s most recent book, Hot Flat And Crowded.

2. Communities Dominate Brands

Well and truly before it’s time (published in 2004), communities dominate brands examines various internet statistics, analyses  trends and then puts forward logical business recommendations. It was one of the first books to examine the business implications of flash-mobs and to highlight the potential that lies in real-time mobile communications. Author Tomi Ahonen is also a very open and conversational Tweep – well worth a follow.

3. The Longtail

Chris Anderson’s outrageously successful first book, its not really about the social web but is an absolute ‘must read’ if you’re looking to do any sort of business through the almighty interweb. Not many ‘firsts’ are as successful as this book, it applies economic theory to the changes that the web is bringing for businesses all over the world and it make sense of the forces that are propelling the explosion of niche cultures. The tag line captures the essence of the book beautifully: “Why the future of business is selling less of more”.

4. Groundswell

In my experience this is currently the most comprehensive breakdown of why and how social media is impacting the business world. Charline Lee and Josh Bernoff from Forester research have taken stock of a massive amount of examples, conducted vast amounts of research and compiled it in a digestible little package which is accompanied by a regularly updated blog.

5. Tribes

In typical Seth Godin style this is more inspirational than instructional. This book is a nice short read and it’s empowering message will stick to your ribs like deep fried triple cheese burger garnished with lard. Seth starts off by describing a number of examples where groups of people who are led by someone who understands the power of the “Tribe” can achieve truly wonderful things, he then challenges you to be that leader.

6. What Would Google Do

Self proclaimed Google fanboy Jeff Jarvis describes how the world’s most loved search engine is merely a measuring stick for a whole undercurrent of change. This insightful piece of work details the forces that are changing the world and in particular the media industry. Jarvis also highlights the potential for growth that still exists if new models can be found. Being a journalism professor his insight on this is fascinating.

7. The Wisdom of Crowds

Again another stunning tag-line that seems to encompass the books entire argument: “Why the many are smarter than the few”. On the surface the notion that the masses can and often do make superior decisions than the elite who are trained and trusted with decision making power is a deceptively simple idea. But when you consider how our entire society is structured it clearly has profound implications. This book is not the passionate action inspiring read that Godin’s book is, instead James Surowiecki put forward a well throughout rational argument that will challenge the way you think about decision making on both an individual, organisational and societal level.

8 . Six Pixels of Seperation

While the lessons from this book are much the same as those from Groundswell, it has been put together in a much more personal and down-to-earth way….so if you’re looking for an entry level overview of social media to give to your old school nay-saying boss this would be the one I’d choose. It also has some great promo vids.

9. Free $0.00 A new price for a radical future

In The Longtail Chris Anderson was infinitely more descriptive then he is in FREE. In this his second  book he persuasively uses sound economic justification to explain/predict why $0.00 is the price of the future (at least in the digital space). The beauty of this book is that it’s supported by Wired Magazine’s Repository on $0.00 and that he practices what he preaches by giving the audiobook away.Download the Free audiobook here.

Next on my hit list…

I’ve heard that these two books are great – Jaffe’s book for it’s marketing models and Ben Young’s book for it’s readability and hi impact. Is there anything else I should add to my hit list?

We at iThnk could quite correctly be  blamed for being social-media cheerleaders (we do love this stuff), but at times things happen that mean you just can’t ignore the fact that social media has a dark side.

Recently the socialweb has been the focal point for a whole load of dark and dispicable things, but most noticeably the desecration of the Facebook memorial page for the 8yr old murder victim Trinity Leigh Bates.

Mourners set up at least two Facebook pages in tribute but reports say that moderators were forced to remove offensive and pornographic material. In the aftermath of this there has been such disgust that the Queensland premier Anna Bligh called for action from Facebook, and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he would consider creating a new online ombudsman because some activity on the web was “frankly frightening”. As a result Facebook will publically apologise.

So here comes the point of this post… 

Obviously the sickos that do this sorta thing are the ones to blame but…who is responsible for putting and end to these sort of despicable actions?

What do uThnk? is it Facebook? Is it the police? Is big brother really the answer? Can Facebook actually stop this from happening? What would you do if you were Facebook?

Image sourced from Mashable’s wonderful Social Media Crime Blotter Site

Last week I wrote two posts about ‘Free’ & Viral Marketing , the first was merely questioning whether free was necessary for viral marketing to work, the second simply shed some insight that came from discussing the first post with a prominent Kiwi Blogger. This is the follow up:

After all this discussion what was the consensus?

Free is not 100% necessary for viral marketing…but it sure does help.

‘Free’ certainly lowers the barriers which prohibit viral activity, but it’s likely that you can still have viral activity whilst charging a price. A somewhat obvious and simultaneously abstract example is the chain letter e.g. You send $10 to 25 friend asking them to do the same, in exchange for the prospect of thousands of dollars coming back to you, if both your 25 friend and some of their friends all do the same all of a sudden thousands of dollars have been exchanged in a viral interaction.

Ok not everyone will buy into this crapy form of scam marketing but it upholds the point that viral messages do spread even when the cost is not $0.00. Free is not necessarily a prerequisite for the viral effect, but tiz perhaps the ultimate acceleratant.

The fundamental idea behind viral marketing is that value of spreading a message must always be greater than the cost associated with spreading it. Which means that because there is always time involved in spreading a message, and time=$$$, the cost of spreading a message is never truly ‘free’. Therefore people will spread a message if the value of spreading it significantly out weighs the cost of spreading it.  – Viral interaction’s natural foundation is value!

So perhaps instead of using $0.00 to gain the benefits of viral growth – you could focus on adding overwhelming value to reward sharing and reducing other costs (such as time).

If you’re looking for a great overview of viral marketing check out David Meerman-Scott’s white paper and if you’re interested in ‘Free’ then check out Wired Magazine’s Repository on $0.00. Oh and if you haven’t yet read it Chris Anderson’s book Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business is well worth a look, you can download the Free audiobook here.

Image sourced from: http://www.boozemonkey.com/blog

This is a guest post that I wrote for Social Media NZ last week – enjoy 

I’m not usually big on talking about best practice or making rules for social media. People who try to place rules and constrictions on things as dynamic as social media are usually proved wrong and made to look rather foolish over time….but when SocialMedia NZ asked me to write this piece I thought it’d be a great chance to mash together some of the best practice that I’ve seen with some of the insight from my research to try and make it useful for others.

• If you suck – stay on the curb - I don’t mean this as an insult…to put it simply if  your marketing sucked and people hated you prior to social media coming along then don’t think it’ll be the easy fix you were after (this vid explains it nicely). Stay off  the band wagon and take the time to get your house in order before jumping head first into the socialweb. – One of the most common comments from my research participants was “oh but it kinda makes sense coz they’re a crap company anyway”.
• It’s all about community – “It’s not a monologue, it’s a dialogue” – @Ophil. Embrace your community encourage them to share with each other and maybe your community will take on a life of its own – the more open the platform you provide the  more co-created your social media efforts will be and the more engaged your community is likely to become.
• Add value – I know that this seems rather ambiguous as there are so many different things that people find valuable. Thinking about what you find valuable and why is always a good place to start. Your value add could be…terrific insight, aggregated info, humor or even just pretty pics – and if all else fails then just try and bring some joy to the people around you.
• Find Your Purple cow – Every single participant in my research seemed to believe that having a distinguishing and obvious “reason for being” was critical to successful online interaction.
• Reference sources - retweets, mentions for twitter – hyperlinks and trackbacks for blogs. Why? Well it’s not about proprietary info and it’s not just about courtesy…it’s about placing yourself within a wider conversation. It gives your viewers/readers the chance to watch what you’re watching and read what you’re reading and then form their own opinions.
• Talk about more than yourself – There are loads of experts who get this so wrong. One who gets it right is Guy Kawasaki – he doesn’t just tweet about AllTop he tweets about all sorts of interesting things, bits of news, funny vids and posts from sites that aren’t related to AllTop in the slightest.
• Try not to patronise– All bloggers are egomaniacs by definition – we think we have something important to say and that the world should listen – what a bunch of jerks we are! My research tells me that the more street-cred you’ve got the more condescending you can afford to be e.g. I often find Seth Godin’s ramblings quite belittling…but then if I take a step back and consider the wicked experience and insight that back up his posts all of a sudden it doesn’t seem quite so bad…so in the end it’s probably just a value judgment about how cool you think you really are.
• Be transparent– easier said than done – if you mess up admit that you messed up and be willing to laugh at yourself. Flickr are pretty dam good at this…if you want proof check out their post tittled “Sometimes We Suck“.
• Don’t be afraid to be human and have a personality – tiz always a struggle to suppress the inner bot but try to have fun…professionalism is great but no body wants to engage with a stiff- if you’re looking for inspiration this is a great collection of funny bloggers.
• Be a real person – This might sound stupid but my research tells me that pseudonyms and fake avatars are a no no if you’re wanting to build cred! “If you’re gunna say something have the balls to sign your name to it, or don’t say it at all” -research participant #6
• Online/Offline cross-over is key! Being able to link your offline world with your online persona is key to building cred and making what you say tangible. This is might be tricky for those who only live in the online world…but my research participants seemed to believe that this was one of the keys to developing your own Purple cow.
• Tweet, post and comment regularly– social media aint no one night stand, to be good at it you need to give it consistent love and attention it deserves. Click here to read about why this can be so important…but remember no one likes a spam artist.
• Write well– once upon a time it was cute to have typos in your blogs posts – it was part of the real-time human interaction…no more is this the case. Sloppy writing leads to disinterested viewer. For my site iThnk we started off pretty sloppy but then I found out about the Typo Eradication Advancement League and we decided to put a proofing process place. – eeeek hopefully there’s no typos in this post.
• Ask for feedback & use it – One of the biggest benefits of social media is the real-time feedback that you can get free of charge – whether you do this in a poll, an add-on service like uservoice or through examining your comments is irrelevant, the point is, that if people care enough to tell you about what they want to see then you should care enough to listen – it could turbo charge your business.
• Experiment with new tools to understand the mediums – One of my research peeps put this better than I ever could…”people don’t understand how easy it is to make their posts dynamic, if they did they wouldn’t just expect it they’d demand it”. – So try to insert polls, vids and other saweeeeeet tools…
• Sexy Matters – Just ask Apple….sex sells – always has and always will, so spending the time to make your social media assets sparkle is never a waste. Anyone who tells you otherwise has probably lost their soul. (looking for inspiration…check these blog designs).
• Say Thank You – reward your community, make them feel special give them preferential treatment and they’re more likely to keep coming back.

The truth is social media is tough to get right. Hell, I just tested myself against these points and only just passed. Some of these insights are easier said than d0ne, while others are newish insights whcih I haven’t had time to put into action (watch this space).

Now I must have missed something along the way so fill me in/tell me I suck and lets start a conversation about how social media could be done better in NZ!

img from http://insidenorthpoint.org/

This morning I published a very quick post that simply asked the question ‘Would Viral Marketing Work Without Free‘. The idea of this post wasn’t to showcase my knowledge of free, it was simply to gain insight into what others thought.

As often happens with these things the response to the post came through a less conventional means (email). Unfortunately, this great piece of feedback from another kiwi blogger was not available to you the public…so in order to free it up and gain a wider perspective on it I thought I’d re-hash two of the questions that were put forward*. I’m sure my answers are far from definitive, so please chime in and give us your thoughts.

Q1: If the idea/product/service wasn’t free it couldn’t be viral (otherwise how does it spread?)

My Answer: Viral marketing was called WOM before the Internet, so viral still happened but perhaps it wasn’t as traceable (or as explosive) as it is today. So I’m not 100% sure that free is necessary for all forms viral marketing. I guess it depend on your definition of ‘viral’….

What do uthink?

Q2:  With management’s motivation for free (a post by @Ophil), that’s fine – but how can you justify Free to the shareholders of a public company? (wicked question huh!)

My Answer: For shareholders it would obviously depend on the business model – for Google shareholder’s it would be easy – the more free products we make that enable people to generate content – the more advertising space we have – the more AdWords clicks we get – the more $$$ you get – easy sell!

But for a traditional business selling widgets it might be trickier – however I believe that the rationale would be much the same – give away something (a platform) that results in enhancing the consumers experience in your industry and set up a process to make sure that you are able to collect revenue (directly or indirectly) as a result of this increased user experience/involvement in your product area – it could be a hard sell to shareholders, but definitely not an unreasonable task.

Once again, what do uthink?

*Please note that questions have been paraphrased & answers have been polished.

Image from: http://www.thecommissionplan.com/

The above vid has been around for a while and it’s pretty popular (180,000 views).  It preaches a wicked message but I wonder…have they missed a crucial feature of viral marketing.

The reason I wonder this is because free is the first principle of Dr. Ralph F. Wilson’s 6 Principles of Viral Marketing

• Gives away products or services
• Provides for effortless transfer to others
• Scales easily from small to very large
• Exploits common motivations and behaviors
• Utilizes existing communication networks
• Takes advantage of others’ resources

What do uThnk? Is free the vital component in viral marketing? If so was there such a thing as viral marketing before the web brought the free economy to life?