Insights

5 Bloggers to Watch in 2013

As we come to the year end, I traditionally wind down by highlighting people and news to keep an eye on in the year to come.

This year is no different, (yeah, I’m predictable that way) so to kick things off, and in no particular order, here are 5 bloggers you really should subscribe to in 2013.

1. Jon Loomer

Jon Loomer is a guy that’s been on my radar a little while now. He’s been a fairly regular commenter here in the last 12 months, and we’ve interacted on Facebook and Twitter as well – but it’s only recently that I really checked out his blog (thank you, Disqus Community options!) and I’m glad I did.

His blog primarily looks at how you can use Facebook for your business, as well as answering questions you may have on the platform in general. A mix of analysis, podcasts and interviews, it’s a great read for anyone looking to make the most of the world’s largest social network.

Subscribe to Jon’s blog here.

2. Lisa Gerber

I first got to know Lisa Gerber from working with her when she was part of Arment Dietrich, and I knew then that she was a smart cookie. Lisa recently left Arment Dietrich and started her own company, and her blog’s become a staple part of my reading diet.

Offering a mix of smart social media tactics, PR and communication best practices and more, Lisa’s Big Leap Creative blog will help you understand social media just that little bit more in 2013.

Subscribe to Lisa’s blog here.

3. Ryan Hanley

Ryan Hanley is someone else I’ve known for a little while now, and we’ve shared some great exchanges in the comments of both this blog and others across the web. Ryan has an interesting approach – his day job is in the insurance industry and he uses his content marketing blog to advise not only his peers in the industry, but also anyone who’s looking to use content to market their business.

Currently offering a mix of podcasts and the written word, Ryan has big plans for his blog next year, making now the perfect time to get to know him.

Subscribe to Ryan’s blog here.

4. Ralph Dopping

I was fortunate to meet Ralph Dopping (albeit very briefly) at a social media event in Toronto this past summer. I’d known him before then through Twitter and the comments on this blog, and meeting him in person just confirmed what I already knew – that he’s a really nice guy with a great sense of humour. He’s also a great blogger.

Ralph’s View From Here blog – which is a team effort with his partner Janine – does exactly what it says on the tin – it offers Ralph’s take on a wide variety of topics, from social media and business to architecture and design best practices. It really is a blog that offers something for everyone, and deserves your attention in 2013.

Subscribe to Ralph’s blog here.

5. Mickey Gomez

Mickey Gomez is one of my favourite people in the whole world. She’s smart, has a wicked sense of humour, and is also one of the kindest people I know too, who supports so many charitable causes – and helps raise awareness and money for them – I don’t know how she has any free time to blog. But I’m glad she does.

Her Life and How to Live It blog is chock-full of anecdotes, pithy quotes and personal stories that will make you laugh and cry in equal measure (although it’s the good, sentimental storytelling kind of cry). If you’re tired of the usual social media and marketing fare, Mickey’s blog is the perfect remedy. Even if you’re not, it’s still the perfect remedy – trust me.

Subscribe to Mickey’s blog here.

So there you have it – 5 bloggers that inspire me to think more, and who’ll do the same for you. Next up I’ll be looking at 5 blogs for you to watch in 2013, so I hope you can join me then.

In the meantime, which bloggers do you think we should be watching in 2013? The comments are yours.

Instagram, Social Media and the Opt-Out Economy

If you follow any kind of tech or social media news, you’ll know about the announcement from mobile photo app Instagram and its new Terms of Service that come into play on January 16.

If you haven’t seen any of the stories, the main gist of it is this:

Instagram’s owners, Facebook, will have the perpetual right to license all public Instagram photos to companies or any other organization, including for advertising purposes.
Ads may or may not be disclosed to the user.
A business may take your uploaded photo, use it in an ad, and not have to compensate you.
If you continue to upload images after January 16 and then decide to delete your account, your images can still be sold by Facebook as their property.

While there are some questionable inclusions on these new terms – I’d love to hear what the FTC has to say about non-disclosure of ads, which completely contradicts their edicts – it’s the last one that is the most concerning, since it enforces my view that we’re now part of the opt-out economy.

Whatever Happened to Permission Marketing?

In 1999, author and marketer Seth Godin published the seminal Permission Marketing. While the ideas in the book weren’t completely new, it was a wake-up call to marketers and businesses everywhere.

Instead of spamming people with crappy marketing messages they didn’t want, and invading email inboxes with newsletters they weren’t subscribed to, a new best practice emerged – let the people choose what they subscribe to, and what messages they received.

Since then, various laws have come into place to protect consumers – the CAN-SPAM Act covers all commercial messages, while the U.K. introduced the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) in 2003, requiring opt-in for all email marketing campaigns.

So far so good, right? Except in today’s digital landscape, where it seems?we’re moving more towards the opt-out economy versus the opt-in one we fought so hard to create and support.

Social Scoring and Signing In Before You Can Leave

For most social networks – Facebook, Twitter, etc., – you still use the opt-in process. So, I need to physically sign up to use Twitter’s platform if I want to tweet. For the most part, this is how social platforms work. Then social scoring arrived and opt-out seemed to be the new opt-in.

The most well-known of the social scoring platforms, Klout, created a profile for you whether you liked it or not. If you had a public Twitter account, you had a Klout account.

If you didn’t want to partake in Klout’s promotion of you to their advertising partners, you actually had to create an account with Klout just to delete it, completely going against the idea of permission marketing and consumer wishes.

Klout’s reasoning is that they’re only accessing information that is publicly available, and that’s true. The main problem is your Klout score can impact how you’re perceived by companies and other online users – and you have no say in that, unless you sign up to try and play that system.

However, the bigger picture here is the question of opt-out versus opt-in, and Klout’s successes (millions of users and supporters and thousands of partners) seems to indicate opt-out can be a workable process.

The Instagram Question

Which brings us back to Instagram’s recent policy announcement. While it could be argued that unless you pay for the product you are the product, Instagram’s wording goes way beyond that. Consider this:

When you share photographs on Instagram that include other people, and that photo is then sold or used by an Instagram partner in a promotional campaign that goes against the beliefs of your friend in the picture (she supports PETA and Instagram use your image in a fur coat promotion), your friend can’t do anything about it because it’s your photo.
If Instagram has the right to access your friends’ details on Facebook during the sign-in process, you’ve essentially sold their details to Instagram’s partners and they may never know that until they start getting bombarded with partner ads.

These are just two areas that the new policy could potentially be used. Not only can you not opt-out of this happening if you stick around after January 16, your friends (who may not even be on Instagram) have even less of a chance to opt-out of their likeness being used for promotional gain.

Here’s another angle to take:

I get a picture taken with you. I work for a brand, and I use Instagram. I tell Instagram all pictures are my property and all people in them agree to be shared. Then I, as the brand employee, put that picture up with a promo for Westboro Baptist Church (let’s say they’re a client), with the caption “We support the ban on gays” next to a book entitled “Why The Real Family is a Man and Wife Family”.

By definition, and your inclusion in that picture, you now endorse both Westboro Baptist Church and are anti-gay. Would you be happy with that possibility?

Understanding this, and seeing what could potentially happen, is the reason Facebook posts and news article comments are alight with concern from current Instagram users, many of who have said they will be deleting their accounts.

You could argue that we give up the right to any true privacy when we open up an account with these apps and, for the most part, you’d be right. When you use something for free that costs money to maintain, there needs to be some revenue option that kicks in.

The problem with the Instagram change, though, is that Facebook are essentially saying “You’re our new freelance photographer but we’re not paying you” as well as curtailing your basic right to hold on to your property when you leave a platform.

And it’s that last point that could well be the straw that breaks the Instagram camel’s back. Time will tell.

Update: December 18, 5.00pm EST – Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom has updated the corporate blog with an explanation (though it doesn’t address the FTC/non-disclosed ad concerns).

Update: December 23 – A class action lawsuit has been brought against Instagram for breach of contract.

image: Casey Neistat

TrendSpottr and the Potential for Predictive Influence

I recently had the good fortune to sit down and chat with Mark Zohar, founder of Toronto-based viral search and predictive analytics service TrendSpottr. And I was literally blown away by what they’re doing and how they’re looking to change social business.

Taken from their website, the core solutions TrendSpottr provides is from a future trend model:

TrendSpottr analyzes real-time data streams and spots emerging trends at their earliest acceleration point — hours or days before they have become “popular” and reached mainstream awareness.

In a nutshell, TrendSpottr helps businesses and organizations of all shapes, sizes and industries to get a jump on the competition by identifying what’s about to go from average visibility to viral buzz, before it happens, which makes he potential for multi-channel use huge.

What TrendSpottr Means for Brands

One of the examples Mark shared when we chatted was TrendSpottr’s ability to predict the virality of a YouTube video.

For example, let’s say a new video about kittens and babies playing only has 500 views. With TrendSpottr monitoring the real-time activity around that particular video, it can spot when it will explode into hundreds of thousands (or millions) of views, and when.

Armed with that data, an advertiser or brand can then buy ad space on the video at a much lower cost, yet still be in front of the extra eyeballs that the viral version of the video offers. The cost saving is tremendous and the potential return on that ad spend huge.

TrendSpottr plans on launching this predictive ad optimization product in early 2013, specifically targeted at advertisers and brands.

Other ways for brands to benefit from TrendSpottr include content optimization and engineering to take early mover advantage of a breaking story that’s about to go very big.

Let’s say your brand is in the business of car tires, and you provide tires to many well-known car manufacturers. While analyzing various conversations around tires, TrendSpottr picks up on an impending safety concern around a particular kind of rubber molding used in a competing manufacturer’s tire.

Using that data, your content team can take a series of actions to get you front and centre when the proverbial hits the fan:

You create a series of short blog posts spread around your properties and those of your partners, highlighting the safety aspect of your tires.
You put together a series of creatives and buy ad space on properties and destinations that your competitor’s audience frequents.
You optimize tweets and social updates, to drive people to your product and Frequently Asked Questions section, where you have all the information about safety a visitor could want.
You create a pro-active email campaign to assure your customers and partners that your product doesn’t use that type of molding and have over X amount of years producing safe products.
You can create specific topic widgets and embed multiple streams into your website, to turn it into an online respository for information from across the web (see the end of this post for an example).

These are just some of the ways brands can be pro-active at tackling a problem head-on and before any negativity hits, whether it involves them directly or not. By doing that, you’re now offering solutions in the consciousness of the public you’re trying to attract, while your competitors are in damage control mode.

For any brand, that’s a pretty powerful tool-set.

What TrendSpottr Means for Influence

One of the biggest criticisms social influence receives is that the gamification of the model hurts true influence and knowledge. From gaming the +K system on Klout when it was first announced, to the recent LinkedIn Endorsements and how they can be played, influence and authority has never been harder to gauge properly.

Whereas before, marketers would actually analyze raw data and build personas of influential people that were right for their brands, now they have to wade through scores, endorsements, social stock prices and more that may or may not be true and relevant.

This is where TrendSpottr can help filter these people.

Let’s say your passion is global warming. You blog about the environment and your company provides green products – but you can’t compete with the guys that have thousands of subscribers and whose company has millions in ad spend.

With TrendSpottr, you can set up an alert for the industry and selective terms that are relevant to you, and see which ones are on the cusp of exploding into life, both virally and from a market standpoint.

By being able to continuously put out content that’s ahead of the game, your authority rises. People now start to look to you for answers versus the more established players. A perfect example of this reversal in authority is Nate Silver and how he first turned baseball and then political punditry on their heads.

Brands can use TrendSpottr along with other blogger outreach platforms and really connect with those that have the eyes and ears of the industry via the TrendSpottr dashboard.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpZppQyQ33g[/youtube]

Now, you could argue that non-experts could game this solution too, to appear authoritative – but if you don’t know what you’re talking about and are just copy-pasting soundbites, trust me, that becomes obvious pretty damn quick.

The Beginning of the End of Influence As We Know It

Up until now, the majority of social influence has been determined by a score and perceived authority. Additionally, many early players in the space have sold benefits based on amplification, not context and purchase decisions.

This has, for better or worse, led to an industry that many use but just as many question the validity of. It makes brands nervous to play in, because they need to know the message is reaching the kind of people that can make things happen, versus the amount of people that make things noisy.

The good news is, the next generation of platforms and technology are here. Companies like TrendSpottr, Appinions, Tellagence and others like them are leading the charge to recognize true influence and relevance.

We’re on the cusp of something very cool, and it’s something that has the potential to truly change business intelligence forever.

Analytics Are Not the Same as Insights

Take a look around the web – especially on social networks – and you’ll see a lot of people and brands complaining about their marketing results.

From complaining about lack of action on a blog or website to little return on Facebook or LinkedIn, there’s a whole swathe of people blaming the lack of success on anything and everything.

“But have you looked at why you’re failing?” you can ask, and you’ll get the response, “Yes – we have analytics installed and we know we’re not getting the reach and results we’re looking for.”

And, usually, that’s the crux of the problem right there – because people are confusing analytics with the solutions to their problem, when it’s more than that that’s needed.

Analytics Are Not the Same as Insights

Don’t get me wrong – analytics are key and if you’re not even tracking the most basic of details around what you’re doing, of course you’re going to be screwed. Even the most basic of analytics gives you:

Traffic (in and out)
Demographics
What content works
What platform drives traffic
Behaviour on site

Go more advanced, and you can get a heck of a lot of information about your customers, existing and potential.

You can see what time of day they like to be online, what type of browser they use (desktop, mobile, Apple, PC, etc), what type of call-to-action’s catch their eye and turn them from intent to purchasers, and much more.

If you run a business, or are looking to run an online campaign for your business, and you’re not using analytics before, during and after to guide your decisions and follow-ups, then you’re not being anywhere near effective enough to be successful.

But… as good as these analytics are, they’re only part of the equation – the bigger picture comes from what insights you glean from them, and what you do with these insights.

Insights Are More Than Just Good Ideas

Once you have the information you need from whatever analytics package you use, the real work can begin. As an example, let’s say you’re looking to launch a book – here’s some of the ways to use insights from analytics for your campaign to reach your audience.

1. The percentage of tablet and mobile browsing versus desktop

From a personal point of view, I love to have an actual book in my hand when it comes to reading – there’s just something real about being able to flip a page versus sliding your finger across a screen. But that’s just me – many of my friends are far more attuned to tablet and eReader options.

By looking at your ideal audience – age, sex, income, browsing habits, etc – you can identify what their persona is more likely to be, and that can help define what the lead platform is – full print version or digital, with print to follow. You can also see which platform is best to lead on from an eReader point of view – Kindle, Nook, Kobo or other.

This gives you a better chance of being picked up by your audience out the gate.

2. Are they active socially?

Despite what people like me might think, social media is still not truly mainstream for the majority of the world. Sure, Facebook might claim one billion members, but that’s nowhere near the active users. Same with Google+, Twitter, etc. But that doesn’t mean you can’t use these channels to market.

Before you begin your campaign, carry out an online audit and find out where your audience like to hang out and, more importantly, when. It’s no good jumping on Facebook at 3.00pm in the afternoon when your audience is mostly online between 9.00am and 10.30am in the morning.

Get to know which platforms they prefer, how they prefer to use them (for friends, via mobile, as a curation tool only, etc) and start to document what the optimum time of day is for you to be online. Couple that with the platform and tailor your message accordingly.

Find groups and chats on Twitter to participate in – while dedicated to Canadian books, #CanLitChat is a good example of what’s on Twitter for authors and readers to participate in.

If a lot of your audience likes watching videos on YouTube, ask yourself if there’s an opportunity to set up a reading channel. Take excerpts of your book, read it, and ask for video feedback, with other YouTube users tagging your video. Better still, run a contest for other users to read the excerpt, and the best gets all your books free for life.

Additionally, start a reading group on Google+ and use Hangouts to pick apart your initial drafts, and allow early glimpses into what people can expect. Having your audience invested in this way encourages them to support you when you do launch.

3. How to play to your demographics

Every product or service usually has a core audience. Yes, there are examples where age and sex don’t come into it and a product crosses generations – Apple products, for instance, and Thomas the Tank Engine (you know it’s true!). For the most part, though, the majority of promotions need to be geared to a certain demographic.

Using your analytics and understanding who your audience is shapes the strategy behind your outreach.

As you can see from the chart above, published earlier this year by Pingdom.com, there are very different demographics depending on what platform you’re on – or your audience is.

Let’s say you’re going after the 35-44 age group. You might think that you should start on Facebook because, well, that’s where the whole world is, right? Not so fast, Skippy.

What about LinkedIn? That’s almost twice as much as Facebook for that particular demographic – can you take advantage of groups or ads on there? How about Yelp – can you work with local bookstores that obviously care about their audience and do personal readings?

Bigger yet, take a look at Slashdot and Quora – while they may not be the first that come to mind, you can see they’re hugely popular with your audience. Find out why – in these cases, it’s the question and answer format that attracts.

Start to build a presence there, answer questions, ask your own, build your reputation, and then begin to ask questions around your book topic. You’ve built trust, gained an audience, and approached it properly when it comes to that platform – again, making your book (or service) more attractive and warmer to the touch of that audience and their pockets.

Data is Everything and Everything is Data

As you might guess, I’m a huge data nerd – because I love understanding what makes people tick. What gets their attention – how is that attention kept? What turns them from a curious bystander to a purchaser or advocate?

Data can tell you all this and more – the trick is in knowing what to do with the data once you have it. Get that right, and you’re at an immediate advantage over your competitors.

And that’s never a bad thing, right?

The Two Faces of Social Media Buzz

One of the biggest benefits of social media is the way the medium can help you get in front of people you’d never normally reach. From cost savings (financial) to the sharing between friends, social media offers opportunities like never before.

Of course, like anything that gives you a bigger audience – or the potential for one – there’s always the danger that the buzz or visibility you receive won’t always be the kind you’re after. For every good example, you get a bad one.

The Good Social Media Buzz

Christina is a little girl from Arkansas, with severe medical issues. She recently had skull/brain surgery and is on treatment for the pain. To help her recover, she visited Park Lane Mall, where there is a Build-a-Bear store (that makes personalized teddy bears).

Christina’s mom didn’t have the money for the bear then, but chatted with the manager of Build-a-Bear about Christina’s story. She then took Christina over to look at the Lego store across the mall.

The manage and his colleague decided to make a bear anyways for Christina, on their own time, and made it their and then. Christina named the bear Jenny, after someone she knows. The Lego store manager also gave Christina some Lego toys.

Two stores, three kind-hearted people, and one happy little girl that could forget her pain for a while. Kudos, Build-a-Bear and Lego.

The Bad Social Media Buzz

I’m a huge fan of the UFC, or Ultimate Fighting Championship. As someone that’s trained in martial arts, I respect the strategy, discipline and bravery that these fighters bring to the ring each time they fight.

As a business, the UFC has also shown that when it comes to building a profile of a sport that has as many opponents as proponents, it’s extremely savvy, in no small part due to the business skills of UFC President Dana White.

Which made his decision to portray a homeless man in a skit for Fox NFL Sunday a poor one. He may have been trying to be humorous and show what can happen on the way to the Octagon if fighters aren’t successful, but the stereotype that all homeless people drink booze instead of eating food wasn’t a smart move.

But then, White doesn’t seem to care. Despite a backlash starting on Facebook and Twitter, White was unrepentant and lashed out at his critics, calling them pussies and whiners. His views were supported by various UFC fans.

Perception and Reality

When you see examples like this and the reactions of those watching these stories unfold – complete positive sentiment for Christina’s story and vitriol and support in apparent equal measure for Dana White – it highlights how quickly something can spread on these channels.

It might be said that White’s example won’t hurt the UFC in the long run, since there were several views supporting his skit. His multi-million dollar empire can probably sail over it too (although his tweets and Facebook update seem to have been removed).

As a typical business, though, could your brand handle the backlash of a (potentially) offensive approach to getting your name out there?

Wouldn’t it be better to go after the positive instead, and be a Build-a-Bear or Lego story? Your choice.