PeerIndex Tracks & Measures Social & Reputation Capital

I had an opportunity to chat with Azeem Azhar at LeWeb last week and get the latest demo of PeerIndex, which is a useful tool that tracks and measures people's social and reputation capital online. They look at social signals from social media platforms people are actively using online, the primary one being Twitter, with tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, and others in line.

What's interesting about their tool compared to others in the same category such as Klout for example, is their ability to drill down into specific areas of expertise. Focused on relevance, Azeem says, "it's about understanding your personal brand and whether it's developing in the right areas that matter to you. In other words, you could be increasing your score in one area, when your 'real' area of expertise is in something else."

It's a free tool today and since privacy matters to them, you can keep your PeerIndex profile private if you choose. Below is a short video clip of our exchange in the LeWeb Yahoo-sponsored blogger lounge.

Gary Vaynerchuck on Entrepreneurship & Passion in Paris

Gary Vaynerchuck in his typical form was on the LeWeb stage in Paris last week talking about entrepreneurship to an audience of largely European start-ups, venture capitalists, media and bloggers. As always, he exuded passion and broke all the rules, asking Loic Le Meur to pull down the Twitter board during his talk since he wanted to focus on the "people who showed up" first, suggesting that the board was only a distraction from being present to the "hear and now."

 

I couldn't help but agree since while having a back channel is useful, I was distracted by the energy on stage with a trailing stream of comments to my left and right as well. He encouraged people to rethink how we view our customers.....he views customers and 'interested fans' as equals and says he tries to respond to everyone. When someone asked about balance, he was 'all for family/work/life balance, yet at the same time, suggested we have to be always be available to respond to the people who give us life. (my words, not his). Translation - customers give us life. Fans give us life. Without those supporters, our voice can easily be lost in the noise.

I've met Gary twice (it was in Paris in fact, a year ago at the Microsoft Biz Spark party -- and once at a Tony Robbins event in Vegas) and heard him speak a number of times, and while he is always inspiring, the most interesting response to a question about how to respond to clients who want the social media ROI was this: What's the value of your mother?

While corny on the surface, here's the gist of where he was going with the comment. How do you truly value the ROI of great customer relationships? How do you value a brand who has focused all of their attention on providing great service to customers, their primary attention on giving back, i.e., Zappos? Rather than focus all of our attention on numbers (which investors and the board always want), if you do NOT value time and effort spent on engaging customers, listening to customers and responding to customers, he says, "you shouldn't "fucking be in business."

While so damn simple, here's the sad thing about how I felt about his response - it's the way I was molded and frankly, it's in my DNA, yet it's NOT in the DNA of the majority of companies I've worked with or observed over the years. And as for the clients who have been a huge success, they have either gotten that at the core OR they were simply on a road to a quick exit and didn't really care about the longevity of the business anyway.

Once again, thanks for your most authentic share Gary. Below is the video I shot from the front of the room and it's also posted on our YouTube channel.

 

 

Gap Lovin' Foursquare as Part of New Ad Campaign

Mashable's Adam Ostrow reports on the Gap/Foursquare ad campaign. Gap has launched an ad campaign featuring interactive “Add to Foursquare” buttons integrated within online ads.

The ads — which are running on a wide variety of sites including Mashable, Gawker and Conde Nast properties — feature Gap holiday fashions and deals along with the Foursquare button, which when clicked, adds a Gap to-do and enables a 30% discount on one regular priced Gap item.

The ads are location-aware too; users will be able to associate the to-do with a nearby store and be reminded of it when they’re nearby and pull up “Places” within Foursquare. Gap will also be donating $1 for each add to Foursquare’s charity of choice — Camp Interactive — as part of the campaign. Full article here.

 

Management by Design Released

Daniel Rasmus is releasing a new book called Management by Design, available starting the week of November 22, 2010.

In this age of consumer-obsessed business, the experience of the worker is too often neglected. With our new knowledge economy, people have increasing freedom to choose where and when they work. The best and brightest are fighting for entry to those organizations with workplace experiences that are engaging, inviting, and motivating.

Timely and comprehensive, the book explores the premise that one of the best ways to attract and retain the most talented people—and their knowledge—is through designing environments that turn today's increasingly virtual workplace into an attractive place for people to do their work, regardless of their employment relationship, or where and when they work.

By applying balance, proportion, and simplicity, you can create a workplace that is efficient and effective, as well as intriguing and intellectually challenging. With sound advice for maintaining this crucial component of business, this seminal book explores:

• How focusing on employees' work experience brings unimaginable benefits
• Why great experiences can turn into long-term relationships, positive brand expression, and lasting stories that reflect back on the organization
• Tips for starting the design process, finessing it to fit specific needs, and putting plans into action

How Valuable Is A Degree?

There's an interesting debate going on, in Higher Education of course, centering on the value of a degree.  It's a subject I did my best to be helpful about at a local school careers evening last week.  

The question I always get asked is: 'should I do a marketing degree if I want to get into marketing?'  

To which my honest response is no.  

From my point of view, as an employer, I want people with good brains who have studied a subject which develops their thinking skills and knowledge of something broader than marketing.  I know there are good marketing qualifications out there (somewhere) but as a first degree subject I can't see it helps if everyone in our industry has read the same books, studied the same case studies and is taught to think in the same way.  

Surely our whole point is to come up with fresh ideas, challenge the status quo, martial our arguments, persuade our colleagues and measure our effectiveness - to name but a few of the things that marketing and agency people get up to.  

I've canvassed my colleagues on the subject.  Their qualifications range from the highly relevant (Honors in Graphic Design or Computer Science) to the useful (Economics, Phsychology, English) to the total wastes of time  (Sociology, Film & Media Studies).  

What do you think - are degrees valuable in the marketing sphere and if so, which ones?

 

Ford's Scott Monty: People Trust People Like Them

Below, Ford's head of social media Scott Monty on the TWTRCON stage, says, "People don't change, they want you to think and feel and be just like them." Globally, trust is down year after year and less than 40% of people trust ads. "Who people trust are third party experts and people like themselves."

Transparency and authenticity are key when you're dealing with human emotions and rather than use robotic language that won't have an impact on people's emotions. He says, "we're training people to talk like humans again." He also emphasized the importance of relevance.

Google's Avinash Kaushik: HITS? Nothing More than a Datapuke

Says Google's Avinash Kaushik at the recent TWTRCON Conference in San Francisco, don't get caught up in sheer numbers - whether it's followers or hits. He also says don't spend a ton of the time on positive, negative versus neutral sentiment, but focus moreso on people's emotions. He says with humor, "HITS stand for How Idiots Track Success." In other words, HITS alone equate to a 'glorious datapuke.'

What's even more critical, he says, is to understand the behavior behind tweet purchases & data links.

TWTRCON San Francisco: Biz Strategies in Real-Time

I've been meaning to attend TWTRCON since its first one now over a year ago, so was thrilled to discover I'd be in San Francisco when their second one hit the west coast last week.

TWTRCON is entirely focused on the business use of the real-time web with social media tools like Twitter a core part of the conversation.  

They highlight case studies from leading brands, workshops led by social media practitioners and mini tutorials about real-time tools. They also collect and publish social media business case studies, statistics and videos on their site.

What I loved most about their event is how well it combined great networking and high quality speakers and sessions with "fun." They had beach balls on the tables and introduced a game at the start of the day as a way to meet others and tweet out a little love about the person you just met.  

Some of my favorite people were on stage, in the audience and sponsors with tables.

As a non-morning person, I was shocked that I managed to make it there for Laura Fitton's (aka @pistachio) early morning keynote which kicked off the day.  

Her message focused around relevance - in other words, don't just go for numbers, go for engagement. And after you kick that into gear and are part of the conversation, remember to use the right analytics tools: links, click throughs, conversations AND context. All are important. 

Kara Swisher interviewed Adam Bain on revenue models, digging for more data on how Twitter will make money. It's clearer that revenue is coming - what's the ole saying? Build an audience first and the money will follow and it's not as if they can't tout numbers - real numbers. 

Adam says they plan to focus on the product plan in the next year and product growth will be key over revenue, at least in the next twelve months.

On future revenue models, he reminds the audience that with traditional display advertising, .5% engagement is considered a win and with Twitter, they're seeing single and double digit percentages in engagement.

Tons of major brands are already using Twitter and setting up campaigns to increase engagement and get customers on board - it's an organic movement that is only growing, not shrinking. Small businesses are seeing a tremendous benefit as well. 

Then, Google's Avinash Kaushik talked analytics. Full of energy and passion, he zipped from left to right across the stage emphasizing all of his key points - with humor.....a lot of humor.

He talked about the whole notion of HITS and tracking hits alone, which he says stands for: (HITS = How Idiots Track Success). He referred to it as a glorious datapuke. 

He reminded the audience not to get caught up in straight hits or simple analytics around positive, negative and neutral. Sentiment analysis is key - focusing on people's emotions and how they're feeling and thinking when they retweet or make a comment. It's important to understand the behavior behind tweets purchases and data links, he says. 

Stefanie Michaels (aka @adventuregirl) talked about the value of Twitter to create change and make a positive impact on the world. 

"In social media, your reward is YOUR reward," she says. In other words, focus on what you care about and talk about that on Twitter and elsewhere on the web.

It can be as simple as helping ten kids out and having an impact on two of their lives in a way that can not only be life changing for them but for you in the journey you take along the way.

They had an interesting small business panel which included Nic Adler from The Roxy Theatre, Andrew Israel from AspenSpin, Akash Kapoor from Curry Up Now, and musician Zoe Keating.

Below, HootSuite's Ryan Holmes, Maksim Ovsyannikov from Zendesk, Sprinklr's Ragy Thomas, and Gigya's David Yovanno talked about real-time strategies and tools now and what's next.

Ford's Scott Monty showed up in a bow-tie and raised the bar for the local geeks who dressed in t-shirts, jeans and sneakers. He shared a few case studies and talked about some of the lessons he has learned through implementing social media campaigns over the last few years.

At the end of the day, people still care about the same things they have always cared about, he says. "People don't change, they want you to think and feel and be just like them." Globally, trust is down year after year and less than 40% of people trust ads. "Who people trust are third party experts and people like themselves," he says.

Transparency and authenticity are key when you're dealing with human emotions and rather than use robotic language that won't have an impact on people's emotions, "we're training people to talk like humans again."  He also emphasized the importance of relevance.

Below are a few random shots.....I'd love to see them turn this into a two day event in the future. Kudos to Tonia Ries and her team for an incredibly well-executed event.

Above: Tonia Ries, Fusicology's Zsa-Zsa Rensch and James Bowyer

Musician Zoe Keating

 

Kara Swisher

Thomson Reuters' Alastair Goldfisher, Marie Domingo, Harry McCracken, Renee Blodgett

Above - Marylene Delbourg-Delphis and Rachel Polish (taken by Harry McCracken)

HootSuite had a mascot :-) The Owl was dancing around all day! (and then some)

Laura and friends sign books - Twitter for Dummies. Twitter for who?? :-)

And, unlike a lot of conferences, the sponsors actually made sense and were very relevant for the 'conversation.' You didn't feel pitched and the companies that showed up all had a solution for putting together real-time strategies and solutions in small businesses and corporations.

The "relevant" companies included folks like CoTweet, HootSuite, Objective Marketer, ThreadMarketing, tap 11, Foursquare, Sprinklr, ZenDesk, TweetReach, Fliptop and others.

A Fireside Chat with Ev Williams on the Latest From Twitter

Below is a half an hour fireside chat with Ev Williams at yesterday's Web 2.0 Summit. Have a listen to Ev's thoughts about Twitter's future strategic direction and where they're going and why in an interview with John Battelle on-stage in a boardroom at San Francisco's Palace Hotel.

Where Should the Corporate Social Media Strategist Go?

Altimeter Group has a great report on the role and path of the corporate social media strategies. Jeremiah says in his intro: This Social Media Decision Maker Must Choose One of Two Career Paths. This emerging role is critical to the success of social media programs yet, most Social Strategists and their programs lack maturity, with only 23% of Social Strategists having a formalized program with long-term direction. The report is below. For more information, or if you can't view it, check out his post or his report on Slideshare.

Report: Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist: Be Proactive or Become Social Media Help Desk

View more documents from Jeremiah Owyang.