360DigitalInfluence

Our friends and trusted partners over at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association recently posted a few ethical questions on their Ethics Review Blog and asked word of mouth practitioners to weigh in. One of the questions that really struck a chord with me asked:

Is it ethical to create and maintain multiple online identities when engaging in digital of mouth of marketing?

No.  It’s not okay to maintain multiple online identities or, what I like to call: lying.  There can only be ever one of you and, by definition, multiple identities rely on some degree of intentional truth-altering distortion.  The social media highway is littered with failed WOM campaigns built on this sort of transparency-damaging deception.  Our own Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics that governs our work online spells this point of view.

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We are thrilled to be partnering with the Lance Armstrong Foundation on expanding the LIVESTRONG mission from a national force to a global movement. As movements are all about participation, we got started recently with the relaunch of livestrongblog.org as a true social media platform for all of LIVESTRONG.  There, you can see tweets not just from (#23 Twitterholic) @lancearmstrong and @livestrongceo, but the messages of support from around the world with the #livestrong hashtag.  The same goes for video and photos  – feeds for both of which you’ll find straight from the LAF and from worldwide supporters.

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One of the most useful free tools out there is Google Trends and I’m continually surprised by the innovative ways I see it used by my colleagues. Beyond the obvious function in SEM and SEO campaigns, the half of all internet users who are starting their session with a good Google must be giving use some other useful information. Google showcased this recently with their Flu Trends project and it got me thinking about other ways to bring the line graphs to life. Here are some of my favorite examples (including Quail Man) of interesting Google Trends and I ask you to add your own ideas and provide links in the comments.

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The films are great at this year’s Sundance Festival, of course. Filmmakers and fans come to Park City knowing that they should be given the rigorous selection process for dramas, documentaries, and short films. What I am most impressed by, however, is the emphasis on social media from attendees and organizers alike. I’m not just talking about the #sundance hashtag; text update alerts, cohesive blog coverage and multimedia commentary about the challenges the industry faces have been integral in differentiating this week from past festivals.

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Last week, we launched a custom RSS dashboard in partnership with Netvibes. It’s a simple idea really - take the flexible, widget-based structure of the worlds greatest RSS start page, Netvibes, and tune it up with all the right feeds and widgets to make it useful for most marketers and communications specialists.

You can grab it here at TheDailyInfluence.com.

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As a blogger, you will inevitably deal with detractors online – either in the form of comments on a blog, a post about you/your company on another blog, a Twitter thread, a Facebook status update, etc.   Not everything you publish on blogs will be agreeable to everyone, no matter what your expectations are. 

Blogging is all about exchange and creating relationships – it is about developing a discussion, not having passive readers.  You give to your readers, why shouldn’t they give to you?

If your blog post feedback doesn’t go exactly as planned, here are a few tips to help you in your response…

• Always Say Thank You.  Being courteous and saying thank you is just as important in the face of a critic as when you are being complimented.  Thank the blogger for sharing their experience, and caring enough to express their opinion.  Being gracious and appreciative can diffuse most situations. 
• Address The Issue.   Acknowledge the comment, and admit when you are wrong.  Your readers will respond better and respect you more if you can admit mistakes.  Everyone can make a typo, forget to say something important or just be plain wrong. 
• Correct Any Misinformation.  If appropriate, provide factual – not emotional – information in response, along with an offer to elaborate or provide more detail if needed through backchannels. Provide contact information for a real person for follow up.  
• Be Transparent And Honest.  Always identify who you are and/or what company you represent.  Don’t be terse or defensive, and be honest – nothing kills your reputation faster than getting caught in a lie.  
• Recognize The Opportunity.  A negative blog post can provide an opportunity to demonstrate just how willing you are to listen to feedback, accept constructive criticism, and address an issue through the blog.  Detractors come in many different forms, but in most cases, these are individuals that want you to improve your product/service, so embrace them, acknowledge them, and get them involved in providing solutions. More often than not, after they see the effort you’ve gone through to respond and engage, they could become an advocate for you.

One journalist that should be required weekly reading for anyone in the PR and marketing fields is Jon Fine who writes a column for BusinessWeek magazine all about the business of media. During a conference on online communities, Jon and I spoke about several topics, including how journalism is evolving, whether local media will survive, and what advice he might offer to aspiring journalists and PR people about succeeding in this new world. He breaks down some of the myths about the separation of traditional and new media, and offers a great vision of what the journalist of the future might look like:

This week’s social media controversy is brought to you by: Youtube. 

Mashable broke the story earlier in the week, noting that thousands of videos that feature copyrighted Warner music have been silenced on the video sharing site, literally, by muting the audio tracks.  A message below the videos reads : “This video contains an audio track that has not been authorized by all copyright holders. The audio has been disabled.”

This is move is being positioned a compromise, the other solution being the full removal of the video itself.  It’s there’s anything we’ve learned in witnessing the growing pains of Youtube it’s that music licensing is a pretty complex swamp.  This post is in no way an attempt to untangle the legal implications.  However, one thing is clear, music is a big part of Youtube, bigger than you may think on a video sharing site. continue reading

So we go running off the edge to jump back in (with memories of the hot summer day, the swimming hole and the cool, yet not cold, clear water - nice thoughts in the dead of winter) 

Blogs matter. They are a foundation of the social media phenomena that will not pass in the night like CB Radios or printed ezines. While we add Twitter, Friendfeed, Tweetbacks, iPhone apps and more to our digital lives, blogs remain the relevant platform for sharing opinions, insights and knowledge that require more than a 140 characters or a smartphone interaction.

Our blog has just relaunched with a new design that will continue to evolve. We have been blogging and applying social media to our lives for years now - this is just the next iteration of our “blog platform.” This is our team’s “homebase” on the Internet. Our 360° Digital Influence team at Ogilvy PR, uses this platform to share knowledge with our global team, our clients and anyone interested in the strategic use of social media in marketing and public relations. We have a lot of smart, insightful people so we created the tools and the channel to share those points of view.

It is more than blog posts
We use this platform to aggregate more of our digital activity and to create that homebase of social media for our team. Here’s what you will find and what you can expect in the future (near as we can tell - remember, it’s evolving….)

• Multimedia-rich blog posts: we have integrated our YouTube and Flickr channels here and simplified our own publishing interface to help us tell richer stories
• Aggregate Twitter feed: we have pulled together our twitter streams into one to make it easy for us  to stay tuned to our team.
• Our Blog Network Feed: we have a lot of blogs hosted by Ogilvy thought leaders in Public Affairs, Technology and globally. Now we can all see a composite feed and get to those platforms quickly.
• Events calendar: we speak, host, attend and pay attention to real-world events in our space an now we will be able to list them in a more accessible place. You can also know where we will be this year and which events we feel are more relevant than others.
• Careers as a Digital Strategist: okay “careers” is not the right label but we are looking for new team members and we wanted to simplify how we could let people know about these jobs.
• Our portfolio of client work: rather than drive people to another web site just to see best practice cases, we will put them all here over time. The format will evolve too as we do more “How-to” content and try to share our experiences as learning and skills-building cases not simply “look at the great work we did” cases

Our blog is a our own town square (with a swimming hole), a place to launch a thousand ideas and conversations. Many of us will maintain our own personal blogs while remaining members of this community platform, as well. Personally, I believe one of the biggest benefits of our blog platform is encouraging the voices of everyone in the team to come through. We have a deep, global bench.

• Hearing Kristin Foster’s ideas on using Twitter for business
• Brian Giesen’s interviews with Search Engine Strategies leaders or coverage of our Government 2.0 event
• Laura Halsch’s coverage on the WOMMA Summit
• Sarah Marchetti’s thoughts on the Motrin episode
• John Stauffer’s point of view on Change.gov
  

And so much more.

Join in the conversation here - the water is fine - or wherever the links take you.

(Photo credit, gullevek, via flickr)

This weekend, we’ll be launching a brand new look to 360 Digital Influence Blog. This new design, same URL, will go live in the next few days.

In meantime, between now and Sunday evening, we’re going to put a temporary hold on posts and new comments. Bear with us over the weekend as we work to unpack and get settled in our new home.

We’ve had a great 2008 on the 360 Digital Influence Blog and look forward to new content and new readers in 2009.

Stay tuned…