360DigitalInfluence

It seems odd to critique a program that just gave $5,000,000 to non-profits, but that’s exactly what I’m about to do. The Chase Community Challenge ended on Friday with some happy people and more controversy. You’re connected to the Challenge if you ever dated someone in high school who was a friend of a friend who went on to be the cousin of a guy’s college roommate who started a non-profit. Such connections earned you dozens of emails, facebook messages and tweets begging for your vote. As much as I appreciate Chase donating so much money to so many non-profits (100 were whittled down from 5,000) and as much as I don’t actually mind voting for people who ask me, there was a misfire here. The non-profits that enter these contests must be happy or things tend to go poorly. Remember: they’re more than purveyors of positive sentiment, they’re also the loudest when they feel wronged or unhappy. You have to leave them happy and moneygrabs aren’t the best way to do that.
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People hate Google Sidewiki. It’s an ugly word, but people hate Google Sidewiki. The internet is filled with frustration, angst, and incredulity of people who want to know a.) how to get rid of it and b.) how a company with a “Don’t Be Evil” mantra can look at themselves in the mirror after developing something that is so inarguably evil.

I love Google Sidewiki. It mixes the brand engagement of a Facebook Fan Page with the free speech of Twitter. I can now go to a brand’s website and tell future visitors how much I love a brand or how I think it could be better (constructive and fair, of course). If you had Google Sidewiki you could see how I recently sucked up to not only my boss, but also my boss’s boss. It’s great. continue reading

As part of today’s National Day of Service honoring Martin Luther King’s legacy I wanted to share a few ways you could find opportunities to serve throughout the year. Here are a few that come highly recommended:

Serve.gov helps you not only find volunteer opportunities in your community, but also create your own. It’s powered by All For Good - a network of technology, marketing, academic and non-profit professionals.

Volunteer Match has connected millions of volunteers to over 74,000 non-profits since 1994.

Do Something focuses on activating teens (led by teens) in their community.

Apathy is Boring is a Canadian-based project using art, media and technology to encourage active citizenry.

Social Actions aggregates service opportunities from over 60 “action sources” like Policy Pitch and DonorsChoose.

You can also follow iVolunteer on Twitter, which offers daily updates on good places to volunteer in cities.

What’s missing? Please add a comment below and tell us about your favorite online volunteer resource.

Leave it to social media to alter the time tested traditions of football, family and food comas on Thanksgiving. Epic Change, a non-profit that helps amplify the stories of changemakers and social entrepreneurs to help them raise needed funds, is in the midst of their second annual “Tweetsgiving”. TweetsGiving is a global celebration that seeks to change the world through the power of gratitude by encouraging participants to express their thanks using online tools and at live events.

The Twitterverse has been abuzz these past few days as people share their humble thanks with the #tweetsgiving hashtag. At the moment, they’ve managed to raise over $26,000 for this year’s beneficiary, Epic Change fellow “Mama Lucy” Kamptoni, a woman who once sold chickens and used her income to build a school that now serves over 300 children near her home in Arusha, Tanzania. The money will go to improvements for the school. Thanksgiving will never be the same.

So before you sit down to eat tonight or subsequently pass out from all that turkey and stuffing, do take a moment to let others know what you’re thankful for this Thanksgiving. Have a happy one.

Upfront Disclosure: John Bell is the President of WOMMA and Managing Director of 360 Digital Influence, which means I work for him and he controls my livelihood.

Sometimes I read a blog post and feel cheated. It happens when I run into references to a product or service that seems out of place or just unnecessary. I figure the blogger is paid for the reference, but I’m never sure. Maybe they just enjoy the product. Who knows? Well, knowing is important - important enough to feel a little off-put and a little wary of both the blogger and the brand.

WOMMA targeted this lose-lose result Monday in a live webinar discussing what exactly constitutes “disclosure” regarding relationships between brands and influencers. The diverse panel agreed on a lot. If a blogger/influencer has a relationship with a brand and writes about the brand they need to disclose that relationship clearly, candidly and upfront. To put it simply, there must be no ambiguity from a reader’s perspective that a relationship exists. Suggestions on how to eliminate ambiguity varied from having two separate blogs – one personal and one for reviews (which didn’t work for one blogger) - to disclosing relationships early and often in a post - even linking to a “Terms of Engagement” document that outlines the relationship. Ultimately, having set guidelines will benefit everyone and the discussion on best practices will continue up to and through the FTC releases their updated guidelines (likely October 2009).

What struck me as most interesting was the overwhelming sentiment that those who fail to provide full and clear disclosure will be “called out” and punished by the marketplace. The correlating result is a rational and utopic conclusion – the good people win. Unfortunately, the marketplace isn’t rational. It does self-police, but not that well. With a who’s who of WOM practitioners and an active Twitter stream, it was difficult to come up with one good example of a company or influencer being punished by the marketplace for failing to disclose a relationship. continue reading

A July 2009 research study by Russell Herder and Ethos Business Law found that 81% of senior management, marketing and human resources executives view social media as a valuable tool to enhance relationships with customers and build their company’s brand. That’s the good part. Here’s the challenge: the same amount, 81%, perceives social media as a corporate security risk. There’s a natural balance. You want to use social media to enhance your brand and customer relationships. Who’s managing the associated risk? Your new best friend – your in-house counsel.  

Before joining the 360 Digital Influence team, I worked on customer outreach Web 2.0 platforms for a large financial institution.  As the study correctly suggests, our success was inversely proportional to our corporate security risk. The more reach we achieved, the more our in-house counsel panicked.  With a background in law, I was uniquely qualified to take verbal beatings for our compliance failures and debate (argue) the merits of our outreach efforts. It wasn’t that much fun. To lessen the unpleasantness, I developed some best practices to improve our relationship with in-house counsel and improve the likelihood of our social media campaigns seeing the light of day.

I’ll expand each one in the coming weeks, but here they are in brief: continue reading