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Ben Israel on all things conversational 
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November 26, 2009

Dell says, "Social media is not a budget or revenue question, it's a listening question"

Michael Buck, Dell's Global SMB Online Director, reveals why and how Dell uses social media for e-commerce.

  • "The way you use social media tools is the way you innovate"
  • Dell drives $13 billion worth of revenue through e-commerce; every 2 seconds there is an online order
  • "Social media (for Dell) is not a budget or revenue question, it's a listening question"
  • Different social media platforms are grouped to match different organisational goals. e.g. 39 Dell accounts on Twitter serve different purposes.
  • In order to make revenue (online), you first have to build credibility
  • Live chat is a huge sales opportunity for Dell (talk2Dell)

Filed under  //   Dell   e-commerce   Facebook   Michael Buck   Social Media   talk2dell   Twitter  

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November 25, 2009

The Boom of Social Sites

via www.focus.com

Filed under  //   Baidu   Classmates.com   Facebook.com   Focus.com   LiveJournal.com   MySpace   Social Media   Social Network   Social Sites   Statistics   Trends   Twitter   Xanga.com  

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November 24, 2009

New changes to Facebook developer policies going live on Dec 16th

In a new blog post, Facebook has announced that it will proceed with further changes to its Developer Principles and Policies effective December 16th. These changes, again, concern how 3rd party applications interact and engage with Facebook users. 

A large part of these changes is an increasing focus on enforcement. Paul Jeffries, Facebook's Head of Platform Policy Team, says, "we're investing in personnel and technology to help us better uncover and rapidly respond to policy violations. You'll continue to be able to launch an application without prior approval... but you should expect it to be proactively reviewed at any time... Those who try to circumvent the spirit of the policies or principles, or exploit a "loophole," will be subject to enforcement." 

Enforcement means, temporary suspension of some or all application functionality, or your application being permanently disabled. 

List of changes highlighted in the developer wiki: 

  • Provide a link to your privacy policy in the Info section of your Application Profile page and on every page of your application. (DPP I.1)
  • You can evolve and develop your application, but don't repurpose it. (DPP II.6)
  • Be sure users can easily report inappropriate content, and be responsive to their reports. (DPP IV.B.2)
  • Don't undermine the integrity of the social graph by encouraging the creation of fake accounts or inauthentic friend connections. For example, don't gate content or provide rewards based on the number of a user's friends who also use your application. (DPP V.2)
  • Don't prompt users to send invitations, requests, generate notifications, or use other Facebook communication channels immediately after a user allows access or returns to your application. (DPP V.4)
  • Your "skip" button must be adjacent to and the same height and design as your "send" button. (DPP V.5.)
  • Don't send multiple communications in response to a user's single action. (DPP V.7)
  • Certain data fields you can submit to us through the API (e.g., the user_message parameter) must be reserved for content generated solely by the user. (DPP V.8)
  • Don't prompt users to bookmark your application (e.g., by using a modal window or pop-up dialog), and instead provide users with a button for users to explicitly invoke any bookmark option you provide. (DPP V.10)

Not happy about these changes? Tell Facebook here, but I doubt it'll do much good. 

Filed under  //   Facebook   Facebook API   Facebook Applications   Facebook Developer Policy   Facebook Policies   Facebook Promotions Guidelines   Paul Jeffries   Social Media   Social Network  

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November 22, 2009

Eight Ways To Kill An Idea

From: FLIRTing with the Crowds

Filed under  //   Creativity   Idea   Ideation   Image   Innovation  

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November 18, 2009

Web Strategy Matrix: The Four Social Support Strategies

BenefitDownside
Rely on Legacy SystemsThis keeps customers in the right process and funnel that the company is used to. Secondly, it doesn’t reinforce that customers should yell at their friends to get help from a company Missed opportunities: Angry customers could revolt starting a Groundswell, or leave an opportunity for competitors to swoop in and take dissatisfied customers.
Employee to CustomerProvides a personal touch to help and assist customers, builds relations and trust For large companies, this is not scalable, and will result in companies prioritizing responses to the most authoritative or most urgent. If rolled out to support in all social avenues, it can be costly.  Lastly, it teaches customers to yell at their friends to get support.
Peer Based SupportCompanies can quickly scale by responding to customers faster, and more accurately, using automated responses.Unfortunately, not all questions may get answered in a timely way, or answered correctly by staff who may have the inside details. Also, content in knowledge bases, wikis, forums, and Q&A features are often unstructured, messy, and hard to navigate.
Automated Social SupportCompanies can reduce costs by having customers self-support each other. Collectively, customers may often know more about the company’s products than the actual product team. Some customers may feel cheated if they find out they are talking to a bot, and it may be more difficult to build that personal relationship.


By Jeremiah Owyang

Filed under  //   CRM   Customers   Employee   Jeremiah Owyang   jowyang   Online Contest   Social Media   Social Support   Strategy   Web Strategy  

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November 17, 2009

Nike opens new store in Tokyo, ceiling adorned with 4,000 shoes (it's beautiful!)



New Nike store in the Harajuku Neighborhood of Tokyo

Filed under  //   Design   Interior Design   Nike   Shoes   Tokyo  

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November 17, 2009

YouTube launches YouTube Direct, a new platform designed to further to fuel citizen-powered journalism

YouTube's head of news and politics, Steve Grove, says: "People around the world are taking up cameras and covering news in ways big and small - from documenting global events, to filming local town halls in neighborhoods. YouTube Direct empowers news and media organisations to easily connect with these citizen reporters, and use the power of our platform to cover the news better than ever before."

"YouTube Direct is like a loop between a news website and YouTube. It wraps up YouTube's upload site in a box and places it on the site of news organisations."

YouTube Direct is already being used by the Huffington Post, NPR, Politico, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Washington Post.

Filed under  //   Citizen Journalism   Journalism   Media   Reporting   Social Media   Social Network   Video   YouTube  

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November 17, 2009

Weber says that Fortune 100 companies need Twitter-juice

Weber Shandwick just released a new study looking at how effectively Fortune 100 companies are using Twitter as an engagement tool. The study found that 73 percent of Fortune 100 companies registered a total of 540 Twitter accounts; 50 percent of them had fewer than 500 followers and 15 percent were inactive.


The study also looked at how and for what purpose were these companies using Twitter. "Among the Fortune 100 companies examined by Weber Shandwick, 26 percent of their Twitter accounts were primarily used as a one-way flow of information (either by RSS news feeds or manual tweets) that offered no engagement with followers. Tweets did not provide opinions or encourage discussions. This contradicts the value of Twitter as a two-way dialogue to build relationships with customers and advocates."


The point Weber was trying to drive across was that most companies now know that Twitter is an important platform for engagement and communication. But they need serious help with how to effectively use and optimise this opportunity.

IMHO, the report is a tad shallow and only uses the number of followers and tweets as the only measurable metrics for reach and influence; they didn't look at RTs or replies at all - a big miss. But it's worth a quick glance. 

You can read the report here (PDF). 

Filed under  //   Fortune   Fortune 100   Influence   Report   Social Media   Twitter   Weber   Weber Shandwick   White Paper  

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November 16, 2009

FEED: The Razorfish Digital Brand Experience Report 2009 Key Findings

(download)

Filed under  //   2009   Brand   Consumer   Digital   FEED   Findings   Live Feed   Online   Online Contest   Presentation   Razorfish   Report   Social Media   Trend   Trends  

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November 9, 2009

Facebook makes major changes to promotional guidelines. Summary here:

Just came out of a meeting where I was surprised to learn that Facebook has introduced major changes to its rules and guidelines on how promotions are done on the Facebook platform. I haven't seen or read any further explanation from Facebook about this. So, the only way to find out is to read the legal jargon here: http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php. The Facebook Promotions Guideliness only applies if you're doing a product promotion, which involves a prize and winner selection. 

Summary:
  • If you want to host a contest or promotional activity on Facebook, you need to write in for approval at least 7 days prior to commencement. 
  • If you're from these industries: gambling, tobacco, dairy, firearms, prescription drugs, or gasoline - you can't do ANY product promotions on Facebook. 
  • Okay, this one is tricky: if you want to conduct a contest, you can no longer do it through a simple mechanism such as making a post on a profile or Page, status comment or photo upload. You must create a third-party application, and the Static FBML is off-limits. 
  • If the only requirement to entering your contest is by just becoming a fan, that is no longer allowed.
  • Oh get this... you cannot notify contest winners through the Facebook platform such as messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages.
  • If your promotion gets approved, you need to protect Facebook by explicitly disclaiming their involvement.
  • If you choose to ignore these rules, Facebook will "remove any materials relating to the promotion or disable your Page or account".

So what does this mean?
  • Firstly, less spam. Applications are much easier to block that individual profile messages.
  • Secondly, more spam. There will be A LOT more applications on Facebook.
  • Small businesses need to rethink their Facebook strategy. To host a contest on Facebook, you will now need to allocate more resources. 
  • Otherwise, build smart, engaging and interactive applications that people will want to use.

Next question: when will Twitter go down this route?

Filed under  //   Contest   Facebook   Facebook Promotions Guidelines   Guidelines   Marketing   Online Contest   Online Marketing   Promotions   Social Network  

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