Social Media Disclosure… FTC regulation or bust?

This morning I was reminded by an e-mail that WOMMA (word of mouth marketing association) is looking to form some additional guidance on social media disclosure, revolving around the FTC decision. WOMMA has an active thread regarding the social media feedback being collected to generate the framework.

I warn you, this is a food-for-thought article that asks some big picture questions and deals with multiple technology points.
It is not for the feint of thinking (technically speaking.)

I find the whole FTC and regulation attempt fundamentally flawed. As a professional, I recommend that everyone discloses points that are of a meaningful nature. If it is important enough to ask the question of whether it is important, it is important enough to disclose.

The problem becomes that disclosure guidelines are really incapable of measuring the most valuable point: relationship worth.

• Ask any news room editor… it isn’t the big sponsors or most interesting stories that get attention. It is the tidbits of information that were passed by people who knew the right people.
  
• Ask any business professional…. people do favors for other people  ALL THE TIME based on who they know in common and the mixed relationships between them.
  

In big business, this can be seen by looking at such examples as golfing and cocktail parties. How many professionals disclose the reason they received a big contract or recommendation is due to the fact they played a round of golf with the spouse of the person who’s brother signed the deal?

In a world of social media and human interaction, the value of relationship capital and value becomes very difficult to track. At what point is a single United State dollar worth more than the recommendation shared over drinks?

Both the FTC and WOMMA are trying to define a very problematic beast. They need to  include  statements like “Disclosure must be clear and conspicuous” to define a very interesting question: to whom must it be clear and conspicuous? On the same hand they need to define who they are talking about as the publisher of the information and statement “like the FTC, WOMMA applies the term “bloggers” to refer to individual posting online content, whatever the channel.”

SOME CORE PROBLEMS

The internet user does not find information in a controlled manner. Some of us use iPhones and others receive daily summaries of articles in our e-mail. While others use advanced search functions or aggregate information into dashboards using RSS tools.

What problem does this really cause? We can look at a common example with a few different people…

1. The average person may simply use search engines to find local information and news.
2. The mobile professional quickly turns to a blackberry and is searching from behind a firewall WIFI router at an international airport while waiting for a plane to take off.
3. The web savvy 20-something uses an iPhone to browse a mobile version of the site.
4. The tech enthusiast uses a parsed RSS file that aggregates information into a custom dashboard and presents related information in a realtime comparison (cough cough, I don’t know anybody like this…)

When they all find an article on the Wall Street Journal …

• What do they all see?
• What is clear and conspicuous?
  
• What is in common?

ALMOST NOTHING.

They are using dozens of different technological methods to interpret and process the same information. These platform choices and behavioral identifiers are compounded by the fact that each end user has been targeted and micro-analyzed by multiple technology points between them and the source of the information they are looking at.

In the case of many search engines: they type in a keyword term, the IP address they use is often tagged by both the search engine and the publishing platform they are interacting with, and a custom piece of information is presented by search engine based on user preference and previous patterns of interaction association with both the individual user and the type of individual user.

As the information streams over the internet super highway, multiple services potentially interact with the information stream (advertising platforms, traffic routers, etc) and is arrives to a destination point that has been identified for at least some very basic elements such as: speed of connection, geo-location, language, operating browser, and IP data.

Once they receive the information within the browser, it then interacts with multiple add-ons, plugins, and service pack enhancements that they may or may not remember having been installed…. or may be entirely unaware of (we can thank all the browser companies, computer operating systems, and web providers for adding on multiple software items that they end user has no understanding of.)

Still thinking about regulating? We haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg.

As we move into the dispersed web, information is no longer present on just one location. It is aggregated across dozens of data points and ran through a series of automated processes that present it to the end user. In very large instances: both Google and Yahoo and wonderful examples of this. Both services present almost no information that is actually owned or created by them, but is instead syndicated from original sources.

During the syndication and collection process the technology behind the scenes strips out essential data for defining “who this is” and “how it is connected” to other points of information. The whole industry of search engine optimization (SEO) is based understanding and manipulating this data to control how it appears in different aggregation points under specific keyword searches.

As we look at where information comes from (end users, publishers, account data, news portals, data repositories, etc) we take the aggregation and syndication issue to the next level, as we then have original sources of information being syndicated by a syndicator, who aggregated the information with another data point syndicated from another language!

What do I mean by language?

I mean human language (AKA English, French, Spanish, Russian, etc) and technological language (CSS, PHP,MySQL, RoR, etc) that DO NOT normally talk to one-another without the express action of translation.

If I were to make the simple disclaimer that I am involved with dozens of online companies written in English and slapped up with a nice image on my blog (perhaps a pretty banner with bright red letters), I know that my blog is translated in many languages (often poorly), and that my RSS  subscribers typically disable images from by syndication feed.

If I were to think about very simple loop holes and abuses…

I would be like many other publishers online. Everyone with a business brain understands that screen space and attention span are valued at an all-time-high. As business refine how things are presented to digital audiences, they ask themselves about every single piece of information being presented and how that data can be properly displayed to different audiences.

If we use the previous four end user examples from above, we now have a huge cycle of problems being created by business minds trying to present different data points to multiple audiences and multiple technology platforms for each (with the possibility for unique disclaimers for each as well.)

Where does this leave us?

There are many more points that need to be addressed, but regulation really isn’t the end solution. Organizations and governments cannot educate the masses at the speed necessary to overcome the technical changes and the savvy abusers created by rapidly shifting trends.

What is the answer for disclosure?

Morals and ethics perhaps?
(I think the communication, marketing, and business world in general should invest a little more here)

Please let me know what your thoughts are. This will be a big topic in 2010 and moving forward.

Social Media Evolution, how things change.

As a professional speaker I need to constantly remind myself of how communication has changed so quickly. Knowing what types of catalysts can provoke sudden changes in an audience is often the key to relaying a message.

As an exercise in piecing together some emotional and generational images, I wanted to see if I could relay some of the changes we have experienced in just 10 to 20 years. This is a three minute presentation (maximum) that defines how I see the world of human communication shifting. Please let me know what you think!

Social Media helping non-profits and our community

If I needed to sit down and actually identify the benefit of social media it would be this: Social Media allows you to be more connected, it strengthens your life by involving those who can help you and by helping those who you connect with. This strength comes from the basic statement “United We Stand”, with the fundamental point being that we (you, us, I), can accomplish far greater things as a community than an individual.

That statement is true whether we are talking about a local club, an employee union, a non-profit, a charity event, or even an executive network.

I also use the statement – It isn’t what you know. Its who you know, and what they know.

With that said, it is probably no huge surprise to readers that non-profit organizations often tackle challenges that seem larger than life. You can see huge impacts being made by the goodwill of heartfelt volunteers and community organizers that give everything they have and then some, moving one inch closer to a destination that always seems to be a mirage on the horizon.

As a professional organization, 123socialmedia and the professionals we work with are involved in a wide variety of community organizations. One of the largest efforts we have been involved with in the local region is SMC Seattle, a group of hundreds of social media professionals from around the Puget Sound that are trying to educate our community with ways of using social media for positive results.

Positive results are not just found in business. The real positive results (the elusive ROI) of social media is its ability to connect a variety of individuals and strengthen communication to achieve a result. At the end of the day, the result you are trying to achieve can be anything. The basic benefit is to expose the importance of your goal to a larger audience and communicate information with people who believe in the same thing.

Social media is not about marketing. It is about connecting people.

Last week I was proud to be involved in Voluntweetup with a fellow director of SMC Seattle: Shauna Causey. In her day job Shauna is a communications directors for Comcast. While juggling dozens of corporate projects she managed to coordinate Voluntweetup, which was a collection of 40+ social media professionals who volunteered our day to educate over 100 non-profit executives. The even went off extraordinarily well, producing some testimonials such as “this was the most effective day of my business life this year” and “thank you for giving us something that I could never afford, this is going to help thousands.”

The last item really highlights something for me. “I could never afford” is not something you hear in social media very often. If I use the volunteer staff of SMC Seattle as an example, you will never find a lack of interest and personal commitment. The human element of our personality drives our success in business… and when we see someone we can help, social media mindset prevails with a “brain trust” effect that brings a huge amount of problem solving to the task at hand.

In many ways this brain trust / think-tank effect was highlighted by Chris Pirillo’s Gnomedex 9.0 conference that happened last week. The focus of Gnomedex was to strengthen the human vs technology vs social adoption and convert it into community change.

This was very apparent in three different topics that Chris brought to the attention of the Gnomedex community:

The first was BlameDrewsCancer.com. According to the site ” On May 20th, 2009, Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer. Ever since that day, Drew has blamed everything on his cancer. Losing his keys, misplacing his wallet, Twitter being slow, the Phillies losing, etc. Why? Because you have to beat up on Cancer to win… and you can help out. Blame Drew’s Cancer for anything you want by tweeting with the hashtag #BlameDrewsCancer and it’ll come here. When Drew beats Cancer we hope to have sponsors that will donate a dollar for every participant to our partner, LIVESTRONG.”

Rather than be a negative experience, Drew has taken the opportunity to reach out to the social media world to make a difference to thousands of people. His presentation at Gnomedex touched everyone in some fashion, being awarded a standing ovation for his impact on our global community.

The second was how Mark Horvath is using social media to change America. Mark travels around the country and broadcast his experiences using Invisiblepeople.tv to increase awareness on the impact of our homeless community. Mark’s presentation including a local impact for Seattle with recent news about a homeless community in Seattle called Nickelsville, and with a second standing ovation at the conference was awarded with $1800 in donations that were collected by the attendees by passing around a hat.(Side note, Nicklesville received some bad news today from the Port of Seattle. If you can help them out in the Seattle area, reach out.)

The third showed everyone what we didn’t know. It was a simple “show and tell” of the latest web sites, technologies, and organizations that attendees found a benefit from. Twenty+ members got up on stage and shared everything from iPhone applications, volunteer organization sites, requests for technology help to build a better world, and everything in between. For a room full of “super savvy geeks”, it was refreshing to see that everyone in the audience learned about some great new benefits from peers that shared information that was new to them (again: Its not what you know. Its who you know, and what they know.)

This knowledge sharing and community involvement of eally shows the impact of social media.

The value is simple ROI: Return on Intelligence.

Social Media for Non-Profits

We all have meaningful ways of contributing to our community and the causes we believe in. For me, offering professional guidance and insight to non-profits and community organizations is a way that social media professionals can leverage the new landscape and make a big difference.

If you are involved with a non-profit or community related organization, this article is for you. It details the best resources I have come across for thinking out of the box and redefining involvement.

One of the biggest benefits of non-profits is that they are scrappy by nature, often required by necessity to use original thinking and guerrilla concepts to motivate people to take action. This mindset cannot be learned or adopted, it simply is. Combine the instinct to “do things that work” and a personal, heartfelt reason to be involved… and you have a powerful combination of community.

The first lesson: NEVER give up because there is “too much information.” – If you believe in the organization and what you are doing, take bite sized pieces of information and educate yourself on them. When you have “recovered” from information overload, come back and take another swing at it. If you have questions, REACH OUT AND ASK people like myself. You will find that we are either happy to give you the answer (because we like non-profits and the human condition) or that we KNOW SOMEONE who can help overcome your obstacles.

The second lesson that I always cover: enable your contributors. This rule is true whether you are involved in a Fortune 500 or a neighborhood organization. Not everyone is gifted with the ability to know how to use Twitter or reach people on Facebook. Some of the most vocal and motivational voices in your group need help getting louder. You need to give the people with heart and personal interests the means and the technology to reach your audience. This post from Mashable on 10 Ways to Support Charity Through Social Media gives a great list of enabling your members.

The third lesson is “things are changing” – keep in mind that new opportunities are being created everyday. Beth Kanter wrote 4 Ways Social Media is Changing the Non-Profit world. It highlights four main points:

• There is Deepening Relationship and Engagement
• Individuals and Small Groups are self-organizing around non-profit causes
• It is Facilitating Collaboration and Crowd-sourcing
• It is Social Change behind the Firewall

While these four points are just the start of the change, social media is fundamentally altering the way people communicate across financial, political, geographic, racial , and gender borders. Social Media is making this big world of ours a whole lot smaller. It is also teaching us more about our neighbors than ever before.

Some of my recommendations shared with my peers across the web:

Find a Voice and share it. I routinely come across non-profits that are doing amazing work, yet no one knows about them. If we look at Beth Kanter’s blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media, she has an excellent post on Foundations That Tweet: Profile Patterns. She covers a variety of organizations and the type of material they share with the audience, asking the simple question: “what voice are they using?”

Some people are visual. They need to see how things work. They need to see flowcharts and imagery. The Wild Apricot blog provided this great resource that covers a range of 26 different presentations on social media and non-profits. If that isn’t enough visualization for you, you can see these Ten Great Slideshare Presentations on Social Media for Non-profits.

Another mindset: don’t look for supporters who can help you, but who you can help. Nothing returns back to you more than offering a benefit to someone in need. The very act of lending a hand often produces a long series of lasting rewards. In one example I can point to a number of entrepreneurs we have helped here on the 123 community and they have returned favorable “thank you” from a variety of points.

Follow the examples made by extremely bright people. I can’t tell you who they are, but they are out there. Some useful voices in the conversation can be found on the FirstGiving blog,  along with the lists of top blogs on Alltop’s Fundraising and Non-Profit categories.

While there are many keys to bringing new support into your non-profit, social media gives you a unique opportunity to leverage both person-to-person and person-to-many networks. If you run into any stumbling blocks, make sure to ask questions and invite commentary.

As always, if there is a helpful resource for non-profits, fundraisers, charity, or community organizations that you know of, please add them to the commentary and share your experience.

Social Media Training – Five Must Read Reports for Big Business

Education is critical for any social media practitioner or specialist. Whether you need to redefine your business and jump into “social media” or if you just need to figure out how to talk with your team, the following reports present an immense amount of information that will make your business better.

These are not short and they will challenge what you know and what you believe.

These reports are written by industry teams from a wide set of backgrounds and viewpoints. While you may disagree with a conclusion in one, the variety of supportive information provided by the entire mixture is critical in building business case scenarios, best practices, and social media guidelines.

EngagementDB (PDF) - Charlene Li from the Altimeter group partnered with Wetpaint to provide a detailed view into the benefits and correlations of social media and brand value, along with business margins. The methodology is well thought and the presentation of essential data points is both clear and concise.

The EngagementDB site also has a quickly growing resource of brands entering the index.

“There exist thousands of social media channels, each with a slightly different value proposition. It is therefore a daunting task to figure how to objectively evaluate various marketing efforts across all social mediums. The Wetpaint/Altimeter Group ENGAGEMENTdb Report introduces a single criterion: engagement.”

Fluent: The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing Report

This paper provides a basic marketing “Social influence Marketing” (SIM) score methodology. I disagree with the basics of the formula and the simplification, but give kudos to the Razorfish team for putting out a basic framework (pg 26)

The rest of the report has a lot of valuable insight and metrics for various industry portions and guidelines for establishing best practices.

“Social Influence Marketing is about recognizing, accounting and tapping into the fact that as your potential consumer makes a purchasing decision, he or she is being influenced by different circles of people through conversations with them, both online and off. It is not enough to market to the consumer anymore; as a marketer you also have to market to each individual’s social influencers throughout the marketing funnel.”

Wave 4 – (PDF) by Universal McCann

Universal McCann produces reliable reports that have sample size significance. McCann surveyed 22,729 active internet users in 38 countries (claiming it to be the largest global analysis of social media usage.)

““Power to the People” survey has revealed dramatic changes in the way that consumers are using the internet to create and share their thoughts, pictures and videos.

Wave 4 of UM’s research into the facts behind the hype of social media reveals that social networks are becoming the dominant platform for content creation and content sharing.”

360i Social Marketing Playbook – on Slideshare

Unlike the other reports, this really is more of an overall starting point. I mention it after the others because you really should educate yourself before you contemplate how to use social media.

“Social media are marketers’ way of entering the conversation – of playing ju jitsu with consumer control of media. If today consumers can easily avoid commercial messages they deem intrusive, annoying, or irrelevant, then the central way to engage them is to engage with them. Listen to them. Respond to them. Take their ideas seriously. Change in response to their interests.”

Wave 3 – Social Media Report

Universal McCann receives a double-whammy on this run of reports, as the Wave 3 report from 2008 provides some essential insight to where we were. Without knowing where we are, we have no idea where we are going.

There are some great tidbits in this report for seeing historic trends, along with additional visuals on niches unaddressed in the 2009 Wave 4 report.

“The research has retained a consistent methodology throughout Wave 1, 2 and 3. All surveys have been scripted and hosted on Universal McCann’s in-house online research system, Intuition. All surveys are self completion and the data collected is entirely quantitative. Every market is representative of the 16-54 Active Internet Universe. In this Wave 17,000 internet users in 29 countries were interviewed. To be included you need to be using the internet everyday or every other day.”

If you found any of these useful, please share the list with your friends. +If you know of any additional reports that provide good resources and insight, please feel free to add them in the comments below or retweet using #smwp.

Next Page »