Strategy

Do you know the psychological profile that your trail of tweets tells about you? TweetPsych just may be able to tell you. Another new entrant into the ever expanding world of Twitter measurement tools,TweetPsych is uniquley different in that it seeks to provide a psychological profile of a person through deep linguistic analysis of their tweets. I'm always looking for tools that can provide insight into people's mindset and provide data that helps to build a more accurate persona, TweetPsych is a facinating discovery.

In my line of work I am often asked to explain industry-speak and buzz words; to put them into plain English and to illustrate why anyone should even care. User Experience is one topic that sparks a lot of questions and while I think most people innately understand the concept, they struggle with how to put it into words. Especially how you describe a positive user experience and what makes it so?  

Not every interaction or engagement with your brand by consumers has equal value. Especially if your goals are to influence consideration of your brand or ignite word of mouth sharing about your products.

So do you have a schema for measuring engagement with your brand across online social channels? If so, how have you determined which actions and points of interaction are the most valuable? Which get higher weighting than others?

The short answer is yes. The bigger question is how and what will it cost you.

It seems that every business today wants to discover, interact with and harness the connectedness and influence of brand ambassadors. Why? One great benefit is to stimulate authentic word of mouth through people that other people already trust and listen to, AND are outside the formal corporate brand marketing and messaging machine.

Numerous studies have been done which point to the reality of what information sources people trust and it has become clear that brand messages are way down the list while information from colleagues, peers and friends is squarely at the top.

Intel is one of a number of corporations to jump on this trend over the last year and proactively develop a network of brand ambassadors. They’ve reached out to bloggers with influence, who are articulate, opinionated and have a following of readers who listen…and likely act on the ideas these brand ambassadors put forth.

As with many programs of this type, Intel did invest some dollars in making this happen. They pulled the bloggers from the virtual world of the Internet into the real world of the Intel campus, got to know these people better and in-person, gave then an incentive of a free Mac book Air and sent them off to continue putting forth perspective on Intel products. Pretty simple, it will be interesting to watch the evolution of this program to see how the investment of time, energy and dollars pays off, I think it will.

You can read more about the “Intel Insider” brand ambassador program online here: http://www.somewhatfrank.com/2008/06/intel-insider.html. Great to see big brands that get it that organizing people with influence online often involves getting people together in the real world to further solidify connections.

Aaron Bean is the Director of Strategy at The New Group, a digital marketing agency based in Portland, Oregon. 503.248.4505

Social Media as a topic seems to come up in every conversation about marketing among professionals and companies of many types. Many people are struggling with the concept, while at its core, it is a very simple thing to understand: Social Media is about promoting relationships among individuals, for the sake of better communication. Transparency, authenticity, currency all drive this idea, and promise great rewards to anyone about to launch a blog or start promoting an idea. Be yourself, and the world will find you.

A recent article on the New York Times blog, An Icon That Says They’re Watching You,  brings up a fascinating issue in the area of behavioral analytics and consumer control. I guess the answer really depends on who you are and what the context of your desire to know is. I mean, I’d be fascinated to know what a given online advertiser knows about me that triggered them to serve me a particular advertisement or offer.

A recent post on VideoInsider (registration required--boo!) by Chris Young heralds the end of the banner ad and the dawn of the webisode as a means for advertising. It’s an interesting idea and one I personally sympathize with as someone who focuses on content strategies and user experience but I have to wonder if it’s just a little too early to start the funeral.

WHAT: FORGE Marketing Summit (Forums on Real Growth and Education) - January 15, 2009 The event will feature five of the region’s top marketing professionals. They will demonstrate cuttingedge marketing techniques proven to help small and medium sized businesses not just survive the economic downturn but EXPAND THEIR MARKET SHARE.

This is an awesome case study on just how fast messages can spread through social media channels. We’ve all read about the horror stories (hello, Comcast Must Die, et. al.), but how often do you see a company, let along a HUGE company, respond correctly?