IA Social Media Handbook

Internet Marketing Handbook Series
Become part of the online community
Network
Engagement
Brand building
Interaction
Guide to social media:

become part of the online community
On my honour, I promise that I will do my best, To do my duty to the leading media owners and agencies in the UK internet industry, To help consumers, And to keep the IAB troopers law.
Contents:
Introduction 2 What is social media 4 10 rules to get you started, from the IAB Social Media Council 6 The definition and role of social media The landscape: the rise of social media platforms and practices and the resulting consumer behaviour 8 The difference between getting it and doing it right 14 An introduction to online PR and blogging 22 The art of online conversations and the tools to help you 28 Stories, passions and actions How BRAVIA Bunnies inspired the social media conversation 34 Branded Utilities (and how brands from all sectors engage the social media consumer) 40 When creativity and display advertising meets social media 46 Using social media to increase paid-search marketing effectiveness 52 Integrating social media 58 Planning and evaluating social media campaigns 60 Social media measurement the basics 64 The future: where we are now and where we should be 70 Jargon Buster 74
SocialMedia Handbook
As an IAB trooper I promise to always use online in a respectful and responsible fashion.
Introduction
Network
By Amy Kean, Senior PR and Marketing Manager, Internet Advertising Bureau
Social media is more than a concept, and certainly more than a simple add-on to the rest of your campaign activity. Social media is more than a simple PowerPoint slide full of web 2.0 logos, and its no good to us marketers unless we know how to use it. Social media is a dynamic, exciting, and relevant communications tool, and highly effective in engaging consumers. already, right? But we all knew that
There have been some truly amazing and inspired campaigns in 2008 which really made the most of what social media offers. Weve had the Facebook, MySpace and Bebo success stories, where brands have penetrated an already-popular online presence with engaging content that people actually want to interact with - O2 and Cadbury being great examples. Theres been the standalone activity that has successfully tapped into the very essence of the online community, like Balloonacy, from Orange the first ever balloon race across the internet. A fan of widgets? In terms of creating useful online applications that get right in front of consumers on their own terms, theres been loads of brands who have flown the flag: UPS have done it to stay ahead of their competitors; so have Cancer Research, with a Google application which measures your alcohol intake; Amazons full of them and even Kimberly Clark have embraced these branded utilities (dont ask!) All this is in addition to the hundreds upon thousands of conversations that take place online every day about brands, products and services, whether you want them to or not. In July 2008 we launched the IAB Social Media Council a group comprising all the UKs major players in this space, established to help advertisers fully understand the formats available, and how to use them. One of our first jobs was to produce this handbook, and in the next fifteen or so chapters well show you how to do it properly. With essays on the rise of social platforms, their role in the media landscape, the art of conversation, a how to of online PR and blogging, plus social display advertising alongside sections on integration, planning and measurement, concluding with a compulsory look to the future (phew!), we think weve done a pretty good job.
An IAB trooper never shouts
What is social media?

Social Networks
Business Community
Blogs/Vlogs/Podcasts
Blog
Vlog
Corporate Blog
Radio (Podcasts)
Integrated
BBC.com homepage
Amazon reviews
Create shopping lists
Top 10s
Facilitators
IAB
News, blog engine
Content sharing
Blog search
Consumer Content
Branded Applications/Utilities
UPS Widget
STA Travel
Its Sunshine Oclock Pimms
Cancer Research
Crowdsourcing / Community Sites
Swapping & trading community
Music blog
Open encyclopedia
Video dictionary
Social Display advertising
Fill The Indigo by O2
Balloonacy - Orange
Supersonic by Nike
Resident Evil
An IAB trooper has self-respect and respect for others, even at industry parties.
10 rules to get you started

from the IAB Social Media Council
Brand building
An IAB trooper is interactive.
1. Dont run away: Dont dismiss social media as a fad or as just a few spotty bloggers writing in a darkened room somewhere. Social media spreads far and wide and further than you think, from Wikipedia to Facebook. Even search engine results are social media of a kind created in part by users via the pages they create and links they forward to each other. 2. Let go: And by this we dont mean let go of your brand people are already talking about your brand online so a lot of control is already out of your hands. Rather, let go in your mind; stop worrying about losing control and instead look at it for the opportunities it now offers. 3. Get a feel for it: The world of social media may be big and scary, so dont dive straight in. Take time to try out small ideas and get comfortable. Free tools such as Technorati and Google Pagerank can help pick the most salient and popular social media sites out there. Dont just look at what one person says, but what others have said in response.
4. Listen: What people are saying about your brand is, of course, important both the positives and negatives, but the true art of listening also considers this: how are they talking about it? Is it really engaged with your brand and its online presence or are you barely worth a mention? Then start thinking about what you can do around it.. 5. Negative isnt necessary bad: Not everyone is going to love you or your brand. Be prepared for some criticism, and consider it to be a healthy thing (in moderation) universal acclaim looks suspicious. Criticism can be an effective way of motivating and rallying your own supporters and evangelists. 6. Join in: Start a blog. Or a social networking presence, YouTube channel or Twitter feed whatever strand of social media fits best. Look at what your most engaged consumers are doing and make sure they are catered for. If theyre posting your ads, make more of them available and shareable. If theyre dying to sample your latest product on their blog, send them a free sample to review. 7. Let them share you: An all-Flash website with all the content locked makes it hard to share. Ditch the splash screens and intros, make sure your sites content is directly accessible and has short, easy-to-spread URLs. Dont break links by moving or deleting stuff. 8. Dont cheat! Giving yourself fake reviews on Amazon, a fan blog run by your PR team, post your latest ad to Digg saying this rocks! wont wash. Not only will you probably get found out and end up causing more negative PR than positive, but since May 2008 it has been against UK consumer law to falsely represent oneself as a consumer. 9. Speak their language: Dont blanket-send bloggers press releases, theyll just bin them and block you. Read what they have already said about you, then talk to them in plain English, avoid hyperbole and buzzwords. Keep emails short and to the point. And dont send 10MB attachments without checking if its OK first. 10. Have fun: The more you show passion for your own brand, the more your consumers will as well. Dont be afraid to experiment or try new things the flexibility and agility of web 2.0 tolerates failure a lot less harshly. Its better to give something a go than do nothing and let your competitors take the opportunity instead.
An IAB trooper makes their advertising entertaining and useful for consumers.
The definition and role of social media

by Fraser Rattray, Trade Marketing Manger at Fox Interactive Media
Network
Social media, web 2.0, widgets, tag clouds... Just some of the terms that are fast-becoming part of online vernacular. But where did these terms come from, and more importantly what do they mean?
Social media is more than the collection of sites that have entered the mainstream through the phenomenon described as web 2.0, It represents a wholesale change in the way the internet is used by the consumer. What differentiates web 2.0 from the web as we used to know it is not any notable advances in technology, but instead the application of technology. Its about people connecting, not just to each other, but through a shared interest such as a new album, a funny clip, a movie thats coming out,
a video game, a car, a party, a local venue, anything. This defines the content and culture thats important to them. No better is this illustrated than by social media - the process whereby information is dynamically created and shared to maximize collective intelligence. But hasnt the internet always been social? Instant messaging has been around since the 1980s, customers of Amazon have long enjoyed making purchase decisions based on customer reviews, and what was Friends Reunited if it wasnt a precursor to Facebook? Social networks Social networks are the most prominent of the social media offerings due to their phenomenal growth and considerable media attention. The immediacy of the internet combined with the ease of communicating to a massive audience with a strong desire for self-expression has been instrumental in this growth. Social networks offer advertisers reach and engagement at an unprecedented level, combined with clear branding opportunities. The music industry has been quick to exploit these opportunities with MySpace artist profiles swiftly replacing official band websites. As brands themselves, the artists benefit from a frequent dialogue with a loyal audience, allowing them to communicate the latest product offering, exclusive content and events, as well as providing tools to dissipate these marketing messages virally amongst their fans individual communities. The relationship is further enhanced through blogs and one-to-one communications between the band and their fans. How the portals have reacted The adoption of social networks is clearly changing the way online is consumed. Rather than a passing trend, social networks are fast becoming the default destination for all aspects of the online experience - from email to film, search to music downloads. Indeed, when 18-24 year old Brits
Network
Engagement
were asked how they would spend 15 minutes of free time, 45% claimed they would check out their favourite social networks. And they arent just killing time. These sites are being used to put cultural, creative and commercial skills to profitable effect - as seen by the growth of socioenvironmental networks, new businesses (750,000 of them) and fanzines on social networks. This behaviour has not been lost on the portals and search engines who are either developing their own social media offerings or snapping up the emerging players. Yahoo! started the ball rolling with the purchase of the online community GeoCities back in 1999 in a $3.6 billion deal which gave an early indication into the perceived value of social networking. The Sunnyvale company then went on to acquire Flickr in 2005 and video editing site Jumpcut a year later. By this time the likes of MySpace and Facebook were attracting considerable attention and keen to be player sin social networking, Yahoo! developed Yahoo! 360, although it failed to trouble these new start-ups. Nevertheless, social networks were firmly on the map and for Rupert Murdochs News Corp the $580m acquisition of MySpaces parent company Intermix Media in 2005 provided a valuable online addition. This purchase signalled the start of a scramble for a foothold in social media with the established media owners buying up the likes of YouTube (Google, $1.65bn), Bebo (AOL, $850m) and a 1.6% stake in Facebook (MSN, $240m - valuing the social network at a mind boggling $15 billion). Photo and video sharing sites Whilst a huge amount of media is uploaded onto social networks (17 million photos and 105 thousand videos are uploaded onto MySpace each day alone) there are of course specific photo and video sharing sites.
Brand building
Interaction
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Flickr is one of the earliest social media applications. Renowned for its wealth of quality photographs, this site has evolved from a tool for sharing photographs into an online community, with users prompted to find friends and view/comment on their images (as well as those from the whole community). It is credited with being one of the first sites to implement tag clouds which provide access to images tagged with the most popular keywords. YouTube has singlehandedly turned video sharing into one of the most important parts of internet culture. Although much maligned for poor quality content, 100 million videos are watched on the site each day, 13 hours of video are uploaded every minute and in 2007, YouTube alone consumed as much bandwidth as the entire internet did in 2000. This consumption only looks like increasing as sites such as these continue to exploit other channels such as mobile (including the iPhone) and TV. Social media goes mobile Many social networkers are so dependent on their online communities that they rarely use webmail accounts like Gmail and Hotmail, meaning that friends not on the same social network can fall into a communication desert. They frequently use their mobile phones to log into social networks such as MySpace - which launched a new mobile page with Vodafone in August 2008 and saw UK page views double. In fact of the UKs 21 million mobile phone subscribers who belong to a social network 25% visit a social network each month.1 This has prompted Vodafone to launch the Vodafone to Connect Friends application on Facebook, enabling all UK mobile users to send text messages from their Facebook profile to friends, whether they are on Facebook or not.
Since launching mobile internet in 2007 Vodafone has seen significant growth in customers use of social networks, email and search, says Al Russell Head of Internet Services at Vodafone UK. Working closely with internet brands such as MySpace enables us to offer a PC like experience to ten million of our customers on mobiles and allows them to make the most of the Internet whenever and wherever they are.
1 Nielsen Mobile Advertising Report; 3/08
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Blogs
Network
Engagement
Brand building
Online forums, wikis, podcasts and blogs are fundamental to social media. A blog is essentially an online diary or notebook which generally focuses on a certain subject and invites readers to leave comments. The speed at which they can be created and the low cost to entry means that blogs are often the first source for information and as such the better known ones generate a lot of interest for media professionals. Tech Crunch, Valleywag and mashable are established blogs for the industry they support and blogs, of course, have their own search engine Technorati. Another favourite social media application is Twitter. Whilst blogs are confined to online, twitter is a micro-blogging tool that allows users to send and read posts (tweets) of up to 140 characters via the Twitter website, instant messenger, SMS, RSS, email and through applications such as Twitterrific. Media owners have learnt to let go of their brand and advertisers must follow One of the most notable characteristics of social media is the amalgamation of content from different sources on the same page. This movement has been spearheaded by the consumer and media owners have learnt not only to let go, but also to encourage developers to create applications to host external content on their sites and more importantly port their content elsewhere. For example, the BBC has long provided RSS feeds of their news items for consumers to paste into the personal profiles and Yahoo! is looking to open up its music offering to Apples iTunes and Amazon. This practice is due to an agreement known as OpenSocial a set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for web-based social network applications developed by Google, MySpace and a number of other social networks as an alternative to the facebook platform. Bebo, Friendster, hi5,
Interaction
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orkut, Linked In and Yahoo! are amongst those supporting the platform. Advertisers must learn from this and accept that with social media its all too easy for their brands to be interpreted in different ways through mashups and talked about on blogs, networks and offline communications. Consumers are incredibly brand-savvy and expect more from advertisers particularly when they appear on their own personal web space. If they get it right, they can harness the power of this movement quickly and with minimal effort - as Chris Moyles did when plugging his radio show Facebook page, rapidly attracting 500,000 evangelists of the show and influencing countless others through their individual communities. Through this viral marketing how many of these friends will become listeners and how many listeners will become super-listeners? Why is Chris Moyles so big? What makes one blog, video or social network profile an overnight sensation whilst the next disappears into the abyss? Naturally the relevance of the content and the offline vehicles for its promotion help greatly. There is a great deal of overlap between the Chris Moyles Show and the Facebook audience but the main driver is of course the content. As mentioned before people are connecting through a shared interest, in this case the fabric of the show itself and their ability to determine the content moments before it goes on air. But there is also a science to it. It is known as social media optimization. No discussion on social media would be complete without mentioning Wikipedia and its definition of SMO is a set of methods for generating publicity through social media, online communities and community websites. In short it is about keeping your content fresh, linking to those who link to you, making it easy to tag and bookmark your content (through Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, Del.icio. us etc) and finally letting go of the brand a little. Its their brand now so encourage them to take your content and play with it.
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The landscape: The rise of social media platforms and practices and the resulting consumer behaviour
by Alastair Little, Senior Digital Communications Manager EMEA, Universal McCann
Engagement
Subject: You have a new email somewhere else Life has changed dramatically over the past few years. I used to drift pleasantly through the day, doing things that I wanted to do and pursuing my own goals. Now my hours are filled for me.
At time of going to press I have 406 unread emails in Hotmail, including one from Mr Wang Chan, an Executive Director of The Bank of China, offering me access to unclaimed funds at his bank, as well as untold numbers of MySpace friend requests from bands I dont know. I have 149 unread Facebook messages, which means Ive had at least 149 emails to my work account telling me that someone has sent me a message on Facebook. Since when did I need an email to tell me I have a new email?
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When I do log on to Facebook for a bit of housekeeping, someone pops up on Facebook Messenger to tell me about their day. This is ironic, since whenever I log on to Windows Live Messenger at work, that is exactly what I end up doing all day. Its a good laugh though. Never before have I had such an endless supply of entertainment in my life nor have I been quite so distracted. Were all media owners now In the US, social networking site MySpace has overtaken Yahoo! as the biggest player in the online market growth which is directly propelled by the deluge of user-generated content. Media comes from more sources than ever before, a challenging trend for advertisers trying to capture consumers attention. Alongside internet usage, 83% of mobile phones in Europe have cameras and 99% of their owners have used that functionality, with a further two-thirds claiming to have sent a picture MMS to friends.2 My phone has a 5MP camera and features a 140 MHz processor. Its hard to believe that the original Nintendo Entertainment System ran on just over 5 MHz of power. As the march of Moores Law continues, content creating hardware (and software) will become more accessible, more powerful and more empowering. GarageBand, Windows Movie Maker and iPhoto are all bundled with hardware; I can now get a version of Pro Tools, the music industrys standard studio workstation, for about 300 which is incredibly powerful software. The net result of this (no pun intended) is that big media companies have experienced an explosion of potential competitors. As have advertisers. The digital media landscape, particularly where its social (most of it), has become democratic: social networks and companies like Google (see the Android Developer Challenge) are encouraging a barrage of contributions to the internet through open application programming interfaces (APIs); Twitter was created in 24 hours using Ruby on Rails and is now a multimillion dollar business; anyone can create a fully functioning blog for free in minutes using services like Blogger and Wordpress.
Source: Any Time, Any
Place: Understanding The Connected Generation (Universal McCann)
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Source: A Baby Bell
Primed For The Big Fight, Edmund L. Andrews (The New York Times)
Source: Any Time, Any
In 1993, the Chairman & CEO of Bell Atlantic said, The time is not far off when you will be answering your television set and watching your telephone.3 What sounds like a futuristic statement to some has become a reality for users of the iPhone and other such handsets. Their phone usage provides an early snapshot of mass consumer behaviour in the future, over-indexing as they do against sophisticated computing habits. Already in Japan, only 24% of mobile phone usage is attributed to calls and there are only three markets left in the world where that figure is north of 60%: Thailand, Taiwan and the US. 4 Q4 2007 Data Usage (past Month) iPhone Owners 18+ Compared to All Subscribers 18+
All Subscribers 18+ SMS (Short Message Service) Email IM (Instant Message) MMS (Multimedia Service) Video Message Wireless Internet Ringtone Full-Track Music Games Downloaded Online Games Video/Mobile TV Software Application Download GPS (Global Positioning System) 43% 12% 9% 19% 5% 13% 15% 3% 8% 2% 3% 5% 3% iPhone Subscribers 18+ % INDEX 73% 78% 21% 30% 18% 76% 32% 36% 11% 10% 35% 34% 28% 168 665 237 157 374 607 210 1117 147 426 1226 629 839
Source: Nielsen Mobile Attitude and Behaviour Survey (Q4 2007)
As for answering your TV, Yahoo! and Intel have announced their plans to develop widgets for televisions. Anything that can be digitized will be widgetized (sorry), allowing further sharing and distribution of multimedia content.
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As Wi-Fi becomes ubiquitous, and even more so when WiMAX becomes economically viable, we will see whole counties (possibly the whole of the UK) become wirelessly enabled. Its never been as easy to contribute to the media landscape and more access points and platforms, coupled with higher data transfer speeds across all formats, will propel this trend of consumer participation in the media. Talk to the hand Google says there is roughly 14 hours of video uploaded onto YouTube every single minute, which is a staggering statistic. I prefer the perspective of La Times blogger David Sarno (a.k.a. Web Scout), who in February 2008 wrote: Web Scouts First Law of Internet Culture: 99% of everything is crap YouTube has nearly 70,000,000 videos, so many of which are terrible that you wouldnt be mathematically remiss by rounding its crap fraction up to 100%.5
Source: http://
latimesblogs.latimes. com/webscout/2008/02/ facebook-graffi.html
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Network
Engagement
Well put sir. But even 0.01% of 70 million still leaves 7,000 videos for my friends to enjoy and share with me as links, emails, messages, etc. Add that to the stuff I want to consume of my own volition music, podcasts, BBC iPlayer, GTA IV, beer, steak and chips and suddenly its understandable that the last thing on earth I have time for is an unnecessary pop-up advert. If I wasnt looking for you or your product, the least you can do is give me something special enough to be worth talking about down the pub. To grab peoples attention is harder than ever. Hardly anyone goes to brand websites because there are too many better things to do and only so many hours in the day. How many brand pages on social networking sites are out there with less than 200 fans? Even if you reach out to consumers, they can close their browser, ignore your ad or better still blog about how annoying you are to the hundreds of people in their social network or subscription base. Its all on the consumers terms now. This is indicative of the on-demand behaviour that is becoming the norm across all media channels (see Sky+ and BBC Radio 1 podcasts for two examples), which is what makes understanding social media so important. Brands need to start leveraging their relationships and resources to bring truly awe-inspiring experiences, opportunities and services to their desired audience. Case study: Intel Powers Music In H2 2007, Intel wanted to engage music creators and convey the benefits of multi-core processing. The brand promise was Multiply Your Music, so Universal McCann created a pan-European MySpace music programme that delivered this on two levels.
Brand building
Interaction
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MySpaces calling card since inception was the 4-track music player, which bands would install to showcase their demos. In delivering the brand promise, Intel launched the official 5-track music player, literally allowing bands to multiply their music on the social network. While this exclusive sponsorship undoubtedly brought value to the audience, it was deemed that something more would be needed to drive excitement and allow the brand to spend time with its consumers.
In solving this problem Intel launched the Supergroup initiative, asking the MySpace audience in six European markets to vote for their favourite singer, guitarist, bassist and drummer from anywhere in the world, to form one MySpace Supergroup. 6 million profile views, 61,000 friends and over 25,000 artist submissions later, the winning band members were chosen.
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Network
Engagement
Those winners were then flown to London for four days, rehearsing in Bush Studios in Shepherds Bush, before going to Universal Music to record a single in their studios, which is out now on iTunes and all major digital music stores. The artwork and band name were also chosen by the MySpace community, who were handed full control of the project. In addition to recording a single for the worlds largest record label, we arranged for the winners to each have a one-on-one interview with Louis Bloom a top A&R executive at Island Records and 2007s second most successful A&R man in the world according to www.HitQuarters.net (to put that in perspective, Simon Cowell was ranked number eight). Louis listened to their demos and gave them advice on how to further their careers, a truly invaluable experience for any aspiring musician. A Dynamic Logic study showed that all of this excitement, coupled with great content from Intel on how to get the most out of home studio recording, yielded massive spikes in brand affinity metrics and purchase intent across the hundreds of thousands of people that visited the Intel MySpace page. Moving forward So whos doing what, and why is it significant? Amazon and Play.com have shown us that user reviews and lists are now so much more powerful than the product write-up. Brands such as McDonalds, Dell and Cancer Research UK all have consumer feedback forums and blogs allowing people to interact directly. Even Google, Yahoo! and Facebook all have company blogs that allow them to communicate instantly with their everexpanding audiences. In a sense, this means going back to basics - in the absence of call-centre staff consumers still want to be able to talk to someone, to voice their concerns and even give credit where credit is due, rather than being directed to a set of frustrating online FAQs.
Brand building
Interaction
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Weve always consumed media socially but its becoming far more automated. In the short term, our web activity is going to get more communal. Services like OpenSocial, Facebook Connect and Microsoft Live ID are battling it out to become a singular log-in point for users across the web. If one becomes the standard, well see many websites sign up to the service so they can capitalise on registration details and behavioural activity by increasing the relevancy of their advertising (and charging media buyers a premium in the process). This also involves displaying search results and other content based on our social graphs, which means what our social network friends have clicked on will be deemed more relevant. Consider Microsofts deal to integrate Live Search within Facebook. This will have a profound effect on the way search is displayed to users, as the social graph maps over mathematical algorithms. In the longer term, we will see many more examples of this to come, across a multitude of media platforms. Intel and Yahoo!s TV widgets are just the start.
Source: http:// latimesblogs.latimes. com/webscout/2008/02/ facebook-graffi.html
Sex and the City Carries Mac Book campaign

New Media Maze New Media Maze developed a campaign for the Sex and the City movie - Carries Mac Book Users were given faked access to Carries macbook using a flash interface. Challenges were set and completed through a series of user participated chats with Carries friends, and users were then rewarded with access to exclusive Sex and the City content.
Social media in action

confident and helpful.
An IAB trooper is friendly, knowledgeable,
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An IAB trooper puts their advertising in front of the right people
The difference between getting it and doing it right

by Marcus Siddons, Media and Mobile Director, Graphico
Brand building
Social media can look like an easy bandwagon to jump on. Most of us use social media whether its shopping comparison sites, YouTube or some form of messenger, but understanding how these might be used from a brands perspective can involve a different mindset. While most marketers have a solid understanding of how to research, plan and implement campaign-based media activity, social media can require a different approach.
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Anyone with access to the internet can do it thats the essence of social media but for a brand to do it right involves a real understanding of the medium. As a first important step therefore, living and breathing social media is vital. If you want to get more involved with photo-sharing, for example, then make sure youve got an account with each of the key sites. The second key differentiator for those who are doing it right is an understanding that social media is not, on the whole, campaign based activity (although it can of course play an important role in this). Consumers are talking about, and interacting with your brand 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Social media is therefore like oxygen to the current generation of connected youth in particular your social media strategy needs to reflect this raising important considerations in terms of how you resource it both internally and via third party agencies. This may seem like common sense but is essential in gaining consumer understanding. At Dells business notebook launch, Andy Lark shared his views on social media (http://www.uberpulse.com/us/2008/08/social_media_ is_dells_core_marketing_strategy_video.php): The Social Media Team is the core of Dells businesss marketing strategy. The dedicated team focus on listening to the customers by engaging with blogs, wikis, forums etc. The other elements of marketing are less important as they have become more transactional and tactical in nature, whereas social media is much more strategic, says Lark. Its about how you use listening and coalescing with conversations that are going on to back up and inform everything you do. He suggests the notion of traditional media was killed a while ago.
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Network
Engagement
Brand building
Social media is also often best viewed as a research and insight activity. It gives brands an unprecedented chance to listen to and respond to consumers. While understanding target audiences clearly remains important, social media is better viewed as a way of exposing the trends around wider topics and understanding how your brand should (or shouldnt) respond. This is not therefore about a small representative group of people in the form of a focus group but the chance to access a World Wide Web-sized focus group. This requires a real shift in thinking. Top 5 differentiators between those that get it and do it right:
Interaction
1. Understand Social Media activity runs 24hrs a day, 365 days a year. 2. Resource it correctly (i.e. have the right internal and external teams in place). 3. Value all engagement even if it doesnt create an obvious and immediate benefit (research and associated insights can be hugely valuable). 4. Expect the unexpected results are sometimes far better or worse than anticipated. If the message has been correctly constructed, it will have an effect on the recipient, even if they dont get back to you. 5. Exploit your own website consumers have high levels of trust in brand websites. Case study for Slicethepie.com Slicethepie is an innovative business model described as an online financing engine for the music industry that turns every music fan into a record label. Launched in June 2007, it was recently named by Wired Magazine as one of the Top 10 Hottest Music Sites in the world.
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It harnesses the power of the internet to enable music fans to: Discover Invest in and share in the financial success of emerging artists A word of mouth campaign was planned and implemented pre-launch in order to: Drive band registrations pre-launch Raise awareness of Slicethepie ahead of the site launch Why was word of mouth marketing used for it? WOMM was the natural choice for the pre-launch phase for a number of reasons: Firstly, it was felt that it would be the right medium to build credibility for Slicethepie. Secondly, as the concept was new and it needed a proper conversation to introduce it. WOMM was identified as the ideal medium to open such a conversation with key individuals. Thirdly, the internet has played a key role in changing the music industry in the period preceding Slicethepies launch and so it was the natural medium through which to work. Finally, the fact that Slicethepies business model is internet-based and will appeal to internet savvy individuals confirmed WOMM as the correct approach.
An IAB trooper puts their advertising in front of the right people
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What was the aim of the campaign?

Network
Engagement
The key objective was to drive registrations pre-launch. Those who registered were able to enter the first Arena. It was also important to create a credible buzz prior to the launch and so get key influencers talking about the concept and the site. How was the campaign rolled out using word of mouth?
Brand building
A team of buzz marketers worked through a number of channels to open conversations. This was carried out in an open and transparent manner.
Interaction
MySpace and Bebo proved excellent sources of contacts and the team used an informal and personal approach - posting comments and messaging. Personalising messages was vital. A sophisticated influence tracking system identified key individuals in the broader blogosphere and also on niche music sites. A direct conversation was then opened with them to introduce the Slicethepie concept and get their feedback. Initially, the contact didnt reveal the brand name, but rather created interest and asked if the recipient would like to be involved. For those who responded positively, a second communication was sent which included the name and also linked to a YouTube area which featured a couple of user testing videos (one longer taster video and one shorter funny clip). The final message gave bands exclusive password access to the prelaunch site. After the launch, a Facebook application was created which targeted people within a social networking environment. The Facebook apps focussed on the most chattable aspects of the site and featured Slicethepies Watch List and Scout Profile areas.
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What were the results? June 2008 was the first anniversary of the launch of www.slicethepie. com and heres an extract from their RSS feed: Its been exactly one year to the day since the Slicethepie website launched! One year has seen a vast number of achievements and with 16 financed Artists, 4 awards, over 1/4 million pounds raised in total, 10,000 Artists signed up so far, an army of 60,000 music fans and Investors and over 1 million reviews submitted to date. The WOMM campaign was fundamental to the success of the concept. It exceeded target registrations pre-launch but most importantly, targeted the right people, delivering valuable feedback and enabling the concept to build credibility pre-launch, from which the site has grown.

O2 Fill the Indigo campaign
AIS London O2 asked archibald ingall stretton to raise awareness of their music credentials and deliver a real experience for the brand thought - Were better, connected. So, they took the Indigo2 venue - the live music venue next to the arena in The O2 which has witnessed show-stopping sets from the likes of Prince, Crowded House and the Manic Street Preachers - and matched it with the simple premise - if you can fill it, you can win it. By firstly setting up a guest list on thinkyouarepopular.com entrants were then encouraged to use their social networking skills to recruit friends. This was the ultimate test of popularity and social networking skills.
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An IAB trooper has faith in online, even in times of recession
An introduction to online PR and blogging

by Lloyd Salmons, Director of Outside Line
Interaction
Peoples perception of online PR takes many forms, so firstly I thought I would offer up my perspective of what this entails. To me, online PR is the practice of building relationships with digital media owners, in order to leverage promotional benefit for your brand or product. The best way to do this is to create ideas and campaigns, which are sympathetic to the wants and needs of the digital media owner and their audience.
This means that coverage is gained through an editorially led route as opposed to a straight paid-for media route, which arguably has a greater impact on the reader, as it encourages conversation and a deeper engagement with the brand than a superficial piece.
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Who are digital media owners? Traditionally digital media owners were the portals owned by major ISPs and search engines such as Yahoo!, and print publications that had a strong online presence, from The Guardian to NME, that are now as successful if not more prevalent online than they are in print. The success of these sites saw a new wave of online-only publications spring up, sites such as Slate or Pitchfork have been built specifically on web audiences and have little or no offline presence. Often these brands will have a smaller readership but what they do offer is an opportunity to reach a targeted and dedicated audience. However in todays world, the landscape of the digital media owner has changed dramatically, with the real sea change being the ability to self publish. The advent of free publishing tools, faster and wider provision of broadband and cheaper high-quality cameras and videocameras have led to the dawn of web 2.0, which has meant that anybody now can publish their own content and media online. Blogs, forums, wikis, social networking sites (to name just a few) have created a new breed of publisher, one with no start up cost, no commercial imperative, and most importantly no editorial guidelines. A person with a point of view can now reach a vast audience. All they need to do to grow their readership is to be committed and passionate about a subject and if people like what they say their audience will blossom. Whats more the opinion of these self publishers is often taken as a more trusted source of information than traditional forms of media, certainly when it comes to product reviews.
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Network
Engagement
This has led those traditional online media providers to change and adapt. Mainstream sites are adding social features such as commenting, UGC uploading and content sharing. This is the first step in the web becoming a truly conversational ecosystem. All of this means brands now have a myriad of promotional opportunities online. There is a community for just about every topic imaginable, but playing in this new environment means adapting your techniques as the old rules no longer apply. Conversation is king
Brand building
Interaction
The rise in social media has led to change in the way we see communication with consumers. The previous broadcast model was a monologue where messages were crafted but now people are actively participating and responding to what they watch and read. This means the best campaigns are crafted to create dialogue with consumers. Campaigns should contain components which generate discussion in blogs and forums, content which is easily shared through social bookmarking and embeddable in other media. The end result should be a much wider exposure to the initial outreach. Whats more, it doesnt have to be a one hit wonder, as consumers respond the brand can join in the debate, respond and react. By participating and engaging in your audiences activities you have a real opportunity to connect with your consumer and make more meaningful relationships with them. Different rules or techniques This is all very well, but brands may be worried that if they engage in social media they are somehow losing control. There is good and bad news here.
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If you type your brands name into Google, you will see an alternative homepage, created by other people who are already talking about you so the control that you desire has already been conceded for the most part. Brands that recognise this and seek to become active members of these communities, enhancing and enriching said community can help to shape the thoughts and opinions of key influencers which, in turn, benefits them. It can be tempting in this environment to take the easy route, of just using blogs and wikis to promote your product or brand without disclosure, using the comments or UGC saying xxx is great! After all, whats the worst that can happen? The answer is simple. If you lie, you will get caught out; authenticity and trust are key factors in the social media environment and brands that have tried pulling the wool over consumers eyes have been named and shamed with relish by bloggers and since 2008, not only do you lose brand value and trust by doing so, but it is now against the law, so the risk has a legal dimension. The alternative, while it looks and sounds harder, is the one that reaps rewards in the long run. Be authentic. Dont shy away from criticism, and engage with your detractors as well as your enthusers. The brands of the future will be the brands that converse, and just like a face-to-face conversation, nobody likes being lied to. Summary This doesnt mean that suddenly marketing has changed forever and everything that once was is no longer in effect, in fact far from it. What it means is that online we have new opportunities. We can mix up the approach and have seen that brands that engage communities in a meaningful way are reaping the benefits.
An IAB trooper has faith in online, even in times of recession
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Steve Rubel SVP with Edelman Digital created some thoughts around this which sums things up perfectly so, with kind permission, here it is:
Network
Engagement
1) Controlled Communication: One-way tactics such as TV advertising, online advertising and media relations that are great for branding and visibility, but are seldom collaborative. Whats old still works.
Brand building
Participation
Interaction
Open Communication
Online initiatives such as viral videos, that are designed to generate discussion, but not necessarily produce a shared outcome.
Open Collaboration
Win-win initiatives that open a dialogue toward reaching a broader goal.
Controlled Communication
One-way tactics such as TV advertising, online advertising and media relations.
Controlled Collaboration
Programmes that facilitate participation but are more controlled e.g. Dell IdeaStorm
Passive Talk Action
2) Open Communication: Online initiatives, such as viral videos, that are designed to generate discussion, but not necessarily produce a shared outcome. Most corporate blogs are often up in this quadrant. The more collaborative blogs move right. 3) Controlled Collaboration: Programs that facilitate participation but are more controlled, for example numerous efforts to solicit consumer generated ads. 4) Open Collaboration: Win-win initiatives that open a dialogue towards reaching a broader goal.
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The Carphone Warehouse X Factor Challenge

CHI & Partners
The X Factor Challenge lets viewers sing and draw themselves for a chance to appear on TV during the shows ad breaks. Having the web experience at its centre, the campaign uses TV, mobile and social media to engage the user in different levels. From simply watching and judging someones performance to creating their own, sharing it via their mobile and, ultimately, starring on TV. On the site, users can get the lyrics for eight classic singalong tracks and then choose to record their performance via a freephone number on their mobile or their computers microphone, also creating an animated character. They can then send performances to friends as an email, upload it as a personalised message to Facebook and even send it on, for free to their mobile as a video ringtone.
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An IAB trooper belongs to the world wide web.
The art of online conversations and the tools to help you

by Richard Pentin, Senior Strategist at Digitaltmw
Network
Theres a plethora of ways for brands to engage consumers in social media but proactively engaging in direct online conversations is probably one of the least practiced. And for good reason. This has its fair share of booby traps, minefields and trip wires to deter even the most adventurous of marketers. Get it right however and you probably have one of the most purist forms of one-to-one marketing there is.
Whether you like it or not, consumers are probably talking about your brand in blogs, social networks, forums and chat rooms. Whilst some will be raving about you, others may be ranting about you in equal measure. Or worst case scenario, they may not be talking about your brand at all!
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This presents the brands of today with a simple choice: ignore it and live with the consequences or learn to embrace it. In this chapter we will try to explain how a brand might try to embrace it, whilst mastering the art of online conversations. We provide a helpful framework on how to approach this whilst also highlighting some of the potential pitfalls to avoid. 1 Buzz monitoring The secret of a good conversationalist is to listen to your audience before blindly diving in head first. The same logic applies to any brand wishing to join a conversation in social media. Fortunately, there are a number of tools at your disposal to do this. Free social media tracking tools
Technorati, Google Blog Search, Blogpulse, digg and reddit are just some of the free resources available to help you track social media. These tools can basically tell you when your brand - or your competitors for that matter - are being mentioned. There are also ways to track blog comments, such as co.mments.com which is useful if you want to see how a conversation unfolds.
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Network
Engagement
But not all conversations happen on blogs. Forums and message boards can be brimming with discussions about your brand and you wouldnt even know about it. Fortunately sites such as boardtracker.com will keep an eye out for you and even inform you by RSS whenever your brand crops up. What about if people post a video about your brand? Well Google Video has that covered too - pretty useful if it happens to be a damaging or misleading review on your product or services and even better if its singing your praises as you might want to link some of these on your corporate website or blog. Fee-based social media tracking tools If youre looking for something a little more involved you can buy a licence from a press clippings provider. These companies have feeds from all the major publications in the UK, Europe, US or rest of the world and will issue a number of search agents with the licence so that you can track important keywords across the net and forward any relevant articles to key stakeholders. If you want to listen at an aggregate level then you may want to consider hiring the services of a specialist buzz monitoring company. These companies have sophisticated proprietary tracking tools to monitor conversations as well as determine whether the threads are generally positive or negative. Some can even tell how influential a given blogger might be. 2. Reactive engagement strategies Having identified and listened to conversations about the brand you can then decide how best to respond. Sometimes its best to let sleeping dogs lie but there are occasions when you may want to respond to a negative or positive conversation. On a macro level you may need to refine your PR strategy, do a tactical campaign (e.g. T5 is now working campaign
Brand building
Interaction
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for Terminal 5) or you might need to channel this feedback into new product development. On a micro level you might even participate directly in the original conversation itself. If you want to adopt the latter approach its worthwhile considering recruiting and training professional members of staff about the brand, product or campaign. However, if the salary bill doesnt quite stretch that far its possible to hire specialist moderators to act on your behalf. Provided they are fully briefed and given clear Rules of Engagement, they can provide a level of personal service to your target audience which is normally reserved for the shop floor or call centre. The numbers of brands who actually operate in this space are limited but there perhaps lies the opportunity. 3. Proactive engagement strategies Proactive engagement strategies involve creating opportunities to talk about your brand or sector when none exist already. If you look at discussion forums within your sector and find there are no opportunities to talk about your product category or brand, why not create one and kick start the conversation?
Case study 1: Infiniti
Infiniti, the luxury car brand of Nissan, recruited a network of moderators across Europe with the specific remit to participate in online conversations and field questions about the brand as it approached its official launch in Europe. Using a number of blog alerts and news feeds the moderators were able to identify Infiniti-related articles and blog posts and provide additional information or guidance about the brands arrival in Europe. They were completely transparent in their association with Infiniti and since Infiniti was a relatively unknown commodity the moderators presence was largely welcomed as a valuable source of information. During 2 months of the campaign going live, the moderators engaged in more than 1000 conversations. In fact, 13% of Infinitis web traffic originated from these very sites alone.
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Case study 2: Whitehall Counter Terrorist Unit

You wouldnt normally associate the Whitehall Counter Terrorist Unit with the art of online conversations but if recent press reports are to be believed maybe brands should take note. According to a secret Home Office paper leaked to the Guardian, Whitehall counter-terrorism experts intend to exploit social media to taint the al-Qaida brand. They aim to do this by channelling certain messages through volunteers in internet forums as part of their global propaganda campaign. By law, commercial brands have to be much more transparent than this but its interesting that the CTU have recognised the power of conversation in social media in their quest to influence consumer opinion.
4 Dos and donts 1) No spamming dont bombard sites indiscriminately. 2) No astroturfing - dont pretend to be someone youre not. Not only is it unethical, its now against the law! 3) Be transparent ensure your moderators clearly state their identity in their profiles. 4) Add value brands are not normally welcome in these environments so only participate if you have something of genuine value to say. 5) Act with humility - always act with a degree of humility and dont be too pushy. 6) Dont hit and run if you start a conversation be prepared to finish it. Sociological studies on conversation analysis reveal you need a series of turn-taking or repair scenarios to hold a legitimate conversation, so make sure you have enough new content or advice to provide ongoing dialogue. 7) Rule with an iron fist dont give your moderators free rein. Tight Rules of Engagement are key to ensure you retain control and they work within clearly defined remits.
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8) Reporting empower your moderators to report back to you as its impossible to monitor every conversation in real time, particularly if its in multiple languages. Also make sure escalation procedures are in place to ensure you react to any potential problems quickly and efficiently. 9) Spot check factor in several spot checks after the campaign has finished. In this day and age when you think you need the latest widget or viral asset to capture the consumers attention, its often easy to overlook the most basic of communication tools at our disposal - the art of making conversation. After all, isnt that what marketing is really all about?
Source 1. Buzz monitoring: 25 free social media tracking tools www.marketingpilgrim.com 2. Marketers stealth on the web will not pay for long by Ben Richards and Faris Yakob, Financial Times, 26 May 2006, 3. Revealed: Britains secret propaganda war against al-Qaida by Alan Travis, home affairs editor, The Guardian, 26 Aug 2008 4. The value of online conversations by Brian Solis, PR 2.0 blog, 17 January 2008
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An IAB trooper is to be trusted.
Stories, passions and actions

How BRAVIA Bunnies inspired the social media conversation
by Katy Howell, Managing Director, Immediate Future

Engagement
Of the plethora of emerging models and methods for engaging with social media, amplifying a brand marketing campaign can often be the simplest way to start the conversation. A company can maximise existing assets, build expectation, heighten awareness and create an ongoing dialogue that can be the beginning of a strong relationship between brand and online influencer.
Sony Europes BRAVIA team proactively engaged the social media consumer with its advertising campaigns and inspired high levels of buzz and chatter. Establishing relationships with influencers enabled the electronics giant to maintain trusted dialogue with advocates long after the campaign ended.
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The final advert in the Sony BRAVIA trilogy was eagerly awaited by bloggers, forums and power networkers alike, so it was imperative that the brand met expectations. Moreover, with the increasing numbers of active social network consumers there is always an opportunity to engage with new advocates. Consumer action: See it, trust it, do it Amplifying a campaign is a great way to start participating in the conversation, but there is a great deal more value for the brand. As a discrete programme, this technique increases visibility across search engines and popular sites ensuring greater awareness, even before the advertising launches, whilst the proliferation of positive comments banks brand equity and safeguards reputation. Finally, whilst conversation is not a comfortable place for an obvious call to action, peer recommendations do drive traffic to websites, encourage views of video and inspire downloads of content to share. The result is an enrichment of the whole marketing campaign by intensifying the messages and deepening the communications. Talkability: stuff that inspires the chatter A key element to triggering the conversation and inspiring ongoing dialogue is the need for a value exchange. In social media the value comes from providing social currency or social objects. This is sharable content that encourages bloggers, networkers and chatterers to talk about a brand. Sometimes its content that is entertaining, often its informative and increasingly its participative. It could be video, photographs, a game, an infographic or even a tech spec anything that is easily exchanged and has value for the brands network of influencers.
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Network
Engagement
Brand building
In an integrated marketing campaign, content is being produced by many marketing disciplines from above the line through to digital marketing. The opportunity is to pool the assets and create simple extensions such as behind the scenes and outtakes. For Sony BRAVIA, the multi-coloured Play-Doh bunnies pouring through the streets of New York (made possible through the use of Stop Motion animation, seen in films like Wallace and Gromit) to a thumping track by the Rolling Stones, provided ample assets for triggering online chatter. Storytelling: quirky, exclusive and shareable
Interaction
If social currency is the trigger, then it is storytelling that is the bullet that carries the invitation for dialogue. Social media consumers want to tell stories. Whether its a blog post, a comment or a tweet, it is the story that inspires the passing-on of information. Make it secret, exclusive and shareable and the brand story will take on a life of its own as it is told across the web. Add keyphrase rich content and link to relevant landing pages and you also create a vehicle for search engine optimisation. Then as the stories spread, they connect a network of influencers discussing the brand and products that benefits SEO and raises awareness. Passion: connecting to people Conversations dont focus on groups of networkers that fit into neat demographic profiles. People follow passions, and creators and influencers tend to be the most passionate conversers. Finding these influencers starts with uncovering all the conversations associated with the brand, its campaign and relevant topics. For the BRAVIA campaign, core interest groups were discovered that included advertising, technology and style communities. Clusters that were also relevant were New York networks (the shoot location), film production and arts and culture groups.
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Within each interest cluster two types of influencer were identified using clear and measurable metrics: those that had popularity and those that had authority. This allowed stories and assets to be tailored to relevant interest clusters and for conversations to be had with influencers that would spread the word and raise awareness, as well as influencers whose endorsement of the brand would be valued in their community. Timing: optimising the conversation For Sony, the key to campaign success was the timely nature of conversations picking the right points to ignite discussions. Anticipation was built throughout August and September, ahead of the October ad launch.
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Network
Engagement
Brand building
Stories were carefully released as teasers and sneak previews, exclusives and insights: supplying influencers with new information about the advert and distributing assets such as the making of video and limited images of multi-coloured bunnies. By the end of the campaign, storytelling, distribution of assets and consumer sharing, generated in increase of almost 700,000 brand mentions. To introduce the advert to a wider online audience, the teaser for the ad was posted on video sharing sites such as YouTube and DailyMotion, driving further interest ahead of the launch with over 200,000 views. Post launch, the full commercial was posted - attracting more than half a million views.
Interaction
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One step further: real world and real time Meeting influencers offline can deepen the engagement with social media. Sony brought a select number of bloggers to the ad shoot in New York, where they were given the chance to meet members of the production team to gather exclusive content for their postings. Micro blogging site Twitter was used by Sonys Ruth Speakman to keep influencers updated on events as they happened across the course of the shoot, providing a live feed of exclusive content to followers. Sony listened to the conversations from the start of the campaign. Questions were answered, issues addressed and requests for further information always met. Benchmarking: establishing metrics for ongoing communications Beyond the hard numbers of views, brand mentions, coverage, sentiment and search results, Sony gained recognition within the blogosphere for its willingness to engage with influencers. The data also provided Sony with clear benchmarks for continuing the conversation and creating further campaigns. Sony Europe now has a continuous programme of social media engagement that manages the brand reputation and maintains conversations throughout the year.
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IAB troopers interact every day
Branded utilities
(and how brands from all sectors engage the social media consumer)
by Anthony Effik, Head of Planning, Publicis Modem
Brand building
Two new forces changing the web There is fossil evidence that suggests the use of tools has been central to human evolution. Tools help us both consume and produce more. The more advanced our tools, the more productive we are and the more indulgent we can be to ourselves. The World Wide Web is perhaps our most advanced tool yet, and is still evolving. The next few years promise to usher in a new phase of change, driven by the emergence and blending of two new sets of tools the notion of the branded utility, and the use of social media. Both promise to revolutionise the web and the way brands and consumers interact.
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Applications in The Cloud We no longer need to buy shrink-wrapped software from giants like Microsoft, but can now instead use them free over the web in exchange for having advertising presented to us on that page. The advances in web technology mean that the differences between a web page and a software application have become blurred. These applications vary from accountancy software, to email systems like Hotmail, through to maps, and Google Docs word processor and spreadsheet applications. They are centrally stored in a place that is now being called the Cloud, and can be accessed from anywhere. Thousands of the new applications are being created by firms, such as Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft and Facebook that are aiming to profit from the Cloud, through the selling of advertising. How social media has raised the bar Brands are now trying to catch up with this new world. Weve moved from a web where you simply read from, to a web that you can also write onto. The bar has been raised, and old school approaches based on messages are being replaced by brands focusing on helping by creating applications that are both useful and/or entertaining to their audiences. This is the idea of the branded utility. This move is necessitated by the need to standout in a world full of the noisy sound of conversations, where there are billions of web pages indexed on Google, and Technorati tracking 112.8 million blogs and over 250 million pieces of tagged social media.
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From head to hand
From head to hand Brands are also increasingly creating applications for the Cloud in an attempt to cut-through the clutter and competition on the web, setting out to develop advertising so good, it is a service. The age of conversations moves the focus of brands from the head to the hand, from messages to experiences. Experiences created through branded applications that demonstrate the brand, or enable the customer.
Image 1. The new model versus the branded utility model
Some brands are running into the Cloud already An iconic recent example is the Nike+iPod Sports Kit that allows you to set up music playlists for your running, track your runs, and is fully integrated into a Nike+ website where you can connect with others in a community, analyse your runs, and do much more. There is also the New York City Department of Education Million project, which is an interactive rewards program that gives free mobile phones to students who then have to earn free talk time and text-messaging rewards through measured performance in school attendance, behaviour, classroom participation, homework and grades.
Image 2. Droga5s Million mobile
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Shock news: being useful is not new Of course, being useful is not really a new thing, we are returning to the smart things we did before the broadcast age - weve gone full circle. Consider Guinness who, according to Wikipedia, commissioned Norris and Ross McWhirter (who had been running a fact-finding agency) to compile what became The Guinness Book of Records in August 1954. One thousand copies were printed and given away. Alternatively consider Michelin who, again, according to Wikipedia - published the first edition of a guide to France in 1900, to help drivers maintain their cars, find decent lodgings, and eat well while touring. This Michelin example is particularly striking when you think of Michelin Stars being the most coveted award in dining from a tyre manufacturer. The next stage in branded utility, the social utility The emergence of branded utilities has dovetailed with the emergence of social media, and the two are now blending to create new, even more powerful tools. What has changed with the advent of social media is the ability to harness the power of communities, and thus collective intelligence and resources. This is the notion of the social utility, which is what Facebook calls itself. Facebooks applications and groups are examples of tools that harness the power of the community to create tools and services. Its applications, in most cases, are only really possible when you have a community of people sharing and contributing. For me one of the best examples of a branded social utility is still Amazon, and although it would not see itself in this way, it continues through its user reviews and ratings to build community, and uses this to create tools that are useful and helpful.
IAB troopers interact every day
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Network
Engagement
Brand building
Interaction
User reviews and ratings are partly about teaching Amazon what you like, but the reviews are a form of indirect reciprocity, which evolutionary psychologists would say is an investment into the community, done to build reputation, self-esteem and status, and getting something back in the future. Its user reviews and ratings have also now become a platform for services, such as Pluribo, which is a Firefox extension that automatically codes and summarises the user reviews on any given Amazon page, saving you the hassle of reading through the endless lists. This has been the secret to its success. And it continues to innovate with its collaborative filtering technology with innovations like Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed. Brands from all sectors can engage the social media consumer, and build branded utilities to help them differentiate their brands. It requires a different mindset from traditional broadcast messaging, and a willingness to open up to the collaborative economy, and start to accept user reviews, ratings, and other forms of user generated content. This means bringing down the walls between the organisation and audience, and making them partners, co-creators, and most importantly, genuinely trying to help them by offering tools, widgets, and applications. Being helpful is the most customer-centric thing you can do right now. Its as simple as that. Thus one of the first tools man ever learnt to use is now the hottest tool in digital communications.
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Sky Sports Heroes Evolution campaign

AKQA In the build-up to the new season, pessimistic football fans in pubs, bars and workplaces up and down the country feverishly speculate about what will become of their beloved team. Recognising this as an opportunity to capitalise on this pre-season excitement and engage fans in a debate, AKQA created a campaign that let fans voice their views not just around the water cooler or in the local, but live and online for all to see. The creative invited fans to share their opinions via expandable rich media placements, the results of which were then fed in real-time to perimeter board-style sky and banner placements. In total, the campaign gathered some 225,000 votes and drove numerous Sky Sports subscriptions.
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An IAB trooper has courage in difficult pitches
When creativity and display advertising meets social media

by Dan Lehner, Social Media and Video Ad Solutions Manager, Yahoo! Network
Interaction
It seems that, of late, as many column inches are dedicated to how social media sites are monetised, as to their latest product innovations. This perhaps shouldnt come as a surprise given the huge valuation of sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook and the huge numbers of engaged users (and user data) they draw. Its clear that social media and advertising have the potential to become happy bedfellows. However, actually turning this potential into ad revenue has proven tricky thus far: the previously untouchable Facebook got their fingers burnt on the Beacon ad platform and even Google freely admit they cant figure out how to best advertise against YouTube videos.
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Of course, these days, any site worth its salt has social features to it, so to draw a clear distinction between e.g. MySpace a social media site and Yahoo! a portal is erroneous. Media owners of all shapes and sizes are converging on a form of Media 2.0 sites that offer pro content, UGC, community tools, editors, feeds, blogs . and display advertising. But the perceived chaotic nature of social sites and the proliferation of unmoderated content means some brands are hesitant to advertise in these new environments (despite freely advertising in print products for years!) However increased editorialisation creation of safe, legal, high quality, brandable clearings on these sites - and more transparency of the ad booking process-ease these concerns. For example, Yahoo! Video relaunched this year with a clear distinction between pro-content and user-generated content. For the user there is no difference all videos can be accessed all the time. But the pre-roll advertising only ever runs against the pro-content.
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Network
Engagement
Furthermore, there are plenty of reasons why social media offers an improved environment for display advertising. The users are certainly engaged: 6.5 billion page views and 2.5 billion minutes per month on Bebo tells its own story. The folksonomy approach to organising and surfacing content plus the amount of declared personal information - on social media ensures both content and advertising can be more relevant and engaging. Many brands successfully use social media as a means of online PR or brand reputation management and theres no doubt this is a very valuable communication platform. However, in the offline world, no brand would ever consider PR without advertising. Its no good having consumers think your brand is brilliant if they cant then buy your products. In short, if youre integrating your brand into a social site, you should be advertising on the site too. Take an example: creating a sponsored profile or a sponsored group - a brilliant way of connecting in a real way with your target audience: the viral tools allow your message to spread from fan to fan, theres strong engagement, strong word of mouth, and a really credible brand association. But how do you control who sees that message? How do you ensure relevancy of communication? How do you ensure optimal frequency of message? How do you determine ROI? Whats the value of a friend?
Brand building
Interaction
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This is where the value of display advertising comes in. The advertising that Yahoo! serve on Bebo, for example, can be targeted by age, gender, geography, behaviour and content. Campaigns can be frequency capped and can be bought on a CPA basis. Furthermore, your integration page can be pixeled and the users who visited the site can be re-targeted with additional advertising (or, indeed, excluded from future campaigns to level out the frequency of messaging). Theres also the opportunity to further increase the reach of the campaign through Look-a-Like Modelling serving ads to users who are similar (in demography or behaviour) to those who visited your integration. Display advertising also helps quantify success in these campaigns. Until we develop a set of tools for demonstrating the brand value of more integrated social media activity, we are reliant on traditional metrics such as CTRs and CPAs on associated display ad campaigns to demonstrate success. Advertising campaigns are also a really strong way of cementing the credibility of association for example, through co-branded media as well as offering a stamp of authority to the activity: yes, this is us, not someone claiming to be us. For example, when Sainsburys sponsored the Food and Drink category on Yahoo! Answers, they integrated themselves in the community, sharing recipes and advice but they also ran brand advertising on every page of the Food and Drink category and across the Yahoo! Network to cement the association.
An IAB trooper has courage in difficult pitches
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Network
Engagement
For some brands, integrating within social media sites is not what theyre after. It might be considered too expensive, too high maintenance or too risky. There may not be a compelling enough call to action to create a community around your brand. This doesnt mean that social media advertising should be altogether dismissed, however. Provided your target audience are there, in big numbers, you should still fish where the fishes are. One thing we know about social media sites is that users like spending huge amounts of time there, its their default media consumption for killing time. Rich media advertising offers the opportunity to engage users with interactive games, video trailers and embeddable social widgets essentially all the functionality you would expect from a sponsored profile. As with any activity in social media the key point is not to detract from, interrupt or invade the experience. So approaching advertising on social media sites should use the same basic principles as in all advertising. The fact that you can deliver engagement and word of mouth goes almost without saying, however you use social media. But to achieve genuine reach and relevancy of message plus optimal frequency and accountability requires display advertising either in conjunction with or independently of more integrated activity. Over time, advertiser fears of UGC will decrease though users fears of invasion of privacy may increase but amongst all of this, the same principles apply: keep the message engaging, add value, be authentic and understand the medium youre working in.
Brand building
Interaction
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Resident Evil Extinction Extinction campaign

Greenroom Digital This campaign sought out to engage participants online right up until DVD release day through the use of online PR, seeding an advertising campaign to drive traffic to the Resident Evil Extinction website. Users signed up and created a competition avatar which they looked after until the day they were released onto the web into some never seen before live rich media placements over a number of sites. Here, they were killed off throughout the day...until there was only one.
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IAB troopers motto: be engaging.
Using social media to increase paid-search marketing effectiveness

by Leon Bailey Green, Consultant for Market Sentinel
Network
By using social media tracking and analysis to gain insight into consumer thought, brands face the challenge of communicating their findings to the agency tasked with getting the most out of their search budget.
Any good search agency will tell you the more they understand the motivations of your customer the more effective the campaign will be. Its that old phrase of knowing your clients client. Your paid search account managers are trying to get your customers to engage with you, so they need to know about both of you almost equally. Taking into account what you have read about monitoring conversations and engaging in online PR, you should be planning how you are going to keep in touch with your customers needs, their thoughts on you and their sentiment towards your marketplace. You will then need to pass on this knowledge to your search agency to improve the effectiveness of your campaign.
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As a brand, as well as the usual demographics, you should be aiming to use your ongoing tracking, monitoring and research of social media to tell your search marketers: Which social utilities your customer base uses i.e. are most of your valuable customers using MySpace rather than Facebook, are you a travel company who finds a lot of its customers use Flickr to host holiday photos? Which message boards/forums do your customers, and potential customers use? Remember your search marketing budget can be used across areas other than search engine results pages. By knowing which social networks and utilities your customer base frequents, your account managers will be able to take advantage of any internal search marketing opportunities. Finding out the discussion areas (message boards and forums) used, could also open the potential for search budget, as many forums include adverts from paid search platforms such as Google AdSense. But be careful and be constantly monitoring, as your adverts could appear within threads that are uncomplimentary to your brand. Make sure you are engaging whenever conversations like this appear; otherwise your advertising becomes more than redundant. You should be encouraging whoever is in control of your conversation monitoring to alert your search marketing team when an ad is appearing within a negative thread. Forums will also give you an understanding of the language and phrases used by your customers. You need to know if your market is calling your product by a different name, and you need to be including your words in your search campaign, as keywords and in the creative copy. Why stop there? Pass on this intelligence to your offline marketing team too and use those words in your literature! Those who embrace online social communities and groups will turn to message boards in times of brand uncertainty. If they want to be sure about a purchase they are about to make they will seek the advice of the community. You need to know what the anxieties about your marketplace and brand are so you can alleviate their fears in your ad copy know your customers insecurities and increase your click through rates by confronting them from the off.
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As an IAB trooper I will never interrupt the internet users session with irrelevant marketing messages, and will never talk to consumers without permission.
Integrating social media

by Dhiren Shingadia, Social Media Manager, Harvest Digital
Engagement
We know that social media is an exciting new way for brands to interact with customers. It is important that social media is not created in a silo it works best when fully integrated with other marketing activity, both on and offline.
Offline integration Full integration is a two-way street. We need to consider how social media can amplify the impact of offline communication initiatives. At the same time, social media should be consistent with offline in terms of tone of voice and brand. TV, press, radio Traditional broadcast media are good places to seed and trigger conversations, which require audiences to participate in social media initiatives online. A good example of this could be a radio ad, which
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asks listeners to participate in online debate about hot topics that the brand is associated with; for example an energy company discussing climate change. Events in one communication channel can directly affect engagement levels for social media initiatives. A humorous, entertaining TV, press or radio ad can soften brand perceptions and encourage positive brand engagement within digital social environments. PR PR has long been a tool for many marketing needs but were now at a stage where social media, namely blogging and managing blogger relations can be integrated into any traditional PR strategy. Whilst PR practitioners can address formal relationships and announcements within traditional offline/online media, brands should feel empowered (with guidance) to blog, provide business insights and relevant information to audiences. The nature of blogging gives brands the chance to deliver a different tempo of PR activity, with a stream of quick comments and reactions complementing major press releases and events. Brand Events If we were to stand back and compare all aspects of online and offline marketing, no method or discipline more closely resembles digital social media than bespoke events. They are social in the truest sense and they encompass all the fundamentals of modern social media marketing. Notable brands have already hosted branded events such as music festivals, however, this work can be taken even further by engaging audiences through online digital social media via microsites, social network communication and branded applications all linked to these events.
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Online integration Social media should really be seen as a communication channel that facilitates conversations, builds relationships and syndicates information about your business. In many ways social media should be perceived as a natural extension of a businesss normal communication methods such as email, fax and telephones. With this in mind, digital social media integration can be a straightforward process. Start by assessing what content a website and a business has to offer and the purpose it serves? A typical organisation will have people carrying out research, managing photo and video assets, putting together presentations and updating a corporate website 2-3 times a day with information such as special offers or company announcements. How can all of this be transported into the social realm? Research Research can be posted onto blogs, article websites, syndicated via RSS and tagged on social bookmarking websites. If there is something an organisation is researching you can be sure that other people on the web will find it interesting. Video and photography Photo and video assets (providing they are informative, entertaining or deliver some kind of value) can be placed onto media hosting sites such as Flickr and YouTube, these website platforms allow media assets to be distributed and viewed by people who would not directly access a corporate website or otherwise interact with a brand. Microblogging If a corporate website or blog is being updated frequently throughout the day why not have a webmaster simultaneously update a microblog such as Twitter, Jaiku or Pownce. Users of these platforms are likely to follow a brand if its microblog provides useful updates or the brand has
Network
Engagement
Brand building
Interaction
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equity with platform users. A good example of a microblog is the No.10 Downing Street twitter microblog, which has over 4,000 followers. Slide sharing Finally if a brand or business has put together some useful presentations why not place them on a slide sharing platform where other people can use them and comment on them. This activity can be extremely useful for brand owners as commentary, be it positive or negative, can help tailor future work whilst simultaneously providing valid grounds for conversations with audiences. All these tools help to facilitate conversations, build relationships and generate genuine brand engagement. Brands should not see social media marketing as a way to drum home repetitive sales messages. Social media is a personal brand conversation tool more like telephones and email you wouldnt pitch down the phone each someone calls your office, and the same rules apply with social media communication. A final real world example of early social media integration has to be related to SEO. Elements of social media such as blogging, user-generated content, provision of branded web applications and branded content have enabled SEO practitioners to extend their content strategies across websites in order to maintain and achieve search engine rankings more effectively. As brands progressively embrace social media they will start to influence audiences through content and conversation, resulting in gradual impacts on measured performance indicators such as sales and website traffic. Patience is therefore important as dialogue and influence will gradually provide returns. With Semantic Web Optimisation (SWO) and Enterprise 2.0 now gaining magnitude, brand and business opportunities for social media integration will continue to grow. As simple as it sounds, it is important to get on the bandwagon as early as possible.
As an IAB trooper I will never interrupt the internet users session with irrelevant marketing messages, and will never talk to consumers without permission.
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An IAB trooper learns from their less effective campaigns to make their future campaigns better.
Planning and evaluating social media campaigns

by Leo Ryan and Iain MacMillan, Founders, Ryan MacMillian
The social media difference

Brand building
Faced by issues such as media fragmentation and device convergence, brands are hoping social media might be some form of panacea. And while theyre seeing a lot of interesting ways to interact with their audience, its hard to know which ones are worth pursuing. Most social media activities sit outside of the established media planning and measurement frameworks that advertising relies upon. It is clear that if brands are going to use social media they need an organised way of planning their activities and measuring their impact.
Of course, the issue is that no one quite knows what the impact of a social media activity is going to be until it is running. Not that traditional media has it any better - theres no more of a guarantee that a TV
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advert will be more motivating to an audience than a blog post. However, experience gathered over many years and the acceptance of media owners audience estimation processes is enough to put most doubts to rest. Social media has neither of these, which creates the challenge and the opportunity to find new ways to plan activities and measure effectiveness. Your audience is your distribution channel A significant difference between social media and traditional broadcast media is that, as were reliant on the audience for our distribution, we cant just buy eyeballs. Therefore, considering the balance between the interests of both the brand and audience is vital. Both parties have a strong vested interest in what is being communicated and the way it spreads - it helps to think of it as a contract or transaction, with the brand and the audience as the signatories. KUDOS We believe a framework for thinking is required to help us plan activities, estimate and measure results. This framework is based on five principles of good social media marketing. And significantly, each of these is important to both the brand and to the audience. In this way we make sure that the interests of each are not just represented, but become shared. i) An activity needs to be knowledgeable; it needs to impart some of the brands knowledge to an interested audience. ii) It needs to be useful, not just to the brand but to the audience as well. iii) It should contain an element that is desirable to both the audience and to the brand. iv) The whole activity should be open, both literally and figuratively. The brand should be transparent about their motivations, and the audience should be able to engage and interact with the activity. v) Finally it should be shareable. The brand should be providing something of value to the audience, and the audience should be able to take it away and share it with others. These five principles can be represented by the simple acronym KUDOS: Knowledgeable, Useful, Desirable, Open and Shareable.
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Planning social media activities

Network
Engagement
KUDOS can serve as a checklist to make sure each component of your activities and tactics is knowledgeable, useful, desirable, open and shareable. These activities might vary wildly from one brief to another from content and information to fuel conversations, to tools and services that might facilitate community action. The KUDOS framework allows for this variance while maintaining a uniformity that makes a comparison of metrics possible. Estimating results During the planning stage, you can look at each of the five KUDOS elements for the proposed activity and give them a qualitative score out of five, based on benchmarks created from previous campaigns. Then use this as one of a number of factors in estimating the likely interest in an activity. Measuring the success of the activity The issue with social media is not finding things to measure - theres an embarrassment of riches in terms of data - but knowing which metrics are useful and meaningful. You can use the KUDOS framework to select five attributes that allow us to track and optimise activity. As an example, blog relations activity and downloadable video content might use the following metrics:
Attribute Knowledgeable Useful Desirable Open Shareable Blog measure In-bound links Google Page Rank or Digg Page views Comments Subscriptions to RSS Video measure In-bound links Downloads Total views Comments Re-postings
Brand building
Interaction
66
Measuring the impact and effect What we havent done yet is measured the effect. The effect is difficult to measure as it occurs over a long period of time, happens in many disparate locations and can be attributed to many factors. But its possible to use social media to provide some indication of the effect. We can use various standard digital measurement techniques to track people who click through directly from one of our social media assets to purchase or register. However, its much harder to estimate how many more people might have heard about our product via the word-of-mouth our social media activity has generated, and then acted upon this information. Furthermore, traditional media uses complex (and often expensive) econometrics processes to gauge the effects of their brand building efforts but this will be beyond the social media budgets of most clients. In both these cases, some indication of the effect of social media activity can be found by measuring the change in the interest level around the brand or product. We do this by analysing its share of conversation online. By looking at the volume and quality of the commentary around a brand, we are able to see the accumulative effect of all its marketing and offline activity. One should note that this is not a stand-alone measure of the change caused by social media; it is a measure of the impact as it occurs in social media. However, by drilling into this data and analysing what topics people are talking about, we may be able to attribute some of the effect.
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Social media measurement the basics

Network
Conversation trends
Engagement
Brand building
Interaction
Social media is all about user generated content and conversation, and there are already a vast array of tools that allow you to measure trends in conversations. This makes it easy for you to look for words or terms that are related to your campaigns such as brand and product names. Importantly, Google Trends (www.google.com/trends) lets you monitor how popular searches are across the biggest social media site in the world: Google. Nielsons Blog Pulse (www.blogpulse.com) shows what are currently the most popular news stories, conversations and more across blogs. Whatever the form of social media, there is now a tool to help you monitor it, in fact, even Twitter has a dedicated conversation tracker (twist. flapto.com). On top of this small selection, check around for other tools to help you monitor and plan. Get reading The internet is all about quantitative research and number crunching NOT! If you can identify where the most influential forums and pages with user comments are, then read them and do a bit of qualitative research. Try to identify patterns and trends in the conversations. Obviously you cant focus too much on a minority of users, but if you start to see patterns emerging in conversations, these can be extremely useful. It obviously
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makes it a lot easier if you have your own forums and comment areas. Using this direct feedback is one of the best methods of researching into trends. Website analytics Lets not forget the basics when it comes to measuring social media. Often your standard web analytics are going to offer the best form of measurement because you can see which sites people originate from, where they click off to and what content they are most interested in on your website. Couple this with the information you can obtain from conversation trend tools and qualitative research of forums and you can begin to build one powerful little picture of the social landscape. Site analytics tools include Site Intelligence, WebTrends, Google Analytics, NetTracker and many more. Measuring applications and virals Applications on the likes of Google and Facebook will all come with their own measurement packages for you to use that vary in detail. You can go the extra mile by including items such as graphics or small pixels which are hosted on your own servers to find out how many times they are downloaded. This will give you an additional insight into the amount of times one of your applications is used.
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The future: where we are now and where we should be

The past is but the beginning of a beginning, and all that is or has been is but the twilight of the dawn.
The Discovery of the Future (1901), H G Wells
by Antony Mayfield, Vice President, Head of Social Media, iCrossing
You would be forgiven if your mind was boggling at this point, after a dozen or perspectives on whats going on in social media and advertising. My apologies then, because we are going to push the bogglement one step further in this final chapter with a look to the future of social media and marketing.
Caveat time Only a fool would put his name to predictions about something as fast-moving and complex as the emergence of social media on the web, where it will go and what it means for the industry. In lieu of a fool, you have me and this chapter.
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In seriousness though, it is not a cop-out to say the one thing you can expect in social media and marketing in the coming decade is the unexpected. The shape of things to come In the face of such hopeless odds of being absolutely right, let me offer three trends that will be important for us to pay attention to when it comes to evolution of social media and indeed the whole web, certainly over the next couple of years, if not the next decade. 1. Growth: Big numbers, like the 100 million users of Facebook, trick us into thinking that the revolution has happened, its arrived and we can now make sense of it. But studies by analyst house Forrester show that the longer people have broadband at home the more sophisticated their use of the web becomes, the most likely they are to use social media. Expect growth, lots of it. 2. Ubiquity: While the numbers of people uploading content, leaving reviews, starting blogs, taking part in forums will continue to grow, so will usage. Some have described social networks becoming like air, an ever present layer on the world that we will be constantly dipping into using mobile devices. 3. Ambient intimacy: The Facebook newsfeed feature and latterly micro-blogging services like Twitter have given rise to a phenomenon sociologists are calling ambient intimacy, where large groups of people are able to share their thoughts and opinions 6. The reaction of early adopters has been one of nervousness followed by blissful embrace of this new way of communicating. Again, it is early days for this form of communication, this sub-set, feature of social media but it is likely to develop further and will have implications for how content and conversations work online.
6 Source:
Any Time, Any
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All tomorrows brands

Network
And for the marketing industry, whats the future likely to bring? Let us take three trends here too: 1.Useful marketing: As Google says, Its all about the user. When it comes to being successful on the web this is a key principle and one which increasing numbers of brands are learning as they begin to engage with people in social media. Marketing must be useful in order to earn attention, and earned attention is the only kind there is when users can choose to ignore or block advertising if they wish. In this context, even paid for space is simply seen as buying opportunities to earn attention. 2.Data-driven everything: Data in marketing has often been seen as the preserve of direct response specialists. With so much data available in the networks about people that are important to a brand, about the needs and behaviours of customers and influencers, there will be no corner of marketing in social media that cant be measured, no insights that cannot be supported with evidence in the form of data. As social media use becomes more ubiquitous we will see even offline campaigns and content as being often measurable, as echoes of their influence are seen in changed online behaviours. 3.Native digital marketing: The first phase of web media and marketing might be thought about as a time when models of thinking were imported from channel media (broadcast, print) to a world of networks. In the coming years we will see consensus emerge around new models of research, planning and execution in a web that is dominated and defined - particularly in terms of the user experience - by social media. These will be what we might call truly native, digital strategic marketing approaches, informing the strategy for brands from a perspective that is web first, embracing its full potential.
Engagement
Brand building
Interaction
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Caution: revolution in progress If there has been a constant in my conversations with clients and colleagues in the industry over the past couple of years working in social media it has been that everyone feels as if they are behind the curve. In a way everyone is: how can a whole industry adapt at the pace of the web? The preceding chapters in this book represent a range of views from the pioneers in the UK marketing industry. Do not expect them to agree on everything, or to be right on everything - it would be incredible if they were. When you look closely at revolutions past - be they technological, political, commercial or combinations of all three - there is a recurring theme about the perceptions of people living through them: they rarely know what is going on. So, enveloped as we are in the fog of revolution, what hope have we of being right about the future of social media and marketing? Not much. Media and brand owners and their agency partners alike need to keep their minds resolutely open to possibilities. As F Scott Fitzgerald famously said, ...the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. The most successful brands and agencies in this new world may well support the ones that are able to hold several, sometimes opposed, ideas about the world in mind simultaneously, behaving in an agile way to push resources to the ones which turn out to be most successful.
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As an IAB Trooper I will respect and hold my agency in the higgest regard at all times as I know that without them my job would be unfulfilled.
Social Media jargon buster

with thanks to Immediate Future www.immediatefuture.co.uk
Brand building
AggregatorAn aggregator, newsreader or read feeder, is a bit of software which collects news from websites, blogs, podcasts and vlogs and delivers them to your PC in a simple format. It is also the name of an Arnie Schwarzenegger character. Oiill be back.
AstroturfingYou know when theres a grass-roots buzz about a product? And it seems that everybody is blogging about it? Sometimes it turns out these blogs have actually been written by a PR company. Whod have thought? Well, thats Astroturfing. Artificial and plastic.
BlogAlthough now being used by businesses, a weblog or blog is more often than not a frequently updated personal online journal kept by a blogger. Entries or posts are in reverse chronological order and can be insightful, witty and philosophical. Or maybe not.
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Blog StormA blog storm or blog swarm is when bloggers in the blogosphere write thousands of posts about a subject which then forces the story into the mainstream media. Never underestimate the power of the blogger.
BookmarkingYou know how it is. Youve just found an online flight to Fuerteventura for only 4.50 and now you cant remember what site its on. In future save your fave site addresses by bookmarking them. Just click the bookmark button or the add to favourites button on your browser tool bar. Ole.
BuzzOften created by word of mouth and viral marketing, buzz is the word-on-the-street, ear-to-the-ground, finger-on-the-pulse kind of thing that gets people jumping up and down with excitement about a product or service. You also get a buzz when you jump out of a plane. Woo-hooo.
ChickletsChicklets are the small, often orange buttons, which are links to web feeds such as RSS and Atom. Absolutely nothing to do with Bridget Joness diary. Or small chickens.
CloakingCloaking is when a website returns different web pages to the search engine spiders than it does to regular visitors. Cloaking is an attempt to distort search engine rankings and give the site a higher ranking. Its a bit of skulduggery that could get a site banned from the search engines.
CrowdsourcingA bit like outsourcing where you pay people 3 an hour to stuff envelopes, crowdsouricng is when a company involves a large number of enthusiastic volunteers to create content, do research and solve problems. Free of charge. Well they might send you a badge or something.
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DiggNetwork
is a user generated content site where members submit (mostly techie) articles and news items theyve found on the Web. The articles are then voted for and the most popular published on Diggs front page. Can we Digg it? Yes we can!
Engagement
ebooksebooks or eBooks are electronic versions of traditional printed books which can be downloaded from the internet and read on your PC or hand held device. e-books take up less space and use less trees. And you never forget which page youre on.
Brand building
Interaction
Early adapterA bit like Angelina Jolie or Madonna, early adopters are companies or people who signup to new technologies or marketing techniques, as soon as they become available, to get ahead of the pack. Early adopters make up 13.5% of the population. Fact.
FolksonomyFolksonomy refers to people classifying their blogs, web pages and pictures with informal descriptions or tags. So on Flickr, the tags for a picture of freshly-cut grass might be green; spring; nature; hay fever; sniffles; headache. Folksonomy are also people who go to barn dances.
MappingGathering together a list of influencing social media, such as niche blogs, mainstream blogs and forums, which relate to a specific topic, is known as mapping. When preparing an online campaign, mapping is a useful planning tool. So is an A-Z. Where are we?
MicroformatMicroformat is a data format which works alongside XML and HTML. Inserting microformat tags into your website or blog means the content can be more easily defined which helps the search engines do a better job. Small, unobtrusive but helpful, Microformats are a bit like The Wombles.
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Net Promoters IndexThe number of people who would recommend your product, service or topic minus the number of people who wouldnt - is known as the Net Promoters Index. The results are collated by monitoring message boards and blogs. The power of the Web: we love it.
NetworksNetworks are made up of nodes and connections. In a social network, the nodes are people and the connections are the relationships. Networking is the method of strengthening those relationships. Whats your name, what does your company do? Heres my card. Call me.
PingShort for Packet Internet Grouper a Ping is what alerts the original poster of a blog that someone has made a reference to that post in another blog when using TrackBack. A ping also notifies blog tracking software when the content of a blog has changed. Ping also refers to knicker elastic.
RSSLike Atom, RSS is a web feed which enables you to be notified when the content of a blog or site has been updated. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary or RDF Site Summary or really something stupid. Possibly.
Search Engine PositioningSearch engine positioning or promotion refers to the constant monitoring and modifying of a website in order for it to achieve higher search engine rankings. A close relative of SEO. In fact they have the same mother: Search engine marketing.
SeedingSeeding refers to viral agencies which place messages, pictures and videos on such sites as YouTube or Flickr and then just leave them there. No interaction. No conversation with the customer. Its a all a bit seedy really.
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Social BookmarkingNetwork
Social bookmarking is when you share your favourite or bookmarked websites on a public web based service such as del.icio.us. The list of your favourite sites can be then be shared with others who have similar interests. It gives you a warm fuzzy feeling doesnt it?
Engagement
Social CurrencyBrand building
Interaction
Social currency is used to define the value that people have in a social setting: some people are rich, rich, rich whilst others are overdrawn. Social currency is also something that provokes interest and quickly gets passed around. Like a joke. So a man walks into a bar. Ouch.
Social Media
We refer to social media, in a commercial sense, as: the creation of useful, valuable and relevant content and applications by brands, or by consumers with specific reference to brands, that can be shared online, facilitated by web 2.0 technology.
Tag CloudA tag cloud is a visual representation of the popularity of the tags or descriptions that people are using online. Popular tags are often shown in a large type and less popular in smaller type. So, on Flickr, the tag Party is shown large and the tag Hiking is small. Why are we not surprised?
VblogVlog or Vblog. Short for videoblog. Refers to a blog that has video content. Vlog is also a big, beefy potato farmer from the Ukraine.
WidgetA Widget is a piece of code that enables you to pull in data from another website onto your own site or blog which is then constantly updated. For example, news headlines; local weather; footie scores. So all the really important stuff you need to keep up to date with.
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WikiA wiki is a website where you can add, remove, edit and change content. The best known wiki is wikipedia: an online encyclopaedia created by thousands of different contributors across the world. Wiki wiki means rapidly in Hawaiian. Not a lot of people know that.
WOMTraditionally WOM or word of mouth was an over-the-garden-fence way of sharing information. These days word of mouth also refers to text messages, blog posts, message board threads, instant messages and emails which all create a buzz. So word of mouse. Geddit?
acknowedgements
Trooper Amy Kean, senior PR and marketing manager, IAB Trooper Jack Wallington, programmes manager, IAB Trooper Chloe Chadwick, marketing executive, IAB Trooper Harriet Clarke, team assistant, IAB
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Internet Marketing Handbook Series
14 Macklin Street, London WC2B 5NF tel: +44 (0)20 7050 6969 fax: +44 (0)20 7242 9928 email: info@iabuk.net

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Internet Marketing Handbook Series

Become part of the online community

Guide to social media:

By Amy Kean, Senior PR and Marketing Manager, Internet Advertising Bureau

An IAB trooper never shouts

What is social media?

Create shopping lists

News, blog engine

Its Sunshine Oclock Pimms

Crowdsourcing / Community Sites

Swapping & trading community

Social Display advertising

Fill The Indigo by O2

10 rules to get you started

An IAB trooper is interactive.

The definition and role of social media

1 Nielsen Mobile Advertising Report; 3/08

An IAB trooper is friendly, knowledgeable, confident and helpful.

Source: Any Time, Any

Place: Understanding The Connected Generation (Universal McCann)

Source: A Baby Bell

Source: Any Time, Any

Place: Understanding The Connected Generation (Universal McCann)

Source: Nielsen Mobile Attitude and Behaviour Survey (Q4 2007)

latimesblogs.latimes. com/webscout/2008/02/ facebook-graffi.html

An IAB trooper is friendly, knowledgeable, confident and helpful.

An IAB trooper is friendly, knowledgeable, confident and helpful.

Source: http:// latimesblogs.latimes. com/webscout/2008/02/ facebook-graffi.html

Sex and the City Carries Mac Book campaign

Social media in action

An IAB trooper is friendly, knowledgeable,

An IAB trooper puts their advertising in front of the right people

The difference between getting it and doing it right

An IAB trooper puts their advertising in front of the right people

What was the aim of the campaign?

Social media in action

An IAB trooper has faith in online, even in times of recession

An introduction to online PR and blogging

An IAB trooper has faith in online, even in times of recession

Passive Talk Action

Social media in action

The Carphone Warehouse X Factor Challenge

An IAB trooper belongs to the world wide web.

The art of online conversations and the tools to help you

An IAB trooper belongs to the world wide web.

Case study 2: Whitehall Counter Terrorist Unit

An IAB trooper belongs to the world wide web.

An IAB trooper is to be trusted.

Stories, passions and actions

by Katy Howell, Managing Director, Immediate Future

An IAB trooper is to be trusted.

An IAB trooper is to be trusted.

IAB troopers interact every day

From head to hand

Image 1. The new model versus the branded utility model

Image 2. Droga5s Million mobile

IAB troopers interact every day

Social media in action

Sky Sports Heroes Evolution campaign

An IAB trooper has courage in difficult pitches

When creativity and display advertising meets social media

An IAB trooper has courage in difficult pitches

Resident Evil Extinction Extinction campaign