And from here on... (Finale finale)

Fiascos like these, coined flogs (faux blogs), are largely the result of a failure to be transparent, whether intentionally or not. Given the highly traceable nature of internet technology, it is hard to imagine how one could hide footprints like server names, admin names, email addresses, and company profiles. On the net, information is so easy to obtain, and with very little expertise. Advertisers and marketers must not forget that they are now subject to much greater scrutiny than possible for a 30-second television spot.

Clearly, the Wal-Mart and SCEA debacles were attempts to revitalize an aging industry, using the emerging arena of interactive marketing. An unavoidable difference between the successful blogs of Sun Microsystems and GM, and the disasters of Wal-Mart and SCEA, is that the former were not created as specific marketing attempts. They are CEO’s communicating directly with their consumers, conversationally, in a natural blogging style. Wal-Mart and SCEA, however, hired peons to represent the brand, without making the financial connection or purpose immediately clear.

Now, startup companies are emerging to capitalize on these mistakes, offering blog creation and consultation services to inexperienced businesses. One such company, Fortune Interactive, claims:

We can help guide your company through the intricacies of the blogosphere and provide everything your company needs to take advantage of the marketing, branding and public relations benefits that come from managing a corporate blog.

While technically hiring others to represent your company, this may not be a bad tactic for businesses that would otherwise embarrass themselves. Understanding that blogging is more of a community than a tool is essential, and becoming fluent in the language and customs is imperative to creating a lasting blog. Because the blogging community is still relatively unregulated legally and financially, consequences for an offending blog is generally bad press and blogger disdain. But as the blogosphere grows in influence, more and more companies will have to take consumers seriously, talking with them instead of at them. Blogger organized boycotts, hacks, and bad publicity will have more power as their popularity rises.

And Sony Screws Up Too

In an effort to push holiday sales of the Playstation Portable, Sony Computer Entertainment America hired interactive marketing firm Zipatoni to create a blog supposedly created by two friends in an effort to get another friend’s mother to buy him a PSP (and help others in the same tragic PSP-less situation). A posting on the now-defunct site AllIWantforChristmasisaPSP.com read:

Consider us your own personal psp hype machine, here to help you wage a holiday assault on ur parents, girl, granny, boss - whoever - so they know what you really want.

This site too, was quickly revealed to be an artificial attempt at viral marketing (see Dec. 5th post on ILoveBees.com), and it’s lifespan also lasted only about a month. Before being pulled completely, an apology was issued, stating:

Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn't a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.

Clearly, SCEA and Zipatoni entirely missed the mark. Again, thanks to traceable origins, an obviously fabricated persona, heavy product pushing, the blog came under scrutiny and was heavily lambasted by the very people they were trying to appeal to.

That Wascally Wal-Mart

For corporations providing goods and services, blogs provided yet another channel for promoting a product. Some, such as Sun Microsystems, General Motors, and Stonyfield Farms, have successfully managed to integrate their blogs into their website offerings. Others, such as Wal-Mart, Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA), and McDonald’s, have made major blunders. The main difference in their handling may be rooted to opposing attitudes about the nature of blogs. Successful corporate blogs recognize a savvy community with a recognized code of ethics and etiquette. Offending corporate blogs overlooked this aspect, choosing instead to treat their blogs as blunt marketing efforts, little more than interactive commercials.

In September 2006, a blog titled “Wal-Marting Across America” appeared, which followed Laura and Jim as they drove across country in their RV, interviewing happy Wal-Mart employees and customers along the way. A month later, site’s posts were removed, save for one goodbye and one explanation post (neither of them an apology). In what turned out to be the leading blog scandal of 2006, Wal-Mart, Edelman, and numerous others learned first-hand about the repercussions of a bad corporate blog.

Edelman, one of the premier firms in the PR industry, is actually a governing member of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA). As a governing member, they evaluate and help craft the ethical word-of-mouth marketing guidelines across a range of mediums, blogging being one of them. The objectives of their “Ethical Blogger Contact Guidelines” are listed as follows:

--Help marketers work honestly and ethically within the blogosphere.
--Promote disclosure by marketers within blogs.
--Protect consumers by establishing ethical standards for marketing to and within blogs.
--Protect marketers' reputations from the damage that unethical behavior will cause.

While this is still a draft (see link item #6), the core components of the guidelines are there. The question is, how could Edelman, a leader in interactive marketing, have so blatantly disregarded them? From the explanation provided by Laura, the intent of her blog was not meant to be another insidious marketing effort. A fan of RVing, she and her partner had discovered that Wal-Marts allowed RVs to park overnight for free. Already planning a major trip, she thought:

We would take vacation from our full-time jobs and drive across the country in a rented RV, from city to city, spending the night in a different Wal-Mart parking lot every night. And, of course, I’d write an article about it and may be able to sell a story to an RV magazine, with photos, of RVing in America and only staying at Wal-Marts.

Utilizing her connections to Edelman, whom she knew handled Wal-Mart’s PR, she attempted to obtain permission to write such a story rather than risk litigation afterwards. To her surprise, Edelman quickly pitched her idea to Working Families for Wal-Mart, and they agreed to underwrite the trip. (Wal-Mart, in its own defense, has distanced itself from this decision by Working Families as it is an independent organization, though it receives funding from them.)

So far, all is well and good by the guidelines. But the problems began when the bloggers failed to disclose that the blog was now technically a commercial entity, no longer representing the sole interests of Laura and Jim. The scope of their original project was altered by the contract with Working Families, even though it was a direction the bloggers enjoyed taking. Telling the (mostly positive) stories of people encountered in Wal-Marts is not a sin in the blogging community, but failing to make your affiliation apparent is considered deceptive. Edelman, in charge of the site, is responsible for failing to apply its own WOMMA guidelines of transparency.

It was anti-Wal-Mart watchdog bloggers who first discovered the connection, which was then massively exposed by BusinessWeek.com. The unveiling of the blogger’s identities made the situation seem more deceptive. Laura St. Claire was a freelance writer and employee at the U.S. treasury, and her partner, Jim Thresher, was a staff photographer for The Washington Post. Professional journalists, writing on behalf of Wal-Mart, ought to have realized that they represent more than ‘Laura and Jim, average Americans.’

THE FINALE (part 1 of ???)

The blogging phenomena is still a young one; the blogosphere, as a recognized community, is still less than 10 years old. Many of the activities which could be argued as early blogging, went nameless before then, still too mixed up in early websites to be considered a separate entity. Yet the growth of the community has been staggering: as of December 2006, Technorati has been tracking some 60 million individual blogs.
The rules governing this rapidly expanding community are still being framed. At best, there is a recognized code of conduct and etiquette, but no enforcement other than social backlash. This rarely extends beyond the blogging community; there are occasional cases of a firing or bad press, but no blog-specific legal or financial penalties currently exist.
Now that bloggers have started to go commercial, the guidelines governing these will have to become stricter and better enforced. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA), is a collection of companies who promote an ethical framework for commercial blogs. For the most part, however, the blogging community still relies on a kind of internet ‘neighborhood watch’ to identify and punish offending blogs.

The blogosphere can be described using a number of worthy metaphors, including that of ‘the wild west.’ I think that in evaluating corporate blogs, Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point players could also be valuable. He identifies the following 3 characters as setting off marketing epidemics:

Mavens – Individuals with a wealth of information in their chosen field.
Connectors – Those with unusually large social circles.
Salesmen – Highly influential people whose behaviors are more likely to be mimicked.

• 
  Bloggers generally fall mostly into the maven and connector categories, naturally inclined to find information and help it proliferate. As discussed in class, bloggers tend to be tech-savvy, information addicted, opinionated, vocal, and tribal, all qualities which equip them with forming and governing various social communities on the internet. Many also consider themselves proud members of a subculture that is skeptical of mass media, government, and big business machinations. These are not apathetic people. They are highly engaged with their community.
  
  They are also, young, affluent, high-tech, and increasingly popular. According to an August 2005 comScore survey of blogs and bloggers:
  
  50 million U.S. Internet users visited blog sites in the first quarter of 2005. That is roughly 30% of all U.S. Internet users and 1 in 6 of the total U.S. population.
  Five hosting services for blogs each had more than 5 million unique visitors in that period, and four individual blogs had more than 1 million visitors each.
  Of 400 of the biggest blogs observed, segmented by seven (nonexclusive) categories, political blogs were the most popular, followed by "hipster" lifestyle blogs, tech blogs and blogs authored by women.
  Compared to the average Internet user, blog readers are significantly more likely to live in wealthier households, be younger and connect to the Web on high-speed connections.
  Blog readers also visit nearly twice as many web pages as the Internet average, and they are much more likely to shop online.

Now that Google, Yahoo, Technorati and others have made blog searches possible, it is easier than ever for marketers to assess general attitudes about their brands. For example, GoogleTrends is a new tool that tracks the number of searches over a span of timeline, represented by a graph with certain points corresponding with highly relevant (in Google assessment) website and article appearances.

The growing number of bloggers and blog visitors is starting to affect mass media outlets, too. “In fact, Blogspot.com now reaches more visitors than NYTimes.com, USAToday.com and WashingtonPost.com -- clear evidence that consumer-generated media can draw audience on par with traditional online publishers.” (comScore report ‘Behaviors of the Blogosphere,’ 8/2005) Instead of turning to mass media, the masses are creating new media.

Some companies have gone so far as to create projects in which crowdsourcing is implemented, inviting knowledgeable participants to contribute to research efforts or product construction. Proctor&Gamble rewards independent researchers and scientists for valuable contributions to ongoing challenges posted on Innocentive.com. While not technically of the blogging domain, the behavior falls into the category of consumer-generated material that also encompasses blogs and YouTube videos.

Corporate blogging caught red-handed

This blog, called AllIwantforXmasisaPSP, was an attempt by Sony to generate some kind of faux-viral marketing. Obviously, they pissed off the genuine bloggers and would-be consumers along the way. Whoops! At least they made an apology, though I doubt they'll get much more traffic in the future.

There have been successful corp-born viral marketing efforts, like ILoveBees.com. Microsoft initiated this webpage to promote Halo 2 shortly before its release a few years ago. Irreverent and engaging, it quickly became a meme and spread like wildfire. A Wikipedia article on the site actually does a pretty good job of explaining it, but nonethelesss it's fun to click around since ALL the links work, even the 'bee' related ones in the background.

Know this is all after-the-fact, but I'm kind of into this stuff. I used to be a closet nerd, and now I've been outed.

MySpace: big and getting bigger

Apparently MySpace is the second biggest site on the internet after Yahoo! Clearly I'm incapable of seeing the appeal that 50 million users do, which is unsettling. Will work on that.

I do get the corporate appeal though. More on that can be found in this BusinessWeek article. A quote: "'Eighty of the top 100 brands advertise on MySpace. It's a who's who of marketing,' Barrett says. Brands with a presence on the site include music companies and consumer products companies from Jeep (DCX) to Procter & Gamble (PG)." Power in numbers, huh?

More on Facebook

I've been thinking about why we pick up certain social-technological behavior, and I keep coming back to the magic number of 65 from my Facebook study. That number was the average number of friends added over the course of a semester by a freshman on the Facebook. Its a staggering number, especially for most of us who don't meet 65 new people we'd consider friends every 13 weeks. Inside that number, however, is the key to social technology. As long as we desire or are compelled to expand our social networks, we will make efforts to learn the communication behavior of the pack. If you need proof of this, think of the adults who turned to computer dating a few years ago; our desires for social contact will drive our adoption and uses of new mediums.

- Fred Stutzman in his post on Adopting Social-Technical Communication Behavior

This is just one of a few good thoughts he's provided on social networking sites. A more complete list of his Facebook research posts can be found here.

SNS sites

Once, for a brief moment of weakness, I considered joining MySpace. Thankfully, that feeling was quickly overcome by the riots staged by the logical part of my brain, and all was well once again.

MyProblem with MySpace, is that it is not really worth MyTime, or MyEffort. I realize I'm probably about to alienate a lot of people with the following statements, but I'm gonna throw them out there anyhow. Aesthetically, I find the layout of the site and the profiles to be sloppy, crowded and distracting. Philosophically, I just don't get it. For an example, I'm using this girl's profile who came up under "Cool New People" on the main page (though DocManJay works as well.) Almost 99% of the profiles I viewed were similar to this one, in that images and phrases are tacked onto the page like some kind of ugly digital scrapbook that is supposed to give the viewer an idea of the person's values. Half the comments are variations of "Thanks for the add!" The problem for me there is that whatever social network that is created ends up being purely superficial and fairly vapid. My roommate has deemed the entire site "Slutty" and from my own impressions, I'd say she's not far off. I feel like these people are virtually pimping themselves out.

Now, I am a member of Facebook, and I'm ready for the onslaught of criticism for joining that. Come on, bring it. For me, Facebook is much more representative of my social network. I don't have 5 million friends, I won't pretend to. I actually have met and genuinely like almost everyone listed. It's a way for me to keep in touch with people who I don't see very often, and (very importantly) remember their birthdays. Sorry guys, but I don't really care what TV shows you like, but I do enjoy seeing your set of pictures from the same party we went to. And I like that I can make my profile as public or private as I want. I admit, I preferred when it was exclusive to colleges, and before newsfeed was introduced, but I think the Facebook team has managed the additions well enough that it is still a worthwhile tool and distraction.

To summarize: I need Facebook's framework to help me function, and to filter out a lot of crap that MySpace indulges in. Just a personal preference.