Marketing

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Marketing Sales RoundtableNew Media 101
Acquiring and Building Customer Relationships the
New WayMay 2005
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What is New Media?

• A complex set of low-cost, Web-based tools and
  technologies that enable users to directly
  converse with others
• The most popular tools today are
• RSS
• Blogs
• Wikis
• Podcasts

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Why Startups Should Consider New Media

• Cost efficiency and ease-of-use new media is
  well-suited for startup environments
• Customer focus new media enables businesses to
  directly converse with their customers, partners,
  others
• Competitive advantage most startups still do
  not understand the world of new media

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Unmediated Dialog

• The Cluetrain Manifesto the philosophical
  touchstone of the blogging revolution
• Markets are conversations.
• New media facilitates direct conversation with
  customers and partners, without the filter of
  traditional media

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Transparency

• We are living in the age of corporate
  transparency, where the brand of a company is
  valued significantly on its ability to speak
  truthfully and openly with its various
  constituencies.
• Trends
• --Post-Enron consumer cynicism
• --Corporate compliance (Sarbanes-Oxley and other
  frameworks)
• --Proliferation of watchdog networks on the
  Internet

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Collaboration

• The opportunity a company today can
  differentiate in the marketplace by enrolling its
  various constituencies to collaborate in the
  creation of product, service and experience
• Collaboration is not just about marketing. Its
  about overall corporate strategy.

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RSS Platforms for Distribution

• If you read a dozen or more online news sites
  every day, managing them all can be difficult.
• Walt Mossberg, Wall Street Journal (May 2005)
• RSS enables the producer to directly connect with
  the reader in the age of information overload

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RSS Tools and Tips

• Create feeds from your blogs and corporate site
• Train employees and external audiences on RSS
  readers
• Approaches
• Browser-based Firefox, Safari, IE (with
  FeedScout)
• Stand-alone FeedDemon, Awasu, NetNewsWire,
  NewsGator
• Web-simple Bloglines, PubSub, Feedster
• Web-simplest MyYahoo!

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Blogs Platforms for Self-Publishing

• Key attributes
• -Every post is a searchable page (SEO benefits)
• -Rankings are dependent on content and links
• -Content provides opportunity for
  differentiation
• -Links provide opportunity for
  community-building
• -Can be private or public
• -Can be individual-driven or collaborative (group
  blogs)

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Blogs Tools and Tips

• Two basic professional approaches
• Installed MovableType
• Hosted TypePad
• Key features
• Links
• Permalink
• Categories
• Tagging
• RSS Feeds
• Search tools Technorati, Feedster

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Wikis Platforms for Collaboration

• Key attributes
• -Collaborative Web sites where participants can
  write and edit shared content
• -Can be private or public
• -First developed as a collaborative tool for
  workgroups now developing into communication
  tool
• -Organic group structures wikis tend to take
  the shape of the shared task
• -Wiki technology is combining with blog
  technology at some point they will merge
• -Scalability See Wikipedia

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Wikis Tools and Tips

• Approaches
• Installed versus hosted
• Proprietary versus open source
• Vendors
• Socialtext
• JotSpot
• EditMe
• Uses
• Workgroups
• New media training
• Internal marketing management
• External communications

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Podcasts DIY Broadcast Media

• Key attributes
• -Time-shifted broadcast for high-touch,
  personalized, customized communications
• -Not limited to mobile media players mostly for
  use on desktops and laptops
• -Low-cost tools for production
• -Limited use today in the enterprise, but this
  will change
• -Future video capabilities

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Podcasts Uses

• Traditional media ABC, NBC, BBC
• Executive communications HP (Agility Radio)
• Podvertising Disney, GM, Warner Brothers
  Records
• Politicians John Edwards, others

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Who is Using New Media?

• First wave early adopters in technology
• Second wave big business aware of potential for
  branding and advertising
• Third wave small companies now making the leap,
  but most are unprepared

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Best Practices in New Media

• Blogs MSFT, SUN, Groxis
• Wikis PC Forum, Socialtext Customer Exchange,
  TheNewPR/Wiki
• Podcasts HP

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Sample Blogs Three Ways to Brand

• Robert Scoble, Microsoft. Credited with
  humanizing and rebranding the technology giant.
  
• Jonathan Schwartz, SUN. Aggressive blog that
  speaks to customers, competitors and competitors
  customers
• Grokker Group Blog. Collaborative site designed
  to collect feedback on new product that is
  challenging the current UI model in search.

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Sample Wikis Innovations in Collaboration

• PC Forum Event Space. Innovative public site
  designed to connect people before, during and
  after annual conference.
• Socialtext Customer Exchange. Private
  collaborative site the enables company to
  converse with customers about product features
  and use cases.
• TheNewPR/Wiki. Popular collaborative site for PR
  industry owned and managed by independent vendor.

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Sample Podcast High-Touch at Low-Cost

• Nora Denzel, Senior Vice President, Adaptive
  Enterprise, Technology Solutions Group.  This
  appears to be the first instance of podcasting by
  a senior executive in technology. Nora comments
  on a wide range of topics personal, business
  and technology-related.

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Corporate Issues in New Media

• --Employee blogs. Does anyone get fired for
  blogging?
• --Corporate Policy
• -Brand Culture
• -Compliance and the Law
• -Security

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Employee Blogs The Mark Jen Story

• Perception Mark Jen was terminated for
  blogging, which was against Google culture and
  policy.
• Reality He was terminated, among other reasons,
  for using his blog to disclosed privileged
  information about Google financials.
• Outcome he is writing a corporate blogging
  policy for his new employer, Plaxo.

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Corporate Policy

• Brand and culture
• Your blogging policy should be an extension of
  your overall communication policy
• Policy should reflect corporate culture.
• More participants means more media training.
• Compliance and the law The moral of the Mark
  Jen story -- new-media training may need to
  encompass rules governing compliance and other
  regulatory frameworks
• Policy should be written collaboratively
• Examples Thomas Nelson publishing, Azul Systems
• Security Businesses will almost certainly look
  for solutions
• Vendors InBoxer, IPLocks, Vidius

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Blogging Ten Tips for Getting Started

• Decide on your audience
• Select author(s)
• Choose topic(s)
• Study your blogging community
• Write a policy
• Select a blogging platform
• Design the blog
• Test-market internally, post publicly
• Promote the blog (write to peers, comment on
  their blogs)
• Blog well and blog often

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Advice to Startups

• Start now, before your competitor does
• Start simply (RSS and internal tools)
• Develop a policy, collaboratively
• Integrate new media into your Web site to drive
  traffic and SEO
• Be bold and be different dont just emulate,
  innovate
• Closing example Groxis elevator pitch

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Key Influencers in the Blogosphere

• Doc Searls http//doc.weblogs.com/
• David Weinberger http//www.hyperorg.com/blogger
  /index.html
• Lawrence Lessig http//www.lessig.org/blog/
• Jim Romenesko http//www.poynter.org/column.asp?
  id45
• Jay Rosen http//journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/webl
  ogs/pressthink/
• Jeremy Zowodny http//jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/
• Dan Gillmor http//dangillmor.typepad.com/dan_gi
  llmor_on_grassroots/
• Tom Foremski http//www.siliconvalleywatcher.com
  /
• Silicon Beat http//www.siliconbeat.com/
• Blogspotting http//www.businessweek.com/the_thr
  ead/blogspotting/

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PR/Marketing Blogs

• Robert Scoble http//scoble.weblogs.com/
• Steve Rubel http//steverubel.typepad.com/
• Seth Godin http//sethgodin.typepad.com/
• TheNewPRWiki http//www.thenewpr.com/wiki/pmwiki
  .php
• Mike Manuel http//mmanuel.typepad.com/media_gue
  rrilla/
• Elizabeth Albrycht http//ringblog.typepad.com/c
  orporatepr/
• Shel Holtz http//blog.holtz.com/
• B.L. Ochman http//www.whatsnextblog.com/
• Jeremy Pepper http//pop-pr.blogspot.com/
• Eastwikkers http//www.eastwikkers.com

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Presenters

• Rosemary Remacle, Consultant
• Market Focus
• 408-244-0412
• rosemary_at_mktfocus.net
• Giovanni Rodriguez
• Eastwick Communications
• 650.480.4021
• giovanni_at_eastwick.com