Everybody loves Twitter! It's quick, it's easy and it's fun. OK so they are having some trouble making money...well Dell figured it out. Dell's recent announcement that they sold $1,000,000 through their Dell Outlet on Twitter (http://bit.ly/18RJp4) for essentially $0 investment is exciting for us social marketing proponents. Really shows that the new marketing is about being smart and taking the time to build your own audience one brick at a time via Viral / WOM  vs blasting away large Media budgets at a scattering target market.

It took Dell 18 months to build enough of an audience to generate the $1M in sales. It turns out this was a skunk works project started without much fanfare...that figures as 18 months of patience is a bit much for today's CMO's / CFO's. Do you think Dell would have the patience to wait 18 months on a higher profile investment? What do you think?

Here is link to full story on Tech Crunch http://bit.ly/RHfO

        

5% commission for what?  Now I can do my own MLS listing for $800 which will generate lots of buyers…I can make a sign and do the paperwork…the only leveragable thing left for the agent / broker value proposition is community information and risk management between buyers and sellers that don’t know each other.

Oh no…its Zillow.com + social networking!!

If you are buying / selling real estate…u have to check out Zillow.com. It is THE informational future of real estate. Although only available in US right now….there are +18,000,000 listings with a set of research tools like nothing your agent / broker has even seen:

Zillow has interactive / zoomable maps showing information on every home in the USA including:

- Exact location
- Estimated Value of that house and all the houses in the area
- 3/ 5/ 10 year pricing trends for area  (total and $ / sf2)
- Community stats like age / families with children
- Some pictures

Right now Zillow still pushes “leads” over to the brokers (using more pictures and content to get buyer to follow link to broker site). With Zillow in the mix…I would propose the only thing missing is some social networking to build trust between buyers and sellers…some intermediary for the transaction…hmmm…where could we find an entity that could do that…

Try Zillow.com…what do you think?

        

This is VERY cool…. 28,000 fans got together and bought the EBBS FLEET United Football Club in UK last week. An on-line network called MyFC was formed…and each paid approx $70US for a share and they purchased 75% of the club.

Social Capital markets have started!! Bye bye investment bankers sucking huge pools of capital out of the investment market just to play match-maker. Oh the internet…the ultimate dis-intermediary force and matchmaker. Cut out the middle-man….bring buyers and sellers from all over the world together quickly and cost effectively.

Google kind of started this approach during there IPO couple of years ago…by dictating not only the terms of the deal…but of the auction process as well. Really pissed off the investment bankers and gave them a taste of the new world…the disruptors take over another industry.

The financial industry is ripe for this for 2 reasons. In the past it was difficult to raise $MM’s of dollars with out some help, and these Investment Banks make huge profits….and where there are profits and a need…innovation follows!!

My vision in 2-3 years….I want to buy a house or business….so I post my “prospectus” to a Social Capital community….attract interested micro-investors (or larger ones) from all over the world…and the deal is done. Risk management will get sorted out…micro-investments is one tactic on that.

Should we start a company...get the world to invest $5 each? What do u think?

        

Growing up I was a huge Second City TV fan ..SCTV as it was known…John Candy, Martin Short, Bob and Doug Mackenzie…incredibly talented and innovative comedy creators.

I grew up in a rural area where I couldn’t get channel 57….but my friend Steve….a crazy kid with a real talent for entertaining…would come to school every Monday and act out the entire show…even though I’d never seen it. As I got older I got to stay overnight Fri’s at his house and see the show…it was freakin funny with characters you just had to emulate and tell people about.

As it turns out…Second City (SC) comedy is not luck or 100% dependant on high-end talent….but instead created using a form of creative collaboration and brainstorming called “improvisation”…a very positive and momentum driven approach where a group rolls with an idea and keeps building on it …usually developing an interesting and innovative line of thinking.

Over the years SC has refined and productized their “Yes and…” approach to develop endless innovative comedic content and classic characters…but more recently they have begun offering it as a problem solving & innovation service to corporate clients  struggling to find “fresh”  ideas to or revitalize stale brands.

 In the last few months I have had to opportunity to begin working with the SC corporate communication team on an exciting new service offering called “Branded Entertainment”….where they create video and other digital content designed to cut through the clutter and get the attention and engagement of an brand’s audience and advocates..

Having been around the Dove Evolution and Sunsilk Bridezilla videos during my time at Ogilvy and Capital C…the question always comes up….was this art or science? Did we get lucky or can we re-engineer the results for the next client?

Well I think it’s a little of both…they’ll always be a bit of luck to get 6,500,000 views of on-line video launched only on You-Tube…but you can definitely influence the results and stack the deck in your favor.

 In even the few short months I have had the privilege of collaborating with the SC group…I have seen some incredible ideas combine with a tremendous amount of science. A few learning for those considering an investment:

1. Ensure it is based on an insight for your target market   (eg. Sunsilk…Brides have a lot of stress about their hair on their wedding day and could lose it at any time)
2. Be relevant and controversial with in the social conversation (eg. Dove…I can’t believe they really Photoshop models….do they??)
3. Design with an engagement tail   (eg. Campaign vs 1-time, not just burst and burn, but develop an on-going audience for possible follow-up, episodic type content)

I’d suggest calling Secondcitycommunications.com if you are tired of your agency coming up with safe” and retreaded ideas.

Give them a call...listen to their pitch....and let me know what you think…

 

        

Ok…maybe it’s the time of the year being stuck inside with no more football...or maybe it was the 2 hrs I spent playing in the NASCAR store with my 2 sons during a 4 hr layover at Charlotte airport last weekend…but I’m hooked.

I used to make fun of the NASCAR thing…but it is truly a marketing and entertainment masterpiece. No wonder it is the fastest growing US sport and building an audience that is >50% female. My 5 year old bugged me all week to “make sure we didn’t miss the race” and left the park on Saturday to come home a watch it. We watched 2 races this weekend as a family…even my wife watched a bit!!

As a huge NFL fan ….NASCAR delivers the same incredibly engaging event experience ….but with total brand advertising integration. “the Interstate Toyota sure was fast today”….imagine if (and probably when) NFL teams are re-branded…”the Dallas Exxon Cowboys played great today”…what’s that worth to the NFL?

Stock car racing is an incredibly complicated and technical activity, but NASCAR wraps cartoon simplicity around it. Unique characters, simple plotlines, colorful cars, on screen pop-up bubbles and lots of action. They make it folksy, sizzly and simple all at once. In the course of 2-3 hrs of pre-race coverage my 5 year old son and I learned everything we needed to “get” the NASCAR story and engage with the event at a level beyond the cars going round-and-round…next year he says he wants to go to a race…cool...for now we'll join the on-line community...

Check it out…what u think?

 

        

As a web entrepreneur who has built “launch and iterate” properties with a small flexible group…I now work with large high profile companies helping to use social media to craft the post-sales brand experience. It has given me a new perspective on 3rd party on-line communities dedicated to someone else’s brand....I was thinking it seemed like audience theft given the large investment to build a brand...I now admire their speed of in-market execution and see them potential allies.

 

While companies slog through the technical, legal and political processes required to get new features / content to market on their “branded user community”… entrepreneurial 3rd party sites run by clever and resourceful people are able to implement the vision before we make our first PowerPoint pres to the internal Execs.

 

The top 3rd party sites…with their fully enabled Social Networking vision already in market…have developed very compelling value propositions for visitors….building audiences numbering millions of our brand’s end users.

 

What’s the lesson here? Part of my job is to influence the online “conversation” around a brand…the reality is that we must find ways to collaborate with the owners of these properties to mutual benefit.

 

Big companies should not fear these 3rd party sites. Their autonomy, authenticity, flexibility, and reduced corporate liability issues….create an opportunity to provide a tremendous source of market research info, brand advocacy, and marketing buzz creation.

 

Although very cautiously….we have begun building relationships with some of these 3rd party communities and testing different ways we can work together to achieve our mutual goals….early days….hopefully I will be proven right….but I’ll keep you posted…

 

What do u think?

        

We all use on-line social media tools to create, publish and share various forms of self expression...but what about new tools which allow us to do it offline? I found a very cool new application... www.Hippopost.com ...which allows you to send friends a real-world UGC postcard (in the mail!) with your uploaded picture and message on it.

All the online social media tools are paid for in some way by Marketers who are looking to leverage our "endorsement" of their brand / product to drive sales by our friends (friend-of-a-friend most powerful referral system). Hippopost has taken this same model to the offline medium.

How HippoPost works:

1. U want to send a postcard in mail   (b-cards, invites / vacation pics…)
2. Access the Hippopost app through either a Facebook plug-in, their website, or kiosks / brand sites who are using it
3. Upload the picture you want on your card(s)
4. Write your message and recipient(s) address
5. From a list of sponsors, you pick a brand that you would like to pay for your postage
6. Your friend receives the postcard in mail with a trackable offer from the brand u chose  (inferring you are endorsing them)
7. Sponsor (Brand Marketer) sees response rates 5-10x higher as your friend noticed, read and responded to the postcard offer as they felt you had endorsed the it

Try it...go send your own personalized postcards paid for by the brand of your choice...love to hear what u think...and what your friend or family member said when they received it...

        

Every great battle or uprising has a tipping point...that time when it is evident to all that their is an inevitability to the coming change. When company that built it's fortune on the back of mass advertising says mass is dead and they are investing in building a 60 Million consumer precision (1-1) database...we have to ask..is this it?

"The boat's setting sail, and we have one foot on the dock and one on the boat," she said. "If you listen to A.G. Lafley or Jim Stengel, they're all talking about the declining return on investment in TV. This trend tells us we should go to one-to-one marketing. We just haven't put our money where our mouth is."


Check out the article...http://adage.com/print?article_id=116545

What do you think?

        

  partners with 

Well here we go. Google partners with Clear Channel to provide radio ad buying mechanism. Hang on to your hats Media Buying folks.

As predicted last week...in response to Matthew Ingram's article to the contrary...Google can...will...is...revolutionizing the off-line ad buying process in the same way it did on-line...and by the way..the IPO auction process.

Assuming Microsoft's antitrust objections are set aside....Google's purchase of Doubleclick at a ridiculous premium...gives them:

• Search  Ads (online)
• Display Ads (online)
• TV (offline test with Echostar)
• Radio  (offline test with Clear Channel)
• Print  (offline test with Washington Post / Chicago Sun Times)

Hmmm....what could possible be next? I wonder. How are those Comcast dynamic Ad insertion trials going..don't they require robust user data profiles? Hmmm...who has that?

We haven't talked about yet the B2B / B2C behavioral Data Collection that has been going on since Google's little "toolbar" got launched...more about that later...it's scary.

Here's the link to Press Release on Clear Channel website: http://www.clearchannel.com/Radio/PressRelease.aspx?PressReleaseID=1935

Here is link to Washington Post article on Print ads: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/26/AR2006122600787.html

Is all this good for the industry? Do you like disruptive forces? What do you think?

        

 or

Ah Local Search...sound so easy doesn't it. I have a yellow pages...there are lots of business directories...why is it that there isn't a way to use the internet to find stuff in my neighborhood?

Reality is it's all about economics isn't it. The business model just doesn't work when you need such a high volume of content and granularity to make the tool effective...then the cost of servicing every small and medium sized business is large...and they can't afford to pay much. The internet is really dominated by the large companies with the resources to build robust eMarketing programs.

There are 2 ways to get local search...start at the top and work down ...Google Local / Yahoo Local tried using their algorythms to compile it but found what the rest of us knew that only <50% of businesses have a website yet...or start at bottom and work up (about a million small local directory services). Both of these are failing. You'd think Yellow Pages could do it with their existing Sales force...but no...they can't seem to get it.

What will ultimately enable Local Search is User Generated Content. The first company to provide the platform and to enable local community members to create the content and rating system for local vendors...social search of you will... will clean up...hmmm...I have to go now...

Interesting article from ClickZ: http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3625556

What do you think?