Telligent Business Community

Can United's 180 million dollar loss be chalked up entirely to a song on YouTube? Probably not. Did the song have a very real and very negative effect on United's brand equity? Absolutely.

Brown-Forman's Southern Comfort brand -- weary of jostling for notice with other spirits brands during the narrow nightly window when they are permitted to advertise on cable -- is taking its entire media buy digital, allowing it access to programs online it couldn't touch on TV. SoCo is a presenting sponsor of Playboy's 'Uncovered.' SoCo is a presenting sponsor of Playboy's 'Uncovered.' Last year, SoCo spent $6 million of its $8 million measured media outlay on cable TV, and another $1.5 million on magazine ads. This year, both those numbers will drop to zero in favor of online properties such as Facebook, Spin, Fader, Pitchfork, Thrillist and Hulu.

Marketers have become more than willing to start a conversation about their brands through social media. But that's only the beginning of the marketing effort. LLiu comment: Having convos *is* doing mktg. Trick is 2b authentic & tactful.

By mixing brain-eating aliens with the prospect of free network programming, Hulu's marketing efforts appear to be paying off as 35% of Web users now say they have viewed such content online. By comparison, just 16% of Web users said they had watched or downloaded TV shows or movies in 2007, according to new data from the Pew Internet and American Life Project.

IT professionals put the value of business efficiency over cost reductions, but in this economy they are still struggling with tight budgets. Microsoft recently commissioned Harris Interactive to survey more than 1,200 IT pros worldwide to find their perspective on driving innovation and IT spending priorities.

Total spending on WoM marketing is expected to increase 10.2% to $1.70 billion in 2009 and grow at a CAGR of 14.5% during the 2008-2013 period, reaching $3.04 billion as more brands include WoM in their media mix and ROI metrics improve.

We publicly released the Online Community ROI report last week. The research project was conducted as part of the Online Community Research Network agenda, and was initially released to OCRN members in May. The study had many interesting findings, including: * Only 22% of respondents could clearly articulate ROI on community efforts * The majority of respondents gave a high priority to establishing an ROI model in the near term * 49% were reporting some dimensions of value back to management on a monthly basis * "Value" of online community efforts are contextual to an organizations goals and objectives

Community management is becoming a lot more common at all sorts of organizations - driven by adoption of people doing more and more online and the social media tools that allow for easy conversation and collaboration. As that happens, however, there is a lot of friction due to lack of standards - not just technical standards but also standard expectations and understanding of what community management is and what should be expected of it.

Thanks to everyone who shared comments on the last post about measurement. As I mentioned a key learning to increase executive commitment to social media was the need to move beyond reporting just social media metrics. We need to show how our activity is impacting business outcomes that matter to executives.

Recently I noticed my reports are beginning to morph into something an executive can actually sink their teeth into. The first couple of reports to Sr. Management were mostly social media activities, which looked more like how I was spending my time versus what is being contributed to the bottom line. The aha moment came after sharing a deck created a couple of months ago with Jeremiah Owyang. His comment was that we were not measuring business goals. instead it was all 'social media metrics' which are mostly meaningless.

Your customers are talking about you - and the whole world is listening. Local review sites are reshaping the world of small business by becoming the new Yellow Pages, one-stop platforms where customers can find a business - and also see independent critiques of its performance. How do you manage your reputation when everybody is a critic?

Time spent with the internet, as it turns out, doesn't balloon indefinitely. That might sound obvious, but this is the year web surfing leveled off at 12 hours a week after growing from less than six hours a week in 2004, according to Forrester's annual survey of more than 40,000 American consumers' self-reported media habits. The report, released Monday, also indicates relative stabilization in other media channels, most notably newspaper and magazine reading.

Businesses world wide are facing probably the most challenging time since the Second World War. Most of those in positions of responsibility have little or no first hand experience of dealing with a recession on a global scale.

There's much excitement around Web 2.0, but many IT professionals are still confused about what exactly constitutes Web 2.0. Many are also shockingly unprepared for the security risks that come with Web 2.0 use in the workplace. When they hear the term Web 2.0, many IT professionals automatically think of personal social networking sites and they restrict employee access in an attempt to manage productivity. But, as Knowledge Center contributor Jim Haskin explains, Web 2.0 is much more than just social networking, and Web 2.0 applications are delivering measurable business benefits.

After spending a few hours using an early version of Google Wave today, it's clear that in its initial incarnation it won't be ejecting existing enterprise collaboration tools from the workplace any time soon. It's not that it isn't impressive, far from it, however Wave's complex interface and open-ended feature set provides an unexpectedly steep learning curve, particularly from a company that is famous for simple, powerful user experiences.