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Publishers have traditionally focused on the quality of their content rather than their customer experience, but trends in technology and consumer behavior are changing that. Two recent occurrences made me think of how vital customer experience is to the future of individual companies in this category and the concept of an independent and trusted news media.

The first of these occurrences was reading earlier this year about one newspaper's problems with delivery as they switched distributors. My friend Josh Bernoff wrote about the troubles from both the professional and personal perspectives (since he was not getting his newspaper as expected). Even in this digital age, physical distribution of the newspaper matters, because media organizations, like most companies, must serve their existing customers while finding ways to attract new ones with evolving digital models. And it matters in this particular industry because digital ad revenues have not come close to making up for the 65% loss in print ad revenues newspapers have suffered in the past decade.

Publishers' desire to increase ad revenue can come into sharp conflict with users' expectations, which brings me to my second recent occurrence that brought the customer experience of media to mind. Last week I visited a tech site to read an article, and I honestly felt as if I was in a digital jungle hacking through the spam undergrowth to get to my destination. My experience on this site followed this tortuous path:

• Close a pop-up ad in a new window.
• Close an overlay ad that obscured the content.
• Start reading--momentarily--before a video push-down ad appeared at the top of the page, forcing my content off the bottom.
• Scroll down to continue reading for fifteen seconds before the push-down ad (which was playing unseen above the top of my window) disappeared, causing the content to scroll once again off the page.
• Scroll up to continue reading.
• At this point, the site launched yet another overlay. This one asked me to subscribe to the mailing list. To make matters worse, closing the overlay required me to click a statement along the lines of "No, I don't care about the upcoming trends in tech." Does this publisher think its users are so simpleminded they can be manipulated into registering because of an aversion to clicking that phrase?

I left the site without reading the article. After 30 seconds, I'd read just two paragraphs and was forced to take five separate actions because ads either blocked the content or chased it off my screen. I will not return to this site. In fact, I hope no one does.

Desperate times may call for desperate measures for publishers, but the customer is still in charge. To read more about how consumers are reacting, how publishers are responding, why trust in the news media is at crisis levels and how customer experience is a powerful tool for publishers, please continue reading on the Gartner blog.

FOX News led their "Click This" segment with a laugh and this assertion: "If you feel like you're missing out on this Twitter thing, don't worry, because 40% of the tweets are just pointless babble." Courtney Friel delivered the line in the sort of disparaging tone FOX usually reserves for Nancy Pelosi.
My gripe isn't only with FOX News; other news sources were quick to jump on the story. For example, V3 featured an article titled, "Twitter is no business tool, says research," which claimed the findings of a Twitter study, "pour(s) cold water on suggestions that Twitter can be used as an effective business tool and news source." That will come as a surprise to the millions of people effectively using Twitter as a news source or the thousands of businesses of all sizes that are already seeing benefits from using Twitter.

Pull the plug on those brand programs in Social Media. They have no effect on consumer perception!

That is the conclusion of an Adotas.com article entitled "Social media’s overrated brand game," which sounds this cautionary note about the impact of brand efforts in Social Media: "Social networks are still not the best place to goose up brand perception." This assertion is based on overwhelmingly definitive consumer survey results, so I guess that's that--close the Twitter account, abandon your Facebook fans, and divert your budget away from Social Media!

Except for one thing: People--including you and me--are dumb when it comes to recognizing what influences their own beliefs and actions. The survey referenced in the Adotas article asked consumers to evaluate whether brands' presence in Social Media affected their perception of those brands, which plays directly into a psychological blind spot in human self awareness that is well known to researchers. It's called "third-person perception," and it is defined as the tendency for people to think others are more influenced by mass media than they are themselves.

Put less scientifically: The Workplace Media study is rubbish. They asked 753 office Internet users about Social Media, and "96 percent say that their opinion of a product or brand does not change if it does not have a presence on these sites." Asking people to assess the impact of a medium upon their beliefs and actions has been and always will be a bogus and useless way to evaluate a marketing medium.

Third Party Perception has been documented in several studies. In Media Effects: Advances in Theory and Research, Jennings Bryant and Mary Beth Oliver cite several such studies:

"The Third-Person Effect is a relatively new concept, as social science constructs go. It was invented in 1983 by sociologist W. Phillips Davison in a clever article that drew on intuition and public opinion theory...

"(Since then), the Third-Person Effect has been studied by asking participants to estimate communication effects on others and themselves. (For example), U.S. respondents estimated that the news media had a greater impact on others' opinions of the 1996 presidential candidates than on their own views (Salwen, 1998). More recently, research has found that individuals perceived others to be more influenced than themselves by the news of the "millennium bug" in Y2K and environmental problems (Jensen & Hurley, 2005; Tewksbury, Moy, & Weis, 2004)...

"Third person perceptions also emerge in judgements about advertising. Individuals perceived that other people were more influenced than themselves by commercials for household products, liquor and beer, and cigarettes (Gunther & Thorson, 1992; Shah, Faber, & Youn, 1999). Even young schoolchildren exhibit third-person perceptions. Elementary and middle school students perceived that cigarette ads have significantly greater impact on others than themselves (Henriksen & Flora, 1999)."

Of course, if you ask consumers if they want or are impacted by brands requesting they be "friends", we shouldn't be surprised by the answer. As noted on the Fresh Networks blog, research found that almost two in every three respondents to a survey were "fed up with the constant requests to join groups and try new applications."

Why shouldn't consumers be tired of and reject the obsessively self-centered, be-my-fan, let's-talk-about-me attitude of so much Social Marketing nowadays? A couple days ago I wrote about the Kohl's Facebook page where the company's Vice President of Digital Marketing attempted to pass himself off as a Kohl's fan eager to share deals. He hasn't posted since, but the Kohl's Facebook Wall has devolved into a platform for employee bragging. Eight of the last 10 posts are from employees giving shout outs to their stores ("1201 is number 1" and "1308 has the bestest employees"), while the only contribution by Kohl's official Facebook account is a brag about Britney Spears appearing on the Kohl's Web site. Where's the value for consumers? Where's the promise of one-to-one relationships with the brand?

Marketers need to be cautious about evaluating the value of Social Media based on consumers' self perception or consumer opinion of dubious Social Media strategies. Instead, look to the successes enjoyed by Social Media strategies that focus not on the brand but the consumer--Zappos on Twitter; Dell's reversal of brand perception fortunes; Ford's Social Media platform; Adobe's successful Facebook campaign; or ABSOLUT LOMO's UGC and blogger outreach success.

Or, on a small scale, check out the experience of Jessica Gottlieb, as reported on MSNBC.com. Jessica saw her children off on a trip and waited in the terminal to watch their plane take off; an hour later their plane was still stuck on the tarmac. What's a concerned parent to do? Twitter, of course! Jessica tweeted, “Dear Virgin Air, My children have been on the tarmac for one hour with 90 more minutes to wait. I am at JFK gate b25. Pls RT.” Her followers retweeted, and "within minutes, Virgin had phoned Gottlieb to reassure her that her kids would be fine."

We can debate whether or not brands can afford to respond to every aggrieved consumer tweeting a complaint, but this much is certain: Jessica Gottlieb had her opinion of Virgin America change because the brand was present, listening, and wanted to connect in Social Media. ("The guy who I spoke to at Virgin out of San Francisco was amazing. I think they're going in the right direction.") Perhaps if the survey participants in the Workplace Media study had all enjoyed an experience like this, they might recognize that brands' presence in Social Media does impact brand perception--but only if it's done right and with a focus on consumer needs and not just brand goals.

I'm surprised by the amount of ignorance that exists today about Social Media demographics. Considering how easily accessible statistics and studies are, there is no excuse for marketers and those interested in communications to hold incorrect beliefs, make erroneous statements, or base decisions upon outdated assumptions. But whether due to laziness, fear, or bias, some people are saying awfully dumb things about Social Media.

First Twidiot: In an AdAge.com article about Michelob's use of Twitter, George Hacker, director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest said, "Twitter is for kids, and this is a way to put these brand names in their faces." (Full disclosure: I do not work with Michelob, but I am involved with the marketing of beer brands; my client has an unwavering commitment and takes constant and proactive steps to target their marketing messages to the appropriate adult audience.)

Whether Hacker is simply misinformed or allowed his passion to get in the way of the truth, his contention about Twitter is demonstrably and thoroughly incorrect. I expect better from a guy who is a director at an organization with "science" in its name.

Quantcast's data cannot tell us specifically about the 21+ audience on Twitter because they divide age groups at 18 and not 21, the legal drinking age, but quantcast's data still paints a conclusive picture. Just 6% of Twitter site visitors are under 18. More than half are over 35 years old.

Other data reinforces the facts about Twitter's adult audience composition: According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, the median Twitter user is 31, compared to 26 for Facebook and 40 for LinkedIn. And comScore reveals that adults 25 to 54 over-index on Twitter compared to the general Internet population. Children 12 to 17 under-index at just 59%.

Not only isn't "Twitter for kids," but we can confidently conclude the demographics of Twitter fit the conditions of the Beer Institute Advertising and Marketing Code, which requires that beer advertisements be placed only in media where at least 70 percent of the audience is reasonably expected to be at or above the legal drinking age. Mr. Hacker is simply wrong, and his statement is of the type that reinforces incorrect assumptions about Social Media participants.

While researching this blog post, I ran across twidiot number two: J.R. Davis, who writes for nwahomepage.com, the site for Arkansas radio station KNWA. Perhaps I shouldn't get bent out of shape about something said on an Arkansas news site--it's not as if a significant number of brand marketers visit this site--but I expect more care and attentiveness to detail from journalists. Plus, Davis' error is one common among many marketers--a failure to recognize how rapidly Social Media demographics are changing.

Davis wrote the article "Internet Fatigue," which states, "Here's the kicker... The 14-24 year old demographic represents over 65 percent of users (of MySpace and Facebook)." Davis' fact isn't so much wrong as it is terribly dated and thus not accurate or appropriate for an article published in June 2009. The statistic cited came from a Rapleaf study performed a year ago. Has anything changed in the period from June 10, 2008 (the date of the study) to June 11, 2009 (the date of the article)?

In January 2009, istrategylabs.com wrote that the fastest-growing demographic on Facebook was the 35-54 year old demo, with a 276.4% growth rate the past 6 months. The same report notes that the 55+ demo had a 194.3% growth rate and that users 21+ represent 66.3% of all Facebook users. Had Davis cared to do any up-to-date fact checking at all rather than repeat a statistic from the dark ages of Social Media--and yes, a year matters quite a lot when referencing Social Networking data--he or she might have visited quantcast and found that while teens 12-17 are the largest demographic, those over 18 account for almost three-quarters of Facebook.com's traffic. Over two-thirds of MySpace's traffic comes from those 18 or older.

With facts and information so easy to come by, it's frustrating to see comments like this, from Philadelphia 76ers’ communications director, Michael Preston: “We are not yet convinced that our target demographics for season ticket [buyers] and partial plans are totally dialed into the social networking scene.” Why not ask, find out where your consumers are engaged in Social Media, and become convinced?

The implications of incorrect assumptions and outdated information can be substantial to brand health. The failure to recognize the growth and changes in Social Media is resulting in a lack of urgency around this channel. For example, while “time spent watching TV is virtually unchanged" and "time spent social networking has grown 93% since 2006," marketers seem to be slow to increase Social Media in their marketing mix. According to one recent report, marketers still consider Social Media experimental and are said to be budgeting less than $100,000 for social media efforts over the next year.

While companies like Dell are creating revenue and positively impacting their brand in Social Media, most others have barely gotten started. As noted in an April 2009 article on Adweek.com:

"Thousands of brands from large, medium and small companies... crossed that hurdle a few years ago of making a Web site. But they are not yet waking up to the fact that the Internet is not just about parking your information somewhere and hoping people stumble across it somehow. You have to be active for anyone to notice.... Companies obviously know Twitter and blogs and Facebook. They just don't know how they fit in. "

The facts are out there. There is no longer any excuse to be a Twidiot. The time has passed when being unsure of where Social Media fits for your audience was merely a casual problem to be solved as priorities permit. In late 2009, failing to understand how our increasingly social world challenges and benefits brands has become an act of shortsightedness or deliberate ignorance that threatens consumer perception, brand value, market share, and the bottom line.

Yesterday, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) released a report entitled, "Social Media Ad Metrics Definitions." I appreciate the organization's desire to "stimulate growth by making the reporting of metrics more consistent," but the document left me wanting far more. I felt there were a number of potential missteps and omissions, ranging from the merely annoying to the consequential.

The report doesn't so much outline revolutionary new ways of thinking about Social marketing analytics as it does apply existing advertising models to Social Media. With so many seeking answers to the challenges of Social Media measurement and ROI, I believe the IAB missed an opportunity to take a leadership position with innovative thinking on this topic.

I considered if I was being too critical of the report; after all, it mentions "Ad Metrics" right in the title. The IAB didn't label the report as being about "Word of Mouth," "Buzz," or any of the other labels we apply to Social Media. No, it advertised itself as being about "Ad Metrics," and had the report stuck to that topic, then the approach and information presented may have been right on target.

The problem is that the IAB report doesn't just focus on advertising in Social Media; it invites readers to expect more than just advertising thinking. The report opens with a smart and succinct declaration of how Social Media differs from the online media of the past:

"Social Media has added a participatory element where an individual not only receives information but has the ability to take part in the creation and distribution of content. Furthermore, social media tools have enabled a dialogue and discovery around this content. It is the combination of these unique and appealing aspects that defines the true value of social media."

After reading this, I expected interesting and insightful thinking about how to measure "the true value of social media," but I didn't really see it in this document.

The report starts with a list of General Social Media Metrics, and if the IAB recognizes Web 2.0 as a bold new world, you wouldn't really know it from the metrics cited. The list is heavy with familiar metrics such as Unique Visitors, Cost per Unique Visitor, Page Views, Visits, Return Visits, and Time Spent. The future apparently looks an awful lot like the past.

Among these metrics, I was disturbed to see "pop-under ads" listed as a type of content that may be included in Unique Visitor statistics for Social Media sites. Why include this hated vestige of old-fashioned, one-way, annoyance advertising in a document that should set a bold new direction in participatory marketing? After all, it was the IAB itself that in March reported that pop-unders were the least clicked form of online advertising. Had the IAB wanted to demonstrate that it is setting a new direction by embracing the underlying precepts of Social Media--such as transparency, authenticity, and two-way dialog--then Pop-Under Ads should have been mentioned only to encourage their extinction.

Since the report set the stage with its discussion of "participatory elements," consumer "creation and distribution of content," and "dialogue," it was surprising to see how few of the General Social Media Metrics dealt with anything other than presence at touchpoints. Visitors, Page Views, and even Time on Site cannot reveal anything about the "true value of Social Media." That value instead comes from metrics the report buries in a long bulleted list of "Relevant actions taken," including Messages sent, Invites sent, Newsfeed items posted, and Comments posted.

Having suggested these ways of measuring Social Media dialog, the report punts when it comes to furnishing guidance on how to gather that data. While providing definitions of decade-old Web metrics such as Unique Visitors and Time Spent, the report makes no attempt to describe how to measure those "Relevant actions taken." Instead of focusing on the sort of information one might find in the "Help" section of an Omniture or WebTrends Dashboard, this report could have blazed trails by delving into the more challenging, less understood, and more important questions about how to measure relevant actions that occur across a vast variety of Social Media tools and sites.

Perhaps one of the most concerning aspects of this report is that a reader might get the idea that every action is equal. The report suggests that "Comments posted" are worth measuring, but it says nothing whatsoever about sentiment within those comments. In the entire report, the following words do not appear even a single time: "Sentiment," "Attitude," "Rating," "Positive," and "Net Promoter Score." Apparently the IAB thinks that all comments should be tabulated in aggregate, regardless of whether they are disparaging or complimentary.

The report's neglect for the vital aspects of sentiment in Social Media is also evident in the way the concept of "influence" is discussed. "Influence" is introduced not as the capacity to affect desired change in the actions and attitudes of a specific audience, but instead is defined as "Average number of friends among users who have installed application." The size of one's network is important but hardly is a measure of influence. Think of it this way--if you wanted to change the attitudes of technology decision makers, would you focus on actor Ashton Kutcher or Michael Arrington, founder of TechCrunch? According to the ridiculously narrow definition suggested by the IAB report, Ashton's 1.6 million followers give him more influence on technology (and every other topic) than Arrington, with his meager 550,000 followers.

The report contains other dubious contentions. For example, it is suggested that a blog author's credibility can be ascertained by evaluating attributes such as the length of time an author has been posting on a topic and the number of links he or she has to sites with "conversation phrases from the client’s RFP or IO." To me, these metrics suggest an author's pertinence to the desired topic but say nothing of his or her credibility. Credibility may be ascertained by tabulating the quantity of readers within the defined target audience, number of Diggs and inbound links from high-quality sites, and ratio of posts that are unsponsored versus paid advertising, as well by more qualitative means.

I came to the IAB report with a great deal of interest and high expectations for the knowledge and direction it would provide on the vital topic of Social Media metrics. The fact it fails to advance inventive and farsighted thoughts on the difficult subject of Social Media metrics is a tremendous lost opportunity for the IAB, marketers, publishers, and Social Media sites. I surely did not expect them to have all the answer since the world of Social Media is still young and rapidly changing, but this report did not come close to outlining the kind of thinking around which "all players in the Social Media space will coalesce."

If you follow Twitter news, you're aware and have an opinion about Nielsen's recent report on Twitter's low retention of new users. Some Twitter fans are irate and believe the Nielsen data is incorrect; meanwhile, the Twitter haters are enjoying the "I told you so" opportunity. I'm not sure all the buzz about the study really amounts to much, except perhaps to call attention to how quickly many media outlets are eager to latch onto any whiff of negative news regarding Social Media.

The story begins two days ago, when David Martin, Vice President of Primary Research at Nielsen Online, authored "Twitter Quitters Post Roadblock to Long-Term Growth" on the Nielsen Wire blog. He shared an overview of a Nielsen study that found "the percentage of a given month’s users who come back the following month, is currently about 40 percent."

Many Twitter fans were quick to point out that Nielsen may have failed to account for the many people who use Twitter but never visit Twitter.com. According to Tweetstats, 40% of Tweets come from people posting updates via third-party applications and sites. For many observers, this proved Nielsen's numbers were incorrect.

Of course, Nielsen was averse to having its accuracy questioned, so today Martin posted a follow-up on Nielsen Wire called "Update: Return of the Twitter Quitters." He says his organization has rerun the analysis "adding in more than 30 websites and applications that feed into the Twitter community" and found the retention number didn't change compared to the earlier report.

Given that Twitter's meteoric growth is well established, why should we care what Twitter's retention rate is? Because, according to Nielsen, the service cannot grow beyond a certain reach of Internet users with such low retention of new registrants. Nielsen calculates Twitter's maximum reach at 10%, a still formidable figure but nowhere near as large as many expect Twitter to attain.

Time will tell, but my feeling is that Nielsen may have gotten the data right while reaching an erroneous conclusion. Twitter's growth is undisputed, even (or especially) by Nielsen. The same organization that says Twitter loses 60% of new registrants each month also said that the site has seen its monthly unique audience grow 1382% from February 2008 to February 2009. By my calculations, for Twitter to have grown in a single year from 475,000 to over 7 million unique monthly visitors while shedding 60% of new users each month, it must have attracted around 16.4 million new visitors while losing 9.8 million of them.

While my calculations required quite a few assumptions to fill in for data not released by Nielsen, the basic contention is sound--Twitter's growth was already astounding, but for the site to have achieved this growth while retaining a mere 40% of its new users is mind blowing. This is also why I'm not really that concerned about Twitter's future. Nielsen seems to believe that a user that is lost to Twitter will stay lost, but is that a reasonable assumption?

It isn't hard to understand how 10 million people might have joined Twitter prior to its rise into the mainstream, failed to find many friends, and then abandoned the site within 30 days. But as more people are drawn to Twitter by Oprah, Ashton, Britney, Ellen, Demi, and Diddy, all of those neglected accounts are still waiting and available. In other words, the fact someone registered in June and left in July doesn't mean they won't ever return. In fact, my guess is that Twitter's growth this past year has been fueled in part by Nielsen's quitters who came back months later to rejoin the Twitterverse.

Twitter's problem isn't a lack of retention or reach but the opposite. I've already written on ExperienceTheBlog.com how once-popular sites have faded and how Twitter could, in fact, follow suit. Despite the Nielsen report that calls into question Twitter's stickiness, I still believe the service's primary challenge is establishing a business model that will be accepted by its fan base and investors.

So, if Twitter has grown impressively and continues to do so, what is with the almost joyous headlines about the Nielsen report? The LA Times says "Nielsen on Twitter: It's so five seconds ago." BusinessWeek says "Twitter is a Fad" and offers "it looks like it’s popularity may soon fade." And on PC World, a columnist writes, "Twitter has shown it is nothing more than a fad. Its services are limited, its fan base drops out quicker than a brick in a wet paper bag."

With Twitter so obviously still growing--and doing so exponentially--what would cause this sort of unfounded pessimism? First of all, it's clear many media outlets simply misinterpreted the Nielsen data. Nielsen isn't saying that Twitter is losing its audience; in fact, they've established Twitter's continued growth. Not only is there no evidence that "its fan base drops out quicker than a brick in a wet paper bag" but instead the facts show the site is continuing to skyrocket.

Maybe it's just jealousy. Compete.net indicates Twitter has not only grown 10 to 20 times faster than the LA Times, PC World, and BusinessWeek sites in the past year, but it also now attracts double the unique audience of those long-established Web destinations.

In the end, this sort of coverage is an embarrassment for these media outlets. Whatever the cause, the failure to portray Twitter's real situation and the rush to pronounce it "a fad" says far more about the writers' bias than it does the facts. Articles like these remind me of the dot-com crash when those who'd said the Internet was a "flash in the pan" got their "I told you so" moment, but it didn't last long; soon the Internet came roaring back and forced the naysayers to get on board (or into early retirement).

Twitter will succeed or fail; other Web 2.0 sites will come and go; but there is no doubt about the future of Social Media. We are moving into a more networked, interconnected, and transparent world. It will happen, whether or not the reporters, columnists, and bloggers at mainstream media sites are ready for it.

Are marketing professionals putting the future success of their brands and agencies at risk? Two articles that I read today left me wondering the answer to that question.

The Financial Times covered a report from The Institute of Practitioners in Advertising that stated, "two-thirds of advertising agencies are not prepared for the industry changes prompted by social networks and new forms of digital media." Failing to attack the challenges and opportunities of Social Media could come at a steep cost to agencies. The report calculated that ad agencies face growth of "just 1.2 per cent a year by 2016 if the industry fails to tackle the changes to the media created by sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter."

If you're like me, you might be wondering how it is even possible that marketing professionals could be missing out on the most important consumer trend since the adoption of the Internet. The second article may provide a clue.

A MediaPost article, entitled "Back To Basics For Marketers," shares findings from an annual survey conducted by The Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG) and Anderson Analytics. Among the insights gained in the study are--prepare yourself--that marketers "are 'sick' of hearing about Web 2.0 and related buzzwords such as blogs and social networking."

Among a list of the most important marketing concepts, Word of Mouth was ranked 11th, SNS (Social Network Sites) was 19th, Web 2.0 was 33rd, and blogging was 39th. Most of these Social Media concepts were ranked lower than such pressing marketing concepts as Alternative Energy (12th), Green Marketing (15th), and Credit Availability (23rd). Conversely, asked what terms they were most tired of hearing, marketers' top four choices were Web 2.0, Social Networking, Social Media, and Blogging.

I find it shocking and disappointing that a group of people whose livelihoods require they remain in tune to consumer patterns, media habits, and communication trends would find Social Media tiresome. If they're "sick" of this concept, they may want to find an antidote quickly, because Social Media is just getting started! In 2008, Twitter grew 752%, Facebook has increased its traffic 116%, and other Web 2.0 sites have seen surging growth (for example, Ning is up 270% and LinkedIn up 114%).

Because it is impossible for me to fathom how marketers could be "sick" of this powerful and exciting shift in consumer behavior, I began to consider potential causes for this Social Media ailment. Perhaps it is that senior marketers (i.e., older folks) don't "get" and are wary of the ways Social Media is altering their industry.

I might sound like I am being irreverent, but I'm not. It's no secret that Social Media demographics have skewed young (and broadened considerably in 2008). But the marketers surveyed are likely an older bunch; no age demographics were shared about MENG, but its members "must have held a position of Vice President or higher before joining (and) pass a screening process including a minimum base salary of $160K." I could be wrong, but I don't think there are a lot of six-figure VPs in the 14 -to-34 age bracket so active in Social Media.

Another possible cause of this Social Media apathy could be fatigue and a wish for stability. We all like to claim that we embrace change, but standing on constantly shifting ground can get exhausting. With print down, television slipping, banner ads failing, ad-zapping technology on the rise, the demand for Marketing ROI growing, and Social Media evolving at a rapid pace, there's no doubt the discipline of marketing requires constant vigilance to stay informed, relevant, and successful. It used to be that a marketing mistake meant spending bucks on a campaign that failed to capture the attention of consumers; nowadays, marketing mistakes result in public shaming and brand damage control (see Motrin's recent Mommy Blogger blowup).

Whatever the reason for their Social Media burnout, marketers would be well advised to get re-energized on the subject because expertise is lacking as consumer usage is exploding. In an ironic twist within the MediaPost article, it is revealed that this same group of marketers admit they are Social Media neophytes: "A social media study MENG released on November 6, 2008 (showed that) 67% of executive marketers consider themselves beginners when it comes to using social media for marketing purposes."

The combination of surging Social Media adoption, Social Media inexperience, and Social Media exhaustion is a dangerous one for brands. In 2009, a shakeout will occur in Social Media sites and tools (accelerated by the weak economy), but Social Media engagement will only continue to swell in the years to come, aided by new concepts, tools, and sites that make it easier for consumers to share, obtain, and filter information, opinions, and experiences.

I hope if you're reading this, you aren't tired of Social Media. After all, we're just in third mile of the marathon and the winners in 2012 will be the ones who keep up the pace in 2009!

Newspapers are dead. PR is dead. So many people are ready to give last rites to the news gathering and reporting business that you'd think news itself was on its deathbed.

Of course, there has never been more demand for information and knowledge than there is today. Technology may threaten the revenue models and delivery methods of news, but it also is presenting new ways for journalists to promote themselves, connect to audiences, build networks, and gather information.

I had the opportunity to learn how Social Media is challenging and assisting journalists when I met with Tannette Johnson-Elie, a business columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Johnson-Elie, who has been with the Journal Sentinel for almost 20 years, is an active Twitter user. I was curious why she chose Twitter, the value she's finding in microblogging, and how Twitter and other Social Media tools are affecting the world of journalism.

As an observer of business, Johnson-Elie has been aware of Social Media for a couple years, but she didn't jump into Twitter until after writing a story about Social Media site, LinkedIn. The article became the most read story on JSOnline.com that day, and she realized, "We've tapped into an audience of people who are hungry to connect better." This led the journalist in her to begin to seek out more information about Social Media and to experience Twitter for herself. Since then, she has written popular articles about Facebook and Twitter.

As she ventured into Twitter, she thought, like many entrepreneurs, that the site may provide a great way to promote her column and JSOnline.com. And, like many of us, Johnson-Elie came to find that the greatest value of participating on Twitter is in gaining a network of peers and getting to know new people. As a journalist, Johnson-Elie is finding that she is relying less on her traditional network of contacts and more on Twitter--it's easier to send a Tweet to her 292 followers in order to gather information or find a new source than it is to pick up the phone and start working her call list.

Twitter is providing other unexpected benefits for Johnson-Elie. She is finding that Twitter is allowing her to explore interests beyond her day job. For example, she following a couple of beatboxers and music professionals on Twitter because her son has an interest in the music industry. Likewise, through her use of Twitter, she believes other are getting a "glimpse of who (she is) beyond her role as a journalist."

One thing that disappointed Johnson-Elie was an inability to track the clicks from the links she posted to Twitter. Like many others, she'd been using TinyURL.com to shorten and redirect links from Twitter. If you share this challenge with her, you may be interested in BudURL.com, a site that works in the same way as TinyUrl and Is.Gd, but also provides a means to track the number and source of clicks.

As of yet, Johnson-Elie is not finding that she's receiving a great deal of PR spam, which I found (pleasantly) surprising. She's being discriminating about who she follows, and so far has only blocked one person.

Johnson-Elie says she finds it acceptable when Twitter followers share interesting and relevant news about their company and products, but she's "not interested in companies promoting themselves and trying to sell products all the time." Johnson-Elie furnishes an example of one such Twitterer who crossed the line. This individual represented a restaurant chain, and every time Johnson-Elie shared anything on Twitter having to do with food or hunger, she received a response with a suggestion to try a different menu item; any time Johnson-Elie mentioned she was hungry or going to lunch, her Twitter follower responded with another spammy menu suggestion. This quickly turned annoying and hurt rather than helped her impression of the restaurant chain.

Johnson-Elie offers advice for Public Relations professionals looking to network with her and other journalists on Twitter: Connect with her first, demonstrate your interests and knowledge through your Tweets, build rapport, and she will then be more open to receiving news and information about your company or products. Johnson-Elie suggests that PR professionals watch for her tweets that ask for assistance, and if you have knowledge or information that may help, this is the best way to connect.

Johnson-Elie believes other journalists may find as much value as she has on Twitter. She's observed slow but steady adoption by her peers of Twitter and quite a bit of usage of other Social Media tools such as LinkedIn and Facebook. On Twitter, she is following a few journalists with other news organizations, including Rick Sanchez at CNN and Lynn Sweet with the Sun Times, but Johnson-Elie has thus far seen few reporters leveraging Twitter as much as she.

I wondered if she, as an employee of a major metropolitan newspaper, might foresee or predict a place for the printed news in the long term, but like many others Johnson-Elie recognizes the days of the physical newspaper are numbered. She sees Social Media not as a threat but as a means to help newspapers with the transition: "It is vital to capture and engage the audience; one way to do that is through Social Media, which can help us build our brand."

Like all of us, she believes it is unavoidable that journalists and news organizations continue to embrace social media, but she cautions we are venturing into unknown territory. "There are no rules," Johnson-Elie notes. We spoke about a recent well-publicized incident where a reporter live Twittered from the funeral of a three-year-old accident victim. Johnson-Elie notes that, as always, "you have to use your judgment. Do you really need to let the world know at that moment?"

I provided Johnson-Elie an opportunity to share her thoughts on blogs and "citizen journalists." I wasn't sure if a professional journalist would respect the efforts of amateur reporters, but just like the rest of us, she finds value in them--to a point. While Johnson-Elie "respect(s) people who blog" and "welcome(s) people being enterprising," she notes there's "a lot to be said for what trained professional journalists bring to the table." She points out that journalists offer strong research capabilities, large networks of sources, access to important sources, and knowledge of the beats to which they are assigned.

Johnson-Elie is concerned about the misinformation that can be disseminated from blogs and the impact this can have. She cited a recent incident with her husband, who is a banker. In the midst of the recent banking crisis, he read some concerning information about his employer on a blog. She suggested he seek out legitimate sources of information to confirm the report, and he came to learn the information was false. We all know this, of course, but Johnson-Elie reminds us, "Just because it's been posted doesn't make it fact."

In the end, it seemed that Johnson-Elie's experiences and insights as a journalist were quite similar to my own as a marketing professional--we both are finding the same sorts of value, challenges, and surprises as we engage in Social Media. Johnson-Elie also shares the same advice that I have often offered to newbies as they venture into Twitter and other Social Media: "Keep an open mind."

How have your experiences using Twitter or other Social Media sites different from your expectations? Your comments and insights would be appreciated.

We've already seen it many times, and it will happen many, many more times in the future. The sweep of the Internet combined with the power of Social Media is amplifying brand missteps and furnishing mass media-like reach to consumers. Situations that a couple years ago would have been small and contained today are making an impression upon thousands and even millions of customers, prospects, and investors.

Here's a recent example: A wine critic perpetrated a hoax upon Wine Spectator magazine. He created a Web site for a fake restaurant, then submitted the restaurant for the magazine's award of excellence. Despite the fact the wine list was "well-stocked with dogs" likened to "paint thinner and nail varnish," the imaginary restaurant won the award. The critic, Robin Goldstein, believes his prank proves that Wine Spectator is more interested in the award entrance fee than with maintaining minimum standards.

Goldstein posted his story to his Wine Economics blog and to the fake restaurant's blog. From there it was picked up by the Chicago Tribune and LA Times. The story has been carried further on beverage-related blogs such as Daily Blender and Scotch Talk. A Google search on the faux restaurant's name results in more than 70 news article hits from around the globe and almost 3,000 Web hits. In the last several days, dozens of Twitter users have Tweeted the news and links to thousands of followers. Wine Spectator's Wikipedia entry has already been updated with the incident, ensuring the magazine will be associated with the award embarrassment for years to come. The publicity has put Wine Spectator on the defensive; they posted a response, including accusations Goldstein isn't telling the entire story, within their online forum.

The interesting aspect of this is that Goldstein presented details of his hoax at a meeting of the American Association of Wine Economists, a group that I'm guessing doesn't even number in the thousands. Not so many years ago, Goldstein's story would've been an amusing tale passed among a small group of elite wine professionals, but today the story is being heard by hundreds of thousands. In less than two weeks and with a budget that I suspect is $0, Goldstein has reached an audience that is much greater than Wine Spectator's circulation of 350,000.

Remember the good old days when we used to be concerned that a consumer who experienced a bad customer service situation would tell 10 or 20 people? How does 1.3 million sound? The reach, power, and economy of Social Media can perhaps best be demonstrated by one of the most often repeated stories of Social Media embarrassment: the sleeping Comcast service tech. To date, the famous video shot by a disgruntled customer has been viewed almost 1.3 million times.

Just a decade ago, getting DVDs into the hands of 1.3M people would've required an investment of millions of dollars for replication, packaging, and postage (even assuming you already had a list of 1.3M addresses). But in 2007 , a "regular Joe" with no special marketing contacts or media acumen was able to get his video in front of that many people for a budget of absolutely nothing.

There was a time not long ago that brands and media partners controlled every means of mass communication; today, a guy who bathes in a Burger King sink has practically the same reach as the $3.5 billion fast food chain. Sure, Burger King has the power to blast messages across network television and reach every person who watches "Dancing With the Stars," but the advertising message doesn't hold interest, create buzz, or stick in the mind like one gross kid in a sink.

We can't be sure, but it seems likely that Wine Spectator, Burger King, and Comcast have collectively suffered financial losses that total in the hundreds of thousands of dollars in reduced sales, damaged reputation, and PR crisis management. And all it took was three people clicking "Submit" buttons.

In the future, you will hear a lot about how Social Media shifts power away from brands and towards consumers. The Wine Spectator, Burger King, and Comcast examples plainly demonstrate what this means.

Is it possible to garner consumer complaints for doing precisely what you say you're going to do? It turns out you can, particularly in our interconnected, real-time world. This is a lesson CNN learned during the Olympics, and there is a moral we can all take from their experience.

TechCrunch reports on the strong reaction a CNN Twitter account received for broadcasting the results of the Olympics as they occurred. It seems hard to blame a news network for reporting breaking news, but people who wanted to feel the excitement of the competition as they watched the delayed coverage were left annoyed at CNN's "spoilers". (It turns out the Twitter account that sparked the most complaints isn't even an official CNN feed, but CNN itself was doing the same thing on their own account, cnn.)

We could focus on how the people who complained can't possibly want their breaking news filtered based on how some (but not all) consumers may feel about the immediacy of the news alerts. Instead, let's consider how CNN might have avoided the issue and earned more attention and loyalty for it.

CNN is in the business of getting all breaking and important news out to consumers as quickly as possible. This is why it blasted news of gold medal performances as soon as they happened, thus spoiling the fun for people who wanted to get home to watch NBC's delayed coverage. But what if CNN had focused just a bit more on the needs and wants of their Twitter subscribers? What if they had treated Twitter not like a one-way channel for broadcasting news but engaged their consumers in a dialog?

Looking ahead at its Olympic coverage, CNN might have anticipated some (and perhaps many) consumers wanted to avoid immediate news out of Beijing. Perhaps CNN did foresee this situation but unilaterally decided their mission trumped the Olympic enjoyment of a few, but in the age of social media, CNN had a different course: to engage consumers, involve them, and make them feel like valued participants and not just recipients.

There are several ways CNN might have leveraged the tools and philosophy of Social Media, not just to avoid a problem but to create greater brand value:

• At the very least, CNN might have announced its intention to immediately share all Olympic results via Twitter. This would have given subscribers the power to decide in advance whether to unsubscribe for a short period. Of course, no one in the social media business wants to encourage disengagement, so there are better ways CNN might have proceeded.
  
  
• CNN might have used this potentially sensitive issue as a means to create engagement with and between consumers. Two months in advance of the opening ceremony, the news organization might have asked consumers to participate in a survey or engage in a discussion forum about whether or not results should be broadcast in real time. This would have positioned CNN as a consumer-focused brand and given a voice to its subscribers.
  
  
• Hindsight is 20-20, but maybe the best idea of all is that CNN might have announced it was creating a second Twitter account for people who wanted to avoid Olympics coverage. The first CNN account could thus continue with its mission of broadcasting all news in real time, while allowing consumers to opt into a second CNN Twitter channel where they could avoid the Olympic news. (Since sports is prone to this sort of desire to avoid news until one can get in front of a television, perhaps CNN might consider a "CNNMinusSports" channel, allowing sports fans to get their football, baseball, and Olympics highlights in the timeframe and way they most desire.)

It used to be enough to know one's brand and to stick to it, but Social Media is changing consumer expectations. They want and expect to have a voice, particularly in those brands to which they are most loyal. Gone are the days when big brands could believe they had an obligation and right to decide what is right for their consumers; instead, the brands that will garner the greatest loyalty are the ones that give power to consumers and make them feel part of the brand.

CNN did nothing wrong by sticking to its mission and broadcasting Olympics results in real-time, but it might be argued the news organization also did nothing right by ignoring the opinions and wants of its consumers.

My friend, Erik Hauser, shared a great article over on the Experiential Marketing Forum. Disney is closing a virtual community it created in 2005 to promote the 50th anniversary of Disneyland. According to the Wall Street Journal, this news is being met with some disappointment and anger by those fans who have come to use and love the Virtual Magic Kingdom (VMK).

The challenge Disney faced is one created by the success of this marketing tactic. According to the WSJ, "Disney says it never intended the 50th-anniversary promotion to run this long." This 18-month endeavor was extended by two years, but given VMK was not launched to be a permanent online community, and considering Disney has fee-based virtual communities such as Club Penguin and Toontown, the company had to make a tough decision.

I have no personal experience with the VMK or any information other than was shared in articles and blogs, but I have learned a great deal about experiential marketing by observing Disney's actions over the years. I believe this situation provides some great lessons from which experiential and interactive marketers can learn.


If You're Going to Make Something a Campaign, Do So From the Start
If you're going to do something cool, interactive, and most importantly functional on the Web and you intend it to be short-term (i.e., a "campaign"), make sure that is communicated from the start. It sounds as if Disney did this and VMK members are upset anyway, so clear and obvious deadlines won't necessarily avoid the potential problems but may help minimize them.

The important thing about taking a campaign approach is that this requires special care for experiential marketers. If all you're doing is launching a traditional ad campaign, no consumer will care when it ends. But if your campaign brings consumers something of value that they'll use regularly (and if the whole point of the campaign is to provide a tool that people will want to use time and again), this requires deliberate planning, communication, and transparency from the very beginning. For example, perhaps Disney did this, but they might have launched VMK with a prominent banner counting down the number of days until the end of the program so that everyone had their expectations set (and could thus manage their own level of engagement) from their very first VMK experience.


Proceed Cautiously With Temporary Social Network Strategies
We understand a whole lot more about social networks today than back in 2005 when the VMK launched. Today, in the era of Facebook and MySpace, the concept of a temporary social network seems difficult to understand. I think we can all sympathize with VMK users when we read lines in the WSJ article such as, "Disney plans to throw everyone out of VMK and lock the gates -- erasing their online profiles, lives and collections of virtual trinkets and real estate." (I know how I'd feel I lost my Twitter account name, my email address, and/or my Facebook profile.)

In 2008, it's easy to see something that not even Disney might've suspected in 2005 when VMK launched: A place where people create their online selves and form real human connections is not a place that should be temporary. It's one thing to create a social campaign that borrows some aspects from social media--such as product ratings or profiles--but it's quite another to build and then destruct a living, breathing community. We experiential marketers can get excited about the opportunities social media offer us, but we need to proceed cautiously and respectfully of our audience, since true success creating a community can become it's own problem.


Monetization Comes in All Shapes and Sizes
I have no idea what Disney did or didn't try with respect to monetizing the VMK. In his EMF post, Erik says that Disney tried several ways to monetize the community and failed. I'd be interested to learn more.

Obviously, charging a monthly fee is one way to monetize a social network, but it's the sledgehammer approach--easy but crude. If it works, the community can become financially self-sustaining, but if it doesn't work, you'll kill the community.

Some social networks are beginning to find ways to generate revenue through the sale of virtual items. China's QQ made an operating profit of $224M last year; in contrast, the hottest site of 2007, Facebook, lost $50M last year. The vast majority of QQ's profit comes from the sale of digital goods, games, and mobile services.

We cannot know what Disney tested or explored, but it seems unlikely they proceeded without first considering how to turn this active community into a revenue-generating service.


Measure, Measure, Measure
Even though we may sympathize with disappointed VMK users, we all understand that Disney has an obligation to stockholders to ensure value was being created continuing to operate VMK. Knowing the care Disney takes with measurement and with its brand and marketing decisions, I strongly suspect Disney wouldn't have decided to shutter VMK without testing the ROI it was generating.

The question is, while VMK clearly had raving fans, was the fan base large enough (the site had only "a few thousand daily users" according to the WSJ) and the impact wide enough to produce either hard results (increased Disney resort visits or purchases) or soft results (positive impact to brand perception)? We can't know the answer to these questions, but I'll bet Disney knows--and this is probably why VMK is closing.


If Your Fans Are Raving Fans, You Can't Make Everyone Happy All the Time
One thing my time studying Disney has taught me is that successful brands walk a fine line. The more successful you are, the more strongly your customers feel about your brand, and the more they take ownership of that brand, becoming not just "customers" but "brand ambassadors". You can see this not only with Disney, but also with Harley-Davidson, Apple, and other great brands.

When your consumers take personal ownership of your brand, it yields incredible results. It also means you cannot please all the people all the time. Almost any change a successful brand makes will initially be greeted with some level of consternation from the consumer "owners." The key isn't to avoid making anyone unhappy--since that is the road to paralysis and ruin--but to make sure you make the right "big decisions" and manage as best you can the "small decisions."

A Disney example of this was the closing of the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride in Disney World in the mid 90s. Every attraction in Disney parks has its fans but this ride was being underutilized by guests, and with EPCOT offering a view of real sea life, it must have seemed silly to continue maintaining this faux submarine ride through a lake of plastic fish. When Disney closed the attraction, some people were upset, angry letters were sent, petitions were launched, and Disney fans complained and consoled each other on the precursors to today's social networks (such as Prodigy's Disney Fans Bulletin Board, of which I was a member.) But people got over it; they didn't stop loving Disney; and they didn't stop visiting the resorts.

I don't know the care that was taken launching or closing the VMK, but I trust Disney to be careful marketers, to be considerate of their guests, and to make smart decisions when it comes to these sorts of actions. While there is some implied criticism of Disney's actions in the WSJ article and on some blogs, it seems to me that given the strength of its brand, the company may have done everything right and still ended up disappointing some passionate Disney fans.

In fact, this may be the scariest lesson of all: Big success with experiential marketing can come with its own set of problems, so its important not just to envision huge success but to plan for it. Whether it's the viral campaign that goes so viral you find yourself hosting expensive terrabytes of data and bandwidth, the widget consumers add to their site that shuts down once the campaign ends, or the social site that becomes more social than anticipated, success is great, but it can come with its own set of issues.

I don't know if I hate just those who write headlines or all journalists. The breathless hype they toss at some subjects (Second Life!) and the negative twist they put on others can really get in the way of communicating information.

Today, eMarketer cut its forecast for 2008 online ad spending 6 percent from its forecast in October. It now expects advertisers will spend $25.8 billion on Internet ads. eMarketer is forecasting growth of online ad spending between 16 to 17% per year from 2009 to 2012.

Now, I think we can agree that 16 to 17% annual growth is an impressive figure, can't we? Especially given the fact the weak economy is being factored into this forecast, I don't think this sort of double-digit growth is anything to sneeze at.

But that's not what you'd think if all you did is read the headlines:

• The Recession Will Hit the Web from BusinessWeek
• Bear It: Online Ad Spending Predictions Dip from Adotas
• Web ad spending forecast revised with economic woes from Reuters

Ironically, the article that appears on eMarketer's own Web site has an upbeat headline: "Online Advertisers To Spend Through Turbulence."

Those who write headlines just can't help themselves from either hyping or slamming Internet topics, but I suppose that's how they get people to click and read.

Here are some interesting XM and online marketing news items and links for your perusal:

• Scion is launching a cool tech-based experience in New York. Digital billboards in storefronts will show the Scion, and as consumers approach, the cars on screen will move farther away from them. Says the creative director for agency, Attik: "The more we can involve people in the marketing, the better. It's just more memorable."
  
  
• It's a little ironic that I ran across this Wall Street Journal article tonight, considering I just criticized the auto industry for too often producing generic and ignorable advertising. Ford is attempting to win back customers who no longer will consider US-made cars. Says the article, "Traditional advertising campaigns have had little impact on consumer perceptions of the Big Three." So, Ford is going to work in collaboration with their dealers to build a grass-roots "army of Ford brand advocates" with the goal of making consumers "feel something" about Ford. It's been a long time since I've heard something out of Detroit that made me feel like an American automaker might mount a successful charge against the imports!
  
  
• Reading the financial headlines will dampen your mood, but the picture continues to look rosy for Internet marketing. A new eMarketer report says, "Despite the economic rough patch, US online advertising will continue to grow through 2008. Online ad spending will rise by 23%." The report claims that search marketing will grow by 40% in 2008, but I am beginning to wonder if money can continue to flow into search strategies considering the fierce competition and inflation in PPC costs that most online marketers are seeing, even if they're buying "long tail" search terms. The report also indicates that rich media and video advertising is set to grow as a percentage of online ad spending, rising to 18.5% in 2012 from 10.2% in 2008.

Here are some interesting XM and online marketing news items and links for your perusal:

• In a victory for Web companies that publish user-generated content, a federal appeals court ruled Friday that online classified service Craigslist isn't liable for discriminatory housing ads placed by users. The 7th Circuit held that the federal Communications Decency Act doesn't permit people to "sue the messenger just because the message reveals a third party's plan to engage in unlawful discrimination." This ruling could have a larger, positive impact on social media sites, which may be protected from legal damages stemming from the posts made by users.
  
  
• Mountain Dew continues to impress me with some bold and experimental moves online. A few months ago, the company jumped into the casual gaming waters with "Dewmocracy," which allowed players to create a new flavor of the soft drink. Now they're testing the "brandertainment" waters with an original Web series with a twist. The serialized action-adventure production from film writer-directors Shawn Papazian and Art Brown will allow viewers to alter the storyline by selecting from a menu of options after each episode that take the series in different creative directions. Of particular interest is that the brand says this will cost them less than a typical 30-second ad for Pepsi!
  
  
• Sports Illustrated is going to give sports buffs a gift: The magazine will unveil SI Vault, a new section within SI.com that will feature digitized archives of the magazine’s complete collection of content throughout its 54-year history. At launch, the online archive will feature 150,000 articles, 500,000 images and 2,800 covers--creating a site that is three times as large as SI.com, said officials. In addition, users will be able to “flip” through back issues of the magazine from 1954 - 1995 in their entirety, including all articles and ads as they originally appeared--using their mouse.
  
  
• Google's famous motto is "Don't be evil." That probably sounded great when the company was a couple of grad students starting the company at Standford, but what does that motto mean in a complex world of differing international standards? Guess we'll find out, because China has put Google in a tough spot. The Chinese government has blocked access to YouTube in that country after scores of clips showing violence between police and protesters were posted to the site. CNET asks, "What happens if China wants Google to begin self censoring videos or wants to know the names of the people who posted the clips of the Tibet violence?" Will Google do what it takes to succeed in the largest market in the world, or will it live its motto? (And if it "does evil," what happens to its brand in the US?) Stay tuned.