Please excuse a bit of exciting company news…

Now Is Gone won the Silver Medal in the Advertising/Marketing/PR/Event Planning category (#17) of the first annual, 2008 Axiom Business Book Awards! Congratulations to my co-author Brian Solis and Bartleby Press Publisher Jeremy Kay.

The Axiom Awards are run by Inc. and Independent Publisher. More than 400 books were judged for the awards, and a little more than a 100 won medals. The official awards ceremony is in New York on March 10!

Due to ties, our category had the most winners. Beyond Buzz: The Next Generation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing, by Lois Kelly and Word of Mouth Marketing: How Smart Companies Get People Talking, by Andy Sernovitz tied for Gold. We tied with Press Releases Are Not a PR Strategy: An Executive’s Guide to Public Relations, by Linda B. VandeVrede for the Silver. The Science of Spiritual Marketing: Initiation Into Magnetism, by Andrea Adler won Bronze. Congratulations to all of the category winners!

Cross posted on the Buzz Bin.

Last week, Geoff issued a Social Media Content Process outlining 14 steps to execute social media strategy. Steps six through eight determine relevance and expectations before content creation begins.

I understand many readers of Now Is Gone are not public relations or marketing affiliated, but the conundrum Sam Lawrence, CMO at Jive Software,  poses on his Go Big Always blog is applicable for consideration by any business.

“I want our new PR Agency to blog about us but they don’t want to.”

Should the PR Agency blog?

Now Is Gone co-author, Brian Solis, answers Lawrence, “It depends.”

Social media brings out the extremes. Go full force and claim social media the savior of all that ails or stick your head in the sand and pretend the world is not changing. A social media effort that is forced or running scared will not be successful.

Solis continues, “Yes, so openness and transparency are “the new black.” But don’t take it at face value. Think about it first.”

You don’t have to put all your cards on the table. Understand derived value and expectations of your long term social media strategy. Business is still business.

What do you think?

When it comes to what we call Social Media, “community” is the coin of the realm. It’s also a very fickle thing to define, because the ideas, memes, and dreams that knit a community together can be made of very different material. And we’re heading for an even larger generation gap, because the notion of “friend” is becoming more slippery too.

It used to be that a group of friends was easy to spot because of affinity for clothing. Matching bowling shirts and funny-horned lodge hats made things too easy. There are still communities like that online and they won’t go away any time soon — but they might not be the communities you need to reach. A former co-worker on mine stayed with AOL for years simply because she was tied to a genealogy forum there. Too much of her internet identity was tied to being a part of that group, even though her membership there was costing an additional $20/month.

Future communities are going to be even harder to engage, because the incoming generation of the web-enabled isn’t platform dependent. They use browsers, IM, cell-phones, Xboxes, and whatever else comes down the pike to stay connected. And they don’t always use the same network; like birds and bees, they are prone to random migrations. When a few influentials leave and critical mass is reached, the others quickly follow them to the next point.

Down the rabbit hole

From the individual perspective, it gets even more tangled. The community is no longer a single entity. A person connected to one group through a set of common contacts might not belong to several joint communities. The clusters are not neat, and rather look more like synapses randomly anchored to neurons across the way. It’s a spaghetti map, and it’s messy. It’s fickle. In some instances, the prevailing factor might be the time of day a subset of users might be free to congregate or chat online.

It’s an awful lot to log and chart. Some are trying, by aggregating and quantifying “influence” across networks and platforms. They may yet succeed, but you don’t have to chase them down that rabbit hole. The best way to engage the community you need online is to create it. Don’t follow the crowd, be the hub that attracts a crowd. It’s done by sharing and adding value without strings. It might be money-saving tips or advice — or even better, a vehicle that allows your biggest fans to do it for you. It might be special offers or information that isn’t shared anywhere else. Give your potential advocates a reason to come to you, and they will. And they’ll drag their friends.

If this sounds scary, it should. Not everyone is equipped to get in and get their hands dirty and make Social Media work as it can. You’re better off not jumping in until you know what you want to accomplish, because embarrassing early stumbles can cripple your corporate reputation and become a new obstacle.

(Ike Pigott writes regularly at Occam’s RazR)

So many marketers think that blogging’s the first step in social media (image credit: Lego blogger by minifig).  As indicated last week, on the contrary, blogging should not be the first step. Further, it may not ever be the right step for a company for a variety of reasons:

• Time from a resource perspective: Some companies just can’t commit to the long, weekly grind that blogging demands.
• Time from a results perspective: Others may not have six months to a year to get results. Community development and readership requires more than just a blog launch.
• Blogging may not be the right platform: In some cases, the community’s conversation may be occurring in other venues, like social networks. Or vis a vis video and podcasts.
• Subject is anti-social: Company or organization’s subject matter expertise does not lend itself to a conversation. Examples, defense industry (go missiles!), manufacturer of simple goods or singular products like philips screwdrivers, .
• The required social networking to make a blog successful may be too much: Let’s face it. 2008 is not 2003. It’s not a special event to have a blog and getting one socialized requires an enormous effort. 

Research and understanding ones own

For example, at Thursday’s Forth Worth PRSA session on social media, we went through the draft Social Media Content Creation Process with a local arts organization. In our research, it became apparent that there’s not a vibrant blogging community for the arts in Forth Worth, but Facebook is a different matter. As a result, we decided to develop a Facebook community strategy instead of blogging.

Blogging offers a great series of advantages, from SEO and thought leadership to lead capture (through calls-to-action) and community development. At the same time, it’s not a panacea.

You cannot control the person making comments on your blog or other forms of media, but you can control your response.

Fear of dissension can be conquered by establishing:

• Privacy Policy
• Comments Policy
• Legal Policy

Determine which comments are a valuable contribution.  

Not every comment requires a response from the author(s). Thank the readers for expressing their thoughts. Your readers want to know you are reading/listening. Acknowledgement is one of the building blocks to creating a successful relationship. Questions should be answered. Turn the table and ask a question in response. Remember, social media is about open dialogue. Keep the conversation going by continuing the conversation on the commenter’s blog. This is a great way to get to “know” your readers. After-all, those making the comments cared enough to take time to leave a comment and share their thoughts and opinions. Tap into this enthusiasm.

Think before you respond. 

Not all comments will be positive. Take a deep breath and step away from the keyboard before responding to an emotionally charged comment.

As fellow Now Is Gone contributor, Ike Pigott, says “Just listen with a thick skin, lest you lose your shirt.”

Many folks ask how to go about creating social media for their company. As a service to the industry, find here an open source version of a draft social media content development process.

This process is general enough to guide development of specific initiatives. It does not recommend blogging or video, per say. Rather the process allows content creation to move towards the market’s needs, and within the company’s resources. There are 14 steps in all:

1) Clearly articulate who your stakeholders are before you begin.

2) Clearly articulate the key issues these stakeholders care about as it relates to your offering. Use a bulleted list with no more than three or four words per item.

3) Begin by researching which, if any, top bloggers are discussing these issues. Use your bulleted list to search. The following are good places to start…

• Technorati
• Del.icio.us
• Google Blogsearch
• Ask.com Blogsearch

4) Inevitably, any substantial subject matter area has a back channel where top bloggers and influencers chat. For example, PR and marketing bloggers and tend to connect on Facebook, Twitter, and to some extent, LinkedIn. This back channel can yield powerful connections to highly influential minds who may not have blogs with top statistical ranking.

Marketers looking to find their subject area’s back channel should start with a basic search. Once your initial search yields important blogs, please visit them and note which social networks the bloggers use to connect. Join their communities. And learn what your stakeholders really care about.

5) Don’t just observe, participate. Comment on blogs and social networks in a non-promotional way. Become part of the community.

6) Note several things in your research:

1. Top industry issues
2. Top bloggers/thought leaders that write about your issues (you will need these for marketing purposes after your content creation process is done)
3. Preferred content forms (video, white papers, blogs, podcasts)
4. Ideal places to connect with the larger industry (social networks, etc.)
5. Other companies playing in the space: Who’s successful, who isn’t? Why?
6. Behavioral norms.

Write this information down in a formal analysis.

7) Using the analysis of your social media marketplace, identify the outcomes the organization would like to achieve. These outcomes will determine the measurement benchmarks once the company decides on its preferred communication tools. Possibilities include:

• Influence
• Awareness/changed perception on a particular issue
• Third party credibility through Word of mouth
• Brand awareness
• Return on investment (sales)

8 ) Identify the company’s value for the marketplace. Specifically, the organization’s subject matter expertise as it relates to the top industry issues currently being discussed amongst bloggers and thought leaders.

• Can the company provide enough information to add to the conversation?
• If so, is it enough to consistently be a part of the conversation, or is it limited in nature? Will it only be valuable for a short time?
• Can the organization afford to give away this information or does the information comprise trade secrets?

9) Based on the company/organization’s value offering and the marketplace’s issues and needs, draft an editorial mission to serve the community/stakeholders. For example, here is the Now Is Gone blog editorial mission:

Continue serving as a primer for those business executives new to social media or considering engaging with these new communications tools. The conversation should be educational, pragmatic and weigh the pros and cons of social media to provide an authentic, genuine viewpoint of social media marketing. We believe in social media’s potential to better communications, but do not think it will replace traditional tactics. Instead we believe social media will be integrated into the larger marketing mix and may influence change in other disciplines.

10) Now examine the company’s resources:

• Time
• Thought leaders
• Technical capability and savoir faire: Blog, audio, video, social networking
• Financial resources for some of the above, plus graphic design, SEO, web hosting, application development

11) Select the outreach mechanism(s) that best fits the industry’s preferred content needs (#6), can achieve outcomes (#7) the ability to convey the company’s ability to deliver value through it’s editorial mission (#8 and 9), and that the company can afford to invest in (#10).

There are Many, Many mechanisms. Each has its assets and detriments. And blogging is not a cure all silver bullet solution. Consider these more popular initiatives:

• Launch a blog
• Execute a blogger relations program
• Podcast
• Create video(s)
• Develop social network community
• Create social network application
• Build your own social network
• Build a widget

12) Determine who will create the content. Group efforts can help distribute load as well as protect the company from an individual departure. Assign a schedule and make the person responsible. Participation in larger networks should be part of your content development plan and resource allocations.

13) Select general content categories to provide guidance on a weekly basis (if the effort is ongoing). Remain flexible to allow for larger industry and community events.

14) Determine measurement based on outcomes, social media communication vehicle(s), and dedicated effort the company intends to commit to the effort. Select tools to attain measurement. Tools and measurement can vary greatly. Research what is right for you and your effort. Some are free, some are not.

We gather here for a discussion about the socialization of business communications. But it’s more than just that.

Really, corporations have a problem. They don’t listen to their marketplaces, control and push messages, and act in relative vacuums. As a result, the public doesn’t trust companies.

Many social media and marketing minds have envisioned how the Internet can make business better. In some cases, it already has.

Imagine a world where business can profit, but not just for the sake of their investors. Their profits result from bettering their communities by enabling buyers through great services and products that meet real needs. Companies engage with their stakeholders, and actually listen to them, evolving their offering to serve market demands.

To get there, companies really need to open up and interact with their constituents. They need to embrace community concepts. Social media can serve as a change agent to get there. When embraced in full, social media creates relational collaboration. Companies stop acting as forceful entities and start becoming service organizations.

Most organizations won’t embrace this kind of change. At least not yet. It’s too much of a stretch. But market leaders, competitive risk, and eventually poor financial performance can be great motivators.

Those that do make the change have an easier time of business. Indeed, they have a new pair of glasses, and view the world with much clearer perception. And it’s a better world for it.

A pipe dream? Maybe, but one worth working towards. One company, one communication at a time.

Poor Bill. He’s going to have to suffer through another review of Now Is Gone, this time from Rich Becker.

Before I highlight Rich’s points, I did want to remind folks one more time that on Saturday, February 16 from 1-5 p.m., I will moderate four consecutive one hour sessions on Now Is Gone for the my ooVoo day project. Participants get an autographed copy of Now Is Gone.

If you can’t catch me on the road, this is the perfect opportunity to have a deep dive on social media and how it can benefit your organization.Here’s how it works, visit the my ooVoo day project site and sign up. You’ll download the software (for Mac or PC - both are still in beta).

Rich’s Criticism

Rich thought the book worked: “Now Is Gone is a book that attempts a daunting task and mostly succeeds. It captures new media conversations by communication leaders as it occurred. It’s something David Meerman Scott did with The New Rules of Marketing and PR. For this reason alone, Now Is Gone is exactly what it says it is: a primer on new media for executives and entrepreneurs, people who are starting to realize they need to catch up on several months or years worth of conversation.”

But did have some strong criticism. First up was the use of an informal poll he ran in Chapter 3:

Sure, poll respondents called the Wal-Mart flog the biggest social media transgression to date (36 percent), but only 23 people voted. Nine opinions is hardly as valid as it seems in print.

What’s also missing is that I followed up on the subject, stating that the poll participants were a bit off: John Mackey and Julie Roehm had much larger lapses in ethical judgments. The Wal-Mart flog merely stands out because it was perpetrated by a number of people who knew better, and could have been avoided by the tiniest of disclosures. This doesn’t really detract from the book; it’s just something to keep in mind.

And then there’s the common criticism of the book’s rough copy (a result of the book being rushed to market), and the fact that it really is new media. Meaning that some elements may be inaccurate or overblown in importance as new developments occur.

These latter two criticisms strike me as true. I finally re-read Now Is Gone for the first time in five months. The writing has numerous grammatical errors as a result of our rush to market.

While I still feel right about rushing to market and providing accurate timely info to the marketplace, its effectiveness reminds me of Patton. A bloody, ugly execution that while effective, lacks delicacy and cleanness. True fans of prose (identified by public proclamations of Eats, Shoots and Leaves) will be annoyed. I know I was when I read the word “brand” three times in the first sentence of page 40. Feel free to add your favorite gripe in the comments.

And yes, the conversation has evolved. Though I was pleasantly surprised by how relevant a good portion of the text is. If written today instead of nine months ago, I would add more on measurement, blogger relations, more industry-specific social network communities, and additional information on the symbiotic relationship between traditional and new media. Brian Solis has also indicated a desire for an updated text.

Of course,we have discussed these specific topics in unrelated follow-up posts on Now Is Gone, PR 2.0 and the Buzz Bin and. If there’s a second edition, the text will be re-edited, and updated with the latest social media marketing strategies and information.

P.S. (added 2/15) In addition, I also agree with Chris Thilk and Chip Griffin’s criticism that book uses too many absolutes in the form of musts. More Patton-esque writing. Strong suggestions would have been more productive.

Also, it should be noted that every single person that has taken the time to review the book  — critical or not — has recommended the book.  The total number of reviews including Amazon readers is well over 50 now.

“It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see. It is base and evil. It is as if we were speaking alone to no ears but our own. And we know well that there is no transgression blacker than to do or think alone. We have broken the laws. The laws say that men may not write unless the Council of Vocations bid them so. May we be forgiven!”

I am a big fan of novels, Fahrenheit 451 and Anthem. The dystopian universes described are always at the bleeding edge of becoming reality. Book burning for fear of knowledge and dissension, the deletion of ‘I’ and praise for collectivism rationale bubble up to the surface when the phrase “social media” is uttered in some companies.

dis-sen-sion n. Difference of opinion; disagreement. American Heritage Dictionary

Don’t be afraid. Embrace dissension.

• Seek dissension in your company and consumer forums.
• Connect with adversaries as well as advocates. Participate in conversations to seek full understanding of motivation and behavior of consumers.
• Distribute the information gathered from social media forums throughout your company. Shed light on the true feelings of your consumers. Those conversations taking place in dark corners lead to dark deeds and outcomes.
• Report back to the consumers accurate information and your plan of action.
• Vocalize and walk the talk.

Dissent is not negative. Change the context of how you think of dissent. Your company reputation is on the line. Discussion not always following the party line may raise corrective actions to concerns. Put meat on the bones of a great idea or stop  bad execution in its tracks. Dissent will remove the rose colored glasses and reveal a broader understanding of how your company and consumer think and interact with each other. Novel concept.

This year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona — the most expansive wireless telecom show in the world — highlighted the impact social computing and entertainment is making in wireless. I attended, and concluded that while WOM marketers and PR pros may be inclined to dismiss mobile marketing as a holy grail that’s never been achieved, they’d be wise to keep close tabs.

Social networks for mobile are coming fast and heavy. These networks compete with m.facebook.com and m.myspace.com with unique, region-specific and/or geographically-enabled specific solutions. A flurry of networks are launching, and some are succeeding.That means marketers will need to get ready for mobile social marketing. Here’s a look at the seven that most impressed me.

1) itsmy.com had perhaps the most subscribers of the many upstart mobile social networks, coming in at 2.1 million subscribers. Members can engage in communities, microsites, mobile video and picture blogs, homepages, flirt functions, ring tones and much more.

Driven by ads, itsmy.com is mature compared to most mobile social networks. It’s very robust, with 60 percent of subscribers in the U.S., 20 percent in the UK, another 10 percent in the EU with a smattering around the world. Some potential for itsmy.com includes a more localized version of myCity, adding GPS functionality for by the block searching, friend finding, and security applications.

2) Perhaps the most interesting of the mobile social networks is Zyb. Self described as a “social phonebook,” this network reinvents the way users engage their phones. Results have been strong with 230,000 users attracted by word of mouth in more than 40 countries.

Zyb started out as a back-up service for mobile phone address books, but has evolved to become a Plaxo on steroids. The contact manager offers complete updates on your handset, and maps all of your contacts social capabilities, listing their various online portals such as Twitter, WordPress, Facebook, Flickr, etc. RSS-feeds create a lifestream from these applications, too, allowing contacts to view a person’s latest developments.

Privacy is protected through contacts identifying which pieces of data will be accessible by friend networks. In the third quarter, Zyb expects to launch GPS enabled search, allowing users to know where their friends contacts can be found in proximity of a users handset. Zyb has not done as well in the United States due to carrier control of network content, and phone synchronization.

3) Location-based mobile social network gypsii is picking up momentum with somewhere between 500,000 ad 700,000 subscribers. The company expects to reach 1 million in short order using community based approaches in Facebook, Digg, Hi5 and mySpace. gypsii’s strategy is to fine verticals with in the larger consumer market, such as sports fans, artists, and private label social networks for content providers. A very serious location play with lots of robust

4) Nokia’s mosh is a great social network, but one that’s completely user generated, allowing its users to add and develop everything from screen savers and ring tones to widgets and applications. This is really Dell’s Idea Storm taken to another step. The mobile phone manufacturer does not edit or license content, instead just seeking to foster a development environment for its rabid fan base. The result? More than 200,000 users, 80 percent of which access Mosh through their phones.

5) Symbian OS-only social network locatik.com was in beta and would not disclose its subscriber-base. Robust use of GPS chips and cell finder tech. provides great friend finder applications, and the ability to generate social activity on the street level. There are no plans to expand to Windows, Blackberry or another OS, and the company does not plan to leverage GPS for additional functionality.

6) Don’t think IMing offers a social network? Think again. eBuddy claims 60 million users (most of which are on carrier-branded platforms) of its general IM solution that ports into various existing interfaces like Yahoo! and AOL. Next up for eBuddy? Location, allowing users to leverage GPS capability and sort their IM contacts by closest proximity. if eBuddy extends functionality it could be a various dangerous social play.

7) POK is currently launching its beta in Spain. It’s very early to tell, but POK wants to be like itsmy.com, though simpler and more robust. It’s already got a corporate partner in Spain, and is actively seeking more partners to accelerate its acceptance in global markets. Techcrunch was supposedly interested in reporting on POK at the event.

Best of the Rest

Yahoo! Go offered a mobile package, which was basically an aggregation of mobile mySpace, downloadable widgets, local search and navigation. But make no bones about it, this package was complete and tailored towards carriers looking to define portals on handsets. AOL’s was similar minus a Facebook or mySpace component.

OZ is another IM player that works with carriers to port between IM networks. Unfortunately, OZ does not see itself adding more social functionality at this point, and may remain a pure play.