Marketing has traditionally been a two-pronged attack on your mind and your wallet, designed to find the most effective ways to reach your mind, and get you to part with your money.

The techniques used to identify who to go after, how to go after them, and why this message will work drives a social media campaign as much as it does an old-school marketing campaign. The traditional layers in this model are targeting and messaging.

What is interesting is that the emergence of social media has turned a two-layer model into a three-layer model. The third layer has always been there, it just hasn’t been large enough to matter to anyone until the last 2-3 years.

The navel-gazing that is occurring in the social media marketing community is due to the rise of this third layer, the layer that is concerned with communicating.

This is not the communications that so many organizations confuse with branding. This is the communication that focuses on the best way to isolate conversations, identify engaged audiences, and participate in communities.

Targeting

The science of marketing lives here. Demographics are the foundation of the targeting phase of any marketing campaign. What does the market we are trying to reach look like?

In this area, Lookery and QuantCast provide organizations with the data they need to decide when and where there message should go.

Messaging

This is where the science becomes the visible. Advertising and branding create the message that portrays the product to the customers, using the information gathered in the targeting phase.

Advertising and branding are not the same thing. Branding is the overarching vision that a product wants to push to the world while advertising is the ephemeral visual and aural methods used to get the brand embedded in the consciousness of a population.

Communicating

The third, and most critical circle in this cycle is communication. It is the one that companies so often get wrong, and that is garnering such a great deal of interest now. I would argue that until recently, companies have not understood communication, preferring to try and shape communication remotely, using advertising and branding, rather than engaging in it directly.

An organization that actively engages in communication is one that has a willingness to walk out from behind the safety of its brand and its advertising and talk to customers. Participate in conversations. Shape communities that emerge either for or against the product.

This is what companies are having so much difficulty with.

Attention and Reputation

Communicating with clients is the smallest circle because so few companies are doing it at all, and those that do it find it so hard to get right. What organizations have found is that attempting to use communication in the same way they use their existing marketing tools leads to failure here.

Getting the attention of a population of key customers is a targeting and messaging success. Holding the attention of these customers doesn’t require new advertising and a constantly refreshed brand. The people who we listen to most have a reputation, have opinions we trust.

It will be interesting to watch the true evolution of Corporate Communication (Corporate Conversations?) circle evolve in the next few years.

Tags: advertising, branding, bullseye, communicating, community, conversation, demographics, engagement, marketing, messaging, social media, social media marketing community, targeting

If you are interested in the area of social media marketing, head over to Peter Kim’s blog and check out Social Media Marketing’s Scalability Problem. The post is excellent, and the comments are the kind of conversation that needs to be had in this area.

The best comments so far:

• Aaron Strout
• John Bell
• Phil Gillman

The interesting thing is that this post is nearly two months old. And without realizing it, that’s about the time I started writing about conversation and community, branding v. reputation, and how the content-based advertising algorithms are failing the social media market.

I agree with the commenters and Peter Kim that there is a scalability problem when you are trying to have a conversation. that’s why companies rely so much on branding. However, if you take the time to build a community, you don’t have to scale your own conversation, as you will have the community willing to build your reputation.

Conversations and community happen around the reputation of brands, people, and products. And where there is a gap between the branding message and the reputation conversation, that’s when the greatest problems arise.

Tags: Aaron Strout, branding, community, content-based advertising algorithms, conversation, John Bell, Peter Kim, Phil Gillman, reputation, social media, social media marketing

One of the most challenging things in social media is finding the conversation leaders. Those people who drive the conversation, and create a community.

FriendFeedHolic (ffholic) has taken the base knowledge that exists in FriendFeed and added a ranking mechanism to it based on input and output. In fact, they weight the participation in the FriendFeed community more heavily than participation in other communities.

This is important. Although FriendFeedHolic is separate from FriendFeed, they have found the way to isolate and target those users who are most likely to participate and create conversations. These users, be it Scoble or Mona N, are where advertisers and marketers can target their money.

How would they do this?

Think about it. If someone that is a large commenter or conversation-creator on FriendFeed creates new content, they are assigned a higher ranking in the new conversation-driven ad-discovery model that advertisers will have to create to succeed.

This new targeted advertising logic will be forced to discover:

• The content of the conversation
• The context of the conversation
• The tone of the conversation
• The participants in the conversation

This model will be able to identify when it is an inward-facing conversation that involves mostly super-users, or if it is a conversation that engages a wide-spectrum of people.

Conversations among super-users will lead to more passive advertising being shown, as that is a spectator event, with only a few participants.

Conversations created by super-users, or that involve super-users, but have a higher participation from the general community will get more intelligent attention to ensure that the marketing messages and advertising shown fit the four criteria above.

In this new model, advertisers will have to see that they can’t simply slap a set of ads up on the popular kids web sites. They will have to understand who leads a community, who generates buzz, and who can engage the most people on a regular basis.

In this model, the leader has far less power than the community that they create. And maintain.

Tags: advertising, community, context, conversation, engagement, ffholic, friendfeed, FriendFeedHolic, marketing, passive advertising, social media, targeted advertising logic

In previous posts about advertising and marketing to the new social media world [here and here], I postulated that it is very difficult to assign a value to a stream of comments, a community of followers, or a conversation.

As always, Google seems (to think) it has the answer. BusinessWeek reports the vague concept of PageRank for the People [here]. Matt Rhodes agrees with this idea, and that advertising will become more and more focused on the community, rather than on the content.

Where the real value in this discussion lies is in targeting the advertising to be relevant to the conversation. It’s not just matching the content. It’s all about making the advertising relevant to the context.

Is the tone of the conversation about the brand positive or negative? I like to point out that I see my articles about Gutter Helmet creating a content-match in the AdSense logic that drives this product to be advertised. What is lost in the logic that AdSense uses is that I am describing my extremely negative experience with Gutter Helmet.

Shouldn’t the competitors of Gutter Helmet be able to take advantage of this, based on the context of the article? Shouldn’t Gutter Helmet be trying to respond to these negative posts by monitoring the conversation and actively trying to turn a bad customer experience into a positive long-term relationship?

Conversation and community marketing is a far more complex problem than a modified PageRank algorithm. It is not about the number of connections, or the level of engagement. In the end, it is about ensuring that advertisers can target their shrinking marketing dollars at the conversations that are most important.

Injecting irrelevant content into conversation is not the way to succeed in this new approach. Being an active participant in the conversation is the key.

In effect, the old model that is based on the many eyeballs for the lowest cost approach is failing. A BuzzLogic model that examines conversations and encourages firms to intelligently and actively engage in them is the one that will win.

The road to success is based on engagement, not eyeballs.

Tags: advertising, community, conversation, engagement, Google, marketing, Matt Rhodes, modified PageRank algorithm, PageRank, social media world

There is clear dissatisfaction with the current state of marketing among the social media mavens.

• Fred Wilson and Union Square Ventures are looking for companies to invest in to take advantage of this.
• BuzzLogic releases their conversational ad service.
• The Inquisitr moves from AdSense to Technorati Media, indicating a potential shift at b5 Media.
• Lookery is providing demographic information that is relevant to social media providers and shaping ad presentation that way
• A completely off-the-radar person such as myself realizes that there is gold in what holds the attention, and that’s not always the latest and greatest

So what can be done? Jeff Jarvis points out that the problem lies with measurement. I agree, as there is only value in a system where all of the people involved agree on what the metric of record will be, and how it can be validly captured.

Currently CPM is the agreed upon metric. In a feed based online world, how does a CPM model work? And, most importantly, why would I continue to place your ads on my site if all your doing is advertising to people based on the words on the page, rather than who is looking at the page and how often that page is looked at.

In effect, advertisers should be the ones thrying to figure out how to get into the community, get into the conversation. As an advertiser, don’t you want to be where the action is? But how do you find an engaged audience in an online world that makes a sand castle on the beach in a hurricane look stable?

The challenge for advertisers is to be able to find the active communities and conversations effectively. The challenge for content creators and communities is to understand the value of their conversations, the interactions that people who visit the site have with the content.

In effect, a social media advertising model turns the current model on its head. Site owners and community creators gain the benefit of being attractive to advertisers because of the community, not because of the content. And site owners who understand who visits their site, what content most engages them, how they interact with the system will be able to reap the greatest rewards by selling their community as a marketable entity.

And Steven Hodson rounds out the week’s think on communities by throwing out the subversive idea that communities are not always free (as in ‘beer’, not as in ‘land of’). If a community has paid for the privilege of coming together to participate in communal events and discussions, then can’t that become an area for site owners to further control the cost of advertising on their site?

While the benefit of reduced or no marketing content is the benefit of many for-pay communities, this benefit can be used by site owners by saying that an advertiser can have access to the for-pay community at the cost of higher ad rates and smaller ads. The free community is a completely different set of rules, but there are also areas in the free community that are of higher value than others.

In summary, the current model is broken. But there is no way to measure the value of a Twitter stream, a FriendFeed conversation, a Disqus thread, or a Digg rampage. And until there is, we are stuck with an ad model that based on the words on the page, and not the community that created the words.

Tags: ad network, ads, adsense, advertising, advertising model, API, attention, audience, b5 Media, blog, blog advertising, BuzzLogic, BuzzMachine, community, content, control, conversation, current, data, digg, disqus, EAD, feeds, Fred Wilson, friendfeed, HTML, HTTP, IE, IM, information, interaction, interactions, IP, it, Jeff Jarvis, LAN, Lookery, Mac, marketing, measurement, media, metrics, Newest Industry, Om, One, online, online world, pr, social media, social media advertising, social media advertising model turns, social media mavens, social media providers, Steven Hodson, Technorati, The Inquisitr, twitter, Union Square, Union Square Ventures

Fred Wilson adds his thoughts to the conversation about a more intelligent way to target blog and social media advertising. His idea plays right into the ideas I discussed yesterday, ideas that emphasize that a new and successful advertising strategy can be dictated by content creators and bloggers by basing advertising rates on the level of interaction that an audience has with a post.

Where the model I proposed is one that is based on community and conversation, Fred sees an opportunityfor fims that can effectively inject advertising and marketing directly into the conversation, not added on as an afterthought.

Today’s conversations take place in the streams of Twitter and FriendFeed, and are solidly founded on the ideas of community and conversation. They are spontaneous, unpredictable. Marketing into the stream requires a level of conversational intelligence that doesn’t exist in contextual advertising. It is not simply the words on the screen, it is how those ads are being used.

For example, there is no sense trying to advertise a product on a page or in a conversation that is actively engaged in discussing the flaws and failings of that product. It makes an advertiser look cold, insensitive, and even ridiculous.

In his post, Fred presents examples of subtle, targeted advertising that appears in the streams of an existing conversation without redirecting or changing the conversation. As a VC, he recognizes the opportunity in this area.

Community and conversation focused marketing is potentially huge and likely very effective, if done in a way that does not drive people to filter their content to prevent such advertising. The advertisers will also have to adopt a clear code of behavior that prevents them from being seen as anything more than new-age spammers.

Why will it be more effective? It plays right to the marketers sweet spot: an engaged group, with a focused interest, creating a conversation in a shared community.

If that doesn’t set of the buzzword bingo alarms, nothing will.

It is, however, also true. And the interest in this new model of advertising is solely drive by one idea: attention. I have commented on the attention economy previously, and I stick to my guns that a post, a conversation, a community that holds a person’s attention in today’s world of media and information saturation is one that needs to be explored by marketers.

Rob Crumpler and the team at BuzzLogic announced their conversation ad service yesterday (September 18 2008). This is likely the first move in this exciting new area. And Fred and his team at Union Square recognize the potential in this area.

Tags: advertising rates, advertising strategy, BuzzLogiz, community, contextual advertising, conversation, Fred Wilson, Rob Crumpler, social media advertising, Union Square, Union Square Ventures

It’s critical to your business. It affects revenue. It’s how people who can’t come to you perceive you.

It’s your Web site.

Its complex. Abstract. Lots of conflicting ideas and forces are involved. Everyone says they now the best thing for it. Finger-pointing. Door slamming. Screaming.

Am I describing your Web site and the team that supports it? Or your teenager?

If you think of your Web site as a teenager, you begin to realize the problems that your facing. Like a teenager, it has grown physically and mentally, and, as a result, thinks its an experienced adult, ready to take on the world. However, let’s think of your site as a teenager, and think back to how we, as teenagers (yeah, I’m old), saw the world.

MOM! This doesn’t fit anymore!

Your Web site has grown as all of your marketing and customer service programs bear fruit. Traffic is increasing. Revenue is up. Everyone is smiling.

Then you wake up and realize that your Web site is too small for your business. This could mean that the infrastructure is overloaded, the network is tapped out, your connectivity is maxed, and your sysadmins, designers, and network teams are spending most of your day just firefighting.

Now, how can you grow a successful business, or be the hip kid in school, when your clothes don’t fit anymore?

But, you can’t buy an entire wardrobe every six months, so plan, consider your goals and destinations, and shop smart.

DAD! Everyone has one! I need to have one to be cool!

Shiny.

It’s a word that has been around for a long time, and was revived (with new meaning) by Firefly. It means reflective, bright, and new. It’s what attracts people to gold, mirrors, and highly polished vintage cars. In the context of Web sites, it’s the eye-candy that you encounter in your browsing, and go “Our site needs that”.

Now step back and ask yourself what purpose this new eye-candy will serve.

And this is where Web designers and marketing people laugh, because it’s all about being new and improved.

But can you be new and improved, when your site is old and broken?

Get your Web performance in order with what you, then add the stuff that makes your site pop.

But those aren’t the cool kids. I don’t hang with them.

Everyone is attracted to the gleam of the cool new Web sites out there that offer to do the same old thing as your site. The promise of new approaches to old problems, lower cost, and greater efficiencies in our daily lives are what prompt many of us to switch.

As a parent, we may scoff, realizing that maybe the cool kids never amounted to much outside of High School. But, sometimes you have to step back and wonder what makes a cool kid cool.

You have to step back and say, why are they attracting so much attention and we’re seen as the old-guard? What can we learn from the cool kids? Is your way the very best way? And says who?

And once you ask these questions, maybe you agree that some of what the cool kids do is, in fact, cool.

Can I borrow the car?

Trust is a powerful thing to someone, or to a group. Your instinctive response depends on who you are, and what your experiences with others have been like in the past.

Trust is something often found lacking when it comes to a Web site. Not between your organization and your customers, but between the various factions within your organization who are trying to interfere or create or revamp or manage the site.

Not everyone has the same goals. But sometimes asking a few questions of other people and listening to their reasons for doing something will lead to a discussion that will improve the Web site in a way that improves the business in the long run.

Sometimes asking why a teenager wants to borrow the car will help you see things from their perspective for a little while. You may not agree, but at least now it’s not a yes/no answer.

YOU: How was school today? - THEM: Ok.

Within growing organizations, open and clear communication tends to gradually shrivel and degenerate. Communications become more formal, with what is not said being as important as what is. Trying to find out what another department is doing becomes a lot like determining the state of the Soviet Union’s leadership based on who attends parades in Red Square.

Abstract communication is one of the things that separates humans from a large portion of the rest of the animal kingdom. There is nothing more abstract than a Web site, where physical devices and programming code produce an output that can only be seen and heard.

The need for communication is critical in order to understand what is happening in another department. And sometimes that means pushing harder, making the other person or team answer hard questions that they think you’re not interested in, or that you is non of your business.

If you are in the same company, it’s everyone’s business. So push for an answer, because working to create an abstract deliverable that determines the success or failure of the entire firm can’t be based on a grunt and a nod.

Summary

There are no easy answers to Web performance. But if you consider your Web site and your teams as a teenager, you will be able to see that the problems that we all deal with in our daily interactions with teens crop up over an over when dealing with Web design, content, infrastructure, networks and performance.

Managing all the components of a Web site and getting best performance out of it often requires you to have the patience of Job. But it is also good to carry a small pinch of faith in these same teams, faith  that everyone, whether they say it or not, wants to have the best Web site possible.

Tags: conversation, cool, cool new Web, High School, improvement, performance evolution, performance improvement, physical devices, Red Square, Soviet Union, teen, teenager, Web design, Web designers, Web Performance

Lately, there have been outages for two large sites: Amazon and Facebook. Working for a company that monitors such things made me able to confirm the nature of the outages.  But how I became aware of them has had me thinking in new ways for the last few weeks.

I became aware of both of these outages through a combination of FriendFeed and Twitter within minutes of them starting. This information spread quickly. And, due to the nature of these new technologies, people were able to comment on the outages, and theorize about the cause of the problems these large online firms faced.

The question you are likely asking is “So what?”. Well, as anyone who has been paying attention for the last four years should know, while you cannot completely control the conversation, you can participate in it and help prevent the spread of negative or incorrect theories about what is happening on your site.

The technologies that people who come to your site use to comment when something goes wrong can be used to interact with the customers. The classic example of this is Zappos. If you look on Twitter, you will find a number of members of that organization who are using the service to interact with customers on a human level. And if you have a problem or question, you stand an excellent chance of getting a response from the CEO if you ask a question.

So, if your site experiences an issue or problem, how do you interact with customers? Or do you just hope they don’t notice?

Tags: conversation, customers, friendfeed, interaction, performance issues, social media, twitter

Through 2007, the number of posts I made per day/week/month decreased steadily. I know post new items 2-3 items a month, or less. After 2 years of steady entries, I just didn’t have anything to add to the conversation.

Having been an A-list groupie for this entire period, I lost touch with the self-perpetuating scene. A comment that I saw on Top Gear summed it up: Jeremy Clarkson had another chat show host on, and they both commented on how all British chat show hosts end up appearing on each others shows.

That’s how blogging began to feel to me. I began to step back.

I stepped back from true, active day-to-day management of GrabPERF.

I drifted, intellectually and emotionally.

I found the sharp edge of my humor, which had wandered off and gone hitchhiking through the British Isles disguised as Roger Daltrey for six months.

The last few weeks I have been asking myself if I want to go back to blogging, if I want to continue to produce the random ideas for the world to see.

The death of my grandmother a few weeks ago brought my world back into sharp focus. Who is going to see these stories, these tales? Who will be the keeper of my intellectual flame? What will people know of me when I fade away.

I will be trying to storm back. My brain is here.

I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER.

Ok…maybe that was delusional. But hang on for another wild ride.

Tags: app, ARIN, blog, Blogging, conversation, EAD, GrabPERF, GrabPERF.org, HTTP, IE, it, Om, One, posts, pr

I am spending most of my non-work time reading and discovering about modern design and architecture. As a result, I have started a new blog to isolate my thoughts and ideas on these topics.

Come over and join the conversation at blunderWERK Design Notes.

Tags: blunderwerkz, design, architecture, blog

Tags: blog, conversation, design, EAD, HTTP, IM, it, Om, Technorati