There is nothing like a nine-month break from work to give you a fresh perspective on your discipline. In the world of digital media, where new hot sites and fads come and go quickly, I was afraid that I would be caught off guard when the question came up “what’s hot right now for digital?”. Yet, as I catch up with my colleagues and industry experts, the same web 2.0 suspects are talked about as nine months ago: Facebook, Twitter, mobile communications, etc …

What this reveals for me is that the key to digital media is not to know what the latest website is, or which social network or virtual world to enter, but instead to understand that their growth is due to some fundamental underlying societal trends. These trends – transparency, individuality, connection and knowledge – are the ones that every company should keep in mind when developing a communication program, offline and online.

The need for Transparency was already engrained in the demand for corporate social responsibility that emerged in the 90’s. Then, consumers required companies to be transparent about their impact on the environment and society. Now, consumers expect them to communicate in a clear and frank manner with them about everything, financial results, products, management… The same demand is also made of politicians, institutions, charities…

This is why consumers and citizens now put their trust in Individuals above all. Reviews on travel websites, opinions by a well-liked blogger, a quick text from a friend about a great product, will carry more weight as they appear free of any corporate involvement.

This is multiplied by the power of Connection. One piece of advice from an individual is interesting, but the same repeated by a community of trusted individuals definitely clinches the deal. Communities are the new social space where people build relationships. As people live in a dispersed world, both geographically and in terms of time zones, they re-create a social place online where they can meet regardless of the physical location they occupy and the time they can connect with each other.

This contributes to a new way of creating and consuming information. People build their Knowledge base via a mix of personal opinion that they gather on the net or via friends with what they get from traditional media in print and TV. Their knowledge is also more immediate. No longer do they want to wait for the six o’clock news (in the UK) or the “20h” (in France), they seek it via Twitter (see the recent explosion in the USA or the China earthquake rumoured to have first be told via the microblogging site) or their mobile phone.

So here you go: do you have what makes your consumers TICK? Be aware, they are already Ticking about you and your products. Have a look here: and input your company or brand’s name…

Sonico, think Facebook for Latin America - you may recall in a previous post, recently announced that they have passed the 15 million mark in registered users (content in Spanish) - keep in mind they have only been around for 9 months. In the beginning of 2008, the network had about 7.3 million registered users. These numbers are supported by a March 2008 ComScore report.

So it seems like they have surpassed Hi5, Orkut, and Facebook (LATAM registered users) and thus becoming reigning leaders in Latin America…

Mashable first reported on this and as a result were contacted by Hi5 to clarify - to which immediately a follow-up post was written. According to a more recent comScore report (April 2008) - Hi5 is clearly still the leader in overall traffic.

This does not take away from Sonico’s strong growth (or any other of the social networks in the region)…what I gather from all this is that Latin America is poised for a huge boom of online communities, conversations, opportunities, and yes, even challenges. And as internet penetration increases more and more, expect this phenomenon to out pace even Sonico’s growth.

According to a new Online Measurement and Strategy Report, “companies are typically failing to adopt a coherent strategy that ties in web analytics data with business objectives - just 18% of surveyed firms do so.” Apparently, organizations are “under-investing in internal analytics staff and failing to implement a coherent measurement strategy which can help them turn their data into something of real value to their business.”

Approximately 700 companies took part in the survey, including 434 client-side companies and 229 supplier-side respondents (constituting agencies, consultancies and analytics vendors).

Although 88% of companies polled said that web analytics are important for measuring traffic to websites, cost and resources were seen as the greatest hindrance to effective data analysis. 48% of organizations do not have any dedicated web analysts.

For anyone who participates online, whether via blogs, social networks and even instant messenger, having some form of a history log is helpful to gain a better understanding of past trends and possibly predict the future. Sure, there are some frustrations with current web analytics offerings, but as we continue to live in an increasing hyper-digital world, effective measurement and targeting will become a necessity.

For more information about Burson-Marsteller’s evidence-based approach and strategic analysis offerings, see our Strategic Development section on www.bm.com.

I continue to be amazed by stories of employees of large companies trying to conceal their identity to influence issues via social media. Burger King is the latest to be in the news on this topic, although from what I’ve read (and admittedly I know very little about this particular case) it seems as though the company handled the situation well and was transparent in how they disclosed it.

I spoke with a reporter from the Miami Herald last week (the story is available online) and she asked some great questions around how companies should figure out when to participate, and when they decide to do so, how they should go about doing it. The initial answer is easy - if you participate you need to say who you are and be transparent about stating your reason for participating. Transparency is often used to indicate you have to disclose everything. That isn’t the case, and is usually too much information. You do need to be transparent about the topic you are discussing, and need to be unassailable in your truthfulness. People who try to participate under fake names need to just stop it. Go away! You will be caught, but more importantly, you are ruining it for others who are doing the right thing.

It is a hard enough decision to figure out how to participate. Note use of “how to participate” and not “whether or not to participate.” Companies who want any chance to influence their reputation and brand online have no choice but to be involved in online conversations. If you aren’t part of the conversation then your point of view is not represented. But when companies see others on the front pages and online news sites for improper behavior it elevates the overall feeling of confusion and concern about being involved online. It makes the blogosphere seem dark and scary (insert Halloween music here) and minimizes the true opportunity for companies to engage with their stakeholders.

I am not suggesting that companies need to respond to every every story, topic, and blog post. I am recommending that companies:

• Put social media guidelines in place so that employees and partners know what is allowed, and the implications for violating behavior (I wrote some about this in February.) The Word of Mouth Marketing Association is a good place to start for guidance.
• Monitor online conversations to understand what is being said. This is a great opportunity to get real-time feedback, almost a focus group of thousands. It will also give you a way to understand the topics that may be relevant for you to participate in, both proactively to contribute to a story, but reactively to correct misinformation.
• Determine how you will decide which posts to respond to. There will be some blogs that you want to avoid for whatever reason - the blogger is not open to differing points of view, the community has a set opinion and will use your participation to flame an issue, or the blog has a significant amount of offensive material that you don’t want to be exposed to. These are a few ideas, but think it through because there are others.
• Contribute to the community. Organizations that find a way to contribute to the conversation as opposed to only participating from a selfish perspective have a great opportunity to build relationships. H&R Block did this with tax tips, Southwest does it with open conversation and an integrated social media approach, and selfishly, our founding chairman Harold Burson occasionally does it by sharing his wisdom and insight.
• Think broadly. This isn’t only about blogs. It is about social media, twitter, discussion forums, and more.
• Participate. Monitor. And stick with it. It won’t always be easy, and the results won’t come quickly, but if you truly want to influence your brand position then you need to have a voice. And that voice needs to live online and off.

Today Burson-Marsteller launched its Digital Perspective Newsletter and we are all pretty excited about it. First of all: thank you to everyone that was involved in making this happen. The Digital Perspective newsletter will highlight some of our digital initiatives, point of views, trends, and news - it will be sent out on a monthly basis.

Signing-up is easy - just look to the right of this post where it says “Subscribe to Newsletter” (If this post is not current anymore, scroll to the top of the homepage of the Digital Perspective Blog). We would be more than happy to hear from you: suggestions, ideas, comments - please write to us at b-mdigital@digital.bm.com or simply respond to this post.

Ipos MediaCT released an interesting report: The Business Elite Study. It essentially says that more and more C-Suite professionals are using digital media to get their fix of information.  According to Ipos MediaCT, the report “explores the media habits, attitudes, opinions, and business and personal purchasing habits of the highest echelon of America’s business community - the C-Suite.”

Of all the findings ranging from top websites visited to the internet being one of the main sources for business news, two in particular stood out:

• In a month’s time, more than two-thirds of the C-levels surveyed (68%) have downloaded videos or clips from websites or received email newsletters/alerts on their computers.  About half (49%) have streamed or watched broadband videos from websites on their computers. (I wonder what the percentage of c-levels is that have downloaded videos or clips from websites only is)

• They are into blogs too—almost one-third (30%) read blogs and a small number (4%) contribute to blogs.

As the C-levels become more digitally savvy so will their businesses, as well as the conversations they will be having internally and externally.

Yesterday was a good day at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s WOMM-U conference. The main session speakers were interesting, and the conference organizers featured a round robin style approach to breakouts, giving participants a choice of two learning tracks. I led breakouts on the topic of “Building a Complete Blog Program.” Essentially the idea was to facilitate a conversation about best practices pertaining to developing a complete blog program.

The groups I had were a nice blend of agency and corporate communications or marketing professionals. Participants tended to focus on corporate blogging, but when probed started to open up about other elements that comprise a “complete” blog program. Our final list included:

• Blog monitoring for immediate consumer feedback but also longer term trend identification, etc.
• Corporate blogging on company sponsored/developed blogs
• Blog responding both reactively to correct misinformation and proactively to participate in conversations
• Blogger outreach to generate conversations, where appropriate
• Microblogging to have a more consistent presence with interested stakeholders

We then started speaking about what best practices should be deployed for corporate blogging programs. Each group had different thoughts, and the combined list is certainly a good start for anyone considering a blogging program. Some of the best practices discussed were:

• Determine a clear strategy and objectives - the first question I always ask when someone tells me that they want to start blogging is “why?” Organizations need to have a clear marketing strategy and business strategy before moving ahead with a blogging program. The strategy and objectives will drive numerous elements including who blogs, topics discussed, levels of governance, etc.
• Conduct a risk assessment - organizations need to consider the risks associated with conducting a blogging program, including the risk of not participating. What regulatory concerns need to be addressed? Who from the company can participate? How will comments be moderated and handled. How will you respond to negative comments about executives and the company? And so on.
• Implement a social media policy and governance strategy - having a clearly defined social media policy is critical to ensuring that employees know what is within the realm of acceptable participation and visitors know how comments will be handled.
• Define the commitment required - participating in blogging activities is not for the faint of heart. It takes a deep commitment on many different levels — time is an obvious commitment, but a willingness to speak in an authentic voice is another that has to be considered. Bloggers also have to consider the fact that their content may live online forever, and be comfortable knowing that they can’t necessarily retract or remove comments from everywhere they get posted.
• Consider the implications of being translucent - everyone talks about being completely transparent online, but I think that is too much information for people to absorb. I think translucency is a better concept to consider. You need to be truthful and authentic in everything you say and must be unassailable in terms of being able to defend yourself, but you don’t have to discuss every single topic under the sun.
• Select the right spokespeople - that’s right, spokespeople. Bloggers are company spokespeople, whether they intend to be or not. Just as you wouldn’t let an inappropriate person conduct media interviews, you need to ensure that people involved in blogging activity are appropriate for the type of activity and level of visibility that they may achieve.
• Put a scalability plan in place - as your blogging program grows so will your needs. This includes things like resources to manage the program, time to develop content, the effort required to moderate and respond to blogs / comments, and the potential need to scale the technical infrastructure.
• Be realistic about results - it is important for organizations to have goals tied to their blogging programs that are realistic given the space they are in and the amount of effort put into the program. Results should be measured, but organizations must be patience as you generally need to participate and contribute to the community for some time before you are truly invited to the party.

Obviously there are a lot of other elements to consider, but the best practices above are certainly a step in the right direction for companies considering a blogging program. I believe the risk is in NOT participating, and that companies who do engage truly do have an unparalleled opportunity to build relationships with stakeholders as opposed to simply driving a transaction. The rewards outweigh the risks, but only if you enter the space with a well-thought out plan and realistic expectations.

Felix, David and I are off to a good start at WOMM-U. We listened in on Joseph Jaffe’s keynote this morning. He is always an engaging presenter and used good real-world cases to make his points. Sitting in the audience it felt like we (digital strategy community) are all saying the same things though - Jaffe talked about commitment versus campaigns where I always talk about relationships instead of transcations. He talked about not ceding complete control to consumers whereas I talk about influencing dialogue through participation instead of control. In some ways it is nice to hear the social media strategy-types talking about the same ideas, but it also makes me realize I need to push my thinking some.

Our table is all about having an experience with us - thus the Guitar Hero set up. We are also giving away stress balls and one guy quipped, “having a ball while playing Guitar Hero.” I wish I was smart enough to have planned it that way! We’ve met some great people so far this morning, but things are quieting down now as people go into their sessions. I’m leading a session with someone from Quicken Loans on “Building a Complete Blog Program.” Should be fun.

So we are in Miami, FL at the WOMM-U getting ready for an exciting two days. This year Erin will be leading various blog workshops. Throughout the day David and I will be posting photos to Flickr, videos to YouTube, and updates to this blog and Twitter.

If you are in Miami, drop by our booth and lay down a sick riff on Guitar Hero.

I’m out in San Francisco this weekend, prepping to deliver the Digital in Action program to colleagues on Monday and Tuesday. Today is a work day, but yesterday I took a day off and headed to Napa Valley with a colleague (Kevin Haythe from Exetor Group) to indulge in one of my passions, wine tastings. We visited four wineries, and had four different experiences that each led us to have a different perception and thus interaction with the winery. Here’s how it went down.

First, we visited Rubicon Estates. It is a huge winery with the focal point of the experience being a beautifully renovated chateau. As you pull in the driveway signs direct you to “drive to the red carpet.” Your car is valeted, and you are told to go inside to pay the $25 tasting fee. The experience inside is overwhelming. You can taste five wines, buy all kinds of stuff (some actually related to wine), and view exhibits, again, some actually related to wine. We thought the wines were okay, but left feeling a little taken advantage of by the winery and disappointed that they seemed to make enjoying wine more complex than it needs to be. We didn’t buy a thing.

Next we visited Whitehall Lane Winery. The experience was still formal, but it was much more approachable. We were given a choice of two tasting options, both for $25 per person. We went with a vertical tasting of three reserve cabs. The host respectfully paid attention to our conversation, and offered us a fourth reserve cab to taste when she heard us talking about only really liking one of the three wines. At that point the tasting room got very crowded and she had less time to interact with us. When we were ready to square up, we bought one bottle of wine, and she kindly comped us one tasting due to the crowd. We left feeling positive about Whitehall, and more disenfranchised with Rubicon.

The next stop was Heitz Cellars. The tasting room was a little smaller and was run almost like an invitation into someone’s home. Hosts poured wines and engaged in lively dialogue with visitors. As we debated what to purchase, one of the hosts invited us to try to other wines that they don’t offer as part of the formal tasting, but he thought we might enjoy. He answered a lot of questions about unique characteristics of Heitz cabernets, and even let me take a picture of his dog. There was no charge for the tasting, and the hosts truly tried to create an experience around the wine and winery with guests. We left with 6 bottles to ship, and 1 to take for dinner. We started to see a pattern about the interactions we had with the people and the brand and the opinion we had of the wines.

At this point we decided to go off the beaten track and visit a winery that neither of us had ever heard of. We ended up at Burgess Cellars, a winery on the side of Howell Mountain that offers tastings by appointment only. We walked in to a room full of people who had an appointment, but were warmly welcomed by the host, Michael. We then enjoyed a complimentary tasting of five different Burgess wines, with lively conversation, questions and answers, fun banter with lots of laughs, and photo opps. We bought 33 bottles to shop between the two of us, and then Michael gave us a complimentary bottle to enjoy during our trip. It was clear that Michael was selfless in his creating an experience, which made us want to repay his kindness with a purchase. We were so pleased with the warmth of the Burgess experience that we decided to call it a day and head back to the city.

Why am I writing all of this on a blog about digital perspective? We talk about how marketers need to build trust with consumers online to truly be successful in reaching business objectives, but the reality is that they need to do it in all of their business interactions. We felt that the Rubicon experience spoke at us and even potentially looked down on visitors as they tried to impress us with the majesty of wine. I’d liken it to a big fancy website that has lots of bells and whistles and shouts, “look at me, look at me” but then doesn’t really have anything to say and isn’t open to hearing from visitors. Whitehall and Heitz were much more accessible - as websites they would have been providing the functionality I’d expect, but also been listening to my needs and flexing to meet them. They created a relevant experience for us in real time based on how we interacted with them. And Burgess would be a social media website, co-creating an experience based on shared interests and open dialogue. Our spending tracked against our experience and the level of trust we had in each winery, ranging from no purchase at Rubicon to 33 bottles at Burgess. The challenge and opportunity for marketers is to recreate these types of interactions online, and to flex to consumers so that a relevant, self-directed experience is had by all.