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…

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.

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.

The web is buzzing today about Guy Kawasaki’s launch of AllTop.com. The site serves as an aggregator of stories across numerous topics and is essentially a magazine rack for the web. From Twitter to blogs, the digerati are discussing merits and drawbacks of both the site and Kawasaki himself. Check out posts from Doc Searls at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, TechCrunch and Jeremiah Owyang.

I guess I’m missing something, because part of the beauty of the web is that if you don’t like it, you don’t have to use it. The Internet allows us to self-select sites, content, people of interest based on whatever criteria are individually relevant. If you are a hipster and have your own RSS feeds all set up, feel free to ignore the AllTop site. Or, perhaps it may still be useful, giving you an easy way to scan top stories in topics of occasional interest. For the techies who say the site is entry level and not useful to those of us who live online, I say, “Duh!” It isn’t meant for us. If I had a dollar for every client who asked me what RSS is, I’d be rich by now. I sent this to my brother who is not very savvy when it comes to digital and he said, “Cool. I’ll bookmark this.” It will probably be a valuable resource for him and will enhance his online experience.

Personally, I think the site is just fine. I like the simplicity of the layout, fully acknowledging the nod to PopURLs. I like being able to scroll numerous feeds, many of which I don’t subscribe to as a new source of content. I spent a bit of time stuck in an airport this weekend and AllTop definitely helped pass the time. I really like the Twitter channel as I don’t have time to subscribe to everyone I’d like, (although I have to confess to being disappointed in not getting a nod on the acknowledgments page for initially recommending the idea to Guy) and think that he deserves a ton of credit for building this site quick and marketing it well.

Besides, I think there are a lot of other things that we could spend our time griping about. How about Internet pollution to start?

Today, The New York Times offers an interesting perspective into Twitter and its use for families. The author goes on to say that she had difficulty turning her children onto the new “microblog” or “multi-SMS” service:

“But I thought Twitter would be perfect for my purposes. The service allows users to text a message of up to 140 characters to an unlimited number of people simultaneously, from anywhere. Anytime.

In theory, the five members of my immediate family could use our cellphones to broadcast our locations, kind of like a G.P.S. with words.”

The problem, it appears, was trying to explain how Twitter works. (We’ve talked about Twitter before on the blog).

“To get things rolling, I sent my daughters and husband standard Twitter e-mail invitations (“slatalla wants to keep up with you on twitter”) that contained a link to the service’s home page. Then, while I sat in my car in front of my youngest daughter’s school, I sent an update on my whereabouts: “car pool dilemma will French horn and trombone both fit in a mini” Then?

Nothing.

“hello” I typed. Three minutes passed. Four. Still nothing. For the first time in the nearly 19 years since I first gave birth, no one wanted to keep tabs on me.

Then suddenly my cellphone buzzed. It was my first Twitter — a text message from Zoe, my 18-year-old daughter, how exciting — and so I eagerly opened it onscreen.

It said, “twitter?? what the hell is this?”

Like all new technologies and cool toys, early adopters prevail at first and then begin to plateau, hopefully reaching mass adoption. However, we don’t know how many users are actually within the Twitter ecosystem. “Nearly 1.2 million users visited Twitter.com in December, a 223 percent increase over the same month in the previous year, according to comScore Inc., which measures Internet traffic,” noted The Times. (Keep in mind that visitors to Twitter.com is different from registered users.) Compete shows about 550k users for Twitter.

Fellow strategist for Latin America, Felix Leander, asked “I wonder what the proportion of Twitter users are in advertising/social media and just use for fun?” I’d love to know that answer.

Happy New Year! I can’t believe it is 2008 already, and wish you all the best this year.

I’ve been reading a lot of year-end wrap-ups and many, many blogs with detailed predictions on what we should all expect in 2008. As interesting as all that is, I’ve decided to dedicate my first post of the year to resolutions. My resolutions last year were largely work-related and i stuck to them for the most part. This year, my resolutions are more about balance - finding that work/personal balance that is often quite blurred for those of us who work in digital media.

I find it a challenge, and quite honestly would love to hear if/how others deal. I love social media, and spend a fair amount of time online from a personal perspective. The time I spend online is largely self-imposed, and I’m not complaining. I’m into wine and love reading the wine blogs or browsing online to find a hidden gem. I travel a bit and am always online researching my next trip and sharing stories with others. Those of you who follow my twitter (personal: www.twitter.com/erinbyrne and work: www.twitter.com/BMdigital) know that i could use a twelve-step-twitter program. I’ve been known to talk to my BFF on Google Talk late into the night over a glass of wine, and consume everything i can get my hands on relating to digital, politics, wine, fitness, music, quilting, and New England sports teams. Some people ask me how I can always be online. Duh - I love my blackberry and my iphone. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that the lines are completely blurred. What started out as research for my role as a digital strategist has become a hobby over the last few years. As I write this I have eight computer programs running, twelve browser tabs loaded, and three work emails started. It will be another hour or so before I even consider winding down, and that is largely due to the multi-tasking. So, my New Year’s resolution is to reclaim balance, and definitely to focus. When I’m working, I’m going to work. (Yes, that means I won’t be playing so much scrabulous during the day.) And, when I’m goofing off online for fun I will pass on the work-related activities.

This may or may not make a difference in my output, but at a minimum it should be interesting. If nothing else, it will be an exercise in self-control. Share your thoughts, and I’ll post an update on my progress in a few months.

Greg Hazley recently wrote a post about Twitter and how PR professionals are using the micro-blogging tool. Erin, my chief (I am one of the 50 that report to her), was featured and mentioned her use of Twitter: a means for group communication and updates.

I can attest to the effectiveness of Twitter and to what Erin refers to as “genuine nature”. From the tweets, you really begin to know a person, their interests, moods, feelings, and day-to-day life. It is as if you are with the people that you are following on Twitter.

There are many stories I could share, but the most appropriate for this post has to be a recent Tweet (“frame grab” from Greg’s blog – look closely) right before Erin had to meet with a client. My response was “shorts” – I never did hear back from Erin on that one – maybe she’ll post a comment.

PS - You can follow Erin @ http://twitter.com/erinbyrne or mine @ http://twitter.com/fleander

Interesting post on GigaOM about the L.A. Fire Department using Twitter (microblogging tool) to send updates on the fires path in California. Apparently the traditional media cannot keep up and users are demanding that information be available much faster. The post also mentions Google Maps mashups being created to track the fires.

I think Alistair Croll sumarizes it best: “In this era of personalization and mobility, it’s great to see an online community putting the latest tools to work. This combination of portable devices, mashups, and real-time status updates gives us a warning system for the masses.”