The Wisdom of CrowdsThe Wisdom of Crowds

© 2008 Prescient Digital Media www.PrescientDigital.com

Harnessing the Power of Influencers

By Toby Ward, Prescient Digital Media

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The power of ‘group’

Jellybeans in a jar: the average guess of all the guesses is almost always closer than the closest guess

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Google ‘gets it’

Utilizes page rankings to gather collective intelligence

The crowd is the influencerThe crowd is the influencer

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Social media / Web 2.0

Promote networks of relationships Transforms users into publishers Discuss, share & collaborate From one to many -> many to many

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Web 2.0 (adapted from Shel Holtz)

Conversation-enabled publishing platforms Blogs, podcasts, Technorati

Social networks Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace

Social bookmarking Delic.io.us, Digg, StumbleUpon

Democratized content networks Wikipedia, Yahoo! Groups, MyStarbucksIdea

Presence networks (micro-blogging) Jaiku, Twitter, Pownce

Content sharing sites YouTube, Flickr, ePinions.com

Virtual networking platforms Second Life, There.com

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Social media revolution6 of the Top 10 most visited sites on the Internet (Feb 2008)

Source: Alexa.com

1. Yahoo!2. YouTube3. Windows Live4. Google5. Myspace6. Facebook7. MSN8. Hi59. Wikipedia10. Orkut

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Brodeur/OmniComm Study

61% of reporters say blogs affect story tone 50% say blogs influence editorial copy Three-quarters get story ideas from blogs 20% spend at least an hour per day reading blogs

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Corporate Reputation The sum total perception of consumer’s total

interactions with the company Includes:

the intangibles that bridge a product or service promise

the customer’s demand customer’s opinion of that promise

The Internet is one of the most important touch points

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Tapping the buzz

McKinsey has found that 54% of all sales are influenced by buzz marketing (or a lack thereof)

Word of mouth is more powerful and technology accelerates word of mouth 1

1 Mark Hughes - Buzzmarketing.com - 2004-20052 Renee Dye - McKinsey & Company, “The Buzz on Buss” 2001

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Reputation = Money $$$$

Over 90% of analysts agree: If a company fails to look after its reputation it will

ultimately suffer financially too.

The most reliable information sources: company websites customer research

Source: Hill & Knowlton, Return on Reputation

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Failure to communicate

The failure to provide appropriate information will lead to negative ratings:

90% saying that it is fairly likely/very likely/or certain to

Source: Hill & Knowlton, Return on Reputation

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“We don’t own the news any more.” -BBC

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RedCross.org

Blog postings mentioning “Red Cross” increased by 10 to 20 times after Katrina (source: Intelliseek Blogpulse)

Redcross.org visits jumped to more than 1 million visits – more than 32x the avg. daily

In a few days donations through the website topped $100 million

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Intranet Blog

In 400 days, from zero to 4,000 people per day Dramatically improved Google rankings

Prescient is now #1 in the World for: “intranet consultant” and “intranet consulting”

More than 2,300 links Up to 12,000 page view per day Increased corporate consulting revenue by 40% Primary source for many Fortune 500 clients including

HSBC, RBC and Nintendo

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Flogging

A fake blog used as sales tool Walmarting Across America Written by two Walmart “fans” Drove RV across US blogging about Walmarts Later revealed they were paid All cooked-up by Edelman PR

http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/oct2006/db20061009_579137.htm

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WalMart employees weigh-in

“… have watched the company go from a family oriented environment to “who gives a crap make us more money environment.”

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Podcasting

Many TV and most radio programs now provide podcast versions

Microsoft, GM and Volvo and many others

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“Five Minutes with …”

Source: Innovative Intranet Tools to Captivate Employees, Jean Gaetano, National City

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Wiki

Wikis allow everyone to participate Wiki is stripped down CMS Any user can edit any other’s text

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Wikipedia.org

9 million files, 75,000 active authors, 250 languages

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Wiki-based intranet: Placemaking

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Facebook

Facebook quick Facts: Active users: 70 million Monthly new user average: 4 million Daily new user average: 200,000 Page views: Over 15 billion per month Searches: Over 500 million per month Largest networks: London, UK 1,632,273 and

Toronto, Canada 933,960 Traffic rank: 7th most visited website Photos: 2.7 billion

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Join the discussion – TripAdvisor.com

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YouTube Power

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Dove Evolution

One of the Top 15 most-linked-to videos among bloggers (Technorati)

Featured segments on TV shows including: "The View" "Ellen" CNN "Entertainment Tonight" "Geraldo"

Won best commercial of the year at Cannes

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Presence - Twitter

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Social Bookmarking

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Who’s talking about / blogging you? Search the blog services:

Technorati Bloglines MySpace

Search the message boards: Yahoo! AOL MSN epinions.com CNET

Search the bookmarking sites: Deli.cio.us Digg Slashdot

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Who’s monitoring the discussion?

• If you don’t have the staff to monitor these services, how do you know what’s being said?

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Other Tools

Hitwise's search term analysis - type a phrase and it will list the sites that receive the most traffic and their % share

WhoLinksToMe.com – type in your URL and find out what websites link to your website

WordTracker – competitive analysis tool to seek out the best keywords based on over 300 million keyword phrases

CNW – tracking services

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Best Practices

1. Planning – the essential requisite2. Leadership sets the tone3. Engaging the audience4. Evolution, not revolution (pilot)5. Benchmark and cherry-pick from the leaders6. Monitor the conversation7. Keep pace with the trends and best practices 8. Measure, measure, measure

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Measures

1. Sales2. Lead conversion3. Google rankings4. Cost savings5. Links to you6. Traffic (visits, page views)7. Good vs Bad Conversation (monitoring)8. User satisfaction / employee engagement

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Project Methodology

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Toby Ward, Prescient Digital MediaPh: 416.926.8800

email: toby@prescientdigital.com

www.IntranetBlog.comwww.GetStrat.com

www.PrescientDigital.comhttp://blog.ragan.com/contentmatters/

http://intranetreport.libsyn.com/Facebook: “Intranet Global Forum”