Social Cache.
A Nemo blog. Dealing with uncommon cents.

On his blog Marketing | Truth, Mark Olson has a very interesting post that includes opinion from some like-minded smart people discussing the notion of authenticity vs authority across the social web. I left a comment of my own over there but I felt my initial thoughts may be worth expanding upon here.

In the comment, I ask first “Is social media marketing now just a channel where marketers are missing out on the Social Web?” My argument being once someone opens a browser they are participating in the social web. Also, as heated discussions arise around the idea of real-time search and its value versus indexed search, where experiential awareness and reputation management become all important, where does authority and authenticity fall in user perception?

Seth Godin kicks things off and arguably takes the laurels with his short, incisive paragraph:

“If it’s a word game, then authority wins, because authority is about the perception of the consumer. If they believe you are an authority, you are. In the long run, of course, authenticity will trump it, because your authority fades without it. The converse is not true. And yes, it’s a word game.”

Brian Solis has his say too. Anyone who cares about the idea of web communications, PR 2.0 along with social media marketing and advertising must know Brian Solis.

At its heart my response was really just my thoughts based around their opinions. Here is my comment [slightly edited]:

“Seth Godin begins his smart, short answer with “If it’s a word game…” as if planting a stake in the ground. He knows it is a word game and he knows that we know it too. Brian Solis proposes a list of new definitions but the problem is that they are more words. He suggests switching out new definitions such as ‘believability’ for ‘transparency’ where transparency is already perfect; transparency says it all very clearly, whereas believability makes me think of the possibility of opaqueness.

This search for ‘authenticity or ‘authority’ is an extension of television in my mind – who would we trust to read us the news? In the past it was always well spoken, handsome, gravelly-voiced white men. It is no coincidence that we view the web through the same lens, a rectangular screen, but it’s worth remembering that technology simply shortens the distance between us. As Marshall McLuhan has written “any history of technology is filled with unexpected reversal of form resulting from new advances.” Now we have the social web.
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Palenists photo by ahockley

On Thursday June 4th here at Nemo we hosted a discussion in partnership with Group Y, with the tongue-in-cheek title Who Killed Social Media. [Audio stream of the event is here.]

The panel comprised of myself, Dave Allen (@DaveAtFight : Fight – [Update] Co-Founder, Fight LLC : James Todd (@jwtodd : twine.com) – Software Engineer at Radar Networks, for Twine, Matt Savarino (@Ridertech : ridertech.com) – Lead Information Architect at K2 Sports and creator of Ridertech, Lee Crane (@leecrane : leecrane.com) – an action sports online veteran along with Tony ‘Frosty’ Welch, Web, Community and Social Media Strategy Personal Systems Group at HP, Community Manager for theNextBench.com (@frostola : frostyland.com). The panel was moderated by Marshall Kirkpatrick, VP at ReadWriteWeb (@marshallk : readwriteweb)

We had a very lively discussion based around my belief that the term ‘Social Media’ is best left for marketers to use as they mistakenly consider social media a sales ‘channel.’ I prefer to think about the ‘Social Web’ starting with the premise that anyone who opens up a browser is participating in it. It is no longer about platforms such as Facebook or MySpace, it is not about confusing Twitter as a social network, it is about how Reputation Management is now critical and necessary and also how you handle your brand’s ‘Experiential Awareness’ as I call it. Google is moving into the social web space – as Frosty notes in a follow up post after the event: “You may ask yourself why Google has decided to add more weight to the social web. The answer in my opinion is that they realize that when a viral event is happening, people aren’t using Google to find out about it. Instead they turn to the searches on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube.”

A glaring example of what people are saying can be found by looking into the eMusic fiasco. I believe that the firestorm of criticism that eMusic came under from its subscriber base could have been avoided entirely if the company had simply taken out an insurance policy in the form of a Community Manager. Think about that next time you try to persuade reluctant executives that Community Manager is a real job, and if they still baulk tell them its not a salary but a business expense – online community insurance! eMusic failed at Reputation Management on the Social Web. I sensed that the audience in the room resonated with the idea of insurance – especially post the Dominos pizza melt down.

The most contentious point of the night, one that caused audible groans in the audience, came from Frosty – “SEO or SEM, in my opinion, will be dead as you know it within 6 months.” It was a powerful statement that he backed up later in a post – “I didn’t make this statement for a wow or shock factor, but because it’s something I believe. Also I don’t believe its a new revelation. If you keep up with Steve Rubel (@steverubel : Micro Persuasion), Jeremiah Owyang (@jowyang : Web Strategy) and others, you can see where the social web is heading, and what impact it is going to have. Especially on search.”

Clearly Frosty has opened the bottle and the genie can’t be put back in. Read all of his thoughts on the subject here.

More links:
Semantics Killed Social Media
Social media kills SEO
Transcript of the Panel

Search the thread on Twitter: #whokilledsm

After the Dominos Pizza fiasco you would think that companies would have jumped at the opportunity to protect their brand values online. If executives at your company baulk at hiring a Community Manager you should point out to them that the salary involved in the position should be considered an insurance premium. Community Manager is a full time 24/7 job – scraping the web for all mentions of your company brand and putting out fires where they flare up, and applying praise and support to those who evangelize your brand.

Case study: [Transparency - In 1999 I was GM at eMusic.com]

On June 1st eMusic.com, an online independent music subscription company that offers passionate music fans a smorgasbord of offerings from some of the best independent music labels in the world for a monthly subscription fee, sent out a press release announcing that it had acquired the rights to the BMG/Sony Music back catalog. With that news came a shock for those passionate music loving customers of eMusic – there would be a substantial rate hike for the service. Whether those two statements were meant to be announced simultaneously or not, and and even if it was coincidental, the results were fascinating. The web lit up with thousands of comments from angry eMusic subscribers and influential bloggers picked up the story and ran with it.

Here’s a few links:

eMusic’s web site with message and 800+ comments.
The Phoenix New Times newspaper – headline Sony Ruins eMusic’s Indie Credibility, Raises Rates
HypeBot – eMusic Readers React to Sony Addition
Swindleeeee leaves a post

Updated to include new eMusic response.

Today is currently day 4 of eMusic taking the heat online and their response has been lukewarm. Their blog has 800+ comments and most of them are not pleasant to read should you work there. The main response so far is from Danny Stein, eMusic CEO and Chairman, who wrote what can only be described as a puff piece here. A great Community Manager would have advised the executives on how to handle the story, instead the CEO started a forest fire that is now burning fiercely.

What eMusic should have done:

1) They should have hired a Community Manager to be in charge of their subscriber customer service online
2) They should have polled their customers first, perhaps with a message like this – “We are thinking of acquiring the Sony Music back catalog and in doing so this will cause a significant hike to our fee structure. Would you enjoy access to Sony Music catalog at a higher price? Or would you prefer a two-tiered pricing system where you can choose to not have access to major label catalogs? Please let us know.”
3) They ought to have responded to the first outburst of negativity quickly and concisely.
4) They should have listened to what their customers were saying and reacted to that story rather than defending the Sony Music deal.

eMusic is a great music service with passionate subscribers and I sincerely hope that they recover quickly from this fiasco and continue to serve their customers well. They should also hire a Community Manager – it works well for Comcast for instance – see below.

Some bullet points from the interview:

• 53% of surveyed marketers will increase spending on social media
• He quotes John Schwartz who predicted that firewalls would be extinct in the near future
• Jeremiah maintains that crowdsourcing support, and other functions, will be a fruitful area
• Looking at Forrester itself, Jeremiah revealed that only 18% of the company is active in one project, the in house use of Yammer as a microstreaming platform. They are seeing good productivity paybacks from remaining connected, asking questions, and getting responses in real-time. Still, it will take a while to get real support from senior management.
• Regarding microstreaming (Yammer, et al), Jeremiah thinks they are more natural to business people than blogs. He very naturally transitioned from that into a discussion about mobility and presence, which I have long considered the killer aspect of IM
• The speed of social technologies adoption has been enormously fast, and will become ubiquitous in five years, and in ten years, we won’t use the term Enterprise 2.0 anymore.

In the current economic climate it goes without saying that most small businesses have been feeling their share of the pain. Of course, depending on which particular sector of an industry your company has the most experience in also determines the number of times the dice will roll in your favor; some industries thrive throughout downturns others suffer as their clients suffer – hard and fast decisions have to be made almost weekly to keep a company on course. Nemo is thriving but we had to make a course correction.

Unfortunately, this week, Nemo had to make a very hard decision to lay off 9 of our employees; 9 very smart, gifted and intelligent workers, who through no fault of their own find themselves suddenly without a job. People are the backbone of every company so it goes without saying that their loss is also Nemo’s loss.

In the end we are all human and of course like every company should we care about our laid off employees welfare. To help them we decided to turn first to the power of the community and social media by using our Twitter account. By noon on the day of the lay offs I sent out a message [or tweet] to the community explaining the cuts, but more importantly letting companies know that if they needed these skilled workers they could get in touch directly with me or Nemo. It worked.

I was blown away at how fast the response to my tweet was. Obviously in such a tight-knit community there was an outpouring of goodwill and good lucks etc but, most importantly, more than five companies and/or individual business owners reached out to us for info about our released staff. The result was that some of the Nemo alumni were in job interviews as soon as the next day. Obviously good news all around and it’s worth pointing out the power of Twitter and reaching out to your supportive community online.

Our message on Twitter.

And a typical response and re-Tweet.

When the Nemo alumni land new jobs, and if they are willing to have me share the details, I will post them up here.

Follow us on Twitter: @NemoHQ

1. The author of Why No One is a Social Media Expert claims that “Branding yourself as a social media expert is as nebulous as branding yourself an expert on ‘Animals’ or ‘History’ or ‘Asia’ or ‘Sport’. These areas are simply too big and too complicated to be truly mastered in any one lifetime.”

2. Find out how to build an empire around your blog.

3. Is the Boston Globe soon to be the next victim in an increasingly tough American newspaper market?

4. With the iPhone gold rush, it may be entirely possible to develop an app and quit your day job.

5. JWT is shuttering its 118 year old Chicago offices due to the economy. It was responsible for classic slogans including “My baloney has a first name” for Oscar Mayer and “Snap, Crackle, Pop” for Rice Krispies.

6. Could the end of the music album as an organizing principle finally be a full-blown reality? Dave Allen asks “In what part of digital music culture does an album-length piece of work now reside? I’ll answer that question – I believe it has no place in a digital future.”

7. The joke’s on us: this rebranding of Verizon turned out to be a hoax!

8. Many mainstream restaurant chains are struggling with empty tables and are in danger of shutting down completely. Analysts claim that the casual dining industry needs to close about 1,200 of its nearly 18,000 locations to regain financial health.