Five ways brands click with communities of people online

If two people meet spontaneously in the street and later get married, an entrepreneur presents in front of a panel of venture capitals and gets funded or an unhappy employee bumps into a former colleague and they start a business together, then this is because they click. It’s powerful and life changing.

It’s Sunday afternoon, very hot outside and instead of listening to my Ibiza landing collection on Spotify, I decide to walk up the mountain at the back of Barcelona, and start listening to Andrew Warners mixergy interviews I downloaded earlier. I select Ori Brafman’s interview How To Click With People as the first cab of the rank. As I listen to the interview, I think about how the guiding principals of people clicking with one another also apply to how brands click with communities of people online.

So is it really possible for brands to click with communities of people?

Before I attempt to answer this question, we need to shift our mindset from perceiving brands as we have perceived them prior to Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare. In the context of social media, brands are people. If a brand reaches out to a community, they do so as a person – not a logo, an advertisement or a robot.

There five specific factors that create the dynamic for people to click:

1. Vulnerability

2. Proximity

3. Resonance

4. Similarity

5. Safe place

Vulnerability is opening up about topics that capture people’s attention and ultimately empathy. To the point when you demonstrate vulnerability people reciprocate and open up. It’s not always about appearing strong and in control. For example, with BP’s recent oil spill this has made them totally vulnerable. As part of their community outreach, acknowledging the severity of the disaster and how much they are hurting creates a bridge for the community to reciprocate and share stories about how much they are hurting too.

Proximity is about being close to your community. There was a study at an MIT dorm, and it was a series of dorms that were all on a line just like a motel. What they found out was that the people who had formed the most connections were the people who actually lived in the central dorms as opposed to those who lived at the edge of the dorm where you are a little bit out of traffic. How can this be applied to a brand? If a brand is consistently present and collaborating with important communities, people will start liking you more and just by multiple exposures they are also going to like you better.

Resonance is about being present and flow. Brands who show up, ask questions, express genuine interest have a higher resonance factor than those who don’t. How can a brand experience flow? Flow is about being in the moment and being so engaged that they find themselves being truly alive, truly part of the community and connected to their surroundings.

Similarity is about finding points of similar interest and discovering you share these. What matters most is the quantity of similar things. It takes about seven or eight similarities for people to start viewing each other as better human beings, as smarter, as more moral, more like us. This has been hard wired in us for 1,000’s of years and it isn’t going to change any time soon.

Safe place is the final click accelerator and it means to have a clearly defined community. Context is a critical factor for how people feel about each other and that taps into the notion of ‘we are in it together’. So an example would be a community of people engaging around the world cup. If they’re Spaniards who recently won the world cup, a brand would enter the community sharing stories about how they where there too perhaps sharing photos or videos from the celebrations that took place afterwards.

The purpose of a brand within any social channel is to build relationships. These five factors are key to the speed at which a brand can build these relationship and how the relationships will develop.

Ori Brafman is the bestselling author of Sway, Starfish and the Spider and now Click: The Magic of Instant Connections.

27.8% of time spent online is in online communities. Virgin territory for brands?

From the 1.7 billion people online, 4.4% of time is spent searching and 27.8% is spent in online communities. What's astonishing about these figures, is that where people spend time online, with the exception of online communities, is decreasing rapidly. And yet, the billions of advertising dollars are injected into search.

Mark Zuckerberg put his finger on it. He recently said "Communities already exist. Instead, think about how you can help that community do what it wants to do."

So what exactly does a community want to do? Simple. Every community wants to maximise the quality of experience of as many members as possible. This could be achieved through vibrant, active discussions, compelling and engaging content, sponsorships and partnerships with access to exclusive offerings, opportunities to get to know other members. The list goes on.

Recently at the Lift2010 conference in Geneva, 37 curious people gained insights into how brands can successfully participate in multiple online communities that may not necessarily be their own. This is virgin territory and whilst brands are sold on the concept, they lack the 'how'.

The presentation and video explore:
• Evolution of online communities
• Approaches brands have taken to engage with online communities
• Opportunities and challenges brands face when engaging with online communities

Online Communities: How brands are edging their way into the heart of the conversation

View more presentations from Maria Sipka.

LIFT10 - Brands and Online Communities from netinfluenceChannel on Vimeo.

Thanks to Nicolas Fermont from NetInfluence who whipped this video together in 10 minutes.

How does the new FTC Regulation affect social networks and online communities?

In summary: What is the FTC regulation all about?
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the US recently published an updated guide providing "administrative interpretations“ for laws concerning endorsements and testimonials in advertising. For the first time, the guide also specifically mentions social media, particularly bloggers, and what their responsibilities are when endorsing a brand or product online. Basically, anyone who gets paid or otherwise compensated for writing about a product or service, has to disclose this relationship. Claims made by an endorser may not be misleading. This has mainly been discussed for bloggers, but these guidelines should also be adhered to in social networks, microblogging services like Twitter and in online communities, groups and forums.


What’s an endorsement?
According to the FTC, „an endorsement means any advertising message [...] that consumers are likely to believe reflects the opinions, beliefs, findings, or experiences of a party other than the sponsoring advertiser, even if the views expressed by that party are identical to those of the sponsoring advertiser.“

„Endorsements must reflect the honest opinions, findings, beliefs, or experience of the endorser. Furthermore, an endorsement may not convey any express or implied representation that would be deceptive if made directly by the advertiser.“

The guide gives an example of a blogger who writes about dog food:

• If she just decides to try a new brand, likes it, and writes about it: not an endorsement
• If she gets a coupon from her supermarket for a free trial because the store „...routinely tracks her purchases and its computer has generated a coupon for a free trial bag...“ and writes about the food: not an endorsement
• If she joins a network marketing program and receives products periodically, receives a free bag of dog food and writes about it: this would be an endorsement.

When is disclosure needed?
„When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller or the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e. the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.“

For example, if a game expert receives a game console for free and reviews it: „Because his review is disseminated via a form of consumer-generated media in which his relationship to the advertiser is not inherently obvious, readers are unlikely to know that he has received the video game system free of charge in exchange for his review of the product, and given the value of the game system, this fact likely would materially affect the credibility they attach to his endorsement. Accordingly, the blogger should clearly and conspicuously disclose that he received the gaming system free of charge. The manufacturer should advise him at the time it provides the gaming system that this connection should be disclosed, and it should have procedures in place to try to monitor his postings for compliance.“


What is the advertiser’s responsibility?
„The advertiser is subject to liability for misleading or unsubstantiated representations made through the blogger’s endorsement“
(Example: If an advertiser asks a blogger to test a body lotion and the blogger writes that the lotion can cure eczema, the advertiser is liable for this misleading claim – even if the advertiser has not made such claims). Advertisers must also make sure that any person that receives incentivization by them discloses this fact when writing or speaking about a product.


How can advertisers ensure compliance?
Advertisers should ensure that anyone who is speaking on their behalf or endorsing them knows about these rules beforehand. They should consider providing their endorsers with guidelines and suggestions on how to disclose the relationships. Additionally, advertisers must monitor for compliance and have the responsibility of halting publication of claims that could be considered deceptive.


What is the endorser’s responsibility?
While it is unlikely that the FTC will go after single bloggers, it states that „the blogger is also subject to liability for misleading or unsubstantiated representations made in the course of her endorsement. The blogger is also liable if she fails to disclose clearly and conspicuously that she is being paid for her services.“


How does this affect brand engagement in social networking services?
Whilst these guidelines have been discussed in relation to bloggers, the guide clearly also targets any other form of social media. An important point is that according to the FTC, consumers might not realize that messages in social networks or on message boards are from paid endorsers. Anyone who has a relationship with a brand or product, whether it be by employment or any kind of payment or incentivization, should therefore disclose their relationship to the advertiser when speaking about this brand.

Employees of a brand can no longer go on message boards and praise their products without informing the community that they are working for this company.


How should disclaimers be made?
Disclaimers should be made „clearly and conspicuously“. There have been discussions about blanket disclaimers that would just appear on one page, for example a blogger’s „About“ page. This will probably not be considered conspicuous enough. To be on the safe side, it is probably best to include a disclaimer within a blog post or discussion post, where any reader can be expected to see it.


What happens if a brand or an endorser does not comply with these guidelines?
Violations – and this concerns the brand as well as the endorser - are punishable by civil penalties of up to $11,000 per violation. That fine is probably a smaller part of the damage though – considering how fast word travels in social media, the damage to a brand or endorser’s image could be much higher than that.


What is Linqia’s view about these guidelines?
We fully support the principals behind these guidelines. We encourage brands to engage in conversations and we believe this should always happen in a transparent and open way. The key driver to engaging successfully in conversations is to be authentic – and this includes disclosing who you are and who you are speaking on behalf. We will be actively encouraging and educating brands we work with to disclose such information and inform endorsers to do the same.


Further Reading

Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising (the original text by the FTC)
http://www.ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf

New FTC Marketing Guidelines – The Five Things You Must Know
http://www.trafficandconversion.com/new-ftc-marketing-guidelines-the-five-things-you-must-know/

You Can Make Everything You Want Come True – With Maria Sipka

Mid August Jared Goralnick, Productivity Evangelist (and Founder) of Away Find visited me in Barcelona after being introduced by a common friend. After 35 minutes of sharing our stories, sitting in a back street bar in Ravel sipping a fresh juice, he said "I have to introduce you to Andrew Warner from Mixergy!" A month later I had one of the most inspiring interviews of my life.

Andrew asked his audience what the title should be and after listening 60 minutes to a very raw and intimate interview, one listener suggested 'You Can Make Everything You Want Come True - with Maria Sipka'.

Andrew wrote..."What I think is most inspiring about Maria is how she sees a goal and systematically finds a way to achieve it. I'd sum up her approach using a quote that I pulled from the interview: "Who you become depends on the books that you read and the people that you meet."

When she started a marketing consulting company, she gobbled up every book on sales that she could. When she got into real estate, she turned to an investor who was further ahead than she was for advice. As you listen to her story, you'll see how much you can achieve with the right influences."

Creating conversations in the social media space (not just campaigns)

How does a brand even start their thinking re: creating conversations that make sense in the Social Media space?

Two guys are standing at the water cooler on a Monday morning. Jack needs new training shoes. His Nike trainers are well over their 6 months changeover date. Next to Jack stands Pete, an avid runner, and he’s commenting on how great his third pair of ASICS Kayanos are. He wouldn’t change them for all the Power Bars in New York. Suddenly Stu (a marketer from downstairs) runs into the conversation yelling something about 15% off all BBQs at Wal-Mart for this week only. Stu blinks at them and then stares blankly. He then repeats the 15% offer. Continued silence from Jack and Pete. Jack and Pete keep talking for a while and then leave Stu, who still hasn’t clicked they are not interested.

Sadly, this is how brands have behaved since the invention of the newspaper, television and radio. With the emergence of social media this scenario is slowly changing, the communication structure is flattening and ‘engagement’ is becoming the new metric to ROI.

This post looks at the world of conversational marketing online and asks the question “How does a brand spark relevant conversations online authentically, where the conversations are already happening?” Being a part of conversations that are relevant to a brand increases engagement and interaction with that brand and is the new marketing nirvana that can lead to increased sales. But how do brands achieve this beyond the banner (widget or VDO unit) and into the conversation?

We first need to start with a simple 3 step process where brands 1) listen 2) engage 3) monitor.

Listening & monitoring. It would be hard not to notice the endless hype around twitter, facebook and a host of other platforms. With over 2,000 social networks, 160 million groups and 750 million people globally engaging in some kind of conversation, brands are listening to what is being said about their products, services, competitors and future offerings through monitoring tools (see 20 top buzz monitoring tools).

Engaging means brands for the very first time are experimenting with sparing conversations amongst pockets of interested and diverse groups of people. The results are organic and eye opening for many. Leading brands such as Nestle, Virgin, McDonalds & evening highly controversial tobacco companies have the approach of ‘test and learn’. Traditionally, brands would engage market research firms and spend countless months and extremely high budgets to ask people all sorts of questions. The outcome? Sterile and, in most cases, totally ineffective.

To work through a real example of your brand and see how you would approach a conversation using Social Media, you need to start from a place of knowing who you are ‘Who are you? = Brand’ + ‘What do you stand for = Brand pillars’ (See diagram)

The next step is to expand out into what type of positive conversation you intend to engage in. Think of the types of positive conversations you have day to day. There are many elements to them, and in general, they have one or all of the following broad elements:

1. They make me laugh = Entertain

2. They tell me something I didn’t know before = Inform

3. They open my eyes that little bit more because of the opportunity/possibility they communicate = Inspire

4. They give me an added boost and make me feel good in what I am doing = Encourage and Support

Of course, there are many other elements in conversation, however these are typically negative and do not create a YES + AND conversational space where people want to contribute and grow.

The BIGGEST and best point to keep in mind is this: Picture you are the conversation you want to have and you are at a dinner party with a table of strangers. If you are tasked with engaging the people around the table, how would you normally do this? Before you say ‘I am going to say it like this or offer them this’ think about yourself at the dinner party again and ask ‘What reaction would I likely receive if I was to do/say that in the real world’. Now multiply that reaction by a million (as this is the online world) and then decide if you still want to share/converse as you had planned, or if you will try a different approach.

There are some gems in the 95 Theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto to assist in this thinking process. While we won’t list them all, here are the most relevant to keep in mind as you work through this exercise:

1. Markets are conversations.

2. Markets consist of human beings, not demographic sectors.

3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

4. Whether delivering information, opinions, perspectives, dissenting arguments or humorous asides, the human voice is typically open, natural, uncontrived.

10. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.

11. People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.

14. Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.

15. In just a few more years, the current homogenized "voice" of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.

20. Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.

21. Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor.

34. To speak with a human voice, companies must share the concerns of their communities.

38. Human communities are based on discourse—on human speech about human concerns.

And so, what might the outcome look like? Well, taking the above framework in mind, we undertook this approach for a brand you may know, IKEA. The following questions lead us to the diagram below. It is merely one possible outcome, however it ended with a framework of online conversational starters and approaches that would be at least authentic for the brand.

Key questions to ask:

1. Who am I? Your brand. The central point you want to converse about

2. What do stand for? What does your brand have a right to talk about? IKEA and DIY = yes. IKEA and None of your friends will have this = No.

3. How can I share this to...? Choose the type of positive conversation that you want to have. Think about your conversational objectives. Where do you want the person you are conversing with to be because of the conversation? i.e. happier, better informed, inspired, encouraged?

4. What elements do I share to spark and maintain this? The right digital elements to share and support this conversation need to be thought about. It does not necessarily need to be a full blown widget, it could be as simple as a series of images, some text and a link (it is most likely NOT a banner ad though).

5. What would I say to kick this off? What is the ice breaker? What do you say first? How can you start this in a way which is the most engaging and creates the most open space for discourse?

The only thing now is....how do you find and reach into the right spaces online to have this conversations?! That will need to wait until our next post. Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

_______________________________

Linqia works with leading global brands to drive social media marketing results through an online marketplace by connecting brands deep into the conversations of online groups and social networks.

This article was co-authored by Maria Sipka (Founder and CEO of Linqia.com) and Piero Poli (VP of Business Development and Strategy at Linqia.com)

8 Social Networks gather at London's 2nd Round Table on Monetization

Today we hosted our second social network round table in London at The Hub Culture Pavilion (thanks Stan!) and shared insights from the past 6 months of interviewing 200 social networks.

Insights from 200 Social Networks on Monetization

View more presentations from Maria Sipka.

Together with 8 social networks including Fanshake, Ecademy, StudentBox, The Tuttle Club, Hub Culture, UnLtdWorld and former executive from MySpace, Monster and founder of Sportingo we explored the latest innovative techniques being deployed to monetize social networks and engage members. Highlights were:

• Dana Al Salem - CEO and founder of Fanshake, spoke about recently releasing a white labeled version of their platform to enable any company, brand or organization to create a fan clubs. Fanshake has also become a magnet for discount ticket vendors to sell concert tickets at discount or face value prices creating a fair and affordable market for teenagers strapped for cas.
• Glenn Watkins - CEO and co-founder of Ecademy shared the power of influencer engagement citing a recent event where Chairman Thomas Powers asked a question of the audience and received 100's of replies via twitter, facebook and his own platform Ecademy.
• Carl Edouard Pihl - CEO and founder of StudentBox sees trends moving towards niche communities where broad based communities such as Facebook are not addressing specific needs of groups such as students.
  
• Lloyd Davies - founder of The Tuttle Club has been able to tap into existing event brands such as TedX and host an event and create increased engagement amongst members.
  

Our host, Stan Stalnaker - CEO and founder of Hub Culture left us awe inspired with his innovative implementation of his virtual currency Ven. Ven is set to create a virtual currency revolution within business communities featuring an incredibly relevant and meaningful value exchange for members and vendors. Asian social networks are leading the virtual currency/ goods way with Tencent reporting a US$1 billion annual turnover - 95% attributed to virtual goods. Hub Culture's Ven has attracted global interest within the last 24 hours after announcing a new contest named The Ven Prize. It will be awarded to “sustainable, circular, cellular economic systems in Hub Culture and the world at large.”

Register your interest for our Munich social network round table in November.

200 Social Networks at Linqia!

If you shoot for the moon and miss you land amongst the stars. 6 months ago we shot for the moon and today at 18:43 we hit our target exactly welcoming our 200th social network. Who was the 200th social network to register? An Austrian Social Network Uboot.com!!

Over the past 6 months, our team has extensively identified, sought introductions and approached over 300 Social Networks. We've interviewed a vast majority of our registered Social Networks to gain deeper insights into their needs and how we could best serve them. We typically spoke to the founder or business development executive who enthusiastically responded to questions around their business model, what worked, what didn't work and their needs. 95% of all Social Networks expressed a need to attract new members, fulfill on their Business Model (or even create one) and increase engagement amongst registered members.

We'd like to feature 3 Social Network who registered to Linqia today. Our team was beyond excitement leading into the afternoon realizing we could achieve our target of 200. Our supporters twittered like crazy to spread the word which enabled us to increase registrations from 195 networks to 200 within one day!

The lucky #200 is Uboot.com! Uboot is one of Europe’s largest and oldest mobile communities for young people accessing both internet and mobile. With more than 6 million registered members, it’s a meeting point for young people to enjoy conversations and meet online to share photos, videos and more. Marlis Rumler, the CEO, actually shared with us that Uboot.com is one of Europe’s oldest German speaking Social Networks, founded in 1999.

Lucky #199 is MyMusic.de. A German community founded by professional community builders Ekaabo, whose CEO Marco Ripanti is highly active in the community scene with Yiid and Communipedia. MyMusic is Germany's answer to MySpace where members share their passions like music, artists, DJ´s, or dancers, or even going to the same clubs and discos.

Position #3 is proudly held by AgencyScoop. Registered as number 198, its a US based professional network for the advertising industry with over 20,000 members from the creative, account, and production scene. AgencyScoop's CEO Jason Culbertson, having been in the advertising for many years, was able to grow the network exclusively through word of mouth to 20.000 members in six months. It´s a “Must Be“ place for people in advertising to find advice, access opportunities and receive insights to boost their careers.

By mid afternoon, we achieved our target of 200. Our fellow colleague Edwina Dendler with her ever-analytic outlook posted on yammer ... “We now have a marketplace with 200 networks and over 377 million members. Did you realize that we reach more members than Facebook does?“...

Let´s see what the future brings :-)

We're extremely excited for every social network and mega niche community who forms part of the 200! Thank you for your support!