NY's Police Slowdown – Opening the Door to Tech/Social Media

Like the Last Strike of the Toll Workers….Before EZ Pass?

If you drive in New York you will notice that cops are no longer harassing cars with tickets. Yet, the city is working is just as well as it did when they were out in full force. The same applies to the regular cops.

Maybe 20 – 30% of New York policing was really about “toll-collecting” from the public.

If that’s the case, maybe we are better served by technology. It is cheaper to run street parking with EZ Pass systems, The same with speeding and traffic lights.

Police turn their backs on image of Mayor DiBlasio

Any number of low-level crimes can be monitored by remote cameras and police sent as needed. This not exactly news, but instead of leveraging new tech, the city has been flooded with cops, who are largely put to work ticketing the citizens.

Maybe they have just proven we don’t need their presence until summoned. That is better served by harnessing the public through social media technologies like Waze and Twitter, which capture real time issues as they happen by direct messaging from the public, or indirectly by suspicious activity.

http://nypost.com/2015/01/11/nycs-business-elite-in-a-panic-over-cop-strike/

Social Media Weekend: Conference Overview

 

In our effort to keep you abreast of the most important conferences we bring you this report from our newest correspondent who is no other than....my daughter Danielle, a college sophomore and managing editor of the University of Delaware newspaper.

Here's what she learned from top people in the industry:

Facebook is a new tool for journalists, job hunting tips, blogging and how to use Twitter and LinkedIn the right way.

Top takeaways:
* Keep twitter professional, it’s business
* Show a specific focus in person and on Twitter & blogs
* Social media can be overwhelming, test new sites to see how they work for you before fully committing
* Spend time on blog posts and tweets, check grammar, use tags, links and pictures
* Keep your audience in mind when you’re active in social media, don’t bore them
* Showing your interests on social media gives you character, blogs don’t have to relate to your career.

Read here for additional coverage.

What "Occupy Wall Street" does for Social Media

Occupy Wall Street Turns 1984 Upside Down - Thanks to Social Media

We always knew that Social Media was the enabler of the "Occupy Wall Street" movement - that's what got the word out in the first place. We just didn't know what direction it would take: what could possibly be the Wall Street version of the Arab Spring?

The answer may involve a tectonic shift in government.

When the first punch was thrown by police white shirts - management - you knew whose bull was really being gored. It wasn't Wall Street that was threatened as much as the administrators traditional power relationships. That's why the police brass instinctively brought out the pepper sprays and clubs then made the rank and file follow suit.

On their own, the regular cops spent little time worrying about the protestors. Most of the time they did what protestors did - stand around checking their iPhones and 'Droids.

Police management may have been taking heat from Wall Street execs just a few blocks from 1 Police Plaza - but this is more that territorial.  It could be the first time hierarchical order has had to confront social media managed organized chaos - and they instinctively hate it.

Social Media has turned the traditional patrol relationship upside down. It is now the world watching the cops and not the other way round. It is enough to make George Orwell rise up and wonder!

You'd think Police Management would have known that the first act of violence would go international. Yet they clearly didn't understand the force they were confronting or they would have been better off house all those protesters at the downtown Marriott. No overtime, no brutality no worldwide public sympathy.

Wall Street is good for 25% of the State's economy and it likes to hire ex-offers for their own extensive security needs. But once the NYPD leadership lashed out they turned what looked like a joke into an International Phenomenon. Now they have attracted a level of attention to Wall Street and government that will change how they operate forever. It will cost them more than money - it will cost them their way of life.

We still haven't taken stock of the fact that government used our money to save the banks and yet, did almost nothing to save the public with mortgage relief. Now the banks are foreclosing those houses and you can probably forget about getting loan. I recently served on federal jury duty where a small time mortgage hustler was indicted by the FBI for a few thousand dollars while the bank that made millions by enabling him - got to testify against him. And boy, were they outraged.

When the crowd is the watchdog and they are empowered that kind of think is not likely to happen - at least not without a fight. This is the battle that has been waiting to happen.

Like Hemingway said, things change gradually and then suddenly.

Crowds have already been taking control in gradual ways. Ask Microsoft what they think about open source - as they lose market everywhere. Ask McCain or Hilary Clinton what they think about the people who microfinanced Obama's election. They haven't exactly gone away.

3 years later, mobile has accelerated the social media that bought "change" and now everyone with a smartphone is probably using it. "Occupy Wall Street" and the opposition it engendered only seems to amplify it's reach. It is already teaching people how to take charge of the political system in entirely new ways.

In countries like Greece, with severly troubled economies people are already taking control of their banks and their currency. In South Korea, they are even taking on some of the police enforcement burden.

How long before we vote by cellphone? Or "buy" politicians with Facebook Likes. Policing is already subject to who has the cell phone video. Almost everyone has one and now they are posting them on on the web taking the presumed authority away from those in charge. Political and business watchdogs are popping up in South Korea which now relies on citizens with cameras and videos for a large part of its prosecutions of corrupt businessmen and politicians.

As Wall Street loses it ability to generate jobs we might wind up doing what the Greeks are did, start using barter with homegrown markets and local currency. With mobile internet and open source software, the tools are available for the taking, free of charge. When governments print worthless money or taxes become unsustainable, smart communication may be a better way to store value. Many Africans now put more value in their cell phone minutes than their local currencies. Ask any Zimbabwean with a $100 billion note.

The triumph for the "Occupy Wall Street" movement is simply to stay on long enough - as they attract eyeballs all of the above cascades down naturally. It was just waiting to happen. Control has begun to shift to the aggregators of social media-connected communities - essentially, the new political parties.

It just needed a nudge, the NYPD brass gave it and the media fanned it. For this, they should probably be thanked.

“Blogola” – FTC to go after paid blogs

Defining a new Social Media Contract
[More on story reported in BusinessWeek]

It’s about time that we got real with the Social Media world. If you have an audience and you want to pay off your rent/mortgage/student loan/Tesla Roadster, you’re going to have to confront the issue of getting paid for your blogs.

Companies will offer them to you – generally in the form of goods – but sometimes cash. So why shouldn’t you take it. I don’t have a problem with it although most Social Media orgs do.

My only issue is transparency – if you’re getting paid, let me know. Not only that, but what is the level of sponsorship? Are they giving you stuff or money and is it your unfettered, if perhaps biased impression? Or do they have the final word or feeding you the talking points? There’s quite a difference and an industry symbol cold clear that up in a heartbeat.

Like advertising, once the public realized that ads underwrote their newspapers and TV, they accepted it – it was a social contract. We clearly need the same thing here – and business will take off.

Since the Social Media community couldn’t develop its own Social Contract, it appears that the FTC will take a crack at it. Hope it works……

[iBreakfast’s March Social Media Report Anticipated FTC Action on Blogola]

iBreakfast/LA report: Social Media Invades Hollywood

Jayson Dinsmore, NBC Universal · Cristian Cussen, MySpace Video · Allison Dollar , ITA · Kevin Chou, Watercooler, Inc.

Social Media Invades Hollywood. This event was sold out thanks to great speakers from MySpace (Christian Cussen), NBC Universal (Jason Dinsmore), ning and Watercooler (Kevin Chou) plus a cameo appearance by a child star Aria Wallace from Niceklodeon. Social media is having a great impact in managing the fan base for shows and in developing the career of individual talents. Most significantly, both MySpace and NBC a re suing social media to develop shows both in generating ideas, tsting them and then building buzz. MySpace has developed custom concerts and NBC has synergized well with reality TV shows.

Click for the full report

March Report: Search Meets Social Media

Social Media has become all the buzz for its ability to build an audience and create buzz. But how do you get the viral action going? This was the topic of the Search and Social Media iBreakfast.

By now, most Business users understand that Social Media is a way to build a network that was either difficult or verboten under the traditional Catch-22 Permission Market rules of email list building. You can't spam but if you ask people for their permission to market to them, they are likely to say no.

Kevin Lee showed how Didit.com's relationship with Dun & Bradstreet enables companies to be found on the search engines in conjunction with D&B. This is a classic piece of brand leapfrogging but it works and the cost is relatively low: you list you company's Power Profile on their site and you look all the more credible for it.

Chris Winfield shared some of his secrets for building lists for publications - get them listed on recommendation engines. Digg, deli.cio.us, Stumebleupon are all sites that people have become used to sharing their online finds. By directing your website and press releases to these sites as newsworthy.

It just so happens that one of the companies that presented at the iEvenign for Start-ups, GenGreenLife.com found itself in the public eye with upcoming coverage in Forbes and Entrepreneur magazine, precisely because they got noticed on StumbleUpon.com.

Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank and leading Midwestern SEO company talked about using all these techniques for building your own professional and corporate visibility. The key is using metrics from sites like buzzlogic and quarkbase to keep you on track of the viewers.

The bottom line with getting picked up on Social Media and recommendation sites is that if you're not popular be useful, that will get you picked up.

Be sure to read the Social Media Council Report on the iBreakfast Blog .

SOCIAL MEDIA COUNCIL DRAFT REPORT It's All About Marketing.....and Measurement

The Social Media Council held its inaugural steering meeting on Wed. March 18.

Initially, this group was formed by members of the iBreakfast to give some form and understanding to explosive growth of Social Media. What had only recently seemed like one more online time-sucker has suddenly become perceived as a salvation of sorts for marketers, job seekers and consultants.

The most compelling interest of this group was in its marketing value – particularly from the perspective of what works and then, how to measure it. Everyone loves the idea of “viral” – getting your message out for free. But how do you measure it is effectiveness and how do explain its ultimate value – as well as some of its possible drawbacks to a client.

At that same time, we are all users of Social Media and we are concerned with issues of best practices as well as a kind of users Social Contract – what is the best way to interact with uses and what are the right ways to reward or monetize the users’ efforts. Finally, there is a concern – if somewhat less compelling among our tech-savvy members – about strategies and tactics and which social media are best used and how.

DEFINING SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
The biggest concern at this meeting was measurement and expectations: what exactly is a Social Media campaign, how do you measure it and how do you explain to clients and colleagues – in the face of hype, misuse and uncertainty – just what outcomes they can reasonably expect?
The extent of this question quickly came to life in the words of one member who noted that clients just say: “Make us viral!” While that may sound simplistic, Social Media is all about spreading the word.

The next issue becomes a matter of expectations – can clients realistically expect to be the next Obama Girl? Would they really like to be in the middle of the “How to Smoke Smarties” controversy where preteens simulated smoking with a secondary brand of candy. Most of all, what is the real chance of becoming a viral hit vs. what is a more likely to outcome?

(In many cases what looks like a viral hit, was really an orchestrated effort in some hidden, but substantial way. )

Assuming this is how most clients view Social Media then we can start with this basic working definition:

Social Media is about getting the public to promote you, essentially for free, or at least, of their own volition.

(This definition works for individuals and professionals too, assuming they are trying to promote their public exposure).

In terms of marketing, this puts Social Media in a unique category somewhere between PR and paid ads. It is all human-driven content as opposed to the “create once” mentality of conventional ad placement, yet unlike PR there, are a numerous acceptable as well as arguably more controversial ways to drive exposure.

A SUBSET OF PERMISSION MARKETING – BUT EASIER TO GET PERMISSIONS
In many ways, Social Marketing is like Permission Marketing in that you can only proceed with the permission of the users, their rules and etiquette. Blackballing and retaliations are possible – but so is growth. The main difference, however, is that prospects are leery about signing on to opt-in lists is hard because it is assumed to be mostly about marketing and clogging their emails. With Social Media you are trading information, not necesarrily marketing and may do so without clogging their email.

SOCIAL MEDIA “USER COVENANT”
At its bottom, Social Media is an easier way to get permissions. Moreover, it evades Permission Marketing’s Catch-22 rule: it is NOT unethical to ask strangers for permission, again, because is understood not to be purely about marketing but about many kinds of networking that may lead up to some kind of marketing usually in the form of exposure or attention-seeking. However, this is a kind of unstated user-marketer covenant which means that overly aggressive clients need to understand this before proceeding - or they will do so at their peril!

BASIC TOOLS
Most clients view either blogs or viral videos as the key to getting their message across. In many case adding a widget it’s a plus. Games are a great viral ploy. Twitter is now an integral though not fully understood part. Wikis play a role but are generally absent from the marketing conversation.
Most individuals and professional users view blogs and Facebook page plus a business networking tool like LinkedIn or Plaxo as the basic tools for the trade.

(Attendees noted there too many offers from too many platforms for their efforts which opens up a numerous opportunities for entrepreneurs to consolidate or at least harmonize platforms. Filtering is another growing user issue.)

MEASURING RESULTS

The next question is how do you measure results? There are many ways: sign-ups, pass-forwards, Facebook fans, followers, chatter in the form of blog-postings, story leads and ultimately some type of sales.

There are numerous commercial services to help do this. Buzzmetrics offers trending reports that show how a brand is being perceived. Social Media sites like Facebook and council attendee Ripple6 provide comprehensive stats from their platform usages.

METRICS
As the principals of Pandemic Labs pointed out, the industry would be greatly aided by agreed-upon metrics somehow impression-based (like a social media CPM) as well as something engagement-based that traditional marketers could understand. The holy grail would be sentiment-based digital footprint metrics.

Another suggestion from JB Barlow of LifeWorkAlliance.com is a Digg-like model that uses social media to rate social media.

However – Social Media CPMs are different from traditional advertising because they carry blowback risks. So even if measurement is somehow unitized it still has to be seen in the context of an overall campaign strategy.

HOLISTIC MEASUREMENT
What all of these approaches miss is the big picture – what did Social Media, and Social Media only - do for my brands, service, product, career etc? While no media ever can do all that, most media, particularly digital, offer increasing levels of measurement. Social Media however, complicates much of this because monetization at every level is elusive and even among obvious viral successes there have been difficulties in achieving monetization.

Exposure: Giving Up Control & Blowback
The biggest problem for traditional marketers may be that unlike old Media, here the public can talk back. Inappropriate campaigns can get you into trouble. Unlike the old adage of no such thing as bad publicity, here it can be really bad. Often, the negatives can stay around search engines forever. So campaigns carry liability as well as opportunity. Again, as consultants, technologists and campaign providers we need this phenomenon to be an understood issue

CAMPAIGN PROFILES vs. CASE STUDIES AND UNDERSTANDING BLOWBACK
Since it is possible to measure various elements in Social Media, the key then is how we define success. In addition, we need to balance it against the risks – how much does the pursuit of success expose the enterprise. Or another way of asking, how much brand control do you need to give up in order to get the public the freedom to viralize you.

VIRAL VALUE LEVELS
Since creating virality is the holy grail of Social Media we should begin by defining a kind of Viral Value chain.

Viral Hierarchy - from Most Viral to Least Viral
1. Platform: Pass along – users commend – attach themselves
2. Widget
3. Conversational
4. Pass-along
5. Link
6. Mention
7. Banner
8. Adword

CAMPAIGN PROFILES
Just as a Financial Analyst would show a client a portfolio profile based on risk vs. reward Social Media advisors should have a “model portfolio” approach.

High Growth vs. High Risk
Maximum Virality – Wow! or controversial campaign vs. risk of online retribution. Favors breakthrough ideas, outrageous videos etc.

Medium Virality – medium chance of blowback. Favors games, contests, cute ideas or useful tactics like widgets and cool or useful videos.

Low Virality - little chance of blowback. Pass-along with little or no interactivity, commentary etc. Favors videos, pictures, jokes , interesting videos etc.

CAMPAIGN PROGRAM TYPES
Since many attendees of the Council Meeting are in a position to sell campaigns, they asked for standards or baseline measures. Just as the Interactive Advertising Bureau spent its early years developing standards for banners – this group saw a need for Marketing Units or standards as well as away to describe the work effort required.

Social Media Marketing is inherently more complicated. Nevertheless, there is a way to provide standard guidelines both in terms of basic integrated campaigns, their likely outcomes and the level of labor and effort required to establish and support these campaigns. Another measure is the issue of strategic needs: are these branding efforts, product sales, customer retention, reputation management etc.

Some Guidelines are:
Basic Campaign: Integrating Social Network Page (e.g. Facebook) with weekly updated blog and Twitter account.
Estimated development time 20 hours. Estimated maintenance 10 hours per week.
Likely outcomes: customer outreach, modest growth for small enterprises. Modest effort level.
Basic Campaign enhancements – Business Network outreach (e.g. LinkedIn, Plaxo) seeking clients and hires by seeking for past contacts etc. Simple videos, homemade or semi-professional.
Email campaign to old and new clients.

Medium Campaign: Retention/Loyalty Campaign
Integrating Social Network Page (e.g. Facebook) with weekly updated blog and Twitter account. Outreach to existing clients. Raise and improve profile. Premium offers/Loyalty programs.
Estimated development time 50 hours. Estimated maintenance 20-40 hours per week. May require team or dedicated staffer.
Likely outcomes: customer outreach, customer feedback, and double-digit growth for small to medium enterprises. Team-effort level. May require third party providers of games, loyalty programs and content
Medium Campaign enhancements – Business Network outreach (e.g. LinkedIn, Plaxo). Professional videos. Good content and editing.
Email campaign to old and new clients. Partnering, linksharing, affinity groups and affiliate marketing.

Advanced Campaign: High Growth
Requires a Big Idea – an exciting new product, outrageous video, a major celebrity, nation TV campaign etc.
Integrating Social Network Page (e.g. Facebook) with a Website with “Big Viewer Driver” from TV or “talked about content.” Gets attention online and on other media (Press, TV etc). High risk of controversy.
Estimated development time 100-400 hours. Estimated maintenance 100+ hours per week. Will require team or dedicated staffers. Generally requires agency or outside partners.
Likely outcomes: dramatic media and customer growth, high traffic, geometric growth for medium to large enterprises. Quantum leap for small sites. Team-effort level. Generally requires third party providers of games, content, ideas, tech support.
Campaign enhancements – General and specialized digital PR, Business Network outreach (e.g. LinkedIn, Plaxo). Professional videos. Good content and editing.
Email campaign to old and new clients. Partnering, linksharing, affinity groups and affiliate marketing.

BLOWBACK & REPUTATION MANAGEMENT – WHEN THE PUBLIC RESPONDS
Traditional organizations generally require some change of thinking in order to enter the world of Social Media because they must allow some level of “brand release.” If they place too much control over the conversation they will be shunned or worse. On the other hand, they may have trouble handling the controversy. Enterprises with already bad public relations may have difficulty just entering the field. Worse, search engines have a way of keeping bad news in the public eye long after they have been dispelled.

The industry should therefore pose guidelines as to the following (outside of legal remedies such as libel):
Fair comment vs. unfair comment
Fair response
Fair deletion of comment
Fair counter PR such as in responding to URLs that inherently attack certain enterprises.

PAYMENT OF INFLUENCERS – TRANSPARENCY vs. MORALITY
In general Bloggers and other providers of User Generated Content are expected to work gratis. The only universally accepted exception is the placement of AdSense ads. Clearly, the real issue is that UGM is attractive precisely because it is supposed to be the honest voices of the netizens and uninfluenced by outside forces – he blogosphere as a kind of online folk medium a vox populi. The reality is that onliners are always pushing something – their business, their views, their reputation or just their own excuse to grab your attention. Even the placement of AdSense has influence over the way some bloggers address issues known to attract the highest click rates.
Aside from the “moral” issues raised by tech purists – there are two issues:
1. Transparency – if bloggers etc. declare their sponsors or biases, is that OK?
2. What is fair – ads, sponsors or direct influence in the content itself?

SPONSORED BLOGGER/UGM GUIDELINES
Since AdSense is rarely lucrative for the long tail of content providers it is quite likely that more and more bloggers, vbloggers etc. with sizable followings will increasingly seek out more lucrative revenue sources – most of which will somehow influence their work.

TRANSPARENCY LEVELS
As long as transparency is the acceptable standard, then are basic levels of transparency –
1. Full Transparency: Declared sponsors with no edit control from sponsors. Free to be critical.
2. Partial Transparency: Sponsors declared with final edit control from sponsors.
3. Minimal Transparency: Sponsors Named. Content may be developed by sponsor.

OTHER GUIDELINES
Attendees noted other areas of concern that required a list of guidelines and best practices.
Approvals
Privacy ID
Protection of Copyrights and other Intellectual Property Rights
User Generated Media (See Transparency levels)
Ads and Sponsorship
Ownership of Contact and other Social Media Platform data.
Wiki Ethics

MEETINGS
The Council could establish public meetings in multiple cities.
It could also establish conferences and professional/best practice training programs for individuals as well enterprises.

MEMBERSHIPS
As the group grows, based on the recommendations of the committee members we should consider its charter as a membership group, with paid dues, a mission to represent the interests of the industry.

Report from the Business Side of Social Media iBreakfast

What we saw at the February iBreakfast was the sudden embrace by businesses and professionals of a group of technologies that have been kicking around for several years – with the aura of diversion and not business.

Due to crash and the dramatic loss of trust in the financial system, we are looking at them with different eyes. At the macro level, we may be entering a new kind of economy – one that that has gone from the Post-Industrial Economy (1964-1984), the Knowledge Economy (1984-2004 to the Social Relationship Economy. We have exported industrialization, western education and now, thanks to the Internet, we can access those educated people worldwide and outsource our knowledge economy about as efficiently as we did the industrial and postindustrial economies. Since shipping is relatively cheap and globalism has undercut most of our protected markets, and our knowledge-based industrial economy turns out to be flawed and so we seem to be left up the proverbial creek.

The only thing we own that cannot be undercut, is our trusted relationships.

Many of the errors of the market and arguably, the stimulus is they pay no attention to this shift and are throwing resources at a dead economic model. (Some of the comments from my opening presentation will be available in a separate report.)

So we’re on our own with this new paradigm. Fortunately, with Social Media tools, we now have the means to reach, manage and, as we are learning, extract value from these relationships.

For many people out of work – their relationships are probably what is going to deliver their next job or consulting opportunity.

For companies looking to survive and grow, it is these relationships that will help them understand what their clients thinks of them and how they can promote it in the hopes of setting off the magic grail of this universe: viral growth.

Jared Hendler of EdelmanDigital showed how his company had successfully used these techniques to enhance the brand relationships for Pepsi and Axe using approaches that PR people understand: motivate the influencers in a group and the others follow. With Social Media they are using this techniques directly with the consumer and in that way, replacing or at least supporting, traditional advertising.

Rich Ullman of Ripple6, a Social Relationship engine that was recently acquired by Gannet, offers a controllable white-label product for corporate America with varies tools to monitor the feedback loop. Having customers talk back in a public forum is challenging area for many companies and they will have to learn to rethink their relationship to consumers. But in reality, for those who get it, it is an opportunity. Ripple6’s tool makes it possible to follow,measure and target. With his platform it is easy for the client typically, the marketer ,to monitor the conversation and the general rule is anything that gets people fired up – like Mom’s or people suffering pain – will garner a highly involved conversation.

Matt Peters of the relatively new marketing company, Pandemic Labs, discussed the taste test campaign his company did for Dunkin Donuts which is considered part of the reason many coffee drinkers were willing to forgo a trip to Starbucks. Neverthless an audience member asked the key question “how many cups of coffee did it sell?” The answer was awareness, mentions, etc. On the other hand, try asking that question to an ad exec!

In the end, this series of events has shown a deep need for companies and now, individuals, to develop a genuine Social Media Strategy - to understand what works and what they need to work at to get results. Contrary to the few “viral lottery” stories, very little of this success happens just by itself but at the same time, it is no longer a time-wasting luxury - it is a tool for survival.
To that end we will be launching a Social Media Council and a series of low-cost, hands-on workshops to deal with the issue of Social Media Management Strategies and Promoting Your Digital Footprint.

If you are interested in the Council and the workshops please send a note to Somc@ibreakfast.com

To download the Presentations go to:

Edelman Digital (Jared Hendler)
Ripple6 (Rich Ullman)
Pandemic Labs (Matt Peters)


Other blogs from this event:
Bloggers School