The strategic role of content in proving brand promise

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Social Media has confused many marketers for many years. Mostly because it isn’t a media. It’s an exercise in relationship building.

It tends to be thought of as a channel of amplification – “hey social guys, here’s my great idea/piece of content (ah hem, advert) go do magic to make it famous”.

It is, of course, a channel of advocacy.

In many ways social has more in common with the promise proving role of CRM and loyalty than it does with promise making role of brand strategy - not least because social is and always has been the single most effective way to have an open door to your customers at scale.

Whether you open that door to gather data (information about the needs and wants of customers and potential customers) or to build relationships (with customers, and potential customers) what is clear is that you don’t throw that door open and try shouting through a megaphone through it.

So, to help clarify the role and effectiveness of social content – and that of other content, I’ve developed this simple model (see diagram above).

You’ll note that I’ve annotated each of the bands with ‘Awareness, Consideration, Conversion’. This is something of a simplification (evaluation is, for example also taking place in social – and there are cross-overs, social can also deliver awareness and consideration, and it’s not unheard of for ATL (above the line) to trigger an immediate sale) but they do, I believe, focus on what each of Brand/Content/Social strategy is best at delivering – and therefore a guide to where the focus of each should be.

Social is a conversion channel because it is the truth medium. It is where we report the truth of  experiences – and it is where we turn (to each other, to our friends) to discover the truth behind the promises. This is where the proof of the promise a brand strategy makes and a content strategy brings to life is either made or has its bubble burst in spectacular fashion.

Google’s ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth) - the point at which the purchase decision is made (a conversion is delivered) is therefore the point at which we discover a friend’s positive report of the truth of the brand’s promise. So social’s focus is on building advocacy in small audiences (right down to one to one) through rich relationships in modes of content where the user has the control.

Content that has value in this is that which inspires, discovers, aggregates and/or amplifies reports of the proof of the promise. Why? Because that’s what drives conversion. The more easily a potential customer can discover a positive user-generated report of the brand’s promise being true – at the right time in their own decision making process, the more likely a customer is to buy.

A test for this comes when the shiny content guys come to call. “Hey social guys, here’s my shiny thing, make it famous for me!” To which the answer should be:

Sure. So long as you can give me positive answers to the following:
•        Will it build advocacy?•        Will it build trust/relationships?•        Is it in the user’s control?

If so feel free to ‘amplify’ through the relationships social has built. If not, stick to the channels most appropriate for building awareness…

The social web demands partnership with customers - and a radical rethink on content

We're... seeing a much bigger shift in how people spend their time online. 

People are spending much more time interacting with other people, and much less time consuming content from websites. This shift is not about any one particular social network. It's about people connecting to each other online.

Paul Adams, user research lead for social in the UX team at Google.

That nugget is essential information in telling the story of our shift from trusting brands and branded content, to trusting each other. It is also a revelation in telling the story I am so keen on - that the web is for us to connect with; to enable us to self-organise.

Paul adds, in his presentation  The Real Life Social Network: "The social web is not a fad, and itʼs not going away. Itʼs not an add-on to the web as we know it today. Itʼs a fundamental change, a re-architecture."

This adds to the evidence offered in The 10 Principles of Open Business that rebuilding trust between brand and customer is not the realm of ads or branded content. We are turning to each other to find the truth behind the promises made by content of this kind. Content only has value so far as social media is concerned if it proves the promise the brand is making. If the web is indeed going through a fundamental change to become the social web what that means is that ALL online content must now pass that test.

Tell me what you like, but unless I can discover the truth of your promise from the experience of my peers, I'm not going to believe you. That's our reality. How is that impacting your next web design, your next social media content strategy?

The shift suggests that now all content (that will have any value in building trust, inspiring action, at least) has to be created by people like us.

Companies must think long and hard about this shift. It demands a rethink in the role of content and in your relationship with your customer. There is no mileage in simply telling people what you are. You will have to demonstrate what you are - prove it, giving them the experience of it, which they may choose to publish to their peers.

Organisations will have to be more transparent - more ready to involve customers in open innovation, more ready to share and connect - to collaborate

Customers become partners - not dumb recipients with wallets attached.

This in itself demands a more socially focused approach to CRM than ever before, a more customer-as-partner approach. It must answer how we create, discover, reward and scale advocacy; it must back the customer's judgment when they make referrals; it must understand the difference between Lifetime Value of a customer who couldn't care less about us but has little option but to trade with us and the Customer Referral Value of someone who loves us but - right now, for whatever reason - isn't buying from us; it must understand customer intent as well as map behaviours.

Ultimately it can solve many of these challenges by turning to the same social web that is causing the rethink because there - in our digital footprints - is the reality of our referrals, the clarity of our click-paths, the negative sentiment of our disapproval.

Reading this in total (and it occurs that separating acquisition from retention, loyalty and search cannot help matters) will help us make businesses more able to respond to, learn from and be led by their customers.

By the way - Paul didn't write his presentation about the shift to the social web this week (in fact, he's no longer at Google). He presented it at the Voices That Matter Web Design Conference in San Francisco in June... 2010.

Yes. I know. It probably is about time to act.

Concepts Are King

The phrase 'Content is King' has a long history. Its origination is usually ascribed to one Bill Gates from a 1996 article. Smart dude.

But I suspect it goes back rather longer. Those of us with a traditional media background always knew it was the content people bought our stuff for, for example.

Then there was the build - that not Content, but Conversation is King. Cory Doctorow memorably put it that "Conversation is King... Content is just something to talk about."

Content is pointless without conversation. Conversation needs 'something to talk about'.
Neither is king. It's the interaction of people and ideas that drives us to action. The web has lowered the barrier for millions to interact with ideas.

And no one is describing what they are interacting with as 'content'. In fact 'content' has some rather unhelpful connotations in the context of what the web is best at enabling - ie adhoc self-forming groups of purpose.

Content implies constraint; An idea boxed and kept within - a thing inside with limitations.
This isn't how people behave with ideas. We take, shape, add, delete, remodel - hack ideas in our every interaction. And the web is a splendid evolutionary environment for them.

So I'm going to suggest Concepts Are King is a better 'catch-all' for what is really important in connecting folk. I can take your boxed up piece of content and share it, of course. That's old-style viral. Pass it on unmolestered. Don't expect evolution.

Or I can connect with and play with a concept. We can.

And in so doing we add value - not mere distribution.

Image attribution: By Enoch Lau (Own work (photo)) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

17 lessons for the new marketing

There's a question I ask publishing teams planning on building websites or digital services:

What do you do if you don't have any content?

It's a question aimed at editorial peeps, generally. People who have a pile of 'content' they see as assets. As publishers, when we go digital our first response is to consider how we should re-use/re-deploy that asset.

To do without it takes your thinking to interesting places. It's the kind of thinking that results in Google, YouTube, Twitter, Wikipedia, networked solutions playing to the power of networks and the nodes and connections (that's us folks) who create those networks.

Bill Drummond's 17 project (picture by grewlike via flickr) is, I think, asking the same question; about music.

To paraphrase Bill, now that you can access pretty much all of recorded music ever it's lost its magic for us.

Recording music (particulary the hits) was and is part of the mass production/mass media culture that the broadcast world nurtured and sustained. But the emerging networked world has less need for it and places less value on it (Why Hits Must Have Less Value in a Networked World).

His 17 project gathers choirs of 17 people. Their creations, their output, their performances are never recorded. They don't even have an audience. They are a unique, relevent experience for those who take part. And this delivers a far richer experience than listening to a long-since recorded (and therefore closed and finished) piece of music.

The networked world wants unfinished symphonies. Participatory culture is leading us to 'us' as the eighth mass media.

Think of this in the context of social networks and how messages are spread, in which we compare how communities of purpose gather to share in the co-creation of messages, to the old broadcast notions of audience and static, controlled messages.

What Bill is doing is taking us to a place where music exists but isn't recorded. Music without content. Music of course, before the broadcast/industrial age was made by the people listening to it, or at best, experienced in a unique (one off) form by small groups for whom it was relevant (carnival dancers, wedding banquets, village feasts).

The grand orchestral pieces for whom an audience was required to sit listening politely (the precurser of electronic mass broadcast) coincided with the arrival of the industrial age. The first stirrings coincided with the printing press and accelerated as the age of mass production began to pick up steam (literally).

In the networked world we are wise to ask:

• How do we publish if we don't have content?
• What is music without recordings?

So, if advertising is to marketing as content is to publishing then we should also ask:

• How do we market without advertising?
  

If you want to change behaviour but can't run a traditional ad campaign, can't come up with your 'on brand' message and broadcast and control it, what then?

Perhaps one clue to successful connection, successful relationships in the networked world is in offering/hosting/participating in unique, relevant experiences. Co-created experiences, shared with those we think will think its cool, too.

I don't suggest publishers shouldn't make use of the content they have. Nor should marketeers completely ditch their use of advertising. Advertising (even broadcast) has a place.

I do say publishers/marketers will make better use of content/advertising when they start from the premise that they should use neither. Use the idea as a tool to unleash your networked thinking.


The conversation on this one had already started, via twitter. But please join in by posting your comments below. When I floated an idea or two about this blogpost...

Richard Marshall asked: "Do you think it's important that the reader/consumer knows it's marketing or not? Advertorial versus content+ads?"

It's an interesting question because it reveals our distrust of marketing/advertising. We expect that the message from the centre is lieing to us (at the very least spinning the facts) and so we insist on warnings that we may be being played (eg we insist on transparency).

The new marketing should be less like traditional advertising in this way. If the message can be taken and adapted in order to be adopted it is being done so by people you trust - not by some distant third party (the brand?). If you can't trust your friends to be transparent with you - well that's perhaps down to your own choices - you can't blame the centre for that.

In the new marketing therefore the question of transparency, the need to know whether you are being marketed to or not is less relevant. Your friends (your social graph) are distributing their version of the message to you - and only if they think you will think it's cool, too.

David Bausola remarked: "Marketing is listening. Advertising is talking. Can't have one without the other. Did I just imply advertising will never die?"
Richard asked: "What do you call conversation between consumer and brand then?
And David came back with: Brands are deities not entities, so have to pray for help. Brands need to be nihilists so that people can prey on them
Seriously,people talk to each other. Brand has to inspire their conversation. How can Brand have dialogue when it's not an entity."

Looking forward to the discussion continuing... please add your thoughts below! Let's make this a shared, unique and relevant experience for those who wish to participate! Pass it on to anyone who you think will think it's cool, too!

What Google means when it says mobile internet ad revenues will outstrip web

When Eric Schmidt says mobile will be the next big advertising platform AND that within a few short years it will outstrip ad revenues from the web, it might be time to take a fresh look at your own predictions and assumptions about what advertising is.

Schmidt is Google CEO. He knows a thing or two about ad revenues, and particularly about those coming from the web. He has deals in place for advertising on MySpace and, of course, ad revenues from YouTube.

He has tricks up his sleeve for new and improved search and, and, and... but what he has identified is that the mobile internet is the right medium for the most personal of advertising. And the most personal of advertising is the most effective.

The mobile is the most edge-in, networked device we currently have. It is what makes it such an exceptional fit with the way the network works, and how groups form. I wonder if it's this that Google has identified when Schmidt says in an interview with Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung:
"Some things work, and others just don't – but the mobile internet always works."

If he's talking about response rate, places where the ad is the content and the content is the ad have a tendancy to high response rates. Where perfected the response rate ought to be 100%.

Google is working towards cost per action models. Where that action is purchase (and isn't that where all measurement is intended to lead?) then you can have 1:1 relationships between ad and content and charge accordingly.

I'll make a wild guess that Schmidt isn't predicting that there will be more display advertising or even more text-link advertising on the mobile internet compared to the fixed line.

He is predicting that ad models that take advantage of the personal nature of this edge-in device, which offer ad as content rather than as interruption, will prove way more valuable precisely because it will be way more effective.

He is predicting that ad models which are a better fit for the networked world will win.

He's not alone.

Lessons in UI design. If superfluous content = spam what does misleading content equal?

See that big black button in the picture (left)? What would you expect to happen when you press it?
'Get my change' would be a reasonable answer to that question.
Look, even the little diagram shows where to put your pennies, then which button to 'press for ticket' and then where to look for your ticket to be dispensed.
And the final step in the diagram leads you to that big black button, with its illustration of change being dispensed.
Neat UI.
Except, that in very tiny writing somewhere on this picture are the words 'no change given' (too small to spot at this scale).

Redundant.
Misleading.
Spam.
Lies.
Please remove.

Build a widget! Experience the disruption of distribution

I made my very own widget last night. It's very simple, made up of drag and drop elements and click-to-add bits from Sprout.
It's the orange box in the left hand col of my blog; Signature Posts.
I find it useful because it tidies up a bit of my blog and means if (and it's a big if, I'll grant) someone wants the 10 posts I currently select as representations of my thinking, they can display it on their own page/space (rather than take my latest which anyone of course can select using rss feeds).

The process of DIY reinforced something very important for me, as it so often does.
Just as I learn so much about the simple fact we are all content creators now by writing this blog, so I learn, from first hand experience, that we are all distributors now by creating a widget.
As I often say, don't just witness the power of the network – if you want to evolve to survive in this world then you have to live in its environment.

The mass distribution model found at the heart of mass media does not work here.
Build a widget for yourself to find out why.

I'd worked this out before now. But creating my own widget and trying to guess who might choose to share it, to pass it on, reveals the new challenges and opportunities for media.
Our old model is based on building destinations and harvesting eyeballs.

Think about this in the context of traditional advertising (and by association we'll realise we face the same issues with content, because as we discover over and over again, in this world they are heading towards becoming the same thing).

My first thought, on discovering that I can build my own basic widget (I don't code) and publish it, and all for free, was to consider ways the media company I work for could take advantage of this for low risk experiments in widget making.

Quick easy option: RSS feeds gathered into an easy-grab widget users can place where they choose. In other words disaggregation of our content for those who find the technical barrier of RSS still a little high.

This extends our reach and (if we limit the rss character count) it calls those interested in particular content back to our sites where they could be fed in-context related ads. All good.

But what about revenue models that integrate with the widget itself?

When I choose to distribute a widget that's been made on Sprout every iteration carries a link back to Sprout. Want to make your own? Click here?

Every youtube video functions in a similar way.

And if you have adsense on your page there's even a straightforward ad model to go with that.

But at the end of the day the ad and the content are regarded as separate entities. The distribution of the ad message is reliant upon users choosing to view and to participate in the distribution of editorial content.

What if the advert was the content the user chose to distribute? That suddenly raises the bar, doesn't it?

Would anyone choose to place 95% of 30-second slot TV, banner ads and the usual 'creative' solutions on their own (user-generated) content? Would they choose to grab it from where they see it and share it with others?

Oddly enough they kind of do in the Itsmy.com model. Users get to choose if they would like ads on their UGC and if they do, then they can choose which ads. It neatly turns the who-wishes-to-be-associated-with-whom model on its head.

But it could be stronger still if the marketing industry played its part. The majority of advertising isn't meant for individual selection. It is mud slung at a wall to see what sticks.

The ad industry can't make an ad to suit every individual though, can it? That would be mad, wouldn't it? Except that it can with widgets.

Chris Cunningham's point made at Widgety Goodness (Chris is speaking at WidgetWebExpo in NYC in June, an event I've advised on) was that personal outcome is all important.

Sprout's tools are great for those of us seeking to extend reach, to broadcast through a series of niche channels with the intention of a mass result, but unless you allow each receipient to create their own iteration it remains a broadcast solution, not a networked one.

Take my simple widget (please!); it is an editorialised version of how widgets should be. First – I've decided the content. I have edited your choice, I've been the filter on the way in.

And that's hardly enabling a personalised outcome.

I would have preferred to make it a 'my favourite faster future post chooser' in which you could make up your personal outcome from the full selection. Maybe ones that get chosen more often would rise to the top of the list the community of users is then offered? You get the general idea.

The widget should allow you to make the choice. That which we create we embrace. If you participate in the process you're more likely to share the outcome and to actively promote it.

This is obviously true of the marketing too. I am more likely to choose to display the results of my personal choice of content and my personalised version of that content (ad message).

Its worth noting that this works because we live digitally in a community context. It's what the network is all about. There would be little point in me sharing what I think is cool unless I expect you might, too. We do this sharing within our networks of trust. Just as we share links in twitter or thoughts on blogposts. If you've found this it is because we share some interests.

There is residual mass media thinking in the notion that you should create a place on the web for people to show off what they have done (all those personal outcomes) as if just anyone, any old set of eyeballs, might be interested.

The real value is in the sharing of results with friends, who will be interested because that personal outcome involves a friend - in whom they are personally interested.

Then if they take the results and create their own personalised iteration, they'll have friends they may choose to share with, and so the iterations repeat, amplifying the original.

The outcome relies heavily on three things:
1. A willingness to relinquish control.
2. Toolkits users can play with.
3. Creative users.

Kind of different from mass marketing, huh?

2 and 3 are in place. Are you ready for No1?

Less focus on SEO, more on the point-worthy

Why do we spend so much time focusing on search engine optimisation when perhaps we should be looking at content optimisation?

Time and again I hear how good seo will improve our page rank, will bring us crowds and cover us in gold. And I'm sure it has a role to play.

But the internet is about people pointing at stuff that they feel is worthy of their advocacy. And one thing is for sure: No one points at seo.

Seo is no purple cow (seth godin). But your content and services can be.

Content, as Cory Doctorow put it so well, is to give us something to spark up conversations. It is what people of shared interests want to talk about. Which is why it inspires us to point at it, raising a flag that we are ready to engage in a conversation about it (the simple url links in twitter write this large.

So if you want more relevant visitors, give them better unique things to talk about.

One point-worthy thing a month that no-one else has contributed has so much more value than a 1000 press-releases that can be found in manifold other locations on the web. People might find your version of the press release – but why would they point at you, rather than the other x thousands?

It is the role of media brands to present something point-worthy, something you can't find elsewhere, something that is hard for anyone else to do. Focus on that.

Layer some good seo on that and you may find more relevant people willing to point at you. But don't put the cart before the horse.

Make this mobile. But will we still talk?

I've just added a new widget at the top left of the blog. 'Make It Mobile'. Click it and you'll have the content from this blog on your phone to take with you where-ever you go. And it'll get updated the moment I update.

The irony of sending it to your communication device is that by doing so you risk disrupting the conversation.

The 'make it mobile' badge is one of the new bits from Mippin. I've been following Mippin's progress - a system which turns rss feeds from fixed line content into mobile sites, since it launched (Mippin plays video from your feed/ Mippin: Satisfying the long tail, extending the reach of the stumpy dog). CEO Scott Beaumont joins the conversation here from time to time.

They are among the best of a crowd of challengers in this space (widsets, squace and a new one on me, kimia)

Today they've updated and the changes make it oh-so-easy to monetize your content.
And as we know from the explosion of the long tail which adsense inspired on the internet, offering an incentive to publish is a key driver for the many millions who will populate the mobile internet.

In this post when I suggested the long tail would impact mobile internet first and fast (and Itsmy.com and Pepperonity are showing the way) I asked for the following to enable that long tail:

1. Really easy creation of mobile pages (on fixed line and on mobile)
2. Really easy ability to change the design to our tastes (and I'm thinking icons/desktop style as well as background colours and layout)
3. Ability to add and create rss feeds
4. Ability to add code snippets (ie YouTube video, google adsense)
5. Really easy share/ creator propogation (ie socially networked)
6. Enabled for social trade.
7. It has to be free to the site owner.
8. Option to offer as an application-based widget.

So how does the latest version of Mippin score?
1. If your fixed line site has a half decent rss feed it couldn't be simpler to mobilize. But you can't make a mippin site or upload content to it from your mobile.
2. The icon and desktop stuff is still illusive - but that's a nightmare to make right for every operator and every mobile, so Mippin, you are forgiven.
3. The rss feeds bit is what drives mippin. They rely on you having a fixed line site already which has them.
4. The youtube video example has now been implemented on Mippin. Add a youtube code to your blog post and it will play on the mobilized verson too. Critically they've made it easy as pie to add admob code, more easily even than admob. Type in your admob id number and mippin does the rest. Need an admob account? The links are there to guide you very swiftly.
5. Easy share stuff - well that awaits critical mass but Mippin is certainly enabled for this.
6. Enabled for social trade. Sadly not (in a mynumo kind of way) but what the hey.
7. Free to the site owner. Yes yes.
8. Widgetised. No. You can't create a widget to share on anyone's phone's 'desktop' or homepage. But there is a widget (now added to this blog) for your fixed line page which makes it a one-click operation for a user to get your content optimised for their phone, on their phone.

So, a round of applause chaps. I'm trying the admob ads on the mobile version, though I don't expect too many to be queueing up to place ads on my content, but I do seek to understand how easy it is to achieve.

One thought/question: Itsmy.com doesn't share revenues with the people who create its content. Their users are inspired enough by two things which make this possible:

1. The owner of the UGC (publisher) gets to control whether or not they have ads of any kind on their content. If they do choose to have ads then they can also select what kind (as referred to in my posts about Mobile Internet in Berlin earlier this week) and in this respect the user begins to think of the ads as content - not as an unwelcome interruption.
I'm hoping that they get to select at a quite granular level ie which brands, even which exact ads. I need to revist Itsmy.com to confirm. Perhaps a more regular user can tell me?

The right brands on your content allows you to show the world what kind of person you are.
It's a nice reversal of the usual routine in which brand owners decide who or what to associate their brand with through where they choose to advertise. In this model the user gets to select which brands WE wish to be associated with.

Is this another example of the intention economy? Trust me? trust my brands!
Since most users in the Itsmy environment are likley to trust their peers more than a brand in the first place, this could prove very powerful.

2. Only content created on a mobile is allowed on itsmy. That means a) it's all guaranteed to be the users own (written, shot, or filmed on their phone) and b) it all comes from the point-of-inspiration device that is your mobile. The result is users share the content they create very rapidly - and upload lots of it, creating loads of advertising opportunities as they go. Being able to publish at the point they are inspired becomes a driver in and of itself, as CEO Antonio Vince Staybl discussed in Berlin.

Mippin speaks to a need. The need to extend reach into the mobile space for anyone who is creating their content on fixed line.

Itsmy speaks to the need of those who are inspired to create, publish and share as they live their life, where ever they are and what ever they are doing (data charges allowing!).

In theory of course, if you use something like shozu to add content to your blog... and your blog feeds into your mippsite, then you can share at point of inspiration, too. Bit of a stretch though?

Wonder if you can turn an itsmy site into a Mippin one? Would that make for an unholy mess or a double whammy?

I suspect the former for a relatively simple reason. Mippin is a broadcast model. Itsmy is a networked one.

No matter how much of my rss feed is published, the one thing you can't do via mippin is add a comment to the original blog post, or even on the version of it that appears on mippin.
You can vote on my Mippsite in its entirety, you can send a link to a particular post by email. You can twitter it. You can share it on facebook. And these are all very socially enabling, all about sharing after all.
But in each case in order to join the conversation I must send the user away AND hope they are also a member of the community in which we could actually have the conversation. And in this respect the model misses out on the creation-at-the-point-of-inspiration power of the mobile AND the exponential growth potential of connecting up the nodes.

This has to inhibit its fit with the networked world.

This is not necessarily a criticism. And if it is, it is certainly one which can also be levelled at Mippins RSS-fed rivals. Mippin is, after all, an attempt to mobilize the broadcast, publish-from-the-centre, world. The fact that it turns the humble blogger into a broadcaster too is perhaps just a casualty of this.

So, for the record, if you do read one of my blogposts on mippin, please try to keep your inspiration burning long enough to get to a fixed line or full internet version of the blog and join in the conversation then. Send yourself a text reminder or email alert (hey Scott - add that as a button!)

Nine Inch Nails free album: Advert as content, content as advert

Nine Inch Nails are offering volume one of their new album free.
Advert as content, content as advert. Engagement nirvana.

Relevance over quality... even in 'art'

Regular participants in the conversation of this blog will know I'm an advocate of the idea of relevance over quality.
I'm seeing example after example, lining up to make the point. The latest? Art.
What is defined as great art is generally reflected (in the end) by its market value. And that's how a very few super-rich individuals select the art they hang in their homes.
The rest of us... well there's a minority who like to think of themselves as in some way cultured, having a superior aesthetic eye... or who just plain follow the money (ie the mass media model, lowest common denominator... Claude Monet's Lillies if you will) have reproductions of 'great' (ie high market value) art peppering their homes.

Some prefer to buy originals. I like to if I can afford them.

But over-riding all considerations in my home is relevance.

All of the original art in my home is very relevant to me - collected on travels, as reminders of particular places or important moments in our lives - much like family photographs.

The 'art' may not have 'quality' as measured by market value, but its 'sentimental value' (ie its relevance to us) is much, much more important to us.

How does that play out in your home - and what do you think that means for our consumption of all 'content' types?

Lower the price and more people pay the piper

The TimesOnline is reporting that 3 out of 5 didn't pay a penny for the latest Radiohead album when offered the chance to download and pay what they wanted.

The average price paid was just £2.90, globally.

And there is much wringing of hands about this in the Times report. How terrible. The grand experiment has failed - is the general sentiment.

But the album has been downloaded 1.2m times in the first month. So the £2.90 a pop (as an average) is not a bad return - given that there are no production costs, and huge cut in marketing and distribution costs.

A bit of context, from everyhit.co.uk:

Lowest-Selling Number One
"The record for a non-limited edition single is "Wonderful" by Ja Rule featuring R Kelly & Ashanti. Entering the chart w/e 6th Nov 2004 it went on to sell a total of 65,000 copies. "

Another upside for Radiohead: Many of those sampling the album 'for free' may yet go on to buy a CD of it - following the same model as those who download free novels online and go on to purchase a hard copy to own on the bookshelf.

Lesson: Careful how you measure success.

Starting a fire on the village green

Citizen Dave and I met on Friday. I'm speaking at the Digital Identity Forum he organises on November 20-21. He recorded our conversation for a podcast which will be made available in December.

But in the mean time, he's brought some wisdom to the discussion about a replacement for the clumsy them-and-us implicit in the term User Generated Content.

In responding to this post, discussing a suggested new term 'indigenous content', he wrote: "I rather like "Indigenous Content" and will use it from now on. But is there a corollary: is the content produced by publishers, record labels and so on now "Imperialist Content" or perhaps "Colonialist Content"?

My concern was, that by giving the content that is provided by the community a different name from that produced by publishers, we were embedding walls which set us apart from that community, preventing us from being PART of that community.

Dave's "Imperialist Content" makes the point very forcefully. We have to end the master-and-servant relationship that content providers default to with their communities (more often, audiences).

On Friday we discussed a couple of metaphors I'd like to share.

Once content providers (effectively) delivered newsletters to a series of individuals living in a block of apartments. We delivered information, they consumed it. They didn't feedback. They couldn't talk to each other.

Now we are in the business of gathering people around a campfire on the village green. Bearing in mind the imperialist metaphor, we need to enlist the help of those villagers to make sure we place that bonfire in the right place and that it's of the kind they'll be attracted to. If they think we're an invading army setting up camp... don't expect them to join us any time soon.

If and when everyone gathers around that fire, the last thing we should do is stand up and hold forth with a monologue... The moment we default to that we have to kick ourselves. Shut up and sit down, let someone else have a go!

Our place is to provide the location and get the fire going. Then it is simply to sit down with everyone else and add fuel to that fire - just as they are all welcome to.

And we should make available some kindling, matches, and a place nearby, when some around the fire want to start their own.

It's important those around the fire enjoy it and get value from it - and feel they will want to keep it going. Because on our own, we're going to struggle to keep it fed. But together, we'll work out how to keep it going in tough times, organise ourselves to gather fuel for it and work out what we all want to use it for.

Should we cook with it? Cook what? How will we grow/catch the food? Should we build a shelter over it to keep the rain off? What is expected of those who want to feel its warmth?

Our fire is just the start. Letting those sitting around it shape how it grows and what it is used for - that's the rub(bing of two sticks...)

UGC : does changing its name change our approach?

Stowe Boyd points us at Clay Shirkey's (see recommended blogs, left) thoughts on the need for a new term to replace User Generated Content in the minds of the media.

"Indigenous Content (which is to say “Created by the natives for themselves.”)

Instantly I quite like indigenous content. Or IC, as we'll be calling it by the end of the month... It's warmer, less master-and-servant.

But at the same time, is it just me, or does it still seem a bit, well, patronising?

Perhaps it's just my perspective - as someone who has been used to being at the centre, broadcasting out for a large part of my career. My natural (and obviously incorrect) fall-back position is to assume that I am not part of the native group doing the creating. If that's an issue for me, I suspect the mainstream media are going to be in at least a similar, if not worse, position.

Is what we call UGC important? Well yes, I think it is, for the reasons illustrated above.

The important thing is for media companies to understand is their relationship to both the natives and what the natives create.

If we label it as in some way different from that created by media companies (ie, simply 'content' or increasingly, and usually inaccurately 'expert' content) then we place a barrier between Us and Them.

Doesn't what we have learned about the power of the network and the dominance of communities insist that the barrier is torn down?

And to that end I'm going to stop calling UGC anything other than content.

Please, by all means question this approach, or suggest alternatives. It'll help us arrive at a more robust position.

Music Industry: Making money because of content rather than with it

Radiohead offer their new album for however much you are willing to pay. Madonna ditches her record label to connect more directly with her audience.(more) The Charlatans offer their next release free to download.

Previously we've seen how the music industry has demonstrated that the price of content is collapsing more vividly than any other sector (Selling Content Sucks If That's All You Do). But perhaps it also demonstrates the new ways in which value is created - and content has a part to play in this.

Radiohead fans will pay what they think the content is worth - and then pay more for the limited edition box set version.

Prince fans scoop up their free CD on the front of the Daily Mail - and then pay a fortune for his concert tickets.
Madonna's new deal is with a concert promoter - not a record label.

The Charlatans see the wood for the trees.

All of these examples are about using content (the thing that in and of itself has little value because it is so freely and widely available) to promote the demand for the thing which is scarce (Radiohead's box set, Madonna and Prince's concert performances).

It's that Because Effect all over again (more here)

This from 'Confused of Calcutta' (see recommended blogs, left)

"When something that was originally scarce starts becoming abundant, something strange happens. You find that you start making money because of that thing rather than with that thing. That’s the Because Effect." Click here to read it in its original context.

Can't make money with content? Make money because of it.

I read the following on 'Confused of Calcutta' (see recommended blogs, left)

"When something that was originally scarce starts becoming abundant, something strange happens. You find that you start making money because of that thing rather than with that thing. That’s the Because Effect." Click here to read it in its original context.

Based on Doc Searl's original thinking, is there a clue here as to what to do with all the expert-created content traditional media companies are heavily geared towards producing?

When it was scarce we made money with it. But now that great content is abundant, we have to move to making money because of it.*

In the case of Prince and his Mail On Sunday new album giveaway, he understands that great content (music files) are abundant. The scarce resource he has is his concert tickets. Because he has an abundant thing to give away, he is working on the theory that this will engage a level of fan commitment that leads to the purchase of concert tickets (and, presumably other merchandise).

What is the equivalent in the world of traditional publishing models?

There are authors (eg Cory Doctorow) who offer their complete novels for download and sharing. And they see the sales of actual books rise as a result.

I'd guess people who read the downloads become fans, who then evangelise others to buy. And some of the original downloaders decide that even though they've read the download, they want to own the product - to put on their shelf - to have and to hold. The content is abundant - the product itself is scarce.

So where does that leave your thoughts on what to do with all that content your media company is producing? Could a free DVD or download activate people to go the movies? Buy merchandise (games, toys, go to see the next film in the series..?) Maybe?

And where does this leave periodical publishing? Could it be as simple as putting all your content online as the initial draw for the formation of communities of shared niche interests (aggregation of vast audiences... if you must), leading to the opportunities of "We Media" (Communities Dominate Brands)?

The challenge here is working out, or even recognising, what the scare resource we have to sell is? Perhaps its experiences, events, engagement marketing opportunities, co-created services and products that will emerge as values from the network of the community we'll be part of.

New rules apply. Persuading your stake holders of the value of these may be the toughest part of all.

* Corrected with the kind assistance of JP Rangaswami - 'Confused of Calcutta'

Selling content sucks - if that's all you do...

The difficulties facing yet another vendor of content marks another milestone (gravestone?) along the road to the new media ecology.
There are lessons for all of us who sell content. There may be lessons for everyone who sells.
Fopp - one of the UK's biggest music store chains - is the latest to be hit by what is reported by the mainstream media as an issue that's all about competition from downloads and online supermarkets:
"All specialist retailers of CDs and DVDs have been hit by growing competition from online downloads and supermarkets. HMV today reported a 70 per cent fall in profits. Music Zone’s demise was blamed on the same factors..."
Supermarket competition impacts at the mass end of the business. Smaller retailers can respond to this. It is not to go head to head with the high volume - top 50 sellers. It is to serve the long tail and respond to local (community) needs. It is to provide a very different experience.
When I was a kid the local record shop (and even the small town where I grew up had one) was one-part youth club, one-part information exchange and one-part market place. I could sell old records I no longer wanted, order something obscure (they couldn't carry everything!), hang out, load up on some vicarious cool, share what I thought, form a band, etc etc
How far removed is this from the experience of buying in a supermarket?
Online vendors of downloads have (where they succeed) replicated this far better than bricks and mortar rivals.
They have understood that communities form around music - communities who want to share (is that the new marketplace of buying and selling secondhand records?) information, recommendations - and just spend time together discussing what they love and why they love it - and marketing their favourites to each other.
But that's not to say a music store couldn't capture much of the same. And by facilitating the physical meeting of communities they could take what online retailers have discovered and make it still more engaging.
Perhaps they have to accept two things:

1. Turn yourselves into a music marketplace - where people can come together to exchange information, buy (and sell/share?), and be entertained (God forbid, perhaps they could even put on the occasional gig?)
2. Offer downloads. Seriously - it is the disaggregation of digital content (the ability to choose which tracks you want, rather than buying whole CDs), that's driving download sales. Convenience is important, price is important. But serving of long-term diverse choice is the biggest factor. And it's the part of the market that is emphatically NOT served by supermarkets.

Fop, HMV, chains in general... seem to have forgotten that the marketplace was always about much more than buying your goods.

Famous for 15 people

In 1968 Andy Warhol predicted: ‘In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes’.

It’s usually contracted to ‘Famous for 15 minutes,’ of course.

Andy was right from where he stood. But his future is now past. Now it’s about being ‘Famous for 15 PEOPLE’.

I first referred to this in the post ‘Famous for 15 minutes? Famous for 15 people is better’.

And over time it’s become clear to me that this phrase, and Andy’s, and the shift between them, offers a neat description of the way things have changed.

Once, the idea of mass media was to reach ‘everyone’. The Warhol prediction describes the last moments of mass media very well - a world of frenzied vying for attention in which the attention that’s grabbed becomes worth less and less. When everyone can be famous for 15 minutes, what is the value of fame?

A brief, non-immersive relationship with anything has little value.

Consider how that applies to content or advertising, or customer relationships.

If you are assaulted by a parade of interruptive ‘sells’ they become a passing blur (quite literally in the case of the fast-forward button on your PVR) none of them registering, none of them engaging.

Far better to be fully engaged with a small number (a niche – and please don’t take me literally on the ‘15 number’…) than to broadcast to a billion who are looking the other way.

This is the lesson of the long tail.

We're at the start of a new and even more powerful (long-tail-led) internet revolution/disruption.

Only this time... it's personal.

It’s personal because the mobile device is critical to how we will make use of and contribute to the internet from now on. The mobile offers a level of personalisation that is a giant leap up from the fixed-line web.

The fixed line net was initially grown by content providers of the mass industrial age, the mobile web will explode as a direct result of User Generated Content.

And because of the social nature of web2.0 the growth will be exponential. It will dominate the way the mobile web develops in a faster and more pervasive way than we saw with the original fixed-line internet.

The long tail will wag the mass media dog way more vigorously than it has in the fixed line internet world.

Converged consumers/creators/designers/buyers/sellers/marketers etc are setting up their own mobile sites, sharing their interests, forming their own communities, creating their own content and services and selling them. A whole new way of discovering and creating value is emerging.

Emails bounced back and forth with Communities Dominate Brands’ Tomi Ahonen (itself an illustration of the power of the network in action), helps crystalise how this can shape the way we must start to think about the emerging opportunities.

He said: “Yes, of COURSE! The long tail is an excellent metaphor for personalisation. The longer we move along the personalisation "long tail" the more we can find real opportunities in it, and discover "segments" or personalities that are ill-served by current media, technology etc. GREAT thought!”

The community of readers of this post are small in number. But they are absolutely the right ones. This post is not intended to be famous for 15 minutes. That would have little value to you or I.

If it becomes famous to 15 people, 15 people who are willing to contribute to it, share it, change it ENGAGE with it, own it... then we 15 may discover value we never knew we could share.

Does a straightforward transaction site need a social element?

As publishers start to work out that content (in and of itself) has little or no value outside of print, there's an increasing urge to shuffle along the supply chain.

There's also a growing willingness to understand that a disaggregated internet is best served by one trick ponies - sites/services which do one thing, but do that one thing better than anything else does.

This leads some to conclude that what they should deliver is a really good shop - a place that helps you make the transaction of your choice swiftly and efficiently.

This doesn't sound like the place for the socialised web2.0 - does it?

But a shop which ignores the attributes of 2.0 is a shop with a limited shelf life.

Why?
1. Consumers want to co-create. If your shop site doesn't allow the community of users to share their ideas about what it should sell, rate what is on sale, come together to propose improvements to what is on sale etc etc - you're locking out all the value of the network. Let members of your community pitch next year's ideas, rate them and shape them - and big up the things they love. If they score down some items - don't sell them. The community has spoken.
2. Two-way flow of communication beats the market: How do you know what your users want NEXT. The market shows you what they want now, and also what they don't want - but it can never tell you what next year's hit or miss is. Your community can - if you're engaged in a two-way flow. This is genuine 'consumer insight' based on real conversations with real people - not on generalised assumptions that "we know our market".
3. Convergence of buyer/seller/product developer/user/employee: If the employee and the user is converging in the concept of user generated content - the same can be said of communities of people trading together. eBay writes this large: The buyer and the seller converge. The buyer is also converging with the developer/designer (think BMW cars for a solid example happening now - the customer customises). This is a 3-dimensional version of a person - not a one dimensional "treat me as the customer... and only the customer" approach. In a 'shop' community environment one person can be a buyer/seller/developer/user/employee
4. Trust is communal: Trust is now created in a wiki-way. The social tools of 2.0 (eg diigo) make it ever easier for people to share what they think of a product or a supplier with their community, rapidly and in a way that is much more readily trusted by most consumers than old-style marketing messages. Sony tells you its PlayStation 3 is the dog's. The community tells them its made a heap of mistakes (1.1m views on YouTube of How to Kill a Brand 1.1m of PS3 vs Wii - apple style). How does your shop help the community decide what to trust?

4. The Social Customer manifesto (see recommended blogs, left) reads:

• I want to have a say.
• I don't want to do business with idiots.
• I want to know when something is wrong, and what you're going to do to fix it.
• I want to help shape things that I'll find useful.
• I want to connect with others who are working on similar problems.
• I don't want to be called by another salesperson. Ever. (Unless they have something useful. Then I want it yesterday.)
• I want to buy things on my schedule, not yours. I don't care if it's the end of your quarter.
• I want to know your selling process.
• I want to tell you when you're screwing up. Conversely, I'm happy to tell you the things that you are doing well. I may even tell you what your competitors are doing.
• I want to do business with companies that act in a transparent and ethical manner.
• I want to know what's next. We're in partnership…where should we go?

I can't see those boxes ticked by a shop front...

Conclusion: A shop site is just dandy - providing its a shop selling things the community rates, allows buyers to be sellers and designers, makes its offers spin free, opens doors to transparent two-way flows, and lets the community decide which products and or suppliers it is going to trust - and why. It's worth adding, that all trade has always been social. A one-to-one relationship ain't a business. A one-to-many is a trading community.
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An updated definition of media brands

Drawing a few threads together I'm proposing an updated definition of what a media brand is - and offering a suggestion about what a media brand should do:

• A media brand is a platform for a community with shared interests.
• Focused on the interests of this community, we should aggregate content and offer services.
• Services are best delivered at the point they are needed – and that is always, always mobile!

Note the reference to the 'aggregation' of content, rather than the 'creation of'. I'm not suggesting media companies should not bother with the creation of content. I am suggesting it's no longer our primary function.

Our legacy of content creation can get in the way of putting the community first. We can't resist the urge to broadcast - to select what the audience is offered and spin it to our tastes.

This often reveals itself in the way we display content. Media brands put the content they create first, tip their hats at some user-generated content (always given second billing) and actively prevent the sharing of other sources of content the community might actually prefer.

A blank sheet of paper approach would open our eyes to simple facts such as:

• The best content for the community is welcome - be it our own, rival media brand owners', or user generated content.
• The community should judge what content gets highest prominence - and which gets booted into touch.
• Groups should be allowed to form which set their own parameters for what equals interesting and 'good'.
  

This requires some bravery on the part of the media brand owner. It means that only if our own content is good enough/a good enough fit with the community will it score the highest ratings and get top billing.

What lessons are there in this that you aren't prepared to learn?

l