Social media is a universe than seems to be swallowing everything in its path. If you’re like most marketers, you’ve heard enough about it to give you heartburn:

“The consumer controls your brand message now”

“The traditional way of marketing is dead”

“You need to listen to consumers and engage in a dialogue with them”

“The rules are different”

“You have to adapt or you’ll lose”

Every few years, our world is turned upside down by some big wave of change and the pundits sound the death knell for the industry. The truth is smart marketers already know that the basics haven’t changed and traditional marketing channels aren’t going away. Social media is helping to expand our craft by giving us more tools for the proverbial marketing toolkit. And more ways to practice what we already know: finding and targeting the right people, listening to them and responding to their needs, building compelling creative solutions, delivering relevant communications and cultivating long-term relationships.

Yes, we have to adapt but the fundamentals and the end game are the same.

Update:    This webcast is now available on the Biz360 website.    You can request access under “On Demand” at: 

http://www.biz360.com/resource.aspx

For the first time in history, consumers are determining brand and product perception - and not the marketer. Marketers who listen to social media can gain critical customer insights faster than ever before.   These insights can help marketers manage a crisis to protect their reputation, improve competitive standing, increase sales or ROI or even save valuable research dollars. 

How can your company benefit from listening to social media conversation in today’s economy?

We invite you to join Biz360’s Chief Marketing Officer, Tony Priore, for this complimentary webcast where he will review three best practice case studies, illustrating how you can use social media tools to get fast-track insights for your business:

1. How Domino’s could have used social media to be alerted to their crisis before it escalated.
2. How Biz360 used social media as a consumer feedback predictive tool, predicting American Idol winners.
3. How Las Vegas Sands Corporation used social media to improve their hotel and casino guest services and competitive standing. 

 Register Now!

6/23/09, San Francisco
http://www.gaspedal.com/blogwell

We think you will enjoy hearing Dell, Wells Fargo, General Mills, Kaiser Permanente, SAP, Pepsi, Cisco, and Intuit share case studies in corporate social media. You’ll learn how to get started, get past roadblocks, and make your social media program phenomenal — in one afternoon, for $250.  And if you enter the coupon code “THANKSBIZ360″ you will receive an additional 10% off admission.

BlogWell is all about how big brands use social media. No agencies, no startups — just big companies sharing what they’ve learned. Get practical, how-to advice on creating great content, getting management buy-in, educating employees, keeping lawyers and regulators happy, simple and ethical disclosure, and engaging fans.

You’ll ask questions, discover new ideas, say hi to the Biz360 team, get answers from people who have been there, done that — and learn it all in four hours (and be home for dinner).

BlogWell is presented by GasPedal and the Blog Council.

Biz360’s CMO, Tony Priore, will be interviewed by the John Adam Show, a business radio show on Financial News Radio KFNN.  The discussion  will include how businesses are using and measuring social media, highlighting case studies. You can listen live at 9am PT on Friday 6/5 –  or access the replay a few hours following the broadcast.

The current U.S. economic environment is certainly a trying time for most businesses but eventually this period will end giving rise to unique business opportunities for firms that are correctly positioned.  Biz360 was asked a novel business question by a top-tier firm in Silicon Valley to help them in formulating their “break-away” strategies.  Specifically:  are there any key learning experiences, including positive and negative ones, in managing a firm’s communications during an economic crisis?

Biz360 analysts looked at over 18,000 news stories related to the current economic crisis from a September 2008 through March 2009 timeframe for GM, Chrysler, Citigroup, AIG, Merrill Lynch and Sun Microsystems and how they managed the public’s perceptions of their brands.  Metrics included Coverage, MediaSignal, a measurement of audience reach based on the circulation / viewership of media coverage tempered by how prominently a brand was mentioned in the article, and Tone, a measurement of how  positive, neutral and negative a particular article was concerning a particular business.

GM and Chrysler were top newsmakers in coverage related to the economic crisis.  Primary coverage drivers for the automakers included 1) Lack of Planning 2) Layoffs 3) Viability 4) Earnings and 5) Financial Responsibility.

Financial firms Citigroup and Merrill Lynch and Insurance conglomerate AIG garnered next highest media visibility in stories that mentioned  1) Earnings Losses 2) Federal Bailout Burden on Taxpayers 3) Questionable Business Practices and 4) Planning for the Future and 5) Executive Compensation.

Summary of Key Media Issues

Auto Makers

1. Planning for the future – basic business effectiveness
2. Lay-offs – sticking it to the ‘little man’
3. Viability
4. Earnings
5. Financial responsibility

Financial Firms

1. Earnings
2. Taxpayer burden
3. Business practices
4. Planning for the future
5. Executive compensation

Overall

§         Auto makers were chastised more for basic business competency whereas Financial firms were pilloried more for moral / ethical issues

§         Neither outcome was pre-planned

§         Issues differ for different market verticals

PR Opportunities That Eluded GM – An Example

• GM is an excellent example of “missed opportunities”
• GM is now effectively characterized as a incompetent business, uncaring of its employees, a non-innovator, and which may no longer even be viable
• Did you know:

–         A Buick won the 2009 Best Car of the Year award (Money Magazine)

–         The ZR 1 won the 2009 Automotive Excellence Aware for Performance (Popular Mechanics)

–         Cadillac won the 2009 Best Resale Value Award (KBB)

Conclusions

• Both the finance and automotive brands were not proactively aware of the issues, nor their details, confronting them
• No effective response strategy was in place
• No public awareness of steps being taken, or other positive factors, which could lessen the impact of the stories that grew to dominate their brands
• The finance brands were among the most positively perceived global brands nine months ago and are now arguably the most vilified brands
• The automotive brands have been suffering from a longer-term brand erosion – and we know many of the specific issues as to why that exists within today’s media – issues that could be addressed at least to some extent
• In the time that a major brand becomes initially aware that something can, or will, be an issue and the time that everyone is fully aware that it has now become a major PR issue is small
• GM and AIG are not necessarily managed by complete incompetents, yet these mission critical media issues escaped management’s early warning systems and now threaten these companies’ continued survival

If you have been following this series of events then you know that for 3 weeks running Biz360 used social media measurement to successfully make Amercian Idol contestant predictions.   

Yesterday at 3:00 pm when we needed to make our finale prediction announcement, there was less than a 1% difference between the final contestants, Adam and Kris.  Many were saying it was too close to call.  But we had promised a prediction and a number of colleagues and clients were making inquiries – we didn’t want to let them down.  After all, the show can’t announce a draw now can they? 

While the difference between the two contestants was small enough that an accurate statistical prediction was impossible due to the limitations of margin of error – we went ahead and predicted Adam Lambert as the winner based on the data we had at the time.

What made this week’s prediction different than those in previous weeks? 

This week was particularly challenging because not only was it an impossibly close margin, but 40% of the source coverage being measured came from Microblogs (mostly Twitter).  The week before for example, consisted of closer to 20% of Twitter-type coverage.  Microblogs are about as real time as it gets, which means it is a dynamic moving target, evolving as public opinion takes shape.

We started out this exploration by asking the question:  Can social media predict American Idol?  At this point if we look back at yesterday’s positive and neutral coverage, Kris did wind up slightly ahead of Adam.   Adam landed at a share of 49.34% while Kris was at 50.66%.  Overall, we believe we have demonstrated that it absolutely can. 

As a side note, a number of people were requesting a Dancing With The Stars finale prediction also.  Yesterday before the finale show, we made a correct prediction analysis for the twitter community using our Community Insights solution. Even though Shawn Johnson was the expected underdog, her social media coverage lead us to predict her to win.

American Idol was a fun vehicle to prove the concept — but imagine the applications for companies.  Throughout this exploration, people continue to be amazed with the idea that we can take thousands and thousands of relevant aggregated posts and conversations, and very quickly consolidate them into real, usable data.   The time period between the performance show and results show is only 24 hours.   Also, the people making these posts are handraisers, volunteering their unsolicited feedback.  So the quality and bias of the consumer opinions is minimal when compared to traditional research methods of gathering feedback.  Our clients are benefitting from this streamlined path to their customers by using Biz360 solutions like Community Insights and Opinion Insights to listen. 

For 3 weeks running, we have predicted the contestants to be voted off correctly based on our social media analysis.  We’ll be issuing a finale prediction on May 20 before the finale show!

It was a tight race this week to predict who would get voted off.  Danny Gokey was the most talked about all week until the performance last night.  Kris’s performance generated so much buzz that while it is close, we predict Danny will be this week’s cast off.

We have helped our clients use the power of social media to assess consumer feedback on product and specific product features.  But I thought it would be fun to see if we could use it to make mainstream entertainment predictions. 

 Answer:  YES, it can!    

We used our Social Media solution, Community Insights, to correctly analyze consumer opinion and predict the last two American Idols to be voted off the show.     Social media measurement is a potent consumer research tool that enables near real-time consumer insights  - I think we have only hit the tip of the iceberg as to how this information can be applied. 

Is being a leader something you are, or something you do?  Many people have asked this question.  I am not sure what the correct answer is, maybe it is both.  But it is something I have been thinking about since a recent business school grad asked me, “what makes a good leader?”.  So I made a list of the things I have seen effective leaders do over the years. 

• Leadership is respecting the past while being able to articulate a clear, concise vision of the future.
• Leadership is about being transparent and honest, especially when this is difficult.
• Leadership is building a competent, committed team.  Good leaders value a plow-horse over a show-horse.  Good leaders know they are no better than their team.
• Leadership is being laser-focused on priorities.  Good leaders insist on this behavior in their organizations.  At the same time, they are open minded; constantly probing, questioning, and learning.
• Leadership is setting clear, realistic, and challenging goals, and then holding people accountable.  
• Leadership is being a good coach.  Good leaders are teachers, mentors, supporters.  Good leaders must be good listeners.
• Leadership is making decisions based on principles rather than expediency.  Good decisions are based on facts, not hunches.  A good leader’s integrity is never challenged.
• Above all, I believe, leadership is about caring.  Caring deeply and sincerely about customers, owners, partners and employees; and not being afraid to show it.

I am sure I have missed some things.  Please share your favorite leadership traits.  If nothing else, this list reminds me how difficult it is to be a good leader!