While this is in no way meant as an hysterical babble, I know some may find it such. I urge you only to continue reading having been warned that it may impact your thoughts on social media – in how much you choose to share… or not. It’s an enigma in many ways.

In the second world war – not so very long ago in the grand scheme of things – anyone in Germany suspected of being a Jew was rounded up and summarily transported to a camp and most likely executed. Neighbors betrayed neighbors, friends betrayed friends – not for fun you understand, but because there was a noose around their own necks. They were known to have associated with Jews or to have ‘Jewish tendencies’ – the shops they visited, the clothes they bought. It was very easy to be caught out as an ‘accomplice’. The Nazis even had what they called ‘persils’ – ‘clean’ documents for any Jew who would turn in a fellow Jew – and how did they encourage that type of betrayal? Fear, and promises of death to family members.

The persil seekers were sent to cobblers and shoe stores. They waited for the Jews on the run to come in and get their shoes mended, and they ‘befriended’ them – and then betrayed them.

Too much knowledge shared with anyone outside of your closest family meant the camps. It was an environment of fear, treachery and death.

That was 70 years ago. The other most renowned evidences of word of mouth betrayal in our western society (though there are thousands more – and this is not meant to diminish those) involve the French Revolution and the English Court of the 15-1600’s.

• During the revolution it got to a point where business rivals were denouncing their competitors as ‘royalists’ to ensure their trip to the guillotine;
• During Henry 8th’s time as well as during the time of his daughters Bloody Mary and Elizabeth the first – during the huge upheaval of the Church in England, thousands were denounced as heretics and burned in Smithfield, or beheaded on Tower Green. This account doesn’t even consider the desperate state for hundreds of years on the greater continent where just about anyone could denounce his fellow brother/sister/neighbor/priest as an heretic during the dreadful inquisition.

I know that we are a free society, but history has taught us that freedom is hard-won and earned. Hard work and dedication to a clear objective keep it so. I’m as guilty as many of airing my opinions and thoughts in our free press society – but if ever we needed to be concerned about what big-brother, his cronies – or his enemies – were wondering, one only has to look at the reputation management tools of today to know that every-thought we put down in the moment is kept safe for future reference by… who knows who?

Just a thought to consider, one I do anyway. Perhaps I am paranoid, perhaps I am too realistic. Perhaps I am over-protective, perhaps I am a fool. Regardless – these are some thoughts I wanted to share – whether you agree with them or not – perhaps they may generate some conversation among you and your friends – or not.

It’s hurricane season in the world of online marketing – in terms of stats that is. They’re everywhere, flying fast and furious and changing the landscape:

• Strategies that withstand the deluge of stats are worth continued consideration
• Strategies that do not weather the stat-storms may simply have been built on a poor foundation, or may just simply have been poor.
• Strategies you don’t employ that seem to be appealing to your market (like boarding up your windows¹) also deserve some think-tank time.

I’m going to leap out on a limb here regarding these 5 stats I’ve pulled for your interest and state the following:

1. As far as I know, everyone reading this was actually born
2. Most of us will fall in love, and many of us will at some point get married, for better of worse
3. A whole schwak of folks are educated, and a painful process that was
4. Most of us would like to be gainfully employed, or instant millionaires, but I can only speak to the former
5. All of us have friends, some a few special friends, some a whole swathe of acquaintances. I can count my really good friends on one hand, and my other friends on my other hand and my toes (I regress digress). But I also have a big bunch of folks I like and respect in the social space, and who I may well become friends with in time – apparently I can be a handful, so I’m warning you now before I ask you to follow me on Twitter!

Let’s take a peek at some recent stat releases that on the surface² appear to be worth peeking at, and how they may impact your strategy:

1. We were born: By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network

- are you reaching out the Gen Y and iGen folks on the social networks? If not, perhaps you should. If you’re not sure how, I strongly recommend Linda Bustos’ post on ‘Top 10 Web 2.0 Activities for Ecommerce’ as a great guide to what works, and why.

2. We fall in love: 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media

- Do you sell engagement rings, his and her toiletries, flowers, gifts, gift cards… are your ads quick, to the point, targeted to burgeoning relationships of all ages? Romance is universal and timeless.

- Do you host weddings, are you a wedding planner, reception venue? Are you offering deals and coupons, discounts and special treatment for your customers, online and on the social networks?

- Do you have parenting advice, sell baby products, books on how to engage your new wife’s 7 year old son, or gift ideas for your new husbands 10 year old daughter?

- This list is scary long in how what you could offer and how you could engage with the ready and waiting and already engaged market.

- You can take it further to appeal to age groups, family life-cycle status etc

3. We are educated: 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum, and the 2009 US Department of education study revealed that online students out-performed those receiving face-to-face instruction (on average).

- Do you tutor higher-ed students?

- Do you sell academic books (especially curriculum dictated books)

- Do you offer career, advice, stress, relationship, money management etc consultation?

- There is a big market of online higher-ed students out there needing everything a young adult needs, especially one attempting to better themselves, looking for deals, and active in the online space… where are you?

4. We have or would like a job: 80% of companies use Linkedin as a primary tool to find employees.

- Are you looking for a job?

- Are you interested in better career opportunities?

- Are your recruiting costs high?

- Are you interested in expanding your resource pool geographically?

- If your answer to any of these or similar questions is ‘Yes!’, get on Linkedin, or expand your use. Worst case scenario is the initial cost of a monthly membership fee of about $49/month, and you can cancel any time I believe.

5. We have friends: 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations, 14% trust advertisements & only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI

- Word of mouth, the most powerful converter known ever has made it’s way online. It is now called peer recommendations – do you have reviews of your products? Do you deal with customer complaints and praise equally fairly, quickly and overtly?

- Are you still relying on advertisements alone? Or TV?

- What is your determination of an effective brand messaging and awareness campaign?

- Are you only after short term profits, or are you interested in both short-term profits and long term brand & reputation establishment?

Creating buzz around a product on an external forum or blog can be very effective, especially if the blog is full of relevant links to deep product or service pages on the brand site. But it’s not always easy…

It’s also not hard – just time consuming, and you need to know what you’re doing. Here’s one way that won’t break the bank, or deviate too much from any social presence or initiatives you already have running:

• In order to facilitate and encourage participation in brand related product forums and social networking sites to gain decent anchor text backlinks, you might consider starting an unofficial blog where you provide interesting information about your brand, your direct and indirect competitors and suppliers.

• Include insights and mentions of complimentary and supplementary products and services highlighting faults, advantages, customer service and other relevant feedback from all related forums, social media and industry sites. Nofollow non-prime site external links; there’s no value to sharing out your newly gained link-juice, but there is value to providing those external resources to your knowledgeable, info-seeking visitors. Open those links in a new window.

• Build a solid reputation as an objective industry source of information and pay attention to regular commentary contributors – positive and negative – building a brand game plan to deal with both on the brand site itself.

• The potential for YouTube exposure is infinite if you offer brand based prizes for (examples) ‘funniest’, ‘weirdest’ or ‘most innovative’ use of your product, or ‘most extensive use’ of your service. The potential is limited only to the brands legal and social responsibility, and your ability and innovativeness as their lead.

ABDUCTION OF THE INFLUENTIALS… This is one of the best vids I’ve ever seen to explain UGC… Just CLICK!

Harness the Power of Social Networks

There are social networks for pretty much everything; Go Green, IT, design, architecture, SEO, electronics, home goods, kids stuff, books – you name it, it’s out there. Find a few really targeted and relevant networks and integrate. Again this can be in the form of both main brand and pseudo-brand.

• Create a FaceBook/MySpace account – invite people via search, and incentivize them with an offer; e.g. a draw; once we reach 1000 we will send 15 random entrants a Starbucks discount… It depends on the brand, your insights, your involvement, and how you handle your SMM. NEVER be in the position where you can be accused of bribing.

• Create a Twitter account – if you’re really big, offer a free software package, but offer daily/weekly tidbits of info to folks who have already purchased it, including updates and engage.engage.engage.

• Digg both detractor and evangelist type articles.

Social networks can be particularly powerful for brand-building. If you are a brand and want to engage the power of consumer feedback, take an active part in those communities that work best for you and link to them from your blog or your prime product page/s.

Enabling your users to find ‘more’ information from their peers via your facilitation might generate a bit of a flux in the social network, but if you have a name in the network, not only can you answer them, you can expect your brand evangelists and followers to take part in dealing with their queries as well, even if it is simply to the point of linking them back to an FAQ or review page.

Problems With UGC And How To Deal With Them

To help site owners manage the potential avalanche of UGC headed their way a number of platforms have been developed which allow companies to add UGC elements to their sites. Ensure that whichever option you choose you stringently evaluate the SPAM management offering. Most CMS enable spam monitoring and blog creation; setting goals, expectations and limitations is up to you. It is advisable if you are unsure to check the full disable functionality of any CMS or blog software.

Spam hurts everyone...

Anonymous commentary or feedback must always be run through a stringent spam detection program which prevents spam blog or review commentary prior to live publication. Simply ensure you have a disclaimer on the page that is very direct and simple indicating that if feedback doesn’t show within a set period of time, to contact you by email and include a link to your spam definition. Never allow profanity, blasphemy, or plain vileness through. Filters sort that, don’t make the mistake of enabling it – it’s in your power; it’s your brand.

Transparency is good, enabling ‘hate’ or plain disrespect and bad manners is not. Make your filters as transparent as possible – that’s what the filter is for, and that’s what the disclaimer supports. You can’t stop what other sites say about you, but you can – to an extent – ensure that your commentary, while transparent, is palatable.

It is absolutely vital to monitor your online presence, and take the initiative wherever possible and/or necessary. For example; if a well known industry blog writes about your product in a less than flattering manner, detecting that mention of your product or brand name quickly is imperative. It allows you to be proactive in two ways:

1. Copy the negative feedback from the blog on your own product site with a link to the blog post, with immediate, genuine company feedback, including a link to the other reviews or UGC (hopefully positive) on your site.
2. On the ‘offending’ blog itself post a comment to the effect that you have seen their post, thank them for their time, and urge them and their other readers to view your full response and other user commentary on your product review page via a link.

While there are numerous online reputation management tools if you are going ‘free’ I personally recommend Google Alerts; if you are prepared to spend money, then TrackUR.com is a paid service, but far superior, and affordable.

Conclusion

The boost of interest in UGC and the need to implement it while watching for on-site spam has intersected very nicely with the desire to monitor both positive and negative commentary around the web. Monitoring what is being said about your business on the net and in the blogosphere also enables businesses to discover what people do and don’t like about their company, brand, product line, specific product, customer service, affiliate, brick and mortar store, and more. It’s a great way for a business to be knowledgeable while at the same time proactive, assuming the strategic ability deal quickly, diplomatically, carefully, and positively with brand detractors and evangelists as they gather insights for R&D and insight and planning.

This is Part 3 of a 3 part series on UGC. Part 2 is UGC and Small Business – What Works & Why and Part 1 is  UGC – Maximize Your Online Exposure with People Power!

Follow Laura on Twitter!

1. How do I make sure UGC is optimized and ranks well?
2. Are there strategies I can use to get the most out of my UGC from an SEO point of view?

The simple answer is that the optimal solution will likely be different for each business and/or site, but in general you should begin by controlling the pages on which the UGC will display, as well as the primary pages within your remit that link directly to them. And remember, your target market may be more tech savvy than you think and ready and willing to start engaging more actively, especially if you have a large loyal return base.

(this is BIG because this is both a really big pain point and a really big stumbling block; funny yet just a smidge tragic if you like)

A common example that comes to mind when thinking about a business and the ways users provide feedback about an online offering are ‘Customer Reviews’. These reviews are enormously important in that they have proven to be the primary medium used to facilitate the transition of the traditionally powerful word-of-mouth referral system from offline to online. The question remains: How best can you make use of the power of reviews on your site?

For product reviews and commentary, there are two main approaches to enable UGC integration on product pages (the most relevant place to put them). One; it is possible to list a few reviews on the page with a link to a full review/feedback page; or, two you could simply include a hyperlink on the product page linking to the reviews. If you choose the former, ensure feedback is provided by registered purchasers if you sell online, or via registration or captcha requirements for non-purchasers.

The next step would be to ensure that you optimize the review pages themselves. Conduct keyword research on the product or brand, targeting words of negative and positive association. For example; this is one way to encompass the issues (in summary):

Scenario: I conducted some preliminary keyword research on iPhone looking at very generic research phrases like ’good iphone’, ‘bad iphone’ [sounds like a puppy in training] ‘great iphone’ and ‘iphone fail’. It generated a number of insights; we’ll look at three (please note, these findings are drawn from an external keyword research tool, and do not reflect the opinion of the magazine, nor those of the author of this article, regarding the iPhone’s ability or lack thereof to send emails, to deal with mobile messaging, or to work ‘overseas’):

1. A common question: ‘is the iPhone good overseas?’
2. Some people are concerned about iPhone email failing
3. iPhones are ‘good’ with mobile messaging

 How might you deal with this information?

1. Create one optimized page for each issue,
2. Link to each page from a hub area on the primary product page.
3. Generate external buzz and links to these pages by monitoring online conversation around the primary topic and answering and linking back using nofollows where warranted.

There are, of course numerous other strategies you can utilize to optimize your UGC including:

· Use featured reviews, where you place the reviews that receive the most ‘votes’ in a defined top area nearer to the fold included by date and possibly subtly. Never place your most positive reviews at the top and your negative reviews at the bottom; users may become wary of manipulation. If you’re getting a lot of bad reviews, think about your offering or the associated service, investigate and rectify. It’s great for R&D, for in-house cleaning and for in-house acknowledgement when individual people get named as ‘stars’!

· Inviting ‘opt-in email’ purchasers to review with a non-monetary incentive to do so

· Ensuring that ‘cleared’ reviews go live immediately. Frequent updating is important to rankings due to the fact that fresh content encourages more ‘frequent’ crawling by the ranking algorithms. Frequent caching has been found to impact positively on search results. Use webmaster tools if you don’t already.

· Minimizing bounce rates; those who surf to a review page are usually more qualified than those who bounced or left somewhere in their visit without clicking to the review page. They have already moved along the pathway in their quest to find a product to satisfy their need or want. Time spent on site is usually greater with reviews than other types of content, and conversion rates are higher than those who only visit the product page.

Consumers want to know what’s great about a product. If positive reviews include objective emotional feedback, the review can ‘speak’ to potential consumers who are looking for the same kind of experience. For example, a book review written by a mother highlighting the positive emotional bonding she experienced sharing the book with her teenager will be a sure hit for many moms trying to connect with their teenage daughters. 68% of consumers trust ‘people like me’ first for product advice. (Edelman Trust Barometer).

Dealing with Questions

· FAQs are an area that can be enhanced by UGC to make your site more usable and more valuable to visitors. Enabling an advanced UGC based FAQ hub can not only provide a more satisfying user experience while facilitating R&D via disclosure, it may also facilitate actual transactions due to easy question-response detection and direction, and decrease product returns. Also, include post sales service UGC as a primary link off the main product page.

· Live Q&A with a tech support member dedicated to all FAQ and other support issues should be enabled, with the option to allow the question and to be published online, incognito, or with some or full disclosure at the users discretion. If you service multiple time-zones, ensure you have staff to deal with the potential service requirement.

Negative vs. Positive Feedback

Don’t silo negative and positive feedback into separate areas. Negative feedback must be included with positive. In most cases, the majority of feedback will be positive, unless it is a really bad product or service in which case you withdraw it from the market, but keep the reviews live as Amazon did with the apparently diabolical HotWheels Slimecano;

· ‘My six year old son bought this with his own money and has already offered to give it away,’ and

· ‘ATTN: Do not buy this toy, even if it is on sale for 5 cents…’ are two relatively mild reviews.

Despite being discontinued, Amazon retains product information along with the more than 170 reviews which most certainly contributed to the Slimecano’s withdrawal from the shelves and halted production.

Bear in mind that negative consumer feedback provides authenticity and an opening for brand evangelists to offer alternative solutions; such as other consumers mentioning to potential iPhone customers that, even though the surface scratches easily, you can simply buy a case – thus providing great feedback for R&D and rebuttal.

This is Part 2 of a three part series on UGC. If you’d like to read part 1, it’s here UGC – Maximize Your Online Exposure with People Power!

Follow Laura on Twitter!

Online UGC is something that has been growing in incidence and importance over the last few years, but it’s only recently that search marketing practitioners have seriously begun to consider the impact of UGC on SEO, and actively tried to harness its power to boost search engine rankings, exposure and enhance site usability. The growing importance of UGC can be seen in the following data:

1. Consumers are relying more on UGC

• 83% of shoppers said online product evaluations and reviews had some level of influence on their purchasing decisions. (Opinion Research Corporation, July 2008)
• As of October 2008, almost half of US online adults read ratings and reviews at least once a month (Forrester)

2. Marketers are relying more on UGC

• In a BazaarVoice Case Study of a major electronics retailer site search visitors landing on user review pages converted 60% more often, spent 50% more time, and viewed 82% more pages than search visitors to other pages.
• The Shop.org State of Retailing Online study, conducted by Forrester Research, found only 26% of the 137 top retailers surveyed offered customer ratings and reviews, but 96% of them ranked customer ratings and reviews as an effective or very effective tactic at driving conversion.

3. Offline sales are influenced by UGC

• According to eMarketer (a 2007 study), for every $1 in online sales, the Internet influenced $3.45 of store sales.
• More than 75% of review users in nearly every category reported that the review had a significant influence on their purchase, with hotels ranking the highest (87%). (comScore/The Kelsey Group, October 2007)

From a purely SEO point of view, a telling statistic is that 26% of search results link to user generated content (Nielsen Buzz Metrics). The fact that users are increasingly turning to UGC is compounded by evidence that the engines are displaying this information. It is vital that online marketers actively and proactively investigate and integrate user generated content into their online mix.

If you think your site might be ready to benefit from UGC (and almost any site can), then its time to consider how UGC can best fit your online offering. You need to determine which of the multitude types of UGC will most effectively and efficiently complement, supplement and/or push your online SEO initiative including:

· product reviews (e.g. Amazon.com)

· service reviews (e.g. Google Local),

· seller reviews (e.g. eBay),

· blog comments,

· news comments,

· forum posts or comments,

· video/audio and photo sharing sites (e.g. YouTube and Flickr),

· social networking sites comments or posts (e.g. Twitter, SecondLife, Facebook, MySpace),

· wikis and composite review sites (e.g. ConsumerReport.org)

Targeting for Acquisition

Once you have determined where and what UGC you wish to employ, it is vital that optimization be applied to reap the full benefit.

Optimization can take many forms; UGC help you rank higher in search engines, particularly through manipulation of the long tail according to a recent Search Engine Land post. There is also the fact that effective navigation and internal linking based on a UGC acquisition and inclusion initiative will make your UGC both more visible on your site and more useful (or applicable) to visitors. The two are not mutually exclusive, and working together they can increase your visibility in the SERPs and rocket your conversion rate and ROI.

What is important is that you don’t mess with the actual UGC itself. In other words you target optimization efforts at the review page’s URL, Title, META description and header. Then let the UGC flow freely, within reason.

User generated content – it’s all about YOU!

I only made it to the Bat Cruise (awesome, live music, cruising on Lady Bird Lake, great people) and then to the incredible Salt Lick thingey-do. Picture beer-donkeys, chicken s**t bingo, mechanical bull riding, live western band, great Tex-Mex and fantastic hosts, great people… and you can’t do it justice.

I wanted to put a summary of my key learning’s down for everyone, and hopefully show you how much you all missed and how much you really should try to go to next years.

First, if you didn’t see their see zany intro on ‘The Forbidden Zone: Missing Influentials’ I highly recommend it (+/- 5 minutes excluding outtakes).

CONTAGIOUS MEDIA

This is basically the media you apply to any viral strategy you employ online via the socnets, or aimed at the social network market.

It works best when targeted at personality types (I particularly liked the “mullet” definition applied to personality – work in the front, party in the back!). The idea is to split your target market within a social network by personality type and target those personality needs and wants via different approaches.

The Huffington Post co-founder Jonah Peretti explained how they apply real time metrics and template movement facilitation to their editors to move popular topics up the page, less popular topics down the page, and offer front page real time involvement based on user interaction. In the background they have links to popular socnet conversations, sites, topics and offer great web-wide interaction for all readers. A measure of their enormous success is in their growth, and in Jonah’s incredible entrepreneurial ability and foresight regarding socnet interest including the Nike Sweatshop initiative featured on NBC.

Apart from targeting personality types, it also works best when the expectations are set to those types regarding rewards for involvement: for some folks it is reward enough to be part of a community – for them pure collaboration is the name of the game. Others want something tangible; so you can think contests, rewards, sweepstakes etc… it is well worth exploring your social network targets, defining your markets and then nailing your personality types and developing your engagement strategy based on those learnings as well as your objectives. If you want pure collaboration, that market is approached differently to a market that you may want to engage to encourage pure viral spread in the form of open sweepstakes.

YOUR INFLUENTIALS

A big take-away for me was the fact that it is possible to identify your major influentials; your multipliers. In the case of the speakers on this topic, affluent middle-aged women were their target multipliers. How to target them? Well, I’m not going to spoil next years conference for you, but apply basic target marketing based on demographic strongly salted with socnet requirements, and peppered with the online bus objective for your initiative.

Another big take-away was that supporting evangelists and dealing with detractors is not the be-all and end-all of your approach. What you really need to be doing is turning your neutrals into fans, and then your fans into ambassadors.

Determine what these folks want, apply an open stealth campaign to integrate and engage them, push the engagement into collaboration via a securely defendable social media plan, and make tactical refinements based on learnings.

1. social media is not that new that there are not a lot of very strong, very savvy players
2. social media is still new enough that even the biggest folks are learning and make mistakes.

If you make a mess of something, own up straight away, apologise and offer an alternative. If something works, give kudos to your socnet members and participators; especially your multipliers.

WHAT ABOUT THE ENGINES?

Another take-away was to make use of the SERPs as a playground for social media target research. Pick some phrases you would like to be associated with, and some you do not want to be associated with… this is very different to traditional keyword research as it is based on wording and commentary you will have picked up in the socnets via reputation management tools (like Radian6).

Check out what Google listings are for those top 10-20 positive and negative terms and proactively target those terms in the social networks, including online PR.

CONCLUSION

This is a small sample of stuff from only 3 sessions I attended (and takes up 3 slides of my 17 slide feedback ppt presentation). Obviously as my employer (Intuit) paid for me to go, my learnings in toto will be applied to our offerings, and I can only strongly encourage anyone who reads this blog to attend next years BazaarVoice Social Summit. It’s interesting and groundbreaking, and the insights are all easily applied and implementable – if you have a progressive management team willing to let you play in the Social space. Read more about how you can encourage your management to do just that!

BAZAARVOICE MENTION

Customer reviews are the way to go regarding UGC integration from a marketing insights and R&D learning platform direction at the very least. Quite simply, these guys rock.

Thanks for reading. Follow me on Twitter and let’s see what we can continue to do together to make social networks a legitimate point of customer collaboration, communication and learning, not just for marketing, but for R&D… better products and better services will make for a greater global competitive advantage for our businesses… we need that, and we can do it, together!

Disclaimer: nothing I say here may or should be attached to any employer, current or previous. This is my personal blog. The views expressed on this page are mine alone and not those of my employer.

Before I go off on a slightly different tangent, entirely prompted by my reading of Steven’s thought’s, I highly recommend reading the post that started me thinking, the comments alone are enormously interesting. The primary point here will deal with one element Steven commented back at me regarding corporations and their potentially inherent ‘fear’ of social media, and I’ll answer with what I believe they can do to embrace social media – effectively.

Of course my ideas are not everyone’s cup of tea. I’ll simply start with saying that a company, or brand, needs to be somewhat proactive, and somewhat non-anally retentive (there just is no nice way of saying that) in the legal and ‘messaging control’ department if they even hope to attempt a successful foray into the socnet space in the first place.

Biggest Fear #1

“You want to WHAT? Over my bloody dead body. Do you think for one moment legal or branding will let you message at random on the internet? Do you not know about our PR requirements regarding disclosure, our editorial requirements our….*sputter**hiccough**burp**wheeze*….”

Yeah I know, over-dramatization, but you get it… and come to think of it, I actually do know of a few folks in rather big brands who would – literally - nearly have a heart-attack at the thought of engaging openly, irregularly and in an non-brand-dictated fashion online - and dare I say - it in a live PUBLIC arena. Oh, the horror…

Solution, Its actually not at all hard…

The decision makers need to understand a few salient points:

1. Social networks are not subject to disclosure regulations.
2. If anyone in a social network sees you using the words ‘aptitude’, ‘due diligence’, ‘decree’ or sees you using poncy typically non-social terminology in your (all of 140 characters) tweets for example, they are likely to not follow you, unfollow you, take the piss, or ignore you.
3. It’s social; define ‘Social’: composed of sociable people or formed for the purpose of sociabilitymarked by friendly companionship with others [wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn]
4. it’s a ‘network’; define ‘Network‘: [to] communicate with and within a group [wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn]
5. Let’s take points 3 and 4 and define ‘Social Network’:

A web of interconnected people who directly or indirectly interact with or influence the student and family. May include but is not limited to family, teachers and other school staff, friends, neighbors, community contacts, and professional support. [http://rrtcpbs.fmhi.usf.edu/rrtcpbsweb/glossary.htm#Shttp://rrtcpbs.fmhi.usf.edu/rrtcpbsweb/glossary.htm#S]

    5.  It’s ’online’; define ‘Online Social Network’:
…actually, there was no definition according to my search on Google for “define:..”, and so I asked some folks on Twitter for their thoughts. A simple, insightful and unbiased answer was simply this from @cyandle:

• A community where you can engage with others online…

Actually, in a nutshell, that is exactly what it is; a means of getting and maintaining the attention of others online by:

• interacting with them, 
•  responding to them,
• answering them,
• collaborating with them

… engaging them; but within the boundaries of what is considered to be socially acceptable, if not in the real world, then in the very real online social world where the rules may be unwritten, but they are very clear, and woe to the faint-hearted or ignorant. Yes, I’m talking to you Mr. Company.

 Can you apply these points to interacting on the social networks as a brand or corporation? YES! In 6 clear ways:

1.  Be transparent. Transparency is good, but not overtly so. Posting comments about or sending people to disclaimers and terms and conditions or privacy policies is not what it’s about.

2.  Be open to negative comments and feedback, and deal with it in a friendly, open manner. If it carries on to the point where it is affecting your profile – just stop communicating with the individual and escalate it to PR or support. You can do that in the social networks. People don’t expect anyone to be online 24 hours a day, not even a big brand due to the inherent nature of ‘sociability’. The people being social on the part of your brand are not supposed to be legal experts, they’re supposed to be real people. They may even have an account that is their own, and not a pure brand profile like @TTaxChristine.

3.  It is possible to communicate with your client base or target market as a brand profile in an open way that does not detract from your brand, breeds humor and awareness, and integrates you into the community.

4.  Forget disclosure rules and editorial limitations and realize that this is a live environment. You don’t have time to check with legal, run to brand messaging, or wait for a deploy date to get an answer out to a confused socnet member, nor to anticipate that PR control will pick up on every negative mention of the brand, or be able to thank evangelists as they mention the brand. Social networks are a powerful tool that allow you to do just that, if you give your social team the flexibility to do so, in real time.

5.  The surprise and often frank thanks of socnet members when you do reply to them in a timely manner is in many cases exceptionally rewarding. Even if they had a negative comment, the fact that the brand took the time to check, apologize, rectify or promise a rectification or pass-on to a department who will get back to them is enormously empowering for the individual, and gives them a more favorable impression of the brand than they had when they made their comment in the first place. If your company is one that never admits failure online or in public, I need to warn you that if it is real, and you don’t admit it, especially to a detractor that has raised a point, and offer a solution or apology, they are likely to have a far more negative influence on your brand than if you do, especially if they have a large following, or are popular in their selected network.

• My 6th and final point on this topic is this; no individual, group or brand can control what is said of them online in the social networks. They cannot answer every detractor, nor build loyalty by answering every evangelist or supporter in a press release.

Thoughts for big brands to take-away…

 Give up some control corporates:

·     Hire social folks

·     Set some ground rules (no swearing, no personal brand detraction, no overt promotion of competition etc)

·     Develop some processes (which networks, when and where; where and who to escalate to for highs and lows) and let them do their thing.

·     Get a decent social network monitoring tool, just as I assume you have a reputation management tool already, even if it is just Google Alerts (check our Radian6, TruCast and TrackUR for starters).

If you let go a bit, you’ll find that the social networks will become a good place for you to interact, get feedback and most importantly collaborate with and gain trust from your core group of followers, and you will find that – if you play right – that group will grow, along with your profits.

Follow Laura on Twitter

What is Consumer Generated Content?

It is content that users (or consumers) write and submit online and can be:

·         Product reviews (e.g. Amazon.com)

·         Service reviews (e.g. Google Local)

·         Seller reviews (e.g. ebay)

·         Blog comments

·         News comments

·         Forum posts or comments

·         Video/Audio and Photo sharing sites (e.g. YouTube and Flickr)

·         Social networking sites comments or posts (e.g. Twitter, SecondLife, Facebook, MySpace)

·         Wikis

·         Composite review sites (e.g. ConsumerReport.org)

Is Consumer Generated Content (CGC) Really Such A Big Deal?

The data is two-sided; and both sides of the coin – Consumers and Marketers – answer with a resounding ‘Yes!’:

1. Consumers are relying more and more on UGC:

·         According to Rubicon, ‘online comments and reviews posted by the enthusiasts are second only to word of mouth as a purchase driver for all web users. Those personal reviews are far more influential than official reviews posted by a website or magazine, or information posted online by a manufacturer.’

·         The Rubicon data also indicates that around 80% of all UGC is contributed by around 9% of the US online population. This 9% is in the majority impartial, honest and equally likely to post both negative and positive comments or opinions. In some cases, such as on Amazon, the reviews themselves are open to voting:

·         As of October 2008, almost half of US online adults read ratings and reviews at least once a month, and 19% post them. Nearly twice as many read reviews compared with 2007. (The Growth Of Social Technology Adoption, Forrester, 2008)*

·         Satisfaction for those who recalled customer reviews on the retailers’ site is 10% higher than those who said there were no reviews offered. (30 UK Online Retail Satisfaction Index, January 2008, ForeSee Results)*

·         83% of shoppers said online product evaluations and reviews had at least some level of influence on their purchasing decisions. (Opinion Research Corporation, an infoGROUP company, July 2008)*

·         74% agree—including 14% who strongly agree—that they choose companies and brands based on what others say online about their customer service experiences, the survey shows. (Society for New Communications Research, May 2008)*

·         70% of online consumers said they use the Internet to research everyday grocery products. (Prospectiv, 2008)*

·         91% of millionaires say they always or often look at reviews before buying luxury goods; 68% of ultra-affluent shoppers use consumer reviews. (Unity Marketing/Google study, reported in AdAge October 2008)*

2. Marketers are relying more and more on UGC:

·         The Shop.org State of Retailing Online study, conducted by Forrester Research, found only 26% of the 137 top retailers surveyed offered customer ratings and reviews, but 96% of them ranked customer ratings and reviews as an effective or very effective tactic at driving conversion. (Forrester)*

·         68% of online marketers believe “media is in big trouble and will lose dollars to user-generated content.” (iMedia Connection, February 2008)*

·         By 2020, 84% of marketers agree that building customer trust will become marketing’s primary objective, and 82% agree that collaboration with customers will prevail over marketing. (1to1 Media survey of the 1to1 Xchange panel, April, 2008)*

·         11% of retailers reported a 20% or more overall increase in conversions as a result of adding reviews to their sites, 21% reported an 11% to 20% increase and 5% reported a 1% to 10% increase. (eTailing Group, 2008)*

·         Consumers were willing to pay between 20 to 99% more for a 5-star rated product than for a 4-star rated product, depending on the product category. (comScore/Kelsey, October 2007)*

·         Reviews usage drives higher spending: 27% of users report an increase of 5-10%; almost 7% report an increase of 20%+. (Avenue A/Razorfish “Digital Consumer Behavior Study,” October 2007) *

·         In a study of a major electronics retailer site of 30,000 search visitors landing on user review  pages converted 60% more often, spent 50% more, and viewed 82% more pages than search visitors to other pages. (Bazaarvoice case study with major electronics retailer)*

Case Study: PETCO (2007)*:

• Shoppers who browsed the site’s “Top Rated Products” page, which features products rated most highly by customers, had a 49% higher conversion rate than the site average.
• Giving shoppers the ability to sort products within a category by customer rating led to a sales increase of 41% per unique visitor.
• After their order, PETCO asked customers, “What online tool most influenced your purchase decision?“ The Number 1 answer was product ratings and reviews, with site search coming in a distant second.
• PETCO realized a 5X increase in email click-through rates by including relevant ratings and reviews content in the campaign promotion.
• Products with reviews have a 17% lower return rate than those without reviews.

…But, the impact of UGC doesn’t stop there…

UGC Influences Offline Commerce

·         For every $1 in online sales, the Internet influenced $3.45 of store sales. (eMarketer, 2007)

·         24% of internet users reported using online reviews prior to paying for a service delivered offline. (comScore/The Kelsey Group, October 2007)

·         More than 75% of review users in nearly every category reported that the review had a significant influence on their purchase, with hotels ranking the highest (87%). (comScore/The Kelsey Group, October 2007)

·         97% of those surveyed who said they made a purchase based on an online review said they found the review to have been accurate. (comScore/The Kelsey Group, October 2007)

·         Consumers who shop online for digital cameras and TVs spend 10% more on in-store purchases than consumers who do not search online. (ChannelForce for Yahoo Search Marketing)

·         90% of those surveyed say they have a better overall shopping experience when they research products online before shopping in-store. (Harris Interactive, October 2007)

“But What About Negative UGC?”

If people are researching a product online, they are looking for what might be wrong with it. If you can be transparent on your own site about your product or service by offering reviews, then you can be sure that both positive and negative feedback (if warranted) will be included.**

1. Negative Reviews are actually of interest:

Based on the fact that folks are likely to continue searching if there is nothing negative about a product, just to make sure, especially with electronics or high-end purchases, if you don’t offer a transparent insight into your offering on your own site, by people who have actually bought from you, these researchers are very likely to go elsewhere to keep researching.**

·         “As for the product(s) with negative reviews … my experience is that negative reviews do not hurt a product as long as there are also positive reviews associated with it.”  - Don Zeidler, Director, Burpee.com**

2. Negative reviews provide helpful feedback to consumers and R&D:

·         “For example, what’s one of the best selling products so far this decade? The Apple iPod. It gets a ton of positive reviews, but one negative comment you’ll see over and over again is that the surface of the iPod scratches easily. Customers say things that the retailer and Apple can’t say: “When you buy this, get a case”. Obviously this is not stopping customers from buying the iPod, but this constructive advice is getting them to buy a case.” – Sam Decker, VP Marketing, BazaarVoice

3. Negative Reviews provide authenticity:

Why would a well known, enormously powerful and successful online retailer continue selling a product that had far more negative reviews than positive? Should they? Yes!

·         Case Study**:

·         Product: Hot Wheels Slimecano

·         Reseller: Amazon.com

·         Some Review Titles:

o        “Junk, not worth any price”         

o        “I wish I could give it zero stars”

o        “If you want your son to cry, buy this toy!”

o        “If you want your husband to cry, buy this toy!”

·         Reseller Objective:

If the retailer’s mission is to be a trusted editor of its assortment, then products with overwhelmingly negative reviews will prune the assortment quickly for the best products. But the reseller needs to continue selling the product as an ‘objective provider’ and let the market forces, or in this case, parental voices, have their impact. After a year and half, Amazon stopped selling the toy, but kept the reviews, the image and the page… Good Job!

4. Positive Reviews Outweigh Negatives:

·         62 percent of brand-related talk features products in a positive light, while less than 10% of conversations feature products negatively. (KellerFay Group)

·         60 percent of online shoppers provide feedback about shopping experiences, and they are more likely to give feedback about a positive experience than a negative one.  (Jupiter)

Conclusion

If you sell products and services, and if you have a web site, make sure you allow for reviews. If your products are great to mediocre, you should get far more positive than negative feedback, and a resultant positive impact on sales and revenue.

If you sell a crappy product – in the words of Sam Decker:

1.  Without reviews, you keep selling the product and risk costly returns and low customer satisfaction

2.  With reviews, you can use the leading indicator of negative reviews and quickly remove this product from inventory to reduce returns and improve satisfaction

3.  Or, just allow the negative reviews to steer customers to a more satisfying purchase within the category. Let the best products win, and you will win.

Therefore, make sure you enable and allow feedback, optimize your review pages, and get traction for them in the search results by supporting brand evangelists, and answering detractor issues promptly and diplomatically.

Happy UGC integration!!!

* BazaarVoice

** iMediaConnection

Please take our 4 quick surveys for SEM Pros everywhere!

Before I jump into my main article about your Knol profile, I do want to point one thing out: I noticed that Danny Sulivan created an article about “Firefox plugins for SEO and SEM“. If you follow this link to the Google SERPs, you’ll notice just how good his article is doing.

Onto the main event:

You can go to Sphinn and do a search for Knol to get all sorts of opinion and information. What I want to focus on is the act of creating your Knol profile and how it ranks.

For this article I have created and updated my knol profile with a limited amount of information, but several keywords based around what I do.

Click the image to see it in greater detail, but note:

• The URL of the page. This comes from searching my name and clicking on a result. For you lazy people, this is the URL: http://knol.google.com/k/michael-tighe/michael-tighe/
• The information I filled out has not (yet) gone into great detail, but I’ve submitted my photo, written a summary with specific keywords, and given myself a title.

As I have just done this, my profile probably won’t get picked up by the bots for a few days, but lets try a quick internal search. Lets try, for example, the term ‘SEO’.

You will notice that my profile now appears – granted not many people have updated their profile. This seems like a pretty good reason to do it though. *NOTE: I just noticed when I logout that you don’t get the same search results. This is either due to my not being verified (I can’t as I live in Canada), or it takes a few days to become public.

Lets try something harder

Lets see how someones profile might rank. For the purposes of this experiment, lets use todays feature author “Richard Kraig“. Doing a simple Google search for ‘Richard Kraig’ here is our results:

Third on the list, not to shabby for a published neurologist and neuroscientist.

Conclusion: Knol profiles can pack a punch on the SERPS and can help promote you within Knol.