How to improve the quality of content on Facebook

A quality strategy for Facebook (Mr. Zuckerberg get in touch, will happily set some time to have a chat).

I am sure we all have realised that there is so much 'useless' content/trash/jibberjabber on Facebook (not pointing any fingers, but I really do not wish to know of how some of you folk like to spend every other minute of your day - I grunt at you!), not only does it consume a ridiculous amount of data but also more personally fills a precious and very limited storage device, my brain. (another AI research idea for Facebook - decipher what is useful content and what is not, and de-prioritise it to appear on a feed, seriously Mark on a bit of roll here son).  

So here is my formidable strategy - introduce a 'who viewed me' feature (obviously not borrowed from LinkedIn) because:

• stalking/trolling profiles will dramatically drop (as a result maybe even seeing a reduction in pedophilia, rape, murder, etc etc) 
• people will start to produce better quality content as they are conscious of that if they want more viewers to their profile, they need interesting and engaging content.
• this would actually be a good algorithm to add to the whose profiles are shown on feeds, as people with better content, will get more likes + profile views = they have EARNED the right to appear on people's news feeds (remembering my precious storage device..)
• a good way to rank content on your/bing search enginge, better content means higher ranking

I think those are some pretty darn good logical and more importantly sustainable reasons to at least do a bit of A/B trialing with! makes you go hmmm..?

What do you think?

If you think it is a good idea please comment :)

Future of Marketing: Measurement of Influence (not Impressions) through Conversations

Having handled a few client projects within marketing, it seems businesses are somewhat obsessed with analytics, more so the impressions they gain to their website. But they fail to realise  the greatest power in their digital marketing campaigns lies in the ability to convert an impression to a conversation and then to influence that engagement to a sale!

Customers Don't Want Ads, They Want A Conversation
BY BRANDON EVANS  | MARCH 25, 2013

Marketing is rapidly transforming into a dialogue between buyers and sellers or collaborative marketing. Crowdtap CEO Brandon Evans on the five trends driving the shift.

It is becoming clear that the future of social marketing, and marketing in general, will be built around collaboration. Social technology has already evolved from a focus on consumer listening to broader social management platforms that help brands build and communicate with their consumers. Now, the stage is set for social tech to begin creating real value for companies through deep collaboration with consumers.

Collaborative marketing will mean that marketers truly shift from marketing “at” consumers to marketing “with” consumers. We have reached a tipping point where a penalty will be paid by those companies who simply view social as a mass communication channel for blasting out messages to a mass audience.

Today, the companies that win are closest to those who buy, use, and advocate for their products. Five trends demonstrating a shift to collaborative marketing will create the biggest changes and ultimately offer the most significant rewards for marketers:

1. Democratized product development

New models and technologies continue to make it easier and quicker for upstart companies to create and market products. Brands must keep pace with the speed and crowdsourced brainpower this technology enables, including:

Funding: Crowdsourced funding platforms like Kickstarter and Indiegogo make it easy for anyone with a good idea to raise millions to build a product with little risk.

Distribution: Quirky democratizes invention to anyone with an idea, and Etsy provides a global marketplace for designers and artists to sell their goods.

Production: 3-D printers like Makerbot and Cubify look to revolutionize how prototypes and products are produced via their low-cost devices.

2. Close, continuous customer relationships

IBM’s Global CEO Study found that 88% of CEOs said “getting closer to customers” was the top priority for their business over the next five years. Brands that have a genuine, real-time dialogue with consumers will be well-positioned in a world of evolving and increasingly niche markets.

Krister Zackari, president of Gum and Candy at Mondelez International, has employed a strategy built around ongoing optimization for its Twist brand[/url] to ensure it offers teenagers exactly what they want from a snack brand. He states: "Because we’re working with teens on the strategy, we’re developing it as we go along. It means that we’ve had to change how we would normally go about planning the marketing for a brand. We don’t know what we’ll do next with Twist because we want to evolve naturally as a result of our work with teens.”

With this approach, it’s easy to see how Mondelez will keep pace with changing consumer tastes.

3. Open organizations

Businesses in the past succeeded with secrecy. Keeping technology, formulas, and processes under wraps often led to a competitive advantage. Today, competitive innovation stems from open information.

One recent example of a consumer crowdsourcing project is Coca Cola’s newly launched Facebook app that asks its 50 million fans to suggest ideas to make the world a happier place. The winning idea will be funded by Coca-Cola and launched in 2013.

4. Peer-powered media

Pushing out mass messages simply will not cut through the clutter in this age. One-third of all display ads that brands pay for are never shown, and 86% of people skip TV ads. Customers are simply too fragmented, too overstimulated and have too many distractions for these conventional marketing strategies to maintain their effectiveness.

Already, 80% of online content is consumer generated, and content will increasingly come from a customer’s peers. Today, friends are exposed to one another’s location, mood, music, likes, and more. Marketers need advocates talking about their products as people increasingly receive information about brands from their social connections.

5. Measurement of Influence not Impressions

Impressions provided a simple metric for a mass-marketed world. Success today, however, is not based solely on quantity; quality of the engagement with a message must be factored in as well. In order to measure the quality of any customer communication, Crowdtap developed the Brand Influence Metric, along with Joanna Seddon, the former CEO of Millward Brown Optimor.

Brand Influence looks at both quantity and quality of impressions. Marketers should look to implement a measurement system similar to the Brand Influence Formula in order to begin optimizing the quality of their communications in addition to reach and frequency.

What the future holds

Collaborative marketing will bring much greater change than enabling consumers to comment, like, or retweet posts. Collaborative marketing will mean that the current barriers between companies and their consumers will be removed. Successful brands will create and improve their products and messaging continually with their consumers. Likewise, consumers will influence and take co-ownership of their favorite brands.

The collaborative marketing future has arrived, and it’s going to be a fun ride.

--Brandon Evans is the CEO and founder of Crowdtap, an Influencer Marketing platform that enables brands to identify, activate, and manage their influential consumers.

[Image: Flickr user Sharon Drummond]

[Source:Fast Company]

25 Quotes that may inspire to make you a better Leader

25 Quotes that may inspire to make you a better Leader

Listening

1) "When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen." - Ernest Hemingway

2) "The most basic of all human needs is the need to understand and be understood. The best way to understand people is to listen to them." - Ralph Nichols

Storytelling

3) "Storytelling is the most powerful way to put ideas into the world today." -Robert McKee

4) "If you tell me, it’s an essay. If you show me, it’s a story." —Barbara Greene

Authenticity

5) "I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I've become. If I had, I'd have done it a lot earlier." -Oprah Winfrey

6) "Authenticity is the alignment of head, mouth, heart, and feet - thinking, saying, feeling, and doing the same thing - consistently. This builds trust, and followers love leaders they can trust." -Lance Secretan

Transparency

7) "As a small businessperson, you have no greater leverage than the truth." -John Whittier

8) "There is no persuasiveness more effectual than the transparency of a single heart, of a sincere life." -Joseph Berber Lightfoot 

Team Playing

9) "Individuals play the game, but teams beat the odds." -SEAL Team Saying

10) "Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much." - Helen Keller

Responsiveness

11) "Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it." -Charles Swindoll

12) '"Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning." - Bill Gates

Adaptability

13) "When you're finished changing, you're finished." -Ben Franklin

14) "It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." –Charles Darwin

Passion

15) "The only way to do great work is to love the work you do." -Steve Jobs

16) "I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." -Albert Einstein

Surprise and Delight

17) "A true leader always keeps an element of surprise up his sleeve, which others cannot grasp but which keeps his public excited and breathless." -Charles de Gaulle

18) “Surprise is the greatest gift which life can grant us.” - Boris Pasternak

Simplicity

19) "Less isn't more; just enough is more." -Milton Glaser

20) “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” -Leonardo daVinci

Gratefulness

21) "I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder." -Gilbert K Chesterton

22) "The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude." -Friedrich Nietzsche

Leadership

23) “Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.” — Peter F. Drucker

24) "If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." —John Quincy Adams

25) "Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other." —John F. Kennedy

Source: LinkedIn

'Social' Image - an accurate measure of an organisations culture?

Recently, I had an interview for a glorified customer services role with Hootsuite - a company which I had highly regarded and followed since it's birth. So when I got called for an online interview, I was very much delighted to say the least! Ensured that I had completed my homework well in advance as this was an opportunity not to miss!  Unfortunately, things did not really pan out very well and turned out to be probably the worst interview experience I have been through! (of the two dozen or so I have had). 

Cutting the experience short, there pretty much was no setting or tone of the interview and a very poor level of interaction with the interviewers; I had rushed back from client meetings from the other side of London half an hour before a 6pm start, when technology wants to fail it will - skype failed on my laptop, and hence the interview started a few minutes late (fortunately, had been saved by my Galaxy Note 2 - which meant sitting in an awkward position as so the folks on the other side could hear and see me!) The session commenced with an ad-hoc introduction of three people, of whom I could only just about see two, no structure or direction of how the interview was going to be run was given. More so, socially Hootsuite appear to be a fun and energetic place to be and pre-interview a similar tone was given, yet getting to the interview there was someone of a mixed unwelcoming 'please let this already be over' undertone! Seemingly, all of which left me a tad confused and nervous as I could not quite asses whether to go for a conversational or professional tone. All in all what should have been a standard, simple enough interview and which in all earnest I should have personally flown through, ended up in an embarrassing case of verbal diarrhea on my behalf! 

Expectantly, I had not been successful for the role - and to be honest I did not feel too bad about it.

However, this made me question the brand reputation of companies that came about in social media boom period. Hootsuite pretty much provide social health checks for corporations, so naturally one assumes they themselves have a pretty good social media strategy. Which raises the question, 'are organisations really as successful internally?' Being an individual who thrives on learning and delivering new projects, my gut in this instance was shouting out to me would I learn and gain the right skills and competencies to grow and become an expert in this field, would I have strong leadership to look up to with space to also lead my own teams, and is this a place I would enjoy working at...

On the plus side, I realised traditional dinosaur organisations (the consultancies) are probably the best places to better equip me with the right skills in order to grow and manage an organisations effectively. Consultancies  have a tradition of delivering professional and effective solutions with always the long term strategy in mind for their clients. I do wonder are Hootsuite a bit complacent with the service they provide? Did they only rise to 'fame' due to other socially driven organisations (Mashable/LinkedIn) giving them too much marketing appraisal, which as a result has forced them to really sit down and work on their offerings as now larger clients would actually require a quality service. But that said as initially assessed, I imagine Hootsuite are now experiencing an exciting growth phase as they have made their mark as social media experts.. 

On the contrary, what is stopping the progressive (dinosaur) IT consultancies from offering similar, (more professional/corporatish) social services? as most likely they already have a bulk of big clients whom they deliver technical solutions to already on a broader scale/strategy side of things...

It would be interesting to see employee satisfaction ratings of high growth start-ups, as I was not particularly convinced on the sustainability of the 'social' culture at Hootsuite. Generally, I think as long as companies are providing a quality service, with great attention to customer services throughout the whole life-cycle, a natural (non-social) media would be more effective means of growth. 

Still a big fan of Ryan Holmes and his humble journey to bringing Hootsuite to life, and will carry on recommending Hootsuite's offerings to some of my clients, and I do hope I am wrong and had just a one-off bad experience...