Filed under: Affinity Groups, Altruism, Authenticity, Blog Messaging, Blogger Influence, Book Reviews, Brand, Brand Advocacy, Brand Ambassador, Brand Intelligence, Brand Promotion, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Branding, Branding Online, Business Intelligence, Buzz Marketing, CRM, Consumer Generated Media, Conversation, Conversation Marketing, Customer Ratings, Customer Reviews, Customer Service, Customer Supprt, Guerilla Marketing, Honesty, Influencer Identification, Influencers, Influencial Bloggers, Influential Brand Advocates, Influentials, Integrity, Internet Culture, Managing Conversation, Market Research, Marketing Conversation, Markets are Conversations, Media Virus, Memetics, Messaging Online, New Media, Online Advocacy, Online Brand Reputation, Online Communities, Online Community Outreach, Online Conversation, Online Engagement, Online Evangelism, Online Messaging, Online Monitoring, Online Outreach, Online Participation, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Reviewers, Online Reviews, Online Virtual Communities, Reputation Management, Social Intelligence, Social Meda, Social Networking, Viral Marketing, Viral Media, Viral Propagation, Word-of-Mouth, Word-of-Mouth Marketing

The culture of participatory social media is having some surprisingly significant effects on both the way satisfied customers play a role in contributing to the marketing message development of products and services. And it is also playing an increasingly important role in defining the key touchpoints that customers use in the deciding factors one what to purchase. What makes this all the more noteworthy is that much of this is rooted in offline purchases. I’m putting this together from two recent studies…

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1 Comment » Posted on December 2nd, 2007 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Abraham Harrison LLC, Advertisements, Behavioral Targeting, Blowback, Brand Promotion, CRM, Controversial Marketing, Corporate Intelligence, Corporate Partnering, Corporate Responsibility, Cult of Personality, Facebook, Facebook Apps, Guerilla Marketing, Internet Culture, Internet Strategy, Legal Issues, Managing Conversation, Marketing, Marketing Conversation, Marketing Strategy, Markets are Conversations, Messaging Online, New Media, New Media Marketing, New Media Strategy, Online Brand Promotion, Online Communities, Online Community Outreach, Online Conversation, Online Engagement, Online Evangelism, Online Marketing, Online Messaging, Online Participation, Online Privacy, Online Strategy, Privacy, Social Meda, Usurp Marketing, Web 2.0, Web Ads, Web Advertising, Web Applications, Web Apps, Web Strategy

I keep on trying to legitimize the reasons that Facebook is using to justify their new marketing program, “Facebook Beacon”. But it’s just not happening. It keeps on coming back to user relationships, user privacy, and user benefit. You know, the USER.

If you’re not sure what Beacon is, it’s basically this. Facebook is setting up agreements with online retailers that aren’t part of Facebook to have the retailer directly send information of what people buy on the retailer site to their “friends” on Facebook. The user is first supposed to see a notice on the retail site for which they need to give the thumbs down if they object. So the system is supposed to be opt out. But there’s been some circumstances where the information is just automatically sent without approval or even notification of the buyer. That means the next time you buy a book from Amazon or an item from Overstock.com, the retailer could end up letting your friends know what you bought unless you explicitly stop it.

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17 Comments » Posted on November 24th, 2007 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Advertisements, Advertising, Affinity Groups, Affinity Sites, Birds of a Feather, Blog Strategy, Brand Advocacy, Brand Promotion, Branding, Branding Online, Buzz Marketing, Consumer Generated Media, Conversation, Conversation Marketing, Digital Marketing, Facebook, Facebook Apps, Guerilla Marketing, Hearts and Minds, Influencer Identification, Influencers, Influential Brand Advocates, Influentials, Managing Conversation, Marketing, Marketing Blogs, Marketing Conversation, Marketing Industry, Marketing Strategy, Markets are Conversations, MySpace, New Marketing, New Media, New Media Marketing, New Media Strategy, Online Advertising, Online Applications, Online Brand Promotion, Online Branding, Online Communities, Online Community Outreach, Online Conversation, Online Engagement, Online Entertainment, Online Evangelism, Online Influence, Online Marketing, Online Media, Online Messaging, Online Outreach, Online Participation, Online Strategy, Popular Culture, Promotional Blog, Social Meda, Social Networking, Social Networks, Sponsored Blog, Sponsored Blogging, Viral Media, Viral Propagation, Virtual Communities, Web 2.0, Web Advertising, Web Strategy, Widgets and Gadgets, Word-of-Mouth, Word-of-Mouth Marketing

The November 8th edition of The Economist has an article that asks us “Will Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites transform advertising?”

In truth, the article is poorly written. It asks the wrong question, it’s lazily researched, and it provides little actual theory or empirical evidence to justify the premise they are trying to suppose. Perhaps the reason for this is that The Economist is a general news publication – one that I respect – and that the article was intended for a mainstream readership that’s likely mostly interested in reading about general trends and not deeper analysis. But nevertheless…

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No Comments » Posted on November 11th, 2007 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Authenticity, Blog Counter-Messaging, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Brand Intelligence, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, CRM, Chris Abraham, Competitive Intelligence, Consumer Generated Media, Controversial Marketing, Conversation Audit, Conversation Marketing, Corporate Blogging, Corporate Intelligence, Corporate Responsibility, Crisis Management, Customer Ratings, Customer Reviews, Customer Service, Customer Supprt, Google Reader, Hate Speech, Honesty, How to Blog, Managing Conversation, Markets are Conversations, Media Virus, Online Attack, Online Community Outreach, Online Crisis Management, Online Engagement, Online Evangelism, Online Influence, Online Intelligence, Online Messaging, Online Outreach, Online Participation, Online Public Relations, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Reviewers, Online Reviews, Online Strategy, Reputation Management, Reputation Rehabilitation, SEM, SEM and SEO, SEO, SEO and SEM, SERM, Transparency, Web Strategy, Word-of-Mouth

Here’s an amazing statistic:  a full 57% of marketing executives recently responded with the following answer to the question if their firm has a crisis response communication plan:  NO.  What makes it more amazing is that in the same survey, 53% said that their business had experienced a crisis in the past…one that resulted in a loss in sales, a reduction in profits, or negative press.  A majority of that 53% say that the recovery period took a year a more.  Only one-half have trained spokespeople.  And it shouldn’t go unnoticed that there’s an overlap of 4% here of companies that have suffered a crisis in the recent past but have yet to install a plan to address future crises.

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1 Comment » Posted on October 14th, 2007 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Activating Bloggers, Advertising, Blog Strategy, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogger Relations, Blogging, Brand, Brand Advocacy, Brand Ambassador, Brand Intelligence, Brand Promotion, Branding, Branding Online, Conversation Marketing, Digital Marketing, Guerilla Marketing, Influencer Identification, Influencers, Influencial Bloggers, Influential Brand Advocates, Influentials, Internet Culture, Internet Strategy, Marketing, Marketing Conversation, Marketing Strategy, Markets are Conversations, New Media, New Media Marketing, New Media Strategy, Online Branding, Online Collaboration, Online Communities, Online Community Outreach, Online Marketing, Online Media, Online Messaging, Promotional Strategy, Social Meda, Strategic Consulting, Viral Marketing, Web 2.0, Web Advertising, Word-of-Mouth, YouTube Marketing

Kelly Mooney has a great piece in AdAge, For Relevance, Think Three Way, in which she talks about the concept of ‘triangulation’ involving the brand, the customer, and the community and that all three need to embrace one another. She also blogs at MooneyThinks.

She’s quite right in that, for many of us, we’ve moved much of our media gathering experience online. Websites, blogs, social networks, forums are the areas that we discuss brands or experiences with brands or our impressions of brands.

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1 Comment » Posted on October 9th, 2007 by Jonathan Trenn

Filed under: Abraham Harrison, Abraham Harrison LLC, Astroturfing, Authenticity, Black Hat Marketing, Black Hat PR, Blog Counter-Messaging, Blog Messaging, Blogger Effect, Blogger Engagement, Blogger Influence, Blogger Outreach, Blogger Relations, Brand Advocacy, Brand Ambassador, Brand Promotion, Brand Protection, Brand Reputation, Branding, Branding Online, Citizen Generated Media, Citizen Journalism, Client Service, Cluetrain Manifesto, Conversation Audit, Conversation Marketing, Counter Messaging, Crisis Management, Customer Ratings, Customer Reviews, Customer Service, Customer Supprt, David Weinberger, Defensive SEO, Domain Name Registration, Domain Name Strategy, Domain Registration, Edelman, Flogging, Flogs, Google Gaming, Google PageRank, Google Search, Guerilla Marketing, Hate Speech, Honesty, Industry Reputation, Integrity, Internet Forensics, Internet Strategy, Managing Conversation, Marketing Conversation, Marketing Hubris, Marketing Industry, Marketing Language, Marketing Strategy, Markets are Conversations, Messaging Online, New Marketing, New Media, New Media Blogs, New Media Marketing, New Media Strategy, New PR, New Public Relations, Online Advocacy, Online Brand Promotion, Online Brand Protection, Online Brand Reputation, Online Branding, Online Communities, Online Community Outreach, Online Conversation, Online Crisis Management, Online Engagement, Online Evangelism, Online Influence, Online Marketing, Online Media, Online Messaging, Online Outreach, Online PR, Online Participation, Online Public Relations, Online Reputation, Online Reputation Management, Online Reviewers, Online Reviews, Online Strategy, Online Virtual Communities, Open Kimono, PageRank, Passion Chamber, Personal Brand, Pitching Bloggers, Professional Blogging, Promotional Blog, Promotional SEO, Promotional Strategy, Propaganda Warfare, Protective SEO, Public Relations, Public Relations Bloggers, Public Relations Blogs, Public Relations Industry, Publicity Blog, Publicity Blogging, Relationship Marketing, Reputation Management, Reputation Rehabilitation, SEM and SEO, SEO, SERM, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Reputation Management, Search Engine Strategy, Search Engines, Search Reputation Management, Strategic Consulting, Viral Marketing, Viral Media, Viral Propagation,