Paying It Forward - How Do You Build Community?

I was surprised by my co-workers yesterday with an office celebration for my birthday (which was technically Monday, but I worked from home that day to edit some videos and therefore wasn't in the office to receive cake, flowers and singing on my actual birthday).

Though I promise not to prolong my birthday too much longer by blogging about it repeatedly, when yesterday's offline surprise turned into tweets, Twitpics and Facebook posts, it made me want to blog about community and how companies go about building them.

This weekend, I blogged about how Anthropologie builds community by bringing customers into the Anthro lifestyle. Along similar lines, Catch Up Lady recently blogged about how Patagonia builds community for the eco-conscious outdoor enthusiast. I was also privileged enough to hear Kristian Bush from Sugarland talk about building community in a declining music industry through homegrown YouTube videos and authentic fan interactions. I think it's also safe to say that Apple has not only built a community, but a whole culture around its brand.

Weddings and WoM: 5 Wedding Planning Tips From a Soon to Be Bride

Ooh, this cake looks yummy! I'm thinking of getting a similar one myself (though it will be square).

Oh, right... I'm getting married for those who weren't already aware!

Though the wedding industry has seen a decline in the past year or so, word of mouth (WoM) marketing must be peaking. I can tell you this first hand - who else would you trust to help you plan one of the biggest events in your life other than your most trusted family and friends?

Well, perhaps a wedding planner, but not all of us have the funds to hire a professional! Plus, I like handling the details myself.

So, for those ladies and gents steeped in wedding blogs, DIY books and online wedding communities, here are my WoM recommendations for planning your special day. Please feel free to comment with additional tips and tricks as I'm still in the planning process, myself!

Building Authentic Customer Communities: American Express & Meetup

During the WOMMA Summit in Las Vegas last week, I attended a session with American Express OPEN to learn about their nation-wide Meetups geared toward bringing small business owners together to learn, share and grow.

With over 7 million registered users, American Express OPEN Forum is an online "trading post" bringing together small business owners to share advice, insights and ideas to facilitate the types of connections needed to re-energize the economy. Of course, the more small businesses grow, the better American Express fares, too.

Despite featuring content by Guy Kawasaki, Anita Campbell and Mashable, OPEN Forum wasn't seeing large adoption among its target audience, so American Express partnered with Meetup to provide 30 local small business Meetup groups across the country with curriculum and financial support to help them perform better in a down economy.

Oprah Online Community Strong

Oprah Winfrey has touched millions of women and families through her talk show, book club and magazine. It's no surprise she's built a strong online community as well. I don't tend to watch Oprah but caught the tail end of a show over Thanksgiving break. I was amazed to see how well she's translated her show online.

For example, Oprah explores Food online by featuring chef Cristina Ferrare. Food is a natural vertical for Oprah as she has been upfront about her various diets for almost forever. Visitors can access recipes, menus and videos of Cristina "cooking class" online. Check out turkey 101 here.

Oprah.com fans benefit from a wide variety of arts, culture, health, fitness, religious and psychology experts via Oprah & Friends Radio. Online podcasts are attached to each expert. You can listen to advice for home design on a budget here or hear Dr. Maya Angelou talk about women in country music here.

For those fans looking to connect with each other, you can join Oprah's online community to participate in message board discussions or register your blog. Currently, over 5,800 blogs are linked to Oprah's online community.

The site still has a long way to go – it doesn't seem quite as well mashed and video-oriented as the web site for the Rachael Ray show. Nevertheless, Oprah's online community is alive and strong. I'm sure it will only get better.

Redefine Christmas – Social Media Meets Charitable Giving

Charitable giving is no doubt a natural target for social media. I've blogged about this before with regards to the Obama campaign, the American Express Members Project, and the San Diego Zoo.

As budgets tighten this season, why not experiment with philanthropic presents? Of course, I can't imagine parents foregoing toys for charity, but for those people who exchange presents with close friends, colleagues and extended family, giving the gift of good is certainly easier than before.

For example, The Point allows anyone to start or join a campaign that asks for people to donate money or take action as a group. The Point focuses on enabling people to act, influence and accomplish. Success stories include raising money to help someone rebuild her house after a fire. Campaigns don't have to be large.

By contrast, Network for Good is an online resource for people looking to donate to a good cause or volunteer. In addition, Network for Good provides services for registered non-profits, such as processing online donations, marketing email blasts, donor databases (through Salesforce.com) and "Nonprofit 911" fundraising training calls.

Last for this post, but not least, is Redefine Christmas, a site dedicated to funneling online charitable donations to JustGive.org and Changing the Present. It also allows users to request charitable gifts via e-cards. From Redefine Christmas:

It's about changing the way we look at gift giving and receiving. It's taking money we usually spend on obligatory gifts with little meaning, and creating gifts of charity that give in multiple ways, to the receiver, the giver, and people who truly need.

Obviously, giving gifts to charity isn't new. Enabling donations through technology and online is just the most convenient iteration of philanthropic campaigns building online communities. Will you join in this holiday season?

Obama Delivers Weekly Address on YouTube

During the presidential race, I blogged about McCain and Obama's use of social media tools. Now that Obama is President-elect, he's continuing to leverage social media with his transition website: Change.gov.

For example, Obama delivered the Democratic weekly address from his transition office in Chicago for the first time ever via YouTube (video embedded below). He hopes to continue when in the White House, though all weekly speeches will also be broadcast on the radio.

CNET reported yesterday that the Obama campaign uploaded more than 1,800 videos to its YouTube channel.

The Obama campaign relied heavily on reaching out and inciting people to get involved – particularly online. Obama's transition office continues to invite widespread participation by asking Americans to share both their personal stories and their hopes for America online.

I haven't owned a radio since I went to college so, for me, watching Obama address Americans each week will be a much more convenient way of digesting his agenda. I'm guessing millions of Americans – Obama fan or not – will tune in online from home, from work, from public libraries and from their mobile phones. Will you?

Presidential Race Leverages Social Media

During tonight's presidential debate, I paused my DVR to check out live blog coverage as well as each candidate's website. I've been curious to learn how social media tools are leveraged by both presidential candidates.

Obama's website with the heading "The Change We Need" features on the homepage both Barack TV and the latest Obama Blog post. Visitors can also access state-specific Obama sites, make a donation, register to vote and volunteer to support the campaign.

Right hand widgets welcome Hillary Clinton supporters and allow visitors to create a password-protected account to personalize their experience. Visitors can also sign up for mobile updates and join the Obama conversation on various social networks. News updates, an interactive map and apparel store complete the home page.

McCain's website implores visitors to donate today, join an online phone bank and "speak out" on the debate. Another feature allows campaign volunteers to earn points when they join the McCain team, contribute time or money and recruit friends. There are "Photos of the Week," news updates and upcoming events listed as well.

My favorite feature is the Debate Central component. If you click through, there are already YouTube videos, or "Debate Moments," featuring McCain's best sound bytes from tonight's debate. You'll also find quotes supporting McCain from various bloggers who covered tonight's debate live.

Overall, I prefer Obama's home page to McCain's. If I had more time to scour through, I might reach a different verdict. The wow factor at www.barackobama.com was Barack TV and the Obama Blog featured on the home page. Aside from that, mobile updates, the interactive map and the call to create a personal page were icing and a cherry on top. The site is warm and welcoming.

By contrast, I think McCain's Debate Central is pretty clever. Monitoring the blogosphere and posting snippets from nine prominent blogs in real-time – that's impressive. I also like McCain's Volunteer HQ "Campaign Action Center" enticing volunteers to earn points by supporting McCain, but the strong call to donate and recruit others started to verge on cult behavior.

No matter what political party you're backing this year, it's worth monitoring what tools each candidate is using to interface with constituents. After all, with our country's future at stake, couldn't we all afford to tune in?

American Express Do-Gooder Campaign Leverages Customer Community with Social Media Tools

Claiming its the first company to launch a cause-related marketing campaign via a program benefiting the Statue of Liberty in 1983, American Express has been leveraging its customer community to support important causes for twenty-five years now.

This year's Members Project is yet another socially-minded campaign. American Express will split up $2.5 million amongst five different projects that "make a positive impact on the world." The online-only initiative allows any American to join the conversation and nominate their favorite do-gooder project.

American Express kicked off the Members Project by announcing results from a survey that showed 96 percent of Americans feel now, more than ever, the world needs "great ideas" to make a positive difference. In addition, 92 percent of respondents said they believe in the "power of ideas to help change the world."

So why is a credit card company bringing people together to share their ideas, passions and beliefs in order to help change the world?

The answer is offered by Jud Linville, president and CEO of Consumer Services at American Express: "... it's not just about ideas; it's about all participants galvanizing their own personal networks - friends, family members, colleagues - to get behind the causes that are meaningful to them." This should also read: and to encourage our customers to spend more money with American Express while they're at it.

Tapping the power of human networks - what a brilliant case of good marketing and PR. Inspire customers, enable them, make them heroes. It's not a new tactic.

This year, American Express is making good use of social media tools such as Facebook and MySpace to help people spread the word. They encourage customers to use photos, audio and video to enhance their nominations and promote their projects. The campaign will announce the Top Five projects at midnight tonight. From there, anyone can vote for their favorite project - the winners will be announced October 14.

To date, there are 1190 projects nominated by 213,522 nominations. There are 7651 comments on the discussion board.

I have to admit, I haven't voted, yet, but the Members Project has won my support as an American Express customer - I'm happy to align spending power with a company that prides itself on being a global "good citizen" by supporting worthy causes. After all, if I'm going to be spending money these days, I might as well help save the world, right?

From SlideShare to CNET - Popular Presentations Make News

Tired of sending around your presentation as a PDF email attachment? Check out SlideShare, a free online repository for PowerPoint presentations. It's a fast and easy way to share your presentations - chances are you'll get more eyes on it than you think.

For example, Funambol CEO, Fabrizio Capobianco, posted his keynote presentation from the World Computer Congress a week ago. Since then, the presentation has 409 views, 39 downloads, 3 embeds, 3 favorites and 1 comment. Even better, the slide deck caught the attention of CNET News open source blogger, Matt Asay, who wrote about Fabrizio's presentation yesterday.

This is what we PR types like to call "making our job easy." In the high tech startup space, you don't often get clients who make their own news. It's great when it happens.

OpenLogic, another Page One client, turned to SlideShare last month to post the results of its Open Source Census. That presentation got over 1300 views and was featured on SlideShare's homepage the same week.

The above numbers might not seem impressive, even after you consider the narrowed open source enthusiast audience both presentations target. In both cases, however, the presentations reached a greater audience than they would have otherwise. OpenLogic also saw some inbound leads and enthusiasm from the SlideShare community.

Using a social media tool like SlideShare not only immortalizes your content and brand in an easy-to-search-and-share environment, but also helps communicate key messages in a stripped down, no fluff way.

When I conduct research, I rely most heavily on the Internet to find any free information or data points I can use. SlideShare is great for providing this type of information - just search for "Forrester Research" or any top analyst firm and see what you find.

Especially if you're a small company exploring new marketing channels and avenues, I say go for it - you never know where you'll presentation will turn up or who will point right back at you.

Celebrity Chefs Are Everywhere!

What do M&Ms and wild Alaskan salmon have in common? Celebrity chefs as spokespeople, of course.

When I first saw this M&M ad, I chuckled and thought, "What the heck are M&Ms up to now?" I then realized the M&M "shell-ebrity" I was staring at (pictured left) is Bobby Flay - one of the Food Network's celebrity chefs.

You can check out more M&M "shell-ebrities" here.

Food Network chefs are popping up all over the place these days. Even the Rachael Ray Dunkin' Donuts terrorist scarf fiasco hasn't curbed corporate America's appetite to hire Food Network celebrity chefs as spokespeople. Some of these campaigns are more well-received than others - sorry Rachael Ray.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium has been fairly successful in partnering with all-star chefs. In 1999, the aquarium embarked on a Seafood Watch campaign encouraging visitors to make sustainable seafood choices. It built up various promotional channels for its sustainable seafood campaign, including an enticing program of chic food, wine and cooking events that appeals to the sort of high-brow crowd that grassroots campaigns and "save the world" petitions might not reach.

This year, Food Network's Alton Brown hosted the "Food for Solutions" gala and 55 local restaurants participated. Talk about cultivating community. In fact, forget about snuggly sea otters and terrifying great white sharks - Monterey Bay Aquarium now markets to any "foodie" or "wino" on the planet. It was even named a Tastemaker by Bon Appétit magazine this month.

Using famous chefs to talk about sustainable seafood to drooling crowds is a brilliant way to drive buzz around the aquarium's core message. It probably doesn't hurt fund raising campaigns, either. What an ingenious PR and Marketing plan! Just last week I read in an e-mail (btw, I'm an MBA member):

Thanks to you and other Seafood Watch supporters, we’ve succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. Major buyers, from Wal-Mart to Compass Group and ARAMARK, are shifting to sustainable seafood. We’ve distributed more than 24 million consumer pocket guides, created a Seafood Watch Mobile service, and won the allegiance of noted chefs across North America.

Lessons learned? Food brings people together. If you're looking to promote your next product or service, consider bringing in a Food Network celebrity chef, even if they don't belong. After all, they're fun, talented and family-friendly - what more could you need?

Penguins, Foxes, Cows, Oh My! "Open Source Idol" Exceeds Client Business Goals

If you went to LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco this summer, you might have noticed a herd of young ladies dressed up as open source mascots. Tux the penguin, the GNU, Mozilla's Firefox and BSD's Beastie devil roamed the show floor asking "Who's The Next Open Source Idol?" and searching for willing souls to sing and dance on behalf of their favorite OSS mascot. Don't worry if you didn't make it to LinuxWorld this year, we were caught on tape. You can check out the outlandish fun here.

You might wonder what spurred this madness. Well, it wasn't all fun and games. We had concrete goals to accomplish on behalf of our client, GroundWork Open Source. First, demonstrate that GroundWork is a dedicated member of the open source developer community. Second, attract over 1000 views to GroundWork's YouTube channel over two months.

We needed to produce videos that would appeal to any open source enthusiast around the world. So, why not go straight for the patriotic spirit mascots have been known to inspire?

At this point, various forces in the universe collided: I was addicted to the popular reality show "So You Think You Can Dance?" which kept dancing on my mind. In addition, I had just learned about Cisco's first social media product launch, which helped me understand ways to integrate various social media tools for PR and marketing.

Lying in bed at 3 am the morning before we were to brainstorm fun ideas for GroundWork, the first flash of "Who's The Next Open Source Idol?" popped into my head. I immediately jumped up and started researching iconic open source animals. Before dawn, I had begun brainstorming various traditional marketing and social media tools we could use to promote the contest. Of course, this all hinged on my confidence that we could convince a bunch of open source developers to sing and dance on camera. No problem, right?

The rest of the project is almost a blur as we proposed the idea to GroundWork only two days before the start of LinuxWorld. There was a lot to prepare and the Page One PR social media team worked hard to turn a crazy idea into reality. Our fearless leader, Craig Oda, and social media guru, Shelly Milam, led the charge while Kim Terca, Ariana Parasco and I were eager to dive in.

Here are some stats for what the social media team was able to produce in about a week's time:

Campaign Promotion and Social Media Integration

First, we needed to figure out creative ways to promote open source idol. We didn't have the luxury of building up momentum before the show because we only had a couple days to throw this project together. The videos for GroundWork's YouTube channel were required for the project, but we used them as "teasers" to drive traffic to an online polling widget posted on GroundWork's open source community site. We put out a social media release and used Twitter and Facebook to help promote our videos and online voting. We also took votes from people at LinuxWorld and offered them "I Voted" stickers. We gave out free "Who's The Next Open Source Idol?" t-shirts to people for singing and dancing on camera. GroundWork blogged about the contest while we appealed to Mitchell Baker, Chairperson of Mozilla Foundation, and blasted open source community mailing lists encouraging developers to vote.

Outstanding Results

GroundWork's corporate website traffic increased by 43% during the first three days of the contest. 1,113 people went to GroundWork's open source community site to vote online. Combined, all four videos received 5000 views in one week (our goal was 1000 views over two months). GroundWork received a lot of chatter in the Twittersphere and also gained new followers. "Who's The Next Open Source Idol?" was posted to Fark.com and was covered by Wired.com, Network World, and bounced around the blogosphere as well.

Highs and Lows
The amount of energy and adrenaline that went into "Who's The Next Open Source Idol?" was amazing. I guess there weren't any lows here. Though the project was time-intensive and exhausting, it was really fun. If you watch the fourth video, you'll even see GroundWork's VP of Marketing hopping in on the open source idol conga line.

By the conclusion of this project, GroundWork had received remarkable attention from open source enthusiasts around the world. I am also proud to say that Firefox was the official contest winner! There are at least three different Firefox character throughout the four videos we produced. I wonder if you can recognize which one was me?

Is There Truth to the Twitter Song?

"If you haven't been bookmarked, re-tweeted and blogged - you might as well not have existed..."

This line comes from Ben Walker's Twitter song, "You're No One If You're Not On Twitter." With over 200K views in just 3 weeks, Walker's song pokes fun at Twitter fanatics who publicly announce their every sneeze on Twitter.

I picked up the video yesterday from VentureBeat and found the song pretty hilarious. As far as I've seen, there is a lot of truth to the lyrics.

I've been holding off from blogging about Twitter because it seems almost cliche by now. Surprisingly, some of my high tech clients are NOT on Twitter. Those who are avoiding it have reactions that are similar to my college friends who boycotted Facebook four years ago - they don't want to share dull moments like "I'm having a hot dog for dinner" in a public forum.

I admit I had the same "I'm too cool for Twitter" reaction at first. Since the tool is becoming essential for PR pros, I joined and now find it pretty useful for business. For example, I have arranged client interviews based on blogger "tweets." In addition, following analysts, journalists and other outlets helps me catch breaking news faster than Google Alerts. For rapid response pitching, Twitter has been great.

At the same time, Twitter can be incredibly distracting. The New York Times elaborated today on how Google and Twitter ultimately expand our minds while also limiting our attention spans. I enjoy following my friends' updates, but there are definitely characters on Twitter who are just too noisy. I sometimes wonder if people like Tim O'Reilly have hired someone else to tweet for them. I mean, how can you tweet every ten minutes - or more - while still functioning as a normal person?

If you aren't on Twitter, I recommend you check it out. When used correctly, Twitter can be an effective marketing and customer service tool. For this reason, as you search for friends and family to follow, you might look for retailers, service providers, magazines, newspapers and non-profits, too. You'll probably be surprised by the number of feeds you want to follow.

Twitter keeps people, organizations, causes and companies that I care about high on my radar. Do remember that standard rules of social etiquette may apply. For example, please don't use Twitter for shameless self-promotion. As you get connected to more people, it's easy to get into the "tweeting" groove, but don't forget that distance can sometimes make the heart grow fonder. In other words, you don't have to tweet more than a few times a day to stay connected. Pick a few tweets and save everything else for conversations with real people.

Concerned you'll be overwhelmed if you sign up? Don't let Walker's song scare you off. One of the best things about Twitter: you can always tune it out. Just start small by checking Twitter a couple times a day and go from there. After all, what is there to lose?

Can You Cheat The Social Media System?

Word of mouth has long been a good marketing tool. In the social media world, however, the stakes change. Online, one person can influence thousands, even millions of people. Traditional word of mouth embodies a viral, yet transient spirit. By contrast, comments made online can live forever.

So, what's to stop people from cheating the "social media system"?

Yesterday, my friend and colleague blogged about how SourceForge, a premier online media site targeting techies, monitors the Web for negative customer comments. Using tools like Twitter and Facebook, Sourceforge will pursue disgruntled customers and users. The process has yielded positive feedback and provides Sourceforge with key product management and marketing feedback - a healthy example of customer service instigated by online feedback.

By contrast, other sites like Yelp, the popular review site, seem to be easily manipulated. Some of my friends have used Yelp to voice their anger over poor food service. In one case, a friend complained after going to a restaurant's Grand Opening and waiting for more than an hour for her meal. She wrote a negative review, posted it to Yelp, and the restaurant immediately contacted her offering a free meal.

Couldn't I choose a random restaurant I've been wanting to try, do the same thing and reap the benefits?

What about online competitor bashing? If I were AT&T, what would stop me from asking my employees to throttle ComcastCares on Twitter under the guise of an online alias?

Robin Stavinsky, high tech PR and online communications specialist, has assured me that online fraud in the form of competitor bashing would never work because there are too many ways to track down the source.

I remain skeptical. No matter how altruistic I'd like to be, why not test out being a professional online whiner to see what benefits (or punishments) I might reap? Wouldn't you?

San Diego Zoo Creates Panda-monium With Social Media Tools

As a San Diego native, I've been a card-carrying member of the "World Famous" San Diego Zoo my whole life. The 100-acre park is home to more than 4,000 rare and endangered animals and more than 700,000 exotic plants. The Zoological Society of San Diego is actually the largest zoological membership association in the world.

If you've visited the San Diego Zoo, you probably understand the international allure. I have to believe the zoo owes part of its success to its communications department.

Take the pandas, for example. Pandas are not easy to get a hold of. U.S. zoos must "rent" pandas from the Chinese government - they typically go for $1M a year and at least $500K more if they breed. This is not including food and shelter. All pandas remain property of China and must return eventually.

Fifteen years ago, the San Diego Zoo built a $1M panda facility only to have their import permit denied. What could have been a PR nightmare ($1M burned for nothing) was instead turned into a story of national struggle and unconditional hope.

When San Diego finally welcomed two pandas (female Bai Yun, male Shi Shi) to the zoo, it went to town with PR. The zoo played up Shi Shi's "old man" impotency and the urgency for him to mate before the "contract" expired. The birth of baby cub Hua Mei (means "China, USA") in August 1999 spurred even more public interest. At that point, the zoo made a brilliant decision and launched the "Panda Cam," a live online video feed capturing 24/7 panda activity.

The Panda Cam was an instant hit. If you watch the Panda Cam today, however, you'll notice pandas, for the most part, don't do much.

From a San Diego Union Tribune article (Dec. 15, 2001):

The debut of the Panda Cam in effect "made" the zoo's Web site, acknowledged spokesman Ted Molter.

"There were more people online than ever before, always looking for new things to see," he said.

... The fact that the pandas don't do much but eat and sleep in no way diminished their online popularity. If anything, it was a blessing from a public relations and marketing perspective, Molter conceded.

Since Panda Cam went online in September 1999, about a month after Hua Mei was born, more than 78 million people ... have visited the zoo's Web site, said Inigo Figuracion, the zoo's webmaster. Of those, more than 21 million people -- about 27 percent overall -- clicked onto the Panda Cam.

Today, while other U.S. zoos struggle to attract visitors and financially support their $1M/year pandas, the San Diego Zoo's Giant Panda Research Station is saturated with visitors. Even better, their website is now rich with social media tools, offering podcasts, zoo keeper blogs, animal videos and virtual tours of the San Diego Zoo and Wild Animal Park.

In 1999, the San Diego Zoo earned its status as a "virtual zoo" basically overnight. In December 2001, the zoo introduced the Polar Cam for two cubs at Polar Bear Plunge.

I'd be interested to research how attendance and online traffic have fared since 2001. Also, how have the Panda and Polar Cams affected corporate and private donations made to the San Diego Zoological Society? What about sales of plush pandas and polar bear t-shirts? I'm sure revenues skyrocketed - they probably haven't tapered, either.

If you're in the San Diego area, I absolutely recommend you visit the San Diego Zoo. They're working on a new exhibit to house elephants recently rescued from Africa.

Who knows, maybe we'll have an "Elephant Cam" soon, too. Stay tuned...