One of the most important realizations that has recently transpired via my Twitter pipeline is how much I am gaining from the ever increasing Sharism i.e. by what others are sharing with me. I am indeed very, very lucky to be connected to so many brilliant and like-minded people that are publishing their thoughts freely and openly, using platforms such as Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook, Slideshare and of course, their blogs. All of you deserve a big THANK YOU.
So I figured it's time to give some more explicit credit to all those great people that have influenced me, and I maybe a good way to do that is to list them on a special, Twitter-API-based site such as Futerati; and maybe send some attention their way, in return. Futerati went online a few days ago, and much like Electric Artists' cool TrackingTwitter site (but a lot more personal) Futerati is presenting 6 constantly updated categories (Futurists, Thought Leaders Authors, Activists, StartUps and Others) with people that I follow, their latest tweets, the current number of followers, and with some brief comments on why I like them. With each featured twitter user, you can click straight through to their tweets or their profiles and easily connect with them, as well.
Please note that Futerati is a constant work in progress and therefore not complete at this time; I will be adding a lot more people as I dig through my 7400 network connections, during the next 4-6 weeks. So, if I should have listed you but have not done so yet please post something on Twitter (use @gleonhard) or use the hashtag #futerati or DM me via Twitter, or email, or comment on this blog. If we haven't 'met' yet but if you still want to be listed please ping me with your details so that I can take a look at you; in any case please note that every single connection I list on Futerati is personally selected by me. Enjoy - and RT!
Lorraine at Rostant Advertising in Trinidad send me the link to an interesting Web 2.0 tool called Kwout. They provide tools that allow you to take a snapshot of any piece on any webpage - mostly for quoting purposes I would think -, make a widget out of it, and re-use the quote, intact will all links etc, on your own page - pretty cool, even though the image quality could be better. Talk about Sharism!
Below is a snippet from one of my favorite essays called 'Better than Free' by Kevin Kelly, and from a blog post by me that is based on the same concepts... check it out.
Jeff Jarvis rocks - no doubt about it. I have been reading his new book "What would Google do" and in my view it's at least as important as Wikinomics or the LongTail. Check out Jeff's slideshow and video below (yes, you can fast-forward thru the first 8 mins of German intro;) - no matter what business you are in, this will give you some serious food for thought; if you're in the content business - well... watch it 5 times! Some of his key points:
The link changes everything
Do what you do best and link to the rest
Join a network / Be a platform
Think distributed
If you’re not searchable, you won’t be found
Everybody needs a little SEO
Life is public, so is business
Your customers are your ad agency
Small is the new big
Manage abundance (not scarcity)
Join the open-source, gift economy
The mass market is dead—long live the mass of niches
This is from the Picnic Conference blog, taken from a telephone interview with me, last week. Please note that I am firm believer that there is NO COOKBOOK for success in social media (whatever that means!), at least as far as I can tell. And there is no certainly not a definitive correlation between your mere numbers of followers or friends, and the quality or merit of your work. We are still very much in the very first, embryonic phase of social media marketing (and the related personal branding options), and it would be very premature to equal success in numbers with success in business or even any real degree of influence. I am experimenting with this just as much as everyone else... so, read this below, in that spirit!
Btw - the Picnic conference in Amsterdam (Sept 23-25, 2009) will be well worth attending (and not just because I'll be speaking ;). Last year's event was thoroughly entertaining as well as inspirational, if sometimes a bit overwhelming due to the sheer number of topics and attendees. Check out my 2008 Picnic presentation on The New Music Ecosystem, here.
"Last Friday, the team
at PICNIC had the opportunity to pick Gerd Leonhard’s brain about
social media marketing and what has made him successful. Gerd is a
well-known media futurist and a regular PICNIC participant. He travels
the world speaking about the future of media, content, technology,
communication, business and entertainment.
In less than six months Gerd accumulated over 5000 followers on
Twitter and his website traffic [and RSS feed users] increased by 300% (60% of which comes
from Twitter). As a result he decided to completely stop communicating
with his 17,000-strong database by email and his business has continued
to thrive. It was a pleasure to chat with Gerd on the subject of social
media marketing and we are excited to share some of his top tips with
you.
Pull, don’t push: Get people’s attention by
providing value and earn their love by engaging with them. This will
naturally lead to increased website traffic and increased sales.
Getting started
Choose a plausible position and objectives you want to achieve
Find out where your target audience is, i.e. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube…
Listen to others and decide carefully who you want to follow and get feedback from
Track replies and keywords to help you actively participate in the conversation
Set up multiple accounts if necessary (by topic, employee, etc)
Building momentum
Jump in: don’t be afraid to start, there is no right or wrong way to use social media for marketing
Provide value: link to content on your website or blog like videos,
slideshows, tips, interviews; provide useful resources from other
sites; don’t be afraid to re-package existing content by putting a new
spin on the story.
Avoid sales pitches: but do offer special offers or rewards to members of your network
Participate: develop conversations with members of your network; ask for feedback or advice
Be transparent: people will feel more connected with your brand when they know what is going on behind the scenes
Establish yourself as a thought leader or authority: dialogue with the right people
Measuring success
Social media marketing is not a replacement for other marketing
tactics. Success with social media tools requires time and effort, not
money. Success has to be defined by the individual or company.
The number of followers or members is important, but not the only
measurement of success. You can also track traffic to your website
generated by social media sites, number of RSS subscribers, and
increase in comments or leads.
I touched upon this in my presentation at the Mobile Monday event in Amsterdam: I think we are going through a totally amazing and very challenging paradigm shift, right now (and this may still be a somewhat delayed consequence of the Internet (r)evolution and the first .com bubble): From EGO to ECO, from Control to Openness, from Domination to Collaboration. A few examples:
The amazing shifts in U.S. policy and America's new global role: when President Obama implements his far-reaching plans to rewire how America works we will see this new trend towards win-win solutions rub-off everywhere else, too, and kick off chain-reactions in many other, traditionally more dominance-focused countries such as Russia, as well (and the reverse is also true). The old Bushinator mantra 'You lose - we win' has simply become unsustainable in today's networked economy, and America will doubtlessly struggle with this shift from domination to partnering for quite some time. However, I definitely anticipate a strong trend towards open systems and open platforms in the global economic and political spheres - as well as in technology and content / media - with utter transparency and TRUST becoming the key requirements for success, everywhere. There will no doubt be considerable debate on what this trend means for copyright and patent laws, globally, too, since these laws have traditionally been used for shoring up market-shares and protecting the interests of the large, dominant players in many industries.
The music industry: the decline - or shall we say gradual vaporization - of most major record industry players due to their amazingly persistent obsession with control, makes a great case study. Rather than to finally permit new revenues to be co-developed via collaborating on win-win scenarios, the IFPI and RIAA are still looking for new enforcement and protection mechanisms such as the now flamed-out '3 strikes & out' legislation - it does make you wonder if their 'leaders' have lived under a rock for the past 5 years! In any case, the music industry is the prime example why monopolistic and totally centralized structures will simply not work in the future, and why we need governme
I
nt intervention when a market place is clearly dysfunctional. Many of my readers know that I have been talking about this for a looooong time, but now we are finally seeing it take shape: the music rights organizations and their related content licensing processes will undergo significant and sweeping changes in the next 2-3 years; everything is moving from a 'not allowed / not possible' default mindset to a more collaborative, open, flexible, transparent and public rights licensing
logic - and they must adapt or get out of the way. The bottom line: If it's not based on a web-centric and connected logic it will cease to exist. As an example, the current conflict between the Music Performing
Rights Organizations (PROs and MROs) such as PRS, GEMA and Youtube is based on
this basic paradigm disparity: PRS and GEMA are thinking of the music rights still
being firmly and exclusively their business (i.e. an EgoSystem), and
Youtube/Google think of music rights as being a crucial component
of a new, 21st century content ecosystem that concerns everyone and should not be governed by monopolies and cartels. Therefore, for Google I reckon that the music rights issue is something that must go far beyond
the traditional structure that's based on 'I own the rights, exclusively, and you'll
need to pay whatever I ask for'. My prediction is that if the traditional rights-holders and
the many societies that represent them don't materially change their thinking on this very soon, they may
wall see a wide-spread revolt of their younger, more progressive
members, because they know that not permitting the use of music on Youtube (and
Google!) is simply a suicidal move, in terms of getting attention and building your brand. Get off the Ego and think Eco!
Microsoft's Windows OS is becoming less and less dominant (and relevant, too) as 'free' and cloud-based operating systems are gaining ground everywhere (Linux, Google)
Most telcos, mobile operators and ICT companies are trying to switch from the traditional 'total control of the network, the infrastructure and the users' to open platforms as fast as they can (e.g. AT&T's open source plans, Skype's open Silk codec, Nokia's Open Symbian Foundation, Google's Android Mobile OS)
In software, the continuing trend towards open-source and crowd-sourcing is clearly visible everywhere (e.g. the huge success of Firefox vs IE, and the rise of open-source DMBS)
Many large corporations are starting to move into crowd-sourcing, wanting to pursue increased openness in return for a chance to realize network-economy benefits. E.g. Glaxo Smith Kline's recent move to release a huge amount of cancer research data into public domain (Note: in this context, I highly recommend Yochai Benkler's fantastic book "The Weath of Networks")
The mind-boggling popularity and global success of API-driven web portals and platforms (Twitter's amazing growth, Friendfeed, the new Facebook 'River', widgets, the UK Guardian's open API etc)
For many large companies as well as for SMEs (small medium size enterprises), Social Media is quickly becoming CRM (customer relationship management) - rather than running expensive ads that talk about 'Me' and how great the new product is (i.e. Ego), the switch to 'having conversations with the customers aka users' is visible everywhere: Ford's new Fiesta campaign, Kraft's cool iPhone app. Brands can no longer be just BIG EGOs - they are part of Ecosystems, too.
In Advertising, the entire paradigm of 'we'll yell until you listen' is finished - this concept was all about the Ego of the brands, and about us, the people formerly known as consumers, listening. Now it's all about the Ecosystem: Do you come recommended? Who trusts you? What makes you worthy of my consideration? Why should I pay attention to you? Who vouches for you? Who has told me about you? Are you open and transparent? Here, too, Egosystem has become Ecosystem, and a Trillion $ industry is changing as a consequence - from Push to Pull, from Yelling to Talking / Listening. Tough gig but... a gold mine if you can make it ;)
I used to blog short stuff all the time - usually a link to a great story or resource somewhere else, and maybe add a few comments. That was then, and this is now: this kind of activity has now almost completely moved to my Twitter account (main) (others: Futurefeed & DailyWisdoms), because it makes a lot more sense there. Blog posts will be a bit less but more substantial and more carefully crafted - as they should be, imho.
So, if you are already subscribing to this blog's RSS feed but have not been sucked into the Twitter universe quite yet - and don't really want to (yes, I know you people are still out there!) - please be sure to also subscribe to my Twitter RSS feed, as well as my Friendfeed RSS, that way you can be sure you keep getting all the goodies, regardless of what you use. Both of those RSS feeds can still be read even if you are not logged-in to either of them. Hope that helps?
This short video shows how I try to digest Twitter, RSS feeds and my Friendfeed 'River' on one of my screens, when I am in my office (ok... not too often, really;). Juggling this ocean takes some practice... but I am getting there.
Over the course of the next 5-6 years, the importance of getting Air-Play on terrestrial i.e. traditional, programmed radio will drastically decline, as people are switching to the Internet (and by extension, to each other) as the #1 way of sourcing music programs. We will see a drastic increase in fragmentation as people will do anything from carefully customizing each track in their lists to just listen to 'what's on' - and there will be 100s of permutations in between. From total engagement to total passive consumption, there will be offers covering each - and they will all be connected.
Because of the strong uptake in next generation mobile devices (fka cell phones), the explosive proliferation of social networks and the drastic increase in wireless broadband capabilities at ever decreasing costs (yes, not yet - but give it another 18 months) we will see people use their mobile devices as prime instruments of listening to radio-like music programs - there will be hundreds of radio/music apps available via the various app stores that each device maker AND operator will offer; some paid, most feels-like-free, some sponsored.
The other point is that as the car becomes fully connected and always-online people will shift their music consumption to Net-based offerings while on the road, as well (in addition to the already stiff in-car competition from iPods etc) - this will be a very very very serious challenge to traditional Radio (and TV) broadcasters. Local news, traffic, sports etc will be programmable to interlace with your Internet-based stations - the best of both worlds? Talk about Change!
Dopplr rocks! The free service allows you to publish and share your travels with others, get input from people who have also been there (hotels, restaurants etc) and maybe meet with people in your network that are also be close-by. I have been using it for some time now (albeit not nearly enough) and it is become very valuable, indeed. I have met some very nice people this way, while reconnecting with others that are in my network but have been 'dormant'.
So today, the Dopplr people topped it all by sending me a free report with some very juicy morsels of information about my travel habits and history (see some excerpts below). These numbers are even scarier than I thought since I did not even share all trips with Dopplr, during 2008, but still - great intel to have. Keep it up, guys!
Slide.com rocks - they even had a great track by one of my favorite artists, Alanis Morissette, "Underneath" which I think is a perfect fit for my slides. Whoever licensed this to Slide.com - well done, and brilliant marketing! The Music is not auto-on btw - so hit the PLAY button (i.e. speaker icon); it's worth it.
I have been reading Chris Brogan's great post on how to improve blog-writing, and today I am implementing just one of his wisdoms: keep things short. Reduce. Cut the fluff. Yes, well, alright: I have been guilty of not doing that (you may have noticed). Enough.
Here are 10 ideas for future success in what used to be called Print Media (i.e. newspapers & magazines etc):
Decentralize your digital assets. Syndicate your strong content everywhere (and in niches, in particular!), offer full feeds, on all platforms (mobile being the top priority), make everything searchable. Finding and being found is what will make or break you. Distribution trumps destination - it's no longer just your homepage that counts; it's all those other doors, links, tags and tweets to your content - even if they are not yours!
Participate rather than be participated. Give permission for your content to be used, accessed, blogged, remixed, forwarded. Every ounce of protection aka friction will pull you further down to the bottom of this new ecosystem. There is real money in permission - and there is zero money in enforcing the laws that may have protected your dominant position in the past.
Micro-chunk. Fragment and re-aggregate. Send your content headlines out via Twitter and other micro-blogging platforms. Allow people to snack, have a light meal, or pig-out and gorge on your content. Offer all options. Slice and dice your goodness.
Mobilize....totally! Offer your content via mobile apps (and please, not just on the iPhone) that are easy to use, with simple UIs and strong functionalities. You may find you can sell the apps even if you can't sell the content, initially. Most of the future value may just be around the content, not just in the content.
Integrate the bloggers, the people formerly known as consumers, the professional-amateurs and UGC. The NYT has some very good initiatives in this turf, and so does Wired (check out their blogs and How2Wiki)
Engage. Engage again. And then engage some more. Talk to your readers i.e. users, get them talk to each other, and offer a unique and powerful platform for these conversations... around your content. Aggregate the conversation. Bundle it. Wrap it.
Filter. Curate. Contextualize. Inter-connect. Make sense of things. We, the users, need this more than ever and we will pay you to filter for, with and even through us!
Personalize and customize. Allow me to be me when I spend time with you. Allow me to widgetize, change my profile, look and feel, make your assets mine. Inject a bit of Netvibes and iGoogle into your pages.
Connect me to 'strangers like me'. Don't stop at making connections only between yourself and me - also connect me to your other users that might be of interest to me, that might generate added values for me; again, using your platform. Amazon has this down to a science!
Dive into Freemium models. Give me something for free that represents real value to me, but costs you very little. And please, upsell me from there - to all the other good stuff you have to offer. See: Flickr, Google, Skype.
Some readers may recall that the very existence of Pandora, one of the biggest next-generation, personalized digital radio platforms was recently seriously endangered by the threat of having to pay outlandish and retroactive music licensing fees right after having been kicked out of Europe (also for similarly bizarre licensing reasons). Now, thankfully, a report reveals that Pandora has gained an even bigger (albeit only U.S.-based) audience by launching a free iPhone application that is, you guessed it, entirely supported by some apparently quite smart advertising. I wish I could see for myself but since I am in beautiful Switzerland I have been barred from the pleasures of Pandora - after all, why would the music licensing organizations even bother with Pandora's international users... right?
But anyway, what is so great to hear (see the press release) is that ad-supported music seems to work so very much better on the iPhone (and soon, many other mobile devices, I would hope) than it does on the good old computer - this, I think, holds great potential for the future of ad-supported, free or feels like free + freemium content on mobile devices. First music, then films / TV, then books (and games.... yes, of course: already there!)
A quote from the press release (December 4, 2008) sums it up very nicely (even if we remove the few instances of PR hype): "Since September 22, when Pandora began marketing its iPhone platform
to marketers, it's had a steady queue of the biggest national brands
anxious to deliver their ad messages to iPhone mobile users with
Pandora as the conduit. The first advertisers to launch on Pandora's
iPhone application were Best Buy and Beck's, followed by a list of
other top tier brands such as Target, HP, Nike and Kraft Foods. To
date, Pandora's iPhone ad platform has delivered over the twice the
response rate as its other ad products due to the highly interactive
nature of the device. Additionally, iPhone users can continue to
stream music while they engage with the ad so the user experience is
not diminished in any way"
Here is the key, in my view: it's all about the INTERFACE. The USER EXPERIENCE. That is what is so great about the iPhone (after all, it's really a lousy phone, in my view, but a great mobile computer and communication device), and that's what's so great about Pandora, too. The sum of the two really makes it tick, I guess. Next destination: Nokia?
I think users will pay to use the Pandora interface, the functionality, the build-in community features; and advertisers and brands will pay to align themselves with those tens of millions of keen and open, interested and fast-clicking users. And yet other users would probably pay to have Pandora without ads, too!
Now (add: sound of broken record) if only the labels, publishers and rights societies could actually allow them to make this work, economically - then we would have something that would show a real path to a mutually beneficial future; a future that will create many of those 'New Generatives' that Kevin Kelly writes about, and a future that is based on true collaboration in an open ecosystem.
Here is an another interesting fact from the release: "Currently, Pandora's iPhone users spend an average of 90 minutes a
day interacting with the application, accounting for nearly 1.2
million ad impressions per day..." This is pointing us straight to a future recipe of success: great interface + supreme ease of use + great content + great community features + freemium + ads2.0 = Success.
Pandora reaches
roughly one in every five iPhone users in the U.S., already (and is set to have 20 Million users by the end of the year) - so what would happen if the music industry took the lid off, and allowed them to broad/narrow/micro/social-cast worldwide, on the iPhone, the new N97 and Nokia's Ovi enabled phones that are coming down the pike, 3's Facebook
phone, Google Android Phones...? You tell me.
This is a short video clip with a summary of my presentation at the Partnerships 2.0 event in Scotland, in October (where I was speaking for the Scottish Arts Council, more details and PDF here). A quick summary:
The future of content is digital (of course) and decentralized
The rise of Broadband Culture means we lose control over what people 'copy' and do with our content
Protecting our creations is pretty much 'mission impossible'
We need a boat to float down the digital river - not throw sticks in it
I was a guest at TribalDDB London today, and here is what I talked about: The Future of Advertising, Media, Marketing and Business - the next 5 years. Needless to say we did not make it through the whole presentation but here is the entire PDF, anway. Enjoy! future_of_advertising_marketing_and_media_gerd. pdf
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