Stemato.com - Stephen Tompkins’ Blog

This interesting chart from Blogpulse, shows key people being buzzed about in the blogosphere. It culls the data from over 70 million blogs and outputs the chart daily with most citations at the top. You can also dive further into the actual citations or the amount of spots they climb or descend daily.

An interesting takeaway for me, is that Obama is in 20th place. Does that put some merit into Hillary (who ranks 1st) supposedly saying Obama cannot win? Anything seem alarming to you? Perhaps Dolly Parton’s high ranking? Or, Britney Spears still hanging around?

Yesterday eMarketer reported that online advertising spend is approaching 10% of all media spending and will be there by 2009. Considering the accountability, that digital commands and traffic quality it should come as no surprise that money is shifting to online at a quicker pace than other media. But what are some of the social media trends that this move will precipitate? Here are three that I think will be important part of my work here at Nielsen Online.

1 - Social Media become increasingly salient as connection hotspots - As trust continues to erode in traditional media, consumers will look increasingly to social media as a trusted opinion for all sorts of decisions, from which restaurant to eat at or what jeans to buy. Malcolm Gladwell describes, in his book The Tipping Point, “weak links” as influential to humans for making connections that make ideas tip. These individuals will become even more important as online migration triggers even more diverse and larger groups of connections who will exert overwhelming force over trends and ideas. (As I write this, I have over 100 twitter friends most I do not know but they shape many of my opinions on any number of things)

2- Brands continue to fortify their digital positions - With dollars shifting to the internet so quickly, brands will rush to keep up with the digital consumer migration. Brands will increasingly face the tough questions about social media and what they should do in this new platform based web. Corporate blogs are not for everyone but opening up the lines of communication can benefit brands. The question is, what is the best way to leverage social media, to empower your consumers and gain valuable insights.

3- Web trust factor becomes site currency - Inevitably, web sites will come that try to game the system and erode consumer trust in social media. From this, will arise a digital trust factor that will eventually become a web currency. It could come in an organized fashion or maybe it will just be semantic based - meaning you don’t travel far from home on the web. You have a few sites you visit and trust based on history, promotion and recommendations and only visit them frequently. This trend will hasten the move to platforms that portalize you to the web at large - Facebook applications are a good example of this in action.

As we see all media continue its move to digital, these three trends are one to watch. Any I missed?

What does it take to invent a new tool, product or idea? Ideas are born from somewhere deep down inside of us and can be as simple as Bellsouth’s Caller-ID or as complex as Google’s PageRank algorithm. Both of these inventions have something in common that is much less publicized - failure. That is right, it takes persistence and failure, to make something that improves our lives not some great creative mind.

Humility is most often learned the older you get because when you are young ego rules. I remember as a kid trying to come up with the most original and creative drawing in art classes. Its was the true test of whether you were an artist or just some hack with charcoal. We would debate incessantly classmates with great draftsmanship but poor ability to think in an agile and creative way. The reality of our situation was we were not original either. We did have one thing that set us a part drive. Because as we pontificated about the virtues of original thought we continued to test the boundaries of our own minds without fear of failure. We were free from the constraints of rigid academia to develop ideas, drawings, paintings, websites and more.

With retrospect I learned that age makes you more rigid and less willing to fail. Maybe its the reality of bills. One thing I always tried to keep in my core set of operational values is drive. Because with drive anything is possible. Dreaming big and performing agile is the combination that sets the passionate apart from the rest. I have also never lost the ability to turn my creative fire into well developed originality towards executing a better idea. Because eventually better will become original.

Don’t believe me ask Edison, Ford and Page?

Project Runway had its big season finale last week. The three finalist were Christian Siriano, Jillian Lewis and Rami Kashou. It was great season full of excitement with extraordinary talent this year. Week in and week out, these folks put great clothes down the runway, so congratulations to them for all their hard work.

Now onto the buzz, I pulled two Blogpulse charts today to see if any themes surfaced in the data. The first chart queries the three finalists names. Nothing super exciting here, but we do see that the colorful Christian was the most talked about all season long and he had a huge spike for his winning designs. To quote Christian, he was “fierce” on the runway and also in the blogs.

The next chart shows some recent HBO shows compared with Project Runway. Its interesting to me for a couple reasons. First the season finale’s of each show seem to drive quite a bit of buzz represented in the major spikes on the chart.

The second reason is Project Runway and HBO’s runway hit Flight of the Conchords both shows that have amassed cult type followings in a very short period. One interesting fact, Flight of the Conchords buzz seems to be comparable to both The Wire and Project Runway even though it has not aired a new episode since early September of last year. (FYI - Flight of the Conchord’s season finale aired before this chart’s data)

What leads to the success of Flight of the Conchords and Project Runway in the engagement arena? In a time when strategist are stressing the benefits of social media and diversifying your marketing program, we see that both of these shows have integrated strategies encompassing social media and emerging trends. On the HBO site, you will find a vlog (video blog) and all sorts of social media features. Project Runway similarly has all the bells and whistles of a social media site with mobile fan clubs, widgets and many more interactive features.
Does all this social media drive active engagement in a television show? For now, it definitely seems to be working.

I have been a loyal Wachovia customer for 14 years now but lately I have been contemplating defecting to a new bank. Why? My defection has many reasons but mostly it has to do with my personal feelings toward their treatment of me. Personal banking should fulfill three needs for me at this point: convenience, low-fees and professionalism.

Let me explain how my dilemma evolved, I recently noticed that some online company has gotten my debit card number and fraudulently charged. I have complained to Wachovia numerous times and had the loss department open a case each time. They recommended a few fixes (which have all failed) including: ordering a new debit, contact said company (I could not find a listing to contact) and close my account and open a brand new one. I am currently on fix #4 and I am not hopeful that it will work.

Wachovia has failed me consistently on three of my personal needs over the last few months. Lets look at them separately:

Convenience – I am currently averaging about 16.00 a month in ATM withdrawals from other banks. The fact that Wachovia has not strategically placed their branches in Manhattan is the number one factor. Many of the branches seem to be located on the east side. In fact, on one stretch of Third Ave. you can find three Wachovia’s within a few blocks. But if you are on the West side you have to go for many blocks before you find one. Hence the high monthly fees in ATM withdrawals.

Low Fees – The free banking is nice but I have to compromise my convenience to enjoy it fully. They charge me infrequently for all sorts of things including charges I cannot normally explain. (Wachovia – I would love to know why I am randomly charged. Can you not just give me an itemization of the charges on my monthly balance?) It is deceptive practice to just throw some arbitrary number on my statement (arbitrary because It makes no sense to me).

Professionalism – I cannot complain about the local branch by my work. They do a tremendous job of helping me and trying to fix any errors. But the phone people are absolutely abhorrent. They are usually very unhelpful and place you on hold numerous times before asking you questions about your account that you have answered three times already. I am from Georgia but the accents on some of these phone people are scary and remind me of Deliverance. Can we get them some training on sounding like a bank?

Despite all this I continue to use Wachovia and have expanded my accounts to include the “way-to-save” account. Why? I have yet to find a bank that can satisfy my three personal needs. I guess we have to attempt to get as close to those as possible until some bank comes along and totally rewrites the rules. I am waiting.

Today was a holiday for me (Happy President’s Day), so I decided to run some Blogpulse queries on hot issues and the coming elections. The top three candidates were picked with the operators of three major issues to see how closely associated to them they were in the blogosphere. Now onto the data.

This first chart, is not one of the top issues, but of the current President linked with the Candidates name. Interestingly John McCain is not overly linked with Bush but Obama seems to index higher with Bush. A number of factors may be at work, but McCain may be successfully fighting the “third-Bush term” moniker.

The next chart shows the candidates linked with the term “health care.” Notably, Hillary is indexing highest in this category with Obama having a few peaks. Its probably related to her history as First Lady and the health care push of the Nineties. Reputation and how long consumers can be influenced by a candidates history lingers long after the issue moves to the backburner.

This chart shows “iraq” as the linked operator. I think the interesting finding here is that chatter seems to be on the rise even though violence is on the decline. Does this mean that conversation is the best way to solve a problem? Neville Chamberlain, famed negotiator during World War 2, may disagree but it seems to work in the blogosphere.

I saved the best for last. Finally, we see the linked operator as “recession.” The pattern is that talk in the media of the recession in the last couple months has caused significant spikes of recession chatter in the blogosphere.

All very cool data and a fun tool to experiment with and listen to about your brand.

Disclosure: I just want to state that Blogpulse is a free tool provided by my employer. The opinions here in now way reflect my company’s thoughts but are my very own ideas of why these charts say what they say.

Today on Armano’s blog he mentions something called “ambient interruption.” Its about the pervasive ever-present aurora of brands in the digital space. Its true that we are facing more subtle engagements from brands everyday. Email, display advertisements and search are all forms we experience on a daily routine. Our minds are able to block out many of them but they still seep into the brain.

All this “ambient interruption” has some interesting side-effects including subsurface recall. What is this? Today’s consumer is bombarded so frequently by messages that they are able to ignore most of these ads. But some are ignored at the conscious level and soaked into the subconscious for later recall.

These messages however sit inside the mind and can infect you at any time. Do you remember seeing and ad and wondering why it was astonishingly familiar? Perhaps because you have seen it before but blocked it out only to have it find it lodged in your subconscious.

Why are my so-called friends spamming me? I open my notifications in Facebook to find this monstrosity and it is only a portion of the tower! The really amazing thing is that most of these notifications come from the same 2 or 3 people. As I think conscientiously about my social connections managing them will become ever more important as I seek to filter the best data from this spam.

Which part of the importance filter are you? Our reputation economy is eroding quickly and I suggest you stay on the side of value. Needless notifications will only serve to invalidate your reputation and further erode your social networks trust. Its the essential “boy who cried wolf” model.

Think about the content you choose to disperse and make it useful to your network. We are all dealing with so much information and your reputation will be the defining factor of whether you wind up being a digital loudmouth or important addition to a network.

I was riding the train today, when I saw a young man reading Wikipedia articles whilst studying his class work. It immediately started my brain to think about my time in College and the amount of information available back then. The Internet was in its infancy and things like Wikipedia were mere ripples on the horizon. The internet was a series of message boards loosely or not so loosely tied together. Collaborative learning meant organizing a study group and hoping everyone showed up.

All the information available to Kids today is amazing. They are constantly being bombarded by information and must learn to quickly process or dismiss it. Today’s youth must be eons smarter than past generations due to the resources available.

They have become hype-sensitve filters able to block-out advertising and absorb content they desire. This is bad news for brands who face a huge challenge in the coming years attempting to break through these hyper-sensitive filters and score a remarkable product.

Advergirl has cited a few interesting facts on her blog about consumers online shopping behaviors from Comscore. According to Comscore, 89% of consumers shop online for product information before making a purchasing decision at a brick and mortar. This seems a bit high to me but still the fundamental idea behind it is very interesting.

These numbers seem to show a seismic shift in consumers behaviors and it only reinforces the notion that brand equity on the web is more important now than ever.

The new consumer model seems to reflect that purchase decisions start on the web and end as offline purchases in-store. What does this mean? Campaigns that are not integrated risk disconnecting the consumer from the brand’s equity and possibly losing the purchase. Integration and reinforcement of your core equities online and offline should become the basic building blocks of a great online marketing strategy.

How does a brand successfully keep its story consistent through all the various channels today? First, it should decide early on the narrative it wants to tell and make it compelling and integrated into your product. A compelling story/product will inspire buzz and reverberate into further social circles and that means increased market penetration. Second, it should assign the task of brand police to someone who has been on the team since the beginning and allow them to enforce equity. Its important that your policeman knows the narrative and can help to inform the rest of your company. There are many other steps and custom processes to branding yourself but these are a good start.

It may seem daunting but with proper planning and a little legwork and research your brand can translate its message into a great story and not risk losing the battle.