As per the headline, we’re extremely proud to have been selected by the Word Of Mouth Marketing Association as one of their four WOMMIE Award winners for 2007.

The art of Word of Mouth Marketing online is continually evolving and we’re having a great time working at the coalface. Rob Key will be presenting our case study at the WOMMA Summit on November 14-15 in Las Vegas - but in the mean time you can learn from the great case studies hosted at the WOMMA site. In the meantime, we’re happy to be recognized like this:

“I was thrilled to see the caliber of work considered this year for the Wommie Awards, particularly when comparing them against last year’s submissions,” said Amanda Van Nuys, Vice President of Corporate Marketing at Organic, Inc. and Wommie Awards judge. “Collectively, the case studies clearly demonstrate how word of mouth marketing has grown up over the last few years as it transitions from its adolescence and into a more evolved and disciplined marketing practice.”

On To The Friday Links!

This week the Converseon team have had a mix of social networking and smart technology catch our eye. The content below has already sparked some deep thinking and conversation amongst our team, please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Photosynth Demonstration (RSS Readers, click through for video)

This technology is mind blowing. As they say: “Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images”Consumer 3.0: New Trends in CGM

Pete Blackshaw gives a general overview of the current state of CGM marketing, including some links to good examples.

Facebook Facts that will blow your marketing mind

Mitch Joel shares some stats on Facebook from the Canadian Marketing Association conference:

1. The average Facebook user spends about twenty-one minutes plus per day at the online social network.
2. The average Facebook user visits four times per day.
3. Facebook is adding about three hundred and fifty thousand new users every day.
4. Just this morning Facebook surpassed fifty million worldwide community members.
5. Facebook’s size doubles every six months.

Can Facebook feed its ad brains?

Facebook is expected to tap artificial intelligence to deliver ads to its 49 million members. This is a good real world example of the challenges that companies face in serving the right ads to the right people in real time.

A Series of Podcasts with Lee Odden and Mike Moran

Some great discussion here about Mike Moran’s new book “Do It Wrong Quickly: How The Web Changes the Old Marketing Rules”

Explaining OpenSocial to your Executives

A good analysis of what Google’s new OpenSocial can allow you to do to help share great content with your key audiences.

This post highlights some work Converseon has undertaken for American Ventures.

It can be difficult to involve C Level executives in social media, they’re time poor, they are still learning about the changes that are occurring and often they are uneasy about the uncontrolled nature of the blogosphere. At the same time the valuable knowledge and insight these individuals can share can really benefit their relevant niche community. While we look forward to the day when it is the norm for organizations to climb aboard the Cluetrain, at this early stage it is often best to help CEO’s dip their toes in the water as they become educated in the unique nature of social media.

CEOs blogging and podcasting are not new but it is more difficult to involve a CEO in social media in industries that might seem a bit atypical, like commercial real estate. In this case, we worked with Philip Blumberg, the CEO of Blumberg Capital Partners and American Ventures to help him launch the Philip Blumberg Five podcast expounding on the impact of current real estate challenges on commercial real estate development and other topics. The recording of the podcast was also filmed to share the information via YouTube to make the most of his contribution and help spread the information to interested parties.

This early effort with socially media provide an extension of his blog and hopefully the beginning of a deeper involvement with social media in future.

The following case study is a summary of the panel Rob Key shared with Quixtar’s Robin Luymes at the Corporate Reputation and Communication Conference organized by The Conference Board (New York, September 26, 2007).

The client

One of our clients is Quixtar, which has been recognized as the #1 online retailer in the Health & Beauty category in Internet Retailer’s “Top 500 Guide” that ranks America’s largest retail websites, with $136 billion in sales in 2006. The company ‘offers a business opportunity that allows people to have a business of their own based on retailing products and sharing the opportunity with others who will do the same‘ and provides a compensation plan, products, merchandising materials, training and education to hundreds of thousands of Independent Business Owners (IBOs).

Quixtar is the sister company of Amway, and its official representative in US and Canada.

The challenge

Converseon was contracted to work with Quixtar when its online reputation was highly negative. Critics were using third party websites to post complaints that were receiving no answer from the company. Also, critics were accusing Quixtar of using ‘black hat’ SEO techniques in order to suppress criticism.

First step: Conversation Mining

We started by undertaking a comprehensive overview of the CGM conversational landscape, in order to understand the main topics and issues associated with the brand, what is the associated polarity, who are the most influential and the most vocal critics, and how their contributions are impacting the search engines result pages — among other issues.

Developing and implementing a social media strategy

Based on the analysis of data gathered through Conversation Mining, and on our readiness assessment of Quixtar’s internal culture, we developed a strategy for enabling the company to participate in the online conversation by engaging in civil discourse with its critics and advocates, in a direct and transparent manner.

The strategy implementation included:

• Development of a blog portal
• Social Media workshops for key senior executives
• Identifying and training employees on blogging 101, ethics and best practices, writing for web
• Development of blog themes
• Adoption of WOMMA Code of Ethics
• Addressing legal issues, establishing processes and protocols
• Optimization of content and infrastructure for search engines
• Ongoing daily counseling, training and optimization.

On December 1st 2006, Quixtar launched Opportunity Zone - a “place to talk and learn about the Quixtar business opportunity and the people, products, and plan that support it“- with Inside Quixtar and The Real Quixtar Blog, two blogs written by top communications managers. Ada-tudes, a blog written by top executives, and One By One, a blog about Quixtar’s philanthropic and community service efforts, were added in January 2007. Since then other 6 blogs have been launched - on topics going from shopping and selling to fashion and beauty, food and cooking, stories from IBOs, information technology, and sponsored events.

Results (as of end of August, 2007):

• The volume of conversation about Quixtar has increased 41%
• The volume of Quixtar-generated CGM content has increased 5 times
• The volume of CGM content authored by major detractors has decreased by half
• The positive sentiment in CGM content has increased 150%
• The negative sentiment has dropped 39%
• The depth of the conversation has increased by 83%

Beyond the cold numbers, the Opportunity Zone has become the place where Quixtar is talking, through employees and top executives, with its stakeholders, on a whole array of issues, good and bad, concerning its business. The process of opening the communications channels is not necessarily a simple one — but both critics and advocates seem to think it’s well worth the effort:

Kemi T, Quixtar Inside Out

Finally (okay, this time it’s for real), I want to say that I am really impressed by the Opportunity Zone. It’s great that the corp has opened this avenue of two-way communication. Sure, I don’t agree with every single thing that’s there (and what does that matter anyway?), and some are impatient what they perceive as slow (or nonexistent) progress, but Rome wasn’t built in a day. I’m liking what I see, and I hope I’m not disappointed.

Robin Luymes, The Real Quixtar Blog:

SO, with Opportunity Zone, we’re getting a little naked. Are we stripped bare yet? Hardly. After all, we’re talking about 50 years of organizational culture that needs to be shifted. But, I will say this, within the walls of Quixtar and even down the street at Alticor, people are noticing the Opportunity Zone and I think there’s a genuine interest in getting nekkid. Some will still be concerned about whether we reveal too much or that we will get into legal trouble or that we will look bad. Well, I don’t worry too much about looking bad, because we already haven’t looked that great to a lot of people out there. I think people understand there are certain legal things we can’t discuss because they’re live issues, but we should talk freely about the issues we can.

So, get naked! Out yourself before you’re outed. If people find out stuff about you or your business from someone else, they’ll assume you were holding out on them. Our business IS an incredible opportunity for others and DOES offer incredible products that can make a real difference in people’s lives. There’s nothing to hide about that!