Our colleague, Paull Young, was quoted today in the Christian Science Monitor story ‘Who’s That Selling at Your (Online) Door‘ about ethics within social media and word of mouth marketing. Social media and word of mouth marketing are successful due to the trust they engender, but as more brands move budgets into this realm, the pressure to “bend the rules” will increase. Stealth marketing, astroturfing, fake blog (“flogs”) and other “dark art” tactics will simply destroy trust and, in the process, the effectiveness. And once trust is lost, it is all-so-difficult to regain.

Converseon is proud to be a governing member of WOMMA which has taken a lead in developing a set of ethical guidelines. Now it’s up to the industry to self regulate. We applaud organizations like DuPont who have formally adopted the WOMMA code of ethics.

At Converseon, all our work is in compliance. We find that this does not in any way limit effectiveness or creativity. There simply is no need to resort to unethical tactics. We also work closely with our clients to help adopt the ethical code, train them and also help set up compliance mechanisms. We recognize our role in helping this industry flourish and hope others hold themselves and their clients to the same standards. In a world where technology is helping to create new bonds through new communications tools and technologies, we, as an industry and a society, cannot afford to accept anything less.

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.

Converseon had the pleasure of receiving the OMMA Award on Tuesday night for the “Best Use of Virtual Worlds.” Hosted by our building brethren Mediapost, the event recognized the best and most breakthrough creative in online advertising and media.

Our Second Chance Trees project beat out some formidable competition, specifically Coca-Cola’s Virtual Thirst Project and Pontiac’s Motorati island. I admire both of those programs because they begin to tap into what we see as the real value of current virtual worlds — an open source platform to allow users to experiment, co-create and innovate in collaboration with brands.

The Second Chance Trees project was a bit more modest in scope (and likely budget), but fully dipped into what we see as among the most fertile areas for breakthrough innovation in social media - utilizing virtual worlds to impact the real world, and vice versa. In our view, virtual worlds are not meant to exist in isolation, but as an extension of our own world, albeit in a dimension where we can poke through to innovate, experiment and experience with tools and environments that extend beyond our mortal powers. We intend to dig more deeply into exploring the virtual-to-real world potential and, of course, continuing to utilize SCT to promote tree reforestation around the world. So more to come on that over time.

We would, of course, like to thank all our avatar and RL friends who have supported the effort including Andy Beal, Lee Odden, Peter Himler, Stephen Davies, Lee Hopkins, Luke Armour and Amalthea Blanc.

If you would like to learn more about the Second Chance Trees project and our approach to virtual worlds, please take a listen to the attached audio file of a presentation I delivered at WOMMA’s Learn It, Do It event in New York city last week. As always, your comments and questions are welcome.

 

 WOMMA NYC Second Chance Trees Presentation (Rob Key) [19:12m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Converseon CEO Rob Key will present his ‘Cultural Anthropology in Online Communities’ case study focusing on Second Chance Trees and it’s use of ‘karmic communications’ at the WOM in the City II event in New York tomorrow. The half-day educational event is part of the WOMMA: Learn It, Do It series.

The Second Chance Trees project has recently been nominated for an OMMA Award in the ‘Virtual Worlds’ category and was the only example of social media among the American Express Members Project finalists. Rob will discuss Second Chance Trees and its successes as a case study in the value of engaging online communities through immersive involvement.

What
WOM in the City II

Who
Ed Keller, CEO, The Keller Fay Group
Malcolm Faulds, VP of Media Services, BzzAgent
Leslie Forde, VP of Strategic Alliances, Communispace
Rob Key, CEO, Converseon
Idil Cakim, VP, Interactive Media, GolinHarris
Peter Waldheim, Interim CEO, WOMMA

When
Thursday, September 20, 2007
7:30 AM - 12:00 PM

Where
McCann’s
622 3rd Avenue
New York, New York 10001

Find more information and let us know if you’ll be attending at the Converseon Upcoming account, or go straight to the WOMMA website to register.

Converseon CEO Rob Key will be presenting his ‘Cultural Anthropology in Online Communities’ case study focusing on Second Chance Trees and the principle of ‘karmic-communications’ at WOMMA’s Learn It! Do It! event in DC tomorrow.

Rob presented the same topic at the corresponding event in New York last week and now is the best time to learn from this case study because of all the recent activity around Second Chance Trees. The event looks to be an excellent educational opportunity and there are still some seats available (register here).

What
WOMMA Learn It, Do It Series

Who
Rob Key, CEO, Converseon
Peter Waldheim, Interim CEO, WOMMA
John Bell, Managing Director - 360° Digital Influence, Ogilvy PR
Malcolm Faulds, Vice President of Media Services, Bzzagent
Leslie Forde, Vice President of Strategic Alliances, Communispace Corporation
Ted Wright, Managing Partner, Fizz

When
Tuesday July 24 2007
7:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Where
Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
1111 19th Street NW, 10th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20036

Please leave a comment below if you will be attending, or with any thoughts after the event.