Attensity Goes on a Social Offensive
March 3, 2011
Remember the pigeons from Psych 101.
Beginning with the discoveries made by Pavlov and his dogs to the direct application of the science by Ogilvy and his Madison Ave. minions, psychology has long played a part in shaping us as consumers.
Now it seems the growing worldwide embrace of Social media has altered one more aspect of our lives, how we are marketed to, or to phrase it more accurately, how we have begun to market ourselves.
Attensity’s “Customer Segmentation for the Social Media Age“, (which the Attensity writer admits was inspired by a series of tweets) delves into the new media ramifications on conventional segmentation practices.
Attensity explains that before the technological advances made over the last three decades, gathering the information necessary to construct effective marketing campaigns consumed both substantial amounts of time and capital. Despite these costs,
” … Segmentation was the best attempt that we as marketers had to give our customers what they needed, …”
What has changed?
The buyer’s willingness, nay their seeming compulsion to share every fleeting thought and scrap of personal information about themselves to anyone clever enough to operate one of the many devices that link us to the web. The new breed of admen now, instead of sorting through pounds of trial results and customer surveys, can as Attensity states:
” … scour the social web to find mentions of our brands, our competitors’ brands and product categories.”
An interesting read and something to think about the next time you feel the urge to “friend” your laundry detergent.
In a related post on the Parisian consulting and technology firm Capgemini’s site, Senior Consultant Jude Umeh discusses the melding of social media surveillance with the review, application and management of the collected data. His perspective is informed by the hands on experience he received at a partner training session organized by Attensity.
Attensity is collaborating with Pega, a firm offering business process management and customer relationship management software. BPM and CRM are factors in the new math of modern marketing, Attensity seems to have discovered the formula that will position the collective at the head of pack.
Layering their respective technologies, the group appears poised to revolutionize the way information is gleaned from new media. Can Attensity pull off a home run with every search and content processing vendor “discovering” these market sectors? We do not know.
Michael Cory, March 3, 2011
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Who Defriended Google?
February 24, 2011
Did Facebook defriend Google? Did Google defriend Facebook? With Xooglers making up about 20 percent of the Facebook staff, the questions are not innocuous. The fate of Google’s new social play may hang in the balance. What are friends for?
Meow.
There’s something catty about how Google has snubbed Facebook in the latest iteration of Google Social. The official blog post to announce the new improvements says not one word about Facebook, the elephant in the room. In “Analysis: Google Social Search Is All About Blocking Facebook/Twitter Search” Tom Foremski’s take is that this
“Google move is better understood as a blocking measure to stop people from asking their social network directly. “
Will it work? Let’s think about it.
Google Social has been around since 2009, but these latest improvements take results that were at the bottom of the screen and place them high up in the search results, as well as adding notes for links your connections have shared, and expanded the ways you can connect your accounts. Google, of course, always tries to act like it’s taking the high road when it comes to Facebook, stressing that Facebook is a closed system while Google is as open and free as the air we breathe. Personally, I think public data is overrated and I think many other people do too. Why else is there a huge backlash every time Facebook tries to sneak in more openness to its users’ profiles?
What happens when the big dogs set up a pack without a little dog? Answer: Bowling alone.
When I look at Google Social, I have to ask myself if people would choose this over Facebook. Facebook, of course, has momentum on its side since nearly everyone and his grandmother is on Facebook already and accessing it frequently. Another question is how can Google know whose opinion I actually care about when giving me search results?
Salesforce and Facebook: Dating Now
February 17, 2011
A year ago, Salesforce.com discovered collaboration. The company hired a former journalist to be an evangelist. We were not sure how the marriage of trendy chat chat would fit with the wild eyed sales orientation of Salesforce.com. We still are not sure.
We did notice that Facebook has a brand new friend and they are working on a project together, so writes Read Write Cloud, “Salesforce.com and Facebook Strengthen Ties Through Force.com Platform.” The two companies are currently looking for an application developer who will maintain and develop Force.com applications for business and external purposes. At the moment, they’ve released the Facebook Toolkit in beta. It still needs tweaking, but both companies have high hopes for it. Items in the Toolkit include Auth 2.0, JSON, pagination, REST API, and extended pagination. According to the story:
“It [The deal with Facebook] shows the value Salesforce.com places on the experience that it wants to provide customers. And for Facebook it opens a new window for the reach of its service and integration with the modern enterprise.”
Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud champ and Facebook is the social networking king. Does this mean that Salesforce.com’s original strategy was flawed? Is there a benefit to Facebook from this deal that Salesforce.com may not see? Interesting tie up.
Whitney Grace, February 17, 2011
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Augmenting Output for Clarity
February 12, 2011
We love it when mid tier consulting firms “discover” a trend. A Gartner expert has revealed “Relationship Context Metadata.” Here’s the definition of the polysyllabic concept:
“Relationship context metadata explicitly describes the relationship from which the identity information was obtained and the constraints imposed by the participants in that relationship on the use and disclosure of the information.”
The consulting firm’s example is that of a credit card number. Instead of just sending the number, you could tag the number with metadata that specifies how it is to be used and what relationship will be damaged if it is misused.
This mid-tier consulting firm is applying a new name, “relationship context,” to the social graph. Will we apply their metadata to information from Foursquare, Gowalla, and other social networking / geospatial services?
One of the goslings here in Harrod’s Creek asked, “Could we include a tag that means no stalking?”
Cynthia Murrell, February 12, 2011
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Intersection with Social Collisions
February 6, 2011
We urge you to read the article “The New Intersection of Search and Social Media” and its ten tips.It took an inordinate chunk of time to overcome my initial impression, which was the gratuitously exploitative nature of this form of advertising, best showcased in suggestion number nine:
9. Social Media Can Be a Great Way to Build Links. Social media profiles/pages give us a great opportunity for link bait. People love to link to things about themselves. Post items such as the top ten experts in your field for reciprocal links.
Whatever your opinion of the social networking trend, it is undeniably a juggernaut of technology with rapidly evolving applications. If it can help topple entire regimes, of course it was inevitable that the increase of search power laced throughout social media would tempt marketers to begin pulling the strings in their favor. This makes for a streamlined process built from consumer feedback that is both instant and free. Also advantageous for the little guy, these new methods allow for self-advertising in smaller businesses, alleviating budget concerns.
However, I cannot help but notice this new shift in marketing has changed the entire profession. No more romantic thoughts of creative minds in rooms collectively working on expansive campaigns to present to the public in hopes of approval. Now the willful spewing of private information made public by social media users provides a direct feed into their needs and desires. The job just doesn’t seem quite as challenging when you have the answer before you ask the question.
Sarah Rogers, February 6, 2011
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Spinning Your CV or Resume
February 5, 2011
Top 10 Overused Phrases on Linkedin keeps haunting us. The message traffic on some of the LinkedIn groups whose updates we receive are increasingly job hunt oriented. This communicates interesting messages about what happens when a content-centric group pulls in users who are more interesting in eating than opining about the future of search, content processing, and social media. Imagine that. The most overused phrases, therefore, are becoming an increasingly important part of LinkedIn posts.
One way to do that is to really make your resume stand out. Jessica Holbrook Hernandez is the CEO of Great Resumes Fast and has compiled a list of terms that are overused and only serve to relegate your resume to the “do not call” pile.
“Instead of using these throwaway terms to describe yourself, attempt to outline specific accomplishments.”
Words like innovative, motivated, dynamic, and entrepreneurial are considered fillers and are on 99 percent of all resumes. Though these terms may describe your abilities, it’s best that you make changes to your resume immediately. Great tips, but we have already moved LinkedIn to our C list. Search systems on social services cannot deal effectively with “hire me” spam. The human moderators, once eager to maintain certain groups, seem to have a shorter and shorter half life.
Leslie Radcliffe, February 5, 2011
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LinkedIn Phrases: Help or Spam?
February 1, 2011
LinkedIn is the professional equivalent of Facebook. Many potential employers are searching for new workers on the website, but they will avoid resumes that use clichéd terms and phrases. Xscion Solutions has a piece titled, “Top 10 Overused Phrases on LinkedIn.” If you think about it, it is practical knowledge to not do what everyone else is doing. Following the crowd usually doesn’t have rewards.
“Even though some of these terms might confirm to be true, they wont stick out to any employer for the simple fact that they see these same phrases on 99% of all resumes. Tell them something that will get their attention and make you memorable.”
When I read articles like this, I find that Linked In and its phrases are the ideal source of professional word seeding. Is it possible that this is a SEO ploy or spam? LinkedIn frequently pumps out content that seems more suited to Monster.com. I know that some folks need work, but I find content, interesting viewpoints, and critical commentary more useful than “help wanted” or “we need a person with Lucene experience right away” more like a rice cake than a chunk of cheddar.
Whitney Grace, February 1, 2011
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Real Time Sentiment
January 29, 2011
Navigate to the French language site TopJournaliste. You can browse the ratings calculated by a numerical recipe. You can leave a comment about a journalist. The idea is that the blend of sentiment analysis and crowd sourcing can provide insight into the behavior of a person with influence. If you don’t know a French journalist, try for Canal Plus’s Emilie Bessek or Jean-March Morandini. Interesting technology applications. We wondered how it would do with contributors to the Huffington Post, the ever accurate New York Times, Harrod’s Creek’s favorite TV channel, Fox News?
Stephen E Arnold, January 29, 2011
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Facebook: User-Centric Model
January 23, 2011
Allowing individuals to friend barely recognizable high school classmates and give scintillating updates on fetching lattes has garnered Facebook over 650 million global users and $1.86 billion in advertising revenue for 2010 says the recent Advertising Age article “Facebook Books $1.86B in Advertising; Muscles In on Google’s Turf”. eMarketer estimates that a majority of sales come from small- and medium-size companies making use of Facebook’s self-service system—territory that earned Google more than $200 billion in the last decade.
“Those advertisers are really juicing Facebook’s growth,” said Debra Williamson, principal analyst at eMarketer. “They buy advertising in bulk. They’ve done it for years on Google, and now they’re taking that expertise to Facebook.”
More surprising is Facebook isn’t pandering to big brand advertisers to rack up revenue but continuing to focus on developing consumer-centric products that attract users. This makes us question whether this type of advertising opportunity is better than Google’s options. If Facebook remains attractive to advertisers and can up their response rate, they will pass Google’s benchmark.
Christina Sheley, January 23, 2011
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Implications for Smarter Search?
January 20, 2011
Facebook is taking over your brain! Okay, that’s a lie, but the researchers at the Carnegie Mellon University have discovered that our brains work like a highly sophisticated social network.
Our brains are made up of neurons within the neocortex of the brain scientists have discovered a kind of “subnetwork” of very active neurons that process more information than “regular” neurons. It is the culmination of 40 years of research which has opened the door to another 40 years of research. Locker Gnome says:
“It’s (the neuron network) like Facebook. Most of your friends don’t post much — if at all. But, there is a small percentage of your friends on Facebook who update their status and page often. Those people are more likely to be connected to more friends…” Barth said.
It is precisely these connections that make it possible for the sharing of mass amounts of information between connections. While the neurons are sending out this information they are also receiving information from their extended networks that include other “highly” active neurons.
In the end it seems to work like the six degrees of separation. Every sixth neuron is going to know someone in your network! Pretty nifty stuff. So what happens if Facebook launches a search system based on urls its members provide and CMU’s insights?
Leslie Radcliff, January 20, 2011
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