Imitation is the most sincere form of flattery. The PR person in me jokingly refers to it as "an homage." Others might call it plagiarism or copyright infringement.

Does the new Twitter merit any of these descriptions when compared to HootSuite? Not sure, but news about Twitter's new ad targeting, pending analytics and new interface (shown here via my work account) makes it clear that Twitter is trying to become more of an ad platform.

Open API, Closed Business Model
Many will say new Twitter is killing the company's relationship with its developer community. This community helped Twitter vault from being a very handy utility into the third most popular social media site (recently passing MySpace).

But if they're going to make money, they need to nail their ad model and give users more reasons to use their site. It's business.

Twit-Suite6
I've been using both Twitter.com and HootSuite lately.

It's why I finally noticed a feature they added to joint accounts a few months back -- assigning tweets to other users for follow-up. It's not the same as Radian6 routing capabilities, but it was the first thing I compared it to.

So as social media morphs, the applications we're using to access the graph are as well. Consolidating Twitter tools is long overdue. But I don't see HootSuite competing with Radian6 (disclosure: we use Radian6 at Empower). This all simply reminds us that change is good and social media is messy.

Ford Motor Company is arguably one of the most successful companies on the planet in terms of using social media marketing successfully. Like them or not, they listen, they react, they engage and they inspire with their efforts. And yeah, social media lead Scott Monty and I are friends, but that doesn’t mean I play favorites. Scott would probably tell you I pick on him more than pat him on the back.

This morning, I spent 20 minutes on the phone with Jim Farley, Ford’s Vice President for Global Marketing, so he could tell me the next big thing Ford is doing using social media. The global launch of the Ford Focus later this year is, according to Farley, “The most important launch in our company’s history.” Probably a neatly crafted talking point to make media folks think it’s a bigger deal than it really is, but the Focus is one of a handful of car models that is marketed and sold on a Global scale, so I’ll give him that.

What Ford is doing is yet another trump card to out-do the last awesome thing they did. With the Fiesta Movement and Facebook-centric launch of the Explorer, Ford created a new way of communicating with its customers and showed the world how to do social media on scale. Nothing is ever perfect, but they were both successes. But there are some elements to what Ford is doing with Focus that made me perk up.

Here’s the push:

• 50 applicants will be chosen and flown, with one guest each, to an undisclosed location in Southern Europe (because the car won’t be public yet), to test drive the new Ford Focus before anyone else.
• Ford will enable them to record and share their experiences driving the new Focus and encourage them to write about their trip and test drive.
• For their time and trouble, the 50 winning applicants will be given $10,000 to donate to the charity of their choice.
• Applications are being accepted now on the Ford Focus Facebook page.
• The 50 will be chosen on a number of criteria, but you can assume that the size of one’s sphere of influence will be a big factor. More importantly, however, applicants will be chosen because of their desire to be involved with Ford.

So, to recap: You get a trip for two to Europe (I’m guessing Southern France), exclusive access with only 49 others to the new car and 10 large for a good cause? It’s brilliant, and here’s why:

Warm And Fuzzy

The charitable element makes people feel good about wanting to do it. It will motivate many to apply who would never have done so because there’s a payoff that means something special to them. It also makes Ford look like a champion because they’re allowing their community members to pick the charity (ala Pepsi), not saying, “If you buy x amount of y product, we’ll donate to our favorite charity in your name.”

“Our hope is that we want people to feel great about being a part of our company and our family,” Farley said. “The Global Focus is the most important launch in our company’s hsitory. We want to take social media to the next level and turn it into a Global opportunity. We’re going ask for their help to launch the vehicle globlally but make them feel good about the effort. We think that’s a fair way to compensate them.”

No Spam Here

The effort is completely opt-in. They aren’t reaching out to influential bloggers in the auto industry and begging them to be one of the 50. They’re calling for anyone interested. If you’re not interested in Ford, don’t apply. This will make the outputs more genuine and passionate. The 50 chosen will want to be there.

It’s just another A-plus move from a company that clearly understands social media … or rather thinking about their consumers over their products … is paramount.

“We couldn’t think of launching a vehicle today without launching it early using social media,” Farley told me. He also assured me that Ford is continuing to evolve to be a social media (nay, consumer-centric) company with its marketing efforts.

“We are really diverting more and more resources toward social media,” he said. “This requires us to work very differently. PR and marketing have to work seamlessly. But we’re absolutely excellerating our investment in social media because that is where people are spending their time.”

As for measuring success, Farley told me the ultimate measures for their social media efforts are the number of people that go to FordVehicles.com and ask for more information or engage with the company about a particular model. He said the Fiesta Movement and Ford Explorer launch were very successful in delivering those metrics. He also acknowledged the other big measure they watch is the buzz and chatter about the company’s brands and reputation.

“We watch the positive and negative comments, but also the volume of comments,” he explained. “People are talking about Ford in the U.S. unlike any time for many years.”

I asked Farley about the challenges of managing marketing for a product that ultimately is sold by someone else. Ford can talk up its brands all it wants online, but you don’t buy from Ford. You buy from a dealer. He told me the brand being involved in the online conversations and actively engaging people was sort of a seed-planter for people considering buying a car, but acknowledged a challenge with the dealers.

“The Fiesta Movement was a catalyst to change for our dealers as well as the company,” he explained. “Were doing more and more education with our dealers on engaging with their local community, how the dealerships are working and how engaged customers are. With everything, there are dealers that are really embracing it and others that aren’t paying attention. But most of them are in the middle. So we’ve been proactive about making sure those in the middle understand. As part of our training for new model launches, we’ve been aggressive to bring our dealers along with us.”

Farley also explained that social media at the dealer level can be facilitated by the brand in compelling ways. He told me most of the major metro market dealerships now have interactive displays, floor clings and showroom signage that includes QR code tags so a customer can snap a picture and immediately be delivered feature videos, benefits and more information as they’re browsing the car. They’re also immediately able to share that content with their networks.

Clearly, Ford is embracing social media marketing in ways other companies are not. I’m sure a good bit of that has to do with my buddy Scott, but also leadership like Farley that is starting to not only see consumer-centric thinking, but see the benefits of it.

So what do you think? The comments are yours.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Ford’s Global Focus to Premier in Paris (wheels.blogs.nytimes.com)
• Ford says new Focus shows turnaround momentum (reuters.com)

Partnership marketing has been around for a long time. It wasn’t uncommon for Bill Smith’s Plumbing Service to get ad dollars from a big brand such as Kohler for Yellow Page ads if in fact Bill Smiths Plumbing carried Kolher bath and kitchen plumbing fixtures. The ad sort of gave Bill Smith’s plumbing a leg up as being a quality contractor due to the brand association with Kohler. However, the ads were ads, one way marketing.

That model worked pretty well until consumers changed the direction of how they shop, or, more specifically, how they start their search for what they are shopping for. Channel Advisor states in a White Paper, How Consumers Shop Online:

Eighty one percent of consumers begin their product searches with Google and 11 percent begin with Yahoo. (This should convince you how important it is for your site to be listed on Google Local, as well as appear high in the Google search engine results.)

A New Way to Partner: Sharing the Audience

Big brands and local brands are still interested in you and your business. Mike Whaling from 30 Lines Marketing summed it up nicely during an interview on a partnership marketing project they are doing for a client, University Village.

Partnership marketing has traditionally been about sharing advertising … now it is more about sharing audience.

University Village, a student housing provider in Columbus, Ohio, tailored a VIP program, where they negotiated deals and discounts with local venders for their residents that align with their brand and target demographic. The cool spin to this is that they incorporated  a social media element by adding Foursquare buttons to each of the ads.

Our own company (Urbane Apartments) recently partnered with Vitamin Water and Sharpie Pens during a local festival to create Hydration Galleries, and landed on Sharpie’s Web Site;

Our friends at Urbane Apartments coordinated an area of R&R for attendees of Michigan’s Arts Beats & Eats fest over Labor Day Weekend.  Sharpie hopped on board with the great people over at vitaminwater to put this event into action.  Transforming one of Urbane Apartments’ into, what was known as a ”Hydration Gallery,” fest-goers were invited into a “chic lounge atmosphere” to cool off, rehydrate with delicious vitaminwater and create works of art with Sharpie Markers on easels that were set up around the lounge, all the while enjoying tunes provided by Livio Radio.

What is the value to your business for landing on a larger brands web site?  A really big glass of Google Juice! Small business could never afford that type of exposure in the past. You must carefully choose your partners, though. It is paramount to align yourself with like demographics that add value, or likeness to your audience.

We would love to hear your feedback or experiences on any partnership marketing projects you may have tried. There is as much value in what didn’t work, as what did. Please share in the comments.

Digital and Entertainment: “Collision of two worlds” – Dave Knox (Moderator), Rockfish Interactive / Drew Buckley, Electus / Pete Blackshaw, NM Incite / America Ferrera, Actress, Star of Ugly Betty

Customer Relations + Brand Management = Social Engagement Speaker – Wendy Lea, Get Satisfaction

Social Marketing (For Adults): What Brands Need To Know About the Brave New World of
Online Engagement – Gregg Coleman, Huffington Post

The Sweet Sound of Success: Building Environments Conducive to Advertising – Tim Westergren, Founder and CSO, Pandora Radio

Brand Building by Design: Implications for Brand Design in the Digital Environment -  Jerry Kathman, LPK

“‘Going viral is diametrically opposed to building that trust and relationship between a media property and an audience.  Brands spend all this time thinking about how to make something go viral when they ought to think about how to create a meaningful relationship.’” – Jim Louderback in the New York Times

A hypothetical (but not that foreign) situation:

Bill is the greatest potter in the world. He uses magic power to mold the clay into whatever shape he wants just by staring at it. So, not only does he make the best pottery in the world, but the way he makes it is absolutely freaking amazing.

The power of social media marketing to build a business

Bill enjoyed decent pottery sales before his methods were known. But his profits multiplied by a factor of at least 1000 when people learned how he made it. Who wouldn’t want to see real live magic?

Every week Bill makes pottery before a live audience. At first he just had a few spectators. But as they told other people, who told their friends, and so on, someone started making videos of Bill at work, posted them on YouTube, and started talking about it.  His audience grew and grew and grew because Bill’s work was so darned amazing.  Bill eventually had to start renting a football stadium because so many people wanted to see the experience.

The power of an authentic, human experience shared via marketing

It’s a simple, understated performance, by the way.  Bill gets up and does his amazing thing with the pottery.  Then he stands up, smiles and says “Thank you all for coming.  I really appreciate it.”  He signs autographs for a while and then goes back to his humble studio and keeps plugging away.

Not only is the pottery selling for vaults of money, but people are paying Bill to see him make it in person. He’s the rock star of pottery. Every Hollywood celebrity wants a custom bowl made by Bill. He is buried in profits.  AND, he still gets to do work that he loves to do.

What isn’t marketing?  Not much.

Now which parts of the above are marketing? All of them.

• Marketing is making the best darn pottery in the world.
• Marketing is making the best darn pottery in the world using magic power.
• Marketing is broadcasting and sharing the experience of the most amazing pottery in the world being made by magic power.

Here’s the thing, though. Bill would probably still be making the greatest pottery in the world and he’d be much less affluent if no one had seen how he could do it. If the world at large didn’t know about Bill’s ability to use magic power to make the world’s greatest pottery, then it would just be the greatest pottery. And there aren’t that many pottery connoisseurs around in the 21st century.  But social media allowed some fraction of the experience to be captured and shared with the world.

Meet Richard – The Anti-Bill

Contrast this with Richard (most people call him Dick), another potter.  He copied Bill’s magic power secrets early on, mastered the  social media channels earlier and tried to do the very same things as Bill, but in quite a different style.  On the surface, he used many of the same tools.

How did Dick make out?  We’ll come back to him in a moment.

Social media are one set of many media channels

Prior to the Internet, the Web and social media, it would have been extremely hard for Bill’s (or Dick’s) story to spread unless the news media or the entertainment industry found it quirky enough to take an interest. Who knows, maybe the story would sell some ads? But unless you got the attention of the mass media powers that be, there was virtually no way that a story like Bill’s could spread and grow on its own in the pre-Internet era – it would have been shot down as a hoax. Amateur video, on the other hand, gave the whole thing authenticity.

Today it’s much easier for you to be a Bill than ever before, at least in the sense of spreading your message across a large swath of the world. Social media channels have been extremely helpful for entrepreneurs of all sizes to tell their stories to the world. Some companies have done a great job at it. Many haven’t done as well.

But it’s no longer a question of if you use social media to tell your story. Now it’s a question of when and how.

A very bad way to use social media

Some people are still skeptical about allowing businesses to use free Web services as a means of connecting with the world (read:  sell stuff and make money in the process). There’s still plenty of ways to screw it all up, though.  Remember Dick?  Well, Dick forgot that the wonderful part of the experience wasn’t him.  The experience was supposed to be about seeing him make incredible pottery with magic power.

Instead, viewers were bombarded with pro-Dick propaganda, advertising for unrelated products, and special guest appearances by celebrities that were intended to boost Dick’s profile – and ego.  Once people caught on to the fact that Dick was only in it for the fame and the money, his audience (and buyers) disappeared.

Now he can’t sell any pottery. Because, on top of everything else, Dick wasn’t even a good pottery maker.

You’ll probably be upset at the way Dick used social media.  But what about Bill?  He delivered on his promises and he was respectful.  He was also human.  Would you really berate him for using free services?  I don’t think I could.

Conclusion:  Use social media with care (or, you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear)

So we have two ways of using social media channels to market yourself:   one good, one not so good.  But without the channels, the potential to grow just wasn’t there.

I think that Bill would agree that social media was good for him.  I think that Bill had a good approach to using the media with respect.  And staying human to boot.  Alas, poor Richard did not do so well.  He forgot about why it works.  And he failed miserably.

The moral of the story: In the world of social media, don’t be a Dick.

Our friends and presenters from Pointroll and Empower Media Marketing have posted a recap of their session “Clicks Aren’t Connections” and their slides as well.

And you can read tweets from the Friday 10am breakouts, including those from this particular engaging session.

Marty Boyer has sent us a link to slides from his breakout “Screw Your Big Screen TV”:  http://www.slideshare.net/martyboyer/screw-your-big-screen-tv

Check this previous post for a collection of tweets from Friday’s 11am breakouts, which include tweets from Marty’s session reference here.

Here are 2 new write-ups regarding the DigNC, courtesy of our friends at Soapbox Cincinnati and Seek Research:

• Digital Non-Conference brings best and brightest to Cincinnati  (Soapbox)
• Top 3 thoughts from Digital Non-Conference 2010 (Seek Research)

I am all fired up.  The reason — SummitUp 2010.

Two weeks from today, the SummitUp conference will take place in Dayton, Ohio.  If you have never been or heard of SummitUp, check it out. SummitUp is a day long conference dedicated to exploring social media, marketing, business, technology, and creativity.  The event is scheduled to take place on October 19th, 2010 at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.  I am one of the organizers of the event, and even get the fun job of being the emcee. (did I mention this event is just 2 days after I run my first marathon?  Wish me luck.)

The event is a collaborative effort between numerous local professional organizations such as Technology First, The Greater Dayton Advertising Association, The American Marketing Association, The Public Relations Society of America, The International Association of Business Communicators, The Media Communications Association International, and The Dayton Creative Syndicate.  Members from each of these groups as well as other dedicated volunteers have been working hard to make the day a success, and it looks like the event is shaping up to be quite an exciting day.

Why am I so excited about SummitUp?

Last year’s conference was amazing, and this year is only going to be even better.   We have an incredible line-up of keynote speakers including presentations from John Moore, Pete Blackshaw, Steve Lance, and Brian Solis.   We have an extensive line-up of breakout sessions — with two of last year’s keynote presenters, Kevin Dugan and Artie Isaac, returning this year to conduct more intimate breakouts.   Sessions also include discussions of using social media for sales, comment moderation, social media on campus, mobile application development, strategic implementation of social media, and organizational execution strategies.  Every attendee will get a copy of Brian Solis’ book Engage, Steve Lance’s book Breakthrough, and Pete Blackshaw’s book A Satisfied Customer Tells 3 Friends, An Angry Customer Tells 3,000. All of this plus breakfast, lunch, & parking for the low price of $179.00.  For members fo the associations listed the price is only $139.00.

Perhaps you are saying to yourself, “sounds great but I don’t have time for such an event?”  It is as Stephen Covey would say.  You have to sharpen the saw every now and then.  If you are so busy sawing and never take time out to sharpen the saw the blade gets dull and your results steadily diminish over time.  The same is true with your professional skills, and if you are looking to sharpen your skills quickly, spending one day at SummitUp might just be the best investment of time and money you make this year.

This is one of those events that truly has the potential to be a transformative day in your life and the life of your business.  The speakers are world class, the information is cutting edge, and the price is a fraction of what comparable events cost.  Best yet it is a one day event right here in Dayton.  No need for expensive hotels, plane tickets, and travel headaches to hear the world’s utmost authorities on marketing, creativity, social media, and technology.  They are coming right here to Dayton!

I am proud to be a part of this event, and delighted to be able to bring such a knowledgeable, talented group of presenters to my home town of Dayton, Ohio.  SummitUp is going to be a special day.  A day that you don’t want to miss.

This event matters.  It can matter to you, to your business, to your peers, and to your community.  Conversely, you matter to the event.  You can play a huge role in making it a success.  How?

Simple:

• Visit SummitUp.org & register for the event.
• Share the event with others by liking the SummitUp fanpage on Facebook, following @summitupcon on Twitter, updating your status on Facebook and Twitter to tell your friends and followers about the event.  Even if you can’t attend, simply spreading the word to others helps a great deal.
• Chime in on the discussions taking place about the event, and help us to make the event as good as it can be.
• Encourage others you know to attend the event.
• Show up at SummitUp, tweet, take pictures, shoot videos, jot down notes, and show off this event to the world.
• Take the things you learn, the connections you make, and the ideas you develop and change the world!

In summary — 1 day, 2 meals, 3 books, 4 keynotes, 10 breakouts, & infinite possibilities: SummitUp 10/19/2010 Dayton Ohio.

I hope to see you there!