Talking About CGM
I feel like I've been going to a lot of conferences lately. I don't know whether it's true or not, but after going to Influx Ideas last week, I actually spoke at Nielsen Buzzmetrics' CGM Summit 2007. My panel was called "Are Brands Prepared for 2010?" and was moderated by none other than Max Kalehoff. Here's the description:
What are the leading brands doing to rewire their DNA for a world increasingly impacted by CGM? How are they changing the way their companies listen, the way they communicate, and the way they manage customer relationships? How have past CGM experiments and lessons informed marketing innovation and planning for the future? Where are we certain, where are our vulnerabilities?
Anyway, I had lots of thoughts about the future of CGM (consumer generated media), but didn't necessarily get them all out during the panel. So, I figured I would throw up some of my notes here:
In three years, CGM will be:
- Integrated into more and more major sites. This is already beginning to happen with Washington Post showing blogs that link to an article or to a lesser extent, Yahoo! including Flickr photos or the New York Times showing which articles are most blogged. Obviously this will lend it an air of credibility and further expose CGM.
- Much more about testing. I've had this theory floating around my head for a while that the future of CGM (especially from an advertising/marketing perspective) is going to be about making a whole bunch of really small investments, seeing which stick and then iterating/investing more on the fly.
- Accepted as a long-term relationship play rather than a short-term burst strategy. Clients are still focused on 'viral', however, CGM is best used as a longer term strategy for developing relationships with customers. (Also on the panel was Bruce Ertmann from Toyota who seems to get this.)
Also mentioned throughout my presentation: Brand as curator, big seed marketing and horizontal media. Although I didn't get to talk about it, I meant to mention the idea that I am ready to move past just looking at influencers and instead at the gauge of the community you want to influence. I haven't fully formed this idea, but after reading The Strength of Weak Ties (PDF via Bokardo), it's something you can expect to read about in the near future.
Finally, back in September I spoke at the Promo Live conference on a panel moderated by Herb Sawyer with the always brilliant Rohit Bhargava and David Armano.
Sorry if the presentation isn't self explanatory, I am happy to add some voiceover if necessary. Just let me know. Okay, that's it for now. Sorry for the slow posting lately.