**Image Pier Madonia for the International Red Cross**

One topic that I have written about extensively in this blog is consumer relationships with brands and, in special cases, Brands Worthy of a Weekend (BWOW).  When I started writing about BWOW, it was still a relatively lofty  bar – a brand for which you care so deeply that you would spend a weekend away from your family to connect with other people who feel the same way about this brand, learn more about the “inside” of the business, meet the people who make the magic happen, etc.   With the seismic shift in the blogosphere, however, brand “weekends” have become more and more common, but with a major difference – they are largely designed for influential voices versus passionate fans.   In the mom blogger space in particular, these events are happening in rapid fire succession with some players covering  multiple per month.  While these executions absolutely hold water as communications strategies – at least for the time being – they are no longer about “passion”.  I would argue it is very difficult to be truly passionate about more than a handful of things.

Enter compassion.  I’d never stopped to give compassion much thought, but having begun work on a project that centers on compassion, I am now hyperconscious of it in the world around me and there are a lot of business applications.  While we expect compassion in/from our fellow human beings, we don’t expect companies – with their one-size-fits-all policies and protocols for front line reps – to want or choose to show compassion.    But upon further reflection,  a lot of brand fan creation stories have an act of compassion at their core.  A couple of examples:

• This weekend, the waitress at Inside Park at St. Barts who came outside (where I was exiled with my toddler-gone-wild) to chat with me, suggest some places where I could entertain him, and take my order on the go made me a fan.
• My St. John Knit fan creation story is ALL about a VP of Customer Service reading my letter and breaking the rules to help a desperate bride (now customer for life).
• Every Twitter/online customer redemption listening story – from @comcastcares to the Dell outreach team or non-tech areas like the Vermont Teddy Bear Company reading a complaint I had made about some spam affiliate marketing and correcting the problem (that turned me into a supporter of their sister venture Pajamagram).

The first step in codifying compassion into your business or brand as witnessed above is listening.  You can not understand “the other” or “walk in their shoes” unless you pause to try to understand and consider an issue, opportunity or problem from their point of view.  In the examples above, “listening” took the forms of watching a situation visually, reading a letter from a customer, and blogosphere monitoring respectively (note: great post on active listening from John Bell here).

The second element is trusting those human beings who do represent your brand with the power to act.  Ritz Carlton famously gives front line reps a budget from which they can do whatever they need to do to correct any problems in a customer’s stay and send them away happy.  That not only creates customer evangelists, it proves that the brand trusts the human beings that they have selected to embody the brand.

So, next time something happens that turns you into a positive-WOM machine for a company or a brand, think about the role compassion plays and whether or not you are in turn entrusting your team with the power to pass it along to your own customers.

WHO IS THIS WOMAN? BLOGGER? MOM?  WOM ADVOCATE?  WIFE?  STRATEGIST? She’s not confused, just multi-dimensional like you.

This week, I was honored to be asked to participate in IBM’s Social Media Marketing Summit.  The first speaker of the day was a social media standard, but someone whom I had not previously met: Frank Eliason, the man behind @comcastcares.  Frank has not only become a poster child for his company, he has become a go-to case study for traditional media getting value out of Twitter.  Frank had a lot of great nuggets of wisdom to pass along through sharing his journey, but there was one aspect that I got some additional questions on later: his very open, brave take on how personal and professional worlds fit together in social media.

Frank’s profile page not only bears his own photo, but links to his family’s personal websites.  This is Frank’s interpretation of a critical principle: people don’t create relationships with a company, they create relationships with people. He shares these links to personalize both himself and his employer.  While I agree with the underlying concept, my interpretation of what it means to bring this principle to life is different.  While my tweets, this blog, and my entries on the Ogilvy blog are all written in a very conversational style that reflects my personality, I do not have digital links up to family or (non-business-relevant) friends.  I am also pretty sensitive to the topics of what I cover and try to stay close to my mission of discussion social media & WOM-relevant topics with an appropriate slice of life on the side.  For the purely personal or “venting”, I usually use Facebook.

I truly don’t think there’s any right or wrong or black or white on this issue.  Over the last few days, I’ve been trying to figure out why I have consciously and unconsciously made these decisions.  Here’s what I’ve come up with:
I have clients – there is already a certain level of professional self-censorship on the stories I share as much of what I am exposed to is proprietary or sensitive for my clients.  Someone who is the face of a brand might feel a bit more comfortable sharing a larger percentage of their days and nights.

I’m female – I started blogging in the age of the mommyblogger explosion, but was not blogging about anything personal.   Because I am a mom who blogs, but am not a mommyblogger, I have probably veered a little dramatically to stay out of that category and pay proper respect to those who truly excel at sharing about their personal lives.  And like Rock and Roll Mama says: I’ve still got it.  Even when I am up to my elbows in Elmo and goldfish.

Virginia Miracle is a Professional Construct (or: Dad Ate My Google Results) – Virginia Miracle was born in 2004 when I married into an awesome last name.  Prior to that, I had a different, somewhat complex and very southern name that is extremely close to that of my Dad – my fabulous and extremely prolific writer father.  For a guy who just got broadband last year, he has a shockingly robust digital footprint.  Getting a new name coincided with the year that I found WOMMA and my career changed.   Thus, everything public that is associated with the name “Virginia Miracle” has stayed relatively professional and been highly correlated to Word of Mouth Marketing.

I don’t think there is a “best practice” here, but it is important to be conscious of your choices as you start that Twitter feed, create a YouTube video of your friends in Vegas, or blog about your parenting style.  Depending on how and where you share, it could follow you to your next job interview, background check, or family reunion.  Best of luck and happy social media sorting…

Content Buoyancy - There were a lot of great takeaways from YouTube’s Jeben Berg’s talk (captured here on the All Things WOM blog), but this is the concept I am still pondering some weeks later.  Given that no piece of content will stay at the top of the YouTube pile forever, content buoyance describes your content’s ability to rise back to the top of the heap.  Will it find new relevance what conditions change in the future?  Does the content have the ability to be evergreen and find new audiences over time?  The example used here was Nike’s Ronaldinho Touch of Gold video from 2005 that has garnered 28million views over the years:

In this case, its about great content that doesn’t grow stale.

Blowing Chunks – Blowing Chunks with Ted & John is not just a compelling name for a breakout, but an invitation to great conversations.  Fizz Corp’s Ted Wright & John Moore from Brand Autopsy not only brought beer, they brought a fun WOM construct – the “Nausea Avoidance Checklist”.  This invited participants to share their WOM mis-steps in a fun and safe environment.  It was like group therapy.

Pack Your Knives & Go

Location, Location, Location – This year’s WOMMA was just a few miles away from the previous one, but world’s away in terms of talkability.  The Ritz Carlton South Beach and its gorgeous beach setting was a breath of fresh air and WOMMA activities included lunch served by none other than Top Chef finalist Jeff McInnis.  Another divisive event element was the “naked” dessert spread on night 2.  Some people loved it, some hated it, but it gave everyone something to chew on which was, indeed, the point.

Positivity Reigns on Yelp - The conversational nugget that Goeff Donaker shared that Yelp reviews are 6:1 positive is something that I have already used in conversation multiple times.  People want to go out of the way to share POSITIVE experiences with others.  God bless altruism.

WOMMA not only knows how to throw a great conference, they also know how to host an online conversation.  If you have an opinion on where ethical boundaries should be drawn around “sponsored conversations”, please make your voice heard on the Living Ethics Blog.

The case “story” I shared with the AdTech audience a few weeks ago showed of a number of elements executing a digital influence strategy through discussing some of the work that Ford has been doing.  In one slide, I featured a photo of Brad & Emma – 2 Fiesta “agents” chosen to drive Ford Fiesta for 6 months prior to it becoming available in the US and take it on monthly missions.  Little did I know that @cupster – a direct connection to Brad & Emma and key player in their campaign site followthefiesta.com – would be in the audience.

After getting connected to them digitally, I asked if they would share some insight into WHY they wanted to apply to drive and spread WOM on a car they had never driven.  I also asked about the role of social media in their strategy.  After all, they DID get the car.  Here is some wisdom from @followthefiesta:

VM: You and Emma were clearly extremely passionate about becoming one of the 100 Agents in the Fiesta Movement.  How did you hear about the opportunity?  What appealed to you about the Fiesta?

FTF: We had a blast working on this project! I heard about this ‘contest’ from a friend that entered and it turned into a little ‘friendly’ competition.  The idea that we could hit the open roads in a new car (that no one has seen) and set out on adventures is what appealed most to us.  We work indoors in a live performing arts theater everyday. So, the excuse to get outdoors in the fresh air is an added bonus too!

VM: How did you decide what forms of social media to include in your Follow the Fiesta campaign (blog, twitter, youtube, google friend connect, other?)?

FTF: We searched around a bit to discover what other people that had entered were using as the key social networking components. We immediately purchased our domain name followthefiesta.com and then began branding this across the other forms of social media. Twitter, Youtube, Facebook Fan Page, etc all helped us try to get people to watch our audition video.  From the very beginning, we knew that we wanted to create a brand (followthefiesta) and a tagline (follow brad follow emma) so people would remember us through out the project. After we came up with the site name and tagline, we approached Adam (Cuppyyarrish.com) to see if he thought we could actually pull off everything that we felt needed to happen to get the exposure and grab the attention of the Selection Committee. We created the audition video and also several shorter videos (we like to call Nuggets) used to promote our brand.

VM: How are you and Emma resolving who actually gets to DRIVE the car?

FTF: The great thing about that situation is that we both work at the Craterian Theater (www.craterian.org ) and have the same identical schedule. We carpool to work and for errands around town. (So, not only did we win the contest but we are doing our part by keeping extra cars off the roadways by carpooling!) We do a pretty good job taking turns driving, and now that I’m not as ‘rusty’ with the manual transmission Emma may have to race me to get to the drivers seat first!

VM: I love your Ryan Stiles nugget video.  Any other celeb appearances in Follow’s future?

FTF: We’re always on the look-out for additional appearances and hope to get a few more down the road. Ryan was a great sport!  Stay tuned for a few more surprises that will include some well known personalities.

Recently, some of us around the 360 DI team have spent some serious quality time with the  international advocacy-movement building experts at Purpose Campaigns.  Inspired by one of his Australian quotable quotes, I asked co-founder Jeremy Heimans to answer a few questions for the Fresh Influence blog.

VM: I recently heard you say that “newsletters are the enemy” for building advocacy movements.  Given that you have built a number of global  movements from the ground up (Global MoveOn compliment  Avaaz (pictured above), anti-nuclear Global Zero, and GetUp Australia to name a few), can you share a few core tenets of designing and maintaining a truly “action”-oriented brand?

In the last 48 hours, there have been some mainstream media articles pointing fingers at Twitter, where #swineflu has been the #1 or #1 trend for the last 3 days, as the culprit of spreading hysteria and bad information.  While I’m not particularly interested in long tail analysis on swine flu OR in taking medical advice from my Tweeps, social media can be a quick and powerful way to amplify some very credible sources of health information.  Looking at Twitter as a detriment is pointless when it can have power to spread correct information.  The CDC has embraced the tool and the 3 month old @cdcemergency handle is up to almost 40k followers who want to get their health information from the horse’s mouth, but on a platform that they already embrace.

Ogilvy in Asia has additionally put together a very helpful aggregation of up-to-the-minute credible sources of health information on the Swine Flu.  If you are wondering about something you have seen on facebook, the news, heard from a friend, etc, this is a great resource to check that information against the CDC and WHO.

Another source for interesting analysis from the science side can be found over at ScienceBlogs.com which has put together a great collection of perspectives on the issue from a peer-reviewed, science-based, hysteria-free perspective.  And with that, I’m off to wash my hands for the 5th time today.

The 360 Digital Influence strategic approach to Word of Mouth Marketing was 1 of 3 innovations highlighted in the keynote address given by advertising legend/Ogilvy Vice Chair Steve Hayden.  Fear, love and advertising was the title of the presentation and the theme that carried throughout the 3 features.  The Fear & Love statements for what we do at 360 DI were the same: The consumer is in control.  This inspires both fear and love, but new innovations in technology and approach make it possible to succeed in the new world order.

If you aren’t familiar with Steve Hayden, I wont bore you with his long resume, but the single piece of trivia that drove fear and love in my soul was learning he was the creative force behind Apple’s 1984 ad. 

If the main speaker didn’t raise the stakes enough, the fact that I was presenting a strategic approach after 2 highly technical whiz-bang demos did.  Shockingly enough, however, in a crowd full of tech folks, a strategic approach on how to employ all of these wonderful new technologies to move business results is and innovation and sparked a lot of great follow on discussions.

I demonstrated our approach through telling a story about Ford that carried from the Listening and insights gathering stage through Planningand influencer identification through Engagement and Measurement.  In the listening stage, I featured an image generated by Crimson Hexagon’s VoxTrot tool showing how conversation topics surrounding auto purchase cluster naturally:

Crimson Hexagon Auto Conversation

From there, we moved into Planning and I showed a live demo from our friends at Linkfluence on how conversations among auto purchase influencers can spread.  I can’t embed the full demo, but here’s a screenshot demonstrating the influence of a post on treehugger about green technology.

Technology has allowed the practice of Word of Mouth Marketing and employing social media to move from a pilot-based throwing spaghetti on the wall to see what stocks. to become truly strategic communications.  Hopefully this shift will give it the credibility necessary for companies to be able to rethink the way they interact with customers to make sure the give and take can be truly meaningful.

Recently, I had the distinct pleasure of hearing Jeffrey Eugenides speak about the writing of his Pulitzer winning novel Middlesex.

As Prof. Eugenides was talking about the NINE YEAR experience of researching, writing and rewriting, it struck me that his craft is in some ways the ultimate MACROmedia – the antithesis of trying to distill your thoughts into 140 characters and belching them out in real time.  There were, however, a number of nuggets of wisdom that he shared as a novelist to which a social media content creator can relate:

1) Eugenides shared that the most hated comment he receives after introducing himself is “I always wanted to be a novelist – I just never had the time” – implying that pretty much anyone could write a Pulitzer Prize winning novel given enough “time off”.  On the social media front, we often hear “How do you find time for that crazy stuff?  I’m too busy!”  Social media can indeed save you time used correctly and allows you to maintain more and different types of relationships at once.  It does not replace the in person networking that most businesspeople consider to be part of their careers, but it can greatly enhance it.  In short, you make time for the things you deem important and once you do, you’ll be surprised how efficient you get.  (Check out Ian Sohn’s great piece on making time for social media here).

2) “You can’t do too much research, but you can put too much in your book.” This is a helpful guiding principle to anyone who gives presentations on a regular basis.  The point of a presentation is never to download the complete exhaustive sum total of your knowledge on a subject – it is to include only what is relevant to your audience in a way that is compelling and will make an impression on them.

3) Individual identity trumps gender.  “I” is more important than “he” or “she”. This is a takeaway specifically from Eugenides’ struggle with the challenge of writing from the perspective of an intersex narrator, but I found it to be an applicable concept to my life.  Social media and the ways it allows us to express ourselves – in words, images, avatars, and connections enables self definition and expression that breaks the old business rules.  Social media can help us defy the paths that used to be set by education, company, old boy networks, etc.  Social media + the economic flat spin should make this even more true – the time is now to craft your own social media “I”.

How did he do it?  Awesome website?  Nope – looks like an intern programmed it in 1999.  Advertising and promotion?  None.  Here’s what he’s done:

1) Ask people to spread the word. At the beginning and end of every one of the free podcasts, Adam mentions that he is doing this “gratis” and all he asks is for you the fan to spread it around.  This may sound simple, but many people are afraid to ask for help and this is a compelling reason to get over it and just ask.

2) No sponsors = no censors. Adam was fired from CBS’s Free FM format in late January, but will be paid through the end of the year as long as he doesn’t accept other “jobs”.  Thus he has no sponsors, which means he answers to no one and he can use the language and cover topics that his fans want and expect from him.

3) Ridiculously awesome content.  In his first three weeks he’s had Aisha Tyler, Larry Miller, Bill Simmons, Jimmy Kimmel, David Alan Grier are the list goes on.  These are people willing to stop by Adam’s house to promote a project and be able to be themselves without the concerns I mentioned on #2.

So, can we learn something about WOMM from Adam Corolla?  Hey, if Dr. Drew could live with him for so many years, he must have some redeeming qualities.

I am often asked – in and out of work – about how to get fans, customers, ambassadors, bloggers to do something FOR US.  This very approach is why most communities and outreach efforts never get off the ground and the disconnect that Mack Collier discussed in this blog post.  Most community building efforts fail because they are created in order to be monetized, yet communities will not grow and thrive around the concept of monetization.

In order for you to grow a community, you need find a core set of people who will find disproportionate value from what you can provide.  This could be information, a space to gather, entertainment, or a willing ear.  That audience will be the ones to offer you feedback and guidance on how to build a community (or any sort of engagement program) and the ones who will talk about it, help you recruit, etc.  So how do you find ask your core audience?  By asking (with apologies to JFK):

Ask not what your audience can do for you, but what you can do for your audience.

This is similar to the advice that we as a community offered to Recipecomparison.com here, but it is applicable in any number of social media strategies where you are trying to find your talkers.

Try taking this audience-centric approach and find the people for whom you can do the most.  They just might be the ones who can do the most for you regardless of their “influence levels”.