The Russians Are Coming!

Last Tuesday, I was proud to give a presentation on digital word of mouth, at the Russian interactive marketing conference, Be Interactive.  The event was organized by the PRP Group and 360d-- sister companies to the GolinHarris' affiliate Comunica.  Distinguished speakers including Interactive Advertising Bureau's President & CEO Randall Rothenberg, Agency.com's founder and CEO Chan Suh, Avenue A/Razorfish's Europe President Darin Brown, AKQA's Director of Strategy Craig Walmsley, entrepreneur and MS Sequel's Digital Business Services Creator Bradley Starr presented their views and best practices in engaging audiences online. 

Besides hearing about the makings of successful campaigns from the West, we also listened to an in-depth presentation by Karl Johannesson, founder and CEO of J'son Partners, a management consultancy with offices in Russia and Central Asia. His speech was an eye opener to the possibilities in the Russian Internet market and its growth potential. 

Johannesson projects that the Russian Internet communications market will be $122 billion by 2012. Here is a look at the factors contributing to this area's increasing growth:

•  Russia comes third (29 million people) in the number of Internet users in Europe, following the UK and Germany. 
  
• There are 280 million Russian speakers around the world; 142 million of them are in Russia. 
•  10.5 million households will be on broadband by the end of 2008. Yet competition is leading to massive infrastructure development. In 5 years, hundreds of Russian cities will come online with FTTB (fiber to the building), providing citizens with faster Internet access than current technologies. 
• The average Russian Internet user is spending 1-2 hours/day on social networking sites (mostly accessing from work.)
• Thirty percent of the Russian Internet audience is playing online games, engaging for 30-40 minutes at a time. 

Johannesson points to growth in home Internet use, advergaming and mobile Internet communications for the near future. Within the next few years, the boom of Russian Internet users on high-speed access will draw many more marketers to the area. Odnoklassniki (Russian version of classmates) and vkontakte (Russian version of facebook) will be followed by new online communication platforms that resonate with local preferences, created by local talent.

Grab The Online Promoter Score Widget

I just got an email from David Rabjohns, the CEO of Motivequest, saying that the company was tracking online buzz about the elections and had developed a micro-site, showing cybercitizens' reactions to the presidential candidates in almost real time.

Motivequest has a metric, coined as the Online Promoter Score, which allows researchers to study the correlation between online advocates' decrees and behavioral outcomes such as sales or votes! David is putting the Online Promoter Score to test, trying to predict the outcome of the election. So far, Obama is ahead. I grabbed the handy widget from the site, which shows the latest score. You can pick it up from here.

David says, if he's wrong, he'll shave his head and post it on YouTube. (His video, not his head.)

"I am so convinced of this metric that if we are wrong, and fail to correctly predict the outcome of the election, I will shave my head on You Tube for your delight. "

I bet you, he won't have to do that.

Tipping Point on Twitter

I try to update my twitter profile regularly, but I am certainly not one of those who publish every minute. I blurb once a week or so. I share my twitter address at the end of presentations. If colleagues find me, I let them follow me, etc. Lately, I started getting requests from folks who are in related fields (or not) who want to connect with me on twitter. Every morning, I find 2-3 updates in my email, informing me that I am followed by folks I've never met before. We don't know each other, but we tell each other if we're bored, running around over the weekend, or frustrated at a baseball game.

I'm thinking, because the universe of twitter is much smaller, it doesn't take that long for an active professional to reach the tipping point. You may not have to wait until 100 followers, 30-40 may just do.

Benchmark for Blogger Engagement Programs

There is a very useful diagram in Technorati's 2008 report about the State of the Blogosphere. It shows the vast number of blogs the search engine tracks and indexes (133 million). Notice the sharp drop to 76,000 when the diagram shows the number of f blogs with authority scores of 50 or more (i.e., those blogs with 50 or more links pointing to them, in the last six months).

The universe of on-topic and influential blogs for your brand may be very small - and there is nothing wrong with that. Relevance still trumps reach in blogosphere. 

Technorati Updates State of the Blogosphere Study

That flu virus kept me from keeping up with dotwom in the past week, but I'd be remiss if I didn't provide a link to Technorati's new State of the Blogosphere Study. I was particularly intrigued by the numbers that show the percentage of bloggers that mention brand names on a regular basis. More than a third (37 percent) say they frequently post product reviews.  Even more (41 percent) frequently write about brands they love or hate. That's growing evidence for the value of online monitoring and the need to invest in digital customer service teams. 

Slacker Uprising Coming

Oscar winning documentary filmmaker and liberal political commentator Michael Moore will be releasing his next film, Slacker Uprising on September 23rd -- online, for free. His subject are the young voters in red states who decide to get actively involved in the political process. No more slacking, they're going to register and they're going to vote (to Moore's liking hopefully...)

Fragments of the film are bound to go viral, given Moore's public persona, the hot-button issues in today's political environment and the social statement the film makes. Mass media will cover it and push it to broader circles. Can't wait to see slacker games emerge...

Consumer-Generated Media Makes A Difference for Health Information Seekers

Considering the millions of bloggers, social networkers, forum participants and their audiences, you might guess that the social media universe includes a broad mix of demographic groups. Indeed, there are plenty of teens, young and mature adults to poll about their social media activities. But we also need to pay close attention to the impact of social media on consumer behavior. The market is big enough. Soon, many companies looking to this space as a marketing platform will look for results beyond building brand equity. The latest data from Manhattan Research, a pharmaceutical and healthcare market research firm, suggests that brands who can engage patients and caregivers online may have the opportunity to strengthen their reputation and earn new customers.

Manhattan Research conducts ongoing studies focusing on ePharma consumers--adults who have researched pharmaceutical information online for themselves or for someone else in the past 12 months. According to their 7th ePharma Consumer(R) survey, nearly half (47 percent) of ePharma consumers report that user-generated content has at least some impact on their health or prescription treatment decisions.

The percentage of consumers who indicate being influenced by user-generated content increases among younger ePharma segments. For instance, 64 percent of 18-34 year olds indicate that blogs, chat rooms, message boards and social networks have at least some impact on their health-related decisions.


There seems to be a craving for different perspectives and hearing others' experiences among caregivers. Among those who indicate that user-generated content has a strong impact on their healthcare decisions, 65 percent are parents with children in the household and 50 percent are people caring for someone with a chronic condition.


These findings point to significant advantages healthcare providers can gain by listening to relevant consumer chatter and becoming trusted resources to young adults and caregivers who are seeking answers online. Those healthcare/pharmaceutical companies that provide factual information to conversation leaders and answer patients' questions, will be mentioned in patients' conversations with physicians, caregivers and others suffering from similar conditions.