The last year here at LeapFrog Interactive has been an incredible ride.  We’ve added fantastic clients, worked on exciting projects, and experienced a huge “growth spurt”–the clients and projects we’re handling has grown, the Team has grown by adding talented and hardworking new people, and everyone on the Team has grown their talents and areas of expertise. 

That growth is part of what’s behind this quarter’s editorial focus.  Social Media has been a major area of explosive growth in interactive marketing and advertising over the last year.  Social Media Marketing was the hottest trend in interactive in 2007, and it hasn’t slowed down a bit in 2008. 

Established technologies like blogs and message boards have taken on a new emphasis.  Social networking sites like Myspace and Facebook have developed huge audiences, and smart brands are learning to use them to recruit brand fans.  Social bookmarking and news services like Digg and StumbleUpon have come on the scene, driving massive traffic to the sites that can capture their audience’s attention and approval.  Other social media outlets, like YouTube, Flickr, Twitter and more, are still building up steam as agencies and marketers develop creative ways to use these web properties to make direct, personal connections with consumers. 

We’ve had the opportunity to work on some successful Social Media Marketing efforts over the last year, and now it’s time that we pass on some of what we’ve learned. 

Over the course of Q2, we’re going to be going into great depth covering Social Media and the unique opportunities it offers marketers and brands.  Our coverage is going to include blog posts, LeapCasts, our LFI University e-newsletter, and an all-new series of On-Demand Video Webinars. 

(I have to admit I’m a little nervous about that last one, since I’m going to be presenting.)

So be sure that you sign up for LFI University and add this blog to your RSS reader, if you haven’t already (that’ll make sure you catch not only the blogs but the LeapCasts as well).  If you’re in brand marketing, and especially if you’re puzzled by all the hub-bub surrounding this “social media” thing, you won’t want to miss a minute. 

Join Mike and Katina as they discuss the critical decisions that can make or break a successful interactive contest campaign.  

 Smart Planning and Promotion for Online Contests: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If nothing else, this past year has been a year where buzzwords evolved faster than Cro-Magnons in a Geiko commercial.

In the beginning of 2007, the buzzword was: viral, “Web 2.0″
By the end of 2007, it was replaced by: social media

Why? Because marketers began to understand that in the maturing new media landscape, there’s more value in creating and sustaining relationships and conversations than in getting a video of your slightly dorky executive playing guitar maximum traction on YouTube.

In the beginning of 2007, the buzzword was: mobile marketing OR online video OR widgets
By the end of 2007, it was replaced by: cross-platform, integrated campaigns

Why? Because once we got over the cool factor of these shiny new channel toys, we realized that for now, they’re pretty much only ready to augment existing channels, rather than replace them.

In the beginning of 2007, the buzzword was: Digg
By the end of 2007, it was replaced by: StumbleUpon

Why? Digg started out the year strong, but towards the end of 2007, scandals regarding Digg’s treatment of their most valuable asset–the community of power users–had seriously tarnished the social media site’s reputation. Meanwhile, StumbleUpon brought back a sense of wonder, exploration and surprise to jaded web surfers.

In the beginning of 2007, the buzzword was: Myspace
By the end of 2007, it was replaced by: Facebook

Why? Mike thinks it was Virginia Tech. I think it was massive eyestrain from annoying banner ads and exceptionally poor user experience. Either way, while Myspace still has the numbers, by the end of the year, Facebook owned the buzz. Even their missteps (**cough**Beacon**cough**) were more newsworthy than what Myspace was finally getting right.

In the beginning of 2007, the buzzword was: Second Life
By the end of 2007, it was replaced by: MyBlogLog / Twitter

Why? Hmmm… spend hours and cash creating an animated virtual self, and hope you run into someone you’d want to network with while running around Second Life, or spend a half hour creating a profile and start building avatar recognition where the best and brightest minds in the blogosphere are converging and conversing? What sounds like a worthwhile use of your time, in retrospect?

So that’s our recap of how the biggest buzzwords of 2007 evolved over the course of the year. What’s the big picture in all this? That marketers are beginning to both adopt the new tools that the web (and Web 2.0) offer and understand how they fit in a long-term, sustainable interactive marketing and digital advertising plan.

That’s a huge jump to make in only a year, and obviously, not everyone has made it. However, overall these trends are great news for those who work in marketing and advertising on the web, and the brands and companies they represent.

The more we all get on the same page in terms of strategy, goals and value, the better we can all be in effectively contributing our part of the effort.

I recently read a really nice article by Noah Elkin at iCrossing that covered his suggestions to clients who are considering moving their brand management into the social media landscape. On the whole, I agree with his suggestions, but one item really jumped out at me:

“Also, make sure your legal team is not writing any posts or deciding what’s getting written and how. Yes, legal should be involved in crafting and signing off on the policy, but no, legal should not be taking a hands-on role (unless for some reason you’re engaging with a legal community)…”

Let me just say, reading that was nearly a “spew coffee on the keyboard” moment for me. There are people who think they should have their legal department speaking for them in social media? Once I regained my composure, I realized that for most traditional corporate clients, that might actually, on the face of it, sound like a “safe” way to engage in social media.

So in case you’re a brand marketer considering moving your company into the social media space, let me just clear this up right now: unless you’d send your lawyer to represent you on a date (or even at an industry conference or social networking event), don’t send them to represent you in the social media sphere.

It also got me thinking about other tactics that brand marketers who aren’t really familiar with social media and web 2.0 might initially (mistakenly) embrace. So with that in mind, I present to you three foolproof, ironclad ways to ruin your chances of successfully introducing your brand to social media.

1. Try to “Do it Yourself.” If you’re an in-house marketing specialist, and aren’t currently participating in social media, such as industry forums, blogs, wikis, or podcasts, then it’s likely because you’re simply not comfortable with the medium–at least not yet. Again, let’s put this in a context you’re probably already familiar with. Let’s say you have a marketing coordinator who is an amazing administrator, kicks butt at achieving objectives and completing tasks–but would rather chew a roll of tin foil than do public speaking and is allergic to meeting strangers. Is she the best person to send to conduct a seminar on your company’s core competencies? Probably not. So why would you send a person who isn’t truly comfortable participating in social media to represent you in that arena? In many ways, the social media landscape is very much like an offline networking or public speaking venue. Except it has the benefit of being mostly written communication–meaning you have the opportunity to pause, review and revise that communication briefly before it goes out into the general public domain. Which brings us to…

2. Hyper-sanitize your social media communications. Social media is understandably a scary communications vehicle for traditional brand marketers, who were weened on the mantra “control the message, control the message, control the message.” The informality, two-way dialogue and transparency that give social media its appeal can be the most intimidating aspects to companies who are entering the medium for the first time. It can be tempting to simply copy and paste your static, one-way brand communications into the social media world and hope for the best. Or to edit the content crafted for social media until it’s indistinguishable from your one-way communications. Doing so would be similar to setting up your phone systems so that only outgoing calls were permitted. Yes, it would give you more control–it would also cost you most of the usefulness of having a phone system in the first place, namely making your company accessible.

3. Avoid social media altogether. Let me share a little story with you. I was doing a little competitive research for a client interested in SEO work, investigating their existing backlinks (links that lead to their site from other sites). I ran across a link from a hobbyist discussion forum related to their industry. It was a consumer, who stated that he was looking at their brand, among others, before making a large purchase. He wanted to get some feedback from other enthusiasts before committing to a purchase.

The entire thread was a conversation among people who passionately care about the client’s industry, and covered issues like quality control, differentiating product factors, and manufacturing processes. This was a site with tens of thousands of members, and hundreds actively reading and posting at any given point in time. If we’d been monitoring social media mentions for this client, we could have given them a heads-up, and gotten some great feedback to contribute to the conversation on their behalf. What potential brand value would you place on that conversation? Among three competitors, if even one of them participated in that conversation, gave thoughtful and helpful answers, what would you consider to be the value of that conversation? Compare that to the value of ad impressions, and the real potential impact on people who are most likely to buy their products. Now bear in mind that the particular forum in question has been online since 1999. Does waiting for this whole “social web” thing to blow over and go away still seem like the best idea? Are you beginning to see the value and power of social media brand management yet?

Are there risks involved in mishandling brand management in the social media web? Absolutely–but there are also risks involved in ignoring this powerful communications medium. The best solution is to engage professionals, who are experienced and comfortable with the medium, and have them work closely with your in-house marketing staff, exactly as you do for print, radio, television and offline public relations.

Social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us and stumbleupon are valuable to your interactive marketing in two ways. First, they provide inbound links, improving your organic search rankings for certain keywords. Second, they serve as an unbiased user recommendation, and as such are a great form of word-of-mouth marketing.

A visitor who finds your site through a link on a social bookmarking site is predisposed to have a positive opinion, because they generally click on the links of their trusted sources for relevant information.

We’ve been studying the most recent crop of social bookmarking sites, rating them for their relevance to brand marketers. Here are the results:

1. Digg - Okay, technically, it’s not strictly a social bookmarking site, but more of a social news aggregator. Even so, there is a reason the term “Digg effect” has been coined. A front-page mention on Digg can bring a server-crunching volume of traffic to your company website.
2. Del.icio.us - It may not get many headlines these days, but by virtue of being one of the first social bookmarking sites, del.icio.us has a large, active user-base. Also, the newer versions of popular blogging software Wordpress come pre-installed with the ability to show the author’s “tag cloud” from his or her del.icio.us account, spreading the reach and popularity of the service.
3. StumbleUpon - This is a newer service that has a sort of random, “find the coolest sites you weren’t looking for” aspect to it. It’s seen a recent spike in interest and is growing in popularity.
4. Ma.gnolia - Another more recent addition to the social bookmarking space, this one is more popular with designers and graphic arts folks, thanks to its attractively-designed user interface.
5. Reddit - Can’t break into Digg? You might have better luck with Reddit, whose user-base is a bit friendlier to those who are openly promoting themselves.

I recently received an invitation to beta test the new social bookmarking app RSS feedreader, Streamy, thanks to Mashable.com (thanks, Pete!) I’ve been taking it for a test drive this morning, and I have to say I’m pretty impressed. Do you like the sweet Ajax user interface of Ma.gnolia, but not the slightly girly design? Then you’ll like Streamy.

The interface is beautifully slick and clean, and it has truly excellent usability. The “Start” page is the typical social bookmarking “most popular” list, which appears to be personalized (possibly based on your expressed interests, or possibly based on the subscriptions you’ve chosen). The next navigation link takes you to your subscriptions–and this is by far the slickest and most fun to use feed-reader I’ve seen so far.

You can browse for subscriptions by most popular, by topic, or you can enter your favorite feeds manually. Of course, when I say “manually” you might be cringing, imagining yourself dealing with some clunky form page. Au contraire, mon frere. The Ajax pop-up is clean and simple, a joy to use, pretty much (unless you subscribe to a few dozen feeds–I didn’t notice a place to import your feeds from another feedreader.) After your subscriptions are all in, your subscription page lists post excerpts in date order. You’ve also got a sidebar that lists your subscriptions individually–so if you want to only look at one particular feed at a time, it’s simple to do so.

Clicking on the title of a post excerpt opens the full post in another nifty Ajax pop-up. There’s also a “launch” button if you want to launch that particular site in a new window or tab. You can comment on posts internally within Streamy, which other Streamy users who are logged in and looking at that story can read–but it doesn’t appear to post those comments outside of Streamy on the originating site.

Of course, because it’s a very web 2.0 site, you can join networks, groups, and add friends. Wouldn’t be much of a social bookmarking site without that. You also have the obligatory profile page, chat, and IM functionality. Drag ‘n Drop sharing of stories and other media is a nice interesting touch. You can even drag another user into an IM window to create an instant chat room (although the metaphorical implications of literally dragging a friend into a chat room are more than I want to contemplate at the moment. It reminds me vaguely of being dragged into a nightclub to socialize when I really wanted to get some sleep. Ah, well.)
On the whole, I think Streamy is an incredibly well-made and well-thought-out application. Kudos to the gang at Streamy for building a great tool. If you can finagle an invite to join the beta, I highly recommend it.

Like many in interactive advertising and marketing, I’m encouraged by the recent report that Nielsen is switching to a more practical and relevant criteria model for their online ranking system (http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2007/07/10/nielsen-shuts-window-on-pageview-rankings/).

While pageviews were a benchmark for the early days of the Web, in recent years it has become increasingly obvious that a more useful criteria should be used. Particularly as technologies like AJAX become more widely used, pageview statistics become of less and less use to interactive marketers.

However, I don’t know that the new criteria, length of time spent on a site, is a perfect solution, either. For one thing, it actually penalizes the sites with the best usability in terms of navigation. Google dropped in importance because users quickly find what they’re looking for and leave the search page. Does that speed and ease of use decrease Google’s relevance?

It also gives possibly undeserved weight to sites that are music and/or video heavy. How much of that time you spent on a video-intensive site was spent waiting for the media to load? Should the site get credit for that time? Actually, you could possibly make the argument that if the content is worth users waiting out the load times, they should get credit for that time.

While it’s not a perfect benchmark, it was definitely a step in the right direction and a timely one. As online ad budgets continue to grow in comparison to offline spending, the metrics that determine where those dollars are spent need to be based on more relevant criteria than pageviews.

I’m always on the lookout for new applications and tools to help keep me organized, and streamline my workday. (Because, like most geeks, I have a “twisted skein of attention deficit issues”). In fact, for the last year or so, I refer to it as “the quest for The One App,” the one application that will tie up those attention deficit issues into a nice neat bow, and keep everything I need to know handy at all times. The One App to Rule Them All. I haven’t found The One App (yet), but I have found a new solution for keeping up with RSS feeds that eliminates at least one extra step from my workflow.

Keeping up on the latest news (not to mention gossip) in interactive marketing circles is pretty critical to my job. However, remembering to check my feed reader daily was just one more to-do that kept dropping off the “to-done” list most days.

Enter FeedBlitz. FeedBlitz serves up your favorite RSS feeds by sending you an email summary of new content daily. So now I don’t have to remember to check both my email and my feedreader. I know it doesn’t sound like much, but any time I can eliminate even one extra task and still get the same amount of work accomplished, I consider it cause for celebration.

Yes, I know there are programs you can pay for which will also turn your Outlook into a feed reader. But I also like avoiding paying for services that I can get for free.

A while back, I was assigned the task of writing a new user’s manual for the most recent update of the Leapfrog Editing and Publishing Framework (L.E.A.P. Framework), built on the Drupal Content Management framework. (Which, by the way, rocks. Great job to all the guys who worked on it!) The first place I turned to for ideas and best practices was Creating Passionate Users, the blog of tech author and speaker Kathy Sierra.

I adored her “Creating Passionate Users” blog, and printed and highlighted some of her articles on writing butt-kicking users manuals. And her “Head First” books are fantastic examples of well-written computer manuals.

So I was profoundly disturbed when I checked back at CPU, and saw that Kathy had canceled her speech at O’Reilly Media’s ETech conference. What was more disturbing was the reason why.

Apparently, she started getting several threatening, hate-based comments on her blog. Then a couple of prominent bloggers started up two sites where the whole point was to say hateful things about other bloggers. There were some extremely disturbing, graphic words and images posted on those blogs about Sierra. Eventually, she canceled her speaking engagements, involved the police, and opened up about it on CPU.

It became a huge deal in the blogging community, and it sparked a lot of discussion about misogyny on the web. Many of the men were shocked at the things that were posted to and about Kathy. Most of the women who commented in response had experienced similar things.

This is a very present, personal issue for me. I truly believe in the internet as a powerful communication tool. As a writer, I honestly believe it’s the publishing outlet of the future. The internet and blogging make global conversation possible and personal. The public forum of the ancient Greeks, where important ideas can receive passionate and thoughtful debate by the best minds of the culture, has become the message board forum and the blog in the twenty-first century.

Unless those best minds are held within a woman’s body.

I’ve been writing on the internet for a long time. Long enough to know that it’s a given that if I participated in that global conversation at the level I would prefer, I’d be painting a giant target on myself that says “Hey, misogynistic freaks! Fresh meat!” I’ve had enough experiences on message boards to know that on the internet, just being a smart woman who expresses herself is incomprehensibly infuriating to a small but vocal group of men, to a near-pathological degree.

I hate that. Because I’ve struggled with some of the same questions Kathy is currently struggling with (albeit in a “prior to getting death threats” way, rather than post-death-threat). What I do best is write. That’s the best thing I have to offer and contribute to the world, and my employer, LeapFrog. So do I write anonymously? Write as “K.L. French” and pretend to be a faceless, genderless ghost for as long as possible? Just “suck it up” and accept that receiving vile, hideous comments and emails are just part of doing what I love? Granted, there are no by-lines on much of the web copy I write.

I just wonder how many smart women are not contributing to the global conversation because we’re letting emotionally-stunted freaks win…

If you’re familiar with the concept of kaizen at all, it’s probably in the context of manufacturing or other assembly-line practices, not in the context of creative work.  Kaizen is a Japanese term that, roughly translates to “continuous improvement.” However, there is a lot more implied by it than the standard Western idea of continuous improvement. There is an element of “respect for people” implied in the idea of kaizen, and three guiding principles must be in place for true kaizen: focus on results and process; big-picture, systemic thinking; and a non-judgmental, non-blaming attitude (blame-laying being considered a waste of time and energy).

As an interactive agency, we’re in a radically new industry that blends the creative with the technological. From a project management standpoint, a kaizen attitude is a great fit for process improvement, because it works well with both the very human creative elements and the very practical process and delivery elements. With each new project, we experiment, learn new and better processes, and we implement them and carry them forward into the next project. We also learn from things that didn’t work well, and eliminate those elements from the process as we go.  I’m not saying that we are formally instituting kaizen here at LeapFrog; just that the improvement process here feels, to me at least, very much like kaizen.
Often in business, instead of making small, incremental changes, you determine that you’re going to “do it right.” “Doing it right” means taking time, making preparations, setting the stage, and totally implementing a complete, fully-formed new way of doing things.

But there are a lot of problems with this approach. First, it fails to take into account the shifting, continuously moving nature of work. By insisting on completely defining both the problem and solution in detail first, a person or organization can effectively postpone making any changes …pretty much forever. Second, it fails to take into account the complex nature of change and how even a small change can have difficult-to-predict outcomes that then need to be dealt with. By trying to implement massive, all-at-once, “programs” of change, an organization is effectively tacking learning the new way, maintaining the new way (building new habits and breaking old ones), troubleshooting the new way (dealing with the inevitable “oops, didn’t think about that” items), and improving the new way simultaneously. In short, it’s a great way to set yourself up for failure.

As LeapFrog moves forward and continues to grow, we’ll need to keep improving to continue to exceed client expectations. That means improving one task at at time, one project at a time, continuously, with respect for the creative people who are part of our team and with an eye on the big picture.