Integrating an online community engagement strategy

When I wrote my first online community engagement strategy for Telstra's Wireplay service in 1997, one of the factors I considered was how to 'complete the loop' - integrate inbound and outbound online channels to reach, engage and promote interaction across the widest possible audience.

In those days we used mass media, product sponsorship and events as the drivers to build audience reach and awareness and online forums, IRC chat, newsgroups and email to interact online and generate repeat traffic.

It was an effective combination - although limited by 2009 standards.

Today there are more online channels alternatives when building an integrated marketing or engagement strategy, however the principle remains the same,

• Use media (inc online) channels to drive initial traffic to the site
  
• Make the on site barriers to engagement and interaction as low as possible, provide rewards for activity and a variety of ways to engage/interact to suit different comfort and skills levels
  
• Promote return traffic through alerts and email news
• Build audience by providing reasons for visitors to refer your site to others
• Increase your reach by providing options to integrate your content into other sites

However I'm disappointed to see that many Australian organisations are struggling to get beyond the first, second or third steps above.

Sometimes their strategy was to spend their month on building and launching an online engagement site, then hope people like it enough to spread the word themselves - the build it and they will come approach.

Sometimes organisations treat the delivery of a website as the end of the project - rather than the start.

And sometimes the value of word-of-mouth promotion and an outreach strategy is not recognised - some organisations still believe that the mass media is the most powerful traffic driver.

Fortunately for those of you struggling to enlighten organisations who believe any of the above, IAS B2B has published an integrated channel strategy diagram which provides an excellent illustration of how to effectively design an online community engagement approach.

I've included an image below, and you can download the integrated online strategy diagram PDF here (103kb).

At first glance the diagram can appear a little daunting - which is possibly why Marc Keating has made an accompanying video to explain it in depth.

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Citizen 2.0 - how would a government department address this marketing nightmare?

Over the last week US media has been buzzing with the story of Canadian musician Dave Carroll, whose US$3,500 Taylor guitar was broken on a flight on United Airlines.

Carroll reported that people on the plane had watched with horror as United baggage handlers had roughly handled and thrown his and other guitars while putting them onto the plane.

However, despite nine months of discussion with United, following all the instructions they gave him, the airline finally disavowed any responsibility and refused to pay the US$1,200 required to repair the guitar.

Carroll told the United airlines representative who finally said 'No' that he would write and produce three songs about his experience and publish them to Youtube.

On Monday 6 July the first of these songs was released, soaring to over 1.6 million views in under a week. The story has received coverage on CNN, across major daily papers and across regional and local TV and radio in the US and Canada.

Within a day of the song going live United was on the phone to Carroll, promising to 'make right' the situation. Carroll has directed United to give the money to a charity of their choice and will release the next two songs in the series aimed at United.

How would a government department react if a similar event occurred to them?
Citizens today have many avenues for raising public awareness of perceived mistakes or incompetence, bypassing the traditional government complaints and resolution processes.

All it takes is a single citizen to take their complaint in an engaging manner to an online channel such as YouTube and an issue can become very public very quickly.

Do government departments have a plan for handling these types of events?


Here's the video clip for those who have not yet seen it.

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Social media now more popular than personal email - Neilsen

In their Global Faces and Networked Places report (PDF), Neilsen has found that social networks and blogs (Member Communities) are now the 4th most popular online category - ahead of personal email.

In December 2008 Neilsen found that 59% of online Australians used social networks and blogs, compared to 80% in Brazil, 69% in the UK and 67% in the US and France and only 51% in Germany.

In the UK people spent 17.4% of their online time at social networks and blogs, whereas Australians only spent 10.9%, or one in ten minutes. Based on previous reports that online Australians spend 16 hours a week online, this would mean online Australians spend at least an hour and a half each week on social networks.

Over the year from December 2007 to December 2008, total internet use grew by 18%, whereas Facebook use grew by 556%, with its greatest growth coming from 35-49 year olds.

Emphasising that high social media use is not restricted to the young, a quarter of Facebook users globally are aged over 50 and a third are aged between 35 and 49.

Neilsen said that the Social Media Communities area is growing at more than twice the rate of the other top 4 categories.

In an unrelated report, covered by Mashable, Forrester estimated that within the United States, US$716 million will be spent on the social marketing medium in 2009, growing to $3.1 billion in 2014. At that point social media will overtake email and mobile advertising, but will remain just 10% of the spend on search advertising (US$31.6B).

Traditional advertising approaches remain challenged when applied to social media.

The Neilsen report discussed above found that in December 2008, 38% of Australians online considered advertising on social networking sites to be an intrusion compared to 29% the year before. Forrester's report indicated that 'False' remains the word most identified with advertising.

Few organisations today would consider doing without email. How many would consider doing without social media communities?

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Australian internet usage 20% greater than TV - Nielsen

I've just come across a media release from Nielsen (PDF) from March this year indicating that internet use by Australian internet users reached 16.1 hours per week in 2008, soaring ahead of TV at 12.9 viewing hours per week (radio sits at 8.8 hours).

This suggests that the average Australian internet user is spending 20% more time online than they do in front of the television - although there is also a high instance of multi-channelling - 61% of Australians watch TV and use the internet at the same time and 50% listen to the radio while surfing the net.

Nielsen's media consumption chart is below.



Also this morning the Sydney Morning Herald is reporting that Google is on target to crack $1 billion in revenue in Australia - a larger revenue than the entire Australian commercial radio segment, or magazines and outdoor advertising markets.

With the new financial year approaching it might be a very good time to reweigh communications strategies and budgets to ensure that they are being spent on the medium where Australians are spending most of their leisure time.

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Australia ranked lucky 13th in egovernment - down from 7th position in 2008

The Waseda university in Japan has released its 2009 Waseda University International e-Government Ranking, the fifth consecutive report on how 34 leading countries are progressing in their egovernment activities.

Australia managed to reach 13th position, down from 7th in 2008. In fact Australia experienced the second greatest year-on-year fall in ranking of any country (only Hong Kong did worse).

Australia ranked 6th in 2007, 8th in 2006 and 6th in 2005.

The top ten for 2009 included Singapore (who beat the US into the top position for the first time in the ranking's history), USA, Sweden, UK, Japan, Korea, Canada, Taiwan, Finland, Germany, Italy and Norway.

We did beat New Zealand, who came in at 19th place (down from 15th last year).

The ranking found that network preparedness was a requirement for success, with countries with more mature (and faster) networks being more effective at launching and maintaining egovernment initiatives.

It also found that usability was a key factor in the adoption of egovernment services and that more countries were treating this as a key priority.

Other factors included a shift towards a central online portal for nations and the support and scope of the whole-of-government CIO in terms of egovernment initiatives.

Web 2.0 adoption was also highlighted as a factor, particularly in the success of Asian countries - who now hold 4 of the top 10 positions in the ranking.

Australia scored in the top ten for two areas of egovernment, Interface Function and
Applications and e-Gov Promotion. We did not reach the top ten for the other three areas, Management Optimization, National Portal or CIO in Government.

A press release with details of the ranking is available at www.giti.waseda.ac.jp/GITS/news/download/e-Government_Ranking2009_en.pdf.

A press release for last year's ranking is available at www.obi.giti.waseda.ac.jp/e_gov/2008-02_World_e-Gov_Ranking.pdf

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The internet has made us all influencers

Reflecting Forrester's Groundswell report, Universal McCann has released a study detailing how the internet has turned all customers (citizens) into influencers.

Titled INTERNET USERS, THE NEW INFLUENCERS - When did we start trusting strangers? (PDF), the study included around 17,000 internet users from 29 countries, finding that enmasse customers have moved from being passive consumers of products and services to active participants in their creation and evolution.

This has been characterised by three trends,

• the rise in social networks,
  
• the importance of digital friends, and
  
• the proliferation of influencer channels.

This has led towards the 'democratisation' of influence online - making every internet user both a potential creator of content and influencer of others.

The study found that organisations needed to reach out to internet users, becoming,

• transparent and honest,
  
• participate in the conversations,
  
• encourage customers to share their opinions, and
  
• approach and collaborate with new content creators.

A slideshow is available as below...

When did we start trusting strangers - Universal Mac Cann

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: internet international)

Key findings included,

• 44% of people surveyed have a blog (compared to 28% in 2006),
  
• 57.5% have a page on a social network (compared to 27% in 2006), 
  
• 42% download video clips (compared to 10% in 2006),
  
• 34% of users share their opinions about music, and
  
• 55% share their photos online
  

Internet users do not rely on brands to inform themselves. 

• While 69% visit brands’ official websites,
  
• 82% prefer to search for information on a search engine 
  
• 55% prefer to read people’s comments on personal profiles on social networks like Facebook.

The preferred methods for exchanging information about a product were,

• via instant messaging (44.5%),
  
• via email (42.4%),
  
• followed by blogs (30.4%), and
  
• social networks (27.6%).

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What share of your communications spend is on digital channels?

MarketingVox has release the article, Marketers' Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future, which reports on a US survey sponsored by Sapient of two hundred CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers).

The report indicates that more than a quarter of marketers said that half to all of their marketing is now done via digital channels. It also reported that nearly 40 percent foresee that in 12 months from half to all their marketing will be done via digital channels.

So what about in Australia?

In Australia we're a few years behind the US (which makes the US a useful predictor of our future).

The 2008 Australian Digital Marketing Trends Survey sponsored by NextDigital, involving 200 communicators across industries (including government) indicated that only around 10 percent of organisations dedicated between 25 and 50 percent of their marketing spend on digital.

However this was projected to grow to 40 percent of organisations within the next five years (by 2013).

It also found that in 2007 only 4 percent of Australian organisations were spending more than 50 percent of their marketing dollars on digital channels, but this was expected to grow to 19 percent in five years.

How is your organisation allocating its communications dollars?

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The myth of mass media - it is only a flash in the pan

Paul Budde (former journalist and Australia's leading telecommunications researcher) has published a fantastic piece on how mass media - which anyone born since the 1960s takes for granted - is really an anomaly, titled The anomaly of the mass media.

Niche-based media is more reflective of human communications activity in the longer-term.

The piece also discusses how telecommunications developments, led by the internet, are fragmenting media back into niches - not only geographic, but also interest-based.

It is very thought-provoking for any communications professionals seeking to use media outlets to reach their audiences.

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Should there be paid advertisements on Australian government websites?

The Investments blog posted a thought-provoking post a few days ago, asking Should Government Websites Be Allowed to Post Google Ads to Offset Deficient Budgets?

This was based on a question put to 'Father of the internet' and Google head evangelist, Vinton Cerf, who was asked at an eGovernment seminar,

"if he thought that there was a way for Google to have special “Google AdSense” for government websites. He smiled one of his famous smiles and indicated he liked the question very much."

This post went on to raise the point that certain advertising may be appropriate on government website, related to not-for-profit support organisations and services that help users of government services.

The hosting of these ads would provide a revenue stream for government sites, helping to offset their costs. Ads could be carefully placed with a disclaimer to ensure it was clear to visitors that these were advertisement and manage any legal issues around endorsement.

It is an intriguing concept, and not entirely dissimilar to how CSIRO commercialises intellectual capital or agencies such as ABS have monetised their reports and products.


Now I'm not the first to suggest this be considered for Australian government sites.

Net Traveller author, Tom Worthington, made a slightly different suggestion in a post on January 2007,

Governments may not wish to have paid commercial advertising on their web sites, but perhaps they could have internal government advertising. Each government web page could have a space reserved for advertising. Normally this would be used to promote government initiatives and publicize web sites (in effect the Government's own Google AdWords). The reserved space would also be used to advise the public of emergency information (emergency information is an area where Federal and State Australian governments do poorly online and as a result are placing the lives of citizens at risk).

There is also at least one government site in Australia already featuring paid commercial advertising. Ourbrisbane.com, owned and operated by the Brisbane City Council.

This site features ads for services such as Seek and RSVP as well as other advertisers.


Looking around the world, there are other examples of the acceptance of advertising on government sites.

US experience
In the US while there is an overall policy that government sites should not feature paid advertising, exemptions can be granted, as detailed in Webcontent.gov, the guide to managing US government websites.

I've found evidence that advertising has government sites in the US offering paid advertising for at least four years, as evidenced by this article in Slashdot on 27 July 2004, Advertising Hits Arizona County Government Website,

Maricopa County, home to 3.4 million people in the Phoenix metropolitan area, has seen their GIS website "become an every day tool for realtors, developers, mortgage and title companies, appraisers, inspectors, attorneys and many other professionals associated with the real estate industry." As a result, they are now accepting bids for Web advertisements. As the county is one of the best-run in the nation, this could set quite the precedent.

The Maricopa County website is still delivering paid advertising to Phoenix's citizens today.


UK experience
In the UK there is an even more pragmatic approach.

Within the UK Cabinet's guidelines for web site management is included a guide for buying and selling advertising and sponsorship space which states;

Advertising on the web is envisaged as being a revenue stream for government websites. It can reduce the cost of providing government information and services, which saves the taxpayer money or results in better quality services and faster delivery of information and services on-line. It is a perfectly legitimate thing to do as long as the guidelines are adhered to.

This guideline was first written in 2002 and remains in force today, six years later, indicating to me that there has not been any major backlash by citizens towards advertising on government sites.


What do you think?
So what do you think of the idea of placing paid advertising on Australian government websites?
Would it be appropriate for your website?
Would a revenue stream help raise the profile of your site in the department?

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