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Josh Bernoff
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5 months ago
in Groundswell, Hit and Miss on JasonKeath.com
Nice job summarizing the key points.
I wish I could do a Groundswell for small business -- but if I write books for Forrester I need to stick to what their clients (big companies) want, for the most part. Still, I am gathering some insights on that.
But there will be a follow-on book. Count on it.
I wish I could do a Groundswell for small business -- but if I write books for Forrester I need to stick to what their clients (big companies) want, for the most part. Still, I am gathering some insights on that.
But there will be a follow-on book. Count on it.
1 reply
7 months ago
in Forrester Research Gets It Wrong By Saying Corporate Blogs Aren’t Trusted on AttentionMax
Not sure what your problem is with our research.
Don't you find it shocking that only 16% of people react to the words "company blog" with any trust? I certainly did, I found it worthy of a headline.
Survey space isn't infinite, which is why the question is worded the way it is. We can follow up, and we will.
Since you agreed with our recommendations, where's the beef?
Don't you find it shocking that only 16% of people react to the words "company blog" with any trust? I certainly did, I found it worthy of a headline.
Survey space isn't infinite, which is why the question is worded the way it is. We can follow up, and we will.
Since you agreed with our recommendations, where's the beef?
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maxkalehoff
Josh,
Many thanks for your reply to my reply. For the record, I have tremendous respect for you and your body of work -- have for many years, and you know that. But this was an exception. I explained my disagreements at great length in my post, and in the following comment thread -- and several smart people backed me up on the validity of my criticism. If I have erred, I invite you to specify where and debate where this thread went astray.
Your recommendations? They were awesome, and I called them out as such. In fact, I'll publicly endorse them right here by saying they're concise and reassuring. I sent them to my own management team, and to several industry colleagues.
But, as I underscored, they were foreshadowed by a headline pegged to what I believe was a survey question extrapolated too far. Yes, it is somewhat interesting that 16% of people react to the words "company blog" with little trust. But that's applying a broadcast mentality to a niche communications venue and channel. As a practitioner, I don't care so much how a general consumer population reacts to "company blogs in general" when prompted in an online, telephone or diary survey. (I have less and less faith in survey methodologies each day that goes on -- and that's coming from someone who knows a thing or two about them. But that's another issue.) The numbers were the numbers and I don't disagree that that's really how your consumer panel answered the question.
So what do I care about? The targeted stakeholders with whom we engage and build trust with over time. If I were in your shoes -- again, as I underscore above -- I would follow up on this work by trying to answer how one particular medium or channel and content type MIGHT influence the trust of a specific content creator and source. There is merit to the saying "the medium is the message." Yeah, but how much? And the second question should be what other variables are out there that marketers must consider in putting their most trusting foot forward (other than the obvious -- acting honest, trustworthy and authentic). This builds on Pete Kim's comment over key variables that must be considered but were not in this instance, as far as I can tell.
Look, I'm a marketing guy, employed to promote and protect the brands where I work. And I do take the whole social media movement seriously -- and I'm respectful of your work in advancing this new dimension of business. You've been among the clear thought leaders. But bottom line: I felt the 16% trust headline was more of a mischaracterization and distraction of deeper issues at stake. From a practical perspective, I believe it deserves less emphasis and more context. But damn, I'll give it to you: it was a great headline! I blogged about it, didn't I? You also motivated many others to as well, including mainstream press.
To conclude, I hope you'll keep me on your PR pitch list. You've prompted me to think critically about a few issues I otherwise would not have -- particularly those questions I extracted. And for that, I thank you. And since you are an analyst, I trust that you respect and enjoy healthy debate beyond your inner circle as well. We can agree to disagree.
Many thanks for your reply to my reply. For the record, I have tremendous respect for you and your body of work -- have for many years, and you know that. But this was an exception. I explained my disagreements at great length in my post, and in the following comment thread -- and several smart people backed me up on the validity of my criticism. If I have erred, I invite you to specify where and debate where this thread went astray.
Your recommendations? They were awesome, and I called them out as such. In fact, I'll publicly endorse them right here by saying they're concise and reassuring. I sent them to my own management team, and to several industry colleagues.
But, as I underscored, they were foreshadowed by a headline pegged to what I believe was a survey question extrapolated too far. Yes, it is somewhat interesting that 16% of people react to the words "company blog" with little trust. But that's applying a broadcast mentality to a niche communications venue and channel. As a practitioner, I don't care so much how a general consumer population reacts to "company blogs in general" when prompted in an online, telephone or diary survey. (I have less and less faith in survey methodologies each day that goes on -- and that's coming from someone who knows a thing or two about them. But that's another issue.) The numbers were the numbers and I don't disagree that that's really how your consumer panel answered the question.
So what do I care about? The targeted stakeholders with whom we engage and build trust with over time. If I were in your shoes -- again, as I underscore above -- I would follow up on this work by trying to answer how one particular medium or channel and content type MIGHT influence the trust of a specific content creator and source. There is merit to the saying "the medium is the message." Yeah, but how much? And the second question should be what other variables are out there that marketers must consider in putting their most trusting foot forward (other than the obvious -- acting honest, trustworthy and authentic). This builds on Pete Kim's comment over key variables that must be considered but were not in this instance, as far as I can tell.
Look, I'm a marketing guy, employed to promote and protect the brands where I work. And I do take the whole social media movement seriously -- and I'm respectful of your work in advancing this new dimension of business. You've been among the clear thought leaders. But bottom line: I felt the 16% trust headline was more of a mischaracterization and distraction of deeper issues at stake. From a practical perspective, I believe it deserves less emphasis and more context. But damn, I'll give it to you: it was a great headline! I blogged about it, didn't I? You also motivated many others to as well, including mainstream press.
To conclude, I hope you'll keep me on your PR pitch list. You've prompted me to think critically about a few issues I otherwise would not have -- particularly those questions I extracted. And for that, I thank you. And since you are an analyst, I trust that you respect and enjoy healthy debate beyond your inner circle as well. We can agree to disagree.
1 year ago
in Social media is not a focus group on Techrigy Blog
I appreciate the shout-out. I'd love to hear more about Techrigy and how it fits into the brand monitoring space.
1 reply
techrigy
Josh,
If you go to http://sm2.techrigy.com and sign up for a free account I'll
upgrade you to a pro account for testing purposes. We can also do a demo via
GoToMeeting with Aaron Newman, our CEO, if you're interested.
If you go to http://sm2.techrigy.com and sign up for a free account I'll
upgrade you to a pro account for testing purposes. We can also do a demo via
GoToMeeting with Aaron Newman, our CEO, if you're interested.
1 year ago
in Social media is not a focus group on Techrigy Blog
Hi, Martin.
As the coauthor of Groundswell I wanted to add some context for your readers.
We do devote one chapter in the book on ways to listen to communities and social networks -- that seems to be where you have focused. We also talk about marketing, selling, supporting, and doing product development with these tools.
If you do research, there are two basic ways to do it. One is to monitor existing social commentary, using tools as basic as Google Alerts or as sophisticated as TNS Cymfony. That's a great way to learn what people are talking about when it comes to your products and your market.
The other way is to set up your own private, moderated network. That's what Communispace does. It's way, way more informative than a focus group since it's continuous and intensive. Also, if you got a look into one of these private networks, you'd see that it looks and works a lot like any public network, except that the companies involved can ask their own questions. Even so, most of the activity in Communispace communities is user-initiated, not client-initiated.
Communispace and its competitors like Think Passenger are not the be-all and end-all of social media -- in fact, they're only one tool in a huge arsenal of techniques. But they can be useful.
One last comment: Forrester actually competes for research money with both the likes of Cymfony and Communispace -- but we recognize both as useful providers of research information. We're neither biased for them nor against them.
As the coauthor of Groundswell I wanted to add some context for your readers.
We do devote one chapter in the book on ways to listen to communities and social networks -- that seems to be where you have focused. We also talk about marketing, selling, supporting, and doing product development with these tools.
If you do research, there are two basic ways to do it. One is to monitor existing social commentary, using tools as basic as Google Alerts or as sophisticated as TNS Cymfony. That's a great way to learn what people are talking about when it comes to your products and your market.
The other way is to set up your own private, moderated network. That's what Communispace does. It's way, way more informative than a focus group since it's continuous and intensive. Also, if you got a look into one of these private networks, you'd see that it looks and works a lot like any public network, except that the companies involved can ask their own questions. Even so, most of the activity in Communispace communities is user-initiated, not client-initiated.
Communispace and its competitors like Think Passenger are not the be-all and end-all of social media -- in fact, they're only one tool in a huge arsenal of techniques. But they can be useful.
One last comment: Forrester actually competes for research money with both the likes of Cymfony and Communispace -- but we recognize both as useful providers of research information. We're neither biased for them nor against them.
1 reply
techrigy
Josh,
Thanks for the insights- and for Groundswell which has been truly useful to
me as a social media marketer. One thing I'd like to add: Please take a
closer look at what we're doing as I think it's not only several levels
beyond something like Cymfony but also far more widely available to
businesses that cannot afford services that run into six figures. And Google
Alerts has a major timeframe issue due to indexing taking place on an
(apparently) periodic basis. They also do not index many social media
sources which means you can miss conversations early in their influencing
cycle.
Thanks for the insights- and for Groundswell which has been truly useful to
me as a social media marketer. One thing I'd like to add: Please take a
closer look at what we're doing as I think it's not only several levels
beyond something like Cymfony but also far more widely available to
businesses that cannot afford services that run into six figures. And Google
Alerts has a major timeframe issue due to indexing taking place on an
(apparently) periodic basis. They also do not index many social media
sources which means you can miss conversations early in their influencing
cycle.
Look forward to future writing from you.