Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

image credit: ninja999

Last Thursday, Organic hosted a panel discussion on how to fit the User Experience practice into an Agile project cycle. For more information on what Agile is, see the Agile Manifesto or check out the Wikipedia entry.

So, Why is This an Interesting Topic for User Experience Professionals?
With a trend to quick iterations it's hard for us to figure out where our discipline fits in. As is the nature of agile, the UX design can change and it becomes difficult to maintain a consistent experience. Add to this an ill-defined agile process (many want to say they're "agile", but in reality they're not), a UXer might feel a loss of control. So, what's the solution?

Advice From the Panel
The biggest takeaway for our team of Experience Architects was not to compromise user testing. Test early and test often. It's a great way to learn if the designs are usable, especially if you have a hunch that there are issues. Don't have a huge budget for testing? No problem ... there are some "guerilla" testing methods that can get you the information you need (see below). Some testing is better than no testing.

Another great piece of advice: your analytics department is your best friend. Chances are, they've analyzed something similar and can provide valuable metrics to support your hypotheses. Seek them out and ask for their help.  

Other Takeaways:
•    If your budgets don't allow for extensive research then find guerilla methods for testing. Round up users in your company or take advantage of services such as fivesecondtest.com.

•    Agile should be ... well ... agile. While there is technically a right and a wrong way to do agile, the process in itself should be adaptable. If it's not working for you, then use the elements that do make sense ... resolve to have more face to face interactions and stand up meetings. Whatever works for your environment.

•    In the spirit of the adaptable process, consider getting a head start on the typical agile development cycle. When incorporating User Experience into Agile, begin with Iteration 0 where the User Experience people lay out some design patterns and architecture. Turn this over to development and stay a week or so ahead. For more information, see Lynn Miller's case study.

Anthony Viviano

image credit: geek & poke

NOTE: This is a continuation of yesterday's post on re-thinking your position in advertising and considering a Community Management role.

How To Become a Qualified Community Manager
If you're considering a role as a Community Manager, here are three things you can do to build your expertise.

1.  Engage. Create your profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp, FlickR, YouTube and participate. Immerse yourself in the communities and talk about your passions. Learn about proper online etiquette and language so you don't unknowingly publicly embarrass yourself. Many local chambers of commerce or community colleges are offering workshops about basic social media usage.

2.  Volunteer. Combine your thirst for social media knowledge with the opportunity to help a local non profit organization build an online community.  Cristina Lorenzetti, a Detroit-based freelance copywriter and social media neophyte, volunteered her services to be the community manager for "The Bottomless Toy Chest" a non-profit devoted to pediatric cancer patients. This allowed her to practice community manager skills while benefitting the organization. Prospective employers will now be able to view her writing and community manager skills in real-time on these social channels.

3.  Network. There are many resources for community manager wanna-bes to network with others." Web strategist, Jeremiah Owyang hosts a list of community managers on his blog. Peer groups such as Community Manager, Advocate, and Evangelists on Facebook or Online Community Managers on LinkedIn are available to join and learn from those doing the job today.

Likewise, companies should consider these types of experiences as must-haves when seeking out candidates.

Traci Armstrong
@tannarmstrong

I hate holiday shopping just as much as the next shopper, but it's inevitable. This year, I'm doing all of my holiday shopping online. There once was a time when making a purchase online felt scary and insecure, but with the increased sophistication of e-commerce and social media, shopping online has become the ideal way to shop.

With the rise of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and the popularity of product reviews on blogs, there has been an immense increase in knowledge sharing and an expanding set of online tools and services to make it easier to interpret this data. What this means for you, as a consumer, is that you can use the tools created for shopping to find the best products for the best price.

Here is a guide of online tools and tips for you to get the most out of your online holiday shopping:

1. Decide what you want to purchase, if you're not sure get gift ideas

2. Utilize user reviews to figure out if what you're buying is a quality product

3. Search for the product to find the best deal

4. Check for a coupon code for the online store that I found the best deal to make it even better

5. Purchase with a cash back card - Cash back debit/credit cards give cash back at the end of the billing period for an added after shopping bonus

"On September 26, 2009, Typhoon Ondoy brought a month's worth of rainfall to Metro Manila and nearby areas in just a few hours, causing severe flooding which resulted in the loss of many lives and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people. 8 days later, Typhoon Pepeng struck the northern regions causing more damage. This site compiles relevant information about the disaster, including a volunteer-maintained map of persons needing rescue and a list of relief organizations accepting donations, so that more help can be provided where it is needed."

There is no denying that Google's efforts are admirable and for a great cause. So it's hard to suggest that the site they developed to rally people around the Typhoon Ondoy cause could benefit majorly from improved design and usability. Normally, as marketers, we get the benefit of a specific demographic we are trying to address and for a defined product. In the case of large scale disasters, the demographic really is everyone, and the emotions you are trying to illicit is everything from awareness to action.

Knowing the need for action is great and the design challenge is real, I sent the site around to some colleagues. Together, we tried to come up with a few of best practices for making cause-based sites more effective...

1. Provide clear direction on needs, goals, and progress. Help users understand where the need is the greatest.

"I often feel a little helpless when massive events like this happen, if for no other reason than I don't even know where to begin helping. Is sending cash the right thing, do rescue workers need provisions that can't be locally sourced, etc?" James Vreeland

The current page leaves the user with too many questions. What's already been donated? What are the areas of need? What could my money be going towards? Is there something that needs to be donated besides money? Giving user a list of numbers to call only makes them feel overwhelmed, not motivated.

2. Use stories, not numbers. Stories make the user feel closer to the cause, while numbers often do the opposite.

The current Ondoy page isn't organized to elicit a reaction... not emotional or actionable. With so many charity stories and good causes out there competing for attention, incorporating a story of an actual person affected does more good than stats and charts. People need to be moved and then lead to action.

3. Harness the power and reach of social media to generate interconnectivity and spring users into action.
Google has seem to forgotten the "share this" button. No tweet this, no Facebook that. While links are simple and becoming ubiquitous, that simple addition could have made all the difference. Google could have also considered something like http://micro.ilist.com/ for quickly bringing folks together, especially now that Twitter is rolling in geolocation data.

#ihave a spare bedroom for up to 3 nights
+
#ineed a place to sleep, my house burnt down

It works best for big events, not one-off needs, but it is still an interesting way to connect at a personal level, those who have with those who need.

Thanks to James Vreeland, Douglas Diaz, and Dean McRobie for the link and sharing their thoughts on this topic.

Marta Strickland

Are you on LinkedIn? Twitter? Facebook? Delicious? YouTube or Vimeo? Flickr? Do you have a blog, using sites such as TypePad, WordPress, Blogger? If you're in the market for a new job any time soon, you won't get far without these tools in your social media toolbox.

During an average week, a recruiter reviews countless resumes, responds to hundreds of e-mails, conducts phone screens, video interviews and in-person interviews -- all to find one perfect candidate match. The sheer volume of work has been exacerbated by high unemployment and a down economy. As a result, many recruiters are casting a smaller net, relying on sources like social media, employee referrals and Boolean search to attract a smaller, more qualified set of candidates.

For job seekers, this means a change in job-search approach. Rather than the "find a job" mentality, job seekers must focus on being found. Recruiters are holding the proverbial glass slipper -- looking for the perfect match to open positions.

There are at least seven things you should be doing to make us and other talent recruiters take notice.

1. Expand your digital footprint.
2. Define your magic keywords.
3. Customize your handle.
4. Don't be a wallflower.
5. Use blogs to show off more than just writing.
6. Tweet and encourage re-tweets.
7. Join groups.

Read the entire AdAge article to find out how.

Traci Armstrong and Tracy Cote

Last week, Kevin Colleran, one of the first employees of Facebook and current Director of National Sales, stopped by Organic's NY office to answer a few questions. As we notice more and more companies jumping into the social media pool, we asked him to stop by to give a state of the union on Facebook.

Here are some highlights from our chat with Kevin about Facebook:

1. Brand pages...everyone from Starbucks to Obama have a page now. What's a little known fact about them?
Since they're free to setup, then companies sometimes build robust experiences - namely in the tabs. But, robust features don't outweigh quality content. At the end of the day, the vast majority of your fans do not continuously visit the fan page but will see the newly posted content in their News Feeds. And, with increased adoption of Become a Fan buttons, many never have to go to a brand page to express their affinity.

2. Over the past two years, Facebook has made significant changes to the user experience. What's been the result?
Many people visit Facebook every other day online. And with the mobile phone applications and mobile site, they're visiting in more places. You'd be surprised to know that 90% of the time people spend on Facebook is concentrated on the homepage newsfeed.

3. In terms of moderating conversation, what should we know?
First, know that all communications must occur in public. We don't allow brands to private message fans like individuals can private message each other. We block private messaging to avoid spamming. Second, by default, comments on the fan page Wall are turned on. So, when a brand posts something, then members have the right to comment. The only way for comments not to appear is if they're taken down by the page administrator(s). If you don't have a dedicated staff to monitor the page, then find a vendor that can auto-moderate by rejecting inappropriate comments and holding other comments until they've been manually approved. Expect these services to start at $2-3K monthly.

4. Should we remove pages created by people that bear the name and/or logo of our brand?
At first, it may seem that these user-generated pages are good - after all, who doesn't want users to generate positive content for your brand. But, things can go two ways. What if they start saying inappropriate things? What if they start misrepresenting themselves as employees? At the end of the day, these user-generated pages are liabilities. And as much as it may pain you to shut-down one of these pages, is the liability worth it?

We recommend brands migrate the fans of user-generated brand pages to the brand's official brand page. For current members of these pages, it's a seamless experience. How do you think Coca-Cola got to be the #2 brand on Facebook with over 3MM fans... it's mostly because they combined all the user-generated pages.

5. I'm noticing more and more brands integrating Facebook into advertising. For instance, T.G.I. Friday's is running television spots in which they've promised to give free hamburgers when their page reaches 500K fans. What are other ways to bring attention to your fan page?
Here's three things - ranging from free to paid. The cheapest way is to use a "Become a Fan" button on your homepage. If someone is already logged into Facebook, then clicking on the button adds them as a fan without having to leave your site. Second, you can put a link to your Facebook page in your communications - emails, newsletters, etc. Lastly, consider buying a roadblock on Facebook. We've noticed great success in growing the number of fans on pages with this type of media buy.

For more information about marketing in social media, contact socialmedia@organic.com. For examples of marketing on Facebook, visit http://www.facebook.com/marketing.

Kai Wright

Anyone else see the last episode of Shark Tank? If you don¹t know what it is, it¹s a show where entrepreneurs present ideas to investors for capital and support.

The last episode featured a guy that creates customized health bars. There¹s a really simple health bar configurator that lets you add your own ingredients and shows you nutritional info on-the-fly. The bars work out to about $3 a piece, kinda pricey, but, I couldn¹t resist finding out how my favorite things ­ chocolate, blueberries and walnuts ­ will taste in my preservative-free personalized Marsh Bar.

https://www.elementbars.com/

I like the drag and drop functionality and the dynamic nutrition chart. But the site could use some design panache and I would have liked for the site to recommend substitute ingredients that would make my bar "healthier". It would be nice to have a tool where you could input your health or diet needs and it recommends the right mix of ingredients for you.

But, overall, nice concept (as long as they don't taste like dust).

Sandy Marsh

Here is a simple/smart/humanistic approach to hiring. Specialized has a position for a graphic director that needs to be filled. Instead of just posting the position with copy the creative director added a video of himself talking about the position and who their looking for (a rock star of course). With just a quick watch, the viewer is able to understand the attitude, style, and lifestyle the company houses (wasn't over done, glitzy, or too corporate).

Most hiring managers and companies forget: half of the interview process is selling a candidate on the culture, the opportunity and the people they'll be working with. This video takes a proactive approach to culture pre-sell before the interview even takes place and is likely to attract high-quality candidates.

Many more companies were making the effort to create culture videos when the economy was strong and a talent shortage made it harder to attract high-quality people. A chees-ey but impactful video - created by Micrsoft interns - documents an employee taking advantage of 30 Microsoft perks during one day at work. Keep in mind, this video was posted in early 2008, so these perks may no longer be offered - but it certainly makes a compelling case of everything Microsoft does for their employees.

Video could have many other applications during the interview process. Many candidates are starting to use video resumes as a "warm" introduction of themselves - as opposed to a near-anonymous resume or phone call. And many companies (including Organic) are currently considering the pros and cons of pre-screen video interviews - asking candidates to answer a pre-determined set of questions to get a sense of whether they're a fit for a position - and allowing the hiring managers to view on their own. This allows for both scheduling flexibility and time savings.

All of these techniques help give a clearer impression - for both the hiring manager and the candidate - of not just whether there is a qualification fit... but is there a culture fit.

Casey Riggleman
Traci Armstrong

The great words of Joel Bauer... "it isn't about being liked, it's about being effective."

Now I would argue that the greatest advantage today is in being both. In a time where our online social world is filled with endless noise, there is a lot competing for human attention. And as wrong as this may sound for some people, the truth is that in order to reach your audience (be them friends or colleagues)... it's not enough to just be liked anymore, you have to be liked and effective.

We are all brands. We are all community managers.

But, that doesn't mean that we have the budget or large staff employed at agencies or within brands to manage our online presence. No, we need to rely on useful tools to tell us the information we want to know, we need to know, and when we know it. Unfortunately, those tools don't currently exist.

Why Social Networks Need To Embrace This
In the great big battle of social networks competing for our engagement time... it will be the networks that give us relevant feedback (who likes our posts, how many forwarded my link onto their friends) that will win our attention.

This isn't so far off from what Obama discovered in his campaign for president, or what game designers have known for quite sometime: if you show people the progress of their actions, they will become more invested and engage more frequently. People like statistics, people like feedback, and people like to know that they are getting somewhere.

How Facebook and Twitter Can Offer More Value

What they can do immediately...
1. Give users access to the data they already collect. I shouldn't have to have a fan page to know how interactions on my profile trend over time. What month did I have the most photo comments, wall posts, etc. You are already collecting that data, let me have it!

2. Integrate consistent metrics into the interface. Twitter's big problem is that metrics are inconsistent and housed outside of their site. It would be nice to have an analysis panel that easily connects together my retweet ratio with the actual content that got retweeted.

What they can do in the future...
3. Base new functionality on what consumers want to know. There is already enough competing for our engagement. Facebook and Twitter don't need to add more applications or functions. Instead they should help us gain a better understanding of the effectiveness of what we are already doing.

Social sites need to realize that consumers don't want more widgets and feeds and doodads that add to our everyday noise. It's time for networks to help increase the relevance of social content, by helping us become more informed party hosts.

Marta Strickland