Responsible for finding the next generation of digital pioneers, the likes of Foursquare, Tumblr, Quora and all started out here. As a hotbed of up and coming talent SxSW’s Accelerator series will be held for the fourth year running in the Startup Village, with a call for entries from product or services launched no later than 13th March 2011.

As part of PanelPicker initiative, SxSW are giving their active online community a voice. Grouping together over 600 accepted discussion proposals into manageable chunks to help inspire and discover trends for what SxSW describe as ‘an industry zeitgeist’.

These accepted proposals will take the form of panel talks, Q&A sessions and discussions covering hefty topics from social media gender profiling to human psychologies of digital media, no doubt sparking some revealing discussions. With each talk handily labelled beginner, intermediate or advanced and even a beginners guide to SxSW, organisers are really gearing their offer to the wider community this year.

Here’s a few of our favourite proposals to look out for:

• Sex On The Web: The Sabotage of Relationships?
• It’s “Ms Bitch”-How Gals Grab Digital By the Balls
• Modern Weaponry: Using Digital Media to End a War
• Mobile App Design for Young Minds and Small Hands
• Creative Social: Where do old creatives go to die?
• LiberationTech – How Geeks Overthrow Governments

Keep your eyes peeled for more SxSW info here.

Trolling- noun:

A key perk of social media is encouraging social activism, offering power to the people in making a change for the greater good. But what if social media was in being used promote violent, bullying behaviour, with the instigator hiding behind the pseudonym of an anonymous username?

Mindlessly selecting their victims and hurling streams of abuse, trolls take a ‘moral vacation’ from what they find socially acceptable in the ‘real’ world. Labelled ‘deindividuation’ by psychologists, the term describes the withdrawal of social norms and acceptable behaviour we’d normally abide by offline, as a result of our identities being concealed online.

Whilst hating celebrities is now a social activity – programs such as Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor inviting viewer comments and tweets via designated hashtags and Facebook pages – social media makes it an awful lot easier for these pages to spread, thereby opening up a torrent of potential abuse. An ‘I Hate Katie Waissel’ Facebook page with a devoted following of over 12,000 fans was a prime example, with anti-fans hurling unfounded abuse at the singer.

Although Facebook users generally operate under their real names, Twitter still offers the possibility of anonymous. With many celebrities flocking to the site to regain their own voice in the media after losing it to weekly glossies and gossipy internet sites, they too are open to the wrath of the troll.

The threat of the troll throws up a couple of questions; now that we can completely identify ourselves online surely if our opinions are worth typing, they’re worth putting a name to? Why should anyone listen if they don’t? That way unscrupulous marketers and advertisers could no longer use the power of anon to market their own wares or slander their competitors, in a truly transparent media environment.

Arthur Schopenhauer summed the topic up nicely when he wrote on the subject over 160 years ago, “Anonymity is the refuge for all literary and journalistic rascality.”

“When a man publically proclaims through the far-sounding trumpet of the newspaper, he should be answerable for it at any rate with his honour, if he has any; and if he has none let his name neutralise the effect of his words.” Here here.

The moral of the story? With effective moderation and a switched-on team looking after your clients’ social channels, you can nip the baying trolls in the bud. Having a strict comments policy specifying what you will and won’t allow is just one of the many other tactics utilised to minimise brand bashing; just ask us how.

Snapshot of our iPhone app Inspired Lives

Inspired Lives facilitate individual and organisational transformation, creating positive and lasting change. The new app will be feeding daily inspirations that sometimes will question things, challenge you and ultimately make you look upon things in a new way. It also allows you to comment, upload your own photos or submit inspirations that may end up in the inspirations feed forwarded to the whole community.

Not only does it look fabulous, it had a high number of downloads in the first few days of launching, and we’ve received much positive feedback from users. It is exciting to see the team at Inspired Lives having conversations and touch points not only with loyal fans and customers but with new voices all around the globe. Have you been thinking about what an iPhone app could do for your brand? If so get in touch and we can discuss the opportunities.

The next step for Neoco and Inspired Lives is to develop a version of the app for Android. However, until then we offer a mobile friendly website version of the app. So go on, be inspired! Download the iPhone app today: http://bit.ly/b9EKLU (Psst, it’s for free too!)

Where you should be the last Friday of every month

The last Fashion Friday was a huge hit with the public and online community yet this  this one went even further. We arranged for several key fashion bloggers to attend the event and ran AAA competitions across numerous online destinations while we also provided a live social feed from the event.

bloggers and fashionistos everywhere

This enabled Topman fan(atic)s from around the UK and world to get an experience of the occasion as well.  Read our Fashion Friday case study to see how we work with  Topman to engage with not just their existing fans but the target audience at large.

If we got together we could make brown babies

There is a tabletop game called Risk! I cannot quite remember all the territories but I think the most difficult to win with was the Russians. Fighting a war on so many fronts was a costly business and often the death of many a player. It’s seems clear that Google never played Risk! as their purchase of YouTube was much like buying the Russian territory in the game – a relentless battle on many fronts that drains resources. But if there was ever an organisation with a war chest big enough to to take the ‘risk’ then it would have to be Google. With some of the brightest minds pouring over the YouTube business looking for revenue models, they have done well to at least stem some of the flow if not plug it entirely. With that we’ve also seen an ascent (?) taking YouTube from ‘Poacher to Gamekeeper‘ and this continues with the (very discreet) launch of their new video rental service.

This is a HUGE piece of news due to the potential impact of this business model succeeding.

last seen wearing a T-shirt that read "I killed Blockbuster Video"

First, there is the competitive marketplace that already exists in this sector. Netflix is the major player here but there are many more like LoveFilm (UK) or the new Hulu service. The issue for those guys is the sheer size of YouTube’s audience which should steam roll them and mean it starts with a significant advantage.

Taking a bite out of Apple

Then there is the already existing rental service of iTunes. This is a big player too but Apple benefits from a large community of advocates (sometimes against reason) who will remain loyal. But this is not the biggest fear for Apple or potential ‘win’ for Google. That comes when we move to future technology. Let’s consider the YouTube rental service does well and picks up momentum. It would be very logical to build a YouTube Android phone…

take me to your iPhone

Android is already hotly tipped to take over the iPhone as the number one smartphone. There is no doubt it can win on units but what about the service. I’ve long said that Apple stands head and shoulders over it’s rivals because of the iTunes platform. It is more reliable, intuitive and ‘ingrained’ with the audience than any other store (including Ovi). But a YouTube Android phone changes that game. Imagine YouTube start serving all music (with optional videos) too. Now with an API on my phone (or dedicated handset) I could stream (on tether to my phone) a massive library of my music and video content. This becomes a major selling point for Google (and their partners like HTC) whilst really eating in to the iTunes dependency of some user. Consider, that I could then also easily share my playlists with friends or arrange to watch a movie at the same time (in different locations) and chat or skype too. There are a lot of possibilities here and it’s very exciting to see where things go.

argg, me hearties. I love's a good Googlin' on the high seas!

Finally, there is the irony element. Forget the potential here, let’s look at the service being a success and YouTube creating original content for their audience. Pretty much every online video service has done this at one point or another. You then have to consider the irony of YouTube creating original content which will be ripped and pirated by the audience and uploaded for free around the web – maybe even on another future YouTube. And is that the point when we recognise YouTube has finally come of age?

NB. I couldn’t put all this in and not mention Blockbuster Video. What has happened to them and where will this leave them?

"I used to be a somebody..."

Channel Chanel

User-generated content is key to social media and fashion. From blogs to Facebook photo contributions to product reviews, the user-generated content is at its apex. One of the most notable and consistent campaigns that are built around user-generated content and social media has been from the brand Charlotte Russe, The brand’s weekly trivia contest on it’s Twitter channel or virals from their YouTube channel, drives the consumers to their website with the high hopes of snagging some great prizes.

Another great example of user-generated content used is Burberry’s Art of the Trench site. The people are encouraged to upload photos of themselves wearing Burberry’s signature style, the trench coat. Burberry is on a roll when it comes to online advertising to showcase their goods.

Moving into 2010, brands and retailers will be delving deeper into social media to reach online audiences. Digital and e-commerce launches of new products have also been a popular way for brands to keep costs low in a tough economy for luxury products. A variety of mobile platforms have taken off as brands, magazines, and web sites to develop apps with the goal of extending their online presence and widening the distribution channels.

When it comes to developing apps, fashion brands are some of the fastest out of the blocks. Chanel shows its runway collections via iPhone app, and the Gilt Groupe app allows users to shop sample sales and receive alerts as to when sales are starting. Guilt free apps to download for the stylish brand hunter! We’re currently developing iPhone and Blackberry apps for fashion brands around London Fashion Week.

The future of fashion is in digital marketing, not only have these brands started to win over the consumers through social media campaigns, but are starting to create their own niche groups. Louis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabbana and other major league heavy hitters in the fashion industry have launched their own social networks or added social components to their existing web sites. Or in the case of TOPMAN, we’ve worked to build their community over existing social networks and channels to lighten the load on the brand and keep things relevant to their audience.

It’s been a tough education, but we start to see less one-way discount promotions, and more genuine interaction between the brand and the people, it makes everyone happier and allows sales to boost, with satisfaction of personally acquainting yourself with who you are purchasing your new outfit from.

get a life... by copying other peoples!

Much like the characters played by Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman in The Bucket List, most people have a set of experiences they hope to have during their lifetime. We’ve already seen two websites aimed at helping consumers track and realize those dreams—Eons and 43things—and recently one of our spotters alerted us to Diddit, a similar but expanded version.

Diddit, which was recently launched into alpha by California-based Ludic Labs, allows users to discover new ideas for life experiences as well as track the ones they’ve already had. More than 300,000 experiences in 20 different interest areas are currently listed on the site—including movies to see, foods to eat, travel destinations and more—available for browsing and inspiration. To participate in the community, users sign up for free and list the experiences they’ve already had. They can then look through the site’s list of other ideas and add the ones they like to their list of goals. As each one gets accomplished they check it off on their list, with the opportunity to network and share stories and photos along the way through Diddit, Facebook and Twitter. A video on Vimeo provides a short introduction to the site.

It’s not yet clear what Diddit’s business model will be, but we’d bet ad support will be involved. After all, whether it’s baby boomers or twenty-somethings using them, sites like Diddit promise a highly directed way for advertisers to target specific groups of consumers with particular goals and interests in common. One to try out, partner with or localize for your neck of the activity-seeking woods…? (Related: A public incentive to stick to one’s goals.)

Website: www.diddit.com
Contact: info@diddit.com

It’s another foray into the niche community which is the way how the online community scene is evolving – as previous covered on here. With that in mind it wouldn’t seem right not to mention one of our client community sites, I Love Design with Quark XPress. A thriving community of designers and related creatives. Keep an eye out for the live event we are also putting on soon for them called 8×8…

grabbed from Springwise

We often get clients asking us about all these different channels and the best way to communicate across them. Good news is that we are going to start running workshops and training days to help expand the knowledge and ability of our clients and their internal teams. This is open to people on either side of the fence (client or agency side).

Are you interested in any of the following? If so, go to http://ping.fm/rSWYc and register your interest.

* Mobile Marketing – Harnessing the power and potential of media targeting
* Online Marketing – Getting to grips with the power of online marketing
* PR – Getting to grips with how online fits into the PR mix
* Audience Building – Unlocking the keys to boosting your traffic and retaining customers
* Blogging – Authoring blogs that get readers and ratings
* Community & Web 2.0 – Building effective online communities
* How the Internet works – Understanding the key components that make up the Internet
* Podcasting – Getting to grips with designing and building podcasting strategies
* Media Targeting – Harnessing the power and potential of media targeting
* Search for Advertisers – Getting more profitable customers through search
* Search for Agencies – Getting more profitable customers for your clients through search
* Email Marketing – Getting to grips with email marketing
* Viral Marketing – Creating effective viral marketing messages
* Research for Online Audience Behaviour – Understanding your customers
* Word of Mouth & Advocacy – Engaging and motivating your audience to promote your brand
* Widgets – The way to create widgets that get results and exposure
* Trends – Understanding the strategic trends driving the digital economy
* Web 2.0 – Harnessing Web 2.0 practices and technologies in your business
* Web Project Management – Running web projects to deliver on time and within budget
Go to http://ping.fm/IqnOz and register your interest.

As reported in January’s New Media Age, Virgin Atlantic are preparing for the soft launch of their new travel portal “Vtravelled”. According to the article, the community site will aim to recruit 2 million founding members between the soft launch date (end of Feb) and the rollout in June – an ambitious target.

The site moves Virgin into territory already covered by their main long-haul airline rival – BA. “Metrotwin” is based around the idea of “use[ing] what you know about one city to explore the other one.” So Borough Market in London is twinned with Union Square Greenmarket in New York. It’s an interesting idea, complimented by the excellent look and feel of the site and interesting content – a point well observed by Alex Bainbridge in his blog.

Virgin’s community site takes a different approach. According to the NMA article, the site will focus on:
• providing an “inspirational” site that will help “spark ideas for new trips”
• image and map content
• hosting “personal travel content” in the form of “trip pods” that allow users to share their travel plans, photos, notes and chat

Ultimately, Virgin want customers to “think of the site when making a travel decision”.

As Alex points out in his blog, with this approach, much of the content appears to be focussed on an individual’s travel plans. This differs from sites such as TripAdvisor and Metrotwin where much of the content is focussed on a place and therefore often of interest to other users.

There is also a crossover of functionality with the large social-network players (Facebook, MySpace etc.). Can Vtravelled persuade users to leave Facebook and other social networks to post photos and chat to their friends?

I believe that the success of the site will come down to the implementation. If the look and feel and feature-set are attractive enough to the target audience (users who wish to share travel plans or plan trips), then users may embrace these tools and make the jump.

Arguably Virgin have the clout to make this happen. Other recent Virgin advertising activities (agreeably not in “digital) seem to have been a success. I joined Virgin Active after the “lose the bits you hate” tube poster campaign and the more recent Virgin Atlantic TV ads are extremely impressive.

Whether Virgin can meet their ambitious targets remains to be seen. I for one am looking forward to following the success of the site, not least because of what it will say about consumers appetite for niche social-network communities. From my experience implementing social networks for our clients I do believe that niche networks are the future. I think users are willing to sign up to sites that they identify with, me included. Recently I’ve signed up for the BA website and a Cravendale branded ‘make the tea‘ site! But at Neoco we know that, however grand the scope of a new social network, it’s expert implementation that will keep members engaged over time.

Top 10s are important for people in Marketing

Part of the service we provide to our clients are opinion and thought leader articles. After a period of time we make these live for the public. Coming soon is an article about the difference between social networks and online communities – as people often confuse these very different models. In the meantime, enjoy the obligatory ‘Top 10 tips’ related to developing a successful online community:

1. Make sure the community needs are inline with the brand needs – look at Trip Advisor above.
2. Address the social challenges, not just the technological ones. Online communities and social networks are about people. Ignore the fact these people are online – do they still resonate with the audience social trends?
3. The community owns the community. If a brand wants a community, it needs to be part of it – look at Trip Advisor example.
4. Growth takes time and effort. Starbucks launched mystarbucksidea.com to build a community that looks to enhance the Starbucks experience. It’s taken a lot of financial resources and several months to get to the stage it is and currently requires 48 Starbucks staff to manage that community. Which leads on to…
5. Communities need managing. They are about people and wherever you have a lot of people you need someone to manage and police activity – even if those people are like the 100 Trip Advisor contributors.
6. Look at new ways to measure success. There are always the obvious benchmarks of page impressions and users but a community is not just a website. Set the targets outside of the obvious. Starbucks measure success on the goodwill they generate and new innovations from their community.
7. Appreciate the many types of communities. Whilst there are similarities, a private community is very different to a public one. Restricting access, limiting numbers and increasing engagement creates an entirely different conversation with users. GSK and P&G are known to use closed/ private communities for huge amounts of R&D across their products.
8. Consumer communities are a form of marketing. It’s a different form of marketing with new rules and etiquette. It’s always best to consult marketers who have a wealth of knowledge regarding community marketing (conveniently neoco can help). As a basic litmus test, put yourself in the shoes of the consumer. Would the activity work for you?
9. These are social environments, so the general rules of social engagement apply. A good marketer would never crash a friends party and just start shouting about their brand all night – so why should that work online? Be respectful, honest and conversational – you will find it goes a long way.
10. Make sure the community is connected internally (at your brand). Communities can be a goldmine for consumer insight and innovative ideas. Make sure these fulfill their potential by enabling conversations across your brand.