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RSS

According to Wikipedia, RSS is a Web-feed format used to publish frequently updated content such as blogs, news, and podcasts in a standard format. An RSS document, also called a feed, contains a summary of content from an associated Web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with Web sites in an automated manner that can be piped into special programs. RSS has been around for at least five years. It is one of the simplest technologies to date that enables users to keep tabs of the content they care about without the hassles of always browsing all the Web sites.

The value of RSS feeds for marketers is that they provide a way to keep up to date fresh content flowing to your customers. A global survey of internal and corporate communications professionals found that more than half use blogs, online video, and RSS or plan to do so in the next 12 months. Instead of holding off for another two to three weeks for the next e-mail blast, with RSS, marketers can post content instantly.

For example, at IBM, our developerWorks® site allows experts to create their content, relate their knowledge, keep others informed, and connect with the broader developerWorks community that share their interests. There has been more than 100 percent year-to-year growth in RSS feeds on developerWorks.

Top Five Lessons Learned for Success on RSS

RSS feeds are powerful ways to drive your message dynamically into the market. The following are the top five tips for your RSS strategy:

1. Determine the content to distribute with regularly updated content, customized feeds, notifications, and alerts.
2. Build the feeds.
3. Use feeds to expand market by making RSS links easily available and visible and enable one-click subscriptions to RSS aggregators.
4. Build promotional applications with feeds.
5. Measure the feeds and their impact.

Podcasts

According to Wikipedia, podcasting is defined as a series of digital media files distributed over the Internet for playback on portable media players and the computer. The term podcast can refer either to the series of content itself or to the method by which it is syndicated. Podcasting (think "iPod" and "broadcasting") is similar to a radio show transmitted over the Web. The advantage over radio is that anyone can make a podcast, and the people can listen to the episodes whenever they like. People who downloads the podcast can listen to it on their computers or transfer the files to a portable player (such as an iPod). Podcasts are presented in a series and often have a theme so that the subscribers have an idea about what to expect when they sign up to receive the podcasts. Videocasting is used for the online delivery of video clips.

There is a lot of value in podcasting for marketers. eMarketer estimates that there was a 285 percent increase in the size of the U.S. podcast audience in 2007, which was a growth to 18.5 million. Furthermore, that audience will increase to 65 million in 2012. Of those listeners, 25 million will be "active" users who tune in at least once a week. We have also seen this growth inside IBM; our podcast series targeting developers has grown more than 200 percent since 2007.

Capturing and disseminating conversations can be a powerful tool because the listener can hear the excitement. A marketer's opportunity is to share knowledge through a proven medium (audio recording) but in a new and more personal way (fast download to a personal audio player). Like e-mail, instant messaging, and blogging, podcasting can break down barriers and deliver a personal touch.

To launch a successful podcasting program, think of podcasts as well-crafted, engaging radio segments delivered through the Web. Using radio segments as the model, podcasts should be short, focused communications or small nuggets of learning for customers, clients, partners, and employees.

Top Five Lessons Learned on Podcasting

Podcasting is fun and is powerful as a marketing play. Here are the top five tips for your podcasting strategy from my discussion with IBM's pod-casting experts:

1. Plan your podcast: Podcasts require planning to determine the audience, the purpose, the format, and whether the material is appropriate for audio only. Talking to the IBM podcast experts, they recommend ten minutes as a target. This can be hard to do when you work with interesting topics and engaging subjects. Seek the opinions of your colleagues when editing your content and edit aggressively. Brevity is a powerful tool when dealing in spoken-word audio recording.
2. Stylize your podcast: Decide whether you want to do an interview or a one-person presentation. IBM's podcast experts advise booking the most knowledgeable person you can find on your subject and making sure you have chosen someone who can speak intelligibly with clarity and warmth. If you or your guests simply read your messages, chances are you will not get much of an audience. On the other hand, if you and your guests improvise with authority and intelligence, you will have a winning program.
3. Podcast in a series: Why a series? Well, this is the hallmark of what makes a podcast a podcast. Podcast users expect a continuing series that they can follow, not just a one-off file.
4. Combine with interactive blogs: After the demand for podcasts expands and your experience deepens, consider combining podcasts with interactive blogs to get an even higher level of interaction with your audience.
5. Use for internal and external purposes: Remember, your employees are a key carrier of your brand. Consider a podcast series on your company's brand value!

Videocasting

Videocasting is used for the online delivery of video clips. It is basically video online. Probably the most popular videocasting example is YouTube. Anyone with a camera and a computer can begin his own videocast.

Top Five Lessons Learned on Videocasting

A picture is worth a 1000 words, especially online. Videocasting as a new vessel is a powerful add to your GTM execution for energizing your channel. Below are five tips on how to be most successful in its usage:

1. Have a script: Make the script informative and entertaining, and make sure you connect with the audience. This might seem like Marketing 101, but sometimes when a camera is around, people forget to keep it simple and targeted. Remember, do not read from the script!
2. Editing is crucial: Editing software is inexpensive these days, and editing can make or break your video. Make sure you shoot some "B-Roll" without sound. The editor will use this footage to enhance the video and make it much easier to edit. Maybe it's your subject walking around the location, doing or demonstrating some task if appropriate; maybe show the person interacting with others (without sound).
3. Make sure you tag it correctly to get picked up: A feed needs to be created for each videocast series, enabling users to subscribe to it. This feed is then submitted or registered with sites such as iTunes or Yahoo, and it will show up in their listings and searches.
4. Call to action: Just because it is video doesn't mean you can skip this step. Your videocast needs to have clear direction at its closure.
5. Make it an experience: Video is different from podcasting. Make sure you maximize the use of pictures and imagery to make your story become an experience.

Putting It Together—The Marketing 2.0 Starter Set!

I highlighted seven of the new interactive vessels for brand and product content. As you can tell, there is a lot of learning, experimentation, and success occurring in the marketplace today. I recommend that with these new tools, you focus on the goal that you need to accomplish within your integrated plan of both traditional and nontraditional elements. Begin by educating yourself on the social tools and experiment with small projects. Also, observe how the community works and its rules. Then, incorporate a few elements into your overall plan, such as a Facebook fan group around a product or a widget to share new information with your partner community. Learn what makes sense for you to measure and track. Then advance to a point where you increase your funding, your participation, and your integration of the social aspects into your overall strategy. Although this is new, try it first, but don't wait too long to jump in with both feet.

Make sure you start social bookmarking. There are more than 15 billion Web sites on the Internet, so you need help to sort through all the information sources. Step into the new Marketing 2.0 world using social tagging. There are some great ways to help you organize all your social news. Dogear (aimed at businesses and enterprises), del.icio.us, Digg, reddit, and Newsvine offer a similar system for organization of "social news." Because this is social bookmarking, these are meant to be shared! Get started by signing up for a service (maybe de.licio.us), start bookmarking with tags, and finally, socialize your bookmarks and see what others are looking at!

As Daryl Plummer, managing VP and Gartner Fellow writes, "In SOA, the least important word is Service. With Web 2.0, the most important word is community. When the two come together and systems start delivering services to communities, real phenomena begin to emerge. Large numbers of people coming together to use services will generate the next innovations for new business. If you ask me, the way to the next billion-dollar company goes through figuring out how to let a community of customers serve themselves while you allow the community to grow and take your money from the people who want to deliver services to them. That is the essence of the emerging 'Cloud' and rising successes of MySpace, Flickr, and many others."

For my business at IBM, we set up starter kits to help our clients get started in an easy fashion. Because my IBM clients love the starter kits for technology, here is our virtual starter set for your new vessel approach to Marketing 2.0. It is just a suggested way to get you going on your journey. From the above chapter and previous chapters, the following is my recommended Marketing 2.0 Starter Set!

Go to http://ibmpressbooks.com/angels to get a look at the Starter Set.

• Listening: Google reader
• Social networks: Facebook
• Virtual environments: Second Life, OpenSim, and ActiveWorlds
• Widgets: Google, Yahoo
• Wiki hosting: PBwiki
• Microblogging: Twitter
• Blogging host: Wordpress, Typepad, and Blogger
• Mobile blogging: Utterz
• Linking and tagging (blogosphere): Technorati, Google Blogsearch, and LinkedIn
• Audio hosting: iTunes
• Video hosting: YouTube

Conclusion

Today is an exciting time in the marketplace as new vessels invade the marketers' toolkit. These new tools invite the trusted customer to speak on our behalf and energize the customer to be our brand advocates. Leveraging the new vessels with the channel provides us a way to listen, respond, and leverage the power of the ecosystem.

However, it is also scary the number and choices of new media and interactive marketing. The vessels that we use to energize our channel are abundant and cost effective. The new digital age lets us network with virtual worlds and online communities, actively participate with viral techniques and serious gaming, share through widgets and wikis, and blog for top media coverage and brand extension. Vessel success is based on strong and relevant content and creativity. The goal is to leverage these vessels to energize your market and channel. It brings the customer and ecosystem closer to your company with a personal digital face. Try them for marketing value in your ecosystem but have a coordinated and integrated plan about how and when to leverage them. Now is the time to experiment to see what works in this Marketing 2.0 world.

The growth of new media vessels reflects large-scale changes in organizational structure and work styles, and these changes will impact the future of the enterprise. College students use MySpace, and this is how they expect to interact. Blogging and gaming has invoked a feeling that credibility is bestowed by the community, not by title or position. The bottom line is that this isn't just about seizing marketing opportunities, but it is about remaining relevant in a changing dynamic.

For an example of an SOA newsletter, additional content on widgets, Twitter linkage, Smart SOA Social network flash, and a Marketing 2.0 Starter Kit, go to http://ibmpressbooks.com/angels.

This chapter is an excerpt from the book, The New Language of Marketing 2.0 by Sandy Carter, published by IBM Press, November 2008, ISBN 0137142498, Copyright 2009, International Business Machines Corporation. All rights reserved.

Original: January 14, 2009

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