While most corporate blogs aren’t trusted, it’s refreshing to see a new type of blog appear to meet the needs of transparency, non-pitching, and openness with the community –yet meet the business needs of the corporations.

I used to work for World Savings (Intranet redesign), which was acquired by Wachovia (I’m a customer), who is now merging with giant Wells Fargo, an outgrowth from all the turmoil in the financial sector the last few years. Wells Fargo has a long history of being best in class as a financial institution that understands social, and Wachovia has dipped their toes with Twitter, but is now jumping on board, espicially during times of scrutiny.

What’s the best way to win back trust? Wells Fargo and Wachovia have launched a blog called The Wells Fargo - Wachovia Blog with a kick off post from the CEO of Wells Fargo, John Stumpf.

This is the first social media property that I’ve seen that is focused on a merger. What should we expect from this blog? While I don’t officially know, obviously this content will have to shift to something new after the merger is completed, perhaps they could focus on a community platform? Having videos that shows behind the scenes how the teams are working together to improve the customer experience would also be helpful. The more material shown that shows how the experience is going to improve for me as a Wachovia customer is key, prove to use that this is good for customers.

Give the economic situation will only get worse, what other creative social media deployments should we see next? I’ll make a few predictions: 1) A corporate blog focused on helping those who were laid off find new jobs 2) A community site hosted by a corporation that helps laid off employees connect with others. 3) A variety of online communities appear for alumnus of companies.

By Jeremiah Owyang and Josh Bernoff and cross posted on Forrester’s Interactive Marketing Blog

At Forrester we tend to look forward, not back. In fact, right now we are preparing our predictions for what 2009 will bring in the social application space. But the end of the year is also a time to reflect. So we looked back at our 2008 predictions to see how we did. Overall, we had one big mistake (vendor relationship management went nowhere) and we were too optimistic on several other predictions. Optimism, it seems, comes along with this space. But we were pleased that the entrance of corporations into the social world seems to be coming along fine, despite the recent Motrin kerfuffle, to cite one example.

Hindsight is 20-20; it’s harder to remember what life felt like in December of 2007, before the recession loomed large, Barack Obama used social technologies to win the election, and social technology became mainstream. But cast mind back 12 months, and then see if you would have agreed with our predictions . . . and what can be learned from the mistakes we made. Here they are, along with the grades we give ourselves 12 months later. (Note: these predictions were in a Forrester document available to our clients (Update: Which included the help of Charlene Li and Peter Kim, who have since moved on to become alumni). We’ve reproduced the predictions, with some edits for length that don’t affect the content.

Our 2008 Prediction: Corporate participation will bring social applications to the mainstream. . . .Emboldened by the success of pioneering efforts like Victoria’s Secret’s Facebook page and extensive private communities like Procter & Gamble’s beinggirl.com, companies will move beyond one-off experiments in social media to establish full-fledged initiatives. Sponsored communities, YouTube videos, social networking groups, and widgets will become a standard part of online marketing campaigns, further pushing adoption by mainstream consumers. . . . By the end of 2008, marketers will be searching for concrete ways to measure return . . .

Result: Give us a B on this one. There were indeed many more social applications, as evidenced by the 150 excellent entrants to the Forrester Groundswell awards. And, there is definitely a renewed focus on metrics. But social is far from universal, and the state of measurement sadly lags social deployments.

Our 2008 Prediction: Community manager roles will gain prominence in companies. As companies realize how important social applications are to their marketing and business strategies, formal budgets and roles will become more standard at large marketers. The staff in charge of those applications might not all have the same title, but they will share similar duties and responsibilities, namely, to develop a social technology strategy and start to deploy social tools and programs.

Result: A-. Community managers aren’t universal. But there are an awful lot of them, and the ones we know have definitely risen in prominence within their companies, see this list compiled of community managers at enterprise class corporations.

Our 2008 Prediction: Corporate social responsibility will take on a new meaning. Corporate participation in Social Computing hasn’t had the greatest run, between fake blogs and flat marketer profiles on social networks that shout at, rather than talk with, site members. Moreover, consumers have become more vocal about preserving control over their information and experiences. . . .Just as Sarbanes-Oxley provides guidelines for internal controls, companies will find themselves answering as well to a growing community of external auditors.

Result: B-. Recent events like the Motrin fiasco show the groundswell is keeping people honest. But we still hear the occasional corporate executive asking us if they can fake it. (We always tell them that would be a very bad idea.) We still think this will come true, but may take another year or more.

Our 2008 Prediction: Customer needs will gain a voice and launch demand-platform prototypes. . . . Customers will state their intention to buy products or services via a Web-based marketplace. eBay’s “Want It Now” program will get a turbo boost when the company turns the existing bulletin board/announcement service into a bidding-based marketplace. College students on Facebook will organize buying clubs centered on an entire dormitory, allowing marketers to move bulk merchandise with a single purchase order. Meanwhile, search engines like Google will create prototype vendor relationship management (VRM) tools that will enable both customers and marketers to find, aggregate, and match user requests to providers.

Result: F. Proved to be far too optimistic; never happened.

Our 2008 Prediction: Micromedia adoption will increase, and marketers will learn to join in. Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Utterz, and other micro-blogging and micro-media tools will give users the opportunity to share short sentences or audio clips with trusted friends. Better search and aggregation tools as well as the ability to have differentiated, group-based distribution will make these “micromedia” conversations more useful and relevant, extending their use beyond the early adopters. Marketers will learn how to use the new tools to monitor and target these ephemeral conversations and participate in relevant interactions on the fly.

Result: A-. Twitter dominated the micromedia market. Companies from Comcast to H&R Block to Zappos have learned to accomplish real business goals with it. We expect a whole lot of further growth in marketer use of Twitter in 2009.

Our 2008 Prediction: The social graph will open up. In 2008, we will see social network members clamoring for greater control over their social networking site profiles, specifically, the ability to express their personal social graphs across multiple sites, for example, on both Facebook and LinkedIn. What will break down the walls in these walled gardens? Perhaps a disrupter like Microsoft or Yahoo! will open up their respective relationship maps from Web-based address books and instant messenger buddy lists and allow outside developers to build apps on that truly open the social graph. This will set the standard, and every other social networking service will need to follow suit shortly thereafter, or risk the wrath of members unable to control their profiles.

Result: C. This trend is powerful, and will develop, perhaps even the way we predicted. But standards move slowly and we see fragments of technologies from Facebook’s Connect, Google’s Friend Connect, and OpenID. Look for this opening up to gather momentum in 2009 where a standardized protocol between all of these technologies to merge.

Our 2008 Prediction: Social search will make its debut. Social search will finally inch its way into the mainstream by re-ranking search results based on inputs from your personalized search history as well as the searching patterns of your social graph. For example, people with similar searching patterns and people like you within your social networks might have favored a particular site over other results in a search for “china.” If so, that link will move up higher in the results. Leading the path to social search will be small vendors like Collarity, Eurekster, Mahalo.com, Wink Technologies, and Wikia, which will begin with site-based social search results. But also look for Google and Yahoo! to start testing and inserting limited social and personalized search results, and eventually ads, as an optional advanced search at the top of search results pages.

Result: D. Social search didn’t catch on very well. But Google did add the ability to promote or demote search results to its mainstream searches –but it lacked a true social element. We did start to see tools that help people quickly share information like ex-Googlers at Friendfeed but the tool doesn’t highlight search as a primary effort. Now that large web platforms like Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL are expanding their social features we should expect search to be impacted in the next year. Social search will get here, one way or another.

That covers all our predictions from last yea, it’s important that we review who made a prediction and to own up to how accurate it was, and more importantly; what changed and why? We’ll be publishing our predictions for 2009 in a report for clients, keep an eye out for that.

What are your best ideas for what’s going to happen in 2009? And what predictions already out there do you think are right – or wrong?

Despite my heavy usage, I’m on Twitter Hiatus
I’m known for being a very active twitter user, recent applications have tracked my daily usage from being 20-30 tweets on average. I’m not like other twitter users, as I have a very specific method in which I use the tool. However, two weeks ago today, I stopped using twitter, and announced that I’m on temporary Twitter hiatus.

Twitter shows its weaknesses
Why? I’m recalibrating my media plan, and trying to shift and shake things up. First of all, there’s a few things that have caused me to evaluate my media strategy: 1) the lack of context in 140 characters, 2) unthreaded discussions makes it difficult to track conversations in one place, and 3) unsymmetrical networks, meaning if you’re not following someone, what they say creates gaps in the conversation. All of these reasons create challenges on making twitter an effective conversation tool. Perhaps most sadly, I’ve observed the cracks getting deeper during crisis and incidents like motrin moms, sponsored blog posts, and mumbai attacks.

Now at the end of the year, I spent more time in the real world with friends and family, and have had an opportunity to step back and think things through. As a result, I’m finding solace in tools that allow for greater context like this blog, and on Friendfeed.

Time to Refocus
Next, I’m trying to focus more on energizing(word of mouth) and supporting (community) this year, rather than just publishing, in an effort to be more efficient, and to help the community during this troublesome economy. Shel Israel has noticed that despite my inactivity in Twitter (which I still monitor, of course) that the community around me continues to grow. I’m not sure why or how that is happening, but it’s an interesting phenomenon.

You should evaluate how you spend your time
I encourage you during this downtime to evaluate and rethink how you use these social technologies. You should think about the following questions: how has the environment around you changed? how was technology changed? what’s your goal? Are you using the tools in the right way to meet these three questions? You have limited inventory (time) and the world is always changing, are you sure you’re investing your resources in the right way? There’s nearly unlimited tools out there, take the time to think it through.

Stay tuned, I have a new project launching
What to expect from me in the future? With my time saved on not interacting as much in the conversation, I’ve been focusing my efforts on a resource that will help people understand the skills needed during a recession, and how to get jobs –stay tuned people.

Above: I’m thinking about the differences between traditional marketing agencies and social media agencies, this video by Jim the founder of Ignite Social Media agency does a good job explaining the difference. I like how he points out how putting ads on sites, or doing link backs for SEO don’t qualify as engaging in two-way dialog.

Above: Andrew Vascellari gives a comedic rendition of what not to look for in a social media agency, starting with this must read list from Geoff Livingston (update: with Beth Harte).

Nothing like ringing in the new year with a look at where the industry is headed. My job as an industry analyst is to assess where the industry is going, and how vendors and brands should respond to changes. My upcoming research on the topic of the future of the social web will do just that, and perhaps the most effective way for me to learn from the best and brightest in the industry is to bring them all to one room.

A few months ago, I held an event to bring the industry top leaders together to discuss the future of social networks for my upcoming research report on the topic. I brought forth community platforms, widget companies, social networks, brand monitoring, web analytics, CRM, CMS search companies, and of course, brands that will implement these technologies. Thanks to SAP who hosted this event (thanks Giovanni for the intro) we had a day long working session to uncover what we see are the predictions of the social web, the challenges to overcome, and how they will be beat. Thanks to Kenny Lauer and the GPJ team for assisting me through the event. Special thanks to SAP for hosting this community event.

Folks flew in from around the country to attend this no-cost event, and we brainstormed and collaborated during the day to come up with the three things (and more) that will matter. Most would agree, none of the findings were earth shattering, but were confirmation for the different parties to attend. I’ll be hosting similar events throughout 2009 to bring the industry together, so we can learn from each other, and I can improve my research.

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialnetwork socialmedia)

Update: For some reason the pictures aren’t showing in the embedded slideshare, although they are viewable in this version.

The embedded slideshare has more details about the event, if you’ve questions, leave a comment, I’ll answer the best to my ability.

Key Findings
Group findings at the very high level revealed the following, to see the specific three predictions, check out the slideshare. Note, these were not my predictions, but what I gleaned from the attendees.

The social web industry was able to collaborate towards a single goal.

Predictions generated weren’t “earth-shattering” yet group consensus confirmed industry direction.

Most challenges indicated culture and change management processes within corporations –not a technology issue.

The social web is still in early stages –standards have not been fully been developed nor adopted.

Measurement continues to be a key issue to determine progress and value –as well as a lack of standards.

Key relationships were developed pan-industry.

Here’s the roster of attendees
I invited others, but some were not able to attend, I tried to avoid pundits, and focus on those that really do the work not just talk about it. In some cases, I sent an invite to the company, and they selected who would attend, some of these folks were hand selected by me.

Brands
Scott Lawley, SAP
Len Devanna, EMC
Brian Ellefritz, Cisco
Faith Legendre, Webex
Bob Duffy, Intel
Joel Nathanson, Wells Fargo
Joshua-Michéle Ross, O’Reilly
Karl Long, Nokia
Paul Gilliham, Juniper Networks
Tom Diederich, Cadence
Justin Kestelyn, Oracle

Brand Monitoring, Analytics
Brad Brodigan, Biz 360
Aaron Gray, Web Trends

CRM, Enterprise Applications
Sandy Carter, IBM
Param Kahlon, SAP
Oracle
Eugene Lee, SocialText

Widgets/Applications
Rooly Eliezerov, Gigya
Will Price, Widgetbox
Jeff Nolan, Newsgator

Social Networks
Chris Schalk, Google
David Recordon, Six Apart, OpenID
Surya Yalamanchili, LinkedIn

Community Platforms, CMS
John McCormick, Documentum EMC
Adam Weinroth, Pluck
Bryan House, Acquia
Cameron Deatsch , Jive
David Carter, Awareness
Lyle Fong, Lithium
Michael Chin, Kickapps
Mike Walsh, Leverage Software
Rob Howard, Telligent
Rusty Williams, Mzinga
Peter Friedman, LiveWorld

Expect more on this topic as I dive into this research for 2009, I plan to host this roundtable each year, will try to circulate different attendees as possible.

I’m practicing what I preach to clients, and am adopting one of the five objectives we call “Embracing” which is when brands use social technologies to collaborate with their customers to create new products. In this case, the product is my blog, and the customers are you, my community.

I’m undergoing a blog redesign, and after deciding on designers (read the process) I’m working with Mitch from studionashvegas. We’ve done several comps on my redesigned logo, which is now finalized, but am looking for feedback from YOU, my readers on the blog redesign.

I study community, and this blog needs to serve your needs as well as mine. I know who my audience is from real research (see stats), it’s primarily interactive marketers at agencies, corporate, and consultants. Since I’ve outgrown this current design, see the overflowed right nav, it’s time to clean up the layout, make it easier to find information and highlight what I think is important.

Although we’ve taken a few comps to get to this point, here’s the latest version we’re willing to share. Since you’re going to be looking at this design as a community member, I want your feedback, and am watching for patterns in suggestions, or what you like.

Click image to see large version

We’re also having the same discussion on Friendfeed. Here’s to making a great blog to suit our needs as a community, love to hear your opinion, please leave a comment below.

The Airforce has created a process flow diagram that indicates very succinctly how the Air Force can and should respond to blog posts, there’s a lot to learn from here, and for the most part, I try to follow these similar rules. The Airforce, well all military units across the globe come across criticism, so establishing a clear sense of communication guidelines.

Thanks to Joey DeVilla for posting this, who learned of this from David Meerman Scott who was in contact with Capt. Faggard who’s involved with the Airforce’s social media team: Twitter, and a blogspot blog, (I’m surprised they don’t have their own blog on the airforce websites, so we’re going off David’s word that this is authentic)

There’s a lot to be learned from this military diagram that can be applied to corporations or even your personal blogging efforts.

On a personal note, my Grandfather was a decorated Lieutenant in General Patton’s 9th Army AirForce station in Europe in WW2, he flew a P47 Thunderbolt, and was one of the very few Chinese American pilots in the war. You can see clippings of an article that featured him (the beautiful lady is my Grandmother). The plane? He named it after his hometown here in Silicon Valley the “San Mateo Belle”.

This has been the busiest year of my career by far, I’ve traveled (and held blogger dinners) in great cities like Tampa, NY, Virginia, Hawaii, Colorado, Austin, Dallas, So Cal, Barcelona, and Tokyo; I’ve accrued many-a-frequent flyer mile. I published several research reports, (won an award), did more public speaking than ever before, delivered above my average of client engagements, was quoted a few times in the press, and grew this blog and twitter account, even though I’ll still get paid if I stop blogging.

Of course, not everything went well. There’s always room for improvement, I need to be better prepared for client engagements (I didn’t do hot on at least two client engagements), I was criticized a few time by bloggers, got duped by Janet and need to check my ego before I get trapped. Outside of work I need to stay on top of my health, and I need to do better at balancing personal and work life.

Perhaps one change is that I’ve now been given the stigma of ‘guru’ which I really dislike. Why? I want to be known for what I can do, not just thought leadership. I produce research reports (products) and help my clients make decisions and give them recommendations (services).

As a result, you’re going to see some changes in my behavior this year, I’m going to do less ‘talking’ and focus more on ‘listening’ and ‘energizing’ (what we call ‘word of mouth’), that’s why I’m taking a Twitter hiatus. Perhaps most importantly, I plan to continue to ‘support’ my community, many people are going to be hurting as they wont be working, keep an eye on this blog in the coming weeks.

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an industry analyst. By creating this digest (I started this over a year ago) it really helps me to stay on top of the space I cover.

I’ve created a new category called Digest (view archives). Start with the Web Strategy Summary, then quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read text for my take, and click link to dive in for more.

Subscribe to this blog in your feedreader, or use the email subscription box in the right column. Or you can subscribe to this digest tag only and not receive my other posts.

Web Strategy Summary
This digest contains two weeks worth of news as the end of the year tends to slow down. Even with that said there are some interesting happenings in the space such as Facebook’s growth exceeding 140mm users, more cases of viruses and scams, and increase of adoption of social networks during a recession.

Growth: Facebook’s user base at 140mm users
Facebook continues to grow at rapid speed, I met with Mark Zuckerberg last week, and he told me they now have 140 million users, Inside Facebook has more on the stats.

Virus: Look in the Mirror, your Face(book) looks like a KoobFace
The latest strain of the Facebook virus “KoobFace” is an evolution from a previous one, and now spreads to other networks. Beware of odd looking messages and don’t click on them.

Scam: Marketers create fake groups to spam future students
A marketer trying to reach college students has created fake groups in order to get them to quickly sign up and get their friends on board. In the long run this will result in the ability to glean info as well as market products to this group. Certainly not ethical, I’m sure if it’s illegal.

Identity: Facebook, Google and MySpace Logins
Respected thought and practice leader David Berkowitz sheds light on the differences between Google Friend Connect (go wide), Facebook Connect (new visitors), and MySpace’s (overlap of audience) registration specifics –and how media brands should choose.

Launch: Watercooler Aggregates their distributed network
This application network was primarily distributed on social networks like Facebook, but now is centralizing the experience by creating a stand along website called TVLoop that will aggregate all the discussions from various social networks to one location.

Press: Advertising on Facebook Questioned
This NYTs article reflects on P&Gs recent marketing efforts within Facebook. Aside from highlighting the Crest white strips campaign, it challenges that most campaigns are not successful.

Research: Consumers love social networks—but advertisers are still standoffish
eMarketer indicates that many marketers are not on board social networks despite that fact that millions of consumers are on board. Of course this doesn’t account for other forms of marketing –like participating. in the discussion or creating sponsored pages or groups. Given that advertising performs very poorly in social networks, we shouldn’t be surprised.

Communication: Facebook used to ’serve’ legal notifications
Sign of the times, Facebook ‘pokes’ are being used for court notifications.In Australia, a court recently allowed a lawyer from a bank to serve papers for a foreclosure.

Usage: During recession, increase in social networks to increase –relieve anxiety
In this article by BusinessWeek “The Recession: My Facebook, My Therapist” people that were laid off can now communicate with others –to network, grieve and relieve.

Metrics: Bebo launches measurement suite
Bebo announced that it has launched new engagement metrics and tools for application developers. These tools will provide new metrics and engagement tools to nearly 100 Java, PHP, and Rails developers who have created applications.

Announcement: Yahoo launches Y!OS to build apps on top of email platform
This announcement, much in timing with Microsoft’s Live announcement will allow third party developed to extend their experience on the largest social network that we know of: email. Expect other email platforms to allow applications to interact with these large communities over 2009.

Ads: MySpace v. Facebook Advertising Showdown. Which Platform Is Better?
This comparison (although you should read the notes at the top showing this isn’t fully scientific research experiment) demonstrates why Facebook’s advertising system is better than MySpace.

Humor: This fun video shows how you’re my Facebook girl
Have a laugh with this one, I wonder where he got those glasses –they look mighty cool.

If you’re a social network, or widget company, I want to know of your news, send me an email, or leave a comment below. Help me stay up to date.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008? Bookmark it, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Culture meets Social Networks, I wonder what high school would have been like if I had social networks or even email available. We communicated using pagers –but few of us had cell phones so it was quite odd. I’m sure rumors, relationship status, and test cheat notes spread faster than ever possible. If you like this video, I’ve posted up a few others Videos: When Social Media enters Popular Culture.

Best line? “I poke you, and you never poke back”.

I happened to stumble into Kmart in my local area, went for the Motrin and created this mashup. Popart? Brand Mashup? A case study in a jpg? You be the judge.

If you’re not familiar with how these two brands are related, read the Motrin Moms backstory (they have recently removed the apology from the corporate homepage), and the Kmart sponsored post story.

In reality, when these debacles happen, they are actually brand opportunities. several of the companies on my punk’d list have been able to turn this to their advantage.

Update: I just learned that Burger King has served a ‘cease and desist’ by tweeting for someone creating the ‘whoppervirgins’ account. It’s a going to be an interesting year.

Despite there being many layoffs in the startup space. I’ve started this post series (see archives) to recognize and congratulate folks who get promoted, move, or accept new exciting positions. Please help me congratulate the following folks:

Dave “500 Hats” McClure will now be joining the Founders Fund as an angel investor. Given his experience with startups, developers, and the tech space, he’ll be well suited to sniff our what’s next.

Andrew Nystrom, formerly the Senior Producer of Travel at LA Timse will now be promoted Senior Producer LA Times of Social Media.

George Moser joins Ripple6 in the new position of SVP of Field Operations coming from Vettro Inc. where he was SVP of Worldwide Sales. Ripple6 is seeking several qualified sales people for it’s white label social media platform check their careers page.

CEO of LinkedIn Dan Nye moves on from his position, it’s unclear who the permanent CEO will be, but apparently Reid Hoffman, investor will guide the strategy, and with interim CEO Jeff Wiener

David Lapter Appointed as CFO and Tom Gaffney to Lead Customer Success Division at KickApps, a Community Platform company.

Jesse Pickard promoted to Social Media Specialist at Razorfish at our New York office, Also, he co-wrote the Portable Social Graphs - Imagining their Potential deck with Shiv.

Bunchball, the creator of the consumer engagement and interaction platform “Nitro,” has announced the appointment of former Yahoo! Chief of Insights, Peter Daboll as CEO.

Visible Technologies hires Geoff Farris as senior vice president of sales. The Seattle-based company said Farris will lead its direct and indirect sales.

Natalie Lent is now the Director of Emerging Platforms at ID, and will helps ID’s clients with projects and programs using social and digital media.

How to connect with others (or get a job):
Several people have been hired because of this blog post series, here’s how:

Submit an announcement
If you know folks that are moving up in the social media industry, leave a comment below, or if you’re feeling shy (it’s cool to self-nominate) send me an email. Please include a link to your announcement, and ensure you’re really living and breathing in the social media world –this is not a small aspect of your role.

Seeking Social Media Professionals?
If you’re seeking to connect with community advocates and community managers there are few resources

List of Enterprise Social Media Professionals
This list, which started with just 8 names continues to grow as folks submit to it. List of Social Computing Strategists and Community Managers for Enterprise Corporations 2008 –Social Media Professionals.

See Web Strategy Jobs powered by Job o Matic (Post a job there and be seen by these blog readers, fees pay for my hosting)

Read Write Web also has job announcements in Jobwire, although at a broader scope than my announcements

Connect with others in the community manager group in Facebook

Check out Jake McKee’s community portal for jobs

See Chris Heuer’s Social Media Jobs

SimplyHired aggregates job listings, as does Indeed

ForumOne Jobs for Social Media and Community

Teresa has a few jobs, some around community

New Media hire has an extensive job database

Social Media Headhunter

Social media jobs

Jobs in social media

Hiring? Leave a comment
If you’re seeking candidates in the social media industry, many of them are within arms reach, feel free to leave a link to a job description (but not the whole job description, or I’ll delete it)

I’m seeking folks that are related to full time hands on social media strategy and community managers, to be on this list, so let me know if you see these folks, and please submit them –try to include links to announcements on blogs or on the wire. Also, I probably will not include executive management changes on this list at social media companies, as the list would go on and on, but you can feel free to express yourself in the comments!

My role as an analyst is to find out what types of social media are effective for Forrester’s clients, this weekend provided a unique opportunity to watch how sponsored blog posts are now emerging.

Understanding Sponsored Blog Posts
I posed some questions on Twitter when I learned of it on Sat (I embedded them below for any late-comers), and then got on the phone (yeah that old thing) with Ted Murphy the CEO of Izea to get the facts, and then talk to Chris Brogan, one of the bloggers who participated and is also on the Board of Advisors of Izea, who has since explained his actions in this lengthy and active post (over 170 comments and 17 trackbacks). Ted said “the call was balanced and open”, and Chris Brogan said “He’s a very fair and good analyst.”. Let’s stay with this theme as this is a very charged topic.

Izea (and social spark), a spin-off the heavily criticized Pay Per Post has launched a campaign offering influential bloggers gift cards to go shopping, and then share the wealth with their community via a contest. This is good, I’m all for bloggers getting paid. Update: I just discovered the inventory of bloggers, where you can purchase sponsored blog posts.

Let’s examine why Izea campaigns are likely to be successful

Recent research shows that corporate blogs are not trusted, but we know that consumers trust their peers, so savvy brands will want to benefit from word of mouth.

The economy is sinking, consumers, bloggers, well everyone, can use extra cash in the hand.

Pay Per Post did not require disclosure, Izea requires up front disclosure –this is ethical.

It’s doubly attractive as each of the bloggers can hold a contest, offering additional prizes to their readers, this spread like wildfire in Twitter –reaching a large audience.

I learned from Ted that the bloggers that would participate would receive traffic, as the advertising network within Izea would point to the blogs that are sponsored.

Click through rates will be far higher than banner ads, Ted shared me some numbers, and if he’s right, they are significantly higher. This makes sense as the source is higher trusted than an ad.

It’s inexpensive for the brand, while I hear of many soical media campaigns for Fortune companies being 50-100k, the payout to bloggers and community is a mere 5k, although I’m sure there’s many service fees going to the marketing team at Izea.

But what are the risks?
With every benefit comes a risk to each party, and this one is no different.

Risks to bloggers and their communities
Bloggers will simply have to ensure that they are delivering trusted content to their audience (transparent), and it’s relevant to their current topics (authentic). If readers are going to a tech blog, and expecting tech content, they may be surprised if the content shifts to a different medium –like consumer goods. Ted explained that the bloggers will choose the content they will write about, so in theory, this will work. The good thing about the blogosphere is that it self corrects, the community members will let the blogger know what they do and don’t like –it happens every day. Update: Julio Fernandez notices that the tweets are generating spam, and takes a screenshot.

Risks to Izea
The other risk is the inventory may not be sustainable (long term). What’s the inventory? The bloggers. Izea will need to ensure that the blog posts are spread out so the sponsored posts. If bloggers continue to do sponsored only posts, they do run the risk of losing editorial trust from their community, and then losing audience. As Izea gains popularity, expect the demand to increase for these campaigns.

Risks to Brands
For brands, they should realize that this is not the only way to reach customers, many brands are reaching customers in social networks, building online communities, and using corporate blogs. Brands shouldn’t put all their resources into sponsored blog posts.

Bottom Line: Sponsored blog posts to proliferate
Getting bloggers paid is good, word of mouth for brands is also good, as the prizes and content spread to the readers of the blog they win too. The only risk is if the editorial becomes trusted, but we should expect bloggers to self-police themselves. Two years ago, I never imagined that I would write a positive post for anything coming out of Pay Per Post, but I think this model is getting refined.

Clarification
Twitter is in an interesting beast, information flies so quickly, that some may misunderstand or distort what really happened in the first place. For some reason, people think that I was against sponsored blog posts or specific bloggers, that’s not true, you can read from my tweets, that I was asking questions to learn and did due diligence to get on the phone with the parties involved, any of the risks I mentioned in the tweets, I’ve also outlined in this post.

The tweets are listed in chronological order, so the first is at the top, I removed any tweets not about this topic.

Kmart paid Shoemoney $500 resulting in buzz from paid blog post 300+ comments http://snipurl.com/7yi5w “Buying” social media is effective 4:37 AM Dec 13th from web

This may not be a scalable model however, as buying placements could reduce credibility of bloggers, reducing marketing inventory. 4:38 AM Dec 13th from web

Bottom Line: Expect more brands to ‘buy’ bloggers and tweeters as the economy dips, this truly is cost effective marketing 4:39 AM Dec 13th from web

@moon Yes, I’m fully aware of Ted, and Izea. Paid product placements are nothing new, what are impacts to individual bloggers and tweeters? 4:49 AM Dec 13th from web in reply to moon

@tedmurphy (Founder of Izea/PayPerPost) have you considered the brand damage this could do to your inventory (bloggers)? 5:06 AM Dec 13th from web in reply to tedmurphy

@moon @tedmurphy is this true? @Chrisbrogan used a seperate blog for the paid Kmart post? What’s the URL? 5:21 AM Dec 13th from web in reply to moon

Here’s @chrisbrogan ’s paid post for Kmart http://snipurl.com/7ynb1 Transparent, Yes. Authentic? Debatable. Sustainable? No. 5:26 AM Dec 13th

Got off the phone with @centernetworks discussing and debating IZEA paid blog posts. More news on that soon. 5:59 AM Dec 13th from web

@RevzNexus I need to learn more, I requested meeting with Ted Murphy and also with Chris Brogan, I may try to talk to Kmart too 6:02 AM Dec 13th from web in reply to RevzNexus

Just talked to @tedmurphy, asked him many questions, I’ll blog my analysis if brands and bloggers should to this on Monday. 6:30 AM Dec 13th from web

Had a good call with @chrisbrogan He’s on board of advisors for Izea. They model is getting refined. More brands will certainly use Izea. 7:19 AM Dec 13th from web

Expect more bloggers to sign up for sponsored posts as the economy takes a downturn, this is just the start. 7:22 AM Dec 13th from web

@chrisbrogan Thanks Chris and @tedmurphy, I’m trying to understand all sides of the issue (short and long term) before advising my clients. 7:28 AM Dec 13th from web in reply to chrisbrogan

I highly respect @chrisbrogan as usual, he gives a thoughtful and transparent post explaining Advertising and Trust http://snipurl.com/831w6 about 15 hours ago from web

I hope this shows why Izea is going to grow, and explains my stance.

Related Posts: (I’ll be updating this)
I’ll be adding links to posts that add to this discussion, on both sides of the fence.

Lucretia M. Pruitt: What is Your Time Worth? What’s Worth Your Time? (who’s actually one of the unpaid Wal-Mart Mommy Bloggers)

Aaron Brazil: IZEA, Social Spark and Redemption he’s one of the bloggers in the program

Mashable: Do Brands Belong on Twitter? Related, as the blogging campaigns spill over to twitter.

CenterNetworks: Allen Stern does a deep thought piece on paid sponsorships, read my comments at the end.

Jennifer Leggio of Zdnet has posted her thoughts, and suggests the campaigns are sustainable, she always has a good perspective.

Karl Long: Brands in Social Media and Selling Influence suggests that there are different questions we should all be asking

Podcast: Chris Brogan was interviewed by Six Pixels of Separation, hear his opinion.

MediaPost: Shows actual numbers how the Kmart brand has benefited from this campaign.

Duncan Riley gives a reasoned perspective why sponsored posts are not that bad –and why you should not do them.

David Churbuck: Shooting Fish: Blog Whores, David’s heading the social media programs at Lenovo, and discusses why he’s unsubscribing from some folks

Stowe Boyd: Izea: Where Is That Line Again? Stowe lays a very balanced post on where the ethical points start and stop.

Julio Fernandez took a screenshot of “twitter spam” and gives his thoughts

Mistress Mia: Chris Brogan Firestorm Begs a Big Question “No one does anything for nothing.”

Ross of crowdSPRING compares advertising to sponsorships, and points out the differences.

Dave Taylor: Is Jeremiah Owyang an analyst or is Aaron Brazell right to call him out? Dave addresses some discussions that I had with Aaron.

Adam Singer: Paid Blogging Is A Lose-Lose Situation a very comprehensive analysis

Steve Spalding, a blogger who participated in the Izea program responds that he’s not a journalist. (edited)

Esteban Glas: Riding Every Single Wave

To some, this topic is going to be controversial, but before you leave an emotional comment, please understand I’m approaching this challenge from a business perspective and have thought this through from multiple angles.

“Spec work” is a proof of concept design that a designer may provide to a prospect. If it’s accepted they get the deal, if not, they are usually unpaid for this spec work.

Backlash Against Spec Work (Proof of Concepts)
Recently, my former colleague Charlene Li received some negative flack for her choice to crowdsource logo design for her unfunded startup. She used crowdSPRING which resulted in many logo designs that were created for her that she could then choose from and refine. Obviously most of the designers never got paid for this, yet one designer received the payment of a few hundred bucks. This was the right choice for her, given her focus on social, and her very young startup, she goes on to rightfully suggest that the larger sized design firms would never be in this space, and that crowdSPRING serves the need of the untapped long tail.

She’s not the only one, the talent company Aquent also crowdsourced the design of their website by using a contest for 99 Designs resulting in mixed opinions. To hear the perspective of crowdSPRING, the co-founder Ross Kimbarovsky shares his thoughts on 37 Signals, both debating the good and bad of this service, be sure to read the comments. Update: As seen in the comments from Lucretia, Andrew Hyde tells why he thinks crowdSPRING is unethical and evil.

Designers: Why Spec Work Is Not Going Away –How You Should Respond

Spec Work and Proof of Concepts a Common Business Practice. Buyers of designs are often buying creativity and flexibility, as a result, buyers will want to see this demonstrated. Furthermore, spec work occurs each and every day in the market, software, agencies, and beyond not only submit their existing portfolio and customer references, but also provide proof of concepts to brands –this is an expected behavior. Take for example the community platform space (one I cover as an analyst) they often provide proof of concepts for their prospects at no charge, often they have to also demonstrate their flexibility as they may integrate with the prospects website or systems in an unseen ’sandbox’.

Crowdsourcing isn’t anything new, and will only increase, especially during recession. We’ve heard this same argument against the crowds before, towards journalists, encyclopedias, photographers, music artists, classified ads, retailers, service professionals, towards recruiters, and on and on. While these social technologies allow for innovation, they do cause disruptions to many, what remains is the higher quality services, they don’t go away. This is progress, and it’s not going away, As the market dips, designers will go the extra mile to get business, expect an increase in spec work

Crowdsourced Design Meets the Needs Of Long Tail Market –But May Lack Quality. Like every other industry I mentioned above, the ‘amaterurism’ of media and knowledge results in an increase of demand, but increase in lower quality work. As a result, the need for higher end services will continue to be in demand, as buyers want to stand out. In theory, there is enough room for each. Read this long post by 37 Signals that suggests that most designers cannot live on Spec Work. In the comments you’ll read that those that participate in spec work may be looking for work, just starting off their design career, or are amateurs looking to get hired.

Designers must realize this increases demand for their services. Crowdsourcing designs injects new revenues into the industry that previously were not there. Now that many can create a blog using free or cheap software, you should expect an increase in demand for personal brands. Those that truly want to stand out will find low cost design alternatives. The web has created a new market for design, increasing demand, and growing the pie. Disparaging crowdsourced design is counter intuitive as it’s meeting an increase in demand.

Designers should not embrace No-Spec –instead know the right and wrong time to do spec work. An org called “No!Spec” which is much like a union for designers is rallying professionals not to do unpaid spec work. They’ve an active blog, have grassroots movement, and are gaining steam. Considering the economy is getting worse, designers will be hungry, yet the demand for personal brand projects will increase, designers should not join the no-spec movement. Instead, they should make the decision when it’s appropriate to demonstrate their creativity and flexibility with their prospects, and know when to walk away.

As a result, designers just getting started will embrace crowdsourced design and specs, they can reach a larger prospect base, and will get more exposure. Designers that deliver on strategy and long term relationships will continue to engage in high value engagements shouldn’t shy away from specs –esp as the economy tightens. Of course, focusing on existing portfolios, customer testimonials, will be a great starting point, but demonstrating creativity and flexibility through spec work will set them apart from competitors.

My Experiences With Web Design and Spec Work
I started off my career as a UI designer, I understand the challenges, thrills, and passion to this career and craft, believe me, I have empathy for the job. Recently, I have decided to redesign my blog, and have sought after web design services. I chose to hire a web designer that can give me soup to nuts design and implementation, and really understand the strategy of my blog rather than crowdsource it in pieces. I had two designers in the running, who both provided specs (non paid to me) this makes sense, as I was hiring them on their creative and flexibility. Of course, I reviewed their existing work and portfolio but decided not to go with one of them, they were certainly experienced and professional, but I needed a specific focus, as a result, I voluntarily wrote him a check for his time, this is just as a professional courtesy as he worked so hard on the specs. It wasn’t a huge amount, but certainly enough for a steak dinner for one or two. Keep in mind, all of the money for the redesign, and tribute check for the comps is coming out of my own pocket, this is a personal project.

Your Thoughts?
I hope you found my perspective and recommendation to be balanced and fair, I’ve tried to look at this from all viewpoints. Still, I’d love to hear your opinion, knowing that the increase in demand for personal brands will increase, and that more social software will appear to make crowdsourcing design possible, and the recession causing designers to seek more work –how should designers respond?

Above: It took me a few days to post it, but here’s a very brief clip from the Tweetup, it was a bit packed.

Just got back from the Silicon Valley Tweetup (135 said they would come, 226 people saved it), last time this year, Tweetups were just about a dozen people or less, but the growth of the service has really demonstrated it’s popularity, I estimate 150-200 folks there. Unlike blogs, microblogs can have a greater rate of adoption as the barriers to entry than blogs as it’s easier to get started, and the ubiquitous mobile device makes it easy.

Some of my friends who came desired a more intimate setting split off to private dinners, and that’s fine too, the event is relatively organic, and we certainly want to keep it that way.

Tonight was a success, and I’m pretty sure we were able to connect people to network and find jobs in this tough economy. Thanks for coming out, the #svtweetup became a ‘trending topic’ on twitter search, suggesting it was a top used tag for the evening.I polled the audience and asked folks to raise their hands if they were hiring, and about a third of them were hiring. I encouraged those who were hiring to stand near the bar, there candidates could quickly get their business card, and perhaps buy them a drink. There were a lot of folks looking for jobs, and quite a few people who were consulting, and a few who just were recently laid off. Strangely, there were people that came that never even heard of Twitter, which demonstrates how viral the event was –people passed the invite around on email.

Had a few offers to get the event sponsored, something I’ll have to think about, but I’m generally steering away from that as this is testament that a community can self-organize without institutional influence. On a more social note, we did entertain each other by singing karaoke, seriously, what is more ’social’ and ‘media’ than that? Joel Postman awarded his latest book SocialCorp to those who could really belt it out best.

Was asked several times when the next one is going to be held, and saw similar queries on Twitter. How often do you think we should hold such a community event? I’m sure folks will create smaller ones from time to time, but I’m thinking of other ways to help people that are seeking jobs connect with employers.

If you’re hiring in Silicon Valley, please leave a comment
Normally, I direct brands that are hiring to post on my job board, (A new job was posted for Vice President DialogueMedia MWW Group, NY) but given the state of the industry, I’m going to suggest that if you’re hiring (or seeking work) to leave a comment below with a brief description to your job post. Don’t post the whole job req (I’ll remove it) instead just give a summary and link to the job posting.

Thanks for being part of the community, I’m happy to serve the community that I cover, you can read my commitments to the industry.

Related Blog Posts

Antonio Altamirano, (who’s a web strategist at Accenture) took pictures, you can see we really filled up the place. (@antoniocapo)

Thanks to Ida Rose who helped organized the name badges, and was very supportive.

Stella Yu provided me with various location and venue suggestions, now we have to find a larger space, or ask BBC to take out the tables

I’m respecting your limited time by publishing this weekly digest on the Social Networking space, which I cover as an industry analyst. By creating this digest (I started this over a year ago) it really helps me to stay on top of the space I cover.

I’ve created a new category called Digest (view archives). Start with the Web Strategy Summary, then quickly scan the succinct and categorized headlines, read text for my take, and click link to dive in for more.

Subscribe to this blog in your feedreader, or use the email subscription box in the right column. Or you can subscribe to this digest tag only and not receive my other posts.

Web Strategy Summary
This was a very busy week, so focus on this summary to get the highlights: Facebook connect extends, Google friend connect in hot pursuit. Bebo relaunches with new design encouraging social sharing, promises upgrades in near future. Ning removes adult content from website, leaving opportunities for others. The big trend? many systems are connecting to each other, data, and influence spread

Mobile: MySpace launches live streaming video
Just a week after Google announced it’s live streaming video features for mobile devices, enabling users to access shows on demand from their mobile devices

Trends: Is Social Networking Sinking?
This contrary view is an important one to revenues, layoffs and valuations, social networks may be waning. The other key measurement to look at should be adoption and usage –I expect them to increase during a recession.

Contest: HiveLive’s contests to help Tigers
This promotional contest, is a great way to tell the world about HiveLive’s flexible platform, and to do some good in the world. The winner for this contest is going to help Conservation International build a community site to benefit Tigers.

Security: Risks of Social Networks
This very long PDF discloses the risks of the social networking space, with a slight legal bent. I read as much as I could, it’s a bit dense. Takeaway: most don’t realize the personal, financial, legal risks involved as social networks intersect business, personal, and family lives. On a similar note, this very scary post demonstrates how easy it is to create a fake account and dupe people.

Redesign: Bebo’s Redesign Encourages social sharing
Much akin to the trend of newsfeed designs that were initially lead by Facebook, Bebo ads new features in their overhaul, perhaps most importantly is that they made promises to improve the major features, applications, and to integrate with AOL.

Vision: Where is Facebook headed?
In a classic Techcrunch style, Arrington interviews Mark Zuckerberg on his vision for products, revenue, developers, and valuation (oh and profile pics). With Facebook focused on so many different areas, this leaves questions in the minds of brands –as they are unsure where to focus.

Products: Physical Meets Virtual
At some conferences in Amsterdam, a new physical tool called a ‘Poken‘ has emerged that allows people to connect and trade information. What ever happened to Palm Pilot beaming?

Security: Facebook Virus Tears Through Network
The virus that we saw last week was apparently a strain of a previous one, I received one of the messages and am now very cautious about what to click on.

Predictions: What if Facebook Connect and Amazon were tied
Shiv Singh from Razorfish demonstrates what could happen if social networks tied with eCommerce and other websites in order to make web experiences social.

Connect: Pluck connects with Facebook
Facebook Connect allows third party sites to become social, and Pluck (of Demand Media) has initiated this with SFGate and other sites. This means leaving a comment on SFGate can now show on your Facebook news page, if you choose to do so. Understand what this means for Corporate Websites in the future.

Case Study: Failed Social Networks
This list gives the losers of the social networking space, starting with Wal-Mart’s the hub. Expect this list to grow during the recession as revenues dry up.

Identity: Facebook Connect Across the Web
Mark blogs about Facebook connect, which is designed to connect websites with their social graph on Facebook, the impacts to brands are astounding –corporate websites can now be social. Of course, the competition between Google and Facebook will rage over your friendships. Need more info? Watch this video to learn more.

Ning to remove porn for networks
I met with the Ning folks yesterday, which they briefly discusses removing adult content from their network, rSitez moves in for the pluckings and offers migration options.

Culture: Drunken Photos Cost Women her College Degree
This poor soul made a bad choice in uploading photos and patronizing her teacher –resulting in her loosing her college degree. Takeaway? Use permissions, realize that uploading is publishing and don’t be an idiot.

If you’re a social network, or widget company, I want to know of your news, send me an email, or leave a comment below. Help me stay up to date.

Hungry For Social Networking Stats? Then you should see my collection of Social Networks Site Usage: Visitors, Members, Page Views, and Engagement by the Numbers in 2008? Bookmark it, then share it with others as I continue to update it.

Today, I’m going to play doctor, in fact, I’m a specialist: A corporate blog doctor. Most corporate blogs aren’t trusted, and here’s a very simple heuristic health check to gauge whether your corporate blog is going to be trusted by your readers.

This is a quick and dirty scorecard, if I was going one for a real Forrester report, it would be far more conclusive, weighted , detailed, quantitative, and scientific, but today, this is just a quick example, to illustrate a point we already know, let’s get to it, please, turn your head and cough:

Health Check: How Trusted Is Your Corporate Blog?

1. Writing style:
How you write indicates how real you can truly be

Great: Blog is written in a human voice
Bad: Content looks vetted by corp comm
Horrible: Rehashed press release

2. Topics:
What does the blog talk about? does it matter to marketing –or customers?

Great: Discusses the lifestyle (or workstyle) of actual customers
Good: Discusses the wider industry topics
Horrible: The corporate blog exclusively talks about the company

3. Humility:
Perhaps one of the most important attributes, how human and real is this blog, or is it giving lip service?

Great: Admits when wrong and discusses in open the short comings of the company and product and demonstrates in public how it will be improved
Good: Admits shortcomings but combats and defends the criticism, also known as spin
Bad: Only discusses the company in the best possible light, and may link, but not take on critics
Horrible: Never discuss the short comings of the company on the blog

4. Linking Behavior:
Links are the currency of the blogosphere, it indicates you respect someone else’s opinion so much that you’re willing to send them away from you.

Great: Links out to other sources, even competitors or critics as well as the next listed
Good: Links out to other sources, where other discussions are occurring
Bad: Primarily links to corporate created content 25% of the time
Horrible: Primarily links to corporate created content over 50% of the time

5. Customer Inclusion:
Do corporate blogs allow their customers to partake? or are they only second class citizens

Good: Allows for customers to guest blog, or includes snippets of their experiences
Bad: Content is only published by employees

6. Dialog:
Allowing for feedback can instill more trust

Great: Comments enabled and published instantly
Good: Comments enabled but reviewed causing time delay
Bad: Trackbacks only
Horrible: No comments allowed

7. Comment Moderation:
Blogs that allow for disagreeing comments are more real –and interesting.

Great: Comments (other than spam or off topic) are allowed, including direct disagreements
Bad: Negative comments are censored or altered
Horrible: No negative comments allowed

8. Frequency:
While more isn’t always better, having a steady rhythm of content is important

Good: A steady publication rate of posts appropriate to the speed of that market
Bad: Posts appear at a random rate, often starting off with apologies for not posting
Horrible: Posts appear to either promote the company during an announcement –or to combat a competitor

What’s missing? leave a comment
What other categories do you think should be criteria? Leave a comment and I’ll add it in, and credit you.

Update: Joe Wilcox from Microsoft Watch suggests that ’story telling‘ be an attribute to consider. He makes a good point, but I could add that under the content, or writing style. Not all blogs need to tell stories, some are blogs for product updates, or even support, but I get his point, thanks Joe.

The Doctor’s Diagnosis:

Strong specimen, keep at it: If you’re tallying up your corporate blog (you should ask your readers to help, so you’re a bit more unbiased) and you find that your blog is receiving many good or great scores, in fact over 75%+ of them, you’re on the way to be one of the 16% of trusted bloggers.

On the way, but go back to the gym: If you’re getting borderline at 50-75% , with only about half the criteria being good or great, you’ve got some improvements to make.

Minor Illness –but needs treatment: If you’re getting 25%-50% of the scores in good or great, you really need to evaluate your efforts and think if your corporate cultures is right for this, or if you even have the right bloggers on staff.

Terminally Ill: Lastly, if less than 25% of your criteria is good or great, you really need to consider shutting it down –you’re not getting it and your culture, strategy, or team should focus elsewhere. Giving you the advice to take two in the morning ain’t going to cut it, it’s time for euthanasia.

If this were a report, I would construct a scoring mechanism to help provide a sense of direction for this heuristic evaluation, or even more accurate, I would poll the actual readers of the blog to find out their opinions, but for the most part, the writing is literally on the wall.

Physician heal thyself: I guess I should also ask, how trusted do you think my web strategy blog is?

Left: This is the same graphic I discussed yesterday, “How much do you trust the following information sources?”

Yesterday, we highlighted the findings from Forrester’s latest report on consumer trust. Although there has been quite a bit of discussion on Twitter, on Josh’s comments (read former colleague Peter Kim’s comments) there’s been a mixed bag or reviews from Read Write Web and eWeek. So it’s out in the open: most corporate blogs are trusted, and the reasons are very obvious.

Let’s examine the graphic that was provided:
First, review this graphic in a separate window, let’s start at the bottom and move our way up. Right above corporate blogs, consumers nearly equally don’t trust social networking site profiles from a company or brand, no surprise, it’s often the equivalent of a corporate blog. Strange that consumers don’t trust personal blogs? We actually saw other findings from data that supports that blogs are not trusted. Then, moving up the graphic, we start to see an increase in trust from mainstream mediums like email from a company or brand, Wikis, radio, mainstream news websites, and print magazines. Finally, you start to see an uptake from social networking profiles of people you know, print newspapers, and then the yellow pages.

So, Who Do Consumers Trust?
Perhaps what’s most interesting is that the top three are: Email from people you know, consumer product ratings and review,and search engines.

77% trust email form someone they know. Makes sense, people we know in our truly intimate of circles are those who we keep closest. Websites that have a “Share this via” email may be a good start, using the vendor ShareThis is a good start. Also, this suggests that marketers should start to think about letting other types of content be easily shared from email address to email. We’ve always known that email was the first digital social network that mattered.

60% trust consumer product ratings and reviews: I find both logical but we’ve some ways to go. Right now, we’re leaning on reviews from individuals that may not be in our trust circle. So as the social graph and eCommerce engines start to tie, we’ll soon have access to reviews of products from our direct network of folks we really know. Razorfish has eloquently helped to visualize this concept with this presentation.

50%: Say they trust portals/search engines: In Google We Trust, is that Charlene Li frequently used to tell me, and it still holds true. When you look closely, the search engine results in Google are really social recommendations. How so? The Google algorithm (while I’m over simplifying) puts a great deal of weight on how humans organize, link, and create content.

So in summary, when you look closely, people trust each other. If you’re not up to date on Forrester’s POST methodology, now is the time to learn, I ensure each of my clients knows it on my daily inquiry calls. For the most part, this methodology is available in public and has been published on blogs and in slideshare, what’s key is that we understand the common framework of terms, particularly the five objectives: listening, talking, energizing, supporting, and embracing

As Josh alluded to in his comments, it’s time to focus on energizing (word of mouth), and maybe supporting (customers helping each other) –rather than talking (brands telling consumers)

Click the above image to advance to Josh’s full post

While in the back of our minds, we all knew this was true. Corporate blogs, like Jonathan Schwartz Blog and Bob Lutz of GM frequently talk about one thing –they’re companies and their products. In fact, some would argue corporate blogs don’t live up to the dream of naked transparency as we saw from Robert Scoble way back in 2006. Instead, many corporate blogs have become a rehash of press releases written in more of a human tone, yet fail to address the real conversation that’s happening in the marketplace.

In the above graphic, Josh Bernoff has conducted research and found that consumers said they trusted corporate blogs very little. How little?

“Not only do blogs rank below newspapers and portals, they rank below wikis, direct mail, company email, and message board posts”

–in fact, a mere 16%

While I certainly discussed the findings with Josh before the report was published, he has far more details on the report, and answer what you should (and survey methodology) do from his post.

For what it’s worth, I spearheaded the corporate blogging program at Hitachi Data Systems, helped my two recent CEOs start blogging, and am an active ‘corporate’ blogger myself. Love to hear your thoughts on this, were you surprised?

Update: The Blog Council (a third party organization) has addressed the data, and has listed out many of their trusted blogs, I think most are part of their council. I wonder what the Blog Business Summit, Shel Israel, Dave Taylor will say –did corporations follow their instructions –doesn’t look like it.

Update: You can download the report for free, after your register on the Forrester site.

Some companies are wary of personal brands
Last week, I spoke to a social media strategist as a very large consumer packaged goods company, he expressed to me over this client call (called an inquiry) that he was concerned about employees getting too popular due to their personal brands and as a result, getting pulled right out of the company.

[Despite that social technologies can improve customer relationships, the risks may be too great for some companies to bear, as a result, some corporations will shy away from allowing employees to have personal brands]

Personal brands can bring trust to monolithic corporations
In the age of transparency and conversation, brands know they need to join customers where they are, and that often means in social sites where real people are having real conversations –it’s about building trust. As a result, social media marketing continues to be adopted by brands; I help them daily.

Examining the risks of personal brands
Personal brands are indeed a powerful tool, for one, it’s helped me get my current and previous job, and it will likely be a factor for my next, however there are a few risks to brands:

Risk 1: The personal brand is a cost to the company: Why let employees build their own brand on the dime of the company or leveraging the brand of the employer?

Risk 2: The now popular employee is likely to get poached: Perhaps a common concern I hear is that competitors can easily identify the stars, and hire away these folks along with their market reputation and google juice.

Risk 3: Employee exits leaving a chasm to fill: In the modern workforce, we hear less of lifetime employees seeking pension than we do of job migrants, or career gypsies that move from company to company every few years. As a result, after they’ve built up trust with the market using social tools, they leave the company, and a gap is left that the brand can’t fill.

How companies respond
Brands respond to these risks in a number of ways, I’ve categorized them based on level of sophistication.

First Reaction: Keep marketing faceless: Lean on traditional marketing, avoid human voices to come through.

Second Reaction: Approach with team or hybrid approach: Rather than encourage personal brands, you may instead see corporate team blogs that have an equal weighting to employees. Another example is with Dell and Oracle employees who fuse their name with their employer –it’s both personal and professional.

Third Reaction: Let the customers be the product face: Perhaps the most sophisticated way to market a product isn’t to put your employees on the product blog, but instead, your customers. I don’t see too many examples of this currently, but you can expect this to be an approach in the future.

Fourth Reaction: Allow personal brands to proliferate: Some companies allow for employees to create their own blogs, generate revenue on their blogs, and be who and what they want.

Portable brands desirable in the age of career gypsies and job migrants
It’s rare to hear of the life long employee who retires after 40 years of service with a fat pension, in fact many workers today move from job to job –even more frequently in the tech industry. In the end, personal brands within the enterprise are inevitable, just ask Dan Schawbel if anyone wants to track new talent, or hire Generation Y, they’ll have to accept that individuals will have personal brands and they are portable. In fact, recruiters are often seeking on forums, blogs, and social networks to seek out talent.

Personal brands here to stay, with increase in adoption during recession
In my recent post, I pointed out that no matter how hard you work, or how smart you are, you can still get layed off. As a result, expect an increase in professionals to be on social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn, and using conversational tools like blogs and twitter to promote their offerings. The savvy career gypsy will build this up before they need a job.

Now that I’ve put all the options and variations out there, I’d love to hear what you think corporations should do to protect their resources (brand, talent, and time), as well as build trusting relationships with customers?