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To join in an active discussion and presentation, co-author Rebecca Lieb and myself will be hosting a webinar convering the findings from the research, please register for the webinar on Converged Media. Altimeter directly interviewed 34 agencies, brands, technology vendors and industry experts to answer how media are changing. we found: Summary: Converged Media a Reality –Significant Ecosystem Changes Ahead Paid, owned, and earned is converging (like social ads) at a rapid pace, we found 11 criteria of success, a handful of case examples, yet companies are hampered internally and with fragmented agencies and technology to make this happen. Converged Media utilizes two or more channels of paid, earned, and owned media. It is characterized by a consistent storyline, look, and feel. We foresee that to achieve cross-channel integration in a consistent way there will be considerable changes inside of the marketing org chart, and a clear strategy on getting agencies to collaborate, and intensive system integration of vendors. Open Research: Use, Share, and We’ll Create More Altimeter practices Open Research, we provide our research to you, and encourage you to use with proper licensing as outlined by Creative Commons. Also, we believe in transparency in financial relationships of the companies which we covered in this report, and disclose our relationships if allowed. If you found this report useful, please actively share, which helps us to generate energy to create more. Report Highlights Overview of needs, market definitions, overview of brands, agencies, and software providers. Three framework graphics ideal for powerpoint: Converged Media venn, use case workflow, criteria checklist. Checklist of 11 criteria required for converged media success. Four real world case studies bringing this concept to life from four leading brands. Pragmatic recommendations for marketing leaders for internal needs, agency strategy, and vendor deployment. Vendor showcase of ten technology providers who are seeking to solve this opportunity. Team Background My focus over the past years have been owned corporate content (owned) and social (earned), however my viewpoint on the paid side has been limited. Thankfully, I was able to partner with Altimeter’s Rebecca Lieb who hails from Manhattan and has a strong background in advertising, search, (paid) and corporate content (owned), together with researcher Jessica Groopman and editor Chris Silva, we sought out to answer these questions and bring multiple perspectives together. At the bottom of this post, I’ll cross-link to all thoughtful conversations, extending the conversation, below the report is embedded directly below: The Converged Media Imperative: How Brands Must Combine Paid, Owned & Earned Media from Altimeter Group Network on SlideShare The Convergence of Paid, Owned & Earned Media Above: Today, advertising, corporate content, and social content is often separated, but tomorrow, we expect these circles to converge and overlap, with little or no separation. Hence the term “Converged Media”. We deliberated at great length on how these items would be properly fit into this framework, and Converged Media Workflow Above: Although we expect many workflows to emerge, this pattern became evident within interviews. In particular, we frequently heard that analysis of social content was often a precursor to content creation by the brand. Furthermore, very few technology providers will be able to solve this entire use case, and brands and agency partners will be relegated to system integration and methods to coalesce. Converged Media Lab: Top Success Criteria Above: 11 Success Criteria to Make Converged Media a Reality: We found through interviews a set of patterns from respondents on what will make this a reality and organized the criteria into four distinct categories: Strategy, Organization, Production, Analysis. While this process is likely followed in any individual point channel, now, it must be an integrated approach Related Discussions

Interestingly, I’ve been meeting more compliance, legal, and governance professionals in meetings involved in brand side discussions around social business strategies. To understand the needs of this specific role’s goal is to protect the company but enable business to connect to customers Altimeter conduct an Open Research project My colleagues Analyst Alan Webber and Researcher Jaimy Szymanski interviewed 33 professionals and vendors on the front end of social media risk management and surveyed 92 professionals who said social media risk management was either a significant part or the primary part of their job. The result is our report Guarding The Social Gates: The Imperative For Social Media Risk Management which looks at the newly emerging field of social media risk management. If you’re a social strategist, (or serve one on agency or vendor side) it’s important you know how to manage risk as you roll out social business programs. Please forward this research report to those who are guarding the gates. This Open Research report includes: Interviews with 33 professionals of vendor and risk management, including those from top brands. Survey of 92 professionals who have a significant part or the primary part of their job in risk management Nearly a dozen frameworks, graphics, charts, and flow diagrams Guarding the Social Gates: The Imperative for Social Media Risk Management from Altimeter Group Network on SlideShare Related Resources I will cross link to insightful reviews and related content. Alan Webber, the lead analyst on this report, publishes We Are Social has published a risk management flow, and shared the report. Read Write Web: Defusing the Corporate Social Media Timebomb Ketchum: Social Media Risk and Reward SocialIQ Networks ZDNet covers the report, with a thoughtful critique

Screenshot of App.net shows a bare bones microblogging platform So why does App.net have an uphill battle to reach mass market? I’d argue that while niche premium social networks may emerge, however they’ll only serve a small market. The majority of the addressable mass market is already accustomed to advertising in other media channels, so being exposed to highly relevant ads in will be worth the . The other option, is to head the Wikipedia business model way, and depend on revenue injections from other parties, or raised funds on a donation based model as we see Jimmy Wales compelling ads requesting donations. So why did I give my $50 commitment to App.net despite the massive uphill challenges they’ll face? Well, for three reasons: 1) It’s my job as a research analyst to know the market which I cover 2) Selfishly, I wanted to secure my user name jowyang (just as I have on Twitter) and 3) I’m interested in seeing if crowd funding models can work –despite the concern over Kickstarter scams. Matrix: Comparison of Premium vs Freemium Social Networks Premium (App.net) Freemium (Facebook, Twitter) Business Model Users pay up front, in the case of App.net, $50 for a year of service, site is funded by users Free tools available to any who agree to Terms of Service, such as Google+, Twitter, Facebook. Business model often includes marketing, advertising, donations. Data Usage As paying customers, data is controlled and managed by users, developers, and owners. Users able to export data at any time via download feature. Terms of service often indicate the data can be used by social network and is owned by social network. Governance Managed by website owners, not clear if customer council, app developers may have upfront info on API changes. Roadmap defined by social network, developers, brands, and users at mercy of changes, often without advance notice. User Experience Advertising free experience, with focus on social and engagement features. Ad rich experience, including marketing and advertising directly in social stream. In the case of G+ it supports Search business model and remains ad free. Market Type At this time, early adopters, first world technologists. May incline towards disposable income and influentials Mass market, global. When it comes to social networks like Facebook and twitter, we should all remember that these are free global communication tools, and nothing comes without a price, including seeing marketed content. When it comes to new business models that are advertisement free, we should also remember, you either pay now, or pay later, to use these tools. So users and developers of social networks (whether premium or freemium) should recognized you’ll pay now, or pay later, you always pay. Update: Well that didn’t take long, here’s the parody site. There’s more discussion on my G+ feed on this.

Left: Altimeter’s Research found that social business maturity and crises preparedness are heavily correlated, and on average, most companies are not prepared. Just as airlines, naval craft, and spacecraft prepare for disaster recovery and risk mitigation, today’s leading companies must do the same with social. Altimeter has conducted research on this topic read report by Alan Webber on Guarding the Gates, and Social Readiness to obtain industry level insights and pragmatic recommendations, this is our continued coverage on this topic, especially after crises at Progressive this past week. One of my most popular research projects for brand side clients is conducting a readiness assessment of their social business. Using a 50+ checklist we spend time with stakeholders to find out exactly ‘how ready’ are companies for social business. Often, I find that companies do have triage plans in place for everyday workflow –but are woefully unprepared for crises. We found in our research that companies that are advanced are actively conducting private fire drills for social media crises, both internally and working with third party agencies and software providers. While not an extensive list, feel free to leave a comment below if you’ve a simulation that can help brands not be caught off guard. Weber Shandwick: Firebell Software and Services We interviewed Weber for previous research reports to find out they have a dedicated practice to deal with Social Media Crises, which they list on their page. They created a private software tool that can be used by brands and agency partners to conduct a simulated crises even compressing a multi day attack into a few hours. I’ve met the community manager team at an offsite in SF last year and was pleased to see how they were planning and training this service line. Learn more from their PDF on Firebell solution. Social Simulator: Software and Services This multi-channel software tool from Social Simulator is a new entrant at 18mos old and being used by London’s Metropolitan Police to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, plus corporates from the oil & gas, defence, pharmaceuticals, luxury goods, retail and transportation sectors. They have a number of custom branded, hour-long scenarios in which they rehearse Terrorist attacks, Reports of malfunctioning prescription medication, and other severe situations like Piracy in the Indian Ocean or various other simulations for brand side clients. In terms of pricing, typical exercises come in at around $10,000 USD, including on-site support from my team and involvement in preparing a realistic crisis scenario. They are open to working with other agencies (for service providers seeking SW like Weber’s) Say It Social: eLearning and Services I used Twitter to source names of providers, and also heard from Say It Social, a small team who spans client based in CPG, Retail, Regulated and more. Although they offer a broad range of services beyond crises, they offer Social Media crisis simulations through their elearning LMS with scoring, testing for enterprise, global teams. Their eLearning page indicates that they: “Use real-life simulation models to test employee social media knowledge & hone employee social media skills”. They also offer a number of auditing tools that look at risk and compliance. In the end, companies must be prepared for crises as we’ve found the frequency is only increasing. Yet don’t focus on providers because of their software alone; seek providers that have a proven method based on analyzing previous crises, and have learnings both post event and ways to improve the process. I encourage clients to practice for a crises that starts on a Friday evening before a three day weekend when executives are not available, and a product or service has caused harm to a customer and it’s rapidly spreading through social media channels. Like all sophisticated companies, they’re ready for a number of crises and disaster recovery, and now it must extend to social channels. If you know of a software or service provider focused on this topic, please leave a comment below.

Left: Dell’s Social Media Command and Listening Center, Austin Texas. The purpose of this post is to be an industry reference for this social business use case, please leave comments with further additions. Many a year ago, I worked at a web hosting company that had a Network Operations Center (NOC) that looked like NASA’s mission control. Enclosed in a glass ‘fishbowl’ the 20-50 staff, systems, training, technology were all used in conjunction to support the network traffic of the customers websites, see Google images. The “NOC” was externally packaged and marketed as a cutting edge feature of a top performance center, touted on customer tours at HQ, and had internal mystique and prestige of those who were there. Today, we similar centers emerging at top brands, event managers, as well as offerings from a variety of marketing and customer service providers for social. With India’s recent crises on social channels causing a shut down in websites, expect government bodies and agencies around the world to open these for daily interaction with citizens, and as well as dealing with high urgency situations. Definition and Goals: A Dedicated Social Media Engagement Center or Command Center is a physical space where companies coordinate to listen and engage their market in social channels to achieve business use cases in marketing engagement, customer care, risk management, or operational efficiency of coordination and contact center deflection. Starting with Strategy First, understand that customer support and engagement has changed, we’ve found six changes to traditional customer care. Before we dive into tactics (There’s a matrix below to assist) let’s ensure we understand the greater context. Companies must first realize this is a single tactic in a greater strategy of social business. Often this program may stem from the Social Media Center of Excellence program, a cross-functional leadership team that oversees many programs. David Armano also provides strategic guidance that this is more than fancy screens in a fishbowl, but people, process, and analytics are required for success. Additionally, clear business goals need to be defined, with measurable KPIs laid out in front before initiating this program –shiny Twitter room won’t cut it. Risks and Criticisms Like all business programs, there are always tradeoffs, we’ve identified the following: Sexy deployment DuJour, could quickly go out of style. Many companies have touted their centers, but if core business problems aren’t being solved, it will be viewed as sizzle and no steak. This public commitment to listening in social is a promise to customers you’re going to be there. Set clear expectations on how goals and limitations, but know frustrated customers will expect you to respond It’s cheap, but is it really? Seemingly low cost, the long term resource needs must be offset by business benefits. These physical centers can be used to attract internal attention to the social media program, but will put additional scrutiny on business goals. Questions on integration with other customer channels will be asked. Encourages customers to “yell at their friends to get your attention”. Social is often a lower cost of communication than other channels, but encouraging customers to use social as first channel, basterdizes existing traditional channel investments, and may encourage customers to get best treatment from brand if they’re public. Companies deploy these one off tactics without a broader social business strategy across the enterprise. This is just one toolset, and if all the processes aren’t fully deployed internally and the impact to customer experience, this could be ‘cart before horse’. Breakdown: Dedicated Centers Have Many Variables Variation Ranges What No One Tells You Use Case Use cases can vary from marketing engagement, customer service, lead generation, internal coordination, compliance, risk mitigation, or product innovation. Be clear internally and externally on the goals of the program.Some social media vendors launch these centers to showcase their products. Duration Companies vary their scope, some are only open periodically for critical events, while others are open 24/7/365 Be clear to the market on when response is available. Companies that desire full coverage but don’t need FTEs should outsource to qualified agency partners, or specialists like LiveWorld, emoderation, Cap Gemini and others Sourcing Internal teams vs external teams. Internal teams range from marketing communicators, product managers, and contact center agents. Caution on charging junior staff with representing the brand online who don’t have full business acumen or PR agencies that don’t understand deep engagement nuances. Trained script based contact agents may have deep product knowledge, may struggle at the real time, personal interactions required on social channels. Agent Scope We’re seeing agents at command centers that are focused on dedicated social channels only, that then hand off to other teams. Also, universal agents that understand nuances of all channels are also emerging. This also spans product coverage as well as regions and languages. A multi-tier approach may be useful by pinning dedicated social agents first as first line interaction, then shifting to advanced agents in a triage process, one size does not fit all. Locations Some companies are putting at HQ only, while at Dell, I was informed they have centers around the globe that ‘follow the sun’ for exposure Outsourcing these centers to third party agencies, service providers is increasing at a rapid pace, seek to outsource lower level functions but keep core brand engagement and storytelling near corporate.

It’s at the end of the night on the dance floor, do brands know where their social software providers are? Like the end of a dance, social software vendors are understanding who they can partner with –or be confident on going it alone. Once the lights go on in the next few quarters, the ecosystem will emerge in a new day, with brands stuck answering “Do I buy a suite?” or “Do I invest in integration?”. This post is intended to provide illumination on what’s happening behind the scenes –and who dance stars will be. Matrix: Social Software and Services Scenarios Above: Here are the options brands have when it comes to integration social software and services, the ideal scenario is upper right, but at this time, this promise is a lofty one. I first alluded to this metaphor on an interview on Techcrunch, where we saw acquisitions occurring in spring of many of social vendors to create Social Software Suites (see the growing list). Consolidation in a Fragmented Market a Sign of Maturity. In prior posts, we’ve found over 100 vendors in community, brand monitoring, and the recent social media management vendor list is upwards of 40. We saw an increase in M&A announcements in spring from Oracle, Salesforce, Google, esp as fall conference season picks up for these software giants. Up and down highway 101 in Silicon Valley, there are business development meetings where there’s shopping, dating, flirting, and discussions around larger companies seeking to acquire more focused startups who’re seeking an exit. Buyers and sellers are all speaking to multiple potential suitors to see who will be a good fit into their Social Software Suite. Two Forces: Top Down Suites Offer it All vs Agile Point Provider Community. The largest impacts will be to the buyers, who will have to re-establish their software integration strategy. Will they go for the one-size-fits all vendor that offers all the needed use cases, or focus in on investing on a point provider that can deliver the best experience for the required job. Each offers benefits and draw backs. Vendors who offer the larger suite will tackle at the C-suite level and go down (longer deal sizes, larger scope, with potential larger pie) vs more agile point players that can quickly pivot, innovate, and partner with system integrators to get the job down. New Innovation as Ecosystem Reforms, Services Come to Forefront. For specific software innovators that plan to go-it-alone after the lights come on, they can still be very innovative by developing in the next phase of the social web “Performance Social” that focuses on analytics, data driven decision, and automation of these technologies. Furthermore, we continue to see new case studies emerge from social engagement command centers that bring together service and software players, to new mobile and augmented reality platforms spurred by Google. Expect this to be a booming opportunity for system integrators and digital agencies to partner with both sides to craft experiences for brands. The savvy system integrators and digital services providers will offer playbooks, methods, and teams that can integrate at all levels. The good news is, there’s another dance the next night, as the market continues to grow and evolve –this is just a new session in the continued evolution of the social software space. In 2008 I hosted an event for software vendors (while at my former employer), social networks, and brands to discuss the future of the market, if you think it would be valuable for me to host again (including service providers), please let me know.

Business Needs Customers already experience advertising, corporate content, editorial, and social media at the same time, often in an integrated manner, although most brands do not approach the experience in one deployment. As Facebook, Twitter deploy social ads that utilize earned and owned content amplified by paid, these worlds are quickly merging. Brands that want to achieve the best experience for their customers in digital channels must approach in an integrated converged method, and understand how to utilize each channel’s strength. Brands that don’t have these workflows are at risk for inefficiency, and give agencies an opportunity to lead. Brands that produce these workflows working with agency and software partners can deliver an orchestrated experience. Converged Media Workflows Represent Complexity in a Simple Graphic This is continuing coverage of research I’m conducting with Rebecca Lieb (Bio, Blog, Twitter, Books), my co-author on this report as well as Jessica Groopman (Bio, Twitter), researcher. I recommend you first read the whole report on Converged Media (Paid, Owned, and Earned), in which we didn’t go into depth into the workflow that we found. As the industry starts to combine these often disparate channels, we’ll see new forms of workflows emerge that coordinate all these channels. Don’t be fooled by these simple diagrams, as each step transcends a different channel, intense coordination is required on brand side, agency side, as well as software. A new ecosystem of players will also converge in order to serve this new workflow, and professionals that run to meet this future need now will be ahead in their careers over those that do not. Definition: A Converged Media Workflow is a simple yet comprehensive diagram that represent complex streams that coordinate paid, owned, and earned channels in a holistic manner across an entire customer experience –beyond a siloed approach. As a result, the entire customer experience has a greater net benefit to customers and brands than individual deployments. Start with Strategy Companies should not approach the Converged Media approach without first having a goal in mind, as there are significant changes that happen both internally, with agency partners, and new software requirements. To get the most return in your effort, start by: Have a Content Strategy that Works Across Paid, Owned, and Earned. Re-purposing the same content on each channel is not s recipe for success, as each provides a unique opportunity, challenge, and therefore approach. Instead, develop a broader Content Strategy by first understanding that all companies (even those selling widgets) are now media companies. Secondly, develop a strategy by understanding how to rebalance your marketing equation by developing a content strategy. Read Rebecca’s blog with many resources on this topic, or the specific report on Content Marketing to further understand this growing trend. New roles, content coordination, and the ability to track all of these content changes across the enterprise will emerge, as well as new professional opportunities for those that are seeking to grow. Expect Savvy Marketers to have Playbooks –Supplemented by Agency Partners. Don’t expect to brands to recreate a new workflow each time from scratch, we’ve started to collect some of the workflows below, and expect that many agencies and brands will develop playbooks and bring them forth in the planning stage. Don’t overly rely on the same play, as competitors may exploit the same play time and time again, so expect flexibility based on what the data tea leaves are reading. When selecting a converged media workflow, ensure that it spans both paid, owned and earned channels, but also looks at media sites, social networks, microsites, brand sites and hosted communities. Ensure these are also representing a global perspective, and consider how it can impact multiple product sets within the brand. Be Ready: Significant Industry Changes Ahead in Brand, Agency and Software. While the research report goes into greater depth on the predicted changes coming, we see a few significant changes to the entire ecosystem. Inside of brands, the marketing department will start to restructure outside of silos so that the advertising group, corporate communication, brand marketing, and social media teams start to work together on a more frequent basis. Then, we expect marketing leadership to demand that agency partners come together to look at converged media from one strategic viewpoint –digital agencies that lead this discussion will be in a position of power over those that do not. Lastly, new software solutions are starting manifest including from Adobe Digital Marketing, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Oracle Marketing, Bazaarvoice, Lithium, ThisMoment, IBM, ExactTarget, and a host others of suites that I’m tracking. Expect a network of software point players to assemble and connect to each other –in order to counter the suites.

Left: Altimeter Research found that most companies lack a formalized process –and even out of the advanced, only 76% had a process in place, read the full report on Social Readiness. The purpose of these breakdown posts is to serve as an industry reference as the space advanced to optimization and performance. The assumption is that a company is forming a Center of Excellence or ruling body, or has recently done so before deploying this key component. Needs: Companies desire to be efficient –not having a workflow puts company at risk Like our bodies, cities, and corporations, all complex organisms have a natural process and order that helps to reduce inefficiencies and increases the end goals. So what if you don’t have a workflow? This could put your company at risk from lack of coordination, as multiple individuals could be responding at the same time, your customers may not be properly served in social channels, resulting in lost opportunities and potential customer dis-satisfaction. In the worst case, this poor experience in social could serve to fuel a social media crises, which we’ve documented. Clearly, we want to avoid this scenario, and instead develop a workflow that cascades across the multiple business functions, product groups, and geographies to quickly and effectively serve the market in social channels. Definition: A Social Media Workflow, Process, or Triage is a sequence of connected steps that enables the entire organization to act efficiently with minimal overlapping tasks and resources in order to serve the market in social channels and beyond. Business Goals: The 10 Attributes of Successful of Social Media Workflow First, let’s align the goals of having a successful social media workflow in place, benchmark your goals against the following attributes: 1) Alignment with corporate goals and customer goals. 2) Buy-in and agreement to the process from all involved business units in the organization. 3) Few or no overlapping tasks and resources. 4) Clear articulation of who will do what, when, where, and how. 5) Organizational alignment through training, testing, and refinement. 6) Integration with existing business systems, processes, and software in existing channels. 7) A clear, easy-to-reference document with clear labels and requires little explanation. 8] Scope includes all possible scenarios are included when to respond –and when not to respond. 9) Periodic improvements on the process as the business evolves. 10) Measurable business impacts report to all stakeholders on a periodic basis.