Innovative Thinking.

Issue. Early in the adoption of social technology clients asked the question: Are my customes on social networks and if so where?

Approach: By combining social network profiles with traditional overlay data from 3rd party vendors we can understand who is where.   The example shown used registered voters from the fall of 2008 to illustrate the penetration of social networks among Democrats and Republicans.  While Democrats had a higher penetration, the gap wasn't as large as one might expect from the popular media.

We also reversed the process and profiled the audience of various networks to help set targeting priorities.

Issue. With everybody trying to lock up wind rights we thought it would be good to provide a way to answer the question this $64k question.  

Approach: Since every parcel of land is in a wind corridor, is some distance from the grid, and is of a known size it was 'easy' to create a calculator to determine the value of a given location. To help dispel the hype we also highlighted the four problems with wind:

• Wind is Fickle and Inconsistent
• Wind Blows at the Wrong Time
• Only some Wind is Valuable
• Wind isn't Dense or Portable

Issue. Infographics for search terms showed the frequency of activity, but not the conversion rate making them less valuable than we'd like when reviewing campaigns with clients.

Approach: We wrote an app that produced the accompany graph which combines both frequency (size) and conversion rate (color). The size indicates the relative frequency of a search term and the color denotes conversion - where red is high, blue is low. So in this case, it is easy to see that bidding on 'American Idol' probably doesn't cover costs while terms like 'singing lessons' should be given more emphasis.

We also applied the same to TV spots and lead conversions to illustrate on one page the impact of several hundred thousand commercial airings.

Issue. There is a lot of talk about recommendations, trust and the influence of peers.   But in order to help marketing figure out what tactics might work it would help if there were a way to break "influence" into manageable chunks or levers.  

Approach: Working with some communications experts we developed the following way to describe 'influence.'   

• Influence is a function of trust and brand charge.    Trust in turn is based on the strength of the relationship and the relevance; each of which has sub-components.   Charge, or what someone actually says, consists of intensity, sentiment and timing.   

In sum, the influence of a marketer is based on their history and frequency of interaction plus if they are perceived as providing useful information.