Top People to Follow on Twitter at Davos 2012 #WEF

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Caroline Sanderson — Leave a Comment

Established and Upcoming Influencers

Amid record snow fall last week, Seattle felt a bit like Davos minus the plows.  Homebound, I started to poke around online and get ready for the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting that takes place in the real Davos this week. Lucky for me, my agency, Waggener Edstrom, offers a suite of tools to help pinpoint the people who influence conversations most profoundly.  Last year, I wrote a blog post that highlighted the top ten influencers to follow on Twitter at Davos.  These are the movers and shakers who shape and develop the online dialogue. The list was so well received  in the Twittersphere that I thought it well worth publishing a similar list this year.

To keep things interesting, I decided to present two lists.  The first list contains the likely suspects and is rank ordered according to influence. The second list contains people that are relatively influential online and are newer to the Davos conversation.  The second list is not rank ordered according to influence; they are simply my top picks.  My research was not exhaustive, so I am not saying the people on the second list have never been involved in WEF.  I see them as emerging leaders in the online social innovation conversation – a group of people we like to call “the influencers to the influencers.”

Without further ado, I present this year’s list(s):

Top 5 Influentials to Follow (You are likely already following if you care about Social Innovation!)

1. @Davos (1,594,512 followers) – This one is a no-brainer.  It’s the official Twitter handle of the World Economic Forum dedicated to the Annual Meeting in Davos.
2. @Nouriel (130,216 followers) – American economist and professor Nouriel Roubini tweets consistently about global economic development.  If you are not familiar with his work, check out this profile piece published by The New York Times Magazine in 2008.
3. @nickkristof (1,218,632 followers) – Pulitzer prize winning columnist Nicholas Kristof has a globally diverse following.  He can also be found engaging readers on his Facebook page.  (Full disclosure:  Waggener Edstrom partnered with Nick Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn in developing www.halftheskymovement.org)
4. @gatesfoundation (680,326 followers) – The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation needs no introduction.  What you might not know is that the foundation has a great blog called Impatient Optimists, which features the work of the foundation’s grantees, partners, leadership, and staff, as well as other bloggers, to provide commentary and insight on global health, global development and education. 
5. @fareedzakaria (125,117 followers) –Time magazine editor Fareed Zakaria is one of the leading journalists on international relations. (Note:  These top influencers also talk to each other.  Check out this video of Fareed discussing the role of women in the world with Kristof.

Top 5 Newcomers to the Davos Conversation (Add these influencers if you are looking to get a new and different perspective from Davos)

1. @bethcomstock (8,965 followers) – BusinessWeek called Beth Comstock GE’s Innovation Champion.  Her real title is Chief Marketing Officer.  I believe to really solve some of the world’s most intractable problems it will take an all hands on deck approach, including innovative ideas from the private sector.  Welcome, Beth! 
2. @hbuffett (1,494 followers) – Howard W. Buffett is the grandson of investment guru Warren Buffett and director of the HGB Foundation. Fast Company profiled him earlier this year for his own disruptive approach to philanthropy. He tweeted this gorgeous picture from Davos when he arrived and is participating in WEF’s Global Shapers Community, a group of 20-somethings aiming to making an impact in the world. 
3. @mabelvanoranje (14,370 followers) – Mabel van Oranje is CEO of The Elders, an independent group of global leaders who work together for peace and human rights. In 2005, the World Economic Forum named her one of its Young Global Leaders.
4. @BabatundeUNFPA (869 followers) – As executive director of UNFPA, Babatunde Osotimehin addresses reproductive health of women worldwide.  More than 215 million women worldwide don’t have access to contraceptives.  Babatunde is fairly new to Twitter, but I hope that he engages to discuss this important issue at Davos.
5. @felixsalmon – (48,375 followers) – Felix Salmon is a finance blogger for Thomson Reuters.  Felix blogged extensively at Davos last year and keeps us honest by pointing out that Davos is still primarily the stomping grounds of the elite.  He did an amusing blog post on how the badges at Davos work and the access one gets at each level.  His posts will make you laugh.

A footnote on methodology: The WE twendz pro™ tool uses a formula (sentiment influence + quantitative + qualitative analysis) that can help us understand who the most influential players are in your industry or sector and more importantly, how to engage with them.  Twitter can be pretty overwhelming and the WE twendz pro™ service allows us to dig through the clutter and gain some insight into the robust Twitter conversation happening at Davos.  It’s a pretty easy tool to use, and once I put my request in, I had a list of the most influential people at Davos within 24 hours.

Update your Twitter feeds!  To make it easy for you, we have created lists for each group.  You can find the list of established influencers here, and the list of newcomers here.  Although not all of us can be in Davos this week, we can all participate in the dialogue.

From Crazy Ideas to Social Innovation Breakthroughs

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Seema Bhende — 1 Comment

By: Julie Gates and Seema Bhende

Last week, in the hotbed of innovation, start-ups, and entrepreneurship, 300 changemakers from the corporate, public and nonprofit sectors gathered at the Social Innovation Summit in Palo Alto.

One clear theme stemming from the Summit was that continued innovation (and knowledge-sharing) is needed to solve the world’s largest social problems, ranging from education to healthcare to sustainability. And with more limited resources from governments, the role of nonprofits and the private sector – working in partnership – has become more important than ever in driving change. During a panel with leaders from the Silicon Valley, including Intel and Microsoft, Peter Diamandis, Chairman and CEO of The X PRIZE Foundation, astutely noted: “The day before something is truly a breakthrough, it’s just a crazy
idea.” So how do those crazy ideas become breakthroughs? And how do breakthroughs lead to impact? Below are the 5 key themes (and tips) we saw emerge from the event that help answer these questions.

1. Think big and then make it even bigger.  Entrepreneurs are known for thinking big, and social entrepreneurs are no exception. Scott Harrison, who founded charity: water wanted to tackle what he saw as the biggest problem – unsafe water, which contributes to 88% of disease in the world. And to talk about impact, Harrison’s nonprofit has raised over $40 million to reach more than 2 million people through 4,200 water projects in 17 countries over the past 5 years. In 2010, charity: water achieved 85% growth, nearly doubling their ability to impact the water crisis. Harrison’s goal now is even bigger – he wants to raise $1 billion for clean water. So what makes charity: water attractive to corporate partners like Saks Fifth Avenue and The Macallan? Harrison has a bold vision and his organization provides demonstrated proofs of impact to show ROI. charity: water also has a proven track record of achieving scale which has enabled it to attract many additional supporters and partners.
2. Content is king but metrics (and stories) make him powerful. As Jonathan Greenbladt, director of the White House Office of Social Innovation remarked “we manage what we measure.” Measuring social impact is an ongoing challenge for many nonprofits and CSR teams alike. It is compounded by the lack of good metrics when it comes to programs that focus on human capital, as Silicon Valley pioneer and philanthropist Mitch Kapor noted, and the fact that social change takes time. And don’t forget the often primary culprit: the time and expense that goes into actually tracking data. Greenbladt also noted “there can be tension between innovation and impact, and new and shiny might not always be the most impactful.” But for a nonprofit to prove ROI to its stakeholders and continue to receive funding for their programs, demonstrating progress – even in the short term – is important. Storytelling – especially “hopeful” storytelling – is a great way to show impact and progress beyond numbers (for more on this, be sure to read Marianne Allison’s blog post on this here).
3. Behave like a business (a responsible one). With individual and corporate donors’ funds more strained than ever during our prolonged recession, there is a heightened demand (and scrutiny) for nonprofits to be transparent in running their organizations and make data-driven decisions. As Jen Boynton from Triple Pundit wrote in her blog post on the summit “when the tools of business are applied to NGO models, redundancies vanish.” Thinking like a business can also bring to light the innovation solutions that are needed to solve big problems. John Wood, who left a successful career at Microsoft to start Room to Read, made the point that businesses are not afraid to think big.  At Microsoft, he was encouraged to take risks and have “BHAG” (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals) and he took this same approach with Room to Read, which has benefitted more than 6 million children in the last decade.
4. Flaunt failure. Given the pressure to demonstrate impact and effectiveness, most nonprofits only want to talk about the good stuff. Yet, where the social innovation community can benefit society the most is learning about each other’s failures in order to not repeat mistakes.  Jacqueline Fuller, Director of Charitable Giving and Advocacy at Google, said she looks for nonprofits who share Google’s “fail fast” motto and likes to see engineers and developers in the C-suite because they are so used to things breaking or evolving constantly. A risk-taking mentality is also what makes young entrepreneurs like Andrew Yang, who founded Venture for America, ideal leaders of truly innovative nonprofits. More companies and donors should encourage nonprofits not to be afraid to fail and to share their failures as much as their successes.
5. Be social. Charles Best, founder and CEO of DonorsChoose.org, noted that being “social” is in the organization’s DNA: “We do everything we can to make sure a donor feels like they didn’t simply transact a donation, but forge a relationship with the beneficiary.” With more than 1.9 million click throughs from Facebook last year, it’s no wonder that 50% of all public school teachers in the U.S. have used DonorChoose.org to fund a project. From fundraising to storytelling, social media continues to be a powerful (and affordable!) tool for nonprofits, social enterprises and companies. But as Charles Porch, who manages community programs for Facebook, said organizations “should lead with your voice and people” to be effective on social media. Being authentic and genuine drives true engagement and loyalty with audiences.

To see the robust Twitter dialogue from the Summit, check out #SIS11. Stay tuned for more information on the next Social Innovation Summit that will be hosted by Landmark Ventures at the United Nations in New York City, May 31, 2012 (follow #SIS12 on Twitter).

Where Geeks Unite and Change the World

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Jean-Louis Robadey — Leave a Comment

We know a few things about Silicon Valley.

• It’s a beautiful stretch of land.
• People there love working out of their garages.
• Products that transform how we live, work and make friends come from Silicon Valley, creating vast amounts of wealth in the process.

Now Silicon Valley also wants us to know that it can change the world, for the better.

On November 30, Silicon Valley’s best and brightest will meet in Palo Alto to make this point at the Social Innovation Summit.   Convened by Landmark Ventures, some of the Valley’s most recognizable brands, from Twitter to Intel, from Facebook to Microsoft, and from Google to Yahoo!, will join some of the most innovative and effective non-profits and governmental organizations to discuss solutions, partnerships and business models that can change the world.

A remarkable achievement

The very existence of this gathering is quite an accomplishment.  Up until recently, many of these companies were either struggling to come up with viable business models, fiercely competing for market share or were entirely focused on their business bottom line.

Even those that knew that they had a viable business model didn’t always acknowledge the fact that they had both a role, and a responsibility, to help solve some of the world’s most intractable problems.

A few companies have stood out over the years:  Microsoft’s citizenship initiatives, such as Imagine Cup, and Cisco’s Networking Academy have long been heralded as very successful, shared value, corporate citizenship programs.  More recently, Google spent a lot of time and money trying to figure out where its philanthropic investments could be most effective.

But it’s fair to say that in a context characterized by fierce product competition, rapid obsolescence, and wild market fluctuations, social conscience has not always been top of mind for companies, particularly in the Valley.

Change is in the air

Something seems to be changing now:  companies, young and old, large and small, profitable and fledgling, are realizing that the products they develop can make them profitable and achieve positive social or environmental benefit at the same time.

One example that comes easily to mind is social media. Arguably, the companies that power social connections are bound to power social transformation, whether they want to or not. While the jury may still be out for some on the role that Facebook, Twitter, or  YouTube have played as agents of social change, there is no question that these tools have helped improve people’s lives.

There is a more profound change happening, however, and it’s not limited to social media.

Social innovation = business opportunity

In a fast-changing world that’s calling for accountability, transparency and engagement, business opportunities are being found in social innovation.

Corporations, and not just those in the tech or social media sectors, are moving away from reactive strategies, simply based on a need to manage their reputations.  They are now setting up businesses and divisions whose entire raison d’etre is to help the business seize the social innovation opportunity.

The leading companies and non-profits that will be showcased at the Social Innovation Summit are fully embracing this opportunity and creating a new sector where the power of innovation, collaboration, business and technology are coming together to affect positive change.

In the process, they are also influencing more traditional governmental and non-governmental efforts. Leading organizations such as the X Prize Foundation, Room to Read, DonorsChoose.org, the Corporation for National Service, and the United Nations Office for Information and Communications Technology will also discuss their latest efforts at the event.

While not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, these efforts indicate that there doesn’t need to be a sharp dichotomy between business and social innovation:  the very skills and tools that have transformed the world of business have the potential to transform our societies, for the better. Furthermore, they show that geeks can develop great products AND change the world at the same time.

What does “social innovation” mean to us? At Waggener Edstrom, social innovations are programs, products, and processes that address social, economic and environmental issues around the world. The result of creative collaboration across sectors, social innovations aim to create measurable social value for people and plant, and we help our clients to tell those stories.

Join the conversation!

This is a conversation that all of us can participate in.  You can read the press release for more details or follow the conversation on Twitter at #SIS11. The event will also be streamed live by Stanford Social Innovation Review starting at 2 pm PST.

Follow the event. Track the conversation.  And let us know what you think:  is social innovation here to stay?  What are some of the most exciting social innovations under way? What does social innovation mean to you?

Green Millennial Takes Top Influencer Spot at Sustainable Brands

Posted on June 10, 2011 by Haley — 1 Comment

What an inspiring, informative and exhausting week at the Sustainable Brands Conference here in Monterey but all good things must come to an end. 

While I will be following up with a recap of insights and observations on how the sustainability conversation is evolving, I must address the question of influence that we had posed earlier in the week and the contest we issued to see which #SB11 speaker, out of our predetermined list of five, would come out on top as the most influential in the online conversations.  I must say that the Twitter sphere around #SB11 lived up to all my expectations as being extremely passionate and fast paced. 

So, as a refresher, at Waggener Edstrom we talk about influence as a consistent, sustained impact by highly influential and engaged individuals from a specific category. We measure influence through our Influence Ranking analysis tool that looks at:  Reach, Amplification, Engagement, Context and Audience.

By running an algorithm on these measurements we get a ranking of who in the conversation has the most influence. Because it would take too long to do everyone at the event, we focused on five of the speakers that already had a high influence number coming into the conference and put them head to head with one another to see who would come out on top.  Here are the results:

1. Erin Schrode (Teens Turning Green) @erinschrode
2. Susan McPherson (Fenton) @susanmcp1
3. Jacqui Ottman (Ottman Consulting) @Jacquelynottman
4. David Schatsky (GreenResearch.com) @dschatsky
5. Alison Presley (Travelocity)@travelforgood

I have to admit, I am a bit pleased to see Erin here as #1.  Not only was she a thoughtful and dynamic speaker, but she represents the new generation of engaged environmentalists that are using social media as a critical tool in driving the sustainability conversation.

At the end of the day though, any extension of this work is critical as we all have a role to play in creating new innovations, collaborations and conversations that will help move industries and ideas forward so that sustainability becomes an embedded (not bolted on) way of doing business.

Thank you to Sustainable Brands & more to come next week!

Top 12 Takeaways from Cause Marketing Forum #CMF11

Posted on June 8, 2011 by Seema Bhende — Leave a Comment

I’ve attended 5 Cause Marketing Forum annual conferences and I’m always incredibly impressed with the quality of presentations, speakers and attendees. As the prolific cause marketing influencer, Joe Waters points out, the conference had many benefits. For my colleagues and I that attended CMF, we took away some key trends and findings we wanted to share with you all.  Here is our top 12 list (because top 10 just couldn’t cut it!).

1. Cause is social:  Nearly every single cause marketing campaign discussed at the conference had a digital channel to promote and amplify the effort. Many cause marketing campaigns live solely online. Given that cause marketing is a fantastic way to engage millennials and parents, campaigns need to go to where their audiences are spending time: online. It’s also essential to make the campaign shareable with friends and family. Another audience that can amplify cause marketing campaigns is employees. Enthusiastic employees can broaden message dissemination targeting key original nontraditional audiences such as family members and friends).
2. Men Care!: All too often, cause marketing research focuses on engaging women and mothers. Research shows that men care nearly as equally as women care that companies engage in causes. Men are an untapped audience for cause marketing campaigns. Men’s Wearhouse did a fantastic campaign called “Suit off my Back” to help homeless men transition into the job market by conducting a suit drive. The marketing effort included male models literally taking to the streets in various cities, giving the suits off their backs to those in need and getting consumers to donate clothes.
3. Students are motivated by scholarships – not free gadgets:  When engaging with students in contests, don’t just offer a free iPad or computer as a prize. Students will be more motivated to submit an essay, video or idea if the prize is a chance to improve their futures via a college scholarship.
4. Timing is everything:  Even with an attractive scholarship offer, you will struggle to attract students to your contest if they are in the middle of final exams and prom planning, so stay away from the month of May.  To improve participation and media coverage, build a cause calendar into your plans that maps to existing events (i.e. Earth Day, Breast Cancer Awareness Month) and avoids busy times for your target audience. Being appropriately responsive to disasters is also important.
5. Celebrities are more than just pretty faces:  A celeb’s willingness to quarterback your campaign—request favors, engage other celebrities, or do anything to aggressively market your initiative—may have a greater impact than his Q-score.
6. Think outside the check:  Complimentary business models are critical to a successful cause campaign.  Wal-Mart’s grocery distribution model includes many of the elements necessary for effective anti-hunger programs at a local level.  E-bay’s Giving Works balances the process of bringing buyers and sellers together to shop, sell and donate for a good cause. It’s an interesting platform for matching donors and non-profits. Another bonus for E-bay is that they see fewer unresolved complaints from buyers when sellers donate a portion of their profits to charitable organizations. As another example, Microsoft’s Bing Maps made DonorsChoose’s classrooms in need of supplies more accessible to people by finding teacher requests easily in their local communities.
7. Be careful who you crowd-source:  Is the audience invested in your cause likely to become your customer?  If not, your campaign may increase your number of Facebook followers, but it will be less likely to increase your bottom line. Companies and non-profit groups alike have become obsessed with building massive social media followings but in this realm, size doesn’t matter. It’s ineffective to amass 5M Twitter followers if only a fraction of that number takes action on behalf of your product or brand.
8. Measurement and listening are essential: A major concern and need companies face are how to create equity from cause marketing campaigns and show their C-suite the value of investing in these campaigns when the primary focus is usually on driving sales. Media impressions and number of followers on Facebook, for instance, are not enough to show the overall value of investing in cause marketing campaigns. Today’s C-suite is more apt to invest in cause marketing programs when the outcome of the program bolsters sales.  There is a great hunger among CSR executives to have measurement programs in place that can do this and WE feel this is still a missing priority in cause campaigns.
9. Nonprofits know their cause best: More and more companies are creating their own campaigns and moving away from partnering with non-profits. Procter & Gamble is a recent example with their “Tide Loads of Hope” initiative. While successfully delivering 46,000 loads of laundry for families affected by the earthquake in Haiti, the campaign has received a lot of criticism for not having a local nonprofit partner and many, including Nancy Lublin, warn against companies trying to play the role of the NGO. Nonprofits have existing knowledge, resources and relationships that can be leveraged to create the most impactful cause marketing campaigns.
10. The power of video: We heard a lot at CMF about leading with the issue and how to engage audiences with authentic content. Many companies are taking advantage of branded documentaries to leverage for social media engagement, influencer outreach and off-line publicity blitz. Video captured can also be repurposed for b-roll for rich content distribution.
11. Mobile is the next cause frontier:  Some campaigns are dipping their toe in mobile waters to better understand the opportunity.  Mobile was widely recognized as a vast frontier of opportunity for cause marketers. Mobile is how most consumers are finding and engaging with the world they care about, and causes need to understand how their target audience uses mobile and deliver content and opportunities through platforms that make sense for them.
12.  Voting campaigns are losing appeal:  As also noted in another blog recap, voting campaigns are increasingly viewed as “impure”.  Plenary speaker Nancy Lublin, CEO of DoSomething.org, said their opinion changed when one of their interns was able to improve DoSomething.org’s rating in a voting campaign in less than two weeks.

If you have any other key takeaways from #CMF11, please share them here! We are excited for next year’s conference and in the interim look forward to cultivating more conversation on Twitter and this blog on the topic of cause marketing.

5 Tips for Cause Marketers: Using Social Media to Identify, Influence and Engage

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Suzanne Zurn — 1 Comment

Have you ever wondered, “How did that cause marketing campaign raise so much money?” or “Why isn’t my campaign getting those kind of results?” This past week Seema Bhende and I led a session at the Cause Marketing Forum Conference to help cause-marketers answer these tough questions and to learn how to create repeatable results for their cause campaigns.
In our session we revealed the 5 key principles for using social media to drive influence and engagement to achieve the maximum attention for a cause marketing campaign.

1. IDENTIFY: Get specific about the audience you want to engage with to achieve better results and save time and money.

“You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them.” -Harper Lee

The first and most important part of any social media strategy is to know who the audience is.  To be truly successful in a cause marketing campaign, you need specify who your ideal core audience is that will want to engage with your campaign and who will actually take action.  Make sure your strategy is grounded in facts, not assumptions.

Be specific about who your audience is be that tweens, college students, working moms, or baby boomers.  “All consumers” cannot realistically be your target audience.  Research will help you understand who your most likely supporter is. Then develop a personalized strategy for the unique audience segments.

2. INFLUENCE: ID who your influentials are, internally and externally, and engage them to tell your story. 

First, look inside your organization and align your cause campaigns across departments such as PR, internal communications, HR, etc. Make sure your cause marketing communications are part of your public relations editorial calendar, integrated with other company and employee news or product launches. As part of this effort, be certain to identify who the storytellers within your organization are and how they can amplify the cause message. Timberland’s CEO Jeff Schwartz is a great example of this.  He regularly blogs, tweets and publicly speaks on the company’s citizenship campaigns during annual shareholder meetings & employee events.

Second, look outside your organization and identify which influencers are already out there. Don’t create your own community, go to where the community already exists. Understand where the influencers live online, their communication preferences, and then go to where the existing community is.  Microsoft’s  Kodu Cup recently gained over 13M impressions in a few hours via a hosted a twitter party with Mom it Forward, a social media community with an established following of tech savvy moms, to promote a contest called Kodu Cup that promotes video game learning  amongst kids.

3. ENGAGE: Look at ways that make the most sense, not just what is cool right now

Too often in social media people start with the tactics: “I want more followers on Twitter and more fans on Facebook.” They do not start by thinking about why and how this will impact their campaign.  Just because you build a campaign, does not mean people will come, donate and participate!

The Key principles for engaging audiences via social media:

• Use a variety of content channels
• Create multiple content  types to promote your cause campaign
• Establish a clear call to action
• Participate in an effective two-way dialogue

4.       MEASURE: Have clear says to show success – then be ready to adjust as necessary

Measurement is an important element to using social media effectively because when you know what’s working, you have the power to make informed decisions about what to continue, to change, to scrap. 

To measure effectively you must:

• Establish the right measurement program to inform Cause Marketing Objectives and Strategy Development
  • My rule of thumb – If it moves, measure it!
• Establish Core Measurement Benchmarks that are Outcome Focused
  • HOT: Increase Small Donations by 30% amongst 29-35 year olds
  • NOT: Increase donations
• Set campaign milestones to determine impact and need for adjustment

Do you have a milestone map?  Where do you need right now to get to your goal?  Are you hitting those marks, if not, what does the data reveal?

5. FOUNDATION: Earning trust and driving influence through social media to affect change requires calibrated engagement across an organization. 

The problem many brands face is generating influence from social media marketing. They can’t quite synchronize content, campaigns and internal workflows to yield long-term success. The solution is to integrate marketing, communications and social media strategies to optimize a brand’s influence.  At Waggener Edstrom, we call this approach the Social Influence System. It’s the Central Nervous System of your digital strategy.

It’s Not Just What You Tweet, It’s What Your Followers Do With It

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Haley — 2 Comments

Sparking some friendly competition at the Sustainable Brands Conference

This week I will be heading to Monterey, CA to attend my third Sustainable Brands Conference. I really like this event and expect that it will be a nice counterpoint to the policy driven conversations I participated in at Fortune Brainstorm Green.  Over three days we will spend our time discussing how to create shared economic, environmental and social value and I predict that the term “green consumer” will be the most heavily tweeted phrase during that time.   

Every year the crowd gets bigger and ever year the quality of brands attending increases and I am sure that this won’t disappoint with over 120 incredible speakers ranging from corporate sustainability executives to famous mountaineers.   The only thing better than the diverse, passionate and inspired conversations will be the debate that ensues online.   

In anticipation of that, I thought it might be interesting to see if I can help spark some of this lively conversation with a contest.  Yes, a contest, and with a contest comes a prize so let’s get to the most important piece first, what you could win? 

Drumroll please…  You will get your very own Influencer Ranking analysis!

What the heck?

Let me explain. 

Almost everyone – company, person, organization– uses social media these days.  Why?  It can be the easiest place to get the word out and in turn, build a brand. More often than not, the thinking is that the more followers you have, the better and the more often they re-tweet you is the only thing that matters. But does it really? 

What if you just had one person re-tweet you but that person was one of the most respected people you knew and best understood the conversation you were having? Is that more important?

Is it a question of quality vs. quantity?

WE would argue that it is much more than either of these things.  It is a matter of INFLUENCE.  A consistent, sustained impact by highly influential and engaged individuals from a specific category.  In fact, we measure influence in our Influencer Ranking analysis on the basis of five key attributes:  Reach, Amplification, Engagement, Context and Audience. By running an algorithm on these measurements we get to a ranking of who – in your conversation – has the most influence and therefore, most valuable to your brand building efforts. 

So, back to how we can spark a lively debate at the Sustainable Brands Conference and you can win your very own Influencer Ranking analysis: 

Below is a list of the five most engaged tweeters speaking at the Sustainable Brands Conference (already have a high influence ranking and are some of the most active on Twitter). My challenge to you is to perfectly predict their order of influence after engagement levels change and spike during the course of the Conference.

Alison Presley (Travelocity)@travelforgood
David Schatsky (GreenResearch.com) @dschatsky
Erin Schrode (Teens Turning Green) @erinschrode
Jacqui Ottman (Ottman Consulting) @Jacquelynottman
Susan McPherson (Fenton) @susanmcp1

To play, all you have to do is tweet me @HDrage with your response using the conference and game hashtags #SB11 and #WESB in the correct order of influence with 1 as the most engaged. Near the end of the conference, my team will run an Influence Ranking on the speakers and announce the winner.  If there are multiple correct guesses, they will be pulled together and the winner will be drawn at random.

More to come from Monterey!

Oh, and because we thought it would be helpful, here is a list of all of the speakers that have Twitter handles – your Tweet Sheet!

Excited for #CMF11? The Top Ten Cause Marketing Tweeters You Should Follow

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Seema Bhende — 2 Comments

A group of us from Waggener Edstrom Worldwide are attending the Cause Marketing Forum’s annual conference this week in Chicago. This is my fifth year attending this fantastic conference and I am really excited to connect with friends, former colleagues and the many industry experts that are always in attendance. I will be representing the WE Social Innovation Practice and at 3pm CT on Thursday June 2^nd, my colleague, Suzanne Zurn and I will be hosting a session called “Cause Attention: Using Social Media to Identify, Influence and Engage.” Suzanne is a digital advocacy expert and has tons of awesome experience and best practices to share on how to engage audiences online to take action. If you are at the conference, we hope you will join us. If you can’t make it, we will be posting our presentation on the Waggener Edstrom Slideshare channel after the session.

To get you excited about the content we are going to cover in our presentation, we want to share with you a sneak preview of the top ten Twitter influencers in the cause marketing landscape. The reason we are sharing this is because I am always aggressively looking for new people to follow on Twitter as I head to events. I want to find people who I can learn from who are connected to even more people I can learn from. That is one of the great powers of Twitter.

With a specific subject matter like Cause Marketing, however, people who write on the subject typically don’t have the mass following of a celebrity like Ashton Kutcher. On Twitter, I find time and time again, that the number of followers someone has collected does not always have a direct correlation to their ability to create thought provoking content (no offense to AshtonJ). For this reason, I turned to Waggener Edstrom’s proprietary Influence Ranking tool that helps organizations learn which media and individuals exert the greatest influence on their brand or cause. The tool rates Twitter handles against five important variables:

• Reach is an indicator of the size of the audience for a particular influencer, outlet or content producer. Measures of reach might include: circulation, unique visitors per month, followers, friends or views.
• Amplification measures the amount of sharing of an influencer or outlet’s content via social media channels. Measures might include: linking to blogs, Twitter or Facebook, retweets or presence on Digg, Reddit, Delicious or other social bookmarking tools.  
• The amount of dialogue with the audience is shown through the Engagement score. Measures for Engagement might include: on-site comments, comments on social bookmarking sites, and replies.
• The relevance of the influencer or outlet’s content is captured in Content Relevance. Measures might include: frequency of category or brand mentions, depth of category or brand mentions.
• The Audience score measures relevance to a list of target audiences for the particular brand or campaign. Primary research results or content analysis are used to rate audience relevance.

So…without further ado, we present to you the Top 10 Twitter handles in the Cause Marketing landscape you should be following to stay abreast of the latest industry news and best practices:

1. Beth Kanter - @kanter
2. Cindy Esposito – @CJ_Esposito
3. Causecast.org – @CAUSECAST
4. AOL 365 – @AOL365
5. Joe Waters – @joewaters
6. Noland Hoshino – @NolandHoshino
7. Kids in a Groove – @KidsGroove
8. David Hessekiel – @DaveCause
9. Seema Bhende – @seemabhende
10. CSIC at Georgetown – @GeorgetownCSIC  

     

I must confess that I was incredibly humbled to be a part of this amazing list of cause marketing influencers and made our Insight and Analytics team conduct the research two times to confirm the data was accurate! They were able to explain to me that my score was strong given the engagement, content relevance, and amplification of my tweets in cause marketing.

I look forward to seeing many of the folks on this list at the conference! And for those of you not attending, be sure to follow the handles above and #CMF11 to keep abreast of the dialogue from the event.

Global Health: Make it Your Business

Posted on June 1, 2011 by Caroline Sanderson — Leave a Comment

Over the past 6 months, my team has had the opportunity to work with a remarkable organization: The Global Business Coalition for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.  GBC is the world’s only organization dedicated to mobilizing the private sector in the fight against the three leading pandemics of our time – HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.  On June 1 & 2, GBC’s 230 members are gathering in NYC to celebrate the organization’s 10th anniversary.  Today, GBC reveals its new name –  GBCHealth – to better reflect its expanding mandate on global health more broadly.

Global health includes any health issue that cross borders and requires massive collaboration to solve.   That’s why GBCHealth encourages its members to use their core expertise or  “competence” to get involved in addressing global health.  At Waggener Edstrom, we use communications to tell stories about innovation and transform lives.  In honor of GBCHealth’s 10 impactful years, we created an infographic (below) to tell the story of the organization, its members, and the success that can be achieved when businesses use the tools they have in their toolboxes.

I’m eager to see how other companies are using the tools in their toolboxes at this year’s GBCHealth conference.  Ten students will serve as global health ambassadors at the meeting, bringing the content discussed within the four walls of the meeting room to the outside world.  If you’d like to follow along with me, follow @GBCNews.

The Junior Davos Event

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Sarah Hahn — Leave a Comment

In Washington, DC, particularly in the Social Innovation space, we hear about all kinds of great programs and organizations that are going to change the world. So much so, it can be hard to be impressed. This week, however, I was introduced to an organization that truly caught my attention.

I originally heard about One Young World from the WE-SA office – their first stand-alone Social Innovation engagement. A global forum for young leaders, CNN summed it up best when it called One Young World a “junior Davos” event.

So when I heard that one of the founders, Kate Robertson, would be in town to talk about One Young World, I jumped at the chance to learn more. As Kate explained during the luncheon I attended, One Young World is a forum that gathers young leaders together from all corners of the globe in a space where they can share and debate their ideas in a way they never could otherwise. In her view, youth have a better perspective on the problems of the world and potential solutions, so we must give them these kinds of opportunities to be heard.

With the encouragement of counselors like Desmond Tutu, Bob Geldof, Mohammad Yunus and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, participants in the inaugural summit last year in London, England, went back to their home countries and, taking their mandate to heart, put their words into action.

One of the most notable outcomes of the summit was The Missing Millennium Development Goal project. One Young World participants realized that achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is hindered by conflict, often religious-based. Building on a resolution drafted at the One Young World Summit, these inspiring young people presented The Missing Millennium Development Goal – Ensure Interfaith Collaboration for Peace – at the UN Alliance of Civilizations forum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in May 2010, where UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon invited them personally to present to the UN General Assembly.

We were lucky enough to have in our midst Taryn Bird, from the US Chamber of Commerce, who attended the inaugural summit. Hearing her personal experience really drove home the importance of this event and the value that it had to her. She even pointed out concrete examples where the experience and her connections made through One Young World have helped her in her job, such as when she was planning a Chamber-sponsored trip to Haiti last year.

So how is WE involved? In 2010, WE-SA was asked to provide communications support for Kate during a trip to her home country of South Africa, arranging a press tour for her with top business and consumer media that raised awareness of the organization among local young leaders and solicited corporate support.

Inspired by One Young World’s commitments, WE Citizenship and WE-SA decided to support the organization further. This fall, WE is sponsoring a local student from our academic partner, University of Johannesburg Communications Department, to attend the Second Annual One World Summit in Zurich, Switzerland.

I’m really proud that WE is supporting One Young World during this crucial start-up stage. While they had 823 young leaders from 112 countries in attendance at the 2010 forum, One Young World is aiming for 1600 participants representing every country this year and that is going to take a lot of effort.

If you or someone you know is interested in making an impact, having a chance to interact with like-minded peers from around the world and have the chance to truly influence world leaders, I encourage you to learn more about One Young World and the Second Annual Summit.