New Media and the

Democratization of Business

Paul Gillin
Author, The New Influencers
AOL Hell
 AOL Hell

June 20 Vincent Ferrari

June 21

June 23

June 24

June 26

July 14

Today
 Meet the new influencers

Paige Heninger &

Philipp
Gretchen Vogelzang
Lenssen

Steve Hall
 Key points
 Web 2.0 is the greatest experiment in
group self-organization in history – and
it’s working!
 Sophisticated patterns of influence
emerging
 This will forever change business-
customer interactions
 Businesses can no longer obfuscate,
confuse, evade, lie to or deceive their
 Types of social media
 Discussion forums
 Blogs
 Microblogs
 Podcasts
 Social networks
 Social bookmarking sites
 Social shopping sites
 Online video
 Recommendation engines
 Social search
 Wikis
 The numbers
 Active blogs on the Internet: 35 million
 MySpace/Facebook members: 190 million
 Number of videos on YouTube: 66 million
 Number of new Flickr photos/day: 1.5 million
 Growth in US newspaper circulation since 1990: -8
million
 Average age of a network evening news viewer:
60
 Percent of b-to-b marketers who are cutting print
ad budgets in 2008: 13.5
 Year Internet ad spending is forecast to overtake
 “Globalization… is reshaping the
footprint – and even the idea – of the
corporation. This institution is shifting
from a hierarchical, monolithic,
multinational model to one that is
horizontal, networked and globally
integrated.”
-The Authentic Enterprise: Relationships, Values
And The Evolution Of Corporate Communications
The Arthur W. Page Society, Dec., 2007
Traditional
communications
New reality
Consumers in control
 Whom Do Consumers
Trust?
Percent who trust each source

Other consumers 78%

Chat/discussion comments 63%

Blogs 61%

Brand sites 60%

TV/magazine 56%

Radio 54%

Sponsorships 49%

Search ads 34%

Banner ads 26%
Source: Nielsen, Oct., 2007
“Customer angst sites are no
longer just shouting
‘YourCompanySucks’ into the
cyberdarkness, but acting as
gathering spots for sharing call-
center secrets and trouble-
shooting tips. And as the
audience for more blogs and
social-media sites such as Digg
reach critical mass, it's easier
than ever for consumers to
wallpaper the Web with their
customer-service nightmares.”
-BusinessWeek, March 3, 2008
Old tactics don’t work any
more
June 14, 2007

“Please remove the posting located at the following link:

http://consumerist.com/consumer/insiders/22-...
It contains information that is confidential and proprietary to Dell.”

Dell's 23 Confessions
Now's not the time to mince words, so let me just say it... we
blew it…. instead of trying to control information that was
made public, we should have simply corrected anything that
was inaccurate. We didn't do that, and now we're paying for it.

June 16, 2007

 No time to waste
Oct. 26, 2007, 9:41 a.m.

Oct. 26, 2007, 3:41 p.m.

Dell’s transformation

"These conversations are

going to occur whether you
like it or not…You can learn
from that. You can improve
your reaction time. And you
can be a better company by
listening and being involved
in that conversation."
Michael Dell, 10/17/2007
Trends driving
democratization

Globalization

Partnerships

E-commerce
 Cultural norms of social
media
 “Transparency”
 Conversation
 Individual
 Courteous
 Sharing
 Attribution
 Suspicion of marketers
The only sources of
sustainable competitive
advantage today are:

Continuous
innovation
Customer
service
Self-forming
communities
Businesses
can be
influencers
Tap into customer
innovation
Citizen marketers
 Thank you!

Paul Gillin
508-202-9807
paul@gillin.com
www.gillin.com

Now available
from Quill Driver Books (And coming in fall, 2008:
Read more and order at Secrets of Social Media
www.NewInfluencers.com Marketing…)