Post-apocalyptic

Change: How the Political Season Will Change Social Media – Infographics

Posted on October 10, 2011October 10, 2011 by bradmays

This is the first in a series of posts that will look at how the brand as publisher concept and the shareable formats of social marketing will impact and evolve politics in the upcoming election season. More political campaigns will embrace the tools of social media, bringing those tools deeper into the awareness and understanding of the general population. And, in turn farther into the marketers toolkit.

One of the tools in the brand publishing toolbox is the infographic. Using pictures to tell a story has been around for a long time. USAToday made the infographic popular in journalism. And, today, more brands are using pictures to tell their story and to feed the insatiable social appetite for more content. While slower to the social game, but catching up quickly, politicians and political campaigns are starting to see the value of the connected conversations of the social Web. And, many are starting to take a deliberate look at their publishing models.

In the pending context of an election year, the tools of the social publisher, from blogs to Facebook and video to infographics, the strategy of telling your story through multiple channels and in multiple formats will expand. It’s in this context of need and ability that the infographic will take off as a standard communications vehicle. The ability to easily tell a story in pictures in a way that conveys data is a natural tool for political campaigns. There are few places where confusing data meets confounded meaning than in the context of a political campaign. Conversely, there are few context where clearly conveying a message though a single image can help convert those 63% of people who consider themselves visual learners into activated, educated, engaged and committed voters.

Below is just one of the early examples where an infographic, or data visualization, can be used to convey a political point and message. (No political affiliation implied.) While I can argue that this isn’t a true infographic, I think it’s one of the many formats data can take to help convey the point of it’s message.

Online Crisis Communication & The Impact of Social Media

Posted on January 27, 2011October 7, 2011 by bradmays

With the continued growth of online mediums, from social media to blogs to forums and search engines, any crisis communications plan that doesn’t address the connected conversations and information online is at a disadvantage. The degree to which you engage in those channels varies from brand to brand, industry to industry and depends on how interested your customers are in getting information there. But, at a minimum, online channels should be accounted for. And, for most brands, specific tactics should be included that address the proliferation of these online mediums among media and consumers.

The following outlines an approach to addressing the needs of a modern organization in managing the interaction that is enabled through and perpetuated by new communications channels and technologies.

Crisis Communication Readiness & Social Media

As a brand, you are a target online. You can own it, or it will own you. Gone are the days when a message traveled in a single direction. The change that social mediums have brought is the ability of the channel to talk back. For those with a deliberate approach to social media, this is an advantage. As in traditional communications, a company’s message can’t be heard and important information can’t be shared without a channel to put the message through. The same rule applies in social mediums. The opportunity that social media brings is an unfiltered, immediate and direct channel to the public. A deliberate, dedicated and integrated approach to social media increases a brand’s ability to communicate, manage and mitigate the impact of a crisis on a brand.

A viable brand presence in times of crisis includes:

A dedicated presence in social and online media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, company blog)
A pre-crisis presence that includes regular content posts and discussions with those who follow, post and engage there
An understanding of the most influential channels and individuals relevant to the brand and a way to instantly interact with them about the business of the brand (requiring relationships and understanding before a crisis hits)
A listening and monitoring program used to understand the volume, tone and level of engagement in social channels before, during and after a crisis
A fully staffed presence that includes a cross section of the organization to speed the information flow
An integration plan to address the speed at which information travels online – outlining the roles and responsibilities of each area of the business responsible for addressing a crisis
An executive-level understanding of the impact of social channels on the brand and a commitment to integrating social and online media into the brand’s response during a crisis

Taking it to the Next Level

For companies with an existing presence in social media, here are a few things to consider in crisis planning:

Consistency: The existence of a social presence also creates the expectation that the company will use social channels during a crisis. The company has an opportunity and obligationto use these channels for the entire discussion about the brand, including during a crisis.

Staffing: During times of crisis, the brand should have resources to staff the discussion in these channels, providing regular updates and responses based on approved messaging. Delay in getting a message in the channel should be a result of anything other than the ability to get the message out.

Integration: Social media channels should enhance and support dissemination of information that is also happening through traditional channels.

Coordination: Close coordination between all channels will make engagement in social media an effective strategy to manage crisis situations. Other areas of the business should understand and be prepared to support the continuous, real-time needs of communicating in social media.

As consumers grow to expect more from the brands they do business with, a deliberate approach to managing the entire brand conversation online is fundamental to a healthy social presence.

Social Media: It’s Not Just for Marketing, PR or Advertising Anymore

Posted on January 19, 2011January 20, 2011 by bradmays

There’s no doubt that social media is one of the more confounding things for marketers in recent memory. Even the Internet itself wasn’t as disruptive for marketers as the open, connected consumer-controlled conversations of the social Web. It’s a challenge that most companies will consider and reconsider for the foreseeable future.

One area that is challenging a company’s effectiveness in social media is answering the question, “who owns social media?” It’s understandable that ownership is causing so much trouble. On the surface, social media just is another channel. Traditionally, channels of information flow in one direction – from the brand to people. How, when and why a message gets out has an established set of rules. And, creating a message and paying for its dissemination is applied to someone’s budget. If you own the budget, you own the decision about what happens with that budget, the message, the channel and so on along long-established corporate assumptions and expectations.

It’s comfortable to put social media into this structure, and it’s easier to assign it to a specific department to “figure out” or to “handle.” But, some of those companies that have put social media into a silo are beginning to reconsider that approach.

The truth is, when determining who “owns” social media, you have to ask who “owns” the customer, or the public, or the stakeholder – because social media isn’t a mass medium. It involves interacting with individuals in aggregate. And, chances are, this type of interaction involves more than just marketing, PR, advertising, IT or yes, even legal.

When you take another step back, you can also view ownership through the lens of the conversation. Who owns the exchange of an idea, the image, or the feedback loop? These are all part of the social conversation. So, in the end, asking who owns the conversation gets more to the point than asking who owns the channel.

Unlike traditional channels, these channels are intended to be two-way mediums. Programs that aren’t set up to expect, encourage, entice and promote that two-way interaction treat social media like any other traditional channel. Unlike television, a print ad or even a press release, the content in these channels are intended to be consumed, shared, deconstructed, mashed up and responded to.

These are the inherent characteristics of social mediums that make them unlike other channels. And, it’s why the outcome of using social media is unlike the outcome of using the traditional channels marketers have used for years.

The dynamic nature of the medium calls for all hands on deck to be able to cultivate and manage the one-to-one, two-way conversation that happens directly with individuals in full view of everyone. The people who just saw the billboard you bought can now talk back – not through the billboard, but through social media, and you’ve missed an opportunity if you’re not able to respond. Your new customer who just spent two hours on the phone with your call center but still can’t install their software is Tweeting at you, and your lack of a response is apparent to all of the others watching the social discourse. Or, you’re experiencing an outage across the western portion of your service area and your customers are lining up on Facebook demanding updates.

These are all real issues. And, each of them requires coordination across different parts of the business. The same parts of the business that may have had trouble working together in the timeframes of traditional mediums driven by newspaper deadlines and insertion dates. Now, with the real real-time pressures of social channels, it’s more important than ever for everyone to understand their role and know that their job now includes helping the company address and meet the expectations of a connected world with connected customers and connected issues.

(From “Unfollowed: Pentagon Deletes Social Media Office” | Danger Room | Wired.com)

There is a path to integration. It’s not straight, it’s not easy, and it’s different for every brand. But, it will become increasingly important to brands who want to engage in these channels beyond what they’ve been able to so far. If you’re still running your social media presence in silos, it’s likely getting harder to:

1) See and show increasing degrees of measurable results

2) Grow your social communities – breadth, depth and reach

3) Manage the entire conversation about the brand – the good, the bad and the unimaginable

4) Create enough new, compelling content to keep the community engaged and interested enough to share with their friends

I’m going to tackle each of these points in another series of posts that will highlight what an increasing number of companies will experience this year, if they haven’t already – that social media isn’t the realm of one particular group or business area, but takes the entire organization to carry on a fruitful and sustainable conversation.

PART 3 – Mine! Mine! Mine! – Who “Owns” Social Media?

Posted on January 5, 2011 by bradmays

Who “Owns” social media? This is a question that keeps people up at night, because the question has a direct impact on who “owns” the conversation, the experience and (in the end) the budget. Ask instead, “Who owns the customer?” and the issue begins to expand and involve more functions along the customer continuum. This same continuum exists in social media. While customer service departments may be responsible for the direct interaction with the customer, can they also make a repair, schedule a product upgrade or install a new phone line? The speed at which information travels in social media puts additional pressure on internal processes. How quickly can the company respond, and in effect, “turn a complaint around?” How many steps are there along the resolution channel within the company? Can steps be removed?

The answer to each of these issues likely cannot be resolved by a single group; rather it is the responsibility of the entire company to ensure the customer’s experience is a good one. In an attempt to break out who does what, below is a look at some of the general responsibilities for a social CRM program with a view of both the reactive and proactive functions in the social CRM continuum.

*These roles and responsibilities are generalities used to draw some distinction between functions. Lines can, and do, blur.

Lean-back & Lean-forward

Business Group	Reactive Activity	Proactive Activity
Customer Care (community-facing)	Monitoring and addressing messages sent directly to the brand through social media	Proactively searching and addressing messages about the brand in social media; identifying systemic issues
PR/Community Manager (community-facing)	Monitoring and addressing direct messages from influencers	Delivering information specific to broad company initiatives, messages specific to issues, and official company views; identifying systemic issues
Marketing	Responding to the needs of customer care and the community manager team’s request for content	Proactively engaging community managers to bring better, more frequent content to the channel; assessing systemic issues and operationalizing change
Advertising	Bringing compelling paid opportunities in support and defense of the brand, including paid search, sponsored Tweets/trends, etc.	Coordinating with the community managers & marketing to dial in advertising and search efforts to lead to the brand’s social channels when appropriate
IT	Giving teams access to the tools necessary to monitor and engage in social media	Becoming part of the process by advising on best-in-class tools for monitoring, tracking and engagement
Leadership	Assessing the bottom-line imperative of social CRM; empowering teams to explore community needs	Supporting the overall social CRM effort; approving operational changes; ensuring cross-business integration and cooperation

PART 2: SocialCRM Foundations – An Operational View

Posted on January 5, 2011 by bradmays

In the previous post, I mentioned that, of the changes impacting brands on the Web, few will have greater impact than the ability for customers to share their opinions online about the companies they do business with — from discussion forums to Twitter to Facebook, and the new breadth of conversations opening up through searchable Facebook discussions. And that’s not to mention the emergence of geo-location check-ins through cell phones. With all of these tools, the capacity for customers to talk about your brand is significant. And, if you need more fuel for the hype of socialCRM (sCRM), just do a search on the term or look here. The good news is that those channels consumers choose to talk to companies through are the same ones companies can use to talk back.

Brand, Reputation, Marketing & Influence – The Basics

Identifying and engaging with customers in social media must be the foundation of any long-term strategy. Thepoint of social media is enabling that closer connection with individuals. And, an important extension of that connection is addressing the totality of the discussion.

If a company is unable to address customers’ needs online, then its activities there run the risk of being undermined. Companies with a social media program in place already, however, are likely seeing the challenge presented by customers raising issues.

Addressing that challenge starts with a strategy. As the space heats up, and as technologies begin to flood the market, it’s important to understand the role of technology and the role of strategy. Because of the broad implications delivering customer service in social channels has on a company, these programs must be rooted in strategy. This is true not only because social software is still early in development, but also because of how responding in near real-time to these public exchanges between the customer and the brand fundamentally changes the approach and business processes necessary to function effectively in social media.

Planting the Seed

Interacting with customers through social channels requires a few foundational pieces:

Philosophical Foundations

An inherent interest in improving relationships with customers
An understanding of social context and how discussions evolve in social channels
The willingness to take criticism seriously and act on it
A business-wide, agreed-upon social framework (or at least someone willing to stick their neck out far enough to identify and document the need and develop a plan to address the social conversation)

Operational Foundations

An official presence on the social Web (Twitter for a start, but also Facebook, and others as the social discussion continues to expand to other platforms)
Cross-team collaboration and coordination
Flexibility of internal processes to help facilitate and not impede issue resolution
Executive buy-in and support (this can grow over time)

Taking the First Step
The first step is rarely the easiest. Confronting the unknown can be daunting if you don’t have perspective on what the universe of possibilities and options is. Like many things in this space, for socialCRM, it’s better to take things slow, gain an understanding of what people are saying about your company, and really dive into the cause and effect relationship between a customer’s experience and their expression of that experience. This first step is more commonly known as, “Listening,” — and while it does involve finding what people are saying about the brand online, it also involves more than just passively gathering intelligence. Companies must develop the ability to both listen and take action based on the ongoing conversations. Since listening alone can become an exercise of increased paranoia that doesn’t lead anywhere, successful companies build listening into an overall process that eventually leads to action and resolution.

Activating a Social Engagement Program

1) Quantify the level of discussion about your brand online by individuals – a Twitter search can give you a baseline of the discussion, but search other platforms as well to get a broader view

2) Measure the overall sentiment about your brand or product online (there are a number of tools for this)

3) Identify the top three to five issues people have with your brand each day; keep track of the specific words that are used to express those issues – they’ll come in handy in your SEM work

4) Take a handful of the issues, making up a representative sample by issue type, from the entire group of issues

5) Analyze each of the issues and the profile of the person who raised the issue initially

6) Map an engagement and resolution plan for each issue – don’t engage yet, but map the ideal or probable resolution path

7) Once you’ve accounted for a clear resolution path within the company to quickly get the issue addressed and resolved, then you can begin to activate a proactive program for addressing these issues on a broader scale

This exercise imparts initial and valuable insight into the realities of the social media sphere – both within the company, regarding its ability to resolve an issue through traditional channels, and outside the company, as it gauges the overall volume and tone of the discussions. With this understanding, companies can begin to map a path forward for the social CRM program.

In the next post, I’ll map the structure of a social media program that’s built to address customer issues in real-time, some of the challenges and how the social customer is the responsibility of the entire organization and should be the basis of any sustainable program.

(Originally posted Sept 2010 on FleishmanDNA blog.)

SocialCRM: Redefining Influence & Building Trust

Posted on January 5, 2011January 5, 2011 by bradmays

Few things can undermine a brand’s reputation faster over the next few years than the rolling wave of customer discontent expressed in social channels. We’re seeing it with routine product launches as well as major corporate missteps — but just as damaging are the unattended, ‘percolating’ individual complaints about a brand, some of which are related, and some of which are only similar complaints about separate incidents. Regardless of the context, one thing is clear – over time they will erode consumer trust in the brands they do business with.

Influential Shifts – Redefining “Friend”

Reports of peer recommendations and online reviews influencing consumer purchases grow each year. Something that’s also expanding is the definition of a “friend.” What used to be considered someone you grew up with, know personally or have at least met in person is now shifting to someone whose updates you get regularly letting you know where they are, what they’re doing or what they’re thinking. While the definition and channel for connecting has shifted, the value we put in these relationships hasn’t. Friends in the virtual sense have just as much, and sometimes more, influence as our friends in the traditional sense. And, the channels of communication (social media enabled by cell phones and free wifi connections) and speed at which those conversations happen has increased exponentially. Brands that hold on to traditional definitions of friends and influences will continue to find themselves at a disadvantage. Truly listening to and addressing these customer conversations in social media must become a greater focus of successful companies’ marketing efforts. Through this three-part series, I’ll outline some of the basic tenants of what’s being called social CRM and our approach to addressing the increased volume we’re seeing about brands in social media.

Making the Case for Social CRM

The challenge of social media is the high degree of visibility and the volume of consumer opinions. The fleeting advantage brands have today is that many of these conversations aren’t organized, and their searchability is limited to a few datasets – namely Twitter and blogs. But, even in this limited set, these conversations are having an impact. The growing disadvantage is that many more of these conversations are becoming searchable, and the growing use of review sites like Yelp and location-based applications will continue to elevate many of these conversations, taking them farther into the social web, and directly into the collective consumer consciousness and perception about brands.

A common argument I hear is that it’s human nature to complain and that most people will see these complaints as one-sided rants that most people will see through. The truth is that many customers who are drawn in to the negative comment strings are also finding real, relevant information to inform their opinions and purchasing decisions. For social media-aware brands, these discussions provide an opportunity to become part of the conversation, taking complaints head-on, working to address them and building a closer connection with consumers. And, if done right, these conversations are also a valuable source of feedback and insight to make tangible operational changes and shifts.

Addressing the Good and the Bad

To take full advantage of this open dialogue, a company must first be willing to address both the negative and the positive. They must be able to resolve warranty complaints from one set of customers before trying to sell a new washing machine to another.

Can the proactive happen before the reactive? Yes, and some brands have the right set of assets to start the conversation at the point of sale. But, for most brands, whether they have a strong base of brand advocates or are struggling to regain a positive brand image, their best approach is to understand the conversation, recognize what customers want from them and begin a plan to address the entirety of the conversation happening about them in social media. What brands will find is that in order to grow their brand in social media and gain the advantages those channels offer, having their house in order and being able to assist customers with legitimate issues is necessary before they can actively engage in promotion or commerce.

In the next installment of this series, I’ll outline our approach to addressing the increased volume we’re seeing about brands in social media.

(Originally posted Aug 2010 on FleishmanDNA blog)

Twitter Catching Facebook in Total Actively Engaged Audience, and Other Observations

Posted on December 20, 2010December 20, 2010 by bradmays

The nice people at DigitalSurgeons.com put out an infographic back in October showing a comparison of Twitter and Facebook use (and it was just called to my attention). With the holidays upon us and the number of people helping their friends and cousins sign up for Facebook, I wanted to focus on some of these numbers as they stand today, or as they were at the beginning of this quarter. The graphic shows some interesting things about use of these platforms.

The fact is, while these two platforms are the dominant players when we look at social media, they are still relatively new, and the way people use them, how they use them, why they use them and where they use them continues to evolve. Here are a few of my take-aways:

1) I swear I saw a stat over the past year or so that said 80 percent of people update their Twitter accounts via mobile. So, generally, the mobile numbers, while still significant, seem a little low to me. And, with the continued climb in smart phone adoption, we’re likely to see these numbers climb.

2)  In the “Brand followers will purchase that specific brand” category. I wonder if there isn’t an element of “have purchased that specific brand” and what are the motivations for following that brand on Facebook. It would be interesting to see a break-out on the percentages. I wonder if part of that category (although small) is a result of people turning to social media for customer service questions. As more companies integrate customer service into these channels, those numbers will likely climb.

3) And, most interesting to me, when you look at the “Update their status every day” category, while Facebook has more users, there are almost as many people who are active on Twitter everyday as there are on Facebook. (55 MM for Twitter, 60 MM for Facebook) This is balanced, however with the “Login everyday” category where Facebook as 205 MM daily logins vs Twitter’s 29 MM. The argument to all of this is that people use the platforms differently. But, do the numbers mean that Twitter is a more active channel and Facebook is a more passive one? If so, does that impact your marketing approach?

Now that we’re all gathering for the holidays, we’ll start to see these numbers climb again. Anything else pop out at you in the numbers? Anything I missed?

Disclaimer: I’m not a statistician. And, I wasn’t a math major, so feel free to check my numbers.

Mobilisms Labs: Chevy @ SXSW 2010 – Location-based Engagement

Posted on November 9, 2010November 9, 2010 by bradmays

This past spring we worked with our client Chevrolet to re-envision the concept of a sponsorship. In a world with multi-million-dollar stadium naming rights, athlete shoe endorsements and primetime television buys, Chevy wanted to bring something different to the SXSW experience. And, it started there – with an experience. That theme guided every decision and ran through every program tactic at the conference. It also influenced how Chevy experimented with technology – which the brand recognized as an opportunity to surprise and engage the tech-savvy and trend-savvy crowd that congregates at SXSW.

The mobile execution focused on using those technologies to create an experience or to enable or enhance one. Most of the technologies we used then are quickly becoming mainstream. From the use of QR codes to make a connection to mobile information, to location-based services that can engage and give the brand an opportunity to interact with people.

Chevy’s SXSW Gowalla Experiment
One of the technologies we used last year isGowalla. The goal for the Gowalla program, and much of Chevrolet’s presence there, was to bring something to the attendee experience that wouldn’t be there otherwise. To experiment with a “what-if” attitude that brought forward new technologies and new ways to engage to let the community decide what they liked, what they didn’t and how to improve it.

The Chevrolet Gowalla program included the following elements.

A welcome message when passengers arrived and checked in at the Austin airport.
A special offer for a select few who checked in, offering them a free ride to their hotel in an awaiting Chevrolet.
Specific location markers in the game for the Chevy Volt Recharge Lounge and the Chevy Ride & Drive spot.
A unique item that could be found in the game and redeemed for a Hot Wheels Camaro or Corvette at the Chevy Volt Recharge Lounge in the convention center.
A Chevy Walking Trip of select Austin landmarks that show Austin’s unique culture, which upon completion of the trip was also redeemable for a Hot Wheels car at the Chevy Volt Recharge Lounge.

What we Learned

Since this was a first for all of us, there were a lot of unknowns when we began the program. And I can say that we’ve just scratched the surface on the implications of these technologies for brands.

We showed that a big brand can integrate into consumers’ lives in a relevant way
- We didn’t force users to embrace the technology, instead we created an experience by plugging into technologies that the community was already using
We were able to create something fun for users to do (free rides from the airport, downtown walking tour, collecting items) which made it an experience, rather than just a message
We learned that these applications can drive people from one location to another with a specific call to action (offering a redeemableitem at one location for completing the walking trip or finding a game item at another location)
Word of mouth helped spread news of the program organically, supplementing blog posts about the program on SXSW.com
We mapped anonline/mobile experience to an offline experience with a genuine pay-off for the participant

In the end, we were able to learn about the opportunities these platforms hold for brands and their value in extending a mobile, online experience offline where a transaction can take place. We will take these learnings into account as we plan and build next year’s SXSW location-based experience.

By the numbers

In all, we learned a lot from the program, and it generally reflected well on the brand. Some of the hard metrics include:

Several hundred people saw the Chevy welcome message when they checked in at the airport
40+ people completed the downtown walking trip – putting it among the top most-completed trips on Gowalla at the time
Close to 75 Hot Wheels cars were redeemed at the Volt Recharge Lounge
730 check-ins by446 people at the Volt Recharge Lounge – second most check-ins behind the SXSW badge pick-up location

While the numbers in aggregate tell one story, the overall message is that a brand can use these channels to engage in a way that people appreciate. With more access, greater integration and new offers, these numbers will rise.

Conclusion
Location provides a third dimension to social media that will continue to heat up over the next several months. In that time, we’ll also see a huge push by the wireless industry to increase the speed and ubiquity of their networks. This will bring more access at greater speeds over phones that continue to become the center of a consumer’s lifestyle. The GPS capabilities of these phones that will fuel the mobile-social firestorm will also likely go through a firestorm of their own for security and privacy reasons. But through it all these mobile applications will continue to be the bridge between online and offline social interactions – both for individual consumers and the brands that are trying to reach them.

(Originally posted on Mobilisms.com)

What we’ve got here is … failure to communicate

Posted on November 2, 2010November 8, 2010 by bradmays

I recently spoke at the Location-based Marketing Summit. If there’s one area where everyone is polishing their crystal balls, it’s in the future of location. And, inevitably, the discussion turned to monetization. As you can imagine, the first source for monetization that began to echo through the conference was advertising. As I pointed out when I spoke, I like a paycheck as much as the next guy, but I wish there was a little more delay before we start to see an advertising discussion start around new platforms. A little more time to let the concept breathe, and more thought put into how to use the platform for true, rather than artificial engagement. What I’m seeing, whether it’s at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference, or at the Location-based Marketing Summit is a conversation that is starting to be dominated with an advertising voice – whether that’s from ad networks, technology providers or agencies and brands themselves. It’s becoming predictable that, before the conversation begins about how people will actually use the new medium, how the platform will grow a community and what role the technology means in the greater context, someone in the back of the room stands up and asks about the ad creative dimensions. I was reminded of this by the news/rumor that Twitter will begin to push ads into a users Twitter stream. Twitter has a couple of years on the location platforms, but it’s still at a critical point in its evolution. Is it that pushing ads into the experience is the only way to help get to its monetization goals, or is it a lack of creativity – on Twitter’s part or the part of the brand and their agencies – that other alternatives haven’t been explored? Like anything, if you try to force it into the experience, the community will react negatively. But, the last two offerings I’ve seen from Twitter that point to a monetization effort have been (paid) promoted Tweets and now potentially ads in the Twitter stream. I think there needs to be more innovation on the part of the platform to find new and interesting ways to build an experience, rather than defaulting to advertising as a go-to strategy. Admittedly, it’s difficult for me to give Twitter too much of a hard time for this. I’m not the one sitting across the table having to justify my existence with investors, and they now face a similar challenge as Facebook with a platform that’s interwoven into the fabric of the social media experience. I just hope that more opportunities for innovation and experimentation can lead the conversation and be given as much credence as monetization through advertising.

(There are any number of holes in this, so if you feel like weighing in, make sure to let me have it in the comments.)

UPDATE: In the spirit of fairness, here is an account from AdAge of Twitter in-stream ads as told by a user who has them.