I was recently interviewed on iTV-Asia's "Advertising and Marketing in China" program, hosted by Tom Doctoroff. Tom gave me an opportunity to talk about how companies are using Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) for more informed and effective market communications.

The video can be a bit slow, but hopefully you will find it worth the wait.

We are always excited to see brands come up with initiatives which enable them to actually participate in consumers' online discussions and communities.

Recently, we saw that KFC launched a branded channel on Baidu Zhidao, a popular online Q&A service. The channel provides a platform for consumers to discuss nutrition. Of course there might be questions to what degree consumers would give credibility of a nutrition channel sponsored by a fast food restaurant, however, we see this an interesting step. We are also beginning to see companies place official representatives on Baidu Post bar.

We see participation on Baidu's Post Bar and Zhidao as interesting because such a step gives the company a voice in IWOM. The most common ways up to now to have a voice is either to have a corporate blog or have a branded community. Baidu is clearly positioning itself to offer a third option on one of the hottest properties on the Chinese internet.

The original article from CIC watch is below.

Summary
KFC and Baidu set up “KFC nutrition page” on Baidu Zhidao beginning one month ago, which offers a platform for netizens to discuss KFC nutrition related questions. Within one month, it has received nearly 1,400 topics. In addition, KFC has promoted this campaign on its offline materials such as tray sheets.

Sample Quote

百度知道也由线上主题推广到线下品牌宣传。肯德基每天巨大的人流量，这个宣传作用是可想而知的。 (link)
Baidu Zhidao started promotion offline, there are huge number of KFC consumers everyday, the promotion effect should be great.
不是很关心这种些,都喜欢炒一下 (link)
I don’t care about these, too sensational.
怎么没有和M合作呀，我比较喜欢吃M (link)
Why didn’t Baidu cooperate with M (McDonald’s), I prefer M.

CIC View
KFC has promoted its nutrition concept for many years to set up a healthy image to counter its “junk” food perception. This time, it has a standard Chinese web 2.0 tool to “participate” in customers’ discussion. Within one month, more than 88% questions have been answered and the most welcomed question received almost 40 replies, which show an impressive degree of customers’ acceptance and participation.

Below is a screen shot of the index for the full IWOM watch report

Other CIC watch related posts that may be of interest:
CIC Watch Half-Year Review released (download the full report)
CIC watch: "You" - Time's Person of the Year - also lives in China (download the full report)
IWOM Watch August 1-15: Baidu Post Bar Crushing Machines

I have recently spoken a quite bit on the topic of IWOM, and it is looking like I will be speaking even more in the near future. We are definitely seeing a growing interest in what we do.

August 17th: Lnoppen 3rd Annual Competitive Intelligence China Summit
For a group of competitive intelligence professionals from Dow, Dupont and other impressive companies, I presented an overview of our technology and methodology for utilizing text mining of BBS and Blog messages for market intelligence.

September 13th-14th: China Youth Branding and Marketing Forum

This 2-day forum includes Harry Hui from Pepsi, Tom Doctoroff from JWT, Paul Pi from Adidas and Jon Briggs from TNS and some other pretty impressive speakers. I'll be speaking about how IWOM media, including blogs and BBS, are THE windows and channels for youth today in China.

September 19th: Beijing AmCham's Under the Digital Influence: Eight Experts Examine the Online Scene in China

I will be on an panel with some people who are much smarter than me, including David Wolf who is behind the brilliant Silicon Hutong and Andrew Lih who I have not met before, but have heard much about. Matt Roberts, from About.com, will be moderating. David has a nice summary of the event here as does Imagethief here.

October 17th: Adtech Beijing
I will be leading a panel around IWOM which will include the aforementioned David Wolf, as well as Village Grouch Steven Schwankert as well Yu Hong, the digital marketing director from Intel.

In addition to the above, it looks like I will be speaking at what looks to be a very cool event focused on online communities in China. More later on this.

If you are attending any of these events, I hope to see you there.

In the last year, as we have developed deeper relationships with our clients and as have come to really understand the power and impact of IWOM, we have begun to talk about the need for our clients to have a position of IWOM manager. This person would be familiar with the key online communities and blogs related to the client. Even more, the person would work to develop relationships with the forum administrators, bloggers and forum owners to help communicate and translate the client's messages and voice into the world of IWOM through authentic communication and engagement. Most importantly, this person would work in the organization at the cross section of PR, marketing, market research, media, advertising and even product development to ensure IWOM is integrated systematically and strategically.

What is validating is that such there are already such positions in the U.S. Do a search on Indeed.com, a job board aggregator, for "social media" and you will find 552 jobs (as of September 1, 2007), many of which are for social media managers. (I am using social media instead of IWOM because it is a more common term in the US).

Here is as sample job for Sony Playstation:

Sony PlayStation®: Manager, Social Media
Foster City, California

We are seeking a Public Relations Manager for our Social Media efforts located in Foster City, CA. The manager will support the PR Managers, PR Team and Department in all areas of Public Relations to include: Creation and execution of PR Plans to support the Social Media Program, driving content creation for Social Media program, idea generation for PR plans and programs/campaigns for all facets of communication team efforts. In addition, the PR Manager will need to support, coordinate and drive PR agencies and various vendors to deliver on planned programs and production elements decided by PR Manager and PR Team. PR Manager will need to excel in relationship development with key members of Social Media outlets/bloggers, enthusiast, consumer and business media, including other SCEA departments and both internal and external developers. PR Manager will be expected to execute on strategic (both reactive and proactive) programs to gain media mind share and understanding of the platforms and how they relate to overall industry news.

Responsibilities:

* Support efforts for Social Media Program including creation, idea generation and execution of Social Media program and communication tools.
* Create necessary PR materials and appropriate content for inclusion in SCEA Social Media Program, including policies, procedures, plans, editorial calendar and various forms of Web 2.0 content.
* Complete projects with minimal supervision and direction and be able to manage up to Sr. PR Managers/Directors, as well as keep the entire team up-to-date on the various programs that the PR Manager is working on.
* Participate in creative brainstorming among both internal and external PR Teams, and provide active feedback and creative ideas.
* Build relationships with Social Media enthusiasts, key constituencies, new consumer, business and enthusiast media targets, and foster those relationships into generating attention for platforms and first party line-up.
* Support development and execution of community efforts in relation to Social Media program.
* Coordinate media and tracking procedures for Social Media program.
* Interact effectively with other departments within SCEA and various vendors.

Even industry analyst firms such as Forrester are recognizing this. Jeremiah Owyang, Web Strategy über blogger recently accepted a position a position with Forrester as "Senior Analyst focused on Social Computing and Interactive Marketing."

As I was drafting this post, I found that Nathan Gilliatt had beaten me to the punch with this idea, citing Steve Rubel's "Geek Marketers" which is worth a read. Like any good blogger, I will liberally copy and paste some of Nathan's writing to supplement my ideas.

BrandWeek's Steve Miller interviewed Toyota's Bruce Ertmann: Toyota CGM exec monitors the good, the blog, and the ugly (via Josh Hallett):

As corporate manager of consumer-generated media at the Torrance, Calif.-based automaker, Ertmann constantly trolls the Web to see what people are saying... Although other car companies also have people who track and write blogs, Ertmann's title is believed to be the first in the U.S. auto trade.

Meanwhile, across the pond, BMW seeks new media PR manager:

The job recognizes the increasing blur between traditional marketing and public relations as well as challenges presented by dynamic new communication channels. Monitoring, managing and influencing public commentary via new media is a skill set that BMW lists as important.

From what we see happening on the front lines here in China, we think it's only a matter of time before the trend arrives here, confirming the strategic importance of IWOM to any the marketing and communications.

It made my day to see that I was awarded "Model Worker" by Danwei. Danwei is a great blog covering media in China, including IWOM media such as BBS and blogs. It is really an honor to be recognized by Danwei and to be included in the same company as Imagethief, MadisonBoom, and Digital Watch in the "Advertising, Marketing and PR" category as well as ESWN, Silicon Hutong, Billsdue and China Web 2.0 Review in other categories.

Find the Chinese Division here.