Whether it’s Google’s fault or not, the web is getting smarter. The technology itself is moving toward a place where it understands more about who you are as a user, and what it’s showing you inside of your browser. Years from now these developments will have a profound effect on web experience for users, and it will have a profound effect on the economics of online influence for marketers. What will it all look like?

Search becomes Artificial Intelligence. Right now, search engines merely seek to show you something relevant to the keywords you typed in based on much-guarded, mysterious, and ever-changing algorithms. But these algorithms are limited because they are based on keywords, and as even Shakespeare lamented, words have their limitations. As the semantic web becomes a reality, search engine technology will break free of words and actually gain an essential understanding of what web pages ARE - beyond the words on them. This will make search engines more like a search “brain”, which will be able to synthesize the web to meet your needs - once it understands what those needs are.

Your identity unlocks your web. But even if next-generation search engines understand the web better than ever before, the understanding of what you need is still limited to the keywords you input, right? Well, there are big changes there as well. OpenID is the movement to unlock your identity from the websites where it is most established (think LinkedIn, Facebook, or MySpace profiles) and make it portable, such that when you arrive at a new website it will be able to know who you are. This goes beyond solving the inconvenience of managing a multitude of login profiles - it means that websites could understand your interests, your web usage, your shopping habits (provided you let them). The implications are sweeping. The web can then unfold itself to you in a way that it doesn’t for anyone else, and the gatekeepers for making that happen will be the next-generation search engine. Google and others will eventually know you, and know the web, such that it might at times seem as if it is reading your mind.

The web as one big social network. If you unlock your identity from any specific website, it follows that you will also be able to unlock your social connections in the same way. An unlocked set of connections that you have to other people is often referred to as your “social graph.” You may be thinking how nice it will be that you won’t have to put all that work in to “friend” people as much, you’ll only have to do it once and then you can take it with you. Actually, the way that is done will change too. Friending will cease to be the main means of establishing your social graph. You see, the communication technology you are using (for older folks it is email, for younger folks it is IM and texting) is listening. It’s learning who you communicate with and how often, and about the length and nature of that communication. It knows more about your true social graph than you probably do, and in the future it will be able to make that graph portable and attach it to your now-portable identity. Signs of this happening are already evident. Google’s OpenSocial platform and Social Graph API are great indicators.

The web experience in 2015 will be one where you take your identity and your network with you, and semantic search engines and websites will respond (if you let them) by showing you where your friends are and what content most meets your needs.

How does this affect online influence and marketing? Some of that is already being explored by the folks who are dealing with marketing in the insulated social networking environments that exist today. The successes and failures there are being well documented and adding to professional understanding of best and worst practices, so I won’t try to cover that ground here.

The key thing to understand about this 2015 vision is that in the future social networks won’t be a side attraction to the main flow of information on the Internet - they will be the Internet. Those who explore and begin to understand the dynamics of that new environment by playing in it today will be well-positioned to lead, while others may be left behind.

Flight cancellations from American Airlines created a lot of news coverage and consumer angst this week. The result of wiring problems on MD-80 airplanes, this situation got me thinking about how the involved communications teams are responding.
Are they holding cards close to the vest or communicating openly?
Are they leveraging the Internet and social media?
How are consumers reacting online?
 
American Airlines’ customers have been highly inconvenienced, with over 2500 flights cancelled. Their home page had a single line: “ADVISORY: AIRCRAFT INSPECTIONS AFFECT SOME AA TRAVEL.” This linked to a simple page of text summarizing the situation. It was not all that helpful.
 
American Airlines’ chairman Gerard Arpey’s press conference today is already up on YouTube (uploaded by a consumer, not American Airlines). In the video, he personally accepts responsibility and apologizes for the problems. Other videos tagged with “American Airlines” posted on YouTube.com this week have been viewed over 20,000 times.

In the blogosphere, Greta van Susteren’s post on the subject has created a good amount of consumer conversation with nearly 50 responses since 11am this morning.

These events show how consumer conversations take place in real time online. Communication professionals need to account for this in crisis communications plans. We need to monitor, analyze and interact with the blogosphere and UGC communities before, during and after such events.
 
As advisors in social media, we have a responsibility to encourage and facilitate a more open conversation in the market. This is even more important in difficult times.

Social marketing, as a realm that many brands are just starting to explore, is bound to feature many missteps as we learn what to do and what not to do. Nothing is more educational than failure, and just to make sure that failure isn’t you it’s a great idea to watch and learn from what other people are trying.

This was the theme of a recent panel discussion at South by Southwest Interactive here in Austin. Social marketing specialists from across the nation gathered to discuss, and have the audience vote, on the worst social media campaigns of the past year. Offenders ranged from Molson to Rudy Giuliani, and the awards had over 20 nominees.

The important thing was not who was the worst or what the particular offenses were (most of them have been removed from the web already), but why the efforts were failures. After listening to the nominees I believe that the mistakes break down into five areas - the five lessons of social marketing disaster:

1. Don’t be a brand control freak

Nothing panics you faster as a brand manager than someone else requisitioning your carefully crafted brand image and completely recasting on the web. The first impulse is to call the legal department, but unfortunately that will just make it worse. Once your brand image has become part of the social world it no longer belongs to you, and rather than fighting against the way someone might mash it up you have to look for positive opportunities to ride that wave of free, participatory marketing.

2. Be transparent

Many of the most damaging things brand did to themselves among the cases reviewed had to do with secretive behavior. Blogs, Facebook groups, or Youtube videos that pretend to be consumer-driven but have corporate marketing dollars behind them are exposed 99% of the time, and they can be extremely difficult to recover from once the resulting online revolt begins. If you pay for something, make sure it’s clear you did so, and make sure you expose as much about what you are doing behind the scenes as you can. The more open you can be, the better.

3. Don’t enter the objectivity zones

There are places on the social web where marketers marketing aren’t welcome, under any circumstances. Just as in the offline world, there are outlets that pride themselves on their objectivity, and these communities often police themselves very effectively. Most of these areas are open and participatory in nature, so they can be a temptation to individual marketers. Wikipedia is one such destination. Entries in Wikipedia that contain bias are quickly exposed and rolled back to previous versions, and if it’s discovered that a corporate marketer was involved it is likely that the effort will be publicized and panned on the open web. Know the landscape.

4. Stick with it

The word “campaign” can be a bad word in the world of social marketing. A campaign by its very definition has a time limit, and when a social marketing “program” launches it needs to have a minimum lifetime that matches the scope of the audience it is reaching. A successfully established social environment will weave itself into the fabric of its users’ lives, so if it is jerked away or cut off prematurely it can leave them disenchanted. That also severs a valuable connection for you. The best way to approach a new program is to make an ample commitment and leave yourself an option to continue it indefinitely. Hopefully you’ll have the opportunity to take that option.

5. Don’t ignore it

In the featured examples there were 20 or so brands that tried, and failed, at a social marketing effort. They were guilty of doing it wrong, but there are hundreds if not thousands of brands guilty of not doing it at all. At the very minimum you should be listening to what the social web is saying about you. At this point, you should probably also be planning a foray to get you into the mix - you can be assured that your competitors likely are. The sooner you start the more you begin understanding the vagaries of how the social web works within your category, your brand, and you can start building a conversation with your customers. That learning, and that conversation, is invaluable.

(Photo Credit: Bonnie Martin)

The South by Southwest Interactive festival is starting up in Austin today and continuing for the next few days, with a host of keynotes and panels that will appeal to web designers, developers, and businesspeople alike.

Powered will be rolling out some folks that fit in all of those various categories to attend the proceedings, but here are just a few good panel picks just for marketers relevant to the social space. Keep in mind that they are producing audio recordings of every keynote and panel, and these will be available after it’s all over.

The Suxorz: The Worst Ten Social Media Campaigns of 2007 - 3.8 @ 11:30
Likely to serve up some valuable lessons in terms of what not to do

The Art of Speed: Conversations with Monster Makers - 3.8 @ 3:30
A take on viral and social marketing from web pioneers

Social Marketing Strategies Metrics: Where Are They? - 3.8 @ 5:00
Marketing thought leaders get “real” when it comes to investing in social initiatives

Social Strategies for Revolutionaries - 3.9 @ 11:30
“You’ll need to combine a radical’s spirit with a strategic framework to get your company to act.”

Sunday Keynote Speaker - Mark Zuckerberg - 3.9 @ 2:00
This young CEO and his company Facebook are challenging for social dominance

Social Networking and Your Brand - 3.10 @ 11:30
Understanding this relationship has been the genesis of social commerce