We’re in Montreal this week with our ever-delightful and engaged friends at Infopresse presenting “The Food Industry and Social Media”.

Always enjoy our trips to Montreal and always impressed with the “lean-forward-ness” of the Infopresse audience. April 14th is the date at the Park Hyatt Regency Montreal.

Hopefully we can parlay some of the leanings from our book Wikibrands alongside our command of great social media done well in Food, to educate and trade conversations with an engaged audience.

I’ll be sharing the stage with other fellow foodie/business potentates - Luc Durand from Ipsos Descarie, Pierre-Bernard Dow Blanchet from Taxi and Patrice Resther from Haussmann Conseil to give a full 360 degree view of how to do business in “alimentation” for 2010 and beyond.

Please feel free to chat with us after the session as we have dedicated the afternoon to meeting some of Montreal’s finest digital players, progressive marketeers and engaged business people.

An invite and referral-only gathering of style-conscious tastemakers, innovation brokers, culture-savvy trendspotters & seriously connected ringleaders who live, work, play & think ahead of the mainstream.

the big idea:
The future is already here, it’s just not widely distributed yet. Less than 4% of the population are true trailblazers of culture - the people that develop incredibly creative or innovative stuff or the people that spot the best stuff first. They are incredible allies for brands trying to build crowdsourced content and creative, sparks for innovation research and seed ambassadors for new launches. TrendCity is the first Canadian-focused network of thousands of these early-adopting people.

elements:
Email newsletter and Insight Blog - exposure among leading Canadian people, places and things
“Wall of Orange” Trendspotter Network - a database of informed early market movers
“Wall of Purple” Tastemaker Network - a hothouse of creative talent and ideasparks
Trend Reports - periodic and customized reports on marketplace and cultural trends
TrendCity Beta Testers - feedback from informed market tastemakers
TrendCity Launching Pad - twice-yearly live event platform for launching products
TrendCity Consulting - workshops and private events on creative ideas and insight on what’s next

benefits:
- superior concept research
- advance testing group
- seeded tastemaker and trendspotter exposure
- innovation stimulus
- seeded and credible ambassadors
- marketplace insight

scope:
- Geography - Canada - Major Cities
- Timing - All year - April and September events, November professional event
- Scale - 5,000 qualified trendspotters/tastemakers

the right partners:
- New launches
- Buzz industries –i.e. entertainment/fashion
- Tech, gadgets, hardware and wireless
- Innovation and insight chasers
- Premium brands and exclusive products
- User-generated content seekers
- Non-traditional exploratory techniques

contact:
Agent Wildfire - Canada’s Word of Mouth Experts www.agentwildfire.com 416-255-4500

the big idea:
The good stuff on web is still local. And while there are plenty of local media stops that cater to entertainment, music, real estate, dining out, tourist locales…etc., nothing that we have found caters to local active life. Big opportunity. Not only are these people passionate, they are also an incorrigibly social, high income, high educated bunch…and they are waiting to discover your next big thing (i.e. trip, purchase, prized gear, exclusive experience). Generation Go provides the platform to be discovered by these people.

elements:
Community - a targeted influencer community of active people that can be harnessed for variety of benefits
Blog - a local insider blog that surfaces unique neighborhood experiences, events, personalities, sales, getaways and gear
Email Nerwsletter - a periodic content and sponsored email that surfaces the best stuff to get off the couch and …out there
Passport - a seasonally relevant passport pocket guide to the best in the city
Campaign Go-Licious - a concentrated period of grassroots events, promotion and outreach to people who want to get active
Go Events/Experiences - special events that appeal to the competitive, charitable and corporate teams of the city
Go Directory - a local listing of the best active venues in the city

7 Channels of Activity
- adventure
- fitness
- health
- gear and style
- outdoors
- play
- sports

the benefits:
- An extremely valuable grassroots active audience
- Multiple sponsorable touchpoints
- Local activation of campaigns and marketing efforts
- A unique city-based online and live world forum
- Category-exclusive sponsorship opportunities
- Corporate social responsibility for healthy living, outdoors/environment and community participation

scope:
- Geography - Toronto (Vancouver in late 2010 and Montreal in early 2011)
- Timing - All year - with concentrated Spring and Fall activity windows
- Scale - 1000s of influencers exposed, 7 different touchpoints

the right clients:
- an adventurous, fitness or health-seeking target customer
- an active pursuit, vacation or getaway
- a new product or service launch
- a seasonally relevant activity or campaign
- a campaign for improved health, fitness, sustainability or urban renewal
- an upcoming launch party, competition or charity event
- a breakthrough product/product feature

url:
www.gengo.ca

contact:
Agent Wildfire - Canada’s Word of Mouth Experts www.agentwildfire.com 416-255-4500

We recognized that at least initially this prospective client was seeing us as some glorified variant of a CRM firm or perhaps even lower in the food chain - a customer headhunter. Nothing could be further from the point.

Unfortunately, given the lack of exposure for anything that isn’t mass media driven or social media trendy, marketers and industry professionals aren’t getting enough training, coaching or intellectual curiosity to discover the “real world, out there.” Agent Wildfire is trying to change that.

Here’s why you should care.

Fact - Word of mouth is the #1 growth engine in marketing. Don’t take our word for it, take theirs.

Fact - Word of mouth is the #1 thing linked to business growth. Don’t take our word for it, take theirs.

Fact - Word of mouth is growing. It’s more trusted and more beneficial in this economy. Once again, we’ll lean on others to make our arguments for us. But we have a great presentation ourselves if you need back up.

Fact - As much as social media has become the jewel in the digital crown and an important breeding ground for word of mouth contagion and cool stuff, more than 80% of word of mouth happens offline. You need to know how to affect these conversations too. Once again, others will support.

Even for people that overcome their standoffishness, they need to understand what word of mouth marketing and media really is vs. the much more streamlined TV buy process “make commercial, buy media, air in chunks of 30 or 60 seconds”.

Here it is unplugged then. Although we’ve counted up to 29 different types of programs we actually execute with many different audiences, objectives and timelines, the stripped down version of what we do rests on 8 sequential activities that we’ve conveniently put into the acronym WILDFIRE.

What’s the Big, Buzzworthy Idea - does this make me want to get involved?

In a separate post, we have detailed the 36 reasons why people buzz - we develop conversation-inducing themes and stories that tap into these motivations and grab people by the heart, brain or wallet and make them notice, talk about and advocate the program and underlying brand(s). Most agencies don’t focus on the repeatability of a message or longevity of engagement but instead focus on how to convince you as an individuals that the brand is purchasable right there and then. Missed oppportunity - they rent your audiences, we build them.

Influencer outreach and engagement

We find and invite your 6 types of influencers (recruited depending on your objective) and get them enthused about what your doing. They become our front row seeded audience that delivers effective early insight, ambassadorship and content. It’s tough investigative work with a lot of sweat equity. Most agencies and firms in our area, don’t even bother to subscribe a different level of importance on their target population, we do. It involved knowledge of who they are, what motivates them, who do they know, how do they feel important and what keeps them involved.

Laying the groundwork - building the platform, tools and networked extensions

We construct, host and administer the key web platform, tools, widgets, social media, mobile and offline prongs to your community or campaign, ensuring it has the best chance of getting noticed and spotted, rebroadcasted, mashuped and referred. This can take on many shapes but importantly, the technology involved in anything word of mouth is typically less than 20% of the overall equation. These are not templated approaches but require a marriage of a number of talents we call the Unagency.Tech firms and specialists would suggest a “build it and they must come” attitude and with most agencies, the web is an afterthought. We take the middle ground approach.

Deliver an experience - before you ask people to get others excited, they have to get excited themselves

It’s a cardinal WOM rule - what’s in it for them. Does your word of mouth initiative pass the sniff test. People don’t talk about average stuff they want stuff they can use as social currency to pass onto others. Delivering a transforming or immersive experience that make people appraise, reconsider and talk about the brand is what we do well. Although we love the efficiency of the web - we’re one of the only firms in this space that is media-agnostic, and for a lot of brands this means a physical touchpoint is required too. These experiences generally fall into six camps - brand sampling, event/experience, VIP preview/suctomization, special activity based, research advisor based or altruism-based.

Fan the flames of activity - get into the right places with the right motivations

A good percentage of people can drive traffic to a site - that’s the price of admission - we need to stoke something deeper. Revisits and rebroadcast is our business. How do we get people to care so deeply about something that they will be moved to act and involve their social circles. Oh, and do it again and again. Much tougher. Smart use of polls, memes, stories, collaboration work, user generated content, trivia, nomination, graduation, photos, videos, groups, messaging, lists are key factors….essentially answering the question what is the sweetspot between the brand wants and what the member wants.

Interact with the community - staff for dialogue

This neighborhood called word of mouth has many two-way streets. We staff up for the conversation based on either our own hires or extensions of our company called community managers - they stop communities and campaigns from becoming ghost towns. They bridge the role between company and customer and incubate the flow of conversation, buzz, content, recruitment and feedback. Here are the core 15 roles of community managers in programs we manage. In other agencies, this role is virtually non-existent leading to initial focus/interest followed by massive amounts of lapsed and disinterested users.

Research and feedback - getting to the insights and metrics

An important part of any marketing medium, particularly one in its adolescence is measuring what you do. From both the soft qualitative side and the hard quantitative side, we sift through the analytics, poll results, user submissions, referrals, redemptions and social media impressions to generate a sense of what impact we’re creating. Some food for thought here.

Expand the idea - life stage management and 1+1=3

Great communities and campaigns start with a simple idea and extend from there. Once we’ve developed traction on a new initiative, we like to add fuel to the fire. Informed by the research, we usually press our clients to add more features, more integration, more partners, more audiences, more geography and create a bigger inferno to support a growing universe. In particular, communities have a lifespan of their own - many don’t mature for 2-3 years and require constant tweeking, tilling and rotating to match the needs of their audiences at the time.

Simple, right? No.

Whereas we might agree this seems like simple kitchen science - there is an artistry in the details and an advantage in having lived in this world for so long on a dedicated basis.

When you’re looking for a firm in the word of mouth arena and the broader grassroots universe, they need the full body:

A heart - they have to have a passion for this stuff, WOM is for lovers and you’ve either got it or you don’t - ask the practitioner to show them their blog, their social network profiles and that they live in this space outside of the 9-to-5 rat race.

A brain - intelligently knowing how to link to a strategy and knowing where to step and not step is fundamentally important to being a trusted practitioner. Give the WOM suitor a chance - a light worded brief and a few days should be enough to know whether they can come back with strategic brilliance that makes intuitive sense or gimmicky fool’s gold that will be your marketing plan’s orphan child.

Arms and legs - having credibility and a foundation in the word of mouth space, pool of influencers and social media is necessary, plus an ability and capacity to reinvent and make brilliantly captivating and new stuff happen is the lifeblood of a word of mouth enterprise. Ask your WOM suitors what they’ve done to communities and campaigns to stretch dollars, exposure or engagement more than the client could themselves, how broad was their approach in generating offline and online conversations and how they dealt with adversity.

Instincts - knowing what might make a small idea, bigger and a big idea massive is a function of a partner vested in both the client’s business and the real world. Put them on the spot - ask what are there top 10 influences or inspirations in the WOM space - if you hear a lot of humming and hawing - they likely are pretenders and not bonafide WOM pros.

A strong gut - data plays a big role but at some point, information needs to lead to insight and insight needs to be coloured by the judgment of what will delight, surprise and motivate in the real world. When you receive a proposal back, at least one of their ideas should strike a human emotional chord that suggests the idea might be a runaway hit - if not, you are likely receiving the “paint by numbers, today it’s beer, tomorrow it’s soap” type of approach.

Before jumping on the bandwagon by creating a Facebook page or group for your organization or brand, consider some of the strengths and weaknesses.  In word of mouth and viral marketing these key details can make a difference in how an organization or product is perceived by onlookers, potential fans and group members.

THE PROS & CONS

Facebook Page

• More inviting to add posts/feels more interactive
• More corporate, less personalized
• Good SEO
• Need constant update on feed as stream is clearly visible
• Fan pages are visible to unregistered people
• Pages allow for rich applications such as video, photos, RSS feeds
• Members can subscribe to SMS
• Can house more diverse information through page feed
• Option for posting social ads
• Viewed as “new” and current
• Page icons get added to individual profiles once they become a member (more noticeable and visually appealing than being part of a Facebook Group)
• Unlimited amount of fans to send messages but message goes to “Update” which is a feed separate from the Facebook message inbox (may be less noticeable)
• Page has visitor statistics

Example of great Facebook Page:

http://www.facebook.com/search/?q=dna&init=quick#/dnaart?ref=ts

Facebook Group

• More personal, participating in a “group”
• Groups allow bulk invite (members can invite friends and they can invite their friends)
• Perhaps more trusted because users are comfortable/familiar with applications
• Ability to host an open, closed or secret group
• Minimal customization
• Description/contact/profile on top left corner, making the group easy to identify
• Not as visual as the Facebook Page
• Too much written text creates, “seawall of gray”
  
• You can see admins clearly – more transparent. Easy to contact them for information
• Message up to 5,000 group members and message will go straight into Facebook inbox

Example of active Facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/group.php?gid=49839014647

]]> http://www.spreadslikewildfire.com/2009/09/25/showdown-facebook-page-vs-facebook-group-pros-and-cons/feed/ http://www.spreadslikewildfire.com/2009/08/06/urban-reserve-launches-in-canada/ http://www.spreadslikewildfire.com/2009/08/06/urban-reserve-launches-in-canada/#comments Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:13:20 +0000 Allison Greenbaum http://www.spreadslikewildfire.com/?p=184

Urban Reserve Launches in Canada

Whether you are a tastemaker, savvy mom, a book worm or simply a wine lover – a new community is waiting for you!

Toronto, Thursday, August 6, 2009 – RJ Spagnols, Vincor Canada and Agent Wildfire have teamed up with other partners to create Urban Reserve (urbanreserve.ca), a community made up of trendy, savvy, connected wine enthusiasts that has just launched in Vancouver and Toronto. The launch kicked off with 60 key influencers in Vancouver and Toronto participating in wine nights at interesting urban restaurant venues Salt in Vancouver & Marben in Toronto.

Urban Reserve’s mission is to bring the vineyard to the city, celebrate the art of wine making and the love of drinking great wines from your very own backyard.

“Consumer made wine simply brings the vineyard to you,” said Tim Lang, Director of Marketing at RJ Spagnols.  “With all of the same quality ingredients as commercial wine, you also enjoy a fun, easy experience and excellent value for your money.”

In our first phase of this community over the summer, we are looking to build a network of thousands of culture-savvy urbanites in these four influential camps:

• Savvy Moms - the well-connected moms that are the centre of their city’s social events
• Urban ABCs - artists, bloggers and culture surfers that always operate a little ahead of the curve
• The City Literati - the well-read book clubbers and publisher’s dreams
• The Wine Enthusiasts – our catch-all for other people who love wine (but aren’t snobs about it) and don’t fit neatly into a tidy label

“The concept of getting fun, interesting people connected online and in live settings, sample a little bit of education with some great wine and host relevant lifestyle-oriented events is an extremely powerful word of mouth combination” said Sean Moffitt, President of Agent Wildfire.

In our introductory research session, the influencers didn’t know the wine they were drinking was consumer made wine.  In blind wine tastings, participants believed they were drinking $15+ wines – a significant product and value impression vs. the actual price of these products.

“The event was a huge success, I couldn’t believe I was drinking consumer made wine,” said one influencer from Vancouver. “I can’t wait to go start the process of making my own wine.”

Live in the city? Love wine? Like to learn and socialize? If this describes you, then the Urban Reserve wants you. How ’bout it, ready to join? Sign up at www.urbanreserve.ca .

For more information or sponsor inquiries:
Sean Moffitt, President, Agent Wildfire smoffitt@agentwildfire.com  416-255-4500
Jasmine Graham, WOM Program Leader, Agent Wildfire jasmine@agentwildfire.com 416-255-4500

A new, exciting and exclusive networking community for innovative and visionary business professionals is launching in Vancouver on Thursday, May 28 - and I’d like to extend a personal invitation for you to join.

YOU’RE INVITED TO JOIN THE LEAGUE OF KICKASS BUSINESS PEOPLE
The League of Kickass Business People is a collection of mid and senior level opinion leaders, headline stealers, trend spotters, tastemakers and rainmakers who live, work, play and think ahead of the mainstream. The group was established by Sean Moffitt, head of Agent Wildfire and one of Canada’s leading experts in word-of-mouth and social network marketing. There are already 800+ members in the group, mostly in Toronto where several successful events have been held. And now, Kickass is coming West!

KICKASS IN VANCOUVER
This month, an exclusive group of senior and mid-level digital, marketing and business visionaries are being invited to attend Vancouver’s inaugural event. We’d like to invite you to participate in this stylish and thought-provoking evening, to share ideas and build relationships with heavy hitters in Vancouver’s business community - scroll down to see some of the people already involved!

JOIN US ON MAY 28, 2009
On May 28, 2009, join us to kick-start the League of Kickass Business People in Vancouver. With the approach of 2010, many companies are trying to understand the impact and legacy of the games. The event will feature a panel discussion with several key 2010 companies conveying opportunities and stories around this historic moment in time. There will be plenty of opportunity for networking, and we’re also going to provide appetizers and beverages. We’re counting on you to keep the conversations going!

LAUNCH DETAILS
Date: Thursday, May 28, 2009
Location: Tribal DDB, 1600 – 777 W. Georgia Street

Networking: 6:00pm to 7:00pm
Introduction: 7:00pm to 7:15pm
Panel Discussion: 7:15pm to 8:15pm
Apres party: 8:15pm onwards

FEATURED PANELISTS

Lesli Boldt
Project Manager, 2010 Host City Communications
Olympic and Paralympic Operations
City of Vancouver

Lesli drives strategic communications and provides brand-related support for the City of Vancouver in its role as Host City for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

Kris Krug
President
Raincity Studios

An active blogger and widely renown social media expert, Kris has participated in several international economic leadership events in advance of the 2008 and 2010 Olympic Games.

Stay tuned for information on additional panelists!

MODERATOR

Phillip Djwa
Principal
Agentic Communications

Phillip is a seasoned speaker who, as an online communications and strategic planning consultant, possesses a strong understanding of the widespread issues and opportunities related to Vancouver’s hosting of the games in 2010.

PRICE
$25 in advance
$30 at the door (tickets permitting)

To register: http://vancouverlok.eventbrite.com/

JOIN OUR EXCLUSIVE ONLINE COMMUNITY
Keep the conversation going online! Much more than just a series of networking events, The League of Kickass Business People thrives through the active exchange of ideas on our online ning community. Sign up and connect with fellow innovative and visionary professionals in Vancouver and across the country.

To join: http://theleagueofkickassbusinesspeople.ning.com/

EVENT SPONSORS
Granville Island Brewing

Media Alert

Toronto, Ontario, Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Trend City Event

An exchange of ideas, style and what’s next!

What: The 8^th event for The League of Kickass Business People.

Find out what’s really changing, launching and getting stale-dated in the Canadian

and global landscape.

Who: Moderated By:

Sean Moffitt President, Agent Wildfire

Panel Involves:

Mark Evans, Principal ME Consultant, Co-Organizer MESH

Nora Young, Host of CBC’s Spark

Dave Pollard, Author of How to Save the World & Finding the Sweetspot

Walter Derzko, Author of Smart Economy & Hard Times, Golden Opportunities

Ivor Tossell, Globe Columnist and Culture Surfer

When: Thursday, May 14, 2009

Arrival and Appetizers 6:00 p.m.

League of Kickass Intro by Sean Moffitt 7:00 p.m.

Technology Discussion 7:15 p.m.

Break 7:45 p.m.

Business Discussion 8:00 p.m.

Break 8:30 p.m.

Culture/Entertainment/Design Discussion 8:45 p.m.

Soapbox Session 9:15 p.m.

Continue the Conversation 9:30 p.m.

Where: The Berkeley Field House

311 Queen St. East

Toronto, Ontario

Join The League of Kickass Business People Community:

http://theleagueofkickassbusinesspeople.ning.com/

For tickets, book here :

http://trendcitylok.eventbrite.com/

For more information:

Brittani Jarvis, WOM Program Leader, Agent Wildfire 416-255-4500 ext. 228 brittani@agentwildfire.com

]]> http://www.spreadslikewildfire.com/2009/05/05/trend-city-media-alert/feed/ http://www.spreadslikewildfire.com/2009/04/23/the-2009-brand-communities-survey/ http://www.spreadslikewildfire.com/2009/04/23/the-2009-brand-communities-survey/#comments Thu, 23 Apr 2009 16:19:46 +0000 Amanda-Lynne Ballard http://www.spreadslikewildfire.com/?p=82

Do you have a leading brand community? Are you a community manager? Then I have the survey for you. I have been lucky enough to have the opportunity to assist Sean Moffitt and a team from nGenera in writing a paper on brand communities.

We have been speaking to online community managers, gurus, developers, planners and evangelists who are contributors to the world’s leading brand communities about community building and business.

The 2009 Brand Communities Survey has been broken down into nine sections. The sections are; the basics, focus and objectives, audience and outreach, incentives, rules, tools and platforms, staffing, metrics and ROI and overall advice.

Communities are failing just as often as they are succeeding. Our hope is the results from the research we have been doing, will show a reason why some brand communities are succeeding while others are failing.

If you are currently involved in a brand community take the 2009 Brand Communities Survey and be entered in our draw and a top line version of the results. We would love to hear from more people involved in brand communities and their experiences and insight.

To set up an interview:

Brittani Jarvis

brittani@agentwildfire.com

416-255-4500