Many people I meet ask me what exactly is Digital Influence? And why does it stem from Public Relations (PR)?

Well, to better understand what Digital Influence is, is to appreciate that Digital Influence is a communications discipline. Much like what Public Relations is. We can communicate on behalf of our client, or we give them counsel and how they should communicate, and where they should communicate.

Why do companies have to communicate? To inform the decisions that you make on a daily basis (whether you’re a concerned member of the public, consumer, stakeholder, employee, employer, policy maker… etc) What we consume, is what shapes our perceptions.

Originally, businesses would use the mass media to communicate with the wider audience, but as the media continued to evolve into multiple channels, audiences started fragmenting due to choice.

Then came Web 2.0, faster broadband speeds and the rise of Social Media (Or the media that users share with each other, a bit like a social transaction - i hate that word.) [Pat Law has an excellent post about social currency to help you understand what makes media, social. Link]

With the advent of Social Media, businesses, brands, corporations and finally, the public could communicate with each other using a wide variety of social tools:

Blogs
Forums
Twitter
Plurk
Facebook
Myspace
Wikis
Vodcats
Podcasts

And you could finally have a real two way dialogue, which was what communications was always about. Messages are conversations. What we tell someone isn’t always what that audience will perceive, they will interpret it, and Web 2.0 has enabled the interpretation to be published by that same audience. Thus forming a dialogue.

What’s changing is the way people communicate. We’re no longer content waiting for the 930pm news, or the music the radio wants us to hear, what the TV guides want to show us, when they want to show us. We’re not at the mercy of reading the news the publications deem worthy for us to read. No, we want information on demand.

As communicators, isn’t this the space you want to be? Where the messages you have aren’t forced at people, but accessed on demand by the public? While you’re still thinking about that, the power of information is now with the people, and we are all informing each other. That’s what social media has enabled us to do, inform each other on an amplified level.

Digital Influence, we’re communicators, we’re where the conversations are at and helping brands form bridges into their communities, people who use their products, who become passionate about them, and in turn, brands should also be passionate about their people. -)

“Social Media Vs. Traditional Media”

Not a new topic but some how causes a lot of debate whenever the two compare against each other.

We’ve been posting up videos of Dr. Vinton Cerf from Google and Ken Mandel from Yahoo! and it is no surprise that they are extremely supportive of social media… they are a technology firm after all! So to balance the opinions out, OgilvyOne Singapore decided to interview a journalist on his opinions about social media.

Jeremy Wagstaff is a Technology Commentator at the Wall Street Journal, BBC and Loosewireblog.com. With loads of experience writing on both traditional media and social media platforms, he is probably one of the best media neutral journalist to give us his honest opinions about social media and the effect it has on traditional media.

Key take outs from the videos:
1) Social media is starting to gain more respect and prominence among journalists.

2) Social media cannot be underestimated as a source of credible news.

The OgilvyOne Singapore team has been embarking on several video and audio interviews with social media and digital thought leaders in the industry. This time, we caught up with Ken Mandel, VP and MD of Yahoo! South East Asia.

Ken is a veteran in digital marketing and whatever advice he gives, I suggest you listen hard!

In this video snippet of his interview, there are 3 key points he made that I think brands should really consider….

1) You’ve got to jump into social media, get the key learnings and see what works, what doesn’t.

2) Its hard to dabble in social media, therefore you need to do your home work before you enter it.

3) In social media, you must have a sustainable strategy and commit a considerable amount of time or else the plan will fail.

Personally, I feel that this social media phenomenon will only get more complicated as technology and consumer behaviour evolves. If brands do not start engaging in social media properly now, I’m afraid they’ll have an even tougher time in future. Maybe then, it’ll all be too late.

Dear brands, the time is now. The time to do something about your future in social media.

Recently, we organised an Open Room event at The Screening Room for bloggers to meet Yasmin Ahmad, the director of the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports latest commercial, simply entitled “Family.”

It’s a simple commercial with one simple message. love that is found in the family.

Yasmin is indeed a true storyteller, who uses unconventional, or rather, imperfect characters to tell universal tales of humanity. MCYS could have chosen to tell the story in the usual way of featuring your regular nuclear family. Two parents, two children and a dog, but they chose Yasmin tell the story in a much realer way.

Watch the commercial and you’ll see what I mean:

The event had the bloggers arriving, before they were treated to Yasmin’s showreel of past work, some of which were fan favorites like Tan Hong Ming in Love:

After they had watched Yasmin’s body of work and the new commercial, it was time to meet the director herself.

I’ll let the bloggers tell you how they felt about the new commercial and their impressions from meeting Yasmin themselves, but here are some excerpts:

“The film doesn’t have such a family. It just consists of a father and a daughter. The family seems incomplete and thus imperfect and the girl a little spoiled yet I think it captures the way we experience our family relations for most, if not all, of us.”
- Ian, on the red dot

“There was a particular blogger who mentioned that because the majority of the population has a complete family unit, they may not be able to relate to the video - to which Yasmin humorously replied, “I watched ‘Finding Nemo’ … I laughed and I cried … But I’m not a fish!””
- Rinaz

“While I was chatting with some of the another attendees, she came in and we got introduced. I was told later that I squealed when she was introduced to us. I got to shake her hand! OMG I even got to take peekchers with her!! I think I might have even hyperventilated.”
- Min Tea

“The standard style of TV commercials promotes government campaigns in a traditional and mostly predictable way, the new Family TVC hopes to leave a deep impression on viewers with its engaging and emotive storyline. Instead of painting a rosy picture of a perfect family, this TVC seeks to touch the viewers deep inside.”
- Eastcoastlife

For me personally, it was a tremendous opportunity to meet and listen to the insights of a storyteller who is so human, down to earth and observant, it was no wonder her work always touches the hearts those it comes in contact with.

if the brand for this is the concept of love within the family, then I think we’ve succeeded in connecting it with her public.

Highlights

See you next Open Room! -)

More pictures at The Open Room Flickr Page

OgilvyOne Singapore recently caught up with Dr. Vinton G. Cerf a.k.a “The Father Of The Internet” and currently VP, Chief Internet Evangelist for Google.

We’ve managed to catch some really insightful content from the video interview we’ve had with him. He shares with us some advice on how brands should leverage social media and also what he thinks the future of the Internet will be.

It’s really juicy insights from one of the founders of the Internet! More of such interviews can be found at www.youtube.com/theopenroom

If you were present at the Ogilvy Singapore Verge Digital Summit, a million thank yous for making it down. I hope your time spent there was fruitful because it certainly was for me.

I’ve always believed in the one true constant of life: Change.

More and more consumers in Asia Pacific are going online and spending more time there. They are shifting their time spent on traditional media to online and mobile media. Yet marketers in this region are slow to react to this paradigm shift in consumer behaviour. As marketers, we’ve got to realised the major changes in consumer trends and embrace it. Traditional media may yield the same results for many still… but that will change over time.

One of the ways to address these changes is through education and smart debate. Verge facilitates this very well and I’m hopeful for more of such digital conferences to happen in Asia Pacific.

Anyways, for those who missed the Ogilvy Verge Digital Summit at Chijmes…

Here are the slides from several of our keynote speakers. The slides can be downloaded so feel free to take it and distribute it around. If you do not have a slide share account and find signing up for it a hassle, it can also be downloaded by clicking the titles of the presentations.

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“Can Brands Have a Social Life?” Social Network Research By Lucy McCabe, Lead Consultant, OgilvyOne Worldwide, Singapore

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Key Tenets of DigiMarketing By Kent Wertime, President Asia Pacific, OgilvyOne Worldwide

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The 4 E’s of Marketing By Christopher Graves, President & CEO, Asia Pacific, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide

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One of the topics that was just presented at Ogilvy’s Verge digital summit, which is taking place right now.

Despite an estimated 417M users in Asia Pacific consuming social media, very few brands are actively leveraging the channel in a way that creates true value. In an attempt to provide direction to marketers and brands, we are initiating some research and we want you to be part of it.

Join the conversation by telling us:

1. What you think of social media?
2. How you think it will change brand marketing
3. Which brands are doing some really exciting stuff in your market

Please share with us your thoughts, start a new conversation or if you prefer, email us at socialmedia.apac@ogilvy.com.

Here is what some experts whom we interviewed (including Jeremy Wagstaff and Mr Brown) said about it.

if you haven’t already seen this, i hope it inspires you somewhat that this is a new age of information we’re drawing ourselves into, and the old ways.. well, they’ve laid a great foundation, but they’re going to have to be used to giving some of that control over to us - the user.

Verge Singapore is a one-day event that happens this Friday, May 23 from 9am - 6pm at CHIJMES. There’s a variety of sessions touching a range of topics from mobile marketing to social networking, and I’m hoping to land some blogger invitations from the organizers. Email me if you’re interested in attending.

Highlights of some of the 45-minute sessions:

• 12 TENETS OF DIGIMARKETING - Kent Wertime, President, OgilvyOne Asia Pacific
• CHANGING MEDIA - Panel discussion with folks from the Asia-Pacific offices of Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft
• THE 4 E’S OF MARKETING - Christopher Graves, President & CEO Asia Pacific, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide
• BLOGGER PERSPECTIVES - Panel discussion with Singapore’s very own Michael Netzley, Vanessa Tan, Walter Lim and Nicholas Khoo

John Bell, who was recently in Singapore for the launch of The Open Room, contributed this Verge post.

Look out for more updates (pictures included) when Verge Singapore goes LIVE this Friday.

i’ve been blogging for about six years already, and so far, there have been no flame wars going on my personal blog that i can recount. It might not be a big thing to you.. but for many corporations thinking about starting to blog, it’s a really big step and they might be rather apprehensive about starting one.

And i’d say that’s an important concern.

No corporation should have to go into blindly engaging audiences with guns blazing. Brave perhaps, but also a bit stupid.

Having that concern really begs you to ask the question, WHY do I want to start engaging my audience? So you go in with the right reasons, and work on your business you think is best, not just because some “Social Media Strategist/Expert told you to, and it’s the “right thing to do”

Remember, crap in, crap out. it won’t be Business2.0, PR2.0, Advertising2.0, Enterprise2.0, Marketing2.0 but CRAP2.0

But as this Social Media practitioner will tell you, engaging your audience is important, because the consumer has changed, old ways of reaching them will not work as effectively, and isn’t the purpose of communications to get your message to consumers in the least intrusive, most influential and sincere way?

And as you engage with consumers, both online and offline, you’ll start to figure out, just what your business really means to them. And it puts you in a better position to service them. Not just sell average one size fits all products for highly individual people. -)

Now, this brings me to my point about The Open Room. You might be thinking, “Yeah! That makes sense, i’ll start a blog and start engaging. But.. should i moderate comments? Or should i disallow them? How should i deal with flamers?”

I’m not going to bore you with a corporate policy on blogging, firstly because I don’t have the time (plus it’s a bit boring) but perhaps just share some real experience i’ve had with my own blog.

I’ve always allowed anyone and everyone to post comments. I like the conversation, and i find that fully allowing comments means people don’t mince their words, and you get truly valuable insights. It also shows that you respect the point of view of the commenter and that both of you have equal parts power and control of a conversation.

Think about it, if you were talking to someone face to face, having a good conversation is having mutual respect for each other, and there’s no facilitator in the middle telling you that you can’t say certain things.

I find this invites mature points of views, and mutual respect.

And The Open Room is just like that. Our reputation is on the line, people who know us personally will know where we’re coming from and not just some fancy agency talking.

The Open Room is literally that. It’s like opening the door of your flat open and having anyone drop by. it’s like a shop that says “All are welcome.”

And how YOU, the reader chooses to behave in this open room is how you will be held accountable. If you’re here to start a flame war, or cause trouble and discension, it would go against the very nature and the hospitality we’ve extended to you. Call it a slap to our faces, but we’ve chosen to be decent and mature, and while we can’t expect it of everyone. We’d love to see goodness and courtesy paid forward.

So there you have it. I also didn’t want to use a policy for this, because I don’t think it’s a one size fits all concept. But it’s something to think about, how you want to reach out to bloggers, corporations and your audience.

What kind of room do you have?