The Performance Marketing industry has grown in complexity, making it difficult to separate the professionals from the second-tier players and unscrupulous amateurs. But while the industry can be complex–and even turbulent as laws, practices, and legislation try to keep pace with tactics– it also is too important to ignore. Talented performance marketers with solid ethics can change your business. They can show you what really works in the digital space—what performs, what brings back a positive ROI. And they can do this on a performance-basis, making it possible for merchants to grow their businesses without vast budgets. Yet, for merchants and new comers to the industry, it is often hard to find the true leaders among all the noise and distractions in the space.

According to the Performance Marketing Industry, “In performance marketing, advertisers and marketers only pay for successful transactions. Each transaction is based on a consumer taking a defined action, such as making a purchase from the advertiser or signing up for a subscription. The trackability of performance marketing isn’t based on estimates. It’s based on actual results — meaning that a marketing program’s effectiveness is accurately determined, down to the mouse click.”

It’s an important, multibillion dollar industry where the best publishers and advertisers can improve their bottom lines significantly.  With that in mind, the Santa Barbara, California company Impact Radius researched and developed a list of influencers that not only cut through the noise, but deliver the best advice.  Advice that is influential and focuses people on the right actions.

The new infographic from Impact Radius , showing the top 25 online influencers in the Performance Marketing community, is an impressive array of individuals who sustain community through sharp insight and advice. While some companies try to influence a community of thought leaders, the best ones create or sustain a community of influencers.

Here is the list in infographic form:

Want to know what it might feel like if an airline actually treated its customers like friends? Not a superficial, phony performance marked by fake smiles and fake actors (think the aviation version of the Truman Show). But an airline that runs its business by listening, supporting and doing what’s best for its customers.

Instead, we’re subjected to dysfunctional relationships in a system that supports regular and repeated conflicts, which has led to apathy. Onboard and emblematically, no one pushes the flight attendant button anymore because we’re either accustomed to being ignored, or we’re met with a look that says "What’s your problem?" No wonder why our relationship with airlines is filled with so much emotional baggage.

In all my years as a business traveler, I have learned there are only a few airlines that could pass the “we’ve-got-better-customer-service-than-the-Department-of- Motor-Vehicles” test. The remainder, under the mantra of public safety, keep us locked up for hours languishing on planes sitting on tarmacs, often ignore our complaints, and generally make hospitality, inhospitable.

As a result, according to Gallup, only 29% of us have a positive view of airlines.

It’s so bad that Congress, with an even lower approval rating of 14%, had to step in to help. What other industry requires a legislative act and customer Bill of Rights to enforce common sense?

A Social Airline that Thinks Differently

Virgin America was built to be social. The customer acquisition strategy is social. Their teammates (Virgin’s term for employees) are social. Their Executives are social and Virgin Companies are social. If you ever considered what an airline would look like if designed from the ground up to be social, it’s Virgin America.

“The whole point behind the airline was really to try to reinvent the domestic travel experience and make it better and make it more focused around our guests,” said Abby Lunardini, Director of Corporate Communications at Virgin America, “and from the beginning, our teammates were really active in the social media space, which helped support that goal.”

One example of how Virgin America is focused and responds to employees and customers is how Virgin named the plane that flies between San Francisco to Boston the #NerdBird. According to Jill Fletcher, the Virgin’s Social Media Manager, the plane was dubbed the #NerdBird after employees and customers frequently used the nickname to describe its passengers and crew.

Fletcher explains, “We definitely have used our social media fans to crowd source new products and service onboard our planes.” Like requests for cocktails to be sold on flights, in-flight entertainment options including a 3000 song MP3 catalogue and the ability to keep an open tab for all customer purchases. Why doesn’t every company do this?

Interestingly, the comparison of sentiment analysis and social rankings seem to confirm that Virgin’s social strategy is working.

Dr. Natalie Petouhoff, Chief Strategist and Evangelist, Social Media, Digital Communications and ROI explains, “Social Business is about using the data — social media monitoring data — to make mission critical decisions. What Virgin is doing is listening and integrating that feedback back into their company. Consider a company that does listen and respond. Consider their competitors that are not. Maybe it won’t make a difference today, but look forward 2, 5, or 10 years. Companies that don’t understand how vital real-time social media data is to running their business, I predict, just won’t exist.”

What Social Tools does Virgin Use?

To support the objectives of Virgin’s social media programs, the company created a social listening and engagement strategy. They use Sprinklr to, “watch everything that comes in through the feed. Any time somebody mentions Virgin America we pretty much see it on Twitter and Facebook and respond accordingly. We’re very close to what’s occurring operationally,” explains Lunardini.

Virgin America also uses SiteCatalyst from Omniture (Adobe) to calculate the revenue impact of their social programs. Programs like their partnership with Twitter for the #FlyMoreGiveBack campaign to promote the Stand up to Cancer research project. Which was one of their highest selling days in company history.

Like IBM, Virgin America empowers the entire organization to communicate on social channels. Yet they do have a guide to the rules of engagement. Lunardini explains, “We put together a social rule book for teammates that illustrate obvious things not to do in the social media space. But we designed it to be more positive while encouraging people to be in the social space because we know we have a pretty young company. They’re all online anyway so we approached it from that vantage point.”

What Brands can Learn from Virgin America

Virgin America is a young airline, but an experienced airline. They don’t act their age; they act as if they are decades more experienced. With that wisdom, they have learned to emulate Edelman’s Trust 2011 Trust Barometer where trust, employee welfare, honest business practices and high quality service matters. For them, in many areas, it’s converting to measurable ROI.

Yaacov Cohen, CEO of social email software provider harmon.ie further emphasizes the importance of trust in today’s business environment, “There is a need for authenticity behind every brand. Sadly, most brand messaging is diminished by indifference, and the superficiality eventually backfires. But Virgin stands out in its ability to maintain a positive altitude in the area of customer trust.”

Of course, Virgin America is not going to sit idle on the runway. According to Lunardini, the company is going to spend the next 12 months focused on integrating their guest relations and social programs and preparing for more cross promotions with other Virgin Companies.

Watch this company. The days when companies can simply ignore their customers are gone. Sure there are a lot of social initiatives that will not take off, but we need to learn from the ones that do. For we’ll all soon be measured by how well we support and engage the communities built around our brands. Not by how we sat by and overlooked them.

To understand what Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM) is, we have to start with a clear definition. The definition must be clearly articulated and easily understood by individuals in the industry.

In the Magic Quadrant for Social CRM, Gartner writes, “Social CRM applications need to be far more customer-centric than more-traditional CRM applications. Without benefits for the customer, communities and social networks die, resulting in no benefits to the organization using the social CRM applications. To be successful with social CRM, organizations need to be much less focused on how an organization can manage the customer, and much more focused on how the customer can manage the relationship.”

The Gartner analysts then go on to define the fuzzy outputs of SCRM but never clearly define the SCRM beyond the previous paragraph.  And I’m not the only one who seems to be mystified by the definition. Paul Greenberg calls the report “confusing”, Estaban Kolsky calls the SCRM definition “mystical”,   and Chris Bucholtz compares the report to a variety of race cars in several races on the same track.

For me and the decision makers I talk to, SCRM is simply taking traditional CRM and adding multichannel social technologies, social analytics and social engagement strategy to help Sales, Marketing and Customer Service be more productive.

Jas Dhillon offers a more detailed definition which I like: “Social CRM is a business philosophy that expands the borders of traditional customer relationship management beyond information, process and technology to people, conversations, and relationships. The focus of sCRM is on people (i.e. customers, partner, suppliers), their relationships with other people, and the ongoing conversations that are occurring about the Company and its products. Finally, sCRM is also about engaging with customers and prospects, not controlling them, and establishing bonds of trust (hopefully love) between the Customers and the Company.”

So by this definition, please find the following revised and unauthorized “Reality Quadrant” for Social CRM decision makers:

The Reality Quadrant for SCRM

Download a larger size

Where Gartner Got it Wrong

To be fair, with respect to their analysis, Gartner typically gets it right.  Just not this time.

The problem is that SCRM is a relatively new concept with little in terms of real world business application experience. Therefore, the Gartner research is not likely based on empirical knowledge, but on their opinion of the vendors’ solutions and business strategy that was presented to them.

For the few of us that are using SCRM tools as mission critical business solutions, their SCRM Magic Quadrant is more illusion than conclusion. For example, how does Jive manage to secure the top spot on the Quadrant when there isn’t a Vice President of Sales on the planet that will choose them to manage their customer relationship, opportunity, pipeline and forecasting information?

Jive doesn’t effectively manage information about people, relationships and business opportunities. It’s not built for that purpose.  Jive is a listening and engagement platform that does not manage the people they are listening to; prospects, customers, vendors, and influencers.

But their solution is an incredibly effective social platform for customer and employee engagement. There’s a clear distinction that Gartner doesn’t seem to grasp (or perhaps chooses to ignore).

True SCRM starts out the with the customer, her demographics, her realities, her needs, her values. But it does not ignore the management of the customer. It’s not an angry tweet that someone in customer service responds to only to move on the next complaint. It creates a profile of that customer so that the organization can continue to nurture her.

So Gartner missed the customer relationship management aspect of SCRM.  They likely forgot that the CRM in SCRM is about creating new customers, managing the customer relationship lifecycle, and keeping existing customers happy.

The Winners

It’s essential to note that no vendor has a complete, end to end, integrated SCRM solution. But if you need to realize the numerous benefits of SCRM today, the following are the frontrunners:

Large organizations over 1000 employees: With Salesforce.com’s acquisition of Radian 6 in March 2011, they quickly accelerated into the pole position for SCRM.  Already a CRM leader, Salesforce.com has the most complete Social CRM offering. They are now faced with the daunting challenge of integrating Salesforce and Chatter with their recent acquisitions and socially enabling the overall solution.

Small to mid-size organizations with less than 1000 employees: Surprise start up Nimble  is the best choice for small and medium sized companies. If Salesforce.com is taking an acquire then integrate approach, Nimble is starting with Social at its core and building CRM components on top of it. Nimble is far more affordable than Salesforce and offers a rich Social and CRM feature set for small to mid-size organizations.

Conclusion

As Peter Drucker liked to remind us, the purpose of business is to create a customer.  And Social CRM is furthering this objective by enabling companies to locate and connect with current and  prospective customers while managing them through a relationship lifecycle.   SCRM is important, it’s not B.S. and it’s here to stay.

While it’s easy for me to Monday morning quarterback and to dispute Gartner’s decisions after the fact, many believe the SCRM Magic Quadrant results are unsatisfactory. So I’ve repositioned the Quadrant so that SCRM decision makers can make more informed decisions based on the real-world experience of executives like them.

Let me know if I got it right.

“What the heck are you doing?”

Yet the language was probably a little more colorful.  Three days after the launch of Chief Blogger Lionel Menchaca’s blog, all hell broke loose. Several people within Dell were upset with him for linking to Engadget story about exploding laptops.

But Menchaca wasn’t worried about being fired.  He had the support of Michael Dell and Vice President of Corporate Group Communications, Bob Pearson.  Just a few months earlier, Michael Dell had asked Bob, “Obviously a lot of people are in the blogosphere talking about their issues with Dell products, why aren’t we doing anything about it?”

Back in 2006, that was all Menchaca and Pearson needed to help launch what may be the world’s most social company.

5 Reasons Why Dell is More Social than your Company

1. THEY ARE PASSIONATE SOCIAL LISTENERS

Dell’s been tuning into our social conversations about them for the past 5 years.  Initially it started as a small project, but Michael Dell quickly ramped up the program by asking the team, “Why aren’t we monitoring everything in the realm about us?”

Today, Dell uses sentiment analysis to identify issues with their brand and products in order to proactively solve customer support issues.  They monitor consumer trends for potential R&D benefits. And they analyze their industry’s social stream to stay informed of competitor impact and activities.  All from a highly visible social media command center (pictured above).

The results are higher “demoter to promoter” scores (basically the ratio of negative to positive advocates), increased customer loyalty, higher first touch resolution rates (did Dell solve the problem immediately), and Dell believes it’s more competitive.

Technologies used: Radian6, custom Radian6 dashboards, Bazaar Voice, Salesforce.com

2. THEY HAVE A SOCIAL MEDIA UNIVERSITY

“We have 10,000 Dell employees trained as social media professionals,” said Susan Beebe, Dell’s Chief Listener, “but we want a lot more people at Dell trained to be brand ambassadors.”  In fact, Beebe wants to see everyone at Dell trained in social media.

“We now have Dell social experts worldwide to help our customers,” Beebe said, “and we’re listening and engaging in 11 languages.”   Beebe gives credit to one of the Fortune 100’s top CMO’s Karen Quintos for helping to drive this initiative.

“Karen is very passionate about customer service. She sees the impact we’re having with customers and the positive impact on Dell the brand,” Beebe emphasized, “I don’t think there’s any other company more committed to helping customers.”

The results are greater customer loyalty and brand perception through one-on-one direct relationships with customers.

TIP: for more information on the Dell Social Media University check out this interview by the Radian 6 team.

3. THEY TURN CUSTOMERS INTO BRAND ADVOCATES

Getting Dell’s 103,000 employees certified in Social Media isn’t enough for Menchaca, Beebe, and Jason Duty leader of Dell’s Social Outreach Services.  “Building relationships with our customers so that they become advocates is one of our top initiatives,” said Duty, “last year the internal perception was that our customers were not engaged with us. So I was tasked with building a team to change that perception.”

With almost 600,000 Facebook fans on the consumer site alone, Dell is easily in the top 1% of technology companies.  But the Dell Social team isn’t satisfied with fans alone; they want brand advocates.  The strategy begins with publicly thanking their customers for buying Dell. It then continues with identifying industry influencers and and nurturing them.

“Throughout last year, we encountered a number of people that were influential,” Jason Duty tells me, “we helped them out and sure enough they’d write or tweet about Dell in a positive way.”

(Most influential in Dell’s communities provided by Twitalyzer)

The Dell team claims to be working with influencers and evangelists to give them early access to announcements and product information. This in turn builds advocacy by making them feel like Dell insiders.

The benefits of building brand advocacy are that the company has customers that are selling Dell via word of mouth (which is free and effective) and advocates that are known to volunteer their time to help other Dell customers (support cost reduction).

4. DELL EXECUTIVES ARE SOCIAL

Ask any Social Business expert (Jeremiah Owyang is at the top of most people’s list) what it takes to be successful and they’ll tell you that Executive sponsorship is key. But in true Dell fashion, not only does the team have executive support, they have executive participation.

(These Social scorecards are provided to me courtesy of Twitalyzer)

The benefits of having your top executives actively supporting and participating in social media are the following:

• Increased transparency with customers and employees which lead to higher sales (people want to do business with people they learn to trust).
• Employees feel empowered to participate in social media (if our CEO is participating, it must be okay).
• More social awareness of the brand (brand executives are influential, I want to follow and learn from them)

There are more of course, but these seem to be the consistent benefits I have heard from customers and employees of the world’s top brands.

5. DELL’S COMMUNITY IS ACTIVE AND INVOLVED

“If you don’t do what I want, I’ll have my 200 Twitter bots spread false information about Dell.”

Social blackmail is going to be an increasing problem.  And in Dell’s case there have been a few social media related incidents where threats were made.  Normally these types of incidents can cause significant brand damage if not contained properly. In some cases, they can be devastating.

So how did Dell call off the threat above?  Nothing.  Fortunately, the Dell community quickly and passionately arose to Dell’s defense and quelled the attack.  At times, the community is so passionate about defending the company over dodgy issues, that Dell has to ask that they back down a little.

Does your company have a community like Dell’s? Not many can say they do.

The benefits:

• Dell Advocates and VIP’s are identifying potential brand threats and alerting Dell to potential issues.
• An empowered community attracts new community members thus enlarging and strengthening it.
• An active community is like have a free R&D department.  I bet some of Dell’s best ideas are surfaced from IdeaStorm.

The Social ScoreCard for Dell

Dell’s focus on Social Business is broad and multichannel.  Below is a quick scorecard on where Dell can be found.

So is Dell the World’s Most Social company?

To recap, Dell seems to embody what Social Business pundits call the Social Enterprise. Starting with their CEO and CMO, the company is executing on a strategy to train Dell employees on social strategy while working externally to create brand advocates. The result will be a powerful platform of people that are socially enabled to promote and support the Dell brand through their own social networks.

For me, that’s a differentiator few competitors will be able to overcome.

Of course, companies like Microsoft, IBM, Google, Best Buy, Disney, SAP and Zappos are all legitimate contenders for the world’s leading social companies (look for more on this later), but so far Dell seems to stand at or near the top of the list.  So if they are not the world’s most social company, they are pretty close to the top.

Many are calling 2011 the year of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO).  I can assure you, it will not be called the year of the Social CMO.  In our analysis only 15 of the 143 CMO’s and Chief Communication Executives (CCO’s) in the Fortune 100 we studied have active Twitter Accounts.  Worse, 15% of them have a net zero social footprint (meaning no social activity).

Yet in a survey by the MarketingSherpa team, Social Media budgets are expected to increase in 53% of the organizations surveyed.

Moreover, “US marketers will spend $3.08 billion to advertise on social networking sites this year,” according to eMarketer. “Spending will be up 55% over the $1.99 billion advertisers devoted to social networks in 2010 and will rise by a further 27.7% next year to reach nearly $4 billion.”

That is a tremendous amount of money to be spent by Marketing and Communication Chiefs. However if the Fortune 100 are any indication, the investment in Social is being led by a group of people that have remarkably little personal experience in Social Media and Social Networks. Does that make sense?

Fortunately, there are at least 20 executives in the Fortune 100 that understand social.   We’ve highlighted them here:

We created the top 20 Social CMO* guide using state of the art sentiment analysis technology from Lithium (formerly Scout labs) and social media metrics from HowSociable, Klout and Social Mention.

I want to thank Henry Min for converting my research into an infographic.  He’s a genius, I recommend you get to know him.

Why is this important?

We believe that as social media and content start to replace their traditional media counterparts; the companies listed above will gain a competitive advantage. In fact as we’ve experienced, social media is a differentiator that facilitates and accelerates word of mouth marketing. There’s nothing more valuable.

It’s important to note that this is not an influence or popularity list. The list was created to highlight Chief Marketing and Communication Executives that are not only using social tools, but are being recognized by consumers as positive influencers on their brands.

What’s odd is that the majority of the Fortune 100 CMO/CCOs, either do not recognize the power of their Fortune 100 perch or are concerned about violating Sarbanes Oxley.  As a former section 16 officer myself, some of the concerns are founded, but most are an excuse not to engage.

Note: David Mastroni from the Dachis Group does a terrific job of pacifying these concerns. I also recommend you follow Klint Finley from ReadWriteEnterprise for additional insights in this area.

Our Closing Thoughts

The study’s results were somewhat surprising given the small percentage of executive level social media participation in the Fortune 100. As influential pundits like Dennis Howlett and Martijn Linssen have pointed out in the past, executives have still not embraced social business.

But marketers have always been taught to “go where their consumers are” and still the Fortune 100 Chiefs seem to be personally absent. The giant red flag here is that if the Chief Marketers and Communicators do not understand how social media can be part of an integrated marketing/communications strategy; then how will the rest of the organization?

I asked Jas Dhillon of ThinkPassenger about his thoughts on the list.  Dhillon responded, “It appears based on your research that many of the CMO’s are saying ‘do as I say not as I do’.” It is hard to argue with him on that point.

What’s clear however, are how Social Consumers are relying on their social networks and social media to make purchase decisions.  As more do, companies caught without a clear and effective social strategy from their leaders will become less competitive.

All signs point towards a massive shift in consumer behavior from consumption of information from traditional media sources to information and content found in social media and networks. The goal then becomes one of  engagement with potential and current customers at all times.

Unlike traditional media however, marketers can have real one-on-one discussions with their community by leveraging social media tools. This is an incredible advantage over those executives still relying on traditional, indirect ways of reaching their consumers.

But how would your CMO know?

The Top 20 on Twitter (those with Active Accounts)

*In some cases where we use the term CMO, we also are extending the term to include Heads and Chiefs of Communication.   To follow these trends like the SocialCMO on Facebook.

** Google was pushed into the Fortune 100 due to their recent growth so we included Nikesh Arora in our research

A guide for Entrepreneurs

There is a lot of content created by the Venture Capital community that has helped countless entrepreneurs.  In fact, one of my favorites is How Andreessen Horowitz Evaluates CEOs.

I recently stumbled upon the article again and it reminded me of an article I’ve been meaning to write for my entrepreneurial friends.   We’ve all heard the horror stories (fairly or unfairly) of how Venture Capitalists have screwed over the founders of companies.

What we rarely hear about is the enormous value that some in the Venture Capital community create when investing in a startup.  Whether it’s strategic help, introductions to customers, joint ventures with other portfolio companies, and just plain fair dealings.  I want to help narrow your choices by providing a starting point.

How was the list determined?

I created the VC guide using state of the art sentiment analysis technology from Lithium (formerly Scout labs), confidential reviews from entrepreneurs on TheFunded.com, and four surveys that I issued across four different social platforms.  I also looked for mentions of individual VC’s on Quora to gain additional insight.

The result is the top 30.  If your company is fortunate enough to be working with any of these people then you’re working with a fair and devoted individual.   Using Lithium’s sentiment analysis tools, attributes like helpful, fair, brilliant, profitable, amazing, and knowledgeable are consistent attributes for this group.

It’s important to note that this is not an influence or popularity list.  The list was created to identify the people in the Venture Capital community that people respect most.   Of course this is not the definitive list but in my research this group came out on top.

Ranked #1, Brad Feld had this to say on earning the respect of Entrepreneurs in the Venture Capital industry: “I try hard to be straightforward and transparent. I do what I say I’m going to do and I’m very open about my thinking (see www.feld.com).”

What is Socialytics?

Socialytics or social analytics is the emerging practice of analyzing social media data in order to help with a strategic goal.  If you don’t like the term, please don’t take it out on me.

I used a weighted average ranking system to determine the list.  So even though Dave McClure and Marc Andreessen were not rated on The Funded, they ranked  high enough in the other categories to make the list.  Based on what I uncovered in my research, they deserve their spots.

Final Thoughts…

It’s interesting to note how many early stage investors made the list.  Are they generally more helpful?  Do they need to be in order to get their newly funded businesses off the ground? What is First Round Capital doing differently to have such a large share of the top 48 (see below)?

So what do you think?  Did I miss anyone?

The Top 30 with links to their Twitter Accounts

The Narrowly Missed List – High Reputations / (not in order)

A Guide for Consumers and Brands

Gartner estimates the Mobile Game market will reach $11.4 billion by 2014.  That’s a big number.  Compare that the Video Game market revenue of $18.58 million and Movie Box office receipts of $10.16 billion for 2010.

Mobile Games will be an important market.  Further, as mobile devices become more ubiquitous (especially in emerging countries), we’ll see developers utilize the GPS, accelerometers, camera and directional compass features to surpass the abilities of video game console platforms.  That may disrupt the gaming market.

We’ll also see mobile tablets and portable gaming platforms usher in millions more mobile gamers thus fueling increased demand.

The infographic below exhibits the hottest mobile game developers in the business today.  They are creating the most discussions, the most engagement, and the most buzz.  (Note: Read below to understand the methodology for determining Buzz.)

The Top 25 Hottest Mobile Game Developers/Publishers

Click here for the Largest Size (Warning – it’s poster sized).

Join our Facebook Mobile Game Developer Page

I’ve created a Facebook page for mobile game developers and mobile game lovers – please join for the latest in mobile gaming.   We also cover all of the mobile game developers listed above.

Buzz Methodology

We used the following sites to determine a Buzz score.  The score is a formula based on results from the following sites:

• HowSociable.com

• Google Trends
• SocialMention.com
• LinkedIn metrics are derived from the Business page of the company on LinkedIn.
• Facebook Fan metrics are derived by the Fan page of the brand (if there is one).

My Other Mobile Guides

<Click to launch>

The Top 25 Game Developers and their CEO’s (text based)

The Hottest?

So do you agree with the top 25?  Did I miss anyone?  Please add them to the comments below and I may include them in my update.

What I learned in 2010 can be summed up in one individual

Except for reading the occasional year end articles (notables include Kotadia, Maggie Fox, McAfee) I typically skip the tradition of trying to summarize an entire year in 10 bullet points. The Enterprise 2.0/Social Business space is just too dynamic with many starts, stops and do-overs.

Yet in 2010 I noticed the impact that Technology/Brand Evangelists are having on their companies.  I noticed how they’re using social media to create real sales opportunities.  I noticed how they’re creating exceptional buzz around their brands that was once the domain of the world’s largest media powerhouses.

And I noticed why Robert Scoble exemplifies this phenomenon.

Bottom line: These Evangelists are creating real shareholder value. Allow me to make the case.

Scoble’s Impact in Numbers

Is there a Scoble Effect at Rackspace?

When Scoble started at Rackspace (NYSE: RAX) on March 19, 2009 the stock was trading at $5.98 dollars. As of January 3, 2011 the stock was trading at $31.33 which represents an enormous 457% increase in stock appreciation.  I know you’re thinking that the increase may be due to a lot of other reasons, but let’s look at it in slightly more detail.

The only true way to measure causal effect is to conduct an experiment.  Since we can’t run an A/B test on Scoble’s employment with Rackspace, we’ll have to settle for an educated theory.

The graph below illustrates the Rackspace stock price (and some of its publicly traded competitors) before and after Scoble’s arrival (represented with a blue arrow).

While we can’t with certainty state that there’s an association between Scoble’s arrival and the RAX’s superior stock performance, we can note that prior to Scoble’s arrival RAX maintained price parity with its competitors.  Shortly after his arrival however, RAX broke from the pack and has maintained a superior return.

There are of course many other factors that we can examine to determine causality of superior stock performance and I recognize that.  Yet one thing is certain. Scoble’s impact on social media and his public relations (PR) value to Rackspace.  And I believe the PR value is translating into dollars.

Why You Need a Robert Scoble

While to some Scoble is an outlier – even an exception,  I view his role as essential and the baseline example of what every company should have on staff.  I recognize the dedication, hard work and craft Scoble brings, but I don’t believe he possesses a set of unique abilities that can’t be found in other people.

But not every company is like Rackspace.  Some executives will quickly label the role as wasteful and not necessary. I disagree (and so does Rackspace).  What these executives ignore is the reach and influence of people like Scoble.  When Scoble uses his multi-channel, multi-media approach to communicate – many tune in.  He has the ability to produce what psychologists call the herd effect.

And who doesn’t want a herd focused on their own brand?

In fact it has never been easier and cheaper to create powerful stories about your industry or brand and communicate them to decision makers and influencers of your product.  Smartly, Scoble doesn’t limit himself to covering Rackspace’s industry.  He expands his reach into a broader technology spectrum that over time attracts prospective customers that normally never hear of Rackspace.

His reach and influence turn into real dollars.

Some other notable Corporate Evangelists

At MindTouch I have the unique ability to talk to a lot of people.  Many of these people are official Evangelists and some just inherit the title.  While they aren’t as visible as Scoble (yet) each has an impact on their respective companies.   I’d like to highlight a few:

	Hutch Carpenter Company: Spigit		Matt Asay Company: Canonical
	Tristan Bishop Company: Symantec		R.J. Jacquez Company: Adobe
	Sam Ramji Company: Apigee		R Ray Wang Company: Constellation Research

Wrapping up 2010

While Scoble does not look like a celebrity (I think he’d agree ), he certainly has the power to influence like one.   In my opinion, he also has the ability to impact shareholder value.  Which for me is one of the primary lessons I learned from observing the space in 2010.

Every company needs a Robert Scoble.  Why doesn’t yours have one?

P.S.  If you wish to follow Scoble, I’ve created a clickable list

A Guide for Brands, Publishers & Game Developers

Something we’ve expected for some time now, online advertising spending has just surpassed newspaper advertising spending.  But don’t expect online advertising to maintain its lead for long.  By all accounts mobile will soon surpass online advertising spend due to the sheer numbers of App/internet enabled mobile phones that are appearing worldwide.

While the matrix is comprehensive, there are a few standouts that currently are leading the mobile ad network space.  Notably, Google’s Admob has an estimated 59% of the market while Apple’s iAD stands at 8.7%  Millennial Media will end 2010 in third place with 6.8% market share and Yahoo with 5.6%

I created the guide to make it easier for you to make a decision on which mobile ad network to choose based on your own unique circumstances.  I am doing extensive research on the market and thought I’d share.  

Note: a Clickable PDF version can be downloaded on Scribd

I also created a quick Twitter follow guide for Mobile Ad Networks.  It’s simple just click on the follow button to track each of these provider’s updates. 

Additional Resources:

• MobiThinking has an incredibly rich collection of recent mobile ad network research
• Follow me and my mobile related questions on Quora to track the answers to additional questions I have on Mobile Ad Networks

• For my Location Based Services research see it on Flickr or on Techcrunch
• Twitter follow guide for Mobile Ad Networks

Social Metrics

• HowSociable.com
• Klout.com
• SocialMention.com 
• LinkedIn metrics are derived from the Business page of the company on LinkedIn.
• Facebook Fan metrics are derived by the Fan page of the brand (if there is one). 

Use the clickable PDF version of the infographic for direct links.

Quick Summary

Mobile Ad Networks are taking off.  The majority of predictions peg the global market at $15 billion by 2015.  While predictions are rarely accurate, the market is experiencing phenomenal growth.  This is a market to keep an eye on.     

P.S. Send me your updates and/or changes with attribution in the comment section below and I’ll update the guide. 

I wanted to take the time to acknowledge and recognize those in the Enterprise 2.0 space that have inspired me to be better.  All of you in your own way have forced me to think differently about the next generation enterprise and its enormous potential.

To those in the USA, have a Happy Thanksgiving.  To all of my friends outside of the U.S. thanks for letting me be a part of your community.