The growing list of online social media sites makes choosing the right channel complicated. From Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn and beyond, which social media outposts will net the most bang for the buck in terms of customer communication, brand exposure, traffic, and SEO?
I love this presentation from Barbra Gago. A timely reminder on why creating good content truly matters. The presentation looks at how it can be shared with your customers, how it adds value, and some main do’s & don’ts to think about. Genius.
Microsoft’s Mel Carson and all round good guy, has released an excellent Social Media White Paper this week.
Mel works within Microsoft’s Advertising Community Team, which has been engaging with online advertisers through social media since 2006. The document entitled, “Learn and Earn” tells the story of how the Advertising team embraced social media to connect with the advertising community. Well worth reading.
Andy Serovitz posted a very interesting blog post on how Coca Cola have devised a new set of social media principles. Coke have developed 10 “Principles for Online Spokespeople” which make good sense for other brands to follow. You can read the main set below.
Be Certified in the [Coca Cola] Social Media Certification Program.
Follow our Code of Business Conduct and all other Company policies.
Be mindful that you are representing the Company.
Fully disclose your affiliation with the Company.
Keep records.
When in doubt, do not post.
Give credit where credit is due and don’t violate others’ rights.
Be responsible to your work.
Remember that your local posts can have global significance.
Know that the Internet is permanent.
Watch Andy’s interview with Coca Cola’s Adam Brown, on how they developed the social media principles.
Coke’s complete policy document can be found below. At three pages, I like this a lot!
Trendsspotting posted their annual Social Media Trends Predictions earlier this week. Predicting trends is a dangerous business especially in Social Media. However, the slide deck does offer some very interesting insights from a variety of social media commentators. I have included some of the ones that I found interesting in this post.
Across many of the predictions, Trendsspotting identified the following trends that are “suggested” to influence Social Media in 2010: Mobile, Location, Transparency, Measurement, ROI, Privacy. Though, you could argue that these same trends were visible in 2009.
Is Social Media a Fad or the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution? This is the question posed by the folks over at the Socialnomics blog.
The above video goes some way to answer the question. The video is designed in a similar fashion to the “Did you know” video.
Socialnomics have also been good enough to provide the stats from the video too. These can be seen below:
Stats from Video(sources listed below by corresponding #)
By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia
Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
% of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama
80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
Only 14% trust advertisements
Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
90% of people that can TiVo ads do
Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone
According to Jeff Bezos 35% of book sales on Amazon are for the Kindle when available
24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.
In the near future we will no longer search for products and services they will find us via social media
More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook…daily.
Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like David Ogilvy Listening first, selling second
Successful companies in social media act more like party planners, aggregators, and content providers than traditional advertiser
A link to the sources are available here. Incidentally, Socialnomics will soon be releasing a book too.
The Engagementdb 2009 report was released earlier this week from Ben Elowitz of Wetpaint and Charlene Li of the Altimeter Group. The excellent report ranks the world’s most engaged brands, that are using social media tools. It’s a beautiful report to look at (see below) and they also have a great accompanying website, where you can rate your own business social media engagement.
The goals of the study were to measure how deeply engaged the top 100 global brands are in a variety of social media channels and, more importantly understand if higher engagement is correlated with financial performance.
The researchers found that brands fall into one of four engagement profiles. Depending on the number of channels and how deeply they are engaged in them. There four specific profiles include:
• Mavens. These brands are engaged in seven or more channels and have an above-average engagement score. Brands like Starbucks and Dell are able to sustain a high level of engagement across multiple social media channels. Mavens not only have a robust strategy and dedicated teams focused on social media, but also make it a core part of their go-to-market strategy. Companies like these could not imagine operating without a strong presence in social media.
• Butterflies. These brands are engaged in seven or more channels but have lower than average engagement scores. Butterflies like American Express and Hyundai have initiatives in many different channels, but tend to spread themselves too thin, investing in a few channels while letting others languish. Their ambition is to be a Maven and they may get there — but they still struggle with getting the full buy-in from their organizations to embrace the full multi-way conversation that deep engagement entails.
• Selectives. These brands are engaged in six or fewer channels and have higher than average engagement scores. Selectives like H&M and Philips have a very strong presence in just a few channels where they focus on engaging customers deeply when and where it matters most. The social media initiatives at these brands tend to be lightly staffed — if they are at all, meaning that by default, they have to focus their efforts. These are beachheads, started by an impassioned evangelist with a shoestring budget.
• Wallflowers. These brands are engaged in six or fewer channels and have below-average engagement scores. Wallflowers like McDonalds and BP are slow to or are just getting started, dipping their toes into social media waters. They are still trying to figure out social media by testing just a few channels. They are also cautious about the risks, uncertain about the benefits, and therefore engage only lightly in the channels where they are present.
I have highlighted several key takeaways below, but there are many others. I highly suggest that you read the report for yourself, to gain some great insight into companies such as Starbucks, Dell, Toyota and SAP
Selected best practices from the report include:
1. Deputise people throughout the organisation
When Starbucks launched MyStarbucksidea.com. The company ensured that every department impacted by the site (practically every one) had a representative who was responsible for being the liaison.
2. Find champions who can explain and mitigate risk
Starbucks had one major advantage in its entry into social media – CEO Howard Schultz personally introduced and championed MyStarbucksidea.com from the start. Apart from the CEO, there was also an "everyday" champion. Someone who not only gets social media but can also translate it for the organisation.
3. Pick channels carefully
From the start, Toyota’s social media team realised that there would a lot of resistance to having a Toyota blog. So they started with a YouTube channel first that showcased video content that Toyota already had handy – it was simply a matter of uploading the content to YouTube. Twitter came next and then Facebook.
4. Be in it for the long haul
Toyota realised the key to successful engagement is to commit to a relationship with customers in new channels and convince your customers that you will be there for them. "If you are going to engage, you have to have a plan and make sure that resources are available. Because you can’t gracefully exit – once your’re in, you’re in”.
5. Encourage employees to tap into social media to get work done.
With 1500 SAP employee bloggers and 400 employees actively publishing content to other forms, SAP clearly has few control issues about allowing employees to engage. Product managers are using social tools to communicate information about their new products and to get feedback even down to product documentation.
My personal favourite best practice from the report is from Dell:
As Steve notes, "[Make social media] just one of the tools of a daily diet of information. it’s often what people get wrong – they create a social media department and it thus becomes ‘someone else’s job’”.
To succeed, social media need to become pervasive within the organisation, just like email is today. Social media not only can bring opportunities for rich engagement with customers and potential new customers. The organisation itself can benefit, where social media works to fulfil a ‘knowledge management’ function.
The world’s top brands are learning what it means to be social, but it is important to note that by "social", reference is made to deep engagement not merely having a presence. And what exactly does deep social engagement mean? “Going Social” requires more than just being there – you have to interact with others, instigate discussions, and respond during conversations.
You can read the full report below (Click the full screen button)
Razorfish just released a report entitled, “Fluent: The Razorfish Social Influence Marketing Report”. It examines how social media influences purchase decisions, how social features are entering online advertising, and how social media is becoming a paid distribution mechanism. The implications for marketers and entrepreneurs are:
Brands must socialise with their customers because “top-down” advertising isn’t going to work.
Brand must develop a credible voice along the parameters of engagement, humility, and authenticity.
Brands must make their social relationships more symmetrical—that is, with value for both the brand and the customer.
The report also includes this gem of a list of how brands should use Twitter:
Become familiar with Twitter by reviewing, or following, the activities of successful brands such as Dell (dell.com/twitter), Zappos (twitter.com/zappos) and Comcast (twitter.com/comcastcares).
Listen to what is already being said on Twitter about your brand.
Identify initial objectives for using Twitter, including what would qualify as a Twitter success story for your brand.
Look into competitive activities and potential legal considerations, especially if there is already a Twitter account that uses your brand’s name or other intellectual property associated with it.
Use the findings to decide on the appropriate opportunity such as offers or community building, tone of voice and method of engagement—that may be right for your brand.
Since Twitter is an ongoing activity—even if your company is only listening in—dedicate a resource to monitor the conversations and competitors.
Map out a plan for the content you will share, including valuable initial content to pique user interest.
Integrate your Twitter account throughout your marketing experience, by embedding it as a feed on the company Web site, including its URL in communications and so forth.
Maintain momentum by following everyone who follows you, responding to queries and joining in conversations without being too marketing oriented.
Provide ongoing direct value through your tweets by continuing to listen, learn and fine- tune your Twitter activities.
All in all, a valuable read. Click here to download the report, or read it below.
