Socialmedialand

Archive for February, 2009

Sometimes there is a tendency for people, especially when dealing with cutting edge topics like social media, to be so obsessed with “the next big thing,” that they completely overlook the current big thing.

Jason Baer talked about the danger of putting the cart before the horse - he cautions us to focus on the basics before jumping into the “sexy and new(ish)” rage of social media ideas, campaigns and strategy. I completely agree that you have to start with a good strategy around traditional online media, such as email, before getting ahead of yourself in social media. But I think the same concept carries through once you are ready to engage with social media.

Don’t Forget the Big Guy

I feel like there’s been something of a backlash against services like Facebook - like it’s soo 2007  and the really hip social marketers wouldn’t be caught dead there. (I’m exaggerating for effect, but you know what I mean.) I definitely see the allure of being on the cutting edge, being on the little social network first – before it gets big. I’m not trying to deter you from your quest. If you find the holy grail of social networks, let me know! But in the meantime I think when you’re planning what tactics to use in your social media plan (because you’ve already covered the social media strategy and mindset right?) you can’t pass over the big guys.

They’re big for a reason – your customers use them*. Your customers, the average social network user, isn’t constantly searching to find the next network – they want value, and they get value from being on the same network as all their friends, who get value from being on the same network as all their friends, and so on. I received an email from ShareThis, a social bookmarking service, with the following graph showing percentage of shares by network, as well as growth from August 08. This is only one metric (from one source,) but I think it shows a compelling picture. This gives us an idea of where people are the most active and what their go to method of communicating with their contacts is.

Notice first, that email still controls a healthy majority (though it’s decreased since August) which reinforces Jason’s point that we can’t skip traditional online media in favor of social. After that you see that Facebook is the second most popular, followed by good old Myspace.  You can also see that Facebook and Twitter are the only two that have grown (besides AIM) since August. This growth is further supported by monthly visitors as reported by Compete.com

So the next time you, or your client, are thinking how tired you are of hearing about making a Facebook page or opening a Twitter account, think about this graph and grin and bear it. Step 2 can be creating a presence on that new little network you’ve heard so much about.

What do you think? Do you have more stats? Different stats? Opposite view of the same stats? Leave a comment!

*Use this nifty technographics tool from Forrester to really see where your customer demographic is. I was generalizing earlier and of course, when creating a plan, you need to do a little more specific research.

That seems to be the default response of the entertainment industry each time new technology comes out. My coworker, Austin, twittered a link to this image today:

Which I happened to see right after reading about the successful #blackout campaign that was started to fight unfair piracy laws in New Zealand and seems to have caught fire around the world. So that got me to thinking…

The problem with the entertainment industry, as well as some other industries I can think of, is that rather than roll with the times, adapt, expand and ride the wave of new technology – they think they have a right to maintain the “status quo” and that we, the citizens, should support them in that (monetarily, legally, etc) no matter what.

Well I’m tired of that. It’s survival of the fittest, if you can’t keep up you deserve to fail so that someone smarter and leaner can step up to the plate. That’s the free market. If you can’t figure out how to successfully sell copyrighted material on the internet in a convenient and cost effective way, you fail.

Ok, I admit it might be a little more complicated than that, but I know that we can find a way to protect everyone’s rights and continue the collaborative spirit of the internet. And striving to protect the “way it’s been” doesn’t sound like the best route to a better future to me.

I watched the segment on the Colbert Report where he interviewed Lawrence Lessig on his book Remix where he discusses a ” ‘hybrid economy’ — one where commercial entities leverage value from sharing economies.” I think that’s the kind of innovation business needs. Don’t try to stop me from doing what I want to do – I’ll just find a way around you anyways. But if you work with me you could find a way to profit by helping me to achieve the things I want easier and with less hassle. One way is a battle, the other is cooperation.

In the words of Michael Scott, it’s win-win-win.

What do you think? Am I being too harsh, do you agree but have a different/better idea? Let’s talk about it, leave a comment!

I have to post an update. In my previous post about the Johnjay and Rich Twitter account I talked a lot about the opportunities they’re missing by using their tweets like messages on a billboard rather than starting a two way dialogue and starting some interaction. I also mentioned hoping that they would read it and contact me. I’m excited to say that only a few hours later I had a message in my Facebook inbox about it, and although they weren’t offering me free concert tickets, they were asking for some more advice. Pretty cool, huh? Love it when brands listen and start convos (active listening at its finest.)

Here’s where I owe them an apology. In my rush to talk about everything they could be doing (and I stand by my suggestions btw – I think they’re pretty good ones), I didnt realize that the account had only been active for about a week. It’s a little too early to have judged the activity on it, for all I know they had planned to implement a few of those same ideas.

Although I may sometimes stick my foot in my mouth, never say that I don’t own up to my mistakes.

Video may have killed the radio star, but will Twitter kill the radio host?

Confession time. I listen to 104.7 Kiss FM when I drive to work in the mornings. I say it’s because the <15 minute drive (be jealous) is too short to worry about messing with an IPod or picking out a CD. But really it’s because the Johnjay and Rich morning show is like Jerry Springer on the radio. Confession Wednesday, War of the Roses, Second Date Update – it’s a big helping of “I feel better about my life because I’m not sleeping with my fiance’s father AND mother” (true story.)

So this morning when they brought up their Twitter account I got pretty excited (nerdy I know.) Because I thought I could follow the drama online, see what other people are saying about what’s happening and join in with my own witty commentary on the disastrous lives of my fellow Phoenicians.

Alas, by Twitter account they meant they have a billboard where they post inane messages about who they are talking to now. Then, who they are talking to now. Then, who they just stopped talking to that you can hear on the podcast that they posted on the website. I can hear the static in my mind as I tune out.

Have I mentioned they only have 92 followers when they have a vibrant and large audience of listeners?

Radio is heard here, radio is heard everywhere

I took that line from Clear Channel’s ad campaign. But they are not being heard “here” in social media land. This is a definite let down. The opportunity here is so large! And they’re totally missing it. Twitter is not a billboard; it’s a whole group of active, talking people. I don’t even know where to begin breaking down the improvements they could make.

#Hashtags: they could create tags for their popular programs, bring up the search window during the broadcast and mention the funnier/better comments they see. Plus, hearing a bunch of 140 character responses from all different people would be a lot more fun than hearing that one annoying caller who tells their entire life story and repeats “I love you guys” a billion times before finally getting back to the point of the drama.

@Replies: why don’t they use conversation on Twitter to add to their contests and game shows? Why don’t they take questions from Twitter when they’re talking to celebrities? Again, it’s way quicker and more to the point than taking all those callers – also easier to filter.

DM: this could easily incorporate into contests. While they do the trivia live on the air, if someone DMs the answer before the person on air does (and is the first to do so) they get a prize as well (significantly smaller maybe but it could get participation by way more people.)

Promotion: where’s the follow us button on the homepage? I searched for that thing, if I wasn’t planning on writing this I would have given up. Put it somewhere I can find it. If people start twittering to you, and about you, the people who follow them will see that. They’ll wonder what they’re missing out on and tune in online or in their car as well.

I could go on. I won’t because if Kiss FM sees this I would love for them to contact me - either to offer me free tickets to a concert of my choice, or to ask for my help consulting on new and exciting ways to join the community we’ve got going here in Phoenix as well as Tucson and those in Colorado, Oregon and wherever else they broadcast.

But until that happens I’ll just sit here in the midst of my disappointment while yet another brand misses the wealth of social media by trying to use it like just another traditional ad space.

With everyone having mild panic attacks over the recent change in Facebook’s Terms of Service (TOS) – it got me thinking about the bigger picture here. This isn’t the first privacy fiasco for Facebook (we all remember beacon right?), nor the first privacy fiasco at all – Google’s street view maps are great, but what if you’re in the street view, doing something you don’t want people to know? (All 15 pics are worth looking at btw) And no matter what our political viewpoint is on it we all know that, as citizens in the US, privacy laws have been changing in general in recent years.

What is privacy when it comes to social networks and the interwebs at large and what are my expectations of privacy online?

This might go back to what I said in a recent post on being real, but when I personally put things up on the internet, I have a vague understanding that I’m losing any real control over it. I feel like everyone should present themselves as they really are in every instance, and that authenticity is what matters. I know that’s not a legal argument or anything with real weight but I think it is valid on some level. If you have something you’d like to keep private, consider emailing it, or sending it in a private message rather than posting it in a public place. Just a thought.

Now onto what happened recently and its implications: Facebook changed its TOS by removing a few lines that makes it so when you leave the service, and delete your account, your content will still be on the network.

Cue freak out.

Now, calm down. ZDNet posted this great explanation about how we’re all missing the boat on what really matters in this situation. The twist is that the change itself makes sense. Shocker I know. But think about it. If my best friend from college, who posted all our pictures and sent me messages and gifts on random holidays that bring back memories of our inside jokes, randomly decided that she needed to delete her account to go after that job in some very traditional corporate place – what happens to me? Do all the pictures I’m tagged in disappear? My wall deflates, my bumper stickers disappear, and my gifts vanish? That’s no fun for me, because that content is really just hers, it’s also mine because she shared it with me. That’s why they changed it.

The real problem is how they changed it. They just did it. They wrote a little blog post about it, that they didn’t publicize (I’m willing to wager that the average Facebook user doesn’t check the Facebook blog on a daily basis or have it in their RSS feed). Why didn’t they send out a note or a message or an update? They also wrote in a stipulation that by signing in, you accept the change – but I didn’t know that before I signed in. The problem here isn’t that they changed the TOS, they can explain to me why and I can understand. The problem is that they didn’t communicate that to us. They assumed that the users probably didn’t need to know because if you delete your account and the pictures you tagged other people in stay there on their account, you probably don’t care. And for the majority that’s true. But so what? That doesn’t lessen your responsibility to include the community in the changes and to let us know what’s going on. We do have rights. We give up some of them voluntarily to participate in the site – but you should let us know what the deal is. If it’s important maybe I’ll spend time deleting the things I don’t want left behind before I leave (AN: I’m not leaving, this is hypothetical).

Facebook is getting a little too big for its britches right now – they assume that they have full control and have a history of making major changes without consulting the crowd. The new vs. old Facebook is the only time I can think of that they did it right. It’s weird, but maybe the biggest social network needs a crash course on social media theory and practice.

So, what next?

Like I mentioned before, this isn’t the first privacy issue we’ve come across in social and new media and I bet it’s not the last. The key is the same as it’s always been. We are a community, I’ve said before that our social networks are like the nations we are citizens of which means their privacy statements are our constitutions and in America we once rebelled against the idea of “taxation without representation.” It’s the same principal – we need representation. We need to know what the laws and rules are in our networks and we need to know when they change, we need to have a voice over when, where, how, why that happens.

Ask us.

 In that spirit – I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!

EDIT: I ran across this link to a story on linking privacy (Is it ironic that I just linked to it?How many times do you think I can say “link” in this paragraph?) where a law firm sued a website for linking to the public profiles of a few of their lawyers who were involved in various news stories. I couldn’t believe it was actually settled instead of thrown out. How can a link to a public page be considered privacy infringement? One legal blogger agrees with me (I hope it’s ok that I linked to him) – what do you think?

Side note: I guess I was right about the Facebook TOS not being the last privacy issue we come across…it’s been, what, 15 minutes?

UPDATE:

Facebook is finally asking the community to join the conversation.

I’ve mentioned before what a scaredy cat I am – yesterday my coworker, Dustin, told me about an upcoming social networking horror film that is being released by Dimension Films (the same people who scared me to death with their ads on Myspace.)

Hopefully I never catch a glipse of these previews or it might be the end of my career…

It's not one location anymore - it's everywhere.

Today at work we watched a webinar on mobile technology by Comcast (MMetrics) that got us all thinking about the future of mobile. As the adoption rate for smartphones accelerates, the need to adapt marketing strategies to mobile technology decreases because these phones will be able to access standard web pages. Interesting stuff. 

And what about for social media? I read this great article by Om Malik on Facebook’s mobile future that @chrisbrogan twittered about. The integration of social media with your phone contacts will further integrate those networks into your “real” life. The mobility of using your cell phone to connect to your networks when you used to need a computer will make them an even bigger part of your daily life. This exponentially expands the reach of the network, advertising on the network and the depth at which the network, and the people in it, affect you and your decisions. 

The blurring of  lines between the “real” world and technology is dizzying. Just yesterday my coworker, Brandon, sent out an email about a new mobile technology that will allow your phone to interact, through mini projectors and image sensors (that’s about as technical as my understanding goes), with the world around you. At one point the article suggests you could meet someone at a party and the phone/device would project their social profile information onto their shirt so you could access the most important information about them immediately. Crazy.

To me this further creates the need for authenticity in our world and in our lives. The time of a “public” face and a “private” face is over. Your information is public, you are public. You have to be yourself because if you aren’t, people will know. They’ll easily see you don’t match up with how you describe yourself in this or that profile and vice versa. 

This applies to brands as well. If you want a “family” business reputation, you have to act like it 24/7. If you want to be the “hip” new thing, you actually have to be hip. Branding as we know it will be forced to evolve. A “family” based ad campaign won’t give you a family image unless your company lives and breathes family and community service. Just putting a rap star in your shoes won’t make you “hip.”  And it’s seeping into politics too. We can see what our House Reps and Senators are doing, and hear what they’re thinking straight from their own mouths.

What about you? Are you ready for the real world?

Viper: Top Gun rules of engagement are written for your safety and for that of your team. They are not flexible, nor am I. Either obey them or you are history. Is that clear?

Ok so rules of engagement in social media might not be quite as dire as all that but I ran across a link to this chart when I was reading KD Paine’s blog today (doing some research on measuring PR and social media – what else?)  and thought it illustrated the process extremely well. Definitely worth sharing:

KD Paine got this chart from Jeremiah Owyang who got it from Joey Devilla who found out about it from David Meerman Scott - so I’m relying on that chain as to its authenticity, but authentic or not it’s a great way to visualize the correct way to respond to a blog post about your brand.

Pass it on.

*Top Gun quote courtesy of IMDB