Social Media 101
SES Toronto 2007 Training Workshop
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Agenda
• Social Media 101
The Backdrop What is Social Media? World of Social Media Why Do I Need Social Media? What Can I Do With It? Beyond Marketing… Social Media Marketing: State of the Union When Social Media Marketing Works; When It Doesn’t
• The Good, The Bad and the Ugly • Building Your Strategy • Applying the Approach to Your Organization: Theory to Action
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Social Media
In 1999, it was the future…
"A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed.”
Cluetrain Manifesto
Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger
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Today it is the new reality
• 45% of adult Internet Users have created content online • 54% of adult Internet Users have watched video online • 28% of adult Internet Users have tagged content online • 77% think Blogs are a good way to get information about a company or product • My Space gets more traffic than Google • Triple digit percentage increases in number of visitors to SN’s in 2006
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What’s happening to the Web?
• Web I.0: The Digital Newspaper • Companies broadcast or present information via Web site; Users can “interact” by sending an email or joining an email list to receive more broadcast information from company based on individual interests • Web I.5 Plus: The Digital Newspaper Interactive • Users can comment on a story; participate in a forum • Web 2.0: Cocreation and Connection • Information gatekeeping is over • SM sites don’t define user experience by simply publishing information for people to observe • Web services are provided to create platforms for people to cocreate their own services communities, experiences “Humanity’s natural urge to connect, to create, to communicate is coalescing with increased penetration of internet connection and growing accessibility to user-friendly collaboration tools” Wikinomics
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What’s happening to the Web?
• The Internet is a giant computer that everyone can program • Build an ecommerce app using Amazon as transaction engine • Contribute to human genome project using Web enabled sequencing program • Create a mashup using Google Maps (CheapGas, HousingMaps) • Use Flickr API to create new apps for photo sharing • Submit reader reviews on Amazon, rate books and other reader reviews, tag books and reader reviews to help classify/categorize content for others in the community • Create your own video and broadcast it on You Tube • Users vote with their feet: • Wikipedia beats Britannica • Blogger beats CNN • Epinions beats Consumer Reports • Google maps beats MapQuest • Craigslist beats Monster
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Companies struggling with the concept
• DRM, piracy are huge concerns…who owns content? • Sony Playstation, Ipod, Lego • “The problem isn’t piracy, it’s obscurity, the risk that ones’ work will get lost in the vast digital wilderness of content and voices”
Cory Doctorow, editor, boing boing, sci fi writer
• Some industries catching on…Science 2.0 OpenWetWare – Wiki for 20 Biology labs Innovectra
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This is just a kid thing, right?
• The Net Gen were early adopters because of comfort level with technology, BUT • Humans crave connection and recognition…the tools are now there for them to scratch that itch • Flickr • Eons (Lovin life on the flip side of 50) • Epinions • Even MySpace
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What is Social Media?
• Not a type of Web site; although some attempts at categorization
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3623173
• Not a set of tools; although tools that helps people connect are a defining characteristic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_software • What people do; how they behave online; a description of the Web environment • SM activity becoming more visible, dispersed across various destinations
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What is Social Media?
Defining characteristics…
User Controlled Content
• Users create content: videos, photos, comments, links • Users decide what is popular • No line between media & audience
› The audience is not a passive recipient of information
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What is Social Media?
Defining characteristics…
Participatory & Conversational
• The media is created by the interaction • Content feeds conversation and vice versa • Linking, commenting, etc.
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What is Social Media?
Defining characteristics…
Open
• No password protected content • What is popular (and often what isn’t popular) is evident • Who is posting content is evident • Reusing, repeating, remixing content is encouraged
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What is Social Media?
Defining characteristics…
Mixed Media
• Text, video, audio, photos, etc. are frequently combined • Key difference between online and conventional media sources
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What is Social Media?
Defining characteristics…
Communities
• Niches, channels, groups that reflect personal interest are ALWAYS a feature • Allows people to define themselves and CONNECT, which is one of the primary motivations of SM participation
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The World of Social Media
• SM is not a site or a group of sites; SM activity is everywhere, on sites belonging to marketers, search engines, etc. • People do the same kinds of things (connecting and creating content) no matter what site they are on • Defies categorization into types
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The World of Social Media: BLOGS
Technotati tracks over 70 million Blogs 120,000 Blogs created per day 39% of Internet Users (57 million American Adults) report reading Blogs Note that posts per day are sliding!
Sources: EMarketer, Business of Blogging 2006; Pew Internet & American Life, 2006 Blogging Survey; Technorati 2007
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Blog Examples
• • • • • • Engadget Scoble Huffington Post Gawker Post Secret Ford Bold Moves
BUT Most Blogs are “personal” Blogs; content will range from a new restaurant in town to parenting to sports
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The World of Social Media: SOCIAL NETWORKS
• “The extension of your social life onto the Internet”
Aaron Cohen, CEO of Bolt
• Triple digit percentage increases in number of visitors to SN’s in 2006 • MySpace: 42 million unique visits May 2006; 40% aged 3554 • Extremely high avg minutes per visit on SN sites • Other examples:
• TagWorld • Xanga • Facebook
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The World of Social Media: SOCIAL NETWORKS
Verticals
• • • • • • • • • • • Hotsoup.com Feelingbullish Change.org Mothersclick BlackPlanet Migente (Hispanic) Fuzzster Catster Boompa Whyville Imbee
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The World of Social Media: SOCIAL NETWORKS
Marketers
• ShareandBelong (Sheraton) • Joga.com (Nike) • Specialkgroup.yahoo.com • ClubMom • Martha Stewart • Ning – create your own • MyDream (Lincoln)
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The World of Social Media:
CONTENT COMMUNITIES
Bookmarking and Tagging
• Users want to mark, store, organize and retrieve content • 28% of Adult Internet Users have tagged content online • 7% say they do it DAILY • Under 40, high income and education levels • 26% white, 36% Black/Non-Hispanic; 33% Hispanic/ English speaking • 38% have broadband • Tagging is getting easier: GMail users can tag email content; Amazon users can tag books, etc.
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The World of Social Media:
CONTENT COMMUNITIES
Bookmarking/Tagging
• Flickr: Massive, self organizing community of photo lovers • Produce all content • Classify it • Build and share new applications for community members • 5 million unique visitors May 2006 to Flickr
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The World of Social Media:
CONTENT COMMUNITIES
Bookmarking/Tagging
• Digg is common example for Web content, skews heavily male (94%) • Community “decides” what is most important content on Web • VERY suspicious/unwelcoming to anything perceived as marketing • Other examples: • Reddit • Del.iciou.us • Netscape • Furl • Stumble Upon
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The World of Social Media:
CONTENT COMMUNITIES
Video
• 54% of Adult users watch videos online • You Tube gets 34 million visitors per month; average time on site is 28 min • Other examples: MetaCafe Google Video Heavy Networks My Space
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The World of Social Media:
CONTENT COMMUNITIES
Podcasts
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The World of Social Media: CONSUMER REVIEWS
• Consumers trust the opinions of others more than any other source of information • Epinions heavily populated by 25 – 54 demo • Other examples: • Judy’s Book • TripAdvisor • Yahoo Local • Amazon
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The World of Social Media: Wikis
• Community edited content • Wikipedia most popular; branching into new areas: WikiNews WikiUniversity • 31 mill uniques may 2006; 12th most popular web properties among us users may 2006 comscore • Other examples: Democratic Underground Ebay Wikihow
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The World of Social Media: Discussion Forums
• One of the “early” examples of using the internet as a way to share • Almost all SM destinations include a mechanism for discussion • Examples:
Yahoo Groups Google Groups Eurekster Ning
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The World of Social Media:
MORE MORE MORE
• • • • • •
43 Things Twitter Google Maps Bolt Bebo eon
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Why Do I Need a Social Media Strategy?
• One to many messages/broadcast content increasingly ignored
• People trust each other, not companies • People are unsatisfied with “mass” anything; lockstep culture the exception not the rule
› NSYNC; 2000 › Only 2 of the top 100 albums of all time came out after 2005 › “I’m unique, my tastes are unique, I don’t have to settle”
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Why do I need social media? RM and Search
• Hillary Clinton Video (Vote Different) • KFC Rats • Digg bans Lee Odden, accuses Danny Sullivan of spam • Far reaching implications: MSM Search Visibility
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Anatomy of an SM Attack
• Spring 2006: Chevy launches “The Apprentice” – online contest to create the best TV commercial for the Chevy Tahoe • Environmental groups (mainly Democratic Underground) seize the opportunity; ask members and supporters to visit the Chevy site and create protest commercials • Democratic Underground: loosely organized; good example of social media site
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Fearing that Chevy will remove the protest ads, DU asks users to post their videos on You Tube
Bloggers light the viral fire
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What can I do with social media
• Marketing is the tip of the iceberg • Examples: • Product Creation/Innovation › Lego; mindstorms.lego.com (initially resisted customer hacks)’= • Internal Communications/Employee Innovation › Best Buy Geek Squad – built a Wiki that no one used, then discovered that agents play Battlefield 2. Now use it for internal communications • R&D › Innovectra • Research › Opinion Mining
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Social Media Marketing
The State of the Union
• SMM (Social Media Marketing)
Creating and distributing editable content/tools that will resonate with SM users, participating in online communities, developing EGM • Currently a broad spectrum of activity, including tactics that are not much more than conventional advertising/marketing/PR • Developing a high ROI social media strategy requires much more than what is currently understood as SMM
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Social Media Misunderstood
Tactics driven by conventional adv/mktg/PR principals: • “one to many” • getting the message out • Contain and control • Speaking to “the audience” • Mobilization
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An Example
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Social Media Strategy
• NOT conventional advertising, PR, Marketing Concepts Includes: • Social Media Optimization The process of refining a site so that its awareness, content are easily spread through social mediums and online communities • Social Media Outreach Actively engaging and contributing in communities • Non marketing applications
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When It Works; When It Doesn’t
• Rule #1: Listen before you talk!
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When It Works; When It Doesn’t
• Rule #2: Engage in the right communities; appeal to the interests of the community, not YOUR interests
• Go to Digg and look at what gets buried Weight loss tips on Digg (?!)
• CarnivalConnections.com – invite friends and family on a cruise, share photos, trip reviews, etc. • Toyota Yaris, targeted at younger demo, provided tutorials on customizing their own contact table on My Space – very subtle advertising, provided utility, something their TA wanted
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When It Works; When It Doesn’t
• Rule #3: Give them something to work with • Content to remix is always appreciated! • Ask Bloggers/community members to test a product, give you feedback, etc. • The more involved they are with your product, the better
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When It Works; When It Doesn’t
• Rule #4: Be transparent; never try to fool someone
Dell, You Just Don’t Get It “Two posts on Dell one to one Blog have noted that they think I am very pleased and satisfied that someone from Dell called me to say they wanted to resolve the Dell technical support issues I’ve had… …So Dell, stop saying that I am thrilled with these phone calls. Because, like your blog, they are nothing but a PR Ploy…”
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When It Works; When It Doesn’t
• Rule #5: Give them a way to talk to you and be willing to hear the bad stuff and respond
• DON’T: Create CEO Blogs that are not written by CEOs and don’t allow comments • Google Guy • Review/feedback mechanisms on your own site • Your customers can become advocates if you do this right
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When It Works; When It Doesn’t
In A Nutshell:
• Know your customers and where your brand/product stands with them • Go where the conversation is, study it and study the speakers • Find an entre by appealing to their interests • Develop a relationship by encouraging contact, responding • Be prepared for an attack
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The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Nan’s List
• The Good John Edwards Campaign • The Pretty Good Jet Blue Apology • Getting into the game, doing ok: World Vision Save The Children CARE
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The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Nan’s List
• The Bad Special K Subservient Chicken (Burger King) My Dream (Lincoln)
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The Good, The Bad, The Ugly: Nan’s List
• The Ugly Edelman/Walmart fake Blog Edelman/Walmart fake posts Crayon
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