mi-space

Social Networking Fatigue

We ran a poll on this blog to find out whether people feel they already have "social networking fatigue"

social networking fatigue n. Mental exhaustion and stress caused by creating and maintaining an excessive number of accounts on social networking sites. Also: social network fatigue.

The results ...

Almost half of our voters are already saturated by online social communications.  We were very aware of this when developing the HSBC Business Network with LiveWorld and it's something all brands need to be aware of when jumping on the "community" bandwagon.  Most of us already feel we have enough online places to go to, we barely have time to keep up to date and maintain our profiles and blogs already, so why would we give away our time and energy to a brand? Of course it's all about the value exchange.

Simon Andrews talks more about the Value Exchange here and the MindShare reboot here:

http://simonandrews.typepad.com/big_picture/2008/05/google-gets-the.html

Political networking

As the London Mayoral Elections near a conclusion we have seen each of the candidates promote themselves as sub-brands of their core parties and utilise their online presence to position themselves as "forward thinkers".  Justin Drummond's article on Brand Republic investigates the importance of political status on the web today and use of social media, search and video sharing to engage their audience.

The US are clearly leading the way in this field and Barack Obama's campaign (whether he wins or loses) is a case study for us all to refer to. "Not only has Barack Obama assembled a troop of 750,000 supporters who have signed to his website and taken part in 30,000 offline events, but his online fund-raising soared above $100m from January to March.  His YouTube videos have been watched over 37 million times." (quote from Justin Drummond's article).

We have been following Obama on Twitter (currently approximately 27k followers and 27k following) as well as 10 Downing Street (2k followers and 2k following - but they're fairly new to the scene).  Obama's twitterings are seemingly in the first person, clearly he doesn't have the time to update this himself, but the brand effect is exactly right; we feel he is one of us, he is talking to us directly:

Going to be on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart tonight. 11:00pm ET on Comedy Central. Hope you watch & reply with your thoughts after.   09:25 PM April 21, 2008 from web                   

Unsurprisingly, in contrast 10 Downing Street reports activity in the form of journalistic headlines:

  "The World Bank should act for development and the environment so people can adopt alternative sources of energy"   06:21 PM April 18, 2008 from twhirl                   

Of course this is another example of "it's not about which channels you are using, it is how you are using them" that makes the difference in this bun fight for attention and engagement with customers and voters.

John McCain's (Republican in the US Presidential Election) approach is up for debate - his daughter and pals (The Blogettes) take on the role of lead campaign reporters on the McCainBlogette.com . McCain's press team clearly recognise McCain couldn't achieve the same credibility online with the younger audience as Obama, so they have attempted to woo potential young Republican's with tales of parties and footwear (or rather "Musings and Pop Culture") on the campaign trail - accompanied by Blogette playlists.  The blog comments suggest this is a hit with the audience, a well targeted campaign (?) but to me it feels an embarrassing diversion from a leader's inability to appeal to his voters directly.

Whatever the success of these approaches political nominees are employing right now, it is clearly a natural fit for social media and politics to join forces.  Finally it might just be possible for voters to "join the debate" - no longer will this phrase just be political posturing.

Lesson 1. Always have an objective

Yesterday evening, a client from HSBC and myself attended a webinar hosted by Mzinga featuring Josh Bernoff of our regularly featured Groundswell fame.

HSBC is imminently due to launch a community network in the UK (developed in partnership with MindShare on the LiveWorld platform) - as soon as it's live we'll post the link up here and you'll also be able to access it from the main HSBC Business website. This is a really progressive step for a financial brand, they are not only willing to listen to their customers but allow their customers a voice and the possibility of networking with other likeminded business entrepreneurs.

It's not brave, it's savvy. Why we think it will be a success? Because they have a very clear proposition:

"HSBC empowers its start-up customers to succeed by enabling them to network and form relationships with each other, HSBC's business specialists and HSBC overall."

Bernoff reminded us how brands can rush into riding the wave of social media, thinking they need video seeding, forums, blogs, UGC etc. without truly considering how it will benefit the consumer and the brand.  Lesson 1. Have an objective in mind.

Webponce posted this hilarious (if rather cynical) clip from Jeremy Paxman on BBC's Newsnight that perfectly sums up just how some brands are just doing it because they can - but really they shouldn't!

To view a similar webinar given by Josh Bernoff on CNET visit (it's an hour long but worth it): http://www.optaros.com/video/groundswell-cnet-video

UCG and Social Media recognised by IAB

The IAB have today released an report covering User Generated Content (UGC) or CGC / Social Media and Advertising ahead of a conference they are holding in June.

The file is available for download from the IAB site here or Download 2008_ugc_platform.pdf here.

The report gives a thorough overview of the platforms and components of social media - blogs, wikis, branded communities, forums, widgets etc., as well as dealing with the issues for marketers and brands.  No longer are we in a world were we by time or space on fixed media in a totally controlled context - we need to be creative, we need to integrate and co-create with our consumers.

Social Media has also changed our expectations of who is consuming where and when.  The report cites analysis from Comscore Media Metrix "UGC and Social Networking isn’t all “child’s play” either [...] more than half of MySpace users were over 35 years old, and that 25-year-olds accounted for 71% of Friendster users. Separately, executive networking site LinkedIn, reports that its average user is 39 years-old and has an annual income of $139,000."

It's a challenge for brands, agencies and marketers but the sky is the limit.  It looks like we have all finally admitted the world has changed.

When The Best You Can Do Is Get Fake Facebook Fans, You Know You Have A PR Problem

From Buzzya

Author: Michael Masnick
Ticketmaster is widely considered one of the more hated companies in America, so it made a few people scratch their heads when they saw that Ticketmaster was near the top of the list in terms of the number of "fans" it had on Facebook. Valleywag points to an enterprising blogger who checked out who those fans were and noticed that many, many of the fans appear to be entirely fake creations. They have no picture, no other friends and they're only fans of Ticketmaster. In other words, it looks like Ticketmaster is "stuffing the ballot box" in order to look more popular than it actually is. That's pretty sad. Of course, as people in the comments note, it's not so much that Ticketmaster created the fake fans themselves: they simply offered a promotion to give any "fans" five free iTunes downloads. So it looks like a bunch of folks set up fake Facebook profiles just to get those five free downloads -- and Ticketmaster gets to "pretend" it has all these fans. Except, of course, now it just looks like a serious loser that has to pay for "fans" and gets a bunch of fake fans for its troubles.

Social Technographics from Groundswell

Continuing our love for all things Groundswell, Simon Andrews (MindShare's Chief Digital Strategy Officer) has just alerted us to their clever tool for profiling our customers' "Social Technographics"

Companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — a blog here, a podcast there — to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.

http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell/profile_tool.html

Easy.

Brand Widgets

On the subject of Snipperoo, there are really useful reference sections on

Brand Widgets
Reference to Kimberley Clark, Disney.com and Rolex

Revenue Widgets
Including Netvibes and the Widget Economy

Building a Brand with Widgets

Interesting article in Business Week about Widgets - the latest trend / currency in our world of social communications.

The article is also pasted below for reference but a few core considerations when considering whether a widget is the solution to your needs:

• Interest in widgets is rising as marketers become disaffected by other methods of online advertising, especially on social networks
• Content and functionality are the new creativity
• Although there is plenty of anecdotal success, there are relatively few good examples - many widgets have a short shelf life - Widgets are essentially just a piece of portable content and (similar to their predecessor - the viral), to be successful needs to be either useful or engaging.  Always remember the idea should come before the delivery mechanism (i.e. don't just claim you're going to create a widget, come up with the idea and if a widget is a great way of delivering on that then it's win win)
• Widgets are relatively cheap to create so it's worth experimenting
• Remember widgets need a platform - they need somewhere to live and people also need a way of finding them. Facebook may have popularised applications (widgets) but they are not the only choice, and not necessarily always the right choice.
• Mobile widgets ... anyone?
• How can widgets truly work for brands?
• How do we measure and how do we know what is true success?

Useful blog for widgets from the widget master Ivan Pope: Snipperoo