Posts Tagged ‘social media’

The less social networks and their challenge for marketers

Published on Apr 10th, 2011 by Chris

Based on the recent buzz at SXSW, the festival that young wannabe Zuckerbergs go to party, showcase their new social media app/ecosystem/way of life and receive billions from salivating venture capitalists, 2011 will be the rise of the less social network. Spurred-on by continuing discontent over Facebook’s desperate attempt to sell as many details of its members as possible, new services are offering a more intimate way to communicate with a select few recipients.

This clearly presents a problem for marketers as the holy grail of massive insight into consumer’s activities and social interactions slips further away. Previous Northstar research has shown less concern about privacy amongst current teenagers, however the rise of less social networks on the back of privacy concerns amongst older age groups means that the golden age of marketing could be further away than the industry hoped.

The industry has to act responsibly and carefully manage the use of social media based advertising. If managed correctly the idea of relevant adverts could be a benefit to consumers not a hindrance, location based adverts likewise.

Location based special offers (Foursquare, Facebook places) are a good way to introduce consumers to these ideas as the benefit is clear to them. The idea of using your Facebook friends’ images without their knowledge to promote a product might be a bit too far on the creepy side though.

How marketers use these new opportunities could have a big impact on the extent to which people look for alternatives to Facebook. These are the less advertising friendly competitors to watch out for in 2011.

GroupMe/ Beluga

Fed up with sharing everything that you do with everyone? These text message/ app based services allow you to setup groups and then send messages visible only to members. The addition of SMS means that you don’t need a smartphone and good data connection. If you are using a smartphone app you get the added features of location & photo sharing and conference calls. Sensing the potential threat Facebook snapped up Beluga shortly before SXSW.

Glympse:

Want to send you location to someone quickly, easily and without telling everyone else where you are? Glympse lets you send your location (for a limited period of time) out via a link in SMS or email. The recipient can then view your location and speed. Ideal if you’re running late, meeting someone in an unfamiliar place or just want peace of mind.

Path:

With the average Facebook ‘friends’ with 120 people the idea of sharing everything becomes a bit daunting given that your parents/ colleagues etc could well be watching. Path aims to offer a more intimate experience with the intention of a smaller network of friends around 50.

Some information sourced from: http://mashable.com/2011/03/09/startups-to-watch-sxsw/

Blogging is like running a market stall

Published on Apr 7th, 2011 by Chris

Image by Prince Roy

Yes, I know, another social media analogy. Everyone seems to have one, here’s mine: Blogging is like a busy market- here’s how to stand out:

Talk your customer’s language: So this analogy stemmed from a recent trip to Taiwan. Wondering around a massive night market the biggest barrier to getting some food was that I don’t speak Chinese. I could have just pointed at what the person in front of me had bought but this is pretty limiting. Social media is no different, just because you dream in tweets doesn’t mean your target audience does. Abandoning ‘old fashioned’ communications forms such as email too early may alienate a significant chunk of your readership. A combination of twitter, email, Facebook and even post means that you can maximise your reach.

If you’re trying to engage, be genuine: Every now and again wondering through the night market, I was approached by a seller. Having profiled me as someone keen to buy a souvenir, less aware than most how much something was worth I probably looked like a good bet (in fact I was, but that isn’t the point). Being approached with a big fake grin, asking where I was from, it was fairly clear that this was an attempt to sell not to strike up a conversation. When promoting your blog, are you saying ‘hello, it’d be great for me if you read my blog’? Or, are you offering something that may be of interest?

Offer what people want: Having made your blog accessible and promised something of interest you need to stock your stall with something of interest. You may be writing a blog as a form of advertising/ to build brand engagement/sell, but people will only come back if your articles are of interest. Yes, promoting your blog is important, but it’s a waste of time if you don’t have content of value.

Make the purchase process easy: Walking past a market stall it is immediately clear what’s on offer, everything’s laid out nicely in front of you. With a blog it’s easy to focus too much on looking innovative and different from others, this shouldn’t impact the ease with which your content can be accessed. A clear layout, a simple explanation of what your blog contains and always having something of interest within easy reach makes it easy for people to consume your content.

Listen and adapt: A market seller is in tune with their customers, they are talking to them all day! Blogging gives you plenty of opportunity to get feedback and learn more about your readers/ what they like. You should nurture a two-way, not one-way relationship.

With that in mind, let me know your thoughts on this…..

Teaching an Old Dog Old Tricks

Published on Oct 4th, 2010 by Jack

Teaching Old Dogs Old Tricks

Social media research has planted a sense of fear within traditional researchers. These worries are centred around the question; how do we study this new wave of information? Well, for all the “old dog”, traditional researchers out there, fear not. Many of the traditional principals of research as we have historically known them are applicable, and indeed necessary, when conducting social media research.

Sampling

The underlying purpose of sampling is to gain an insight into the views of a large population by looking at a portion of it, as to research an entire population is practically impossible. Similarly, to investigate all on-line conversations is equally unpractical. Therefore, the answer to this social media research dilemma is to sample. Yes, sample, as researchers have been doing since the dawn of research time. However, whereas before we would quota sample by (for example) brand ownership, in social media research we must sample by source of conversation. Furthermore, in traditional research a sample size may be n=300. In social media research n will still equal 300, but 300 conversations not 300 respondents.

Data Quality

Clean data is a fundamental part of any researcher’s investigative diet. Why should this change just because we are moving from studying conversations in a focus group to conversations on the web? Answer – it shouldn’t. In fact, as the data in social media research is user generated we have to be even more careful about its quality. Whereas in traditional quantitative research we have to be careful of straight liners, in social media research we have to be wary of re-tweeters and spammers to avoid analysing duplicated and irrelevant web chat. Add to this the unproven nature of social media research and the clientside scepticism about it, and the need for clean data in social media research is obvious.

Relevant Analysis

Despite its web based origin, there is no reason for researchers to look at the analysis of social media data in too much of a separate light to standardised analytical practices. At the crux of social media data analysis is the idea that researchers need to filter through conversations, extracting relevant insights and content in order to meet the research goal – does this process sound familiar? At this stage I would expect qualitative researchers to reminisce about a process they have undertaken on hundreds of occasions.

Obviously, the finer points of conducting traditional and social media research do differ. However, broadly speaking, traditional researchers need not worry. Researching social media does not require an entire new outlook on the research process. As shown above, at a high level the old, rugged and proven research principals will suffice. That said, with the speed at which social media research is growing this statement may only be applicable for the immediate future. Researchers watch this space…

In Defence of Market Research

Published on Sep 20th, 2010 by Jack

Phillip Graves recently gave the discipline of market research a fierce critique on www.research-live.com (see http://bit.ly/aesjd2 for full article). His criticisms are so extensive he has also authored a book on the matter. However, based on Graves’ comments on the internet, there appears to be some underlying flaws in his (in my view) misperception of what market research is today and where it should go in the future.

Graves refers to market research as a “pseudo-science” insinuating that whilst it wishes to be viewed as a science, it isn’t quite there yet. I disagree based on two key points. Firstly, market research can be seen as being strongly rooted in disciplines such as psychology, sociology and statistics – all of which have a strong scientific base. Science, let us remember, is about method not content. Secondly, research projects frequently seek to solve business problems. It is hard to fathom how Graves cannot see the process of being given a complex problem, devising a solution and providing an answer as anything but a scientific and methodical process.

Methodologically, Graves believes that market research needs to step away from investigating attitudinal issues. Granted, a great difference exists between thinking and doing, but is that to say, for example, a consumer’s perception of a brand they do not buy is not important? These consumers’ attitudes, and changing thereof are, after all, imperative to potentially increasing said brand’s customer base.

Whilst refuting the use of surveys and focus groups, Graves advocates social media research. This is interesting as social media often documents attitudes and thoughts, not just behaviour (one element of research Graves appears to support). This rather contradicts Graves’ initial methodological argument. Furthermore, the content of social media truly is haphazard – a term Graves uses to cast doubt on the functional use of market research – there is little order to a lot of the content of Twitter, Facebook et al. Their content changes day by day and I am sure the users of these mediums do not plan the content they are going to emit far in advance.

Despite these flaws within the argument put forward by Phillip Graves on-line, I fully intend to read his full publication and try to find further holes in his arguments and no doubt, further problematic issues with market research as a discipline.

Facebook: The new face of evil?

Published on May 20th, 2010 by Patrick

I always got a kick out of Google’s corporate motto, “Don’t be evil.”  To me, this ultra-altruistic philosophy was beautiful in its simplicity and intent.  But alas, when you’re in the business of making money it’s sometimes necessary to soften one’s ideals, hence Google’s revised slogan: You can make money without doing evil.

Despite its industry titan status and the realities of operating in a social media world where consumers have more control than ever, Google has done a pretty decent job of living up to its ideals and preserving its brand image.  Facebook, on the other hand, risks being handed a pitchfork and growing a set of horns should it not do more to safeguard its reputation and relationship with three key constituencies, government regulators, consumers and advertisers.  One must wonder if Facebook’s mind boggling success has led to a technological hubris that prevents the company from understanding that the Facebook brand is not invincible.  In the shadow of Myspace’s perilous decline, surely Facebook isn’t yet “too big to fail.”

Government regulators are making Facebook the poster child for privacy concerns

The privacy issues confronting Facebook have been well covered in the media.  Worldwide, government officials concerned with protecting the data of its citizens have expressed their grave concern with Facebook’s privacy policies.  In response, Facebook has made incremental changes to the site’s privacy settings, resulting in a confusing labyrinth of profile opt-outs that are unlikely to be altered or fully understood by the average user.

While the ongoing privacy concerns are causing some people (mostly tech insiders) to quit Facebook altogether, it has also led to applications like Reclaim Privacy, an open-source browser-based privacy scanner that automatically inspects your Facebook privacy settings and denotes settings that are risky privacy-wise.  While such tools are welcome, I honestly doubt the average person will use them, or be motivated enough to care.

The truth is that privacy has never been a top priority for Mark Zuckerberg. Facebook is about sharing information, and putting limitations on what gets shared runs counter to its interests. Sharing and capturing data is Facebook’s business.  Privacy will always be a casualty of Facebook’s success.  Or, as Pete Cashmore put more starkly, privacy is dead and social media holds the smoking gun.

But in an era characterized by government intervention in response to unregulated lending practices, inadequate safeguards for offshore oil drilling and overall corporate malfeasance, look for governments to remain on the offensive with this issue, and Facebook and others will have no choice but to cooperate.

Facebook dilutes the value of relationships amongst consumers.

Are people beginning to internalize how Facebook (the face of social media) debases the quality of our relationships?  Jarod Lanier, in his recent book You Are Not a Gadget writes extensively about how technology and social media in particular imposes an artificial layer between people – making it increasingly difficult for individuals to truly relate to one another.

If this is too ethereal of a concept for Joe Average to grasp, there still remains the steady stream of scams making news, such as the one reported by Bloomberglast week about an agency setting up fake personal profiles and “friending” people left right and centre, accumulating thousands of contacts, presumably to hit them up later with some kind of offer or deal.  It’s kind of ironic that a medium which markets itself on authenticity and transparency falls short on its ideals so emphatically.

It’s not always appropriate to “Like” something.

Then, there is the increasingly ubiquitous “Like” button.  “Like” used to be a feature found only on Facebook’s pages, serving as an invitation to show your appreciation or enthusiasm for a comment a friend had made, or content that she’d shared.  As a feature of Facebook’s new Open Graph policy, you’ll see “Like” embedded more and more places online – often times in the wrong context like this news story entitled “Thief lifts laptop with photos of deceased child’s battle with cancer.”  As this monolithic voting system permeates the web, Facebook is accumulating more data on the preferences and behaviour of consumers.   As Mitch Joel said, how about a “Don’t Like” button?  Or, Facebook could take a page out of The Huffington Post’s book, and give readers a chance to truly express themselves with a range of emotions /reactions.

Community pages risk alienating advertisers

Brands have always been uneasy about social media due to the lack of control and potential negative exposure.  Companies must develop rules of engagement for how to deal with online conversations involving their brand, including dealing with individual customer complaints or more organized brand jacking.   But just as brands are acclimatizing to this new environment, Facebook’s newly minted Community Pages changes the game again.

In case you missed it, Community Pages are the new home for topics of interest that aren’t brands, like cooking or basketball.  These pages automatically aggregate related content from the Facebook ecosystem and Wikipedia.  It’s inevitable that the aggregated information will include conversations about brands.  But unlike the traditional brand fan pages, there’s no means for brands to respond or redirect the conversation.  They might as well throw their newly scribed rules of engagement out the window.

This is an example of Facebook innovating at a pace that outstrips the market.  In stealing further control from their clients, Facebook is biting the hands that feed it.  I would fully expect Facebook to heed the feedback of its customers on this one.

There’s no question that managing an entirely new breed of company that’s growing as quickly as Facebook would be a challenge.  When you’ve got half a billion users, the slightest change to your product is sure to have unforeseen repercussions.  But in the age of Customer experience, Facebook should be more proactively thinking about how their moves impact the constituents vital to their being.

As Jeremiah Owyang tweeted just the other day:  “Like their founder, Facebook acts their age. Energetic, innovative, and fast, yet like most youth, they don’t think [things] through.” Too many more missteps and Facebook might just find itself wondering what went wrong.  Are we witnessing the beginning of the end to Facebook’s meteoric rise?