The Noughties- the 'Social' Decade

So there go the noughties- the decade that digital came of age, that social media became the buzzword and the decade that the Internet became for most of us an essential life manager.

The social decade started with the rise of MySpace, which was then snapped up by Rupert Murdoch five years later for an overinflated half a billion dollars. MySpace's status as the new star of the Internet was taken by Facebook who now over have over 350m users worldwide- and who are still growing. Facebook's phenomenal growth has coincided with a serious drop in use and interest in MySpace- leaving Murdoch with an expensive headache. Facebook is yet to be significantly affected by the emergence of Twitter- which with 50m users is dwarfed by the blue giant, but which has had enough of an impact for Facebook to do a deal with it to integrate its real-time results and status updates.

I'm sure there's a directory of start-ups that came and went and another list of start-ups that launched and are still going strong but perhaps the biggest change and seismic shift has come in the form of Google.

Almost overnight, Google established itself as the search engine of choice for Internet users around the world but that was just the start.

Google is now for most the Internet.

It's the starting point whether they're looking for the latest news, ideas for their summer holiday, directions how to get to a restaurant or even
personal profiles on friends, prospective employees and colleagues. Its power and reach is phenomenal and all of this has been achieved without even cracking social networking or social search.

It has been watching for a while how Facebook and Twitter have become the defacto platform for real-time status updates, the spread of real-time information and news to a targeted audience and so in the latter stage of this  year, it started to roll out real-time search; perhaps the biggest revolution in search to date.

The implications of real time search are huge not just for Google but for the Internet user and for brands and organisations who now lost what little control they had over what is published about them, said about them, linked about them or referenced about them. We've already seen this in the last few days with the real time results and storm around the Eurostar social media PR disaster and the negative buzz around the aborted British Airways strike.

So what does the next decade hold?

Well it's likely to be the decade that the Internet shifts from being free to being more freemium and premium- not that this will be an easy transition! There's also likely to be significant consolidation within the social space to improve the user experience and avoiding the need for multiple log-ins. Think OpenId but one which is universal and mass market friendly. There will be a number of high profile brand 'outings' who catch a sizeable and damaging cold because of real-time search and not being proactive towards it and managing their online reputations. 

However, perhaps the biggest shift will be in overall user behaviour. We're already seeing people viewing less and less web pages and using search engines and their own networks to filter the vast amounts of information they're deluged with. Time is precious and consolidated spaces and feeds will become more important. Think a souped-up i-Google, which is 100% personalisable and which is as much an App-Store as it is a social environment. Google have tried with Google Wave but they've got a long way to go before it works and more importantly appeals to the mass market.

It has been a fascinating decade for me professionally as well a personally. Having started the decade as a well regarded business journalist on New Media Age, I went on to write for the MediaGuardian before joining Marketing where I was News Editor and then in the second half of the decade, I went on to establish a successful online marketing agency, Evolv Digital before riding the Setanta Sports rollercoaster as Head of Online Marketing for a brief stint.

I'm really excited about the next ten years and think for anyone either involved in the online industry or on the periphery of it that it offers huge opportunities, which could well prove to be the platform for fundamental change in both the way we live our lives and also the way we interact with brands and organisations.

Posted via web from Ben's posterous

Search goes real-time

Brands beware, Google is rolling out realtime search this week - a move that not only could revolutionise the way people search the Internet but perhaps even more singificantly could mark a seismic shift in online brand reputation.

Once rolled out according to Google when you search, not only will you get the standard organic and paid listings but you will also get the real-time listing- ie tweets, updates and news stories that have just been posted. This means that brands will no longer be able to brush under the carpet PR disasters, customer complaints or negative news stories. As soon as people start talking about them and the Web buzz builds then they will be displayed bang right in front of people searching.

The reality is that for many, Google is now their Web browser and they use Google to filter information and to navigate the Web. Negative tweets, updates and listings could well change people's purchasing or consideration decisions.

For companies who are still pretending to play dumb when it comes to online reputation- Google's move to incorporate real-time should be a huge wake-up call and it doesn't necessarily have to be all bad news, After-all, real-time is an incredibly powerful way of spreading a message rapidly and building awareness around for example a specific campaign or a competition. So the challenge will be for companies to give serious consideration to real-time, how they utilisie it and how they build it into their broader marketing and social media plans but at the same time they also need to devise proactive not reactive strategies as to how to monitor and react to Web buzz.

A lot of brands are already listening and are responding- as was evidenced by the recent spat between Gilette's PR agency Porter Novelli and Will King, the founder of King of Shaves but a proactive appraoch is needed now if companies aren't to be caught unaware. There will no doubt be some very high profile examples of brands who do get it wrong but for those who are ready to both utilise and listen then the opportunities could far outweigh the negatives!
This post is an update from the blog I did for Reputation Online last month.

Posted via web from Ben's posterous

Social Media much more than just an SEO tool

Following up on my last post, I've been thinking about why brands are using social media and why it's the talking point around companies big and small as we come to the end of 2009. Without doubt, 2009 has been the year that social marketing and social media came of age and the primary reason for this is because it's where the audience is at.

Globally, Facebook now has over 300m members and in the UK alone, it's now attracting a quarter of the UK's online display advertising spend. Twitter is also growing- though it has a very long way to go to catch up with Facebook- and actually in the US this week, the first evidence came to light of its American audience plateauing. Facebook's phenomenal growth is coming from Asia and Europe and there are now local versions of Facebook for over 40 languages and growing!

All of this shows us why brands are clamouring to get involved and are trying to identify how they can capitalise on the social boom whether it's through the development of branded applications and fan pages, targeted advertising or through the creation of community tools to help connect and engage with their audiences. But another very big part of social media is the SEO value that all these activities can add. By creating fan pages, writing and distributing content- be it text, images or videos and encouraging user-generated activities, companies are creating link and search engine equity to help improve their search visibility and their rankings.

Google's algorithm rewards companies for regularly creating fresh and dynamic content and for creating links back into their website(s) and whilst this is yet another area to be ticked off to support SEO activity, this also means that some companies are only regarding social media as an SEO add-on. This is frustrating as although it definitely does support and aid SEO, it should be so much more than that.

Social media should be used to primarily listen and then where appropriate to engage or to connect with customers. It's a listening post and a platform for action. As long as ‘pub rules’ are considered as outlined in the post below then it can deliver immense value for companies whether it’s using it as an awareness building platform, a platform to connect, listen and react to customers, a platform to give customers access to content or products or a platform to bring to life a broader advertising or brand platform.

The Hottest Ticket in town

Unsurprising social media is the hot ticket for most brands at the moment and according to Tom Bedecarre, the chief executive of AKQA who addressed the Meda140 Conference in London this week, it's the number one request from clients approaching AKQA.

For me, this is a both and a positive and a negative. The overwhelming positive is that it's great that brands are not only investigating how to capitalise on social media but if they're talking to AKQA- they must be prepared to spend
a not insignificant amount on the activity and also that brand managers are now considering it as part of their campaign channel plans.

However the negatives- and we've already seen this are twofold. One, it means that social environments are going to become brand cluttered and brands will be appearing in areas that users are either not going to expect them or want them to be in
and two, there's a risk that irrelevant and irresponsible activity actually ends up putting off users engaging and having a conversation with brands.

Some research from Web Trends that was published this week supports this view. The study, Rules of Engagement found that whilst 85% of people under the age of 35 welcome brands on social sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, half said they would leave if the site became overly commercial.

So what should brands do if they want a piece of the action- as it were but at the same time don't want to put users off or damage their reputation.

First of all they need to listen. They need to spend time in these environments listening to what people are saying and assessing where they can be relevant and where they can prove useful. For example, Twitter can be a fantastic channel for customer insight, customer service and customer-led innovation. It can also be used as a sales channel but this is risky and should only be considered if customers being approached via Twitter are being offered something that they want and that they can't get anywhere else- otherwise
it will be construed as spam.

Once brands have listened and worked out where they can add value, they need to consider 'pub rules'.
You wouldn't go up to a group of friends in a pub- if you didnt' know them -and start talking to them about something completely different.
You'd work out what you have in common with them, you'd work out where you could add value to the conversation and then you'd consider going over to that group of friends- probably with a few free drinks!

Social media is still relatively new so brands shouldn't be afraid of experimenting - but they should only experiment where they are relevant and where they have something to give or information to share- that can't be gleaned elsewhere or else they risk not only putting customers off their brand but also risking or damaging their reputation.

 

 

Posted via web from Ben's posterous

Media 140 – A quick summary

Spent the day at Media140 London yesterday.

Here's my thoughts:

There’s still too many questions and not enough answers

Examples of brands ‘doing it’ well are isolated and in specific sectors

Most of the brands that gave real experience- ASOS/Virgin Trains have just done it - without a formal strategy or policy

We saw/heard about successful campaigns from Doritos and Comparethemarket- but these aren't social campaigns. Social is one channel amongst many for these

There needs to be education within large businesses as to both the role real time social media can play but also what impact it can have on business. This needs to be supported by a mesaurement matrix to prove the investment is worthwhile

Its effects transcend departments- not just marketing, pr or brand. Need to incorporate Customer Service and Operations

It’s more than just a marketing campaign

Overall- an interesting conference, some insightful speakers but a bit disappointed that we’re still stuck in the ‘searching for answers’ space...

Posted via email from Ben's posterous

Trying out Posterous

 

I’ve been on Blogger for the last 4 years but now trying out on Posterous.

I’m not abandoning Accidental Observer- my blogger blog but I’m keen to see if Posterous is easy to manage.

Will use it as a side-channel.

Anyone got any good Posterous tips?

 

 

 

Posted via email from Ben's posterous

Update- Was the Moir campaign orchestrated?

With the Moir row still rumbling on both on Twitter and in the traditional media, the debate is starting to shift towards analysing the rapid and seismic storm that erupted soon after the article first appeared on the Daily Mail Website. Jan Moir herself posed this very question in her public apology.

Of particular focus is the fact that the Twitter storm was very much fuelled by a number of celebrities including Stephen Fry, Derren Brown and Five Live's Richard Bacon.

I think it's naive to suggest the campaign was orchestrated and instead Fridays's campaign against the article was proof of the value of the real time web and how quickly information or a cause can spread through the social channels. The fact that serial Tweeting celebrities endorsed the campaign was proof of the moral outrage it caused and that having witnessed the storm that was being generated across Twitter and Facebook , they opted to lend their support and push it further knowing just how powerful their vast follower bases could be.

The Moir storm is the perfect case study of the impact social channels can have - and how quickly information can spread either for good or for bad.

Has Twitter come of age?

Last week has been hailed as the week Twitter came of age. Twitter was the driving force behind three very separate public scandals and in the case of two of them, Twitter and social media led to the issues leading the news agenda and causing genuine public outcry.

The first scandal was the Trafigura affair. Early last week, it was revealed via Twitter that leading law firm, Carter Ruck had won an injunction to stop the Guardian revealing that an MP had asked a question in parliament about an allegation of illegal fly tipping of chemical waste in the Ivory Coast by a cargo ship that was chartered by Trafigura, a multinatonal oil-trading company. The storm that followed was fuelled by outrage across Facebook and Twitter complementing the power of the print press and it led to Trafigura becoming a trending topic, Carter Ruck being flash-mobbed, the injunction being lifted and most significantly of all, confirmation from Gordon Brown that he would request an investigation into the use of Stop injunctions- such as the one used by Carter Ruck.

Just as Trafigura subsided, Twitter blew up again - this time it was the story of a local London story where a TFL employee at Holborn station was filmed telling another elderly passenger that he would 'sling him under the train'.
TFL was bombarded by angry Tweeters, once again it became a trending topic and the employee was subsequently suspended-within hours of the virtual lynch mob clamouring for his sacking.

However perhaps the biggest outcry was saved for Friday when the Daily Mail columnist, Jan Moir became public enemy number one within just a few hours with her column on the death of Boyzone star Stephen Gately, which many felt was out of order, insensitive and had homophobic undertones. The Twittersphere went crazy when the article appeared online and seemingly, Moir herself was forced to set up her own Twitter account to defend the article and then issue a very public apology- which was subsequently followed up by the national media. Just today-it was reported that the Press Complaints Commission had received over 21,000 about Moir's article- the highest number in the PCC's history.

So was last week the start of a new phenomenon; is there really nowhere to hide now once an organisation or individual makes a grave error or commits something even worse?

Twitter has certainly achieved critical mass; it's everywhere even on the current bastions of popular culture, X-Factor and Strictly and it's certainly established itself as the best channel for not only eyewitness accounts but also the rapid spread of information to both niche and mass audiences.

There will definitely be more Trafigura, TFL and Moir outrages and Twitter will no doubt fuel some more than others as it and the broader take up of social media is not subsiding and is not going to go away.

What last week shows us is that there is a new channel for instant outrage and that there's also a channel, which can now set the news agenda in just a few hours.

Purists will want Twitter to stay the way that it is - as the ultimate citizen tool- the trick will be to achieve a balance as whilst Twitter is certainly a new and powerful channel for e-democracy, it's also a very valuable communications and awareness tool - if the cause is right and whilst the two should not be combined, they can both have long term values and be forces for good.

A Marriage made in Heaven

Social media is just another channel of digital marketing.

Yes - it's different in that to a degree it's about brands giving up control to consumers and yes it's virulent and yes it's more difficult to measure than most other digital activity but in principle it's still another channel.

So when it was announced this week that a study by GroupM Search and comScore that was launched to explore the correlation between brand exposure through social media and paid search had found a link and had found that social media activity can influence a brand's search activity, I wasn't that surprised.

After-all, surely the more 'noise' that a brand makes or causes online then the better the results. Search is the barometer of online activity; it's the yellow pages of the Internet and for many is the de-facto way of navigating the Web so you'd expect there to be some impact.

The study; 'The Influenced:Social Media, Search and the Interplay of Consideration and Consumption' explored activity across a number of different sectors including automotive, FMCG and telecoms.

Key highlights were:

- Consumers exposed to a brand's influenced social media and paid search are nearly 3 times more likely to search for that brand's products
- There was a 50% CTR increase in paid search when consumers were exposed to both influenced social media and paid search

Whilst the Study's findings are in my view not that revolutionary- it does signal the maturation of social media as a marketing channel and also shows that it should now be considered a key part of the online marketing mix.

The downside of this Study is that this is only going to exaggerate the hype that already exists around social media and it will also no doubt increase the chance of marketing gaffes from brands keen to get in on the act. Despite the acknowledgement that social media is just another channel, the rules of social should still apply for brands;

1. Only get involved if you have a right as a brand to engage or communicate
2. Only get involved if you have content or something for your audience that they can't get elsewhere
3. Don't engage on a whim, do it full time or not at all
4. If you do seek to engage, be aware that it can have an impact beyond the specific marketing intiative as it can transcend the entire company.

Brands go public

Online reputation is a thorny issue and a worrying amount of household names still don't have a proactive strategy to manage their online reputation. Well the bad news is that the issue has just got a lot thornier!

Seth Godin, who is the self-proclaimed author of the 'most popular marketing blog on the Web' is launching a new service through Squidoo- his online recommendation engine, which will aggregate buzz around specific companies on their own brand page and companies will be given the option to have their say by 'buying' the page for $400.

If brands have had a headache with Wikipedia and unauthorised updates and entries then Brands in Public as the service will be known could be ten times worse- especially if they don't opt to 'buy' their page.

Brands in Public will aggregate all mentions and content about household names from a variety of social channels including Twitter, YouTube and message boards as well as general news articles.

The aggregator won't discriminate between good and bad mentions so brands will be obliged to take control. Godin's argument or justification for the service on his blog, is that these conversations are already going on, on the Web and he's giving brands the opportunity to 'have their say'.

He does have a point, buzz around specific brands is emanating around the Web and negative mentions can have a material impact on your company with it not just impacting search rankings but also perception and word of mouth and this service is a very interesting development in the still fast-emerging online reputation sector but the clear issue in my mind is that whilst brands 'can have their say'- in return for a monthly fee, they will only be given a small amount of space on the overall page and will not be able to actually own the page and use it as a platform to proactively manage what people are saying about them or the experiences they've encountered.

And from a customer point of view- I'm struggling to see how the customer benefits from this service. Yes- it's good to see what other consumer's think about a product that you're buying/thinking of buying but isn't there a danger that some of the more usueful comment/thoughts/ideas will be lost by the overall Web noise?

Brands in Public is definitely going to get marketers talking but I think rather than it revolutionise online reputation- it will actually prove a distraction and not an enabler- as it should be.