Social Medihuh?

The new Facebook: Coming soon...

2011-09-23T06:44:00.007+12:00

I have always denied that I am a geek, but as I woke up at 4:30am to tune into a live stream of Mark Zuckerberg's keynote speech from the Facebook developers conference F8 (broadcast in Facebook of course) there could be no doubt that I am a nerd. There had been some fairly excited sounding journos saying that major changes were afoot, so I thought I should tune in as no doubt my friends (who think I work in IT) would ask me to explain it.

So what is happening?

Firstly, our profile pages are being redesigned into what Facebook described as "a new product called Timeline." It was interesting, and perhaps refreshingly honest, to hear them acknowledge that our social data is a product, not a service. This funny cartoon explains how people feel about this notion.

Anyhoo, on first glance, the timeline looks cool. It shows your latest month or so of activity in depth, but also shows all of your Facebook activity, ever since you joined, in a reverse chronological order. This may sound scary for some, but this information is all there already.

As you scroll down through your Facebook life, the timeline becomes more and more summarized, so that it only shows the major events in your life. Us users can control what we deem to be important stories, photos, videos etc from our life, as well as who can see the various bits of content.

Some things will be hidden (who wants a timeline showing every boring status they have ever written?) but they will still be available by clicking on a grey dot within the timeline. If we decide that a hidden update is actually important, we can highlight it with a couple of clicks.

Timeline looks nice, and will make it easier for people to "stalk" each other, as well as making it easier for us to control what facets of our life are stalkable, and by who. I am a fan of this as it gives us more control.

The second major change is more important - although it will probably make less noise amongst the users. Facebook have made changes to the permissions given to applications, and the way apps display this information on our newsfeed. The new Facebook layout launched yesterday introduced us to the ticker, a box up in the top right hand side of the browser that shows the less important updates from our friends - "Anthony likes offensive French hip hop" etc. This kind of update will no longer be displayed in the main news feed, but will still be there if any of my friends want to see it.

Facebook have now shown how they intend the ticker box to be used, and I have to say I think it is pretty cool. The ubiquitous "like" button will still be there, but with the new open graph integration, developers can now use any verb with any noun to explain how users interact with their application. Eg: "Anthony is listening to 3 Minutes by Explicit Samurai". What excites me about this is that if I see my friend Jonno (who has great taste in offensive hip hop) is listening to a track I do not know, I can click on the update and a player window will pop up allowing me to listen to that song within Facebook.

It is not just for music though. The ticker can tell me what my friends are reading, cooking, where they are running, what TV and movies they are watching etc etc. This will all be done via applications that my friends have granted permission to. By seeing the information in a very slimmed down version I will have the opportunity to add the application myself, and add my data or pay more attention to my subject expert friends. For example, if Jonno is listening to lots of cool music using the Spotify app, I will add it to my timeline and we will be able to share our music tastes. My mum won't be using the same application so I won't have to see what lame music she is listening to, but she may be using a recipe application that I am interested in, so I could add that and start swapping recipes with her.

It is a great way of sharing relevant content between interested parties without having to spam all of our friends every time we eat a meal mate or whatever.

What Facebook has done here is very clever. Make no mistake about it, we are Facebook's product, not their customer. The sale of our social data is what has driven Facebook's revenue thus far, by allowing companies to target specific advertising based on our demographical information as well as our interests and our connections. But the way they are moving now is to further enhance the notion that we, as individuals, are the most powerful salesforce amongst our friends.

The things that we are discovering and doing will be displayed to our friends in a way that Facebook hopes will drive more people to buy stuff.

I know many people will have a problem with this, and I understand that completely. But targeted ads based on content consumption (and creation) is nothing new. Google reads our Gmail so that they can show us ads that they think are relevant, and TV advertising is placed based upon the kind of people watching the show - think ads for sheep drench during the rugby.

What Facebook are doing is placing more emphasis on what my circle of friends are doing, and by doing so they are helping me to discover new things I may be interested in. This is the price for the free service, and I for one do not mind paying.

How to move from Facebook to Google +

2011-07-13T14:06:00.010+12:00

Now that Google + is (reportedly) about to hit 10 million users, maybe you have decided that you want to leave Facebook and move over or, more likely, try using both while we see who wins out. But after 3 years of posting photos and making/stalking friends, you don't want to lose your entire online life & start again. This blog will detail a couple of the ways you can move your information over.
Friends are why we go on to social networks, so it is important to be able to bring them over. This is really easy and only takes 10 minutes or so.

First of all you need a Yahoo email account, just like when you were 16. Once you have your Yahoo account open, click on "Add contacts" and then on "tools" and in the drop down choose "import...". From here you can import the email addresses of all of your Facebook buddies. Easy.

Next step is to export them to GMail. After your Facebook contacts have been added to your Yahoo account, click on "tools" again, and select "export..." and choose the option to export as a Yahoo! CSV file. This will download all of the email addresses onto your desktop somewhere. Now go and open up Gmail, go into "Contacts" and click on "More Actions", then "import". Find the CSV file (it will be called Yahoo_ab.csv or something like that) and double click it.

All of your contacts will now be synced/merged with the data from Facebook, and all of the new contacts will be visible when you go into G+, so you can add them to your circles and send them invites. Boom!

Next is the photos. To get these en masse, open up your Facebook and head into Account Settings. In there you will see an option "Download Your Information." A few self explanatory clicks later and a huge download will be coming your way. This takes a while, so go make a cup of tea. I recommend Sencha. Once it has finished, you will have a folder that is called whatever your profile name is, and will look like this:

Inspiring stuff. Open up the Photos folder and you will see all of your albums are conveniently stored in their own folder. You will need to create new albums in G+ one by one, but the photos can be uploaded in groups. And as an added bonus, the titles you gave your photos in Facebook are all saved as the file name, so you will not lose that - but you will lose comments, likes & tags.

So now we have all of our friends and all of our photos moved over. I am still playing round with getting old posts across, and I am waiting for G+ to integrate with Google Calendar so that I can import my FB events, but for now it is easy to get the most important stuff moved over.

Have fun :)

*Note: Google + does have a direct "import contacts from Yahoo" button, however this was not working for me, hence the extra step to import them into gmail.

Google +: Facebook killer?

2011-07-11T12:35:00.004+12:00

Hopefully. After 1 week of playing with it, I am impressed. The ease of keeping your profile secure from certain people, being able to easily see exactly what information is displayed to who, as well as "Hang outs" and a few other features are great.

Using the exclusive invite-only style of marketing that was the halmark of Gmail's launch has seen the social media geeks (like me) feeling more special than we should about using it during the "test phase", and has helped ensure that we all trumpet on about how cool the network is and how everyone should be on there. Indeed, the system has been broken 2 or 3 times since launch due to oversubscription causing problems for their servers. This has meant that even people with invites could not access the system unless they were quick. This bodes well for the future of the network.

A social network is only as good as it's members. The analogy of being the first and only person to own a fax machine rings true. One of my first posts stated that I would only move completely over from Facebook if at least 50% of my ex-girlfriends, or my crush also moved over to Google +. In short, everyone will need a reason to move over, but the reason will be the same for everyone; the people they want to engage with. The fact that the the uptake of the network has surpassed even Google's expectations perhaps points equally to Google's burnt fingers over their previous attempts (Buzz was a fizzer, Wave washed out) as well as the enthusiasm that people have to a genuine competitor to Facebook.

So, what is it like? A person I follow on Twitter described it as "Facebook without it's clothes on", and from a layout point of view it does look very similar, albeit a stripped out version. You can stalk my public profile here to see for yourself, or go sign up here - if the sign up is working.

The two main advantages from my point of view (wearing my consumer hat now) is that it is very easy to control what content is displayed to who, via the "Circles". I have 6 circles set up at the moment: Friends, followers, workmates, colleagues, family & ex-girlfriends. Every time I post any content (text, photos etc) I have to choose which circles can view it. There are also options to post content to everyone on the web (public - like twitter), or "extended circles" (friends of friends). This makes it incredibly easy to make sure my ex-girlfriends only ever see my highlights reel, while my workmates only ever see me sober. Although Facebook does have the option to split your friends into groups with different security settings, it is a bit of a pain in butt to do this, and generally only the social media geeks get it sorted.

Another cool feature of Google + is "Hangouts". This is video chat for multiple people. It can also be used as a means of broadcasting events like conferences, concerts, your stupid dog singing along to Bernard Fanning...whatever, all with the added interactivity of being able to talk back & get involved. The coolness of this feature has already been countered by the addition of Skype video calling to the Facebook chat function, however the quick roll out of this shows how seriously Facebook is taking the Google + threat.

Although I have an iPhone, I have been told that the way Google + can be used with an Android powered phone is fantastic, particularly in regards to photo uploading. I can't wait to see how an iPhone app will work.

Currently Google + is only set up for regular consumers (not business), but they have worked with several companies (Ford, Mashable etc) to build a few test company profiles which will be rolled out in the next two weeks, and they have received several thousand applications from companies to be included in further testing. However in an earlier release google recommended that companies hold off until full support is offered in the "next few months". It will be interesting to see how these company pages can integrate the suite of other Google services, including AdWords, Adsense, maps, YouTube etc. But the scope from a marketing point of view is huge. When you consider the vast information available to marketers currently using Google, the mouth waters at what this platform will allow (marketers hat on now).

So, is it a Facebook killer? I hope so, as I am someone who values being able to control who sees what information about me. However, it will require a quick uptake from the cool kids to see a major shift from what is currently the largest social networking site in the world.

But the future looks promising. This blog post speculates that as of July 10, there were already over 6 million users on Google +. This kind of growth (if accurate) in just over a week is fantastic, but it will need to be sustained before we can start calling Google + a Facebook killer. Until then, I will keep my fingers crossed, keep posting about issues, and trying my hardest to break it during the test period.

Good luck Google!

Have you tried Google +? Would you move from Facebook?

Social media principles - free to a good home

2011-05-05T11:29:00.006+12:00

This is a synopsis of the advice I give all of my clients during our initial meeting, and some of what I talk about when giving my painful lectures/presentations. It is the slow, patient, credible, organic way of maximizing your results from social media. I have found these principles to be pretty solid over the 4 years I have been involved in this industry, but please know this is more about the day-to-day running of your presences.

This is deliberately vague and will require patience to see results. It is not an (A + B) x C = Retirement/fire-the-ad-agency in 6 months kind of plan.

Social media is social. Think about what kind of social event your company would host. The same rules of engagement & conversation apply. My personal style of social event would be a bbq. I would let people swear a bit (ok, a lot), but not be (overly) offensive to other guests. I would occasionally talk about the fun things I had done lately at work, or interesting things in the industry. I would not hand out business cards or openly solicit new business. Think about what social event you would have with your clients/providers/friends etc. Dinner party? Golf day? High tea? Whatever suits your brand's personality. Think about what kind of conversations you would have at this event. Replicate this same style of engagement on your social media platforms.

Build a vocabulary of words to use more frequently in your social media/blog posts. Make these words representative of the way you want your company to be perceived. They will give your brand a controlled personality that will show you in a desired light, and help potential customers (and future employees) align themselves with your brand. This is my personal brand on Twitter as a tweet cloud. The bigger the word, the more frequently I use it: http://tweetcloud.com/search/from/antsgardiner

Be consistent with the timing & content. If you use your twitter account to tell jokes, do not suddenly change to a marketing push and vice versa. And by timing I mean do not forget about twitter for 3 weeks then suddenly send 20 tweets in a day (or FB updates, or blog posts etc). A content plan can help with this. When I ran SM for the military I had 3-6 months of content planned in advance, but I was always flexible with that and would talk about other content as it became topical.

Social media is two way. Do not think about what message you want to shout, think about what conversation you want to have, and who you want to talk with. Social media, and in particular Twitter, should be viewed more as a customer service channel, NOT a marketing channel. If you publicly treat your audience well with these channels, they will do your marketing for you in a word of mouth way that is more powerful than any message you could push out yourself.

Facebook tabs can do anything these days. ANYTHING. Here is one I built that broadcasts live TV while also displaying a twitter feed of related comments and allowing people to discuss what is happening via Facebook comments: http://www.facebook.com/skinnymarketing?sk=app_104908912928390 You can build a tab that does anything you want, and use these to give your audience a reason to stick around, and a reason to talk about you.

Use your Facebook insights page to learn about your main audience segments. Use other statistical information and sites like www.klout.com to identify the mass influencers within your audience and target ads (above the line, plus sm ad campaigns like FB ads or Twitter promotions) directly to this group to get the best bang for your buck.

Anyhoo, these are some pretty solid techniques which, if followed, will eventually help you to organically build a credible following/fanbase of engaged people, all of whom will run to the shops and buy whatever self-diagnosis DNA testing kit you are selling.

If patience is not your virtue, there is always the option of running a big flashy promotion. Just make sure you follow the rules....

Put anything in a Facebook tab

2011-04-07T10:24:00.012+12:00

Forgive me. I have not blogged in almost a year. I have had an internal debate about whether or not social media marketing was the new telemarketing.

Anyhoo, recently Facebook has changed what they will allow you to do in a Facebook tab. Previously you had to use Facebook Mark up Language (FBML) which although breakable, was a real P.o.S to work with. These days you can put anything you want into a tab. If you can dream it you can build it, and by and large it is not very hard. I mean I can do it, and I am hungover. Surely you could do it even better.

I thought I had better share some of the new possibilities. Not enough people have both the social media knowledge and the coding ability to implement cool stuff. This post will contain an example of what you can now do with your Facebook page, along with the code & step by step to get it working on your site. The code stuff may look crazy, but it is pretty simple. Your social media consultant/geek should be able to sort it out & change it round.

Anyone with even as limited coding knowledge as me (1 year learning) can build cool stuff into their pages.

Example: Recently I built a test tab for a TV station which allowed them to show their lunchtime news bulletin live on one of their Facebook tabs. It also displayed a live Twitter feed of hashtagged comments, and had a Facebook livestream function on the same tab - allowing people to gossip about whatever was on TV.

Interactive TV inside your Facebook tab anyone?

Here is the tab, with the NZ TV channel taken out & replaced with live CBS from a uStream feed. (note: I also set up and ran a test of this using a live uStream feed from my phone - you really can do anything with it)

http://www.facebook.com/skinnymarketing?sk=app_104908912928390

And here is the entire code you need to build it:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" />
<title>CBS test</title>
</head>

<body>

<table width="500" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="360" valign="top"><center><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="360" height="246" id="utv800336"><param name="flashvars" value="autoplay=false&brand=embed&cid=522594&v3=1"/><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true"/><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"/><param name="movie" value="http://www.ustream.tv/flash/viewer.swf"/><embed flashvars="autoplay=false&brand=embed&cid=522594&v3=1" width="360" height="246" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" id="utv800336" name="utv_n_836313" src="http://www.ustream.tv/flash/viewer.swf" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" /></object><br /><br />
<div id="fb-root"></div><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#appId=104908912928390&xfbml=1"></script><fb:live-stream event_app_id="104908912928390" width="360" height="300" xid="" always_post_to_friends="false"></fb:live-stream></td>
<td width="120"><script src="http://widgets.twimg.com/j/2/widget.js"></script>
<script>
new TWTR.Widget({
version: 2,
type: 'search',
search: '#CBS',
interval: 6000,
title: 'Tweets with #CBS',
subject: '',
width: 120,
height: 500,
theme: {
shell: {
background: '#8ec1da',
color: '#ffffff'
},
tweets: {
background: '#ffffff',
color: '#444444',
links: '#1985b5'
}
},
features: {
scrollbar: true,
loop: true,
live: true,
hashtags: true,
timestamp: true,
avatars: true,
toptweets: true,
behavior: 'default'
}
}).render().start();
</script></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="2"></td>
</tr>

</table>
</body>
</html>

That is it! 55 lines of code and we are there. To plug it into your Facebook page, copy & paste it, save it as a .aspx Facebook iFrame support does not like .html much), and stick it up on your server somewhere.

Next we have to set up the app in Facebook, in 4 steps:

1) Go to http://www.facebook.com/developers/ and click on " + set up a new app". Give it a name & agree to the terms and conditions.

2) In the canvas URL box enter the address to the folder on your server where you hid the code - make sure you put the forward slash at the end of the folder address!!

3) In the Page URL box, enter the full address for the code you uploaded to your server:

4) Save it, go to "Application Profile Page" then click on "Add to my Page"

That is it. You are all done. Now if this makes no sense to you, don't worry. Give it to your geek and they will suss it out.

As bung/geeky as this code may look, it is three really simple bits of code that anyone can find on the internet, all glued together in a table 520 pixels wide (maximum width of a FB tab) and with 20 spare pixels for scroll bars to appear without breaking it. You can embed anything you want in your Facebook tab - YouTube, chat, google analytics, your office/factory/restaurant/bar's webcam, radio stream....anything you want.

Now if you will forgive me, I am going for a beer.

My favourite SM campaign lately

2010-05-10T12:51:00.005+12:00

Oh Philips, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. The casette, the compact disc, the DVD, and now the wonderful Philips Cinema TV Parallel Lines campaign.

It has compelling content to launch with - 5 short films all made by Ridley Scott Associates. These films, from 5 different directors, all use the same dialogue, yet are all very different experiences. The are all very cool, especially the two I posted below.

It has fantastic prizes for people who enter their own short film - again using the same dialogue. This encourages people to create their own content. These prizes are open worldwide, so there is no moment when you realize you can't win because you dont live in the US. Blah.

It has a winner which will be decided (largely) by public vote, encouraging people to have their say. This will also ensure that those who enter will get all of their friends to go to the site, watch the ads, and vote.

It has subtlety. The short films are framed in a Philips TV, but this is the only branding visible, and you quickly stop noticing even this. But it does show you the back light function of the TV in question. This feature may sound like it is no big deal, but when viewed in this format it really shows off its own coolness.

It has an integrated Facebook page with additional content, including interviews, opinions, etc which further enhance the engagement of the desired audience. The page invites people to post questions they would like to ask the various directors, with the best ones answered the following week. This connects the audience with the celebrities, something all us normaltins aspire to.

Speaking of celebrities. It has Ridley Scott's stamp on it. Alien. Blade Runner. (cough) Thelma & Louise (cough). Nuff said.

This campaign is everything that a social media campaign should be (oh, except it is big budget, but hey - it's Ridley Scott!!!).

Well done Philips. Anthony likes this.

Here are two of the 5 launch films. I had real trouble choosing which ones were best though. I really like the one with the blind girl, and the one with the creepy voyeur. The CGI one is really cool too. I guess you will just have to go watch them all on the youtube channel.

How much is your Facebook page worth? (part 2)

2010-05-06T10:52:00.004+12:00

Yesterday I got lost in some math trying to explain my theory about how to value the PR of a Facebook page based on the initial number of fans, number of interactions, number of fans gained (or lost), and the number of wall posts you do during a given period.

It also takes into account 2 different personality types that can be found on the web – mass influencers & normal web users. After all, there are two kinds of people in the world – people who are stupid enough to think there are only two kinds of people, and those who know better.

If you are really keen, you can see the math & links to the research behind the theory here. Be careful though, it hurts my eyes looking at – and I wrote it.

It does not look at ROI in terms of sales, conversions, new customers etc. But tracking on your landing pages, ecommerce page etc should give you those figures.

Anyways, here for you to use, abuse, criticize and break is a little web thingy which you can plug your own numbers into and get a value for the PR generated by your Facebook page over a given time period.

The tool is designed to give you a value over a set period, the more frequently you use it, the more accurate it will be. Keep track of each ensuing week’s value and add them up to give you a value over a longer period of time.

This model will reflect the changes in the value of your Facebook page as you invoke more or less reaction, as you gain or lose followers etc. This makes it a bit more accurate than saying “We have X number of fans so our page is worth X x Y dollars per year.” Some weeks your page will be more effective (and worth more) than other weeks.

You can get all the info required from your Facebook insights page. If you have lost followers, enter a negative number into the box and see what happens.

Please note that this is using a CPM of NZ$6.95 as this is what Facebook charges for an ad on the home page. This is the default figure, but feel free to change it into other currencies or amounts.

What do you think?

How much is your Facebook page worth?

2010-05-05T14:59:00.003+12:00

I should warn you before you read this that I initially studied math & physics before giving up halfway through my degree. Turns out it was rocket science…

I recently blogged about how much a Facebook fan was worth, and promptly disagreed with the research done, but I did not suggest an alternative. Not so good of me I am afraid.

Valuing a fan is a flawed way to look at things. Fans have different values depending on their personality type, and they are worth very little if they are not interacting with you.

So lets look at it differently, how much is your Facebook page worth?

There are two parts to this, the value of getting your message to your existing fans, plus the value of your fans spreading the message in a word of mouth style. I will use the fan page from my work to plug in some numbers as we go, but of course, you can use your own data to see how you are going.

Part 1

We will start with the easy stuff, the value of your info showing up on your fan’s home page feed.

Facebook charges a CPM of NZ$6.95 for an ad to be placed on a home page feed. So, for every 1000 fans you have, every time you post to your wall and show up on your friends home page feed it is worth $6.95.

We have 49 fans and have so far posted 13 times onto our wall. Pretending for a minute that every fan had always been there & seen every wall posting, we have shown up on our fan’s home page 637 individual times. Based on a CPM of $6.95, this is worth $4.43.

Not quite time for me to retire yet.

Part 2

By far the greatest value in having fans is to be found in interactions. This is where the word of mouth advertising comes into it. But how much is it worth?

According to Facebook’s statistics page, each user (and therefore fan) has, on average, 130 friends.

When a fan interacts with your page, this is posted as a news feed on the fan’s friend’s pages. Based on Facebook’s averages, each interaction would therefore generate 130 impressions on other people’s home pages.

Again using Facebook’s CPM of NZ$6.95 for an unsolicited ad on the home page, this equates to a value of 9.035 cents per fan interaction.

However, I am much more inclined to look at something that has been recommended by a friend. I estimate that people are 4 times more inclined to like/look at something if it is recommended by a friend/peer. This increases the value of an interaction to 4x 9.035 = 36.14 cents.

Not factored into this is the influencer group, the cool kids.

According to research done by Forrester, and detailed here, 16% of 10,000 American web users surveyed can be called “Mass Influencers”. This group was responsible for 80% of branding “influence impressions” on social networks last year, and are therefore 4 times more likely to spread the word about your brand than the rest of web users.

(WARNING: Now I am really going to get mathy)

We know that a “Mass Influencer” creates 4 times as much noise about brands as a “normal web user”.

1 fan has an 84% chance of being a “normal web user” and making me 4 times more receptive to an ad. But each fan also has a 16% chance of being a “mass influencer”, making 4 times as much noise as a “normal web user”, thus making me 16 (4 x 4) times more likely to see, and be receptive to, an ad.

We established that, based on Facebook’s CPM of $6.95 and on a multiplier of 4, a normal web user interaction (including the initial page like) is worth 36.14 cents.

An interaction by a “mass influencer” would be worth 4 times as much, or 144.56 cents, but only 16% of fans are worth this much.

Now, unfortunately we have to get really mathy to plug the numbers in.

(0.84 x 36.14) + (0.16 x144.56) = 30.3576 + 23.1296 = 53.49 cents per interaction.

Now you can plug in the numbers from your Facebook insights page to see what your particular page is worth. Based on the Facebook page I set up for my work last week…

49 new fans + 6 interactions = 55 times we have had our fans publish our company name (at least) onto their friends home page feeds.

55 interactions x $0.5349 per interaction = $29.41 worth of word of mouth advertising since we started.

Ok, we are almost there. To get a value for the total advertising our Facebook page has created so far we need to add part 1 ($4.43) to part 2 ($29.41), and from that we get $33.85.

So, since we started our page a couple of weeks ago, we have garnered $33.85 cents worth of advertising.

This kind of figure is changes depending on the number of fans you acquire, the rate you acquire them at, and the frequency with which your fans interact with your content. To be accurate, you would need to be updating the numbers regularly with the latest figures to create a rolling cumulative value.

My next step will be building an easy to use spreadsheet that will give you a figure for each day/week/month that can then be tabulated into a cumulative value. Ask me nicely & I will email you a copy.

But, have I got the multiplier of 4 right? By which I mean, have I overvalued the word of mouth component?

Am I forgetting something?

I would love to hear your thoughts.

How much is a fan worth?

2010-04-27T12:37:00.006+12:00

Mashable recently published an article highlighting some research done by a social media management firm called Virtue which looked at the value of a Facebook fan. According to their research, a fan was worth US$3.60 per year. This was based the following formula:

wall posts x impressions x $5 CPM.

And plugging in the average numbers from the 45 million fans they manage for their clients gave the following figure:

1 million impressions x 2 wall posts x 30 days = 60 million impressions a month

60 million impressions / 1000 x $5 CPM = $300,000 per month

$300,000 p/m x 12 = US$3.6 million per year per million fans.

Great! How tidy. And how easy that has made it to now explain the value of your Facebook fan page to the CEO. “We have 1500 fans, which is worth US$5400 in advertising per year. Not bad huh boss.”

Unfortunately, I don’t know if it is that simple. Surely some fans are worth more than others? For example, I would rather have Bill Murray as a fan of my Facebook page than Pauline Hanson. And even the kids at South Park know that a “chick friend is worth almost 3 times as much as a dude friend.”

There has been debate in New Zealand lately about whether or not PR should still be measured with Advertising Equivalent Value (AVE), a measurement tool that has been heavily criticized overseas. The measurement of social media and its value as an advertising channel is something that also needs debate.

Is CPM relevant when you are talking about word of mouth endorsement from peers? And how do things change if celebrities get involved, or even just the cool kid?

Perhaps an AVE kind of measurement involving a multiplier is required. It is opinion based advertising after all, closer to an editorial than it is to anything else. Seeing that one of my Facebook friends likes a certain page/band/company is worth much more to me than seeing an ad on stuff.co.nz.

Maybe Facebook itself will provide the answer as they improve on their insights page. Maybe they will end up dictating to us how much our fans are worth. Nothing would surprise me from the people who control the worlds 3rd largest population these days.

Oh, and when you have 20 spare minutes, watch this fantastic South Park episode. The guys have once again hit the nail on the head with their summation of Facebook.

A pocket knife can do lots, but not everything

2010-04-19T13:40:00.002+12:00

I was doing some blah blah blah about social media to a class the other day, and was posed with a tricky situation.

One of the people in the class had seen, via a mutual friend on Facebook, someone talking smack about their company on their personal status update. She asked me what the company should do in that situation.

The company has no official Facebook presence (yet…), but even if they did, this person would not have been a fan or friend, so there was no way the company could officially reply on the disgruntled customer’s personal page.

So what to do?

Having mulled it over while drinking beers & watching David Attenborough (my muse) I decided that this is not a problem that can be solved by social media.

My opinion is that the best course of action would be make a phone call to the customer & try to resolve the issue that way.

Having righted the situation via a traditional channel, the hope is that the opinion of the customer would be changed sufficient that they would then tell their friends and family at a later date – maybe via social media, but maybe not.

Had this been on Twitter, a much more public forum, it would have been ok for the company to get in touch directly through the same channel. But as Facebook requires expressed permission before you can eavesdrop, and as the company did not have that permission, even acknowledging that they had heard the complaint through that channel could be construed as an invasion of privacy.

It got me thinking about one of the myths of social media. It can’t do everything.

There is a bit of talk about being wary of the social media douchebag. I think one of the signs you are dealing with a douche is that they discount any other means of dealing with issues. They think social media can do anything and everything.

In this example the problem was created by social media giving the customer a public outlet for their frustrations, however I do not think social media could have resolved it.

Going back to my favourite analogy of social media being like a barbecue, this was the equivalent of the company finding out that someone at a different barbecue had been complaining to the other gusts. But the company itself was not present and was not invited.

To crash the party purely for the purpose of changing what the complainer was saying, even if the company had come in with frankincense & myrrh to give to everyone, would only have seemed big brother-ish and defensive.

Social media can do a lot of things, like make you aware of perceptions, however it can’t do everything. It should always be thought of purely as another tool at your disposal, and you should not forget about the rest of the shed.

It was an interesting situation though. What would you have done?

The worst Facebook page in New Zealand?

2010-04-08T13:27:00.002+12:00

Is this the worst New Zealand corporate Facebook page?

It is a pretty big call, but it is the worst I have come across.

Where is the conversation? Where is the personality? Where is the content?

Why would I look at this page?

What is the plan behind this? What are they hoping to achieve?

Who are they talking to, prospects or existing customers?

It looks like they intend it for existing customers, as it is mostly full of information promoting programs and competitions. If this is the case, it must be intended to add value. But how much extra value is it giving? All this information is available through other mediums in a much more unobtrusive way.

They do not seem to be provoking discussion at all. There is even evidence of comments being deleted, horror of horrors!!

Sky TV must have a huge customer base, yet 272 fans on their page does not represent much of a following. 272 fans would be enough though, if they were engaged in conversation.

Maybe they are trying to talk to new customers through this channel. The videos they have chosen to display are all their TVC’s. Is that the game plan?

I really can’t tell what the strategy is behind this page. But whatever it is, it does not look like it is achieving anything. It hurts my eyes almost as much as this does.

It is republishing content designed for other mediums in a channel that is capable of so much more.

When you put a brochure in front of people, even if it is wrapped in a Facebook logo, they will treat it like any other brochure. They have a look, then throw it in the recycling bin.

Is there a worse Facebook page in New Zealand?

A ruler measures

2010-03-30T16:14:00.002+13:00

What is it that you would like to achieve with Social Media?

“Oh, umm, it is just a space which our company should be in.”

Sigh. Unfortunately, this is an all too common response to the first question I ask. If you do not know what you want to achieve, how would you ever know if your campaign was a success?

Every other tool you buy for your business is researched and planned. Every other system implemented is done so with a desired outcome in mind and measurement practices in place to check if these goals are met. Social Media should not be any different.

Outcomes will be different for each organization. Maybe you want to increase conversation, or sales. Perhaps you want to add value for existing customers, or find new ones. You could use SM to drive more traffic through to your website, or use it as a promotional channel for new products, services or events.

It can be used as an internal communication tool, or to get chatting with your customers. Just remember that if you have set up a public network for external communication, anyone could be eavesdropping – including your competitors and the media.

One of the key things it can be used for is market research, finding out what people think about your brand, what perceptions exist and by whom. This kind of qualitative research used to require focus groups, surveys etc. It can now be done by instantly and for free simply by typing your brand name into a web site like addictomatic.

These are just some of the different goals which could be desirable for your business. Each one requires a different approach, and different measurement tools.

If done in an integrated way, each outcome can be measured through analytics or monitoring programs. Isn’t the internet great?

Increases in sales, web traffic, customers etc are all fairly easy to check and they should be things which you measure already. Conversation can be measured, however it can be a bit tricky to locate thanks to text language and leek speak.

If promoting a certain event or a new product, you will probably have a dedicated landing page set up on your website. The success of your SM promotion can then be measured with analytics., or by number of people at the event, buying the product.

One thing which does irk me is when people try to measure and compare the engagement levels of Social Media to those of TVC’s and print. To me, that is like comparing having sex to watching Sex In The City. Watching ≠ engaging.

Engagement is the social part of Social Media and any campaign should elicit that as a matter of course. However, engagement is NOT measured in the number of friends/fans/followers that you have. It is how many people are talking with you and passing on what you say.

Trust me, it takes more than one half of a relationship to be engaged.

There are many different things you can look to achieve through the use of Social Media, and any desired outcome should be measured to ensure that it is successful. But if your only desired outcome is to have 100,000 followers, you probably won’t effect much change to your business.

The thing with having followers is that you need somewhere to lead them. And you need to be able to see when they get there.

2010-03-25T17:46:00.002+13:00

What the hell is Social Media anyway?

There is a lot of buzz around Social Media at present. It is a space which every company feels they should be in. But what is Social Media?

Social Media is a term which has come to represent the ways in which the internet is being used to connect people in a two way, conversational style. It allows any individual to generate content and share it with the rest of the community. This content can be text, such as comments, questions or opinions, or it can be photos, videos, audio files…anything which someone can create on their computer - or cell phone for that matter.

Think of a traditional website as an online brochure. It is a one-to-many form of communication in which one person talks, and everyone else listens. “Come and read what we want you to read. Now give us a call or go away.”

Telecom’s website is a classic example of an online brochure. Visitors can read what Telecom has to say about itself, but to interact with the company, they then need to leave their computer and pick up a telephone, or send an email and wait up to 24 hours for a reply. Telecommunication companies should be doing better. I am already at your website, I want to engage with you now! Help!

This kind of website is like a deaf and blind person yelling from a soapbox and handing out business cards. Social Media is a barbecue where you can invite your friends and customers to talk with you, while other people eavesdrop. And it is the eavesdropping which is the difference.

Social media is a many-to-many broadcast style. This is most usually thought of as the big networks, like Facebook, Twitter, LinkdIn and YouTube. Services like this are indeed the most social of Social Media networks. They are entirely composed of user generated content and, depending on your privacy settings, this information can be instantly viewed and shared all around the world.

However the term Social Media should not be limited to just these services. It should also be used to describe any website where people can post their thoughts and have them read by anyone else. Forums and (most) blogs invite visitors to comment, question or debate. Some corporate websites do this very well too.

By publishing content generated by visitors to your website, you can turn your online brochure into a social media portal. You are allowing social interaction through the media you have provided. This can be done by building the functionality into your site, or by embedding it from existing sources.

The point is Social Media is not just Facebook and Twitter. Any website can be a Social Media portal. You just need to be lucky enough to have people who care enough about what it is you are doing to want to interact, and you have to be brave enough to publish what they want to say about you.

That is not to say that you should be publishing anything anyone wants to say, but it is important to acknowledge people’s frustrations when they arise. You may be amazed to see your brand champions jumping to your defense, particularly on fan pages on Facebook, or through twitter. These kind of set ups can be very self-moderating towards negativity, but you do need to consider a system to control offensive and incorrect comments. More on that later…

So, if I had to define Social Media in 3 words? "Eavesdropping with consent."

That is how I define it anyway. Maybe you disagree? If so, send me an email. I aim to reply to all emails in 24 hours. Just kidding. Abuse me in the comments section below, or catch me on Twitter, or Facebook.

Footnote: I don’t know if Social Media is still the correct term, but it is a hell of a lot better than the extremely esoteric and self-empowering “Web 2.0”.