As social media becomes absorbed by almost every business function, the idea of “social media” will disappear. It will become like most innovations – business as usual. In this TEDx video, David Armano, provides a personal view as to how and why these transformations are taking place. Enjoy!
Category: Social Media
NAB to Banks – It’s About the Honesty
A couple of months ago, the National Australia Bank caused a stir in the financial services industry by encouraging the customers of other banks to “break up” with their bank. This weekend, NAB are taking it to a new level, running a series of social experiments on the subject of honesty – and publicising the results. Here’s a sample.
Apparently, Australians are an honest bunch – and the #honestaus campaign wants to bring that honesty to into the world of credit cards. What do you think? Is it a stunt or is it for real? Is that what we want from banks?
It sure makes a change from the staid, mechanistic communications I normally receive from my banks. And that’s the honest truth.
Infographic Bonanza
In the last 12 months there has been an avalanche of infographics produced and consumed. They can not only be a useful way of explaining complex processes and situations, they are also easy to share and are ready-made for a content hungry audience.
But have you tried to create an infographic? They are challenging! You need to establish your messaging and understand the narrative you want to share with your audience. You need to cohesively design your infographic. And you need to make it interesting – the best seem to take us on a journey that engages and informs.
Little wonder then that sites like Visual.ly have started to appear. It’s a place to share and market your infographic skills. They are even planning on building out some data visualisation tools. Sounds great!
And to kick it all off, you can login via Twitter and generate your own Twitter infographic. Here’s mine. It seems that you really are what you tweet!
When to Tweet
Some time ago I started using StumbleUpon to shorten the links in my Twitter stream. It means that not only am I able to share links with my network – but I am able to tap into the already existing StumbleUpon network to reach audiences who are already interested in the topics which I share.
And while su.pr provides some basic analytics around the time for tweeting, how can we find more information about the “best” time to tweet? Dan Zarella has done a great deal of research into the world of social networks and the folks from KissMetrics have turned this data into an infographic. What does it confirm? For me it’s very similar to direct email – Wednesdays around midday are gold – it’s hump hour on hump day and we need a pleasant and relevant distraction. Make sure your most important tweets count.
Ditch Your Fans and Find Your Lovers
UPDATED: Almost any article about social media that you read will focus on “likes”, “fans” and “friends”. At first glance, “social” media appears to have equated positive relationship terminology with relationship.
But when you look at the motivation behind “liking” a brand on Facebook – it’s decidedly transactional. There is a focus on discount and promotion, exclusive content and so on. Now, while a strategy addressing these desires will build your “fan base”, I’m increasingly sceptical that it will build you anything more than a glorified mailing list. In fact, researcher Dan Zarella has shown "The amount of 'conversation' that happens on your Facebook posts has nothing to do with the number of people who will see it" – suggesting Facebook Conversations Don't Achieve The Marketing Boost You Desire.
For those brands that want a little more from the investment they are making in social media, you need to dig a little deeper. You need to look for those whose pupils dilate at the mention of your name.
It’s time to ditch your fans and find your lovers.
This is no easy task. You need to listen. Monitor. Pay attention. Dig. Analyse. Engage. Converse. Respond. And measure. You need to rinse and repeat. What I call continuous digital strategy.
But thanks to Sean Howard, you can now follow a step-by-step guide to using social media monitoring to find the people who already love your brand. The approach uses live data to help you truly understand who your real brand advocates are – and as is almost always the case (as is shown in the Nikon case study) – your most powerful advocates are rarely those with high klout scores or large follower bases. They are the people who consistently generate content and comment around your brand properties and digital assets.
I know this will make you cry – we all love the large numbers and the occasional mention from a social media superstar. But if you want to build lasting social media value for your digital properties, it’s time to ditch your addiction to “fans” – because when it comes to social media, it’s all about the love. Baby.
What Makes People Follow a Brand?
When I first really became interested in social media, I was working for a marketing and promotions agency as head of their interactive division. This gave our work a particular skew – we were always looking at the performance metrics of our efforts – how could we drive trial, influence people to consider and love our clients’ products – and how do we measure and improve on this over time. And since that time, it has been clear to me that social media really is about promotion – in that industry sense.
And now the GetSatisfaction team have put out an infographic that confirms at least part of this theory – the largest proportion of people surveyed follow brands so they can learn of special offers and deals (36.9% on Facebook and MySpace, 43.5% on Twitter). So if your online strategy doesn’t have a promotional component you’re going to be disappointing much of your audience.
What Content Do You Post Where and When?
Once you have your strategy in place, it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty of publishing. It’s time to determine the types of content you will be producing and where and how you are going to publish it. It’s time to setup an editorial calendar.
But I don’t want you to think of an editorial calendar as a series of items which you post over time. I want you to think of an editorial calendar as a way of engaging your customers at different stages of your customer relationship. I want you to think about how you tie content to ROI – and to delivering value against your key performance indicators.
Take a look at the content grid chart below (hat tip toiLoveCharts). It is a great starting point for your content planning. Think particularly around the borders between elements. What kind of content will help your customers move from awareness to consideration? How can you brief and deliver your creative elements in such a way that they remove barriers for your customers moving from one stage to another?
And finally, find easy ways for your customers to engage and buy from you. Don’t make it too difficult. And once they buy once, make it easy to do so again. Help them talk about their brand experience. Encourage it. And remember, every little tweet is magic. Every Like can recommend. And sometimes the best branded content you can have is produced by someone else other than you.
Global Map of Social Networking 2011
The folks at Global Web Index have investigated the patterns of consumer adoption and pulled together this infographic map. On this scale, it’s easy to see where (and how) trends become markets and how patterns of use become opportunities.
Look for example at China’s massive online population, sitting at 155 million – dwarfing Australia’s paltry 7 million. Look also at the behaviour types – who are the sharers, which populations join and create groups? Then think about how these behaviours impact your marketing:
- Are there already existing behaviours that you can incorporate or amplify?
- Are there social and digital channels that you are ignoring?
- Are there opportunities that you are leaving on the table?
The data may not have all the answers – but it should prompt some questions for you. Or for your agency.
Via Mashable.
Beyond TV – ‘Go Back’ is a Must-Have Experience From SBS
As a rule I don’t watch a lot of television. It’s often not challenging enough or emotionally engaging. But last night as I was prepping for a little writing after an already long day, I spotted a number of tweets about a show that sounded compelling.
SBS’ Go Back to Where You Came From takes six ordinary Australians on a reality TV style adventure – living like refugees for 25 days. In this first episode (with two others to run over consecutive nights), the scene is set, participants are eased into the process, hearing the personal, confronting stories of former refugees now living in Australia. Spending three nights living with these families begins the long process of cracking the hard core of prejudice that many of us blithely live with. But how confronting will this get for the participants – and for us the audience?
In true reality TV fashion, events are orchestrated to emotionally and physically test the participants. We often say that truth is stranger than fiction – and it is clear from this first episode that the reality of being a refugee contains more drama, fear, risk and challenge than many of us, cocooned in the comfort of our armchairs, could have imagined. Just when you think that the participants have been pushed to the limit, they are plunged to a deeper level of discomfort.
And while the show itself is brilliant, there’s also some seriously good social media integration around it. You can view the show online (which was perfect for me as I missed the first few minutes). There’s no waiting 24 hours etc. I think there is a problem with viewing via iPad, but the immediate availability of the show allows late-comers to still engage. Brilliant work from SBS.
Then there is the Asylum: Exit Australia simulation, an interactive quiz, interactive school resources, teachers packs and feedback forums.
It’s not just must-see TV – it’s a model for the future of what content publishing should be.
Every 60 Seconds on the Internet
Now, this is a great way to get your company known. Go-Globe.com – a web design and application development company have produced an infographic that shows what happens on the web every 60 seconds. Take a look. Think about what this means on a practical level. Think about the scale. Then think that everyone of these items is an opportunity for a conversation. That’s what I call the real time web.