Google’s deploying their now well-known tactic for dealing with threats; assemble a gaggle of doctorates into a room while simultaneously cutting cheques left right and centre. Meanwhile Facebook just rolls out another game…weddingville anyone?
But here’s the issue I see, backed up by three years of research: It’s about the address book. Not games. Not features. It’s my address book with all my connections…added to that is all that really valuable stuff of social networks – videos, messages, photo’s. The stuff that makes up human experiences of social groups. Our “social history” if you will.
Sure, Google’s got lots of people with Gmail accounts. But Google Buzz has failed. Mostly because it completely misses our “social history”…it’s just not easy to share what is easy to share in Facebook – photo’s, videos and the comments added to photo’s that we may go back and look at. Buzz just bombs there. It’s essentially just a hyped up version of Gmail.
In our view, if Google really wants to take on Facebook, they have to figure out how to compellingly make it easy to port over not only ones address book connections, but all those photo’s and the history attached to them.
But perhaps they aren’t bothering with that at all? Perhaps they’re just going to offer a bunch of games to play. That’ll be about as successful as Wave and Buzz.
Google isn’t batting a good average right now. I’m curious to see what they come up with in this latest venture. Somehow I suspect it may not be a social networking app. It’s too bad, since I like what Google does much better than Facebook.
You might call it “keeping up with the eJones‘” in a way. Take FourSquare for example…the more you “check in” to a place the greater a chance you can become “Mayor” until someone unseats you. Or LinkedIn with that little blue bar that says you’re “only 75% complete” for your profile…don’t you just want to push that bar to the 100% point? C’mon now, be honest.
Of course this is going to drive all those “lets make a level playing field for kids in school” educators go batty. Because even social media services like Club Penguin have “status” levels and indicators – because it is human nature to be competitive.
The value to almost all social media services (Facebook, Bebo, LinkedIn etc.) is eyeballs. So how they keep eyeballs and get more eyeballs is to leverage “game theory” in the primary framework of the service.
And let’s face it, we benchmark ourselves against our social peers. Whether we like to admit it openly or not, it’s true. We look at the car we drive compared to our neighbours or peers, the clothes we wear or of course…whether someone uses a Mac or a Windows machine, Blackberry or iPhone. These things all say something about who we are and where we stand.
We’ve reached the point where socially, people seem to think you’re an odd duck if you aren’t on Facebook and not on LinkedIn if your a white collar professional.
The social media channels that will do best in the coming years will be those who figure out successfully, how to harness game theory and drive our competitive nature. Not all approaches will work with everyone, but they will appeal to certain segments. And that can be just enough to make them large and monetarally valuable to marketers or potential buyers.
So there we are…we’re all just game pieces in a set of complex games finding we now have to keep up with the Jones’ in Cyburbia as well. Funny sometimes how eLife mimics real life isn’t it?
Ther’s a ton of content from pundits out there screaming to “get as many followers as you can” or “face the Facebook reality or your business will die.” Getting massive amounts of traffic is well, just sooo 2001. You needed volume then just to convert. Ecommerce sites were but a few years old and well, Twitter and Facebook didn’t exist.
Forget Big. Find The Right Size.
For all the Twitter fans out there, don’t forget there are well over 80 similar services like Twitter. There’s Identi.ca and Plurk and then there’s others. Your target market may not be anywhere near Twitter. So why bother?
Let’s talk Social Networks. While Facebook may be the largest, it is not the only. If your target market is people who own or crew on sail boats, then find one of the several Social Networks for sailors. Nurses? They too have their own social networks.
Increasingly, we are seeing that people may have a Facebook acccount, but will tend to spend more time in an online network where their interests lie. Facebook, Bebo, NetLog…they aren’t good at that. Ning is. So have a peek around Ning, see if that’s where your audience is hanging out. That’s where to engage.
Size does matter. Most importantly it’s the right size. Having a gazillion fans on Facebook or followers on Twitter is pointless if that’s not where your audience is. From finding where they are, listen to what they’re saying, then start developing the strategy.
While we continue to see companies dancing around their level of engagement and commitment to marketing through Social Media channels, some interesting limitations are apparent with these channels. Limitations in communication that are not easily overcome;
Textual Channels: Twitter, blogs, wall postings…anywhere where text is the primary method of communication. The issue here is “context” as it can be hard to identify what the person is “feeling” or how angry they are. Aside from perhaps a profile picture, it’s not easy to define an image of someone either. As we know, 60% of human communication is non-verbal. One might then say it is hard to truly engage in a medium with limitations to emotional expression. Emoticons are clever, but they only go so far. Flame wars erupt easily in textual channels.
Video Channels: With a service like Chatroulette this is a litter better for communication. One can see body gestures, facial expressions and denote tone of voice. The limitations here are what can be added to the conversation, such as other visuals, since you are often more dependent on location and form of camera. When it’s combining text and video response to posted videos in a sharing service like YouTube there is often delay in engagement and the chance of missed communication that can have any desired effect.
Audio Channels: Like a phone or Skype or similar IP Phone. With video enabled it helps, but similar restrictions to video channels apply. In audio communications we get tone of voice as an aid to completing the communication objective. But still, gestures and facial expression is limited.
So what does this mean in corporate attempts to engage with customer service or marketing through social media channels? Not understanding these limitations can negatively impact the outcome of the desired objective.
As with Nestle’s Facebook experience, the entire issue erupted over statements made by a Nestle marketing employee on the Facebook page for Nestle. It was purely textual. It was also a permanent linear string that all could see. This means the original context or framing of the issue rapidly spins out of hand. Nestle could have added some video response or offered a Web chat with video. This may have helped add elements that would’ve reduced the overheating of the issue. May have.
Each social media channel has its challenges. Understanding the limitations and the risks are key to success. They also add another level of education and knowledge development for a business, which adds cost to the management of these channels and reduces profits.
Do you see any other limitations?
(Author: G. Crouch)
The purpose of a business is to make a profit. To do that, a business must constantly innovate and market itself. To date, a business has not had to think about it’s “social value” to it’s market or community. I argue that is about to change. Is changing.
There’s enough cases of companies facing corporate culture changing crises from the impacts of Social Media and citizens new power of expression. No industry, no public sector organization is immune. None.
It is an illusion for any business to think it a) can control the message and b) that it is not susceptible to an assault from a disgruntled group of citizens or customers.
If this is in fact the case, then does the concept of “Corporate Social Value” come to be a key consideration for businesses now and in the future? I suspect so.
So what the heck is “Corporate Social Value”? It’s a challenge for businesses since it’s pretty much just pixie dust right now. It’s a term we made up. Here’s why though;
Take away fancy terms like “brand image” or “corporate social responsibility” and what it boils down to is do people think the way a company behaves in it’s community of wherever it operates is fair? Do they treat employees well? Do they destroy resources and do nothing to replace them? Do they make and then support, quality products? Are they damaging the environment in their manufacturing processes? Are they seen as indifferent and aloof?
This is how people may “feel” about a company. I think we’re starting to see anecdotal evidence that a company’s “reputation” or how consumers feel about it can impact sales. That’s not an easy glass of kool-aid to swallow. It’s hard to measure and it’s soft, feel good stuff. Business is not about “emotions” it’s about making a profit and reducing costs to maximize those profits. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just the way it is. Otherwise it isn’t a business, it’s a non-profit organization.
Politicians understand this concept very well. How people “feel” about them is an important part of getting and staying, elected. Perhaps businesses will be taking some lessons from politicians. That opens up a whole other, big can of worms.
Regardless, the ability for consumers to express emotions and values and to share them with others, is having an impact on businesses. And consumers are starting to realize that.
As the Queen paid a visit to Canada at the end of last month, we wanted to take a look at what Canadians felt about the Royal Visit. Some countries in the Commonwealth are having that ongoing debate; should the Queen be the head of State or not. Then there’s the Royalists vs. the Republics split. We’re not getting into politics, just a snap look at overall sentiment.
So we set loose our software to look at the sentiment around the Queens visit and here’s the stats on what we found for sentiment;
Methodology: We sampled commentary across Canada’s major news papers online where comments were enabled. In addition we mined semantics from Twitter, Plurk and Identi.ca (primary microblogs) and Facebook fan and group pages. Representative sample size was 21,500 Canadians.
Today’s NY Times article on Facebook’s rapid success in global reach serves to show that the battle between Google and Facebook is in full swing. Google beat out Microsoft and Yahoo! in search and now it faces an even bigger threat from Facebook.
Google has failed lately with every attempt to become a “social network” to tie in it’s search strength. Given our research we spend a lot of time looking at these two, amongst many others. I see pluses and minuses to both these companies and their services. Here’s why I think Facebook will lead the social network battle, unless Google thinks in similar ways.
Facebook is a little like AOL was 12+ years ago – a closed network aiming to provide content. AOL died because people prefer to decide on what they want to do and see online. What Facebook provides is simply a “framework” making it easy for people to shape their “content experience” in the same way humans behave offline in groups. Facebook fits well into human social interactions. Google does not.
Google is all about “open” and in this sense is “non-linear”. Buzz is an interesting service concept, but it’s not that easy to use. It takes a fair bit of effort to figure out. Facebook does not. It’s more complex to move about Googles services, they don’t “combine” easily. I’m a huge fan of GoogleApps, and they’ve done well with how you can manage and access GoogleDocs. If they took that approach into a social networking format, they may do better.
But the biggest challenge Google faces now with regard to Facebook is portability of peoples networks. People don’t have the time for multiple social networks. Once they build their profile and connect with people they want to connect with, it’s done. If Google finds a way to “import” all your Facebook data, including all your friends, fan pages, groups pages and such, then they may have a hope. That is unlikely however. There will need to be a a very compelling reason to switch. The switching cost is just too high for the average consumer.
Google made a huge mistake with Buzz – they assumed everybody wants to connect with everybody. They don’t. Most people connect with only those they want to; friends, family, co-workers. In the Gen X to Lost Generation segments, they don’t randomly add people. They tend to cultivate the relationships they have. Millenials will quickly and easily add people to their network, but they restrict carefully who they closely communicate with.
There are over 100 cultural, ethnic or nationalist oriented social networks around the world. Facebook is getting people to move over. How? I’m not sure, but they’re doing it. Perhaps because of how well Facebook provides a framework for people to work from?
This battle for eyeballs and consumer time will be an interesting one. Google has some phenomenal resources in terms of human smarts at it’s disposal and now so does Facebook. For now though, when it comes to massive global penetration of social networks however, I’ll put my money on Facebook.
There’s three ways to look at adopting new digital media and social media channels for your marketing and communications efforts.
A) Bleeding Edge: Get in before the service becomes super hot to build presence and traction (i.e. getting into Twitter in 2007.) The upside can be getting to shape the tone and manner and building a strong brand presence. The downside is knowing it will be a winner and that it won’t shut down for lack of service. If you picked Plurk as microblog platform, well, sorry about that.
B) Leading Edge: This is when, it would seem, mainstream media first starts to report on a service. A good example would be blogging. You can better pick which service is likely to be around in a few years (even through acquisitions or mergers) and you can still play a role in shaping the channel and building a strong presence.
C) Laggard: Shareholders of pharmacy chain Walgreen’s kept pushing senior management to build an online presence fast and start an eCommerce site. Management resisted and waiting until 2000, watching and learning from others who failed. Smart move on Walgreen’s part. Sometimes this can be a safe bet, but you’ll expend more human resource time and money in social media channels the later you enter.
In large part, when you choose to use a social media service depends mostly on senior management’s comfort with that level of engagement, expenditure and how it can relate to ROI for the business. Other factors include time, brand values, market size etc. As always with social media, do some listening first. A service may not always live up to the hype or may not even be right for your organization.
Some companies have a culture of being “bleeding edge” and want to be at the visionary stage of product adoption (i.e. Moores Law of technology adoption)
As was demonstrated in Haiti’s earthquake crisis this year, Social Media can play a key role in evaluating crisis issues. Already fibre connections have been restored (many thanks to NetHope and their work) and there are Internet Cafe’s popping up in the tent cities people are still living in.
Think about that for a moment: people are still living in tents, yet they want to be connected to the world.
To me, this says loud and clear how critical Social Media tools have become on a societal level to citizens. These free tools are connecting families and relief agencies, enabling family ties to remain close in desperate situations. That’s powerful.
And from our research, prices are not ridiculously expensive for access. High, yes, but not much more so than pre-earthquake.
The most popular use of these tent city Internet cafe’s is of course, Social Media tools.
A large portion of Haitian Diaspora live in Montreal, Canada and then in France. Interestingly though, for donor nations, France is third for aid support behind the U.S., Canada and UK. And France is a former colonial government.
Haiti was a fragile nation before the earthquake, although just about at the tipping point of impressive recovery, now once again a very fragile nation. On the upside is that there is no threat of conflict from another nation.
Social Media tools are drawing our world ever closer, creating a level of global fragility we’ve never known. It is also enabling families to stay connected unlike ever before, and when getting access to communicating with family over having a house is a priority, well it shows the heart of humanity and our need to be connected to one another.
In all of our Social Media research looking at age groups and the tools they use is vital to later helping clients and agencies develop an effective strategy for their Social Media engagement.
Perhaps it’s not surprising, but there are generational differences in the types of Social Media tools preferred, namely the level of creativity or functionality a service offers. Here we provide a basic snap of these preferences which can aid in designing Social Media campaigns/projects or tools.
Generation Tech or Gen Z: Only just edging into their teens at the start end of the curve, this group is all about being “interconnected” and “networked” and use the tools to gather into formal and informal groups for short and long periods. Highly creative with the tools they are the least fearful to adopt new social technologies, they are also very fickle and not loyal if a service doesn’t meet their demands.
Millenials: They’re happy to go wild with features, functionality and ability to express. This is the crowd that likes MySpace with the ability to create all kinds of backgrounds and move things around on their MySpace page. Having grown up with these tools, there is no fear. This is a highly “networked” group and prefer to function as “many” instead of singularly. Don’t waste your time trying to find these folks in Twitter though. They prefer tools where they can clearly identify who it is they are connecting with.
Generation X: Somewhat creative and flexible, but less so than Millenials (Gen Y) they prefer systems already in place. They’ll step outside the box a little, but not much. They prefer to be guided easily and have little time to waste on fancying up pages. They get to the point. Generation X is a little less “network” oriented than Millenials.
Boomers: Set the framework. Good UI is critical for this generation. They’re not as comfortable as any previous generation with Social Media. They use an average of no more than 3 Social Media tools, those usually being one Social Network (i.e. Facebook) on photo sharing (i.e Flickr) and email. It’s not about funky features, bells and whistles with this group. They’re more fearful of changes, like their privacy and are less “network” oriented online.
Silent Generation or Pre-Boomer: Extremely limited use of Social Media tools with email being the preferred tool, although we see some uptake with Skype and certainly Facebook. This group, when they use the tools, use them mostly for family and close friend communications.
Methodology:
These insights are the results of aggregating our research findings from over 180 research projects for the business, NGO and government sectors since 2008 where age has been a factor in strategy development. This aggregate data represents the summation of looking at over 100,000 people across these generations in the United States, Canada and UK.
For a more comprehensive report and breakdown of tool preferences by country and region we do offer reports to clients for purchase. Naturally. This is our business after all.
(Author, G. Crouch, CEO)
