Thunking, Uncategorized•
on August 5th, 2010•
Unlike those under 25, I didn’t grow up with Facebook in my face and my head pummeled with tweets and whistles of notification services and microblogs. I played in mud and sand and helped do my part to keep the laundry soap market in business like all kids into the 80’s. I lost friends when I moved, I made new ones. Over time my social circles changed. Like everybody else. I wondered from time to time about my high-school girlfriends and regular mates. It was nice to have a beer with the friends I’d stayed connected with, the two or three of them, and reminisce for a few minutes with a laugh or a groan.
Now, I’ve reconnected with most of them on Facebook or LinkedIn. Now I know all about what happened to them, who went to pot, who fell off the wagon who did amazing things. Kids today start connecting on various social networks at around 5 or 6 years old.
They will likely never know the bittersweet nostalgia of the natural process of losing friends and acquaintances. Sure, finding an old friend can also be wonderful and rewarding.
But before Facebook and Classmates and all these ways of reconnecting, there was a certain part of ones character that developed with these losses. Chances are, that will be less likely (at least in wealthy nations with prevalent Web usage.) What might be the ramifications? It will require a new set of etiquette behaviours for certain.
How do you think it might evolve?
(Author: G. Crouch, Principal)
As we research social media use across continents and cultural groups, we of course are also always looking to understand how social media technologies can make an impact on our world. Both positive and negative. Listening to Devdutt Pattanaik speaking on mythologies and how we view our world, once can translate that into how social technologies can and are bringing our global community together.
If global trade (finance, exporting/importing, global corporations etc.) are enabling the movement of physical goods and the tumbling of walls into nation states that reflected so much of 20th century, then social media technologies are where people are first developing the relationships through sharing of content and ideas.
As people, we all need an “identity” and that is both a personal identity then social then cultural and finally a nation-state sense of identity. That identity and how we behave is through social activities (meetings, cultural broadcast on TV, radio…the Web) and behaviours. This is arrived at entirely through dialog. You can not form a company or a nation without other people (well, you could, but it would be awfully small and collapse when you die.)
My World: In social media terms, this is the sites and services you engage in to view content on the Web and view what other people have created or said. It’s more singular in nature and based on your behaviour.
Your World: That’s how “my world” see’s anothers world. It is the opening of the conversation or the relationship in the social web. In Cyburbia.
The World: This is reality. This is all the tools and the relative state of the Web as it stands today, globally. This is “the” world of Cyburbia. It is the result of my world and your world coming together.
What I believe we’re starting to see is the use of social media technologies to bring our world together. Here’s some examples I think that help make the case.
Smoking Boy: In Vietnam the father who let’s his 2 year old smoke 40 cigarettes a day. Because this hit YouTube it went around the world. Not only through social technologies, but news media. News media around the world. Prior to the web we likely never would have seen that story outside Vietnam.
Iranian Elections ‘09: Agressive, planned and consistent use of social technologies such as YouTube and Flickr kept the Iranian election front and centre globally and provided people with an insight into Iran and that there are many there who want proper democracy and human rights.
Playing for Change: The global awareness on poverty project that saw people around the world playing stand by me in various cultures (among other songs) uses that universal translator, music, to bridge between cultures.
That’s just three examples. What do you think? Are we going to be able to better understand one anothers cultures better through social technologies? Can we call this the opening phase of Global Aculturalisation?
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)
Every time Apple launches a new device, iPad included, a whole business ecosystem emerges and kicks into gear. Cases, stands, speakers, headsets and more. The Sony Walkman never achieved this.
On the Web, it seems Twitter is the Cyburbian version of Apple products. It’s spun off an incredible amount of associated services (here’s an excellent list);
- Twitter ranking tools
- Twitter clients (Browser-based, OS-based and Air-based)
- Statistical / Analytical services
- Follower services
- Aggregators
- Image & Video Sharing
- Games
But what about the money? Well, not so much. You can buy some products, send money or use an eBay linked service, but these are volume-based services, with, I suspect, not much volume. Perhaps someday. Twitter has worked out a system, it would seem, for revenue. We’re just not sure what that is yet.
But an entire ecosystem has evolved around the service. While there are over 80 other microblogging services, none have created such a powerful ecosystem. Kind of like comparing Microsoft’s Zune to the iPod.
So while the theoretical side of this would say it’s very successful. On the practical side however, there’s little to no money being generated. No revenue makes a company a Non-Profit Organization. So why? Personally I’m not sure. Perhaps you have ideas?
(Author: G. Crouch)
Uncategorized•
on June 24th, 2010•
Most of us can recall that saying / meme from the late 60’s that still percolates a bit today: “Get a haircut, get a job“. Remember that? George Thorogood sang the song.
That statement reflected an economic view of society that in order to be a participative citizen, you needed to have a decent job. So you could get married, build a family and consume products. Consumptive society. Capitalism. And yes, capitalism works very nicely.
But in Cyburbia, it’s not about a haricut and getting a job. It’s becoming your Social Value. Valerie Maltoni discusses this in her Conversation Agent blog. How many services are giving out social rewards for participation…yes you too can become a mayor in FourSquare or get Karma points in Plurk.
In Cyburbia, it’s not the economic value of what you’re producing in terms of physical “goods” it’s how your participating. It’s what your contributing to the “social good.”
To those in the Boomer generation or front end of Gen X and the Lost Generation, that means just about nothing. To those generations such “Social Value” meant only having a few close friends, still does. Getting extra Karma or becoming Mayor of a location means very little. Social Value to these generations is measured in your economic or productive value to society. Not to Geny Y or Millenials though. That’s a shift. A big one.
We think, based on our research to date, that this is one of the first major societal shifts as a result of social technologies. One that will carry for a number of years. FourSquare may or may not last a long time, being mayor may be a short or longer trend, but the overall concept of your “Social Value”, however it is measured, will be important amongst Gen Y and Millenials.
(Author: G. Crouch, CEO)
Can you be too noisy as a company engaged in Social Media? What happens when you go from nothing to leaky faucet to a firehose of information spewing madly at your “audience”? People shut you off.
We see enough discussion around Social Media companies and in-house marketers getting C-suite approval to just get engaged, a least a little, with Social Media marketing. Over the past few months we’ve seen a few companies become, well, let’s say a little over-enthusiastic. That can backfire just as much.
It’s one thing to let your “brand” have a presence and communicate. It’s another altogether to be overly pushy and engage too much. After all, sometimes a little mystery around a “brand” (i.e. company or product) is a good thing.
If you’re a company looking to engage in Social Media, be sure not to get a little too cutesy with prospects and customers. Because one power (among others) consumer have with Social Media channels – they can turn you off in an instant, and get their friends to turn you off. Then you’ve lost them. Possibly for good, since they don’t want your message anymore. We consume media in snippets today. That won’t change for a while. Don’t let those snippets become a downpour.
So not only is relevance important, so is volume. What’s your thought?
(Author: G. Crouch)
Facebook’s continual attempt to “open” up people’s information is, I think, I gross miscalculation on the meaning of a persons “social network.” It’s not really about privacy of the individual it’s about privacy of our network of friends and family.
I am on Facebook and I like it. I will not however, connect as a “friend” with someone I have never and likely never will, actually meet. I ignore these requests, for business I use LinkedIn or I may connect via my Twitter. To get to know you better first. The mayor of my city made a “friend request” and while I’m sure he’s a very nice guy, I just don’t know him. I’m not a friend. Maybe someday I will be. Then I’ll include him.
The point is, Facebook is about a persons “network”, or who they work with, family and well, actual friends with whom there is a social or emotional connection. That connection may have started 25 years ago in high school or a year ago at a function and well, you just connected.
We already know that we can not possibly be friends with everyone. Nor do people want to be. This is where Facebook has entirely missed the point of social networks in the sense of “social networks” and in fact, I will submit, that by trying to expand, falsely, a persons “social network” beyond people they really want to connect with, they are significantly diluting the value of their data to marketers. Since there is no longer a “true” representation of a persons network. It ruins the “data set” and dilutes it.
Facebook adds significantly more value by looking at “network effects” of people and will be able to draw much better conclusions and provide much better resale information (in aggregate) to buyers and advertisers than opening things up too much.
Keeping privacy rights at the forefront is actually in Facebook’s better financial interest. The more they try to open things, the worse they actually make their offering.
Manging privacy better is in fact, in Facebooks broader financial interest in my opinion.
What do you think?
(Author: G. Crouch, CEO)
Here I argue that traditional news media (a.k.a. industrial news media) is still and will continue to, play a critical role in how we consume our news and share it. Only now citizens can participate in the story.
Internet memes or stories are a key part of the mix, but often the big online memes or stories don’t become so until they are covered by industrial news media. Industrial media still has 1) mass reach and 2) credibility (maybe that is declining in some ways, but they still have credibility over the average citizen.)
Let’s look at just a few of examples;
Rogers iPhone Launch in Canada: We posted an article on the research we did while this was happening. Not until the online petition had attention from mainstream news media did it take off.
United Broke My Guitar: While it was raging across the Web as a meme, only 600+K people had viewed the story until CNN and a few other mainstream newsmedia outlets reported it. Then within 2 days the video on YouTube had surpassed 2 million views.
Motrin Moms: While the story simmered over the web through Social Media channels, it wasn’t until newspapers, radio and television news picked it up that it went truly viral. Motrin pulled the ads within 72 hours and no doubt their marketing department was taking a lot of Tylenol.
These are just 3 examples that point to the proof of how mainstream, industrial news media still plays a relevant role in spurring on a story. So while some may say traditional media is dead, I beg to differ. We still look towards these sources for actual news.
Traditional news media does face challenges though. The story of Gordon Lightfoot being dead was broken by a traditional radio news station. It was false. They didn’t do a fact check beforehand. It’s the fact checking and source analysis that citizens expect news media to do. Validating the back story. This factor will feature prominently in the future over who grows as a news source and who doesn’t. What we can say is that traditional news media is still very much alive, well and relevant.
Iranians vying for more democracy in Iran last year used Social Media tools such as Flickr and YouTube very effectively to gain global attention and newsmedia coverage. Ukrainians used it in 2005, and we saw use of Twitter in a Belorus in late 2009 during an election – the usage failed miserably there.
But who has access to Social Media in fragile nations and post-conflict nations like Somalia, Sudan, Cote D’Ivoire, Uruguay? Worldwide over 1.5 Billion people are connected and millions are connecting each month. The largest growth online will come from China and India over the next few years. And when they get online, they jump on Social Media services quickly.
In these fragile nations {a.k.a Global South} (Somalia, Sudan, DRC) or emerging markets (India, Iran, Brazil, China) they are not only connecting with one another in social groups, but many are finding Social Media as an effective way to communicate a message to the developed world (the Global North.) But who’s getting a voice?
Today it’s mostly Elites; students of wealthy families, wealthy families themselves, political elites. They can afford Internet access or have it at academic institutions. Those in lower classes cannot afford a computer let alone Web access and often suffer from lack of technical skills and illiteracy.
Where that may change is through mobile devices such as SmartPhones and Netbooks. They are more affordable and accessible and in fragile nations communications infrastructure builds are predominantly wireless today.
Today, political unrest in these fragile nations is mostly being driven by students. They may not have access to the Web in the home, but they do in universities and Internet cafes. Take the most recent case of such activism in Sudan where the movement Girifna is being driven by a young medical student. They use mobile devices and services such as Facebook and YouTube. They are often in the Elite class still, but are the dissafected of the Elite.
Bringing access to poorer segments will be pivotal to broader societal and democratic change in fragile nations. The inherent risk however, will remain with the government in power who might turn off the Web and mobile networks quickly and easily. As the Belorus government did in 2006 with the mobile network having seen what happened in the Ukraine in 2005 and the Orange Revolution.
For now, it is mostly the elites who have access and using Social Media for societal and political change will most likely remain in the hands of the students. They will use it to drive western (Global North) media attention and to organize and rally those who don’t have access. Which opens up a whole other set of issues, such as widening the gap in wealthy vs. poor and uneducated and what type of influence is being driven?
(Author: G. Crouch, MD)
For businesses the issue with Social Media isn’t really marketing. I’d argue the bigger issue for businesses is actually transparency. There’s an old saying about eating at a restaurant, “what you don’t know won’t hurt you.” Social Media has opened up a whole new set of cost burdens for businesses; PR people need to learn new skills and understand the impact of new communications technologies, marketers the same. Then senior management needs to understand the strategic impacts of social media to the business.
The result is an increased level of transparency. Across all aspects of a business (marketing, HR, production etc.). This not only presents a PR and marketing challenge, it also impacts governance, investor relations, product management, government relations and regulation/legislation. Such a broad set of issues from the newest communications revolution leaves a lot for businesses to suddenly contend with.
Now, we are starting to see business fight back, seeking to claim their rights; do they see this as a bid to manage transparency? Restaurants in New York are pleading the city not to force them to display health department ratings in their front windows; for fear it will drive customers away (to me, if you’re up to health standards you shouldn’t be worried, so naturally, citizens are asking what they’re hiding.) Social Media played a part because citizens took the issue into the blogosphere, Twitter and Facebook. Then they called their councillors and put pressure on them. So the citizens are demanding more transparency and restaurants want less.
Because of the consumers ability to create and repurpose digital content in Social Media, it has created a conundrum for businesses; how much to reveal, and when it’s revealed what might be the consequences? Add to the mix the Enron, Conrad Black and financial crisis of 2008, citizens are demanding to know more. To have access to more. Obama’s government is opening more and more data to citizens everyday, England is doing the same. Canada is shutting down more doors than it’s opening.
Already, businesses (especially public ones) must contend with increased regulatory requirements for disclosure. Because consumers / citizens are creating the content and politicians react to citizen sentiment, businesses feel the tension of this already tense relationship grow increasingly tough.
The real cost impact to businesses then, is not the PR/Marketing aspect, but that of exposing their business practices overall. Public companies expose a lot of info through filing rules, private businesses not so much. European private businesses have for many years been more financially transparent by government regulation, but not American or Canadian. This could all change. What is the risk of confidential business practices being exposed? Methodologies, processes and strategies are corporate secrets and are vital to healthy competitive markets in a capitalist society. And lets face a truth here; capitalism has done more good for humanity globally than any other previous form of commerce.
This all means an added cost burden to business; more PR/IR people, more governance / legal costs, more people and a deeper understanding of consumer activities in the Social Web. Add all this into marketing and PR costs – the consumer will be the one to bear the subsequent price increases to offset the costs.
What do you think? Is increased transparency good or bad? And if so, for whom?
