Social media is good for your career

Advertising Age reports on a study of 400 CMOs (that’s Marketing Directors in English):

Only 16% of respondents said their companies have any routine system in place for monitoring what people are saying about them or their brands online.

 

The survey comes, however, as big marketers are paying growing attention to monitoring and leveraging social media. Procter & Gamble has a Social Media Lab that's about 18 months old, and Unilever last month hosted a word-of-mouth summit at its US headquarters dedicated largely to understanding how social media affect its brands.

 

Another big marketer, Johnson & Johnson, became acutely aware of the trouble social media can cause when complaints on the microblogging site Twitter led it to pull the plug on an ad campaign for Motrin in November.

 

One problem for marketing executives is that they're not clearly in charge now of managing the customer experience, customer loyalty or social media today, given that public-relations, sales, consumer-affairs and research-and-development departments all have a stake in those areas now.

 

Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council, said marketing should take the lead in overseeing the customer experience and satisfaction. And he said addressing deficiencies in tracking and analyzing consumer feedback and buzz may be the key way CMOs can stake a claim to leadership.

 

This accurately reflects reality as we experience it – we work into both Marketing and Corporate Communications Directors on different clients. Although the most effective engagements tend to be when we’re working with a combination of the Marketing, PR, Customer Service and Research departments, there’s clearly a land grab in progress. It’s those that commission us whose careers’ are seeming to benefit – and not just for the mercenary reasons the CMO council gives, but because they’re the ones doing the valuable learning as social media changes the face of business for ever...

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The future of advertising and agencies

This week, the IPA published a report snappily titled Social Media Futures - The future of advertising and agencies in a networked society. A 10-year perspective, the launch of which was covered both by the FT:

Two-thirds of advertising agencies are not prepared for the industry changes prompted by social networks and new forms of digital media

and Campaign:

For agencies used to what one senior executive calls a "broadcast mindset", the social networking phenomenon and the way it empowers consumers can seem seriously scary. Which makes this week's warning from the IPA that, when it comes to social media, the majority of agencies "aren't getting it" all the more disturbing.

The Campaign piece includes some good analysis of the state of play, including this from Mark Collier, Managing Partner at Dare:

Social media should be viewed as a discipline in its own right and doing it properly will require genuine specialists who live and breathe it. But it will need to be closely allied to core marketing strategy and execution if it is to be relevant and effective.

And this from Steve Henry, the former TBWA\London Executive Creative Director:

The current agency model needs rethinking because it's run out of steam. Remember that a lot of digital agencies are ten years old and you have to ask if they're flexible enough to seize the opportunities on behalf of clients. Many clients are starting to feel that the agency they need doesn't exist. That's to say one that understands the mechanics of social networking as well as delivering the upstream strategy and thinking.

These are the very reasons we set-up We Are Social in June last year (combined with a similar malaise in the PR industry), and I'm confident that what we're doing addresses Mark and Steve's concerns head on.

As part of the launch of the report, the IPA also held an event on Monday evening, which Nathan, Sandrine and myself went along to – nicely summed up by PHD’s Dan Hosford:

Essentially, the IPA gathered a group of industry social media champions across agencies & media owners. Then bored them

There's more detail, if you want it, in posts from Anjali Ramachandran, Graeme Harrison, Amelia Torode and John V Willshire.

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Twitter grows 974% in the last 12 months

Following on from our recent compendium of social media traffic growth, Robin Goad has posted Hitwise’s latest stats about Twitter’s phenomenal growth in the UK:

Twitter was one of the fastest growing websites in the UK last year, and it shows no signs of slowing down. If anything, the service is even more popular than our numbers imply, as we are only measuring traffic to the main Twitter website. If the people accessing their Twitter accounts via mobile phones and third party were included, the numbers would be even higher. Many people seem to find Twitter addictive: the average amount of time that people spend on Twitter.com has more than trebled from less than 10 minutes a year ago to half an hour now.

Twitter receives the largest amount of its traffic from the USA, but its penetration is greater in the UK market. For the week ending 17/10/09 twitter.com ranked as the 291st most visited website in the UK, accounting for 0.024% of all Internet visits; while in the USA it ranked 350th, picking up 0.020% of all Internet visits.

Twitter is still most popular with younger users in urban areas, but its appeal is broadening as it grows. The fastest growing age group of users is 35-44 year olds, who now account for 17.3% of UK visitors to twitter.com.

Twitter is becoming an important source of Internet traffic for many sites, and the amount of traffic it sends to other websites has increased 30-fold over the last 12 months.

This follows on from yesterday’s US Hitwise data from Heather Dougherty, pointing out that Twitter is now more popular than Digg.com:

While we're on the subject, you could find out why people use Twitter, see Chris’ commentary on why the British tabloids are so hostile towards Twitter or even follow me on Twitter.

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The future of the social web

You're going to be bombarded with lots of buzzwords in this post - don't be put off. By the end, you'll have a vision of the future of the web you never thought possible. Let's start with Alisa Leonard-Hansen's presentation explaining portable social graphs:

Now, let's move on to Jesse Pickard and Shiv Singh's presentation imagining their potential, using the example of Facebook Connect:

They gives us a glimpse of what the next few years will bring in terms of the whole web becoming social. To quote Charlene Li:

in the future, social networks will be like air. They will be anywhere and everywhere we need and want them to be

To really begin to see the potential for yourself, have a look at how The Insider is using it, JC Penney's recent Beware of the Doghouse campaign or the early efforts from Vimeo, Brightkite and Eventbrite.

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Why do people use Twitter?

One of the eternal questions you hear asked about Twitter, especially by those who don’t use it themselves, is why?

Of course, there's a myriad of different answers, but these two films come close to answering the question.

The first was put together by Christian Payne (@Documentally) and Matt Rawlinson (@Barnstormed) from vox pops they conducted at a gathering of Twitterers in London in September last year - the first ever Twestival:

The second was filmed by Hamish Campbell (@hamishcampbell) at Twinterval, another gathering of London's Twitterati in December, and perhaps delves a little deeper than the first:

If you feel like doing some anthropological fieldwork of your own, you'll be glad to know that Twestival has gone global - on the 12th February there will be local Twestivals all around the world, bringing together Twitterers for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water.

We're going to be at three of them ourselves - we're organising the Paris Twestival, which we're confident is going to be one of the biggest and best, Nathan is helping out with Sydney's and what's left of the team will be partying hard here in London.

While I've got your attention, why not have a look at the last set of stats on Twitter usage in the UK, see Chris' commentary on why the British tabloids are so hostile to Twitter or follow me on Twitter...

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Panasonic's influencer campaign at CES

Brian Morrissey in Adweek covers the latest influencer campaign from Panasonic:

Among the hundreds of journalists at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week there are five people producing reams of copy, photos and video about the show, new product demos and press conferences. Unlike the reporters, though, they are popular bloggers in Las Vegas courtesy of Panasonic.

The Panasonic program is one of several undertaken by brands carving out a new take on the old notion of advertorial. Rather than relying on magazines, they are contracting with influential bloggers who bring with them their own powerful distribution networks. Rather than a long-form narrative, content is fit for the Web via blog posts, Twitter updates and YouTube videos. And the key differentiator: instead of dictating the content to lead to a sale, brands typically keep their distance to maintain credibility.

Panasonic wanted to build cachet among Internet influencers for its array of tech products. As part of its “Living in High Definition” push, Crayon [a social media agency] recruited five bloggers to travel to CES on Panasonic’s dime. Panasonic footed the bill for their travel and passes to the event while also loaning them digital video and still cameras. The bloggers, which include popular Internet figures Chris Brogan and Steve Garfield, will also meet with Panasonic executives and preview products.

It’s good to see the sort of work we’re doing getting mainstream coverage in Adweek and that savvy brands like Panasonic understand the competitive advantage campaigns like this can bring.

However, Brian is wrong to view these sort of campaigns as ‘advertorial’ (and in the same article bracket them with ‘pay per post’ type campaigns) – what Panasonic have done (and we do with our influencer campaigns and advocacy programmes) is generate genuine, emotive and far-reaching Word of Mouth, which is substantively different to crude advertorial (or even dispassionate editorial) copy.

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We're on a Digital Mission to SXSWi

We're off to Texas! Along with 34 other innovative UK companies, We Are Social is really proud to be selected from over 100 entries as part of the Digital Mission to the SXSWi Conference in Austin, Texas.

As Mike Butcher (also one of the judges) puts it in Techcrunch, the Digital Mission is "a kind of trade mission, but with more sex appeal" to SXSWi, "now a byword for emerging media."

Chinwag are organising the Digital Mission for UK Trade & Investment, with the support of sponsors Sun Startup Essentials, Winston & Strawn, and Core Objects. Thanks to them, and the judges: Mike Butcher, Techcrunch UK Editor; Herb Kim, Codeworks CEO; and Sarbjit Bakhshi, Head of Information & Technology Group, UKTI.

It's great news to start the year with - we're already looking forward to heading to SXSWi and making the most of this great opportunity. See y'all in Texas!

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Five social media New Year's resolutions for your business

I thought I'd take a crack at compiling a list of five social media New Year's resolutions that apply to all businesses, large and small. If you're wondering why these resolutions are important, find out why my company does what it does or subscribe to our blog.

1. Learn by doing. Reading blog posts from the great and good of social media is a good way to stay abreast of the latest trends and techniques, but you'll only really start to understand the potential and significance of social media by using it yourself. And while there may be political and budgetary barriers to overcome before getting your company engaging in social media, there's no excuse not to take part yourself on an individual level. So, get going! - Join the conversation on Twitter, poke some long lost school friends on Facebook, upload your holiday snaps to Flickr, have a play at being a DJ on Blip.fm, brush-up your profile on LinkedIn, find a community of people or a blogger who shares your interests and even consider setting up your own blog.

2. Start listening. People are talking about brands at all hours of every day, in countless forms of social media, and you can guarantee that somewhere they're talking about your business and that it's having an impact on your bottom line. While I'd advise companies that it pays to get expert help with this, especially to understand the actions you need to take as a result of these conversations, a good first step is to start listening with some of the freely available tools out there - set-up some Google and Twitter alerts, try out the Social Media Firehose, find the communities who discuss your business on a regular basis and most importantly, click through and read the conversations and hear what people are saying.

3. Put a strategy in place. The impact of social media crosses existing organisational structures which makes it hard for one person or department to take ownership. Ideally a comprehensive strategy would involve Marketing, Corporate Communications, Customer Service, Product Development, Market Research, Legal and Human Resources. It's not going to be easy, which is why you might consider working with a specialist consultancy to achieve this.

4. Start blogging. We advise all of our clients to do this, regardless of what business they're in. A blog is a good way of reaching a really important constituency of your customer base - the ones that care enough about you to read your blog, as well as the press, shareholders and other key stakeholders. However, the real reason we make this recommendation is the transformative effect it has on businesses - it forces you to be conversational, and quickly allows you to work through a microcosm of the changes that social media will inevitably force on your business anyway. Some good example blogs to show your colleagues are Avis' We Try Harder, Waitrose's The Grocer's Blog, Glasses Direct, innocent drinks, the Majestic Wine blog, Orange's The Feed, Littlewood's Love Label and SpinVox's blog.

5. Start engaging. You can do this in many ways, whether it's someone from your customer service department responding in real time to people complaining about issues on forums, inviting some relevant influential bloggers to your next press event, or incorporating a conversational element to your next marketing campaign. Bring in some external expertise, test a few different approaches out and learn from the experience - and above all else, be interesting, relevant and honest.

That's it - if you stick even to two or three of these resolutions you'll be better placed than most of your competitors to navigate your way through the combined challenges of the recession and the changes social media are bringing to the business landscape.

Robin Grant is the Founder and Managing Director of We Are Social, a specialist consultancy that helps brands to listen, understand and engage in conversations in social media. As part of you following the first resolution, feel free to say hi to him on Twitter...

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US social media spend to rise in 2009

Hot on the heels of of similar UK predictions from Econsultancy, comes this from Brian Morrissey in Adweek:

According to researcher eMarketer, [US] online ad spending will climb 8.9 percent next year, from $23.6 billion to $25.7 billion.

Old school methods like display ads and microsites will come under pressure. Social media looks set to remain on the top of advertisers' agendas, as they look to apply the lessons of their early missteps in the area while adding real measurement to what have been experimental forays to date. As the Internet becomes more social, there will likewise be an acceleration of a move from purely technical implementations to using the Web's emerging social infrastructure to connect on a more human level.

Combined with the phenomenal growth in people's usage of social media and the impact this has on their purchase decisions, this makes us even more confident that the help and advice that we're able to offer brands means that We Are Social is in the right place at the right time...

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