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The most interesting thing I read all week in the myriad of information I digest was the posting for eMarketer titled Marketers embrace Twitter over Facebook with and insightful  tag line  “Follow me” replacing “friend me”? eMarketer reported that “Facebook may have recently passed MySpace as the most-visited social networking site in the US, but it’s facing stiff competition for the attention of social media marketers.” So why is it so interesting for me and why should it interest you?

Marketing and advertising in Facebook is problematic. In fact its inherent culture is anti advertising and its user base have in the past voiced disappointment and disapproval of the introduction of targeted advertising. There is an high emotional attachment to the service as it relates to sharing amongst friends, family, and having fun in a protected environment. They don’t want the intrusion or interruption by advertisers. They will choose whether or not they want to be associated to you. Marketers need to learn a new approach in social networks like Facebook. (In MySpace its a different commercial proposition, brands can advertise and “own” or design their own space. )

I do believe  that in the classic brand ownership argument, Facebook - the brand,  is owned by it consumers , not the other way round. Facebook does not own it users it provides a service to them . Its  how the consumers adopt and use the platform and what the platform provides to them that makes it so successful. Facebook has to be very careful not to upset or dis-enfranchise its consumers or it will suffer dramatically. Selling out its user base to advertisers would lead to its demise. Brands and companies operating in this environment must also be mindful of “adding value” to their fan bases and inspiring some open and fun dialogue that piques their interest. Do not assume that its a broadcast channel for self interest. You have to ask why would you, or someone else for that matter,  want to befriend a brand ? What is interesting for me is that Facebook fan pages represent an emotional not a rational connection and affiliation to brands.  e.g. I love / like you therefore I want to be associated to you!  If you offend this sensibility you will loose your most valuable asset, your loyal and emotionally attached consumer.

Companies that have a adopted a dialogue based publishing or open based communication practices like blogs are more likely to be actively involved in Twitter. They are using it for several purposes: company news, customer service, marketing promotions and even employee recruitment.

I used to think  of Twitter as broadcasting or push publishing platform while trying to find a term of reference to describe it, but now that reference has changed. Twitter actually isn’t broadcast or pushcast its a  “directcast” or “targetedcast” conversational tool  which only reaches those who want that information, as they have opted to follow and receive these conversational or useful snippets of information. The relationship of association is the key. What is clear to me is that if you don’t have anything worthwhile to say, don’t say it. There was an interesting set of statistics released this week by Pear Analytics ,  based on a sample of Twits and they conclude that for the present:

• 40 % of Twits were in fact “Pointless babble” or dribble
• 37.5% were conversational
  
• 8.7% were of Pass Along Value.

The underlying warning I see in these figures is that those companies or individuals who use is it solely as an avenue for broadcast with content that has no value or conversational worth risk that their message will fall upon on deaf ears or closed eyes. Their followers will ultimately tune out and detract over time . This is not unlike the woes confronting conventional advertising today. Its not all about broadcast anymore, stop shouting, stop interrupting !!

The brand benefits of CRM and Social Marketing Programs are obvious.  Value exchange creates loyalty and potentially advocacy – By providing a benefit you will be most successful if you also consider the value expectations of your audience. Providing value will ensure your customers continue engaging with your brand in the social landscape. In the sense of making brand advocates of your consumers your exchange might even inspire them to share the value you provide with others.

In terms of marketing communications, many of your online ‘friends’ or fans will only remain a ‘friend’ as long as you keep providing a value exchange in your services, content, newsletters, tweets or updates. The same value exchange already exists in other services that include loyalty programs, memberships and clubs where there are high levels of consumer interaction and the value of being involved has tangible rewards. Its also good to remember that these activities sometimes have a high cost.  Even if you are on smaller programs of involvement the exchange still needs to be in place, small tokens of appreciation always work well.

The ubiquitous social term ‘friend’ should not be mistaken as being similar to friends in the real world. The value of exchange needs to be balanced and considered for the long-term relationship. Short term goals or sales in favour of a brand might not sustain a relationship withits  circle of friends. Brands cannot assume that they have a bond of friendship strong enough to get away with delivering content that benefits the brand alone or doesn’t maintain the relationship. This one way relationship will not work online anymore. So if someone becomes your online ‘friend’ it is the brand that needs to earn the friendship and nurture the relationship, not them. Make sure you continue to deliver value of service, content etc in your exchange with your online ‘friends’ or they will move onto other ‘friends’ ready to give them attention.

So what benefits and value are you providing for your consumers beyond your product?

According to the BBC, initial data from Trendrr, a Web service that tracks activity on social media sites, the number of Twitter posts containing “Michael Jackson” totaled more than 100,000 per hour. That put the momentary news of Jackson’s death equal to the peak surrounding the Iran protests ten days before.

Twitter posts on #iranelection reached 100,000 per hour on June 16 and eventually climbed to 220,000 per hour. In response to the Iranian governments shutdown of both local and international from reporting on the events unfolding in Iran, it’s connected populace turned to social media channels, to break the news using mobile phones, through proxy servers setup by freedom of speech advocates in the US and their own blogs and social media outlets. The Twitter channel #iranelection gained so much importance and notoriety in a matter of a few days that the State Department of the US asked Twitter to postpone network maintenance so it could continue monitoring the service. The opening of social media channels spread the defiance against the Iranian government, caused an intense cyberwar (Crisis in Iran Sparks Global Guerrilla Cyberwar) and caught the traditional media outlets by surprise. The effects of the  immediacy of news and the spontaneity of world’s citizens to rebroadcast and support that news was so profound that even CNN’s Christina Amanpour was quoted in the New York Times saying “You can’t keep news down anymore & that’s a huge change…getting the word out is totally democratized.”

Twitter had matured in an instant and its reported plateau on user adoption from the month before was suddenly just another small bump in Twitter’s rocky road to mainstream user adoption.

Twitter’s growing impact on journalism is punctuated by what is  happening in Iran. News services like CNN and BBC renowned for on the spot reporting were caught out, the world was watching the news , but not on their channels. Mainstream media commentators posted a pieces on rules of engagement for journalists following the 1st spike in activity when the true power of the world’s citizens voice was amplified through Twitter.  Coincidentally at the same time as history was being created in Iran, Clay Shirky of TED was delivering the this message on how Social media  helps define history through instant reporting.

Notably on these two defining events the buzz surrounding the Twitter service peaked as a new wave of adopters hit the platform.  Here’s a  look at a what these two events effects on Twitter have been.

User Adoption

How to Use  Twitter – The question on what to do ?

With all this buzz surrounding the Twitter platform and its continued massive adoption, the service has to really work on capturing these waves of people and turning them to loyal users. Its failure to scale an infrastructure quick enough for unexpected demand reminds me of my days at Activision. The combination of deep social media based fan communities and highly precision driven digital campaigns together would on occasion overwhelm our servers. The technical infrastructure guys would cringe saying it wasn’t good, but the marketing teams pointed to it as a success point the “digital marketing efforts” were working extremely well. Needless to say it was seen a good problem to have, it spurned an investment in an web serving environment that could handle the onslaught of big and hugely successful campaigns and opened peoples eyes to the strength and importance of the digital and social media.

What is clear from my experience is you have got to have a brand people love then users will forgive a few hiccups in service or shortcomings. What is obvious is that the people have spoken, Twitter is gaining love.  It has peoples attention and will be forgiven for a few outages. Now it has to capitalize on these peaks and show that its a platform worthy of true love and loyalty.

It could mean that Twitter is hitting a plateau and the buzz surrounding the platform is waning this month.  Nielsen’s findings are that there is only 40% retention rate of users. As the hype that has drawn users to Twitter wears off a slowdown in growth of Twitter can only be expected.  Twitter could “only” expect a  10% growth if rate of that trend continued, but lets face it, thats not a bad number

In a coincidental and timely article released on the same day  from the BBC Technology News “Twitter hype punctured by study” ,  a cited Harvard study shows that only 10 % of people in the service  create 90% of the content, and that many accounts lay abandoned after an initial setup. This should not be surprising, in the blogosphere the numbers, while better,  define a fact, that keeping up and publishing in these mediums requires constant attention and many start with good intentions to do just that. Few actually make it. The Social Technographics profile tool presented by Forrester might be applied to Twitter as well  as it  shows a clear break down on the behaviors: A small % of people  are creators, a larger % being  critics, a larger % being collectors, an even larger % joiners, spectators and last of all in-actives. The take away is that there are many more watching and listening than creating, and creators and critics do have an influence that cascades down to the collectors,  joiners and spectators.

A New York times article from this week also said “that according to a 2008 survey only 7.4 million out of the 133 million blogs the company tracks had been updated in the past 120 days meaning that “95 percent of blogs being essentially abandoned, left to lie fallow on the Web, where they become public remnants of a dream — or at least an ambition — unfulfilled.” Richard Jalichandra, chief executive of Technorati, said that at any given time there are 7 million to 10 million active blogs on the Internet, but it’s probably between 50,000 and 100,000 blogs that are generating most of the page views.”

I don’t think this spells the end of the blogging or social media. Quite the contrary, E Marketer also posted a  Women Who Blog   article this week showing results from “2009 Social Media Study” finding that women are turning to all sorts of social media for fun, entertainment, community and connection. “More than one-half (53%) of the US female Internet population of 79 million actively participated in some type of social media at least weekly. Of the female social media participants, 75% took part in social networking and 55% used blogs.” Remember this is only half of the equation , and its a highly influential half.

And Nielsen’s report from last week showed that Time Spent on Facebook was up 700% in the past year. So social media networks and other social services are well established in mainstream internet usage and behaviours.

What is apparent about Twitter is that it is a broadcast medium.  In a typical online social network the top 10% of users accounted for 30% of all production, in Twitter at the moment its a bit disproportionate. On the Harvard team’s blog they said  “This implies that Twitter’s resembles more of a one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network,” So Twitter is really another or new  form of media, an information network or real-time search engine rather than as a social network. People have a stronger loyalty to their social networks than their online sources of information. What Twitter does for the avid follower or information seeker is that it aggregates a lot of information on groups of people whom you might want to read what they are thinking , seeing, hearing. If your information pundits are known for good information and good sources or commentary then you have a reliable and interesting information source.

Twitter’s challenge is to grow a loyal user-base and at the moment it appears to be slowing. So “the jump on the bandwagon ” hype is probably an adoption or awareness phase. Like most product lifecycles it will taper off and most likely fall unless Twitter manages to win user loyalty.  Let’s watch and see over the next few months whether a growth is sustained or more of a detractor phase appears and the service’s usage declines.

The word Twitterverse entered the lexicon of social media  in a big way in the past few months.  Its appeared on NPR (National Public Radio ) in the Washington Post, spawned a blog by Emily Chang, of Ideacodes in SF  and  the 1st or beta edition of a  Twitterverse map.

I think the map is the  best and possibly the least abstract representation of  a fast emerging world and was produced by Brian Solis, Principal of FutureWorks, PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley. He released a beta version of what he calls the Twitterverse v 0.9  last week ( see  Gazing into the Twitterverse). What he and partner Jess3 have produced is a spiral universe that begins to place an order to a complex set of relationships  surrounding Twitter from search, communication, mobile, analytics, relationship management, advertising and events. The spiral representation seems to be like that of solar system revolving around a central star in long tendrils representing  a map of tools and applications  for conversation management and measurement emanating from the vortex of Twitter.

So what does the word Twitterverse mean and where does it originate from?

The Urban Dictionary provides a broad user friendly meaning online. “the cyberspace area of twitter. This naturally extends beyond twitter.com to anywhere you can twitter, which includes cell phones.”  It appears that the cyberspace area is largely undefined or is vague.

Wordspy , a blog on the word lovers guide to new words,  attributes the origins of the word to Twitterverse to Adam Pasick, “SXSW and the Twitterverse,” Monkey Daemon, March 12, 2007

Adam described Twitter as “a sort of minute-by-minute blog that you send and receive from a computer or text message. All too often this takes the form of scintillating entries like “I’m eating breakfast,” and other stuff that you really don’t need to know about other people. But the allure at SXSW is that all the cool kids are doing it. So if you want to find the cool parties, you have to read Twitter. It’s geek clique chic.”

As Brian Solis’ graphic representation illustrates, the Twitterverse has evolved since those early days.  The public, companies, the press, have all run to get on board to explore and exploit the platform as short form news, PR, promotion, and ideas to a range of tools that map the relationships  between information sources, their conversations topics,  circles of influence, and the broad sweep pf readers or “followers”.

To emphasize the size and significance of the microblogging platform Neilsen reports that time spent of time spent on Twitter has grown a phenomenal 3,712% in the past  year. Who ever coined the phrase Twitterverse is watching in awe as this new universe take shape and form day by day.

Top 10 Social Networking and Blog Sites Ranked by Total Minutes for April 2009 and Their Year-over-Year Percent Growth (U.S., Home and Work)

Its good to reflect why this remark maybe relevant. In recent presentation by an Brian Giesen, Ogilvy PR executive in Australia , where Ross Dawson presented the Influencer Landscape framework ( see above ) he attributed  the reasons of the shift in consumer belief to the following researched facts.

• – 75% of people don’t believe that companies tell the truth in advertising.
• - In the US 81% look to word of mouth (be it online or offline ) for decisions.
• - Trust in Media Editorial is is at a low 56%.

No wonder the citizen journalist in us is alive and well, albeit with the aiding and abetting of the new wave of  social communications technologies.

The Driving Forces

The Democratization of Media , Social Media Integration, Social Media Aggregation, The Decline of Advertising  Impact and Peer Trust all play  a role that is aided by influence mechanisms or media channels and touch points, the influence aggregators, and networks. How they all interconnected is pivotal in determining  how people behave.

For brands and companies its the  consumer trust and transparency that  remains as a  paramount concern over and above their advertising. Both managing a reputation and those consumer benefits already ingrained in a product offering become important issues.   Companies and brands that break that consumer trust  run the risk of trying to manage very hard to contain negative consumer sentiments.   Let’s not forget the adage, when a consumer has a bad experience they  tell 8- 10 people and 3-4 people when its a good experience. As we have seen in digital its amplified many times over ,  a single bad comment,  video, picture can ruin a companies or brands reputation overnight as it spreads through a web of influence.

A consumer has an 81% trust in word of mouth. The only clear and trackable way of following sentiments (other than in controlled research,or  focus groups or spying )  is to trawl the digital world where unbiased streams of thoughts and conversations take place. The same conversation can be taking place in many places at the same time , so how do we know which one has more weight than the other? which one has more influence? and which one may potentially be passed on? The landscape of Influence lies not only in immediacy of the contact or proximity to an influential source but also in  the volume of the opinion where the audience is in a dispersed chain of distribution,  or visiting sites where the collective  filtering takes place  e.g. the  most popular  opinion will rise to the top as common consensus. The social media aggregators and the resulting long tail of residual,  searchable and  referential digital footprints creates a potentially long shelf life for an opinion.

In the  Influencer landscape there are domains of influence  both in the networks where audiences gather, meet and talk  and where commentary is redistributed, in the critics circles and social media aggregators. So what are these domains?

The Where :  Domains of influence

• - Blogs, Microblogs
• - Video and photo communities
• – Message boards and forums
• – Social networks

The How : Characteristics of influencers
Its important to define our influencers  by identify certain behavioral characteristics,  as we know these people are really a minority group. A majority of people in social networks or communities are “lurkers” , the observers and readers, only a few people are the real content creators or conversationalists.  In landscape of Influence people are placed in a hierarchy of behavioral importance. Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators and the In-Actives.  There are very few Creators, more Critics, a greater number of Collectors and so on. Identifying your Creators and Critics  leads you to understand the influence they have on the greater number of  Collectors, Joiners and Spectators. Creators are the initiators of influence and they share a few basic identifiable characteristics. They :

• - Engage others in conversations
• – Inspire others to continue the conversation
• - Participate consistently
• - Are seen as credible
• - Compels others to want to hear what they say next
• - Create content that is ‘remarkable’

The What : Engaging

• - Process of Listening (Conversation maps)
• - Planning (Influencer maps)
• - Engaging (Programs)

If brands and companies want to engage in the Landscape of Influence its best to understand the lay of the landscape first. Tapping into and understanding your influencers is a growing approach and  knowing what can be influential or what motivates them as influencers is a priority .  The qualitative understanding what drives conversation and reaction  is of key importance.  Understanding the patterns of distribution  is  more of a  complex matrix, however, its is likely that on any given subject matter there is one or two main sources of primary influence and then there are many interested re distributors  who act as  networked satellites  surrounding the source in close proximity. In mapping this influence it is commonly referred to as hot spots , where a dense grouping of people , ideas and conversations are in close proximity to each other. Knowing , when and where to engage these groups requires a  business intelligence approach, involving key data points for a precision driven programs. The under pinning  of this are the relationships a brand or company will create as these are direct communications programs. Whether its blogger outreach programs, external community engagement, influencer scouring, the development of closed special interest communities there has to be a defined dialogue idea or a  value proposition in the engagement. The other thing to remember is that once you create a relationship , its ongoing and you must nurture and maintain it or lose it.

View the intiating source of the Influencers Landscape at  Ross Dawson’s Trends in Living Networks

P & G hosted an EMEA Digital Night at in Geneva bringing together its marketing , ecommerce , digital communications people and their agencies to participate in a digital and social media experiment on a real live campaign. At its outset it appeared to be a daunting proposal , to spearhead a full blown digital media campaign in two hours with the ultimate goal being to maximize the groups reach , push their influence, and market and sell the idea of donating for a Pampers & UNICEF program to eliminate Tetanus. The aim to raise 100, 000 GBP in 18 hours.

Pampers Save a Baby. One pack , one baby.

“A baby dies every three minutes somewhere in the world from tetanus. It is completely avoidable and Pampers is sponsoring and raising money for a UNICEF vaccination program worldwide.”

The ensuing two hours was bold and adventurous as assigned groups armed with a few basic executional assets and a donation landing page split off to devise and execute a fund raising campaign utilizing only digital channels. There were no set rules in what the approach needed to be other than it needed to be “executed with integrity”.

The groups immediately raced to begin and obvious point to turn to were their friends and associates linked in the various social networks. Facebook groups emerged , links appears, a donate widget application got added to personal pages and the conversation began in earnest. The emergence of strategy then began to permeate the groups as each devised campaign message and a reach strategy in how to maximize audience across a multiple touch points making the approach more sophisticated, pointed and less haphazard.

Blogs , YouTube videos, an influencer campaign on Tweeter and through Facebook , chasing and contacting high value donors , negotiations for impressions across online publishing networks linking multiple contact channels and coming together at a rapid pace. In a jaw dropping moment a little while latter a one million impression banner campaign appeared across one of Germany’s major newspaper sites. The buzz and influencer phenomena then took over with global reach. As the intensity of the push to raise money took hold , groups began to monitor their competitors actions and tactics, calling for quick decisions on how best to out wit the competition and move to next channel almost in a race to be first.

Viral campaigns riding on the back of Selma Hayak’s ambassadorship sprung up. Well designed internal direct email campaigns raced through the P & G network.Tell to friends campaigns in the social sites took hold.

A directed and awe inspiring frenzy of digital buzz. The results .. they are a secret .. but it worked.

Donate to one groups target @ www.justgiving.com.co.uk/pampersnewbaby

Save a Baby Blog link

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