The most important reason for the meteoric growth of Social Networks is something called “The Network Effect”. This equates to a tipping point when the value of a communications network to its users rises exponentially with the number of people connected to it. In the past year, we have witnessed one such rising star, Facebook ( but it begs the question is it the only one? ). It took 5 years for Facebook to reach 150 million users and then a further 8 months to double that number. Today, according to Facebook Statistics, it has 400 million users. In 2009 we saw Facebook become almost ubiquitous in every conversation swirling around Social Media and social networks. It was the year in which Facebook exploded into a global phenomena, dominating the Social Networking market worldwide as it became an international social network giant. While its dominated the english speaking press and displaced MySpace its not the only Social Network in the world.
To believe that Facebook or english speaking social networks are the only “players in Social networks” worldwide would be nothing short of one sided owed to very narrow perspective of the hyper connected world we live in. According to Wikipedia, there are some 1.5 billion members worldwide. Across the world there a number of culturally, language, local and regionally driven social networks , that both singularly and accumulatively pose the question whether Facebook can dominate the world in Social Networking. As startling as it is, the ” Facebook Network Effect” is not only a Facebook phenomena and its also occurring across other Social Networks in the world , albeit with different speeds.
The rise of the importance of the Facebook fan page has become an integral part of companies social media campaigns or presence. Its not hard to understand why. Facebook is the web’s most popular destination after Google ( it is number 1 in Indonesia, Philippines , Malaysia and Singapore )  where the average user spends in the order of 33 minutes per day and its registered user numbers are upwards of 350 million. As the use or entry to a brand’s website are in decline due to a shift in how consumers use the web this days it makes common sense to to add Facebook into the online marketing mix. With number of brand, star, cause or business fans ranging close to 5.3 billion , that means News Feeds to user’s pages are carrying a range of brand content and updates.
Last November “The Big Money” part of Slate Magazine, ranked 50 brands that they see as making the best use of Facebook. The ranking is based on factors like number of fans, page growth, frequency of updates, creativity and fan engagement, not just numbers of fans. According to “The Big Money” Coca-Cola is ranked as the brand that makes best use of the social network thanks to its “organic fan-centric page without a corporate feel” and some extremely good apps the currently coin the phrase “Share Happiness” in a campaign to boost the diffusion , awareness and contact with the brand in social media.
A very interesting view from Pete Blackshaw, The Nielsen Company, on what to do and how to prepare for the future of online marketing. Responsiveness is key to success, but also being aware of what you need to respond to and planning for what the consumer might do next. Pete suggests “that there is a new accountability standard that has been put on the table by consumers and that may lead to better advertising” . He also cites the Nielsen research that suggests that “consumers trust each other more than they trust advertisers” , ” if advertisers can figure out a way of co creating with consumers, everybody might win”. Brands should be both reactive and proactive in planning for what consumers might do through better websites and better feedback loops.
The behavioral advertising tracking platform Phorm hits the news again last week as the UK ISP Talk Talk followed a move by BT (British Telecom) when they canceled their trial with the company.
It comes as no surprise to me. Phorm has developed technology which collects information on web use in order to serve Internet users with highly targeted adverts and serves ads to people based on their web-browsing behavior. Relying on deep packet inspection, in which every data packet is opened and examined, Phorm builds a profile of consumer’s web-surfing habits. The service surreptitiously tracks and interpolates their behavior without disclosing itself or without asking permission. (more…)
Mashable reported today thatTwitter’s Phenomenal Growth Suddenly Stops or has slowed to a trickle since Nielsen reported a massive increase in time spent on Twitter in total minutes rose by a phenomenal 3712% from April 08 to April 09.
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
n. The Twitter social networking service and the people who use it. Also: twitterverse, Twitter-verse. [Blend of Twitter and universe.]
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.
After 50 years of mass advertising have we reached such a level of cynicism that the magic of the message fails to impress unless it entertaining or funny? It is unerringly clear that as the speed and ubiquity of digital touch points grows, controlling the message has become increasingly difficult for marketers. When it comes beginning to understand the influencer landscape there a number of consumer truths that have to be reconciled to understand why this has become so important. The marketing messages in mass media, even in the most cleverly devised campaigns, seem to be dismissed by consumers as missing an element of the truth or transparency, as if too say, they have worn out their welcome.
You’ll find a good summary of the current situation in the video herafter.
Begin a dialogue.
Brands need to change the way they converse and communicate with their consumers. The challenge is to move from unilateral communication to a true dialogue. An extremely powerful dialogue on the Internet that has become an unlimited flow of conversations.
