Archive for the 'Social networks' Category

Just because ICANN doesn’t mean we should …

Published on July 1, 2008 in Online commerce, Online marketing, Small business and Social networks. 2 Comments

ICANN’s liberalisation of the top-level domains market has certainly caused a splash. We’re back to talking about gold rushes and cybersquatting all over again. How it’s going to pan out in terms of brand management and the impact on search engine optimisation is uncertain. The costs are equally unknown, although expected to in the telephone number range for the ‘best’ TLDs.

Agencies, hosting companies, and domain registrars will all be rubbing their hands together at the opportunity to breathe new life into their business models. But I can’t quite help feeling that the whole shebang seems just a little passé …

On the Web the first time round, we all rushed onto the beach flinging our towels down and claiming our individual space. After a while we caught on that actually everyone was having fun at the bar, so we left our umbrellas where they were and joined the party. That’s Web 2.0.

Social networking is largely domainless (who cares or knows what my Facebook URL is!). What matters are the interactions on the platform and between platforms through data porting. So my Tweet is syndicated to my Friendfeed and then displayed on my Facebook profile. The ‘address’ of this information is actually irrelevant. The important bit is the community with which I am sharing my content and time.

The social Web is changing the landscape of ecommerce too. Some recent research from Quidco found that 62% of shoppers consult online communities before making a purchase. And that only 27% of consumers go directly to the retailer. And the top three reasons …

1. communities offer me unbiased facts about products and services (32%);

2. I trust the views of communities more than merchants (27%);

3. communities help me find the best deal available (27%).

Given the above, is spending a fortune to ‘protect the brand’ with a custom domain (and then spending even more to drive traffic to it) a worthwhile activity? Or should businesses take part in the communities where customers are already talking about their brand, engage them and turn them into advocates? In other words, will a hotel chain get more customer value out of a .hotel TLD, or a series of positive reviews on Tripadvisor? I strongly suspect the latter.

This is really a big business dilemma as SMEs won’t typically have the marketing budgets to worry about securing a new TLD. That could turn out to be an advantage, as whilst the big brands buy better picks and shovels to take part in the new gold rush, small business can be down at the saloon mixing it up with their customers and doing real business.

GSP East - fail whales, ADD and Nietzsche’s typewriter

Published on June 21, 2008 in Random stuff and Social networks. 3 Comments

For devotees of the social media conference circuit the medium is clearly the message…

From 9 - 11 June I spent my waking hours at the O’Reilly conference, Graphing Social Patterns East, in Washington DC. Lots of senior developer types from Facebook, Google and Myspace and the like presenting to a fairly geeky audience. As someone whose interest in social media is heavily skewed towards small businesses and commerce, I was a little disappointed that neither term was actually mentioned over the three days!

Content aside, what stood out from the opening minutes was the collective audience behaviour. As panellists talked, the audience went about its business: maintaining profiles on the social network of choice, tweeting like no tomorrow, and I kid you not, listening to iPods whilst updating Facebook. In short, we weren’t listening. For those with an interest in the conference proceedings, this was often enjoyed as a mediated experience. Following the GSP East Twitter Feed, or reading live blogging coverage from one of our fellow attendees took precedence over actually sitting back and digesting what the people just a few metres away were saying.

(With an absence of irony, the conference organisers did request on day 1 that mobiles were turned off less they disturb the sessions!)

What did I take away from this experience?

1. For those in the social networking biz, the tools of the trade seem to be at least as important as the content - in other words, the medium trumps the message. This is nothing new to Web 2.0 though: Nietzsche reflecting on how his writing style had changed since using a typewriter said “our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” Well that explains Twitter then …

2. The views of others take precedence over a personal and original standpoint - it’s easier and faster to consume another person’s perspective than think about something yourself for the first time (This point was drilled home to me by the UGC videos introducing each session, which were practically all derivative riffs on other people’s work).

So it appears to me that we may be suffering from a Web 2.0 induced attention deficit disorder. Quite a worry really.

Are Google’s Friend Connect, Myspace’s Data Availability and Facebook Connect just Spam 2.0?

Published on May 19, 2008 in Innovation and Social networks. 2 Comments

Just because I am friends with you at work, doesn’t mean I want you to come to dinner with my friends from university. Just because I am friends with you on Facebook, doesn’t mean I want to be your friend on Dogster …

Connections between people are given meaning by their social context. The connection per se is devoid of meaning. This case has been eloquently made by Jyri Zengestrom in his discussion of social objects. To paraphrase his argument, social networks are effective when they bring people together around a shared object, e.g. in Dogster this could be the like of a specific breed, in HMV’s Get Closer it could be a shared experience at a gig. Social networks are less effective when the shared object is weak or absent - which explains at least to me why networking sites, such as Linkedin, Viadeo or Xing, feel quite sterile.

What has all of this got to do with the rash of recent announcements from Google, Myspace and Facebook regarding ‘portability’ of social network profile data? Well, for starters, the commentary thereon has been largely focused on whether these announcements constitute a new reign of openness in social networking or a continuation by other means of a walled garden strategy - Dare Obasanjo and Marc Canter’s posts are good reads here. However, I believe its necessary to evaluate these moves by Google, Myspace and Facebook on terms broader than data ownership (is it our data or their data?).

A more fundamental question is whether the profile data contained in one social networking site can be ported in a meaningful way to another? Of course I could take my basic profile information anywhere (and mechanisms to make this easy are to be welcomed!), but the richness of a social networking site is determined by what’s been invested in the shared objects between linked individuals. So whilst I could take my photos with me from Facebook and expose them on any site I chose to, what will happen to the tags, comments and associations that bring them meaning? Will this meaning be carried over to other sites? Also on the question of data ownership … the photo is mine, but is it still just mine when it functions as a shared object? Will the friends who tagged the photo and commented on it be happy for me to share this data with other networks of people?

My gut feel on these questions is that the answer will often be no. Rich profile data can’t necessarily be moved from site to another and retain meaning. The connections created in one site around shared objects may not be sustainable if those objects are not present on the new site.

And that makes me think that in the worst case scenario Google’s Friend Connect, Myspace’s Data Availability and Facebook Connect might herald the Web 2.0 version of spam as we indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages to our ‘friends’ about things they know little of and care less about.

Big business is grappling with social media (but still keeping it’s gloves on …)

Published on March 16, 2008 in Advertising, Online marketing and Social networks. 1 Comment

TNS Media Intelligence/Cymphony released a very interesting report at the end of February on “how brands are unleashing the power of social media”. Based on phone interviews with 71 senior marketing execs in large enterprises in the US and Europe its gives a qualitative gauge on how big business is looking at social media and networking as a marketing medium and channel.

The full report and presentation is worth a close read and a handful of key messages jumped out at me.

1. Big business understands that social media is only going to grow in importance with 56% of respondents (rising to 80% in the US) seeing it as very significant for their companies within the next 5 years.

2. But, today the marketing organisations of major corporates are not at ease with social media. They see it as a source of customer insight (68% said they read and analysed social media to understand customer perception), and as a new channel for marketing/advertising campaigns, esp. viral (62% of respondents agreed). In short, big business is passively consuming social media or trying to map a fairly traditional campaign model to the medium. What it’s not doing is actually taking part in the community on the same terms as its customers.

3. There is a strong feeling that marketing agencies don’t get it. A typical quote from a respondent (this one from Johnson & Johnson): “They are not doing a very good job at all. At the moment most agencies still view social media tools as just another vehicle for driving their messages.”

Whilst TNS sees this as a reflection of the immaturity of the market and the need for agencies to acquire the skills to assist their clients exploit social media, I see a more fundamental problem. If social media is about having an authentic and unmediated connection with the community with direct lines of communication between the company and its customers, then this ‘conversation’ simply cannot be outsourced to an external agency. Rather marketing, sales and service departments have got to undertake this role themselves.

So all in all, a pretty clear picture that the big brands have got a long way to go to make ’social marketing’ part of their business as usual.

AOL’s buying Bebo might just pay off

Published on March 16, 2008 in Advertising and Social networks. 0 Comments

AOL’s cash purchase of Bebo may just work out for Time Warner. But ironically it may be Time Warner content rather than AOL’s online assets that will make the deal work.

Bebo has crafted a monetisation strategy based on wrapping advertising around third party content. Founder Michael Birch explained:

“What we’re trying to do here is simplify the whole relationship between media companies and distribution platforms. There’s value for Bebo and our users by having great quality, legal content on Bebo. And there is clear value to the content owner in both controlling the content and advertising, and in keeping the subsequent revenue.”

In other words, good for Bebo as it gets more content on its site, good for content providers as its gives them distribution for both content and adverts to Bebo’s 40 million members. Just last week ITV announced that it will make programming from ITV 2 available on Bebo - the first time ITV has made full length content available on a third party network.

So it strikes me that if Time Warner uses this acquisition to distribute engaging content to the Bebo community and then make this content its platform for online advertising it will be in a strong position to turn a Shilling from the deal.

But if AOL just looks at Bebo’s enormous user base and then thinks it can pump ads into the community without a relevant context or engagement it will be sorely disappointed with the results as shown by Google.

The big question then is whether Time Warner’s content house can work with AOL to make the deal work - that’s likely to be the bigger challenge to this deal succeeding.

Is the party over for ads on social networks?

Published on February 25, 2008 in Advertising, Online marketing and Social networks. 0 Comments

With the wobble in Facebook’s monthly traffic suggesting that perhaps we are all getting tired of social networking (or then again maybe not), it was instructive to read Aaron Wall’s post on why social network traffic doesn’t monetise. The thrust of that argument is that advertising on social networks is typically not relevant to the interactions taking place in communities. As a result traffic quality is poor and hard to monetise.

It feels inevitable that there is going to be a backlash against the advertising-based business model of social networking. But if we accept that social networking as a medium (rather than any particular instances of it) is not going away and will continue to grow, it then becomes incumbent on online marketers to find better ways to engage the social graph. A new tool set is needed as the current tools are lacking …

For example Facebook promises that by using its ads you can “reach the exact audience you want with relevant targeted ads”. I would be really interested to hear people’s stories about whether these ads have been successful or not for them. My hunch is that simply having a well-targeted ad based on granular demographic data will not help conversion if it is blind to the social context it is served in.

The way to get that context is through participation in the conversations that your ‘audience’ is having. In other words join the party. The party metaphor is a great one for a community and quite insightful for online marketers. In the off-line world sponsorship and product placement work well as promotional tools at social events. Social networks offer plenty of opportunities to create branded/sponsored spaces for online conversations. And companies such as Blendtec (intentionally) and Coca-Cola and the Perfetti Van Melle Corporation - the maker of Mentos mints (unintentionally) have demonstrated the uplift in brand visibility and sales that comes when your product is at the heart of the online conversation.

So the message for online marketers is clear … as far as making money from social networking goes, the party is far from over … in fact it is just about to begin. Cocktails anyone?

How to make money from social networking (or not!)

Published on February 2, 2008 in Advertising and Social networks. 5 Comments

Google’s apparently struggling to make money from serving ads on social networking sites. In an analyst call for the Q4 2007 results Sergey Brin admitted “I don’t think we have the killer best way to advertise and monetize social networks yet, … It’s a big opportunity because it’s so much inventory.”

This must be extremely frustrating for Google:

1. it is the leading platform for online advertising by a long, long shot

2. there is a massive, hyper engaged online audience in the leading social networking sites, that are amongst the biggest properties on the Net.

It seems almost inconceivable that online advertisers are not raking it in. But then again, what if the social networking audience is just not receptive to the traditional click through ad model? After all, for Myspace, Facebook and Bebo usage is about participation within the community and engaging with people you know or want to know. Why then click on ad to be taken off site?

Google seems to have realised that to monetise social networking sites it needs to do more than just put Adsense on Myspace. And more sophisticated targeting should bring better conversion. But taken too far and made too invasive as in Facebook’s beacon and users will rebel threatening the very usage that makes advertising attractive in the first place.

What’s to be done? Is this an intractable problem that will mean social networks even as they continue to grow will stay tantalisingly just outside the reach of online advertisers? If so, how can social networks be monetised?

To answer that question, we really need to think about where the value is in a social network. For me that value is in the connection between people and the exchanges they have in a community - in other words its participation that creates value in a network.

If we accept that, then businesses should be looking not to advertise, but to actively participate in a social network with the objective of engaging customers and creating advocates who will champion them to extended networks. This is what social commerce is all about and its a long way from the mantras of CPM and CPC that dominate the online marketing business today - isn’t it time we moved on?

Will Myspace put online advertising into the reach of SMEs?

Published on December 11, 2007 in Online marketing, Small business and Social networks. 0 Comments

Myspace announced in November its plans to launch a new advertising platform, Selfserve, targeted at small businesses in early 2008. This seems like quite an important development and worthy of comment because:

1. It’s an ad platform for SMEs - now there’s quite some debate about whether Myspace is the right context for small business, and for many it undoubtedly isn’t. But the fact that Myspace has invested in Selfserve suggests that it believes it has the base already to make it a success.

2. Selfserve is about making online advertising accessible to SMEs -That means cheap (apparently pricing starts at $10) and easy - the ad platform has been designed for small businesses to set up and run their own campaigns. If Myspace achieves the latter it will have made a breakthrough as, despite Google’s efforts to date, online advertising is too damn complex for SMEs to master. Myspace acknowledged this in its release when it says that of over 23 million SMEs in the US less than 1 million advertise online.

3. Selfserve is about driving traffic to a Myspace profile - usage stays within the community and is not taken off site. This is quite a revolutionary change from traditional net marketing that is all about driving traffic to a web site. In Myspace’s model, not only is the SME spending their ad money in the network, they also have to invest time keeping their profile engaging and up to date in order to convert leads. A Selfserve advertiser will therefore be a very active Myspacer.

I’m going to be following Selfserve with interest as it’s a clear sign that Net marketing is going to be increasingly about managing a constellation of online assets in relevant communities, than sucking traffic into a stand-alone web site. It’s also an indication that engagement and quality of participation in a community will be at least as important as ad spend in driving campaign success.

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