Social Media & Web 2.0

Presented by Jordan HoltzmanLast updated: 11/28/11

What is Web 2.0?

• People are now using the internet as a social medium– Business and Personal Networking– Making and keeping friends (bonding)– Sharing information– Communicating moods, desires, dreams, goals and

just about anything they feel like

Social Media

• Web properties have enabled Web 2.0

Is Web 2.0 really any different from Web 1.0?

User Generated Content

User Generated Content

User Generated Content

The Rise of Social Media• The need for “Social Efficiency”• “Social Snacking”: Melding of work and play• Outgrowth of e-mail, chat, IM, texting and other messaging technologies• Little to no programming experience needed• People prefer Asynchronous (or Semi-Asynchronous) communication over

Synchronous communication• “Celebritization” and the appeal of publishing stardom • Addiction and dependence• Growth of Availability and Use of Crowdsourcing Tools• Way to organize, archive, curate and prioritize dynamic content• Replacement for traditional news sources (i.e. tv, newspaper, press

releases) – “hyper current”• Growth of and advances in mobile technology

What exactly is Social Media and why do we care?

• “Twitter’s not a substitute for anything we used to do. It’s a combination of about 17 things we used to do.”

• “Initially, it may be difficult to see either the personal or commercial value of social media.”

• “As increasingly larger communities engage, rich streams of information generated become resources in their own right. Data can be queried, followed, stored, researched and referenced to provide critical insight, knowledge and tracking of market opinion. The resulting datasets enable early discovery of latent problems, innovation capture, real time tracking of product awareness, breaking news, ad campaign effectiveness and dozens of other business applications not yet widely understood.”

• Uses will evolve and morph, many web properties will come and go (and some will remain!) – but Social Media is probably here to stay in one form or another.

Social Media Site Differentiators

• Public vs. Private Posting/Networks• “Multi-logues” (threads) vs. Monologues (blogs)• Blogs vs. Micro-blogs• Moderation Methods • Symmetric vs. Asymmetric followership• Text vs. Graphics Centric• Business vs. “Pleasure” vs. “Hybrid” Communities• What are the Social Objects (i.e. “Social Foci”)?

Some Social Media Research

• Offline vs. Online Social Tendencies

• Network Power: Influence is inversely proportional to # of friends

• Using social media makes people “smarter” and makes them “feel better”.

• What makes people post?

Social Media Communication Patterns

• Business to Consumer (B2C) – “Come taste our new Burnt Banana ice cream flavor!”

• Consumer to Business (C2B) – “Help! I can’t get my new grill to work!”

• Consumer to Consumer (C2C)– “Hey! Anyone know a good place to get kitesurfing lessons

around here?”

• Business to Business (B2B)– “We’re forming a consortium that looks at the advances in

social media marketing.”

The Many Uses of Social Media

Over-arching Use Categories

Community BuildingMarket Monitoring

Information DisseminationStraight Promotion

Friendship & HumanizationBrand Building

Public Relations (PR) Tool

Social Media UsesCOMMUNITY BUILDING• Communicate and establish ongoing rapport with followers, fans, customers,

prospects and friends• Build consensus for your brand, company, ideas, plans, causes, etc.• Networking: customer-to-customer / customer-to-company / company-to-

customer• Promote consumer engagement with products, company, causes, etc.

MARKET MONITORING• Track and manage social, business and economic trends• Perpetual Beta Test Mode: Get informal feedback on ideas, plans, proposed and

actual changes• Track and mine consumer sentiment about your brand, company, and industry.• Market Research tools (polls, surveys, focus groups, etc.) – get formal feedback on

ideas

Consumer as Friend or Foe

• “Conventional marketing wisdom has long held that a (satisified) dissatisfied customer tells ten people. But that is out of date. In the new age of social media, he or she has the tools to tell 10 million.”

- P. Gillin (2007) in The New Influencers

Social Media Uses

INFORMATION DISSEMINATION & STRAIGHT PROMOTION• Notify customers of promotions, events, exciting new

products or ingredients• Broadcast breaking company and product news• Information “Priming”/Teasers: Create Links to “Mother”

web properties, blogs, blogsites or other social media outposts

• Information Search tool for consumers• Awareness Generation / Buzz Creation and Management

Social Media UsesFRIENDSHIP, HUMANIZATION & BRAND BUILDING• Build cyber-brand-equity and “Social Capital”• Establish “business as friend”• Foster business/ CEO / management / employee approachability and

humanization• Establish and foster brand/company voice and personality

PR TOOL• Quickly replacing traditional PR tactics and processes (i.e. press releases)• Prevent PR crises and mass customer defections• Provide “damage control” for PR crises that do unfold• Trade Show Tool – conference questions, reactions and updates• Replaces / supplements website PR tab

The Megasites – Usage Rates

• Facebook: 750 million users• Twitter: 175 – 200 million users• Foursquare: 15 million users• YouTube: 2 billion + views a day• Google+: 10-20 million

SM Mega-sites vs. Niche Sites

General Social Media Wisdom• Most of what you do will FAIL– Experiment, experiment, experiment!

• Observe the famous 80/20 posting rule– 20% of what you post should be about you.– 80% of what you post should be about other stuff.

• Forget Groupon – please!• Beware of the “hot technologies”• Have a social media policy– Presence Management– Ownership and “do’s and don’ts”

Facebook

• Profiles (people only!)• Groups• Pages (formerly “Fan” pages)– Community– Business (with “Insights” metrics)

• Events• FB URLs

Business Page

Twitter• The web’s premiere micro-blogging site.• People seeking “Twisdom”• Major advantage: Social Media discipline (140 characters or

less)• Unlimited Audience Potential• The place for experts to showcase their knowledge and

celebrities to communicate with fans• Text-centric platform makes it the most easily used• Twitter as

– Communication platform– Search tool– Spontaneous customer service tool

Zappos twitter feeds@ZAPPOS:Some photos of our company picnic are up now at: http://blogs.zappos.com -

I think we had 1000 people show up!I want to meet more customers. On Monday, I will select a random @zappos

follower for free trip for 2 to Vegas for office tour & lunch w/ meAt Vegas airport now, waiting a couple of hours until my flight to San Jose, CA.@wisekaren I’m wearing Donald Pliner shoes to the wedding.Finished photo shoot w/ Forbes. 4 hours & they choose 1 photo. Behind the

scenes: http://www.facebook.com/pag…@bryanbartlett now says he can’t make it. Anyone else want 1 ticket to van

halen at 830 tonight at mandalay in Vegas?Just landed in Vegas. Got lots of twitters about our new beta site

http://zeta.zappos.com Thx for all the feedback, keep it coming!

JetBlue twitter feeds

@JETBLUE:@laughingsquid Thanks! Just wait until our new terminal at JFK

opens! http://t508.com/ (Hope you had a great time in NYC)@BookingBuddy We’re happy to support Runner’s World, but don’t

worry, you can still channel surf and eat blue chips if you want!

Two days left to win two trips on JetBlue to “The Simpsons Movie” premiere in LA. Enter now! http://tinyurl.com/2×6ql3

The term ‘Interwebular Chronicle’ makes me laugh.View this month’s selection of first-run movies from Fox InFlight

Premium Entertainment: http://tinyurl.com/2o8q46To all of our Twitter friends: enjoy your weekend!

Small Business – Twitter Feeds

Twitter Do’s and Don’ts • Be engaging, personal, interesting, newsworthy (same principles

as for traditional press releases)• Build “Social Capital” through a combination of communicative

and promotional posts - Don’t just push product (Reactance!)• Maintain a steady, regular posting momentum• Register your name and all possible variations thereof on twitter

(and all social media sites) as early as possible• Test-market your communications and adapt: See what works and

what doesn’t• Consider using the various peripheral applications built for the

major social media sites (tweetdeck, ubertwitter, ping.fm, etc.)• Re-purpose your content and publish it “far and wide”

Foursquare

• GPS-based social media application• Approximately 15 MM users• Loyalty and brand-building tool for mostly

brick-and-mortar retailers• “Check-in” with friends

Some Social Media Metrics

• Reach Measures: # of followers, connections, friends/fans, “likes”, referrals

• Content Flow Measures: # comments/posts per period, % of fan base posting, # of tweets/re-tweets, average posting frequencies, poll response volume, private/direct message volume, # of app downloads

• Conversion Measures: website/blogsite visits, other SM outpost visits, inquires, action

• Search Metrics: # keyword searches on brand or brand mentions, favorable vs. unfavorable mentions

Looking forward

• The Dark Side– Privacy concerns– Consumer and site liability issues– User migrations and site stability– Potential Backlash?

• Open Source Social Networking/Media– Diaspora

• Web 3.0?

Other Major Considerations

• What mobile apps does your company/brand need?– Social Media/Networking– E-commerce– Customer Service

• What effects will “the cloud” have on your business and social media efforts?

Keeping Up on Social Media• Read the following every year:

– 3-5 books on Social Media– At least one book on SEO/SEM– At least one book on the mobile web and apps– Optional: One book on web design

• Subscribe to Social Media Blogs and Blogs for any SM sites you’re involved with

• Subscribe to Google Alerts, Google Reader (RSS feeds)• Visit “Techie” sites like: Techcrunch.com, engadget.com, etc.• Attend the Annual Web 2.0 conference in SF

Some Reference Materials• “Complete Idiot’s Guide to Creating a Social Network”

– By Angela Crocker– Good overview of current social media options

• “The Zen of Social Media Marketing”– By Shama Hyder Kabani– Great intro to the “four horsemen”– Great “How To’s”– Updates at www.ZenofSocialMedia.com

• “Designing for the Social Web”– By Joshua Porter– Excellent social media design book

• “Get to #1 on Google”– By Ben Norman– Shows how to do google SEO