Posts Tagged ‘social networks’
61% of Britons do not want to engage with brands on social networks
November 10th, 2011
The findings of TNS’s Digital Life study, A global survey that is billed as the most comprehensive view of how more than 72,000 consumers in 60 countries behave online and why they do what they do, were revealed today.
The full details on the research can be seen here and in brief the survey found that 57 per cent of people in developed markets* do not want to engage with brands via social media - rising to 60 per cent in the US and 61 per cent in the UK. Of the 72,000 surveyed between June and September 2011, 2,093 were Britons.
However, the research also shows 47 per cent of digital consumers now comment about brands online, and 54 per cent of people admit social networks are a good place to learn about products, which shows a willingness to get involved where there is relevancy or a reward for doing so, proved by the following stat: 61 per cent of consumers are driven to engage with brands online by a promotion or special offer.
The figures are a little more encouraging in Fast growth markets** , which were found to be far more open to brands on social networks. Just 33 per cent of Colombians and 37 per cent of Mexicans said they don’t want to be bothered by brands online, while 59 per cent of people across fast-growing countries see social networks as a good place to learn about brands.
Interestingly, the findings showed that more people like to praise than complain online (13 per cent vs. 10 per cent), which goes against the old understanding that people are more likely to complain, if only just.
So does this mean that brands are wasting their time and money by developing social campaigns? Well, if they are doing it just to tick a box, or simply to say to the MD ‘we have a Facebook profile’, then yes, they are. This is not a new learning, bad social campaigns do more harm than good, and taking a broadcast methodology online will only serve to highlight the lack of understanding of the brand, and return little in the way of results.
Although there are many social commentators banging on about the importance of the theory of social communications and the importance of listening to a community, understanding its needs and holding a two-way conversation, none of which is new or exciting, the message doesn’t seem to be getting through.
There are many more bad examples of social brand campaigns than good ones, and research such as this only goes to prove that education isn’t getting through to those that hold the budgets, and perhaps also a reflection to those that the brands trust to carry out social campaigns.
There is no doubt that individuals as a whole do not particularly wish to engage with a brand online for no reason, unless of course they have an offer or reward, why would they?
However, if a brand, individual or charity is truly engaged with its community, offers relevant and useful content, understands the platform on which they are communicating and actually listens to its audience, the likelihood of engagement will be higher. Not because it’s a brand, but because the individual believes the engagement is worthwhile.
So, should we all go away and give up on social communications, or should we just start being social in our communications?
*TNS defines developed markets as: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Taiwan, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States.
** Fast growth markets: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Columbia, Egypt, Estonia, Ghana, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malaysia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, Vietnam.
Banned from using social networks for 5 years
September 14th, 2011
A man in the UK has just been jailed for 18 months, is banned from using social networks for the next five years and has to inform police of any phone he owns or buys that provides internet access.
The man in question is Sean Duffy and the reason for his punishment is internet trolling. To be more precise, Duffy mocked a dead teenager who had committed suicide by posting offensive remarks on a page dedicated to her memory, and creating a YouTube parody of Thomas the Tank Engine with the deceased girl’s face in place of Thomas.
After the hearing, Detective Chief Inspector James Hahn, of Thames Valley police, said “Malicious communication through social networking is a new phenomenon and unfortunately shows how technology can be abused. However, our investigation shows that offenders cannot hide behind their computer screens.“
Facebook and the social networks move to a new level with the Egyptian revolution
February 11th, 2011
Have no doubts about it. The deposition of Egyptian President Husni Mubarek signalled a fundamental change, not only in Middle Eastern politics and culture, but also in the way we view social networks.
Wael Ghonim today (Friday 11th February) told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that Facebook was a key to the success of the Egyptian people’s uprising.
Ghonim is a marketing manager for Google and played a leading role in organizing the January 25 protest by reaching out to Egyptian youths on Facebook. Shortly after that first protest, Ghonim was arrested in Cairo and imprisoned for 12 days.
Since his release, Ghonim worked hard to dismiss the notion that he is a symbol for the Egyptian freedom mobement.
“I’m not a hero. I was writing on a keyboard on the Internet and I wasn’t exposing my life to danger,” he said in an interview immediately after his release. “The heroes are the one who are in the street.”
[Thanks to Huffington Post]
We know that progress is not linear. There will be setbacks and even a bloody reckoning that re-establishes the corrupted classes in Egypt. But whatever happens at the blood and flesh level in the short term will not affect the cultural dominance of social networks.
The speed at which Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and other social platforms have been transformed from simple sharing tools to revolutionary engines is astonishing. And we also bear in mind that states under pressure have used every traditional means to block these platforms.
It took the traditional tools of communication – the Press and Broadcast - centuries to achieve this level of authority and power. By the time they had achieved this, most were diminished because they were owned by or in the pay of power brokers in the countries in which they operated.
What is strikingly new about the social platforms is their agnostic, non-judgemental nature. Indeed, their very survival depends on this. Many millions of voices can group to form a new ground for the process of change – and answer the criticism of that process.
This is truly an exhilarating time in the culture of transmission; more fluid, engaging and productive than we have ever witnessed.
We should celebrate with the Egyptian people and at the same time pay a discreet homage to Facebook and the other social networks for their (our) part in the process of change.
We’ve watched the transmissions and debates on broadcast networks but we always got our information about the Egyptian people’s struggle first through the social networks. This is one communiqué. Enjoy this tonight:
October 13th, 2010
Networking is a must for businesses of all types.
Although making contacts on Twitter and other social networks is a great help, getting out there and developing a real connection builds strong relationships.
We have listed five sites to help you find and promote relevant networking events. What sites do you use?
Leo Laporte and the end of social media
August 25th, 2010
One of the more visible social media professionals has decided to disengage, citing the pointlessness of the platforms. Is this the beginning of the end of ‘social media’?
Leo Laporte, the influential broadcaster behind the TWiT network of podcasts has posted a heartfelt blog in which he reasons that all social media is roughly the equivalent of talking to the wind.
The agent of change was his discovery that a glitch with Google Buzz – a social platform he has championed - meant that everything he had posted there for over two weeks hadn’t been seen by anyone. Worse still, no-one noticed.
Is Leo right? Are we all, effectively, talking to nobody when we engage online?
It often feels like that – but we have no real idea about who we have connected with through our ideas, unless we have engaged directly.
The power of social networks really lies in their universality and commonness. If you wanted an analogy, you could say that social networks allow millions of people to ‘overhear’ conversations in the way that we listen and learn from people talking on the train, the Tube, in cafes, restaurants and pubs.
This information is often of no immediate use, might be flippant, irritating or noisome but it’s also often very beneficial. It might colour our days, make something more understandable, or simply give us pause for thought.
More than that, the sharing of information, directly or indirectly, informs and celebrates the way we live. We like to share because it is a benefit. If no-one is listening, if the chatter machine has broken down temporarily (ie the pub had to shut its doors for a while) then definitely we lose an outlet for our egos.
But it does not mean that being social has no purpose and I think maybe it’s the reverse. It reminds us that we’re not special, individual or separate and we need to share together.
What will Facebook do with its News Feed patent?
February 26th, 2010
This week Facebook was awarded the patent for the News Feed - a feature common to Facebook as well as other social networks such as Twitter and MySpace, and a number of social media apps and startups.
The patent refers to the method of displaying stories/news items relating to online activities to a predetermined set of viewers, and “assigning an order to the news items”. According to reports, the patent also covers the auto-generation of a user’s activity and the display of that to friends. That means the news updates you get when your friends upload videos and accept friend requests is covered by Facebook’s new patent.
It’s true that Facebook pioneered the News Feed technology back in 2006, and so on the face of it deserves to own the patent…but what does this mean for the rest of the social media industry? Facebook is currently the world’s largest social network, and so if it’s going down the road of seeking patents for its technology, this could really hamper innovation and progress within social media, and render networks such as Twitter useless.
It’s currently unclear what Facebook plans to do with this patent. It could take the hard line and pressure Twitter, MySpace, Google etc into taking down their News Feed features, or at the opposite end of the scale it could choose not to exercise its patent.
The reason why social media has evolved so quickly is all down to collaboration, the mashup of content and technology and the sharing of creativity. Patents are arguably not a good thing in this space, but what can we do to stop them?
At the moment this is primarily an industry story, but should Facebook choose to make use of the patent, it’s likely to reach the attention of a wider audience. Ultimately the power rests with individuals to stop Facebook from agressively patenting its technology - if the business becomes too commercial in its focus, it will lose popularity, and could suffer massively in terms of online PR.
Privacy and the currency of disclosure on social networks
January 15th, 2010
Comments by Mark Zuckerman, founder of social network Facebook, have reignited the debate on the value of individual privacy, an argument expanded in an elegant blog post by Kieron O’Hara, senior research fellow in Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton.
Kieron argues that privacy is actually essential, not only for the individual to act freely but also for society to function effectively. While his argument addresses broader issues than the impact of social networks, it acts perfectly as a test for these communities.
Social networks redefine the notions of individual privacy. We join tribes of people who we may have never met and who do not “belong” to our physical community. Our individuality is reshaped as we adopt new or different personas to mesh with the norms of these groups and to engage successfully with these tribes, we need to disclose ‘personal’ information.
In these exchanges, the essential, private “me” is revealed to be a chimera. Online, we are who we choose to be and we do so because it a benefit to aspects of our multi-faceted selves, and to the communities we belong to. The selective disclosures we make blur the line between private and public spheres in positive ways for both us as individuals (playing the game) and our communities.
Of course, communities are not simply atomised “game players”; they are also host to business entities, and the individuals who play the role of corporate sentinels. Communities have swiftly educated companies who thought that they could hide their commercial purpose and the sentinels also find that the selfish, disingenuous strategy has no place in these open, sharing groups.
In this sense, communities are self-healing and corrosive activity, which damages the tribal members and the tribe as a group is kept to a minimum. Information is exchanged “on my terms”.
The isolated, private individual whose engagement is limited mainly to passive adoption of social and commercial transmission is the ideal consumer unit. Association with social networks, with a subscription paid in the currency of disclosure, is clearly a benefit to both individual and community, offering multiple reference points for informed choice.
Does the Zuckerman imperative then present challenges to the legal concept of “reasonable expectation of privacy”? Responsible consent informs this challenge and there is little doubt that unwitting disclosure of personal data by an individual – and its misuse by third parties – would be deemed unreasonable. If the agent enabling that misuse is a commercial entity, like Facebook, then the consequences for that company would be terminal.
Facebook’s business strategy is almost wholly dependent upon the currency of disclosure. It is in Zuckerman’s interests, and indeed all those leaders of social networks, to ensure that this currency is exchanged equably.
There are certainly issues over how the multi-faceted individual reforms and represents aspects of his/her online selves. The networks archive snapshots of personas, which do change and the management of these progressions is complex. It requires continual disclosure and responsible openness – neither of which is in itself harmful; quite the opposite.
Unexpected and catastrophic use of personal information by government or commerce must surely educate individuals to understand the true value of their personal information, which persona they adopt and how much they give away.
There is a recent and shocking UK legal case in point where a woman who alleged she was raped by a group of men had IM messages she had posted used against her by the defence. According to reports, her credibility was “shot to pieces” with the submission to the court of excerpts from her MSN messages, which showed that she was “prepared to entertain ideas of group sex with strangers”. The judge at Preston Crown Court ordered the jury to return “not guilty” verdicts.
Should the messages – fleeting representations of her changing thoughts and ideas – have been kept private? There is a strong viewpoint made on the F Word about the case. I personally find the court judgement extraordinary and dangerous. Whatever the view, the judgement is a clear lesson on the need to understand the currency of disclosure.
A regular guest on the Liberate Media blog, Lorraine Warren, Director of Postgraduate Education and senior lecturer in Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the School of Management at the University of Southampton, has blogged on the complexities of privacy, freedom of speech and management of relationships on social networks like Twitter. We’ll be picking up the arguments and discussion on privacy with her and hopefully with Kieron over the next few weeks. There’s a world of ideas to explore - and we’d love to hear your views.
Social networks as an educational tool
February 24th, 2009
As the Barcelona Mobile World Congress chatter echoes into silence for another year, and the winner of the MOFILM grand prize celebrates her short-film success, thoughts turn to other conversations more local and urgent.
In just over three weeks’ time, Tom Watson MP, UK Cabinet Minister for Transformational Government will join leading thinkers in education, gaming, social media and consumer electronics for an extended conversation on game based learning.
Graham Brown-Martin, director of the Game Based Learning Conference could not have chosen a more appropriate time to extend the remit of his event organisation from the widely respected Handheld Learning conferences. For there are dark mutterings from the House of Horrors in Westminster concerning the effects of social networking on the nation’s youth.
Baroness Greenfield, a scientist, this week waded into the debate on the potential psychological and physical outcomes from “too much SM”. From the reports I’ve read so far, there was little in the way of objective research data to back up the argument to the Lords but I will keep searching. It does make you wonder whether too much Lordism is damaging for older people’s minds - but I’m sure that is more than likely a line of thought sparked by a moral panic and nothing more.
Meanwhile, we can look forward to a different type of debate and conversations in three weeks at the educational London conference, where I believe the beneficial, even mildly revolutionary, effects of Social Media in extending the boundaries of learning will be more fully explored.
Mobile the key to more inclusive and youthful social networks
February 10th, 2009
Two reports caught my attention this week and reminded me again how much more effort will be needed before the mobile sector catches up with the rest of the connected universe. The Future of Social Networking workship in Barcelona featured a clear call from Dominique Hazaël-Massieux, W3C’s Mobile Web Initiative Activity Lead for the mobile providers to open up and lead the push for ubiquitous social networks.
She said: “Now is the time for the diverse social network actors out there to work together and resolve barriers to industry growth and stability. All social networks users, and especially young people, expect the richest possible social experience, but with full mobility, accessibility, and privacy.”
The workshop report emphasises the importance of mobile in the social network mix, with contextual information and sharing key data across all networks both key to progress. With the downturn, full-scale collaboration between the operators on all sides is sorely needed to avoid the partial implosion of the still young, vibrant but vulnerable online culture.
And talking of youth, the Independent’s Richard Garner this week flashed a snapshot of youth habits online. It’s even more official - young people are migrating away from TV and spending up to 31 hours a week online with social networks taking an increasingly important slice of that time.
Even more reason, then to ensure that the people and pipes that control and connect are as open, free-thinking and resilient as the users.
PR’s positive attitude to social media can help to play a significant role here and let’s hope that the grumblies and doomists who are joyously predicting the demise of sociability will soon be drowned out by a realistic and visionary chorus of social media advocates.
Moving mobile social networks beyond MySpace and Facebook
November 12th, 2008
A lively time in Wardour Street last night at the Chinwag event on mobile social networks with feisty (and drink-enabled) characters in the audience providing a testing warm up for the expert panel and chair Bena Roberts (GoMo News).
When things settled (departure of character with the Voice of Reason), it soon became clear at the MoSo Rising gathering that while there are no stellar new performers in the space, with established marques like MySpace and FaceBook leading the charge into always-connected social spaces, there are many positive signs.
Right now though start-up and niche mobile-only social networks are wrestling with the best revenue models, with white-label services a winning play at the moment, as ads and subscriptions largely fail to deliver.
More pressing for many agencies and PRs on the night was the need for clarity on how best to advise companies interested but fearful of mobile/social web. Panellist Alfie Dennen, CEO Moblog, suggested that brands and agencies need to think in more inclusive way, and embrace mobile as part of the communications mix, in much the same way that broadcasters have.
Harry Blunden. Head of digital at ?WhatIf! Digital advised that all agencies
should have at least one mobile savant - the one who could read the current mobile terrain and map out the potential for clients. He and other panel members all felt that many agencies did not understand Mobile but needed to embrace it.
Ron Shelton. CEO Next2Friends also urged agencies to encourage client to experiment with Mobile now, educating them away from the fear of the platform.
The view from the panellists, not necessarily shared by everyone in the Slug and Lettuce, was that digital agencies don’t yet get the mobile space and that a focussed education programme was needed to pull agencies into the new age with clients still very reluctant to put money into mobile.
A positive view on the development of the mobile/social web came from the floor as Conor McKenna, business development manager at mobile search company Taptu who said that growing numbers of people leading quite disconnected working lives used mobile web and social networks to communicate and engage and as a form of escapism.
Bena Roberts added how Polish workers she had met were addicted to social networks on mobile as this was all they had to keep connected with their social groups.
And in Hungary, people in villages who had not heard of broadband were using their mobiles as web/social media access tools.
The key messages I took away from a thoughtful evening were that MoSo is only just starting as is going to be a greater part of the mobile, always connected web with massive opportunities for all the players: operators, service providers, brands and agencies. While “always on” mobile is maybe 5-10 years away, there are great opportunities for brands to engage with their customers and for agencies to build business.
At the moment, brands can harness Mobile by playing to its current strengths, keeping it simple and direct but also thinking creatively about how to use the at present limited functionality. It’s not just about delivering ads and brand messages one way.
And the simple questions for agencies and brands to ask around Mobile: “What do we want users to do? How do we create real value that engages?”