Social Media Blog by Michael Brito
Insights into the social web & real
time community engagement
time community engagement
I got an email from a colleague at work today asking the broader team about the definition of “social popularity.” It was an excellent question and I have been thinking about it all day. I am still not sure what the right answer is but I think the term “popularity” is a little fluffy and vague. Unfortunately, I see many people today using tools like Twitter to “gain popularity” using shady tactics; and all it really amounts to is their perceived influence over others merely by their follower count or the ego they try and down play in their bio. Twitter is just one example but it happens all over the web, and even in person.
According to this report, senior marketers say that social networks and applications were their biggest priority for their 2010 marketing plans, followed closely by digital infrastructure. The others priorities included search optimization, mobile, blogger outreach, viral campaigns, digital advertising, email marketing and games. While these are all important, what’s interesting is that “community management and/or engagement” is not mentioned at all. Perhaps those marketers interviewed consider community management a part of “social networks” but I doubt it.
According to Nielsen, consumers spent more than five and half hours living in the conversational streams of Facebook and Twitter in December 2009, an 82% increase from the same time last year when users were spending just over three hours. And, of course that was followed by an astronomical increase of unique visitors.
Ok, the title may seem a little over the top but it’s true. Over the last 5 years or so, the exponential growth of the social web has suddenly given a voice to just about anyone who wants one. I wrote about this a few years go but it’s even more true today. The emergence of technology and the fact that tools like Twitter and Facebook have become mainstream is forcing the enterprise to plan accordingly and consider something new, something they aren’t used to. Consumers. I’m not referring to audience segmentation or identifying a target audience either. I am talking about consumers’ perceptions, point of views, interests, dislikes and likes about their brand.
I had the opportunity to write a guest post for Amber Naslund that highlights some of the issues/challenges and conversations I have had with others working internally for brands. Here is a snap shot of my post, but please do continue to the conversations in the comments section of Ambers blog:
Measuring Social ROI – The question we need to start asking ourselves is “how do we go about quantifying metrics to show how they drive true business value and/or revenue?”
Hat tip to Jeremiah Owyang for presenting this last weekend at Blogworld 2009; thank you.
During my time at HP, I remember several discussions about launching a printer blog to engage with consumers. This didn’t go over well with some because at that time, HP was struggling with giving up control of brand messages. Since then, they have done an extremely good job embracing social media and have launched some really cool and innovative programs.
We all know that many brands still struggle with this concept of giving up some control of the brand; and are scared to death about allowing comments on their blogs/communities in fear of negative comments.
Problem solved, or unsolved depending on how you look at it. Welcome Google Sidewiki!
Google Sidewiki allows anyone to leave a comment on any webpage out on the social web. It does require users to download a plugin and comments are stored to [...]
Had a great conversation with John Munsell, CEO of Bizzuka on Friday as a guest on the User Friendly Thinking Podcast. Hat tip to Paul Chaney for the invite. Enjoy.
There is very little brand representation at many industry leading conferences, including SxSW. I want to change that, a little. I submitted two ideas for panels at the conference.
How to Start a Game-Changing Dialogue with Consumers
Twitter for Business: Lessons From the Enterprise
I am going to need a moderator and a few more panelists. Let me know if you are interested and please vote if you can. Thanks.
