Social Media: A Practical Guide

An Introduction To Social Media
James Fraser, @jamesfraser
Ciarán Norris, @ciaranj
baraka27 on flickr

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Agenda
What are we talking about?
Why should you care?
What does it mean?
How do I do it?
Who’s doing it well?

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Before we start
When to shoot me…

When to shoot me...
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Cambodia4kidsorg on flickr

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What are we talking about?
What is social media?

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Social media supports the human need for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

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What on earth does that mean?
Technologies that allow people to connect with each other and create and share information over the Internet.
Mindshare SocialMedia8

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PC
Mobile
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Twitter Tools

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10 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute
Facebook would be the 5th largest country in the world
Over 133 million blogs created since 2002
15-24 yr olds spend 2.14 billion minutes per month on Bebo
800 million photos uploaded to Facebook every month
Social media sites are 5 of top 10 most popular globally

Sources include TechCrunch, Facebook, Wikipedia, Technorati, Bebo, Alexa

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UK are heaviest users of social networks in Europe¹
85% have watched a video on a video sharing site
66% of internet users in UK read blogs²
25% have started a blog²

Sources: ¹ comScore Oct 2007; ² Universal McCann Social Media Tracker Wave 3 March 2008;

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“I think more positively about companies that have blogs”
33% of global internet universe
Sources: Universal McCann Social Media Tracker Wave 3 March 2008;

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What does it mean?

Blogs/Micro-blogs
Social networks
Social news aggregators
Social bookmarking sites/folksonomies
Wikis
Video sharing/image sharing sites
Social aggregators

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Blogs
A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order.

Somewhere for silly pictures of cats?

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Blogs are just publishing tools

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Blogs
So forget about blogs and bloggers and blogging and focus on this - the cost and difficulty of publishing absolutely anything, by anyone, into a global medium, just got a whole lot lower.
And the effects of that increased pool of potential producers is going to be vast
Clay Shirky, 2004

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Micro-Blogs
Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user.
Wikipedia

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Micro-Blogs
Twitter?
That’s just like Facebook updates, right?

Twitter is just a communication tool

Defining social media
Micro-Blogs

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Social Networks
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Bebo, Orkut
Places where people can talk & share

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Social News Aggregators
Online newspapers where the readers pick the stories and what goes on the front page
Can send large amounts of traffic, useful for talking to certain types of user

Social news aggregators
Online newspapers where the readers pick the stories and what goes on the front page
Can send large amounts of traffic, useful for talking to certain types of user

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Social Bookmarking/Folksonomies
Like an online version of Internet Explorer’s favourites bar.
Allows users to share content: approaching human edited search

Like an online version of your Internet Explorer favourites bar.

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Wikis
Collaboratively edited web sites
Made famous by Wikipedia

Like an online version of your Internet Explorer favourites bar.

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Video/Image Sharing Sites
Sites where people share videos & images, unsurprisingly.
Powerful niche communities, with varying reach & scope – YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine in the world.

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Social Aggregators
Tools that allow you to centrally manage all of your social profiles.
FriendFeed recently bought by Facebook

Why else does this matter?
Blended search makes it easier for social media content to go mainstream

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Why Else Does This Matter?
Blended search allows social media content to go mainstream

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How Do I Do It?
Planning a social media strategy:
People
Objectives
Strategy
Technology
Forrester POST Methodology

Publish Web page
Publish or maintain blog
Upload video to sites like YouTube
Comment on blogs
Post ratings and reviews

Creators
Critics

Use RSS
Tag Web pages

Collectors

Use social networking sites

Joiners

Read blogs
Watch peer-generated video
Listen to podcasts

Spectators

None of these activities

Inactive
Source: Forrester’s NAVTAS Q4 2006 Devices & Access Online Survery

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How Do I Do It?

Case Studies
Phineas H on flickr

Case Studies

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650% uplift in sales

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100,000 asked for Ubuntu Linux: Dell added it

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$3 million sales in 18 months

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Who’s getting it right?
Refresh an offline brand (publishing)
Increase interaction
Drive more ad revenue (CPM)

Promote a product that’s been on sale many times before
Utilise viral elements of social media
Encourage user interaction
Circa 480,000 followers

Promote a product that’s been on sale many times before
Utilise viral elements of social media
Encourage user interaction

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Ryanair’s ‘Apology’
Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion.It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again.Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel

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The Depressing Thing
“Bloggergate”

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Reasons It Goes Wrong