Assembled Web And Social Media

The Assembled Web Getting Started with Social 25 August 2009 John Eckman, Sr. Practice Director, Optaros Labs

Agenda
Context: The Assembled Web
Social Media: How to Get Started
Mobile: The iPhone Effect
Social Networks: Facebook

Three Previous Eras of Web Evolution
Context
Era Characteristics Limitations Web of Documents Content-centric Static HTML experiences / lightweight CMS Focus on eyeballs, stickiness “ The web is a giant universal library for information” Results in Brochure-ware Experiences are not engaging Not digitally native Not interactive / immersive Web of Transactions Transaction-centric Focus on conversion rates “ The web is a giant universal marketplace for buying and selling things” No loyalty to merchants No depth of experience No social interaction Transactional focus often resulted in weak content – don’t distract the buyer Web of Communities (aka “Web 2.0”) Community-centric Focus on “engagement” “ The web is a giant universal cocktail party / high school reunion / community” Struggle to find business models Community for community’s sake Herd mentality Cost of community management underestimated

The Assembled Web
The Assembled Web incorporates those eras:
From the “web of documents” it inherits
The core innovation of the hyperlink
The importance of SEO and findability
The ability to present rich, multimedia experiences (video, audio, graphics)
From the “web of transactions” it takes
The ability to manage complex transactional workflows
The core innovations of SSL, commerce, forms
The requirements of usability, accessibility
From the “web of communities” it has learned
The importance of social connections
The desire for two communication
The key notions of “social objects” and “the social graph”
And introduces two major differences:
The Three C’s
The integration or convergence of the three previously separate domains: content, commerce, and community
Neither of the three by itself is ever enough, though in most applications one of the three is most prominent
The Digital Footprint
What’s important ultimately isn’t your site or sites, but the distribution of content, commerce, and community to your audience(s) pervasively throughout the web
Customers expect to be met where they spend time, and have a great degree of flexibility in how they interact with you

The Assembled Web

Agenda
Social Media: How to Get Started
Social Network Applications: Facebook, Open Social

What is Social Media? http://twitter.com/avinashkaushik/status/1270289378

Social Activity in Context
Understanding the Assembled Web means:
Not focusing just on content
(“let’s create a bunch of viral videos”)
Not believing that community in the abstract is enough
(“people can’t wait to talk about how much they love us”)
Not ignoring the transactional elements
(“we’ll create engagement first and then someday figure out the business model”)
All three Cs must be in sync for any social media strategy!

Two Models for Getting Started
P.O.S.T.:
People: Assess your customers social activities
Objectives: Decide what you want to accomplish
Strategy: Plan for how relationships with customers will change
Tactics: Decide which social technologies to use
Forrester Research, in Groundswell
L.E.A.D.:
Listen: Understand what’s being said about you across the web in various contexts
Experiment: Engage with customers in a controlled but real fashion - pilots
Apply: Make those experiments useful, connect them to your existing web presence
Develop: Build on existing successes, integrate more over time into core experience of the brand
McKinsey Quarterly, “Managing Beyond Web 2.0”

Getting Started
What kind of listening can you do?
Real Time Search Engines: Scoopler, One Riot, Social Mention, Topsy, Twitter Search, Radian6, ScoutLabs, dna13
Alerts: Tweet Beep, Tweet Later, Google Alerts, Technorati
Existing Public Communities: Where is the conversation happening?
Hosted Private Communities: Customer council, advisory board, beta users group
What audiences are you after? What do they want?
No longer any rational excuse for guessing
Decision makers & buyers versus end-users
Broader community of interest
What do you hope to accomplish via social media & social networking?
Better awareness of consumer attitudes, perceptions, feedback on programs?
Influence over brand awareness?
Increased enrollment in programs by eligible end users? (More users / more use?)
Increased pool of eligible users / better market penetration?
How can you achieve those objectives?
List of potential platforms is large and growing
Align target platforms and actions to objectives

Key Social Computing Principles
Primary Utility
The best (and most sustained) social applications first provide value to the individual, even if he’s the only one who ever uses it
Mutual Benefit
The user(s) have to see benefit (in their terms) or they won’t return
The host(s) have to see benefit (in their terms) or they will stop participating
Social Media is not a Cure-All
If you have an image problem, social media may be able to help; if you have a reality problem, social media will only make it worse
If your core business fundamentals are poor, fix those before (or at least in parallel with) focusing on social media
Social == Two Way
If you are not as an organization willing to actually engage with users in the broader community, social media may not be for you
If you intend to use social media purely to broadcast and not to listen, the community will learn (and quickly!) to ignore you

Agenda
Strategy: How to Get Started

The iPhone Effect

The iPhone Effect This slide and previous from: http://www.slideshare.net/ravenme/kleiner-perkins-ifund-presentation-at-iphonedevcamp-3

iPhone Considerations
Mobile Web versus Installed Application
iPhone native applications are developed with Apple SDK, have access to all native APIs (location awareness, push notification, orientation, stored data)
iPhone mobile applications leverage existing web infrastructure and target Safari mobile browser
“ Best on this device” = Native; “Most leverage for all devices, lower cost” = Web
The importance of constrained design
Don’t make a stripped down version of the web application – focus on key scenarios, activities
What’s the minimum set of interactions which, if enabled, would make the application a compelling supplement to the web applications, first – then what set would make the application a compelling replacement
Beware Shiny Object syndrome
You do not need to have an iPhone application simply because others do
It’s easy to get lost in the App Store, or on the phone once installed
Be sure to align mobile strategy to broader business strategy
Iterate
Release early and often
Prove out baseline functionality then build on success

What about the rest of mobile?
Easy to over-focus on the iPhone
Blackberry, Palm Pre, Google Android, Symbian, MobLin all viable platforms
Simple mobile web interface may “just work” across many browsers
SMS and Mobile-Friendly Email also important
Part of Twitter’s success was that it enabled posting via simple SMS message
Adoption curve for “send and receive email” well ahead of “browse the web” and “install applications” across most demographics
Plan for the long term now
Even if you build only on the iPhone now, ensure that server-side APIs and lightweight SOA approach are used, for later reuse on other platforms
Don’t assume same uptake rate on other platforms – iPhone uptake will likely be highest by large margin – but that doesn’t mean others can be ignored

Agenda
Strategy: How to Get Started

Facebook

Facebook Demographics
Facebook goes mainstream
Fastest growing segment in most of 2009 has been 55+
Increasing prevalence of “my parents friended me on Facebook”
Major retailers and media companies trying it
NBC Universal adds Facebook Connect
Starbucks has over 3.7 million fans of its page, Coca Cola over 3.5 million
83 of the top 100 advertising spenders in the US use Facebook
If Facebook were a country it would be the fourth largest in the world
250 Million active users

Facebook Opportunities
Applications on Facebook Platform
Your custom web-based application running inside Facebook “Frame”
Barrier is getting app installed, used
Potential engagement is high, reality is generally much lower
For users who grant permission, you get quite rich data (except email)
Facebook Connect
Facebook JavaScript API running in your web application (Application inside out)
Leverage Facebook friend relationships, authentication
Enable publishing out to FB activity stream
Caveats about Social Media all apply!
Must offer value to user on her terms
Must connect to business value for provider
Don’t let tactics distract from strategy
Groups
Enable broadcast communication
Enable large numbers of users to express and intent or affiliation
Tend to peak quickly
Tend to be started by users
Pages
Enable users to become “fans” of products
Enable marketers to communicate to fans
Tend to be very one-way and static
Better for spreading awareness than for deepening engagement
Dipping your toe into social

The World Beyond Facebook
Distributed Social Networking
No single point of failure, no single point of control
Like email, DNS
More complicated, takes longer, but we’ll get there eventually
Simple set of connected open standards – IETF model over W3C model – Open Web Foundation, OpenID Foundation, working groups
Open Social Application Containers
LinkedIn
iGoogle
Yahoo! Application Platform
MySpace
Xing
Orkut
Ning
Hi5
etc
Facebook API containers
Facebook

Thanks
John Eckman
[email_address]
http://twitter.com/jeckman
http://www.optaros.com/
http://www.openparenthesis.org/

Assembled Web And Social Media

by John Eckman on Aug 26, 2009

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