A short presentation on what social media means for you and your business, and how to get the best out of it. (clue: it's nothing to do with Facebook, or Twitter, or...etc)

1. What does social media mean
(and what does it mean
for my company?).

2. This presentation seems long, but isn’t.
It’s going to explain:
• What social media means
• Why it’s important
• And how it can benefit your company.

3. First, the phrase ‘social media’
is misunderstood.

4. This term is generally used to refer to tools
like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.

5. These tools aren’t so important for our
explanation. They could change as time
goes on, or as others become popular.

6. They are just the symptoms of the
changes that we’re concerned with here,
not the cause.

7. The cause is the vast increase in the
scope and speed of communication
between people.

8. The cause of this,
is technology.

9. Communication
to many
people needs
technology.

10. Technology used to be big, slow
and expensive.

11. Unless you had space, time and lots
of money, you couldn’t do effective
mass communication.

12. But now
technology
is small, fast
and cheap.

13. So now it’s easy for everyone to
communicate with everyone.

14. Anywhere.

15. Doing anything.

16. Before this change in the use of technology,
a small group of people controlled mass
communication.

17. They had
control over our
perceptions; of
brands, of the
news, of people, of
governments.

18. Now that control is gone.

19. Now if someone
has a bad
experience, they
can tell everyone.

20. They can do it quickly, cheaply
and very effectively.

21. They can easily find groups of people
who think the same as they do, and
co-ordinate and act together.

22. They can all share their same bad
experiences in public.
• Using a cheap video camera and YouTube
• A phone camera and Flickr
• A computer and Facebook
• A blog and Wordpress/Tumblr/etc
• Anything and Twitter
• etc...

23. So what, at the start of this presentation, we
called ‘social media’ you can see are really
just the tools used for mass communication.
Communication which is now having an
impact on society because of better and
more widespread technology.

24. Companies panic because they focus
on the tools, and not the change.

25. They then think about making a
‘viral’ for YouTube.

26. Or ‘engaging
via Facebook’.
Or ‘starting a
conversation via
a blog’.

27. They look for ‘hidden rules of success’,
copying what others have had success
with. Not copying the principles behind the
success, but copying the ideas literally.

28. This is wrong.

29. Instead of focusing on the tools,
focus on the change in communication.
Focus on the cause, rather than the effects.

30. For example.
Increased communication between people
means increased communication between
your customers, or potential customers, or
both.

31. This communication
can be a valuable
resource for
brands, leading
to improvements,
innovation or new
and unexpected
sources of revenue.

32. Like Wispa.
(Check: http://www.marketsentinel.com/files/marketsentinel-cadburywispa.pdf)

33. Complaints in public about brands
can’t be stopped.

34. But they can lead to improvements and the
solving of problems which you didn’t before
realise were a problem, without expensive
and time-consuming customer surveys or
focus groups.

35. You can then turn a public complaint into
a public solution; making a virtue out of
fixing these issues.

36. Like Dell.
(check http://www.docstoc.com/docs/23282777/Case-Study-Dell-Hell)

37. Improvements in technology allow
experimentation, quick response and
reaction at a low, low cost.

38. The money you previously spent on getting
your ad on TV can be spent creating something
better, something more likely to strike a chord
with your customers and be shared.

39. Like Old Spice.
(check http://wearesocial.net/blog/2010/08/wieden-kennedys-spice-case-study/)

40. By looking at things the right way, brands
can see:
• opportunities rather than risks
• good rather than bad
• sense rather than panic
• insight rather than noise

41. Increased communication through better
technology is something which brands can
easily and cheaply listen to, learn from and
experiment with.

42. The future of your brand depends on
looking at this change the right way to
get the insight, see the opportunities and
generate the revenue.

43. In summary:
Focus on the change, not the tools.

44. That’s it...

45. ...although...

46. ...if you do want to discuss any of this
further, get in touch:
robd@northerncomfort.co.uk
www.northerncomfort.co.uk
And if you enjoyed this presentation,
please pass it on.