The document discusses social media strategy and why understanding the principles behind various social media tools is more important than focusing on individual tools. It emphasizes that content, conversation, and community building are essential for influence in social media. Content should be optimized across multiple platforms and provide value through niche, detailed contributions. Real-time monitoring of conversations allows companies to engage where relevant. Community involvement requires supporting existing groups rather than creating proprietary spaces.

1. Social media
What’s going on
Presentation by Richard Stacy to
PRCA Food & Drink Group
12 August 2009
http://richardstacy.com

2. Why I am not going to talk about
Twitter
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
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3. Why I am not going to talk about
Twitter
• Tools are coming and going all the time
• The future of even the well established
ones is still in doubt
• If you base your strategy on the latest
‘bright shiny things’ you will always
be changing your strategy
• If you understand ‘what’s going on’
behind all these tools your strategy
will be future proof
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
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4. Its different
Traditional media Social media
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5. Its different
You wouldn’t drive your car into the ocean or try
to take a sailing dingy to Tesco
But lots of people are doing this with social
media, assuming it is just a new channel – its
not
If it worked with traditional media it almost
certainly won’t in social media
Traditional media Social media
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6. Why is it different?
Clay Shirky
How cellphones, Twitter,
Facebook can make history
Presentation at the State
Department, Washington DC, June
2009
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7. The Connected Crowd
Red Lines = Green Lines =
one-to-many social media
mass space - highly
messages specific,
(i.e. the way we individualised,
have always communication
done it) Some call it
nonsense, but it
is connected
nonsense (just
like the contents
of your head)
Red line communication just doesn’t
work in social media
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8. The Connected Crowd
So how do you exert influence in the world
(network) of connected nonsense?
Be useful
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9. Sacred objects of social media
usefulness
The sacred cow The silver bullet The holy grail
of Content of Conversation of Community
Different The home of The new media
Lots more influence
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10. Content: liberate what you have
• In the ‘Old World’ we locked-up content in web
sites, newspapers, press releases
• The world of social media is all about creating
information that is mobile and can live in many
different places – blog posts, tweets, status
updates
• So the first step with content is to liberate and
optimise the stuff you already have
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11. Content liberation: the first
four steps
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12. Content liberation: the first
four steps
Populate your YouTube
‘real estate’ – its
the World’s no.2
search engine
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13. Content liberation: the first
four steps
Flickr is the world’s
photo library – all your
key images should be in it
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14. Content liberation: the first
four steps
Social media news
releases – not only do
they penetrate social
media they are proven to
improve coverage in
traditional media
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15. Content liberation: the first
four steps
Social media newsrooms –
an easy to use platforms
that automatically
optimises your content
(as well as allowing you
to do other useful stuff)
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16. Content: think gravity
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17. Content: think gravity
• Issac Newton’s law of gravity basically said “the
more mass you have, the greater the attraction”
• That is sort-of how it works with content in
social media
• You don’t want one-off smash and grab, here today
gone tomorrow content – you want a mass of
gravitational content that will attract people
over a long period of time
• It is detailed, it is niche and it can be inserted
into conversations – therefore it is USEFUL
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18. Conversation
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19. Conversation
Don’t expect tools such as these
to monitor the conversation or
provide the information you need
to design and operate a social
media strategy
They are not specific or real-time
enough and they focus on places as
centres of influence
However, the conversation is a
space, not a place, and it comes
and goes in real-time
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20. Conversation: tracking the space
The most important tool to have is
something that monitors social
media spaces in real time.
Without one of these you can’t
‘do’ social media
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21. Conversation: 24/7 monitoring panel
You need one of these – a 24/7
real-time monitoring panel,
specific to each client, that you
use to stay in touch with what is
happening AS IT HAPPENS
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22. Conversation: 24/7 monitoring panel
• The good news is you can’t buy one of these – you
have to make them, using freely available tools
• The other good news is that they only work if
someone is watching them and extracting
information and analysis from them
• i.e. they are a service, more than a product and
this is a service you should be selling to every
single one of your clients - NOW
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23. Conversation: talking back
• Once you know what the conversations are, you
will probably need to join in
• This can seem difficult – i.e. there are
millions of people / consumers out there all
talking = too much information to deal with
• Fortunately, while you may have millions of
consumers there are only four conversations
they are prepared to have with you
– The your product or service is good
conversation
– Your product or service is bad conversation
– The “how to / what is” conversation
– The “make a new one / make it better”
conversation
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24. Conversation: talking back
“Your product or service is good”
So say “thanks”
“Your product or service is bad”
Say what you are doing to fix it, or why
you can’t fix it
“What is your product or service?”
Provide the links to the content that
explains this / tells them your story
(P.S. Never a link to an ad.)
“This is how your product or service could
be better”
Create a space where all this information
can be shared
(Check out Getsatisfaction.com)
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25. Conversation: talking back
“Your product or service is good”
So say “thanks”
“Your product or service is bad”
Say what you are doing to fix it, or why
This is basically
you can’t fix it
Every organisations’ Social Media
“What is your Strategy or service?”
product
on
Provide the links to the content that
explains One Piece of them your story
this / tells Paper
(P.S. Never a link to an ad.)
“This is how your product or service could
be better”
Create a space where all this information
can be shared and discussed
(Check out GetSatisfaction.com)
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26. Conversation: example
I recommended AideRSS to a fellow
twitterer and AideRSS were
listening, got back and said
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27. The future of customer service
• Prediction: Within 5 years all of customer service
will have moved to Twitter
• Because if someone has a question they will simply
use Twitter (or its replacement) to ask it. And they
will expect one of three things to happen:
– The company concerned to be listening and respond with
the answer
– Someone else who is monitoring the space (perhaps a
competitor) to provide the answer
– If the answer isn’t satisfactory, they will be contacted
by the digital community that is pressuring for a
satisfactory answer
• This is why Twitter is not a fad – but a front-line
tool for engaging the power of the Connected Crowd
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28. Community: what not to do
Huggies paid money to place
(dump) their own ‘zone’
within this mother’s
community
Why was this not sensible?
See next page
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29. It was not sensible because...
• Circle of Moms may be a big community – but it is
still only one of many hundred (possibly
thousands) of parenting communities
• All of these parenting communities contain only a
fraction of the total conversation about parenting
issues
• In any case – there is no point in creating your
own zone – the action is happing in the ‘zones’
that community members have created for themselves
• And it doesn’t cost you any money to be here
• This is a classic example of driving a car into
the ocean – crunching a traditional media approach
into social media. Not surprisingly it was an idea
of Huggies digital and media agencies
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30. What Huggies should have done
• Listened to the conversation that was going on
• Worked out which bit of it was relevant to their
product (i.e. Just the bit of parenting that is
about dealing with the messy stuff that comes out
of the middle bit of kids)
• Produced content / initiatives that responded to
the issues this conversation highlighted
• Talked to people in the places where the
conversation was happening
• Media cost – zero
• Time and content production cost – miniscule
compared to the cost of an ad
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31. Community: summary
• Don’t see community as a way to engage
with your whole audience
• Never rent space in a community
• Work out how to support existing
communities with content and
conversation (rather than create your
own community)
• If you are creating a community – keep
it small (brand loyalists, employees)
• Adopt an outpost strategy – e.g. an
outpost in Facebook, never a paid-for
“walled garden” within Facebook
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32. Beware: The Trough looms!
Tactical Strategic
opportunity opportunity
Most organisations are here
Dell is here
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33. Make sure your client’s
social media initiatives
don’t end up as one of these
I am here to help
Richard Stacy
stacynet@googlemail.com
http://richardstacy.com
@richardstacy
http://richardstacy.com