Playak's publisher Jeroen Houttuin explores paddling pursuits on the net at the 2011 Whitewater Symposium

1. Social Media Paddling
• Whitewater Symposium, Rock Island, TN
• October 13 2011
• Jeroen Houttuin, Playak

2. Me
• Jeroen Houttuin, Msc CS
• Early 90s: Research Networking
• Late 90s: Bus. Devel., Prod. Man.
• 1996: Playak.com
• 2002: Playak fulltime

3. Playak & me
• 1996: playspot sharing
• 1997: community driven
• .
• .
• Integrated Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube,
Google+
• Me: no nonsense management by gut feeling

4. This presentation is not
• Social Media Hype
• Science
• Usage Manual
• Strategy Manual
• Complete

5. This presentation is about
• Relevance of social media for brands
• Limitations / relativity
• Useful tools
• Some pointers to what it is not about J
• From (my) kayaking perspective

6. Agenda
• History
• Non-social media
• Social Media
• Brand Monitoring
• What‘s next
• Tools / reading / 3rd parties

7. Some History
• Pre 90s
– Mail
– FTP
– Usenet (see Google Groups)
• 90s: welcome to the web
– Surfing
– Bookmarking

8. Some History
• Early 90s
– Web
• Late 90s
– Searching
• Early 00s
Felt amount of info/data on the net -->
– Search Engine Optimization
• Late 00s, Early 10s
– Be found by news
• Next: SMO / SMM

9. So the Answer is Facebook!
• Erhh, what was the question again?
• Let‘s put things into perspective

10. Social Media: relativity
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
Africa Asia Europe Middle East North America Latin America / Oceania /
Carribean Australia
People without Internet

11. Social Media: relativity (2)
1000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
Africa Asia Europe Middle East North America Latin America / Oceania /
Carribean Australia
Internet users with Facebook
Internet users without Facebook
•Many different reasons not to use Facebook…
•But they may very well paddle...

12. Reasons not to use Facebook
• Culture
• Local alternative
• Antisocial personality J
• <13: Too young
• >13: Parents use it
• No time
• Privacy concerns

13. What? Face hook?
Yes, I Like ! I also like kayak...
Facehook I Like

14. How to reach
• Non-Internetters
– Classic media
– Events
• Not so social Internetters
– Web sites, blogs
– Forums
– RSS
– E-mail
• Still used as alternative for social media
• And vv: Social media often used as enhanced mailing list

15. ‚New‘ Media: General Process
• Sure you want to get in?
1. Claim Land
– yourbrandname.com
– @yourbrandname
– Etc.
2. Think
– Goals
3. Plan
– Procedures
– Resources
4. Act
• Periodically repeat
• Possibly use external help

16. Own classic Internet channels
• Web site
• Online shop
• Blog(s)
– Host on: blogspot, worldkayakblogs, paddleblogs
• Forum
• RSS feed(s)
• Newsletter
• Content is king
• Good content also feeds other channels

17. Feeding other channels
• Own web pages will feed
– Bookmarks
– Social Bookmarks
– Search Engines
– Social News Streams
– Mobile Devices
– Playak News Watch
– Google Reader
– Etc.

18. Feeding other channels (2)
• Goals
– Be found
– Be Likeable
• Make good use of
– Title, description, keywords
– Open Graph
– Favicons
– iPhone/iPad icons
– Thumbnails

19. Other ‚classic‘ Internet resources
• American Whitewater
• Boatertalk/Boof.com/Mountainbuzz/...
• World Kayak
• Playak

20. Social Netiquette
• Evolved from e-mail etiquette
• Same basic rules
• Communication is 1:n instead of 1:1

21. Social Netiquette (2)
• Use seperate profiles for personal stuff
• Fill in profiles
• Use photo
• Be yourself, be genuine
– People trust people, not brands
• Don‘t yell, don‘t sell
• Listen, Listen even more, Speak
• Say Thanks

22. Social Networks: Facebook
Facebook Users Internet Users
1000
800
600
400
200
0
Africa Asia Europe Middle East North America Latin America / Oceania /
Carribean Australia
• User account
• Page
– Discussions (to be deleted)
• Group ?

23. Social Networks: Facebook (2)
• Apps ?
– Have use case. Even then, no guarantee.
– Not cheap.
– Paddle Trip Planner, Buyers Guide, Playak, Games
• Social plugins
• Make sure each page is (technically) ‚Likeable‘
• Leverage
– Who generates FB content: you / friends
– Who multiplies

24. Social Networks: Youtube / Vimeo
• Claim land on both
• Integrate on own website
– Also videos by sponsored paddlers etc. (make
sure your logo is in video)
• Link video accounts to Playak account:
auto-feature latest vids on Playak

25. Social Networks: Twitter
• Huge
• Playak Survey: only 5% use
Twitter
• Works great for large events,
celebrities, politics
• Most useful for media (imho)
• E.g.
– Arab Spring / CNN
– #Kanumesse / Playak
– #wws2011 / Playak
• Also for customer care

26. Social Networks: Others
– Google+
• 50M users in 3 months
• Alternative to both Facebook and Twitter
• Circles
• Facebook is reacting fast
– Flickr
– Chatter
– Linkedin
– Digg / Reddit / Stumbleupon / Del.icio.us
– Wayn
– Foursquare

27. Back it up
• Need new customers as well, not only friends
• Brand Recognition / Imaging
• Advertising
– Google Adwords
– Facebook ads
– Playak
– Regional sites/forums
– Magazines
• IRL
– Events
– Clubs
– Athletes
– Videos
• Stay on top: Reputation Management

28. Brand Monitoring / Reputation
Management
• Reach more than just friends
• Likewise: rely on more than just friends
• Services
– Professional reputation management services.
Often made for large brands, i.e. expensive.
– Google Alerts
– Playak Brand Alerts

29. Mobile
• Do I need a phone app?
– Not cheap
– Got a use case? If not, consider mobile web template.
– Nice side effect: your logo on home screen
• iPad/tab app?
– Probably not, unless you‘re a magazine
• Examples
– Jackson Kayak
– ACK Launch Points
– Rapid Magazine
– River Guide
– Mtn Games
– Adventure Sports
– Mountainbuzz
– Windguru

30. Outlook
• Web
• Web 2.0
• Web2 , not 3.0 (Tim O’Reilly)
– Know and keep status of each net entity
• People
• Cars
• Etc.
– All data is related
– Real time
– Crowdsourcing

31. Social Networks: Tools
– TweetDeck
– HootSuite
– Seesmic
– Klout
– go2web20.net tools tools tools
– Do NOT use auto-follow software

32. Sources for help
• 3rd parties
– Brandamp
– VerdePR
– Backbone Media
• Books & Whitepapers

33. Further Reading
• playak.com/go/social-media-best-practices
• playak.com/go/social-media-pocket-guide
• playak.com/go/social-media-sme
• playak.com/go/web-squared

34. Contact
• Jeroen Houttuin, Playak
Am Wasser 69
CH-8049 Zurich
Switzerland
Phone: (I'm on Central European Time = EST+6)
US: 1 303 800 4469
Switzerland: +41 44 55 88 346
Cell: +41 79 3003937
Skype: jeroenplayak
Facebook: Jeroen Playak
Twitter: @playak
Linkedin, Google+: Jeroen Houttuin
Mail: jeroen@playak.com