This document provides an overview of social media and its use for online marketing. It discusses what social media is, key components like blogs and microblogging, how to measure influencers, adoption of social media, and how companies can use social media for brand management, viral marketing, customer support, and research. It also cautions that social media should be used carefully and as part of an integrated marketing strategy to avoid potential issues from critics or temporary influencers.

1. Social Media & Online Marketing
University of Washington
January 2009

2. Agenda
What is Social Media
Awareness & Demographics
Social Media Components
Key Influencers
Social Media Adoption
Social Media and Marketing
How to Use Social Media
Proceed with Caution
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3. What is Social Media
Online Recommender
• Technorati
• Boing Boing
• Reddit
Online Sharing
• You Tube
• Flickr et al
Microblogging
• Twitter
Online Bookmarking
• Yahoo My Web
• Delicious
Blogs
Forums
Online Networking
• Linked in
• FaceBook 3
• My Space

4. Awareness & Demographics
1998: a few thousand blogs
2008: 180 million
• Blogs: 78 million
• Facebook: 41 million
• My Space: 75 million
Blogosphere is doubling in size every 6
months
Personal Blogs: 83% female, 76% male
Corporate blogs : 38% female, 50% male
4 Blog types
Active Influencers
Inactive Influencers
Active, not influencer
Inactive, not influencer
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5. Social Media Components
Format: reverse chronological journaling
Currency: time stamped entries, frequency of posting
Trackbacks: out-links to supporting materials
Perpetuity: archived entries
Syndication: RSS feeds
Voice & Tone: author passion/focus
Participation: comments, in-links from supporters
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6. Key Influencers
83% of people prefer consulting with friends or family before
major purchases
Influencers are the market movers
4 Types of Influencers
• Long term
• Average term
• Transient
• Burgeoning
Metrics of influence
• Frequency & length of postings
• Referenced by others
• Trackbacks
• In-links
• # of comments
• Frequency
• length
• Out-links/annotations
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7. Measures of Influence
Technorati Authority Score
Blogstreet Influence Quotient
IRank
Pointy-headed view of HP IRank algorithm
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8. Social Media Adoption
A significant portion of colleagues use social media
• 8% of Americans are deep users of the participatory Web and
mobile applications
• Another 23% are heavy, pragmatic tech adopters – they use
gadgets to keep up with social networks or be productive at work
• 10% rely on mobile devices for voice, texting, or entertainment
Blogs are a common means of sharing thoughts and ideas among
friends, colleagues and strangers who are interested in same subject
5% of studied blog users generate:
• 59% of the bookmarks
• 64% of the comments
• 64% of the trackbacks
http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000436.html
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9. Social Media Marketing
Brand Management
• Monitor conversation and intercede
• Initiate conversation and manage community
Viral Marketing
• Develop early adopters and evangelists
• Seduce key influencers
Customer Support
• Forums and groups to support products
Research (and maybe development)
Study tag patterns and posting for context, sentiment, awareness
Get indirect indication of customer knowledge
• What they know
• What they want to know
Online demand generation – search engines love blogs
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10. How to Use Social Media
Know what your customers are saying
• Visit social networking site and use your product or service as
search term
• Facebook
• Linked in
• Technorati
• Visit online bookmarking sites (Del.icio.us) and use your domain as
a search term. See what customers are bookmarking and what
user tags are associated with it
• Visit online bookmarking sites (del.icio.us) and use terms that you
believe best describe your product/services and see what sites
users have bookmarked
Global reach is achieved through multiple
applications: Orkut, Friendster,
Skyworld, Mix
• No one platform serves the entire
world
McCann Universal Social Media Research Wave, September 2008
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11. There Be Dragons…
Trolls
• Be prescriptive in social media strategy
• Respect the community rules and guidelines
• Secure your information and infrastructure
Blogs are Op/Ed pieces, seen as such and rarely treated as fact
• Make social media a component of a fully integrated marketing strategy
Bloggers lack wide perspective and long-term or corporate judgment
• More reactionary than illuminating
• Maintain complete transparency about motives
While there are a lot of blogs, the demographics skew young and influencers are
few and temporal
• Start with observation before action
• Pilot test with a few pack leaders and approach directly
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12. Resources
The New Influencers: Paul Gillin; Quill Driver Books (March 1, 2007)
Organizing and Searching the World Wide Web of Facts - Step Two: Harnessing the Wisdom of the
Crowds; Marius Pasca, Google Inc; May 2007 [paper]
How to Connect with Bloggers; Peter Kim; Forrester Report; July 2008
Exploiting Social Networks for Internet Search; Mislove, Gummadi, Druschel [paper]
On Modeling Trust in Social Media Using Link Popularity; Kale, Kolari, Java, Finin, Joshi; May 2007
[paper]
Web (2.0) Mining: Analyzing Social Media; Joshi, Finin, Java, Kale, Kolari [paper]
Can Social Bookmarking Enhance Search in the Web?; Yanabe, Jatowt, Nakamura, Tanaka; June
2007 [paper]
Identifying Influentials in the Blogosphere; Agarwal, Lui, Tang [paper]
Modeling the Spread of Influence on the Blogosphere; Java, Kolari, Finin, Oates; May 2006 [paper]
How the Social Web Will Impact on Web Search; Susanne Koch; Pandia.com
How Can We Measure the Influence of the Blogosphere; Kathy Gill; May 2004 [paper and
hometown favorite]
Mining Knowledge-Sharing Sites for Viral Marketing; Richardson, Domingos; 2002 [paper]
What is Next for Semantic Blogging; Steve Cayzer, HP Laboratories; October 2006 [paper]
Tracking Influence and Opinions in Social Media; Akshay Java; PhD Thesis; November 2006
Implicit Structure and Dynamics of BlogSpace; Eytan Adar; May 2004 [PPT on Irank]
Challenges in Mining Social Network Data; Jon Kleinberg; 2007
Universal McCann Social Media Research Wave 3;
www.universalmccann.com/Assets/wave_3_20080403093750.pdf
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