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Mar 29 2010

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Collect $200

March 29, 2010 – 12:17 am
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by Geoff Livingston

Many organizations make the mistake of thinking they can go 0-60 miles per hour with two-way communities. In doing so, they start out on a path to quick failure, almost like going to jail in Monopoly (image by HarshLight).

Before when can succeed with major initiatives online, it’s important to check back and make sure all of the pieces are there to enable success. As Ike Pigott said, social media is organic. That means understanding that to engage in a major strategy, you need to have pieces in place. Here’s a few thoughts on what that may include:

Do you have existing channels in the major networks? That includes Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Flickr. In addition, Delicious, Foursquare, Gowalla, MySpace, Buzz and others may factor into your equation as well as subject matter specific networks and community sites. These should actually be functional with real dialogue occurring in the them, not just cold sites. Increasingly, most organizations have at least some, if not all of the majors.

Are you dialoguing with influencers? That is before you actually launch? Having at least a handful of relationships with major influencers in your online communities of interest can make a big difference in your initiative. Besides, influencers enjoy their “sway” in part because they are privy to information first. Help them.

Got a place to call home? Seriously, most initiatives will fail unless there’s a place to go to interact and engage on a deeper level. Most social networks serve as beachheads for more significant conversation (see Manny Hernandez’ comments in tip 5 on a recent Mashable post). With a place to engage your more compelled stakeholders, you can get down to serious business, like crowdsourcing, activism, or gasp, real sales!

What kind of measurement and monitoring tools are in place? I am always amazed to find the incredible common lacking in organizational measurement tools. It’s really hard to launch an initiative without being able to measure whether it’s going to work well or not, and how to optimize the effort once it’s launched. Further, you want to see if the community embraces the initiative, and if they are changing it into a larger grassroots movement (good or bad).

Of course, this is a simplistic description of necessary pieces. Each community will have unique requirements. But point being, without these tools in place, it would be hard to create a strategy and start an initiative.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (5)
Mar 26 2010

Time for (More) Social Media Support of Green Power

March 26, 2010 – 12:23 am

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Green Power Network may not yet be a network in the social networking sense, but the groundswell in the green energy corner of the electric utility business holds promise of reaching a tipping point as word is passed about the consumer’s ability to buy green power through the use of renewable energy certificates or RECs.

Dominion Green Power is in some ways bringing up the rear (Virginia isn’t generally an early adopter of such things, and the utility is a regulated company), but good progress is being made with their program to create more access to green power in the Commonwealth.

According to Liz Thomson, who runs the program in Virginia, the utility doesn’t profit from the sale of RECs, and the program is designed to be self funding. So, as the company gains converts to this way of building green energy capacity, there is a lot of effort required to communicate with customers. 3Degrees is the consultant for the company, and reports put the administrative and promotion costs at about half of the program’s revenues at this stage. An outreach team is being recruited to multiply the early success that has seen over 6,000 signing up to pay more for certified green energy generation.

While many won’t pay extra for green, similar programs across the country are getting 2-4% participation, Ms. Thomson says. Another complicating factor is that consumers are “not getting green electrons all of a sudden,” since the source of an individual’s power won’t change. Even so, more than 50% of the participants in the Virginia program purchase RECs for 100% of their energy requirements.

“As a regulated entity, we provide reliable energy, and we also want to provide as many options as possible,” Thomson said. Customer feedback has been incorporated into everything from the inception of the program to the Web site design. 

As the program continues to develop, the outreach will incorporate more general education and contact with small businesses and other prospects. The parent does pursue a number of conservation activities, and has a semi-active blog site covering Green Power and other programs. Other bloggers in the green arena offer great food for thought, including James Fraser of The Energy Blog and Terrence Murphy’s Green Energy Reporter.

While this program is a clear indicator of demand for ways that consumers can encourage green power development, some argue that without an overhaul of the energy infrastructure there will be no real progress. Sierra Club has promoted the idea in some areas, but also had negative things to say about the cost of administration in the Virginia program.

Full disclosure: We have done work for utility companies and are working on a coal-fired plant advocacy program in Virginia. We do not work for Dominion.

Regardless of your position, though, isn’t really time that we get behind these ideas that allow consumers to involve themselves in a positive movement to get more generating capacity based on wind, solar, biomass, landfill gas and other resources? If just a fraction of the participants in social media passed along the recommendation on RECs, for instance, we could surpass that 2-4% participation easily.

More participation = more generating capacity = lower costs for renewable energy-based power. Seems like a great equation to me.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Michael Whitlow | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (4)
Mar 25 2010

How Marketers Can Prepare for the Next Wave of Mobile Adoption

March 25, 2010 – 6:50 am

Photo courtesy of cambodia4kidsorg

By Jenn Riggle

There’s been a lot of talk about whether mobile applications like Foursquare and Gowalla are going to be the “next big thing.” But let’s be realistic — it’s going to take years before either of these gain widespread acceptance.

Instead, let’s talk about what’s happening in mobile now.

When mobile phones first came out in the 1980s, these brick-sized phones were expensive and hard to find. Today, people of all ages and from all walks of life have mobile phones and their high-tech cousin, the smartphone. They’ve become more than a communications tool – they’ve become a fashion accessory.

So how are smartphones changing how organizations market their services? Here are some thoughts:

People are accessing social media sites from their phones: While people use their mobile phones to talk and text, new research from comScore shows that nearly 31 percent of smartphone users access social network sites via their phones. By the same token, the number of people using mobile devices to access Facebook and Twitter has grown 112 percent and 347 percent, respectively. This means that organizations need to develop mobile-friendly sites to take advantage of this trend.

Websites need to be “smarter:” With more people using smartphones and geo-location applications, marketers should think about developing smarter Websites that will recognize when people access the site with their smartphone to deliver more specific, personalized and local content.

Press releases should be written for the 3-inch screen: With more people accessing information via smartphones, organizations need to write press releases so they’re easier to view via a smaller screen. This means they should be shorter, use more bullets and store images on the Web instead of posting them in a document.  

Businesses need to prepare for mobile commerce: New research from online research firm Compete shows that 37 percent of smartphone owners purchased merchandise via their phones in 2009. Of the tasks they perform on their phones, 40 percent researched sales prices at different locations and 30 percent accessed customer reviews. Companies need to design their Websites to optimize the mobile shopping experience so people don’t become frustrated and abandon their purchases. 

Organizations need to find new uses for mobile apps: While mobile marketers want to “reach out and touch someone,” it’s important they bring more than just advertisements to people’s phones. For example, the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition’s Text4Baby program is a free mobile education program that provides pregnant women and new moms with health information. Pregnant women text “BABY” to 511411 to sign up for three text reminders a week on prenatal care and other health issues important to expectant mothers. The great thing is that AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint have agreed to waive all fees for receiving the texts and that the texts are available in English and Spanish.

People are using their phones to make a difference: People are familiar with using their mobile phones to vote for their favorite contestant on “American Idol” or “Dancing With the Stars.” But they’re also using their phone to make a difference through text-for-charity efforts, as shown through the millions of dollars that were raised for the Haiti earthquake effort. Expect to see more of these types of initiatives in the future.  

Using text messages during emergencies: The Virginia Tech shooting opened our eyes to the need for colleges to quickly communicate with students during a time of crisis. Since most teens have cell phones, colleges are using plan old SMS text messages to develop emergency text systems. These types of systems will hopefully improve in the future.  

Find new ways to leverage QR Codes: Also known as Quick Response Bar Codes, anyone who has a smartphone can scan and read QR to access images, Websites and text – and businesses are starting to take notice. For example, Chevy is adding QR codes to its new Chevy Volt cars so car shoppers can aim their smartphones on the barcodes to instantly access a microsite to learn more about the vehicle. It’s almost like having a virtual car salesman, without the shtick. Facebook is getting into the act as well has tested putting links to Facebook QR Codes on people’s profile page. It appears that this is related to their location feature roll out, so stay tuned.

What’s next? I’m sure we’ll be hearing more about geo-location applications and how they’re going to be used for customer loyalty programs. But in the meantime, it’s amazing to think of how far we’ve come – and how far we still have to go.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jenn Riggle | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (4)
Mar 22 2010

Productive Crowdsourcing Requires Community Management

March 22, 2010 – 4:35 am
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One of the hotter memes in online media today is the crowdsourcing trend. Sparked by recent cause marketing (Pepsi) and product development successes (Cisco), everyone wants to talk about crowdsourcing as the new ethos of the social web. But the crowd is not always trustworthy as research shows (see this post for crowdsourcing negatives), creating a need for strong community management skills so an organization can realize productive results.

Crowdsourcing in its own right has become a buzz word that’s dangerously close to meaning nothing. That being said, like a community smart crowdsourcing efforts should have a well defined purpose, such as finding an alternative energy source. Whether that’s ending hunger or developing new products, smart crowdsourcing seeks to achieve a goal, not just create a splash.Without a common purpose, the crowd is rudderless.

One of my biggest issues with Pepsi Refresh, while it’s a brilliant ad campaign, is its lack of stated purpose. There’s no theory of change. Instead, you get, “Pepsi is giving away millions to fund great ideas.” The end result is a free for all of organizations trying to get the dollars, in a carnival-like popularity contest (here’s a post on tips to win contests like Refresh).

With a stated purpose, community managers can guide the crowd towards a common mission. Crowdsource participants understand what they are there for, yet feel comfortable participating, wither out of brand loyalty, the desire to be recognized or to win a final prize.

Just to clarify, community management is not crowd control. We all know how well control works in social communities. A crowdsourcing effort provides a welcoming environment that enables people to participate freely.

Given those parameters, community managers offer guidance to a community so that it may achieve its common purpose or ultimate objective. In that sense, the manager is much more of a horse whisperer, coaxing the wild crowd towards a useful end.

This means crowdsourcing requires additional time and resource investments beyond traditional social media. Sometimes that investment can be minimal, such as asking for community ideas like an informal focus group. But in other instances such as the aforementioned Cisco case study, crowdsourcing can take an incredible amount of work.

Recommendations:

1) Have a well stated purpose for the crowdsourcing effort so that all participants know why they are participating.

2) Know the possible negatives the a crowd can bring to the table, and allocate resources to effectively guide the community towards the desired end-result.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (13)
Mar 19 2010

Can Social Media Help Blunt “Mean” Greens Influence?

March 19, 2010 – 12:54 am

So, in the latest turn of events in the pell-mell race to “sustainable” and “green” and “post-consumer” products, we hear  from researchers that green people are mean people? C’mon!? The Guardian pulls this one out from the journal Psychological Science, quoting psychologists Nina Mazar and Chen-Bo-Zhong, who say that those who wear their green consumerism on their sleeves are likely to have something up their sleeves!

Do Green Products Make Us Better People? is in the current issue of the journal, and is based on a game and some other approaches that probably intrigue psychologists, but puzzle the rest of us. Bottom line: They say that you/we who are green are not as interested in sharing with others and will cheat on the game and lie about it afterward. In a variation on the found-money-on-the-street Candid Camera/wallettest.com bit, the team also let conventional consumers and green consumers decide to pay themselves from an envelope.  The greens? Six times more likely to “steal” than the conventionals!

A fellow psychologist commented in the post:  ”At the moment in which you have proven your credentials in a particular area, you tend to allow yourself to stray elsewhere,” he said. (John Edwards, Tiger Woods, David Letterman, anyone?)

Just what are all of our ” social” networks doing to shape good behaviors?  There are endless examples of their impact on voting, health, and even , as we’ve blogged about on these pages before. I’m hoping that other research will take hold here, with the help of good communicators, and bring these errant greens back to society’s fold.  University of Pennsylvania’s Michael Kearns believes a small minority can win over the majority, so why not believe the majority can affect the minority in this case? Kearns’ work seems to support the concept of “influentials” at work in our business, and the idea that extended networks can spread influence. The article quote: ” ‘Influential’ people can determine the outcome to their liking.” (lots of connections made a subject influential)

Can we continue to use social media to shape the discussions so that we don’t suffer the abuse of the green elite (think, Al Gore’s planes)? Or, for that matter, can the effective use of influence shape the sustainable or green landscape farther and faster so that behaviors are more uniformly noble and aligned with the ethics of doing right not only by the environment, but our fellow men and women?

An ongoing experiment by Dominion Virginia Power to attract consumers to buy into more renewable energy sources is proving that at least some greens are willing to put money in instead of taking it out. Over 6,000 customers have joined the Green Power program to purchase certificates from the power company to assure some portion of the bill is generated by renewable sources.

Network for Good, Zoetica and many others are making a dent in this goodness part, and if Dominion is making a dent in the sustainable part, I’m confident there is a way for these ends of the economic spectrum to meet and create even greater good for the environment. Maybe we haven’t hit the tipping point in our efforts to move toward sustainable behaviors, but the continued building of our networks to address sustainability as well as all-around goodness will go a long way to making our planet a better place.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Michael Whitlow | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Mar 18 2010

Social Media May Be The Media Darling, But E-mail Is Here To Stay

March 18, 2010 – 6:50 am

By Jenn Riggle

Photo courtesy of Poldavo (Alex)

We’re seeing the U.S. Postal Service reeling from the impact of social media. Whether it’s the popularity of online bill payments or the movement away from letter writing, “snail mail” just isn’t what it used to be – especially if it means the end of Saturday mail deliveries.

You have to wonder whether we’re going to see the same thing happen with e-mail. While social media may be sexy and have lots of new features and functionalities, e-mail continues to be the workhorse that drives businesses. In fact, many businesses (and hospitals) block their employees from accessing social networks at work.

It’s interesting to note that social media users are also some of the biggest e-mail users. The SherpaBlog looked at study conducted by Merkle, the customer relationship marketing agency, which showed that 75 percent of daily social media users said e-mail is the best way for companies to communicate with them. In addition, people who use social media check their e-mail more four times a day or more vs. 27 percent who don’t use social media. It’s clear that social media users aren’t turning their back on e-mail — in fact they just use it as another mode of communication.

The Economist cited a Robert Half Technology survey of 1,400 chief information officers that showed that only one-tenth of them gave employees full access to social networks during the day. The rest blocked or gave their employees limited access to social media. Of course, employees can always access social networks via their smartphones, even if they can’t access them via their computer. In fact, comScore reported that 30.8 percent of smartphone users accessed social networking sites in January 2010.

Not only does e-mail own the desktop, it’s the primary reason why people purchase the most popular smartphone – the Blackberry. According to comScore, Research in Motion’s Blackberry has 43 percent of the smartphone market, while Apple’s iPhone ranks second with 25.1 percent. A recent Advertising Age article described Blackberry as being primarily business users who want to access their e-mail – again proof that people are tied to their e-mail (whether they like it or not).

So maybe now isn’t time to put e-mail out to pasture:

  • “E-mail is the First and Largest Social Network:” Facebook prides itself as being the largest social network with 400 million users, worldwide. However, according to Jeremiah Owyang from the Altimeter Group, e-mail is still the first and largest social network, with 1.4 billion e-mail users, worldwide in 2009.
  • E-mail Owns the Corporate Desktop: There’s no disputing the fact that e-mail is a fixture of the business world and Gmail has become ubiquitous (kind of like AOL was in the 1990s). Corporate America runs on Microsoft Windows, so it’s hard to believe that it’s going away anytime soon.
  • E-mail Makes It Easy to Share Information: While social media provides a great way to share information to a targeted audience quickly, it does so in a public forum. For sharing sensitive information, e-mail provides the ability do so privately.

Is e-mail overused? Definitely. We talk a lot about the plague of “management by e-mail,” where bosses feel the need to send an endless string of e-mails to their subordinates rather than pick up the phone. This behavior adds to the greater problem of overflowing Inboxes and lost and overlooked e-mails. It also adds to the consternation of your organization’s IT director, who has to back-up all of these e-mails.

Probably the greatest opportunity for social media is to help cut through this information overload and streamline communications. Twitter’s Direct Message (DM) function provides a great alternative to e-mail because it’s private and forces communications to be quick and to the point. The only caveat is that you and the person you DM need to be following each other.

We need to recognize that a lot of social media users are business users. And as long as businesses are still using e-mail, people are going to need to find a way to move within the social media and Windows worlds. It’s not a matter of using e-mail or social media – but finding a way to leverage them for what they do best.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jenn Riggle | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , | Comments (3)
Mar 15 2010

PR has Social Media “Buffet” Problem

March 15, 2010 – 9:06 am

I heard a great analogy this weekend in a discussion about the online theft of music versus the continuing propensity of Boomers and Gen-Xers (almost alone in this) to still pay for their music in the form of CDs or iTunes purchases. The remark went something like this: “Just because you’re able to observe my behavior at an ‘all-you-can-eat’ buffet, your so-called research has no value in predicting my order in a fine dining restaurant.” People will sample a lot, but they won’t always buy what they sample.

Buffet or Fine Dining?

It go me to thinking about the value of virality. To extend the music metaphor, I want fans, but I really, really want supporters, frequent attendees at my concerts and, even better, evangelists. My client, for instance, may be enthusiastic about my ability to get folks to take a look at YouTube, but how do I make sure we both keep our eyes on the prize – conversion of samplers to proselytizers.

We eat a lot. I was not surprised, for instance, to read recently that each of us is consuming information at a clip of almost 12 hours per day on average and collectively we got in about 10,500 trillion words. Seems that the all-you-can-eat information buffett is just getting bigger, with each American consumer getting over 100,000 words per day on average, according to the 2009 “How Much Information?” report of the Global Industry Information Center of the University of California, San Diego.

Combine that impact on each of our diets with recent insight from Barrucuda Labs about who is really using Twitter, for instance, and we might take away some important cautions for our colleagues who have fallen in love with social media. Percent of Twitter users with 10 followers or more by December 2009? 26. Percent of Twitter users following less than five people? 51. Those power users who are eating in the Twitterverse buffet are really chowing down! Are they your best engagement partners, proselytizers or customers?

The report also estimates that 34% of Twitter never have posted, and a huge 73% of Twitter’s users tweeted less than 10 times. So, nearly all of the tweets result from about 25% of Twitter doing all the writing.

Looking across social media, the same patterns are likely to hold to a great or lesser degree. And it’s also true that those who play the numbers game in social media can still point to the millions who came and fed at their particular buffett, thus potentially pleasing management or client. We should all be alert to two key points often stressed on The Buzz Bin.

First, the numbers don’t mean a thing unless you have a plan to affect the attitudes about your organization or client and, more importantly, create the behaviors critical to success. Views without  further engagement are only worth what they bring to your awareness, and don’t necessarily have an effect on the success of your new marketing efforts.

Second. and probably more interesting to me, is this notion of the difference between eating at the buffet and eating at a fine restaurant. In which place are you more likely to stop and really taste the food?

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Michael Whitlow | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (4)

SxSW Vibe: Enough Social, What’s Next?

March 15, 2010 – 4:29 am
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by Geoff Livingston

This year’s SxSW had an interesting flavor to it (image by marcatsworld). You get the strong feeling that conversations and panels about social media have hit the wall. There’s an air of autumn to the conversations, and a consistent undercurrent revolving around what’s next.

Everyone knows that organizations are still rapidly moving towards adoption and there are still, MANY, MANY best practices to be adopted. Yet, there’s no longer a newness to the dance; rather an acceptance that it must be learned or a conversation about continuing to refine skills. From MysPace and Digg to Facebook and Twitter conversations, social media fatigue reigns in Austin.

The vibrant SxSW conversations focused on new technologies or new applications. From new contests and social good to GPS based activity and mapping, people were focused on what’s next. And for the heart of the interactive community, the early adopter community, this makes sense.

What does this mean for the average communicator? We are in a phase where it’s no longer hip to announce your new social capabilities. You either do it, or you need to quietly learn, adapt and get it. Further, it needs to be integrated within the larger offering.

At the same time, I sense we have a big mouthful to chew with social. Verticalization and specialization within social will be a huge factor. While mobility continues to be a big factor (FourSquare vs. Gowalla, for example) and is getting wrapped into the social conversation, there’s an unease as we seek what’s next. Maybe we already have what’s next, but there sure seem to be a lot of icebergs looming in the dark…

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Comments (3)
Mar 11 2010

Seven Ways Hospitals Can Address Facebook Criticism

March 11, 2010 – 7:00 am

By Jenn Riggle

Photo courtesy of Stacy Bass

Honesty may be the best policy – but sometimes it can hurt.

While social media allows organizations to engage in honest conversations with their customers, it can also provide a forum for angry customers to voice their concerns. How you respond to these comments says a lot about you and your organization.

Online comments don’t just impact organizations – newspapers are learning how to handle them as well. The Washington Post recently wrote a story about how people are hesitant to be quoted in articles because they’re afraid of negative online comments. And to be honest, I don’t blame them.

Corporate brands like Gatorade and Dominos have seen first-hand how people can hijack their Facebook pages to air their grievances. But rather than respond, they just turned the other cheek.

Facebook has the potential to be an even bigger issue for hospitals. Some are worried about Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) violations, while others, like the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, are blocking social media sites like Facebook because they’re concerned their employees spend too much time online.

But isn’t this throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Rather than blocking social media sites, hospitals need to have a social media policy that outlines when it’s appropriate to use social media while also allaying lawyers’ concerns about HIPAA and patient privacy.

And while it’s always good policy to wear the “white hat,” that doesn’t mean you can’t take steps to defend yourself. There are some simple things hospitals can do to address Facebook criticism. These include:

Being Transparent: Social media values honesty and transparency, so if you’re going to delete comments from your Facebook page, you should post a disclaimer that says you reserve the right to edit or delete offensive comments. You may also want to explain why you removed a comment, particularly if it violated patient confidentiality. Of course, if someone is talking about their own patient experience, this doesn’t apply.

Posting a Disclaimer Policy: Even though more than 300 hospitals have established Facebook pages, few have a Facebook disclaimer policy. It may seem like overkill, but in the spirit of being open and honest, a disclaimer policy states that the views expressed on the Facebook page are not the views of your hospital and that you reserve the right to edit or delete any inappropriate comments. Both Allina Hospitals & Clinics and Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital (part of Spectrum Health) have good examples of Facebook disclaimers.

Monitoring What People Are Saying: It’s not enough to just create a Facebook page and update the content, you need to monitor the conversation on a regular basis so you can address negative comments before they become major issues. This is especially important since patients in your Emergency Department are posting updates to their Facebook or Twitter accounts from their smart phones. And according to Not Nurse Ratched, even though the employees at her hospital aren’t allowed to use Facebook at work, it’s become an integral part of their lives. People come into the ED all of the time, asking hospital staff to take photos of their injuries so they can post them on their Facebook pages.   

Being Quick and Concise: By responding quickly to negative comments, you have a chance to rectify the situation before it spins out of control. And remember, if you’re going to answer a comment, don’t respond in anger or frustration. Instead, put on your customer service hat and see what you can do to fix the problem.

Deleting Inappropriate Comments: Once you have posted a disclaimer, you have told your fans you reserve the right to remove offensive comments. SpiderWriters wisely recommends you think carefully before removing comments because you don’t want to look like you’re only allowing comments that paint your hospital in a positive light. Another good resource is Facebook’s Statement of Rights & Responsibilities. But ultimately, you need to follow your heart and do what you think is right.

Making It a Teaching Moment: You can’t just ignore a negative comment, especially if it brings up a valid concern. By addressing the issue publicly, you show fans that you’re listening and willing to engage in a two-way conversation, even if it might be uncomfortable. It also allows you to re-frame the conversation and tell your side of the story.

Not Airing Your Dirty Laundry In Public: If someone continues to post negative comments, try to guide them to an online forum or move the conversation to phone or e-mail. This way both sides can speak more freely and it won’t interfere with other people’s comments.

And while no one likes to read negative things about themselves, it’s important to consider these comments as constructive criticism. If you handle them correctly, you have a chance to turn a negative experience into a positive one.

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Jenn Riggle | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , | Comments (9)
Mar 8 2010

Is Trust In Twitter Misplaced?

March 8, 2010 – 6:53 am
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Now that Twitter hype is starting to cool off a bit, marketers need to take the time to evaluate the real value of this social network. First of all, Twitter offers a great place to talk with technologists, marketers, journalists, select stars and cause-activists. However, it’s not that great of a social network to reach buyers (h/t Valeria Maltoni).

Delving deeper, social media whiz Jeremiah Owyang recently compared Google Buzz, MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. His analysis compared the networks from a perspective on where customers already are. His one liner on Twitter, “Has opportunity to become utility-like infrastructure, but not a destination.”

John Bell recently wrote that Twitter is a great communal location. It’s also not that great of a place for much more beyond great mass public events a la Mumbai, Iran, etc., and micro community chat center.

Now, we have well discussed the growth of mobile media and its importance to the future. Here, Twitter shows more promise. Recent ComScore usage reveals 4.7 million mobile “Tweeple,” but Facebook still rules with 25 million mobile users.

All in all, Twitter has solidified its place in the social network world. At the same time that place seems to be one of public chatter and quick timely movements. If your community is out there, this is a great place to be.

It’s also definitely not the only social network to maintain a presence on. Now more than ever, communicators need to be in touch with their communities of interest and be present where they are. Not where the hype engine tells you to be…

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AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Digital Marketing | Tagged , , , | Comments (6)