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Social networking – welcome to the world of timewasting… (part two) Getting it right.
August 19th, 2009
On a previous blog I highlighted how Social networking has taken over the lives of a whole generation and that marketers struggle to understand and use it.
There are various lessons marketers need to understand to get it right:
1. All people on sites are not the same
Marketer who use a broad demographic targeting on social networking sites are assuming that all 18-24’s are the same.
But that was not the way the sites built themselves up.
• The founders of MySpace invited Los Angeles’ communities of rock musicians, surfers and models to be their first MySpacers. And because they were all models, rock stars and surfers, others followed, and they quickly became the BIGGEST social networking site.
• Facebook talked first exclusively to college students. And then when they opened the site up, millions of others followed them.
• In Korea, the SK Telecom CyWorld portal started by attracting sociable young women, knowing that where sociable young women go, men also follow like flies. CyWorld now has almost 99% penetration among young Koreans.
Marketers should follow suit, introducing their cool wares to the cooler people on social networking sites. They in turn will introduce the wares to their friends and acolytes.
2. Don’t think individuals. Think herds
Man likes to think he’s a free thinking individual, but in reality he reacts as if he’s in a herd.
• When buying in a new market for the first time, most people gravitate towards buying the brand leader. The one most other people buy.
• Restaurants encourage early diners to sit at or near the window because passers are encouraged that other people are dining there.
• Research has shown that people who decide themselves to do something are rare. There are many more ‘early adopters’ – people who wait for cool people to do something, and then to copy them.
Marketers should recognise these herd patterns when they use social networking.
Don’t invite individual MySpacers to try out your new bar or restaurant: invite groups of friends.
Don’t invite individuals to enter your competition either: invite groups of friends to compete or collaborate to win.
3. Social networking can communicate popularity.
For many people popularity is a key part of social networking. One of the most popular features on social networking sites is the counter that tells teens how many friends they have. For many, managing their own popularity rating has become an end in its own right.
Popularity is just as important in the business world: business networking portal LinkedIn finds execs trying build as many contacts as possible in the same way that kids do on their own social networking sites. They want to make sure they have more contacts that their colleagues.
In the TV era, brewers briefed their ad agencies to fill their beer commercials with people, because research showed that a beer that was popular was likely to succeed.
In the online era though many brands have tried to communicate popularity but failed. In the late 1990’s many spirits brands created online social spaces where their users could interact. But few downloaded the software that allowed them to do so. The spirits brands threw parties but no-one came.
In the real world, only sad people go to a bar just for a drink. Most people socialise, meet a partner and drink as they do so.
The same goes for web presences. Only a sad person goes to a website to drink in the brand values of a spirits brand. Drinks brands that aspire to be sociable need to give people other reasons to go there.
4. The sites may be global, but the people on them are not.
How often do you REALLY know who is on the other end in cybersace? Research shows that in some virtual worlds, as many as 19% of the women you meet are actually men…
On SecondLife, Europeans and Americans don’t mix much because Europeans go to bed before Americans get home from work. And even Europeans don’t mix much – SecondLife is full of separate groups of Germans, Dutch, Spanish and Italians who don’t mix because they don’t speak each other’s language.
On social networking sites, most people’s friends are not just within the same country. They are within the same city.
Marketers should therefore look at social networking as a city-by-city phenomenon rather than a broad national demographics.
The web may be world wide, but its users are not.