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Social Networking Posts
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.
Social networking – ‘Welcome to the world of timewasting’… (part one)
August 11th, 2009
Over the past 3 years, social networking sites have gained hundreds of millions of users. They have become the operating system teens and twenty-somethings use to run their lives.
1. Social netorking sites let them check out friends of friends; the source of most people’s dates.
2. It tells them when those friends of friends are in relationships or not. SO THEY KNOW EXACTLY WHEN TO HIT ON THEM.
3. Many teens struggle with email because email demands grammar whereas their vocabulary extends to words such as ‘hey’ and ‘whatever’. Social networking allows them to connect without writing prose.
4. Social networking lets young men check out their best mate’s biggest secret – their attractive younger sister. In her bikini.
5. It builds village like communities within cities, schools and companies.
6. Microblogging features on sites like Twitter.com, letting each other know of their every move.
7. Social networking lets them effortlessly share last night’s photos with friends. And to point out whose tongue was down whose throat.. Professional social sites like LinkedIn.com offer jobs, forums and references.
SOCIAL NETWORKING HAS BECOME THE KILLER APP FOR THE WORLD WIDE WEB
BUT MARKETERS STRUGGLE TO USE IT. When they do, they do so clumsily, using broad demographics to place marketing materials all over the site. Social networkers may tolerate dumb advertising on TV but when it appears on their ’space’ they move on. This is why people migrated from MySpace to Facebook.
And Facebook too is now surrendering to commercial imperatives, as ads from credit reference agencies start to appear on Facebood feeds.
PART TWO on how to get it right to follow……
Do the Oldies matter?
May 16th, 2009
‘The fastest-growing group using the Internet are the over fifty-fives’.
That’s fact apparently. Although I don’t come under this category (!) we need to look seriously at an ageing population and the online marketing implications going forward. My 81 year old father-in-law is online at least 2 hours a day and is far more adept than some I have seen at half his age!
Take for example Figleaves, an online underwear site, which is now launching an underwear range specifically aimed at the 30 and 40-something women who buy its bras. No longer is online for youth. The average age at the video library site VideoJug is 40, and higher still for the cooking section of the site.
Some of the most successful sites relish in their mature customer base. Take Glassesdirect, for example, where Jamie Murray, it’s founder and CEO says ‘we’re concrete proof of the rise of the silver surfer – they have been integral to our growth’. And then what about the highly successful and profitable John Lewis site, which wouldn’t get my 20 year old anywhere near it!
Buying wine online also appeals to an older age group, as has been seen by Laithwaites Wines. They are selling online to people well into their 60’s and 70’s. But the marketing channels will be very different from those of a much younger age group.
Whereas there is little point in emailing under 30’s this has to be the route for an older customer. This younger group communicate almost exlusively through social networking sites – Facebook, MySpace and now Twitter, although it seems inevitable that this way of communicating will become the norm across the age spectrum. SAGA is apparently looking at setting up their own social networking site, so this is only around the corner.
But one word of warning – Spam is just as irritating whether 18 or 80.
I’m all of a Twitter … but is it relevant?
March 13th, 2009
Last week, in an endeavour to be up to the minute with the latest trends, I registered for Twitter. ‘Everyone’s doing it’, I heard, ’I better not get left behind’.
OK – so now I am registered – what do I do with it? And is it relevant to my business at all?
The way of doing business seems to be changing, and this is being driven by some very bright and interesting people who are changing the way we do things. Most are quite young, and most of them have pages on Facebook. Lot’s of them now also Twitter (yes, it’s officially a verb). It’s the next big thing. Simply put – it’s a simple way to communicate. A tweet is no more than 140 characters and can go out to all of your friends’ mobile phones, by email or via the web. Twitter has gone beserk and now has over 6 million users. Starbucks, Nike and Barack Obama are brands that Twitter and no doubt others will follow.
Without noticing, brands have begun making friends with us on social networks. Marmite apparently has 228,234 friends on Facebook, proof that brands are getting to us in more ways than one. The Marmite site was set up by Unilever, hardly at the forefront of edgy innovation and technology. But if Unilever are taking social networking that seriously, what can we learn?
Well, it shows that consumers like to show their loyalty to a brand, even through these virtual media. It’s like wearing a virtual badge and belonging to a large loyalty group. For Marmite, it brings together all those who share a common love (or hate!). I have no idea if this brings added revenue to the bottom line, but it definitely adds another dimension to the marketing cake.
So – yes – I do think it’s relevant, and we should all endeavour to embrace social networking and find a way to to build it into our business models.