Followers and fans are just useless numbers

// June 17th, 2010 // No Comments » // Blog

I don’t care that your Twitter profile has thousands of followers or if your Facebook fan page has thousands of fans. Until you can show the value of those users they are just meaningless numbers.

Social media marketing is full of metrics that can impress clients such as follower count, but until they are put in context they mean absolutely nothing. If your Twitter account has 1000 followers that may seem good, but when you some research and find that all of your competitors have at least 3,000 followers, the sheen wears off. (more…)

The Psychology of Social Currency

// June 2nd, 2010 // 2 Comments » // Blog

Social currency is a term that is gaining popularity in the social media community, but as a concept it is not a new idea. Social currency simply refers to the value that information has when it is shared between individuals, something has a good social currency if people want to continue to share it.

A good example of social currency is gossip, people will share rumours with their friends, who in turn will share with their friends, which is why rumours can spread like wildfire. But the key to understanding social currency is to understand the psychology behind sharing, why do people want to share? Ultimately people share when it benefits them, when they get some personal value out of sharing. The single most important component of social currency is personal value.

Basic human needs

Personal value itself is typified by fulfilling two basic human needs, the need to belong and the need to feel significant.

Humans are social beings; we are compelled to identify ourselves as belonging to groups of similar people. This need to belong is the most important element of personal value – people share content to show that they belong to a certain group of people. People will join groups on Facebook to show that they belong, quite literally, to that group of people. Just as people will tend to dress themselves according to quite specific social groups, the things we share and advocate are just another way of identifying ourselves with a group.

Within these groups individuals want to feel valued in that group; they want a feeling of significance. People who share content do so to get recognition from others in that group and in doing so give themselves significance. An offline analogy is an individual in a group of friends who always wants to be the one telling jokes; they gain significance by sharing jokes with their friends.

Social currency therefore not only provides value to the end users, but also provide additional personal value as a form of currency when shared.

Four further types of Value

Personal value can be broken down into four further types of value: Utility, Knowledge, Entertainment and Monetary.

Utility

This is literally something useful, be it a piece of useful content such as a “how to” guide or a fully fledged branded utility. Branded utilities are where brands create something that provides a tangible, useful benefit to users, such as banks providing applications that allow users to compare the various interest rates

Knowledge

A different kind of value can be gained when people share knowledge within their group. This can start from people who remind their friends that a mutual friend’s birthday is approaching right through to thought leaders in industry, who produce white papers and innovative new methods of working. The personal value is a reward for individuals who share their knowledge; they are valuable members of that community.

Entertainment

Probably the oldest and certainly one of the most common, types of social currency that provides personal value from entertainment is the joke. People tell each other jokes to make members of their group laugh, just as they share funny videos with their social networks and email each other funny pictures. Providing entertaining social currency to your peers gives you significance within your peer group.

Monetary

The final type of value a user can receive from social currency is monetary or financial value. A good example is the online coupons that brands encourage their customers to share with their friends, entitling them to a discount. It is of value not only to the end user, but also to the sharer, as their community gives them kudos for sharing the discount.

Multiplying the effect

These values are not delivered in isolation however, the types of value can be combined to provide stronger social currency, with common examples including useful financial knowledge in the form of “How to live on a budget” guides or entertaining information, which explains why infographics are so widely popular.

At the end of the day, if your brand doesn’t have social currency, if the content it produces isn’t entertaining or useful, if it doesn’t share knowledge or provide a monetary benefit to users then people won’t share it. So what social currency does your brand have?

Having a social media campaign is a stupid idea

// May 10th, 2010 // No Comments » // Blog

Social media is no longer new territory. Gone are the days where we are impressed by a brand interacting with users in social spaces. Social Media is tried and tested, with case studies from Starbucks, Dell, Wallmart and many other huge brand names.

Now attempting to create a social media campaign is outdated. Now is the age of integration. Creating any element of a campaign in isolation is not only the sign of a poor strategy, but it’s a wasted opportunity.

Social media should now be considered in the brainstorming sessions of fully integrated campaigns, and no longer reserved just for seeding or tacked on to the end of a larger campaign.

Just like any other medium, social media works better as part of a fully integrated offline and online strategic approach to campaigns, with each element complimenting and amplifying each other.

Just having a Twitter a page doesn’t cut it anymore. Having an isolated social media campaign is a stupid idea.

How to not act like a dick in Social Media

// April 29th, 2010 // No Comments » // Blog

A handy set of guidelines to help to navigate the social media ocean without being a dick

Why you shouldn’t set up a Facebook page for your brand

// April 26th, 2010 // No Comments » // Blog

Contrary to popular belief it is not a good idea just to jump in to social media. It’s not important to “just be there” – you need to know why you are there. You need to have a clear understanding of what you want to put into your online presence, and what you want to get out. In other words you need to have a clear strategy for your online activity. (more…)

Your Facebook fans aren’t a community, and probably don’t want to be either

// February 20th, 2010 // No Comments » // Blog

One of the biggest problems to face social media marketing is that due to it being a relatively new area there is little in the way of “text book” theories. That’s not to say that there aren’t books on the subject, there are hundreds. But, whilst many share similar ideas, the field just isn’t as developed as traditional marketing.

As such, the industry tends to suffer from buzzword mentality, jumping from one buzzword theory to the next. One term in particular that has stuck is community marketing, upon which many other loosely developed theories have been built. In fact, the term has become fundamental to how many in the social media industry think about their work and sells it in to clients. “You need to engage your community!” self pronounced social media experts (read social media douchebags) decry, probably because someone writing for Mashable has told them so. (more…)

The evolution of Social Business Strategy: How the customer took control of the conversation

// February 3rd, 2010 // No Comments » // Blog

Marketing underwent a massive shift in the last half century, with traditional methods of mass marketing moving to more niche strategies, targeting small groups or even individuals. The change came about as companies were able to learn more about their customers; improvements in technology meant they were able to gather huge amounts of transactional data and use this information to target relevant marketing material to their customers. (more…)

Does Mainstream Media get Twitter? The Express clearly don’t

// January 18th, 2010 // No Comments » // Blog

Not a day goes past without some mainstream media post about Twitter. It really is the poster child for social media. But, how many people in mainstream media really get it? As in enough to know the difference between the number of people a user follower, and the number or people that follow that user? (more…)

Social Media shifts from Tactics to Strategy

// December 22nd, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog

Marketing Sherpa has released a report titled “2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark report” which details the importance of strategy in social media marketing.

It demonstrates that we are shifting phase in the social media marketing roll out, from the trial phase, where companies dip their toes in the social media ocean, to the strategic phase, where companies begin to integrate social media into to their core business. It is important to note that in the trial phase, companies are concerned with learning what works, largely by trial and error. As we move in to the strategic phase the focus shifts to proving the value of social media activity through quantifiable ROI, among other success measures. (more…)

Facebook beginning to look like Big Brother

// December 10th, 2009 // No Comments » // Blog

In their increasing attempt to dominate the social space Facebook has announced drastic changes to the privacy controls of a person’s profile and content. In short, Facebook wants you to share your content with everyone.

One of the reasons that Facebook has proved popular was that it was a walled community. It was a place for you and your friends, not the strange guy who lives down the road. Facebook has been continually opening itself up, and in the process been alienating users. (more…)