March 19, 2013 · 10:19 am

SOCIAL MEDIA: LESS IS MORE

Originally posted on the Waggener Edstrom blog http://bit.ly/ZOpwoG

Recently I presented at Social Media Week in Singapore, on the topic of ‘Where Should You Be Social?’ The session proved very fruitful with more than 60 attendees taking part in an active discussion on how best to rationalize a personal or professional social presence.

The rapid rise of social media has left us with dozens of mainstream options for creating a social media profile, but it’s difficult to maintain a social life if all you do is manage social media all day. We talked about the need to concentrate efforts, either as an individual or a company, in the platforms that really matter. In short, the way to do this is to have clearly defined objectives, identify where the target audience is already active, and understand their motivations for using each platform.

The crux of the argument is that splitting a social presence across too many platforms is not only time consuming, but also ineffective and potentially damaging to one’s reputation or brand. We had all attendees complete a simple survey which backs up this hypothesis – the more platforms created, the lower the proportion actively managed.

  • Everyone’s Everywhere: From a personal perspective, the vast majority (46%) have a presence on 6-10 platforms. A further 23% have a concentrated presence on 0-5 platforms, while as many as 17% have 16 or more profiles.
  • More Presence, Less Activity People using 10 or less platforms tend to use 66% of their profiles on a very frequent basis (at least once every two days) with only 23% logged-into infrequently (less than once a fortnight). However, as more platforms are added, the usage becomes lower – those with more than 16 platforms use just 30% frequently while 57% are infrequent. Of these, a large amount of profiles are completely inactive, but still publicly discoverable.
  • Conservative Professionals People are more conservative when it comes to business – 84% of respondents use 0-10 platforms professionally. Again, the utilization of platforms drops dramatically as volume increases. Users with 0-5 platforms access 48% of their profiles frequently and 19% infrequently, though these respectively fall and rise to 20% and 71% for users with more than 15 profiles.

Inactive and infrequently updated platforms aren’t going to do anything to advance a personal cause or brand reputation. In many instances, they are even going to be damaging as the owner is perceived as disorganized, uncommitted, or unaware. As such, it’s certainly better to have fewer platforms and use them more effectively.

  • In the Lead: With regards to platform popularity, it’s unsurprising that Facebook comes out on top for both personal and professional use. It turns out that some people actually do not have a Facebook page with 94% using it personally, but a slightly lower 83% for business. What’s interesting is that business pages are used or updated much less frequently than personal pages – 90% and 52%, respectively.
  • Who’s Popular? Other popular personal platforms include WhatsApp (90% use it, of which 85% do so frequently) and YouTube (81%, 63% frequently), while LinkedIn (56%, 25% frequently) and Skype (56%, 27% frequently) are utilized more often by businesses. Despite its continued growth, Twitter only comes in fourth for either use with 77% and 54% penetration in personal and business circles, respectively.

Brands need to reflect the consumption habits of their audiences to take full advantage of their social presence. For instance, the figures indicate that although YouTube is used on an almost daily basis by individuals, less than half of respondents have business accounts and nearly 75% of them fail to use the platform more than once a month. As such, it is often a missed opportunity.

That doesn’t necessarily mean that brands should simply concentrate their marketing efforts on the platforms most popular for personal use. The most important thing is understanding the audience’s motivations for using each platform – it’s unlikely that anyone wants to receive advertising through WhatsApp and, similarly, Facebook isn’t always the right place for marketing.

Our brief study shows that when it comes to managing a social presence, less is definitely more. Individuals and brands need to stick to the three golden rules (identify objectives, establish where the target audience is active, and understand their motivations) and build from the ground up, adding social platforms only when they are ready to pay them the attention they need. That’s the key to understanding where you should be social, and how to be successful when you get there.

SMW, Social Media Week, Singapore, social media, digital pr, Peter McFeely

Less is More – rationalise your social presence on social media. Survey results from Social Media Week Singapore SMW

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February 14, 2013 · 3:48 pm

Where Should You Be Social?

My blog posted on http://socialmediaweek.org/singapore ahead of next week’s series of events:

Whatever your reason for using social media, whether you’re trying to sell products or build a personal brand, it’s all about making the right connections. But you can’t make the right connections without following a few simple steps…

Find out more at the event itself, details can be found here. Hope to see you there!

MAKING THE RIGHT CONNECTIONS…

Whatever your reason for using social media, it’s all about making the right connections. Make sure you do it right by following these simple steps

1. TALK TO PEOPLE

It might sound obvious but you have to talk to people. Too many social media users just create profiles and push content out, hoping that someone is listening.

Think about it like this – if you went to a party hoping to meet that special someone and stood in the corner talking to yourself, you probably wouldn’t do too well. It’s important to work your way into the conversations people are already having.

2. SAY SOMETHING MEMORABLE

Once you start talking to people, you need to say something that makes an impression. Everyone else at the party is trying to chat up the popular girls but they’re sick of hearing the same thing.

Your content needs to be original, interesting, funny… and relevant. Think about what is going to impress your target, not what you and your mates like to talk about.

3. STOP TALKING

… and give the girl a chance to talk back. In other words, have a conversation. Nobody wants to listen to you talk non-stop, especially if all you’re doing is talk about yourself. Listen to what they say and let them be part of the dialogue.

Ideally, you don’t just want people to be talking to you – you want them to be talking about you. Independent conversations are a strong sign that you’ve made an impression.

4. MAKE SURE YOU’RE TALKING TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE

Again, this sounds obvious and you’d assume it would be the first step. If you want to meet a nice girl you probably shouldn’t be spending all your time watching football in the pub and talking to other guys. It doesn’t matter how funny or interesting you are, it’s not going to help you meet girls. Right?

You wouldn’t make these mistakes in your social life, but plenty of people make them in social media.

If you want to make the right connections, you have to be talking to the right people. The question isn’t, “should you be using social media?” rather, “where should you be social?”

Rationalising your social presence is the most important step in being successful. To learn more, join Peter McFeely of Waggener Edstrom on Wednesday, 20th February at the Screening Room – sign up for the event now HERE.

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· 3:19 pm

Events » Singapore

Social Media Week Singapore 2013 Where Should You Be Social?

WHERE SHOULD YOU BE SOCIAL?

I’m speaking at Social Media Week 2013 in Singapore next week (Wednesday 20th February) on how to rationalise your social presence. Sign-up at the link below:

Events » Singapore.

'#SMWSG' 'Social Media Week' 'Singapore' 'Where Should You be Social?' 'Peter McFeely' 'Waggener Edstrom'

Where Should You Be Social?

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December 21, 2011 · 11:33 pm

Still waiting for the social revolution…

It’s been quite some time since I have managed to write something, owing to a combination of professional and personal commitments (Christmas is a hectic time of the year!). I’m currently sitting in an airport on the way home to see my family and thought I should use the time constructively. Otherwise I’d just be sitting around waiting. For both a flight and the social revolution.

The past twelve months have been dominated by uprisings, revolutions and cries of social injustice. From the Arab Spring to the badlands of London, not forgetting the Occupy movement (comical Singaporean attempt to get involved included), we haven’t been able to look on or offline without seeing some masked freedom fighter / yob (delete as appropriate) opposing one thing or another. To nicely bookend the year in which Time has named the protester as their person of the year, a celebrated revolutionary has passed away. That’s Vaclav Havel by the way not Kim Jong-Il…

Much has been written about the role social media played in the popular (and unpopular) uprisings with censorship in the Middle East criticised and censorship in the UK advocated (Shut down the networks! Bring back the gallows!) but one mass uprising that hasn’t transpired is the social network shift.

Google+ promises to be a wondrous thing – it’ll change the way the entire internet works and redefine the interaction between social and search. Now if only people would bloody well start using it.

Despite Google’s appalling track record in creating social networks, critics, influencers and people generally in the know all threw their weight behind Google+. I also jumped on board, creating a profile, following some people and waiting for the magic to happen. But it hasn’t. Everyone else was supposed to sign up and we’d all stop getting crappy updates about Farmville and would live happily ever after on a platform which lets you get only the information you want. It’s not to say we’d stop using Facebook, just that we could somewhere else for more educated conversation. But to be honest I’ve not even really tried to use Google+ much. It’s just not as fun.

Facebook has come back stronger than ever. New and easier (if imperfect) ways of grouping friends, the introduction of video chats, improved tagging functions and, of course, the most recent addition: the timeline. Facebook is a little like the rich kid in the playground: while everyone else is busy swapping football stickers, FB just goes out and buys every packet ‘til he’s completed his album. And he’ll buy the other kids’ stickers too.

As usual, Facebook is awash with complaints about the new layout. As usual, in a few months’ time, everyone will have forgotten what the old layout was like and will have embraced the all-conquering new set-up. Facebook is so effective that Twitter has introduced pages for brands. With every new feature introduced by any major platform the lines are becoming more and more blurred, potentially to the stage where the only differentiator is the URL.

But that’s where Google+ comes in. Forget about the cool features or the ability to hangout with your friends in a video call. Forget about the stuff that other platforms can replicate (and in many instances make better). The complete integration of search is what will herald the social revolution.

Social interactions already influence search performance. Likes and Tweets tell Google (and other search engines) that a page is shareable and is delivering real value to users. That’s the same for a +1 – but if brands create a Google+ page to host its shareable content they are going to appear higher in a Google search.

Search engines also track user history, trying to show you the most relevant results and ads. Until Google+ they couldn’t really track social habits. Now, when Google+ users are logged in, organic search results will be affected by their social history. Even more importantly, so will the paid results, meaning brands and companies will, theoretically, have their content displayed to a more targeted audience resulting in higher click through and greater ROI. So a user is more likely to see your ad or your web page in search results if they have +1ed your social content.

What it ultimately means is that brands and companies who don’t currently have a presence on social media could be compelled to participate, just so that their search results improve. One could argue that any company with a presence online should be taking part in Google+ as it will ultimately improve their search performance.

Of course, that depends on mass user participation on the platform. At the minute, users aren’t adopting Google+ and until they do, a lot of brands aren’t going to take part. Even a lot of those that have established a presence aren’t creating unique content and are just recycling material from elsewhere.

So like the political uprisings we wait to see when public participation will reach the magic tipping point. Google is determined to force users to take part, integrating + with all its other platforms, most recently and likely to be of most impact, YouTube. Once we reach the tipping point we should see a serious shift in how companies use social media and, indeed, the internet.

Maybe 2012 will be the year of the social revolution…

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October 31, 2011 · 5:50 pm

Is the internet really that important?

It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted here, one of the main reasons being that for a few weeks I was travelling around New Zealand, a country apparently entirely devoid of wi-fi or non-coin-operated internet kiosks. Yet I survived. I still knew what was happening in the world. My clients didn’t resign. My bank account didn’t automatically close. I wasn’t the victim of a mass unfriending on Facebook or Twitter (at least not to my knowledge). It made me think – do I really need perpetual online connection?

A little disclaimer before I get started – obviously the internet is very important. The title was just a controversial statement to try to get you to click through – it would appear to have worked! The internet has changed the way we do business and the way we learn. It has opened up new resources, increased the speed and efficiency of communication and streamlined many processes. The internet is a good thing. Without it the world would regress. But, outside of work and school, it has also made massive changes to the way we conduct our personal lives. From the way we get information, to the way we interact with other people, right through to how we choose to spend our spare time, the internet has transformed society. Going cold turkey for two weeks highlighted what I would call ‘online overdependence’.

In the few weeks I was offline I was still up-to-speed with the latest news. In fact, I probably knew more about more things than when I’m plugged-in. I didn’t watch much TV, but when I did, I didn’t just watch mindless entertainment programmes and sport. I watched the news and current affairs programmes. I even read newspapers, some from cover to cover. I watched and read reports from all the sections, not just those on the front page of a website or in the most read and most shared sections. Yes, Twitter gives me bite-sized information on a wide array of topics but its usually running in the background while I do something else. Reading a newspaper needs your devoted attention.

To get in touch with friends and family I used a telephone. In truth, I didn’t even use it that much – I sent a few messages to my parents back in Northern Ireland but when connecting with friends in New Zealand it was generally getting in touch before meeting up. We arranged a meeting point and met there, without constant communication. Old school. I focused my attention on the people I was with and didn’t need to check-in anywhere to enjoy myself. Without the distraction of logging-on or checking updates, we all had a lot more conversation and enjoyed the moment without pausing to post a picture which somebody on the other side of the world, who doesn’t care, won’t look at.

I didn’t even think about work. As I mentioned above, New Zealand doesn’t really do wi-fi. Especially as I was in some very remote places. As such, New Zealand didn’t really even do phone networks. It drives me mad when colleagues and clients send emails when they’re supposed to be on leave. The only thing that annoys me more is when they send me emails when I’m on leave, expecting a reply. Thanks to the lack of connectivity there was simply no way for us to get in touch with each other. I rediscovered my love of the great outdoors (the fact it wasn’t 30-odd degrees or 90% humidity helped matters along nicely) and spent most of my spare time outside, being active and enjoying myself. No checking of emails late at night. No persistent Facebooking. No casual internet browsing. Just pure unadulterated offline fun.

I don’t think it was a coincidence that being entirely offline coincided with one of my best ever holidays. I have become over-dependent on the internet. Not having it meant that I only did things in which I had a genuine interest and only spoke to people with whom I actually wanted to talk. No killing time from site to site or bumbling along different social profiles. It was great.

 

So does that mean that, socially, the internet isn’t important? Of course not. I’m not going to close any of my social profiles as a result of my trip (even if it weren’t part of my job to have them I wouldn’t shut them down). They still let me stay in touch with friends around the world and get information from sources to which I wouldn’t otherwise have access. I also don’t think my employment would last too long if I permanently refused to answer emails from clients or colleagues.

More to the point, without the internet, I couldn’t have had the holiday I enjoyed. From researching, to reading countless reviews of accomodation and activites, to making reservations and completing bookings, the internet was integral to the planning. We had printed driving directions and maps for every leg of the journey. We had an iPad loaded with an interactive map of New Zealand’s major cities, as well as downloaded  TV shows and movies – a godsend on a long-haul budget flight lacking personal entertainment.

So I’m not going offline permanently. But I am going to be trying to reduce my dependence on the internet. I won’t be reaching for my smartphone every 15 minutes (starting to wear a watch again has already helped that!) and I’ll be proactively managing my social media engagement to ensure I never become one of those people who tweets photos of their takeaway coffee. In short I won’t be letting the internet dictate everything I do.

The internet is incredibly important – but I’m beginning to think it’s not really that important.

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September 23, 2011 · 12:57 am

Interactive video: Draw a Stickman

This is a really cool tactic from a web design company called hitcents. I’ll not give too much away but it’s an interactive video in which the user actively participates – first by drawing a stickman and then completing different tasks. The company’s message is that people should “be creative every day” and bringing the consumer directly on a creative journey is a great way of getting the message across.

The narrative of the video doesn’t have much to do with the company, but the techincal and creative aspects of the tactic beautifully showcase the copmany’s abilities, both in conceptualisation and execution. The fact there is a narrative and the viewer is involved throughout means maximum engagement. They also seem to have a pretty good understanding that people often don’t realise who or what is behind cool online content like this, so they even make the video interact with their logo / brand in a very smart metaphorical way (look out for it!).

To complete things, hitcents have got an automated sharing plug-in with a pop-out menu at the start and a prompt to use Facebook, Twitter or good old email to tell your friends about the site at the end.

Hitcents have really hit the nail on the head in creating shareable content. It’s a really fun idea and a great way to kill five minutes … and something you’ll tell your friends to try too. Check it out below.

www.drawastickman.com

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September 16, 2011 · 12:26 pm

What do Facebook subscriptions mean to PR people?

Everyone seems to be talking about Facebook’s newest feature – subscriptions - and I wanted to clarify how it effects digital PR and brands. And by everyone, I of course mean all the tech sites and social media geeks like me. Obviously there are some more important things going on like the Rugby World Cup or Scarlett Johansson getting naked.

What is it?

Basically it’s a Twitter / Google+ style feature that allows you to follow someone’s updates without having a reciprocal relationship. It would appear that the launch of Facebook subscriptions is a direct response to competitor features, and more likely to Google+. It means that you can have a social connection to anyone on Facebook without having to worry about whether or not you have a personal connection in real-life or if they will accept your friend request.

Who is it useful for?

The obvious people who will be choosing to enable the ‘subscribe’ function are celebrities, superusers, artists and journalists. Those people who are likely to draw large crowds, whether it’s because they are thought leaders or just plain famous. Only public content will be broadcast to subscribers (stuff people could see if they searched for your profile anyway) and it allows people to manage all their content in one place – instead of having a profile and a fan page. Profiles appear higher in search so it’s particularly useful for budding cebrities, as opposed to the Justin Biebers of the world.

Another nice function of subscriptions is that the subscriber can choose what content to receive. In other words, you can choose to not ever see another game update (I really don’t care about Farmville) from your loose connections, but still have access to their photos and posts.

For PR people, subscriptions are useful for connecting with journalists, client prospects and competitors. You can see what they are saying and keep on top of news without having to friend them – so you don’t have to be best mates with every two-bit reporter just to understand what they might like to hear in a pitch.

The big thing about subscriptions is that they show a shift in how Facebook expects its users to behave. The whole premise of the platform is to create a social network; to bring together communities who interact and share content with each other. The word share implies an action that would generate two-way communication. Now Facebook is moving towards the oftentimes one-way model of Twitter and Google+. It will be interesting to see how widely individual users embrace it.

What does it mean for Digital PR?

The short answer is not much. There is the utility for PR practitioners to ‘subscribe’ (i.e. follow) journalists or other industry interests, but I don’t see it taking off. People are already using Twitter for this and there isn’t really a need to do the same thing with the same people in two different places. That’s one of the reasons Google+ is struggling to take off. In any case, from my experience, people tend to use Facebook as a more personal tool. It includes the status updates about the dumb things you did when you were drunk, how your mum is annoying you and what your holiday plans are. Most people don’t make this stuff public outside of their friends and, as you can’t categorise updates, I’m not entirely sure what access people with only a subscription would get anyway.

More importantly, the subscription function is of no use to a brand. It can only be enabled on a profile as opposed to a fan page. There are several major drawbacks to a profile page. One is that you can’t assign multiple admins and it’s supposed to be tied to a specific person. So according to Facebook guidelines, a brand can’t exist on a profile page and therefore can’t even use subscriptions!

Ignoring that (let’s say Facebook change their rules), there are still issues. There would be the possibility of losing all your content when migrating from a fan page to a profile, but from my dealings with Facebook I imagine that could be resolved. The big thing is that profiles have no Facebook Insights. That means no traffic data, no info on your demographics and no idea on the reach of your posts. The potential positives of a subscription feature are massively outweighed by the negatives.

I don’t expect Facebook to introduce subscriptions to fan pages, as there is no real reason for it. By becoming a fan of a brand the user is indicating an interest and desire to get updates and info. Any half-decent brand page is only going to make relevant posts and won’t be making inane comments about their pets or spend their time playing games (I hate Farmville).

Facebook’s intention in introducing subscriptions is to allow peope to follow other people without having a reciprocal relationship. Just like Twitter or Google+. It’s not intended for people to follow brands. So in terms of community management and brand PR, this new function has little relevance to digital PR.

So don’t panic!

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