In April 2008, Daemon Digital authored a white paper entitled “Web 2.0: Friend, Foe or just Fad?” which quoted the then race for the Democratic Nomination as an example of the widespread use of social networking in the political arena.
On the eve of an historic inauguration, we thought we’d review our prediction at the time, which was as follows:
“…based on the You Tube channel You Choose ’08, in addition to playlists and Issues education specific channels for the Republican Nominee John McCain and the two remaining candidates in the race for the Democratic Nomination Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton, if the number of channel subscribers and associated uploaded videos is reflected in the US General Election then Barak Obama will sweep the Nomination and the Presidency.”
At that time, President Obama had 44,198 subscribers to Hilary Clinton’s 12,610 and John McCain’s 4,164.
Whilst Daemon Digital makes no claim to prescience, the Obama campaign's use of online social networking was impressive and far better thought out and implemented than either McCain’s or Clinton’s.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Seven Point Plan
The following outlines a seven point plan which Daemon Digital recommends to any organisation as a starting point to managing their reputation in the digital media:
1. Find out where you stand
What’s being said about your organisation online and by whom? 270,000 users mention Coke in their Facebook profiles and 617,000 have joined groups dedicated to Ugg Boots. 1 in 5 Australian internet users have a Facebook profile and that’s just one social networking site. You cannot manage your organisations’ reputation if you don’t know what’s being said about you.
2. Know your audience
Is your primary audience online and active? Know your audience and understand their current online habits as well as basic demography like age, geography and profession, for example, and then go to them.
3. Trust your people
You cannot harness the participative web if you are not using it internally. You cannot expect your own people to champion the cause if it is new and alien to them. Practice what you preach and encourage your people to blog, share, wiki and network. Trust them to add value to your brand and to your organisation.
4. Get involved and stay engaged
Being actively involved in managing your message and managing your organisation’s reputation using the tools on the participative web can be invaluable to any organisation. Look at the potential and then if you consider it appropriate, get involved and stay engaged.
5. Keep it real
Don’t try and fake it, you will get caught out. Yes, communicate your messages and manage your own agenda, but do it honestly and do it openly.6. Get to the pointYou don’t own the space, make your point move on and let someone else have their turn. Also speak using language that your audience relates to and understands, don’t use technical language or jargon if it doesn’t add value to your point.
7. Measure what you are achieving
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it and just because it’s new doesn’t mean it should not fall under the same maxim as all of the other communications techniques your organisation employs.
1. Find out where you stand
What’s being said about your organisation online and by whom? 270,000 users mention Coke in their Facebook profiles and 617,000 have joined groups dedicated to Ugg Boots. 1 in 5 Australian internet users have a Facebook profile and that’s just one social networking site. You cannot manage your organisations’ reputation if you don’t know what’s being said about you.
2. Know your audience
Is your primary audience online and active? Know your audience and understand their current online habits as well as basic demography like age, geography and profession, for example, and then go to them.
3. Trust your people
You cannot harness the participative web if you are not using it internally. You cannot expect your own people to champion the cause if it is new and alien to them. Practice what you preach and encourage your people to blog, share, wiki and network. Trust them to add value to your brand and to your organisation.
4. Get involved and stay engaged
Being actively involved in managing your message and managing your organisation’s reputation using the tools on the participative web can be invaluable to any organisation. Look at the potential and then if you consider it appropriate, get involved and stay engaged.
5. Keep it real
Don’t try and fake it, you will get caught out. Yes, communicate your messages and manage your own agenda, but do it honestly and do it openly.6. Get to the pointYou don’t own the space, make your point move on and let someone else have their turn. Also speak using language that your audience relates to and understands, don’t use technical language or jargon if it doesn’t add value to your point.
7. Measure what you are achieving
If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it and just because it’s new doesn’t mean it should not fall under the same maxim as all of the other communications techniques your organisation employs.
The participative web
There are within the participative web or web 2.0 a number of phrases that are very quickly becoming mainstream colloquialisms. Interestingly, many of the ‘new’ web 2.0 applications have origins and provenance that stretch back over a decade, for example wiki, or weblog, however, these are still terms that not everyone is comfortable with. On that basis, here is Daemon Digital's short yet sweet glossary:
Blogs
A blog (the term is the abridged version of web log) is effectively a small website, more often than not operated by one individual, which includes regularly updated information and commentary on one issue or on a series of related issues.
Mashups
The term used to describe taking content feeds from more than one source simultaneously and combining the feeds, or mashing them up, to create a new and improved application, for example, the combination of BBC News and Google Maps as a mashup to create News Maps.
Podcasting
A podcast is a digital media file which is designed to be downloaded to portable media players (mp3 players for example) or played through a PC. The term podcasting is in effect an amalgam of ‘ipod’ and ‘broadcasting’ and reflects the market dominance of Apple’s ipod in the mp3 portable market.
RSS
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a web feed or channel which takes content in an easily transported form from one web site, or a series of websites, and through an RSS Reader enables a user to access content from multiple locations at one time.
Social networking
Effectively the term which has come to mean a web based application which creates a community from like minded individuals, example of which would include My Space or FaceBook.
Widgets
A web widget is in effect a portable piece of code which can be implemented without the need for additional programming or development input inside another web site. One of the most common examples of a web widget is the Google application implemented on many blogs and smaller websites which links Google advertising to content on the site.
Wikis
A wiki is a web site or series of web pages in which all of the content has been created collaboratively by users of the web site. Wikis are therefore effectively community websites, or can be used as a component within a site to create user developed content, for example a wiki glossary of terms. One of the best known examples of a wiki is the website Wikipedia.
Blogs
A blog (the term is the abridged version of web log) is effectively a small website, more often than not operated by one individual, which includes regularly updated information and commentary on one issue or on a series of related issues.
Mashups
The term used to describe taking content feeds from more than one source simultaneously and combining the feeds, or mashing them up, to create a new and improved application, for example, the combination of BBC News and Google Maps as a mashup to create News Maps.
Podcasting
A podcast is a digital media file which is designed to be downloaded to portable media players (mp3 players for example) or played through a PC. The term podcasting is in effect an amalgam of ‘ipod’ and ‘broadcasting’ and reflects the market dominance of Apple’s ipod in the mp3 portable market.
RSS
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication and is a web feed or channel which takes content in an easily transported form from one web site, or a series of websites, and through an RSS Reader enables a user to access content from multiple locations at one time.
Social networking
Effectively the term which has come to mean a web based application which creates a community from like minded individuals, example of which would include My Space or FaceBook.
Widgets
A web widget is in effect a portable piece of code which can be implemented without the need for additional programming or development input inside another web site. One of the most common examples of a web widget is the Google application implemented on many blogs and smaller websites which links Google advertising to content on the site.
Wikis
A wiki is a web site or series of web pages in which all of the content has been created collaboratively by users of the web site. Wikis are therefore effectively community websites, or can be used as a component within a site to create user developed content, for example a wiki glossary of terms. One of the best known examples of a wiki is the website Wikipedia.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
How sociable is your organisation?
If you are keen to benchmark your visibility in the social networking space and/or to measure and monitor the progress of your social networking initiatives, a new site, www.howsociable.com from Inuda Innovations, is worth investigating.
The site was developed and launched in mid 2008 and is still effectively in beta, but is a simple way to get a snapshot of your sociability!
The ‘visibility score’, whilst based on an unspecified benchmark, is a great way to get a fast and simple comparison of how your performance measures up against your competition or against some of the better known exponents of social networking.
On this date, and for the record, Daemon Group’s visibility score was 7 against a comparative score of 1,985 for Dell – some work to do here then!
The site was developed and launched in mid 2008 and is still effectively in beta, but is a simple way to get a snapshot of your sociability!
The ‘visibility score’, whilst based on an unspecified benchmark, is a great way to get a fast and simple comparison of how your performance measures up against your competition or against some of the better known exponents of social networking.
On this date, and for the record, Daemon Group’s visibility score was 7 against a comparative score of 1,985 for Dell – some work to do here then!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
