Netiquette

We all have varying degrees of what is acceptable etiquette at the dinner table, in business meetings and when visiting foreign countries, so how do those rules translate to an online environment? Does removing the geographical and cultural surrounds that are so much more ephereal online mean that we all live and breathe the same manners on the Internet?

How do we navigate a vastly more comprehensive network of cultures, standards, and customs without offending? Showing the soles of your feet to people is offensive in some cultures - does using acronyms on the web have the same effect in parts of the internet ether?

There have been various studies conducted (usually with teenagers) to show that we interact via the web in a far more open manner – even with people we know. What we wouldn’t say to them in person, we’re much more inclined to reveal behind the veil of our computers. That makes sense. It’s the same with a telephone conversation and a little bit of bravado never hurt anyone. But where does bravado end and arrogance start? Nowhere is more rife with good and bad behaviour than social media.

Netiquette for social media
Watching organisations and individuals traverse the internet’s social media terrain, there are some that seem to bring their values and manners into the way they apply themselves to the space and others that grew up with elbows on the table and were never taught their pleases and thank-yous.

Treat others how you would like to be treated. It sounds cheesy and a bit school marmish but in the world of social media, having respect for those you are in the same game park as is going to get you further than bullying your way around. Here are a few tips for netiquette in social media:

– Don’t hog the limelight – it’s a moving, breathing space. Make your point and move on.

– Don’t use hash tags that have nothing to do with what you’re writing about. It doesn’t help anyone and annoys most.

– Don’t write the same way you would on your corporate website or on a job application. Be yourself, after all, you’re the only one who can do it well.

– Give your opinion. Good or bad is fine but remember that others can do the same.

– Find out where you stand and the rules before jumping in. Only a fool jumps head first into a pool they’ve never swum in before.

– Give credit where credit is due. People will respect you for it and will do the same for you.

– Be brave and give it a go. If you make a mistake, apologise and move on. Practice makes perfect…or at least moves us in the right direction.

There is no entrance exam on how to behave in social media but common sense and being yourself are a good start.

Post. CD

Measuring and monitoring a social media campaign

Social Media is no different from any other marketing activity for business in that it needs to be tracked and measured to ensure value against objectives. What is different, is both the style of the communications and the plethora of tools available to complete this tracking - many of which are still to be proven due to the relative infancy of the channel by comparison to more traditional media options.

That said, there is little forgiveness for its youthfulness and social media has to work harder to prove its value to most marketing professionals and certainly in order to demonstrate worth to CEOs and Boards. After all, social media is just a fad…isn’t it? Seriously though, we do face a number of challenges in proving the value of social media in terms of tracking organisations whose ultimate value measure lies offline.

Social Media allows us to have conversations - this as a means of communication is a much more complex channel to track as messages are two, or multi directional. Because of this, there is a need for these to be tracked both more frequently and using multiple approaches due to idiosyncrasies across social media platforms set ups and language.

Working with Tourism New South Wales on their ‘7 days in Sydney’ social media campaign, Daemon Digital worked much in the way that social media does when tracking outputs. We responded to what was happening, where shifts were made and what tools were best for the change in activity.

Whilst that might sound reactive, in fact we had set up a very structured outputs framework that married back against TNSW’s overall brand objectives and key messages. The strategy didn’t change, we just altered our game plan to glean the most detailed information.

In order to establish an overall brand perception, Daemon Digital first created a query framework and key word search against TNSW’s key messages run through a crawler system tracking over 6 million conversations of web chatter across blogs, wikis, forums and networks. From this, an eco-system of activity was created across each key message area to establish levels of activity and sentiment around these.

Using a combination of free tools, Daemon Digital established more specific trackers against the content creation from ‘7 Days in Sydney’ and the identity ‘Sydney Sider’. Blogs, microblogs, videos and engagement were tracked on a weekly basis, aggregated and expanded at specific points in the campaign to give greater insight.

The campaign itself is a success, with significant shift in the share of voice in social media from 22% to 39%. Ongoing measures are in place to track against the objective of increasing the number of travellers to Sydney by air ticket tracking and the number of nights in hotels.

For more on Daemon Digital and to view the case study http://ow.ly/LI1U

Post. CD

Lights out. Social Media on.

Correctly valuing and monetising social media engagement for clients that, unlike other media, can’t be switched on, or pre-programmed in quite the same way, is just one of the challenges specialist social media agencies face.

Conversations with clients recently have often come back to numbers. Yes, numbers meaning prices, but more often, numbers as in number of hours.

Social media is about dialogue. And one of the inherent values of social media that we don’t see anywhere else, is the opportunity to respond to outside occurrences in real time through the sharing of thoughts, ideas and emotions all wrapped up in various forms of conversation be that written, verbal, through images or video.

In order to do that however, you need to be constantly tuned in or switched on. Anyone who has even a smattering of work ethic does not hang up on a conversation, ditch a proposal or walk out on a meeting simply because it’s officially time to clock out. Let’s make no mistake, there are certainly those who don’t work a minute outside when they are paid to do so. And perhaps they’re the smart ones, but that’s a different conversation.

The point is, when your social media audience is most engaged, is when you need to be present and accounted for in the conversation. If that’s midnight, it’s midnight. What clients sometimes find it hard to understand is that this means being constantly switched on. So, when they ask you how many hours you’re going to spend on their social media strategy or campaign this week, the answer should be ‘as many as it needs’ rather than ‘as many as you’re paying for between the hours of 9am and 5pm’.

That’s all very admirable in an ideal world but at the end of the day, we’re all here to make money. Sure, we want to create brilliant work that makes our clients and ourselves successful along the way but we need to be realistic about just how we can do that. So where’s the healthy balance? Where’s the point you switch off?

This isn't about answering all the questions, but one question that has been answered is that being switched on when it counts means you can maximise on all the good stuff and mitigate some of the bad stuff better and more swiftly.

A great example of just that is this case study from Tourism New South Wales.

http://ow.ly/JIJ0

Post: CD

Social Media promotion of ‘The Hangover’

Daemon Digital is helping to promote the Warner Home Video Blu-ray, DVD and On Demand release of the hit film, The Hangover. The campaign, which launched at the start of November, employs a highly targeted social media strategy to encourage people to interact with the film and its characters and ignite interest in the home release of one of the year’s most popular comedies.

A competition to win an all expenses paid trip to Las Vegas will be the centrepiece of the campaign; however Daemon recommended a supporting strategy which would drive a high number of entrants as well as importantly encouraging entrants to engage with the storyline of the film and therefore start conversations with the brand.

Entrants to the competition are invited to upload their funniest party photo to a dedicated page on Facebook – in creative costumes, striking poses and pulling faces that could only be captured in a split second; essentially doing things that make others laugh out loud, a la The Hangover!

The specific promotion of the campaign involves seeding invitational content through social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook news feeds, as well as creating a dedicated Facebook page with backgrounds and avatars in the style of the film and its characters.

The campaign results will be judged using traditional traffic based statistics together with an evaluation of the quality of conversations and interactions generated. Thus far, three weeks into the promotion, the Facebook page has over 11,200 fans.

You can enter the competition by visiting: www.facebook.com/hangovermovie

It’s always the little things in life…

…and here are two great examples.

Firstly the Ogori Café in Chiba, Japan, where instead of getting your order, you receive the order of the person in front of you instead. A really simple and fun idea that allows you to surprise and treat the next person in line. Love this, such a good idea and how much fun http://ow.ly/w3ff

Secondly, the Fun Theory from VW, which is a site dedicated to the concept that fun is the best way to change people’s behaviour. Simple genius. The piano stairs are awesome http://ow.ly/w3mA

Fiery Sydney sunset sparks social media success

With the youth market already contributing 37% of international visitor arrivals in New South Wales, Tourism NSW were keen to further encourage young travellers to visit Sydney and extend their stay.

Acknowledging word of mouth as an effective channel, they recognised a need to generate content containing a balance of information, opinion and entertainment which would position Sydney as a unique destination. By engaging social networks through defensive and then offensive strategic communications the @sydney_sider Twitter account was established to promote key messages regarding Sydney and react to discussions, comments and questions as they arise.

On 16th July 2009 the setting sun caught the attention of Sydneysiders which was reflected through the Twitter Stream. As an established account @sydney_sider was able to leverage existing followers to encourage Sydneysiders to tweet comments and photos of the natural spectacle.

The Twitter stream for “Sydney” swelled with keywords “sky” and “sunset” with descriptions including best, beautiful and love. Creating the hashtag #sydneysunset, @sydney_sider was able to direct traffic to the stream of positive sentiments and images which were retweeted and shared creating 107,274 impressions.

This user generated content was also used to create a post on the Sydneysider blog, earning high Google rankings for the query “Sydney sunset” and an increase in interactions on the Tourism NSW managed Facebook page.

By reacting immediately @sydney_sider was able to take the organic conversation around a natural phenomenon and increase the presence of Sydney in the Twitter stream, reaching 66,795 people in 191 aggregated tweets.

Daemon Digital Case Study_Sydney Sunset

Can you ease into Social Media?

I’ve been reading with interest the reactions to companies who have stumbled in the social arena. In particular on blogs outlining Habitat UK’s hashtag spam, those commenting reeled at the idea of having an intern execute such a highly visible part of the communications strategy. And yet at the same time there is disbelief around the policies in place for US Marines, US Open competitors and on game day for the NFL.

Closer to home, Mat Rogers tweeted his way into trouble with the NRL and at the Social Media Summit in Melbourne the heavily government based audience continually expressed concern at trying to have a two way conversation when it takes forever to get copy approved.

While contemplating whether companies should hire, outsource or DIY their social media strategy, JD Rucker states “having a poorly run social media strategy is worse than not having one at all”. At the same time Nancy Williams is adamant (as I’m sure many of you are): social media without conversation isn’t social media.

When it comes to sports and politics, the consequences of a social media stumble can mean more then just crisis communications. (And of all people to stumble, sportsmen and the public service seem to be the very best at it and I doubt your clear/strict/enforced social media policy is going to change that much.) This is based on rules and regulations set in stone long before the rise of blogs and Twitter.

So while those involved push for changes to allow a more open channel of communication, will we (the public, fans, advocates, constituents, lookers-on, social media mavens) allow them to approach the medium with baby steps? If they won’t let us comment, will we share their content? If they won’t publish our feedback, will we give them our opinion? If they can’t answer our questions, will we seek out (and trust) their advocates instead?

Original post by http://mab397.wordpress.com

Has momentum for change become unstoppable?

Tipping points, according to Wikipedia are "the levels at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable". Are we far away when it comes to business use of social media platforms? Or more directly when will the business risk of engaging with social media outweigh the perceived risk it represents?

When not taking a risk is actually taking a bigger risk, according to @murnahan, is ‘when your competition does it sooner and better than you’. So could it be that a basic human emotion is the key driver for many organisations? Is it a balance of fear of lost opportunity against the fear of sustained web attack or more succinctly the fear of losing control of the message?

Many organisations, and indeed communications professionals cite losing control of the message as a key reason to avoid social media as a channel to market. But surely this implies control of the message to begin with? If social media channels are an extension of word of mouth then organisations’ have never really had control, it’s just that the reach of those conversations was more limited. Sure, a badly handled guitar or the (alleged) mold in your apartment weren’t discussed on millions of screens, but even now they are, the issue isn’t message control but lack of engagement and dialogue.

It’s not the message that is uncontrolled it is the channel, and that’s what scares business.

Managing reputation and creating relationships with customers are key drivers for every business. Creating engagement with a customer or entering into a dialogue with them in any other medium would be seen as a positive influencing factor likely to elicit repeat business. But in social media it is risky?

If tipping points are those at which the momentum for change becomes unstoppable, surely we are approaching that point at some speed. To actively manage social media channels each business must evaluate its own tolerance for risk and at the very least they should be actively evaluating that tolerance rather than hoping that the societal impact of social media will diminish.

That really would be risky.

Losing control can be fun

It seems those hippies were on to something after all! And in the spirit of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, maybe by loosening the grip on their brand, companies might be able to experience something more out of this world.

Whether it is the integration of user generated content into a campaign or refusing to censor the dissident voice in forums, many brands have been communicated in the voice of the customer in a bold new way.

Unfortunately sometimes the experience can be a disaster, sure to cause painful flashbacks for decades to come. Brand managers can play it safe and minimise the risk, you just need to know what you’re getting into, do it with people you trust and, of course, everything in moderation.

Originally posted by @digitaldaemon

Social Media Revolution

A number of years ago, Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod, both teachers in the US, created a video entitled Shift Happens; Did You Know? The themes of Did You Know? are global and designed to be relevant to schools and children around the world and to raise interesting topics of conversation around societal shifts largely driven by the adoption of internet protocol. The themes raised are relevant to a much wider audience than schools and children.

The video embedded below, created by Socialnomics09, youtube.com/user/Socialnomics09, follows a similar theme but investigates the reach and impact on societal shift of increasing usage of Social Media.

Enjoy.

3 seconds is all you get

It used to be, according to the traditional rule of thumb, you could divide newspaper readers into three distinct groups based on how they read each page. This rule of thumb was called the 30:3:30 rule and was based on the theory that people read each page of a newspaper in 30 seconds, three minutes or 30 minutes.

The theory followed that in 30 seconds all you could read on each page would be the headlines, that in three minutes you would read both the headlines and the first paragraph of each piece and that finally, in 30 minutes, you could read every word in every story on the page.

Now, with internet penetration levels at their current highs and with wall to wall access to broadcast media; newspapers do not break news anymore. They can report it and they can add significantly more analysis and editorial than their broadcast competitors – but in simple terms the old rule of thumb doesn’t hold up so well anymore for print media, so how well does it apply to our uptake and use of social media?

The first problem with a rule which has 30 seconds as it’s lowest time parameter is that in social media, 30 seconds is a long time. Consider Twitter for example where 30 seconds to read a tweet is a lifetime. In 30 seconds you could conceivably have read a post, retweeted it and moved on to check the footie scores.

So, for social media there’s a new rule: the 3:30:3 principle or that someone will spend three seconds reading a tweet; 30 seconds reading a blog post; or finally and as a maximum say three minutes following a link, responding to a post or starting a conversation.

In its simplest form, this principle promotes that you have to use language that will capture someone’s imagination in three seconds, encouraging them to want to know more, follow you, digg you, join as a fan or even simply entertain.
There are apparently more new words added to the English language each year than existed when Shakespeare was alive and with only three seconds to make a lasting impact we may well need to keep creating them.

Risk and Reward

“Perhaps you are just warming up to the idea that this “new” media is where things are going. The fear of jumping in is really pretty normal. After all, it is hard to believe in something after you have watched all the things you always knew about business and economy suddenly change. So what will make all of this feel better and help it all make sense? The answer is this: If your competition does it sooner and better than you, the cost of lost opportunity will be greater than any other potential risk.”

So writes Mark Aaron Murnahan in his piece The Social Media Marketing Dilemma a simple but undeniably accurate view of many organisations’ position with regards Social Media.

There is a tipping point, when the risk of engaging with Social Media will outweigh the perceived risk it represents and surely we are rapidly approaching that point.

The best offence is a good defence

So you know what you want to achieve with Social Media. You’ve drafted your strategy document and you’re ready to press the go button. So what next, how do you actually engage with an audience using Social Media? It sounds great and you’re sure it’s exactly what your organisation needs, but how do you actually get it done?

If you want to engage your audience in a conversation and start relationships through the use of Social Media, you have to do the hard yards first and build a credible, defensible reputation in the space on which to build more targeted message based campaigns.

In simple terms, building the credibility of your organisation, or your products or services is easiest done by getting your hands dirty. You don’t have to start and or write your own blog (although you could), but you should comment on others where your comments add value or demonstrate expertise.

If you see a value in micro blogging, don’t ignore replies you receive and actively search out questions that you can answer. Search through existing content, on for example, You Tube or Flickr and add commentary or thoughts that substantiate your proposition.

Join social networks in Facebook, My Space or Bebo as appropriate and create an active profile by engaging with your fellow members or fans. And most of all, represent your organisation, product or service honestly, openly and realistically to enhance your reputation.

A three legged horse in a dog show

Twitter has hit the headlines and become the social media phenomena of the moment. From Barack Obama to Britney Spears, people are capitalising on its ability to publish messages to the masses in 140 characters or less. It only takes seconds to write and seconds to read. But what relevance does this new platform have for business and how are organisations cashing in on the opportunities?

Among many organisations Twitter seems to have an unjustified reputation as a service for socially inept teenagers. Yet properly used and effectively targeted, Twitter can add significant value to most organisations’ marketing and communications strategies.

Many organisations will take the approach that they will wait and see how micro blogging develops before they get involved. These same organisations and individuals within them said the same thing about social networking (in fact probably still are) and almost certainly the web before that.

The simple fact is that the speed of adoption and change in this space is such that most organisations cannot afford to risk not getting involved.

More information at http://tinyurl.com/c4dl87

5 million Australian's are online every day

6.5 million Australians now belong to an online social network according to Nielsen Online and 23% interacted with a company through social media. In addition, of the number of Australian’s online, 5 million access the internet every day.

In addition, the study showed that 57% of Australians have watched videos online, specifically to help them decide whether or not to buy a product, with YouTube proving the most popular, used by 75% of Australians last year. In general terms, according to the UM Wave 3 survey, 77.2% of Australian internet users who access social media have watched a video clip.

Surely it is time for Australian organisations to take social media more seriously and allocate time and resources to better understanding how its use could add value to their brand and their products or services.

There is a tipping point when the risk to an organisation of getting involved with Social Media is outweighed by the risk of not getting involved. We are rapidly approaching that point.

Who loves ya baby?

If number of Facebook fans indicates not only your popularity but also appreciation of your politics, position, service or product, then my three year old son would be 100% behind number six!

1 Barack Obama 5,881,499
2 Coca-Cola 3,287,101
3 Nutella 3,052,502
4 Pizza 3,005,922
5 Cristiano Ronaldo 2,730,570
6 Kinder Surprise 2,581,651
7 Facebook 2,492,881
8 Windows Live Messenger 2,469,639
9 Sid 2,409,639
10 Boo 2,343,221

These are correct as at March 09 as reported in www.adage.com from www.allfacebook.com

Three quarters of internet users on Social Media

According to numbers from comScore World Metrix 67% of internet users around the world engage with social media in one form or another http://tinyurl.com/cztmkl

With the total internet population increasing by 11% over the year, use of social media increased by 25% to over 580 million unique visits during the month.

Interestingly, although usage in North America was still growing at 9% over the previous 12 months, actual visits at 131 million was significantly behind both Asia at over 200 million visits (23% growth), and Europe at 165 million visits (35% growth).

Many organisations perceive use of social media to be a North American led phenomena and use a US bias in users as a reason not to engage with social media.

With 67% of the internet population now engaging with social media and with 35% of them living in Asia, maybe its time for more organisations to consider how best to use social media to manage and further their reputation?

Free New Media seminar, Canberra, Australia

Is social media and social networking just another fad or does it hold real potential for Australian organisations? At our free lunch seminar, Daemon Digital will outline the development of social media and its impact upon our use of the web before going on to discuss:

Why organisations should take social media seriously; how can you start conversations through social media; the benefits of starting these conversations; and what could happen if you don’t!

We will be holding a seminar in Canberra at Hotel Realm, 18 National Circuit, Barton, commencing at Noon and finishing by 13:30 on 2 April 2009.

To reserve your place at this free seminar, please send an email to enquiries@daemongroup.com

Undergraduate social networking

8 out of 10 Australian undergraduates are using the web for social networking, almost twice the number who go online to game (42%), according to a new study by Daemon Digital.

Facebook and YouTube were the most commonly used sites by young Australians with MySpace in third place. Online photo site, Flickr and dating site, RSVP also made it in the Top Ten social networking sites used.

The popularity of social networking has grown exponentially in the last 24 months and, as a result, these sites are finally beginning to gain recognition among Australian businesses. Social networks are being used for recruitment purposes, trialling new products and supporting product launches. But they are only now beginning to gain recognition.

While business heads and marketers are in agreement that they must start to use social networking channels, the vast majority are not sure where to start or how to get involved. Businesses cannot afford to ignore this migration and one of the best approaches is to treat online social media in the same way as organisations value traditional networking – attend and engage in conversations where those conversations are being held.

Many organisations still expect consumers to find their content on corporate sites, which of course many do. The corporate site is a business necessity in the same way as a letterhead used to be, but many organisations would be better served actively seeking out users to engage them in conversation.

The first step has got to be to listen to the conversations that are underway and finding out a little more about your organisation’s reputation in social media. Software tools such as Social Radar, combined with human understanding are very illuminating for most organisations.

Idiot bloggers...

The Guardian Newspaper in the UK ran a story yesterday about Jason Roe who having found what he thought to be was a flaw in the Ryanair online booking system, ran the information on his blog see http://tinyurl.com/cemrb6

Whilst the initial and informal response from Ryanair was average at best, their official comment was bizarre:

“Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again. Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel."
Is this a Ryanair stunt maybe?