WalesCymru.com

If you are a member of Facebook you will know they are going to drop Regional Networks. Their argument is that to provide the level of privacy users now demand they need to remove a feature which, in my view, provided a great attraction. The argument goes … “Almost 50 percent of all Facebook users are members of regional networks …”, but this doesn’t matter to so we have come up with a “plan” and this is “to remove regional networks completely …”. Huh?

I don’t get this, how is something that was used by 50% of users a bad thing?

Personally I think Regions are an important feature that defines a community, even virtual ones. True I share interests which cross global boundaries, but I also share interests which can only be expressed in social interaction, and in ‘locally focused’ world, this means shared with people who live close by. To me, some of the most interesting aspects of Facebook were the local groups I found by accident, because they were local. With the removal of regions, how will I find these now?

This naturally brings me to the role WalesCymru has, or should have. Are we a regionally focused Social Network? Should we be?

This was the ambition we had in 2007, but is still some way off. Should this be pursued as our goal now, or should Regional Networks, as Facebook thinks, be consigned to the past?

What do you think?

Today e-Crime Wales announced a half-day Creative Industries Workshop in advance of the e-Crime Wales Summit, which this year takes place on 21 October 2009 in Llandudno.

This half day e-Security Workshop - Lock it down or give it away? - is a first in Wales and aims to open up a bigger discussion around the creation and protection of Digital Content by companies and individual creators working in Wales’ Creative Industries - an area that is very topically and generating a lot of media attention. In fact, only today Lilly Allen add her contribution to the debate on illegal music download, which up to now has been lead by the Featured Artists Coalition.

Speakers for the Creative Industries Workshop are drawn from the fields of Digital Security, Content Management, Broadcast commissioning and Independent Music and will offer their views on the ongoing evolution of Digital Content, tracking media assets, copyright and online sales and distribution. Key findings from a new report on Digitally Networked Businesses (one of the topics I’ve been featuring in this blog) will be shared during the Workshop.

Greg Cannon: 41 Days from e-Crime Wales on Vimeo.

If you’re involved in the Creative Industries this workshop is bound to offer some thought provoking views and hopefully encourage Welsh business to think seriously about their IP and how to maximise the value of their work. Let’s hope a similar event is also organised for South Wales, as I doubt few companies based in this part of the country will make the four hour trip north.

Twitter is gaining ground as a corporate communication tool, but is still a long way behind Facebook which has just past 300m users. Like every communication tool Twitter needs some knowledge of how it works and it’s own set of skills to be effective; but it is also just one of the many social media tools available to business. In fact, in my view, the choice of social media tools is already outside the skill set of most companies and now requires specialist marketing, creative, technical & customer facing skills to be used effectively.

The Social Media tools available today include: blogs, Twitter, social networks (Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, etc.), photo and video sharing sites, rating and review sites, forums, User Generated Content (on your own site and elsewhere), File sharing (Slideshare, Scribd, etc.), Music sharing, Professional networks (Linkedin, etc.), Bespoke Online communities, Widgets / Applications, mobile Applications (for iPhone, Android), RSS, Social Bookmarks, etc.

Needless to say, few companies are using this full set and even fewer are using these effectively. This is because most marketing professionals, those assigned the job of implementing the company’s Social Media Strategy, lack some of the skills required.

The skills needed to be successful (i.e. professional) include:

• Creative skills - graphic design, photography / photoshop, video production, music, etc.
• Writing skills - a combination of journalism and creative writing for blogs, ad campaigns, status updates, etc.
• Customer skills - we have to know how to be nice and solve problems
• Networking skills - if you can’t build a network, then use this to achieve your goals you won’t succeed with Social Media
• Marketing skills - obviously, you have to target the right people with the right content and calls to actions
• Some Technical skills - after all it all has to work seamlessly
• Analysis & Reporting skills - Is it actually working?

I’m sure I’m missed some out; but you get the picture.

Conclusions

1. If you don’t have an objective you will waste a lot of time and you will struggle to see any real value from your efforts. My advice is ALWAYS start with the objective as this determines which tools and how you use them.
2. Some aspects of Social Media are still best done by professionals. Don’t be afraid to admit this and find those you can actually work with.

Hope this helps.

You’ve probably heard about this video already, if not the idea is simple. Take a young attractive Danish women who likes to drink, add a one night stand with a visiting tourist and the ‘inevitable’ result 9 moths later. The women of course is an actress and the video a hoax, but enough people believed it to be real to now feel very annoyed and cheated - OK they’re really pissed off with the Danish Tourist Board.

We know this sort of thing happens ‘all the time’, in-fact (in Wales) you don’t even need to be tourist to have a drunken one night stand; but should a country use free unprotected sex to market itself?

The two questions that come to mind: “How far would you go to market Wales?” and “Was there a Danish plan to deal with the fallout when this blew up in their faces?”

UPDATE: Between starting this blog entry and posting it the YouTube video was removed. The video link now goes to Mashable.com where I first saw this article. You can still see the original YouTube video here.

Despite, or maybe because of the current economic climate, companies (as well as government agencies & industry bodies) are investing in branded online communities (also known as social networks). The reasons why are simple; when compared to traditional marketing methods, managing customer relationships and fostering collaboration, online communities are highly efficient vehicles for better understanding, engaging and serving your audience. Many of these communities are, however, failing to achieve their potential (2008 report Deloitte).

These are some ways to avoid wasting resources and secure a better return on your investment in digital media.

Define the goals

When preparing for your online community project, first define your goals. Common goals for an online community include increasing awareness of your organization, improving customer or member retention, reducing customer support costs, elevating search engine optimization performance, growing advertising revenues and promoting thought leadership. Identifying the goals will help you make the business case for the community, by showing how it will bring value (both “hard” and “soft”) and save costs.

Define the target market

Is the digital community available to your entire customer or member base, or is it for a specific segment, such as a platinum-level membership or customers of a particular product line? Are there secondary target audiences that can coexist within your online community without diluting its overall direction, such as prospective customers or current employees?

With the target market defined, it’s time to focus on the members. You need to ask yourself the four “how and why” questions about your audience.

1. How and why will they join?
2. How and why will they participate?
3. How and why will they return?
4. How and why will they engage in ways that affect business goals?

These questions are commonly referred to as acquisition, activity, retention and valued activity.

Don’t start with features and functions

Most web consultants can create a 20+ page list of cool widgets, features and functions they’ve seen on the Web and think would be great to include in “your community.” Resist the temptation and start with the four key questions listed above. The answers to these questions will drive your community; the sexy features can be added as and when they’re needed. The technology is simply a tool to help achieve your objectives.

Determine the metrics

If you aren’t measuring it, you can’t improve it. Create a list of metrics that measure both your business goals and online community goals. Many companies focus only on page views and member counts. However, it’s difficult to tie these numbers back to business goals. By defining particular metrics up front, you’ll enforce guidelines that will not only keep you apprised of the community’s progress, but will also come in handy when you request additional funding for future expansion. Some examples of metrics include:

• Customer, member or employee retention rates for community members versus non-community members
• Number of new customers or members acquired through the community
• Number of support calls or questions diverted from customer service staff
• Improvement (measured in various ways) in organic search results
• Increase in employee productivity (as measured by reduced duplication of research projects or time saved)

Some examples of metrics used to measure an online community’s progress include the following:

Activity (general activity in the community)

• Page views (both for the community and those resulting from click-throughs to your other Web properties)
• Total number of members joined
• Number of visits by members
• Page views by members
• Number of active members (members who visited in a particular month or quarter)

Valued activity (activity that is more specific to what drives the business goals)

• Amount of content pieces created (best practices blog posts, answers to questions)
• Actions (items rated, product feedback provided, training videos viewed)

Place importance on community management

Many organizations underestimate the importance of having qualified personnel focused on managing and promoting the community. Building a successful online community is not a phenomenon where if you build it, they will come. You need people dedicated to its development and growth.

As online communities grow, they generally go through three phases of need: seeding, feeding and weeding. When a community starts, it needs to be seeded with content and people. After early members arrive, it’s important to start a dialogue with them. Listen and respond to their questions and requests. This makes them feel valued. Once a community’s membership base hits critical mass, it begins to self-perpetuate. At this point, it’s important to start weeding out destructive or non-constructive behavior so that the community’s health and focus are maintained.

Having a community manager who can create well-thought-out community guidelines helps to set the tone. We’ve found a direct correlation between community membership growth and allocated community management resources.

Gain executive buy-in

Creating a successful community often requires coordination with other groups and changes in behavior across the organization. Gaining buy-in from key executives up front will help as you launch, promote and grow your community. You may need assistance from your web team or marketing group, and executive buy-in can help align these resources. Additionally, you don’t want to find yourself at the eve of your launch date, only to discover that the legal department has just gotten wind of your project and is ordering a full review. Gaining support from key executives up front will help facilitate internal collaboration and give you cover when needed. Besides, social media is a hot area, and many executives like to be in the loop on what their company is doing to take advantage of it.

Building a successful online community takes a bit of work—planning, measuring and managing. However, when done well, an online community not only expands your organization’s position in the marketplace, but can also make a tangible difference to its bottom line.

Reproduced from an original article by Michael Wilson, the founder and CEO of Small World Labs. These are also the themes 41 Days covers in our Social Media Briefings.

The Welsh Assembly Government are about to invest £m’s in ‘DBEs’ (Digital Business Ecosystems). So what, you may ask, are DBEs and why is this money being invested?

At this juncture DBEs are in the early stage of their development, so these views are likely to change. Some see DBEs as a Web2.0 version of the Business Portals and eMarketplaces of the late 90’s, while others hold a different view, seeing them more as a set of P2P Web2.0 applications for business. WAG envisages DBEs as “Internet-delivered communities, populated with content and services developed or commissioned by their users, supporting one or more business sectors.”

One possible description of a DBE is that it is a “social networking site for business” where content is owned by its contributors and where no single organisation owns the network, meaning there should be no single point of failure (hence the P2P applications model).

Why is this money being invested?

WAG suggests that “DBEs will greatly assist participants, providing an online place to do business - where they can develop and coordinate collaborations and where joint product and service offerings can be assembled and offered to customers”. I.e. they’re hoping to create digital market spaces that both facilitate and lower the cost of day-to-day Welsh business activities.

What can we expect from a DBE?

If a DBE is little more than online business network and a digital market space; what will they actually deliver?

This is an area I’ve given some consideration and am happy to share my thoughts. As I see it DBEs are:

• a tool to manage your business contacts - except most of my contacts are still not on these networks. A web resource that provides single sign-on and access to up-to-date details for all my business contacts would be very useful, regardless of which site they’re on. The question is, Is this going to be a Web2.0 CRM tool like SalesForce & Highrise, a website liked LinkedIn, or a Plugin that synchronizes my address book contacts with their up-to-date online profiles?
• a knowledge resource - If an exchange of knowledge is the main function of Discussion Forum within Groups, where’s the DBE’s knowledge centre? E.g. there’s more knowledge stored on Slideshare (the world’s largest presentation sharing community), than on LinkedIn
• a collaboration tool - but most business networks are too open for many of the sensitive project discussions, so where does the confidential work actually take place?
• a business events resource - but most business events I attend are absent from these sites. Eventbrite and Upcoming have a better selection than LinkedIn, but still list fewer than 10% of local business events. Will the DBE be an events aggregator?
• a networking resource for local businesses. E.g. many Xing users have a strong European (German) connection, which is great if you’re a German business man/women. But what about everyone else? How many DBEs will we have to join?
• an eMarketplace - based on Web2.0 principles and content aggregation, e.g. the way Kayak works for the Travel industry
• a software platform - In which case, should the main players offer a white label service to local networking groups?

Since the majority of established online network providers do not as yet provide this range of services (although here LinkedIn is probably the market leader in this space); the first to do so could well become the platform of choice. At this stage the battle is far from won.

In truth, eBusiness has been with us for more than 40 years and is constantly evolving. New systems and applications are being developed by the day, with new networks replacing old every decade or so. If you want to test my theory, simply check how many eMarketplaces from the ‘dot com’ decade are still operational today, and this despite the $Ms that were invested in them at the time.

DBEs could well be the flavour of the next decade, if sufficiently funded and if sufficient businesses sign-up. If not, they will provide a few dozen consultancy companies with a nice income stream for the next five years or so; while delivering little in the way of social or structural change. Let’s hope I’m proved wrong on this last point.

We all know the adage “Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity and cash-flow is king”. In the world of Social Media the same may well be true of “Followers”, “Fans” and “Friends”.

What do you think?

List building (the act of paying someone to recruit ‘followers’) is an impersonal business; but is now a reality on most social networks. The offer is simple - we (who understand how these sites work, when you who don’t) will help you build your Friend / Follower / Fan lists.

Ok, I’ve lost some of you, so let’s start on 1st base.

Social Networks: Friends, Fans and Followers

Social Networks are online communities where ‘members’ (you) have ‘followers’ - those real people who (for whatever reason) have either asked or elected to ‘follow’ your updates - those short and largely trivial actions you broadcast each time you ‘do something’ on a Social Network.

On Facebook these people are called ‘Friends’ (if they follow you), ‘Fans’ (if they follow your page), ‘Guests’ (if they’re attending your event), or ‘Members’ (if they follow your Group). On Twitter they’re called ‘Followers’; while on LinkedIn they’re ‘Contacts’.

It may not matter what label you use, but the point of followers is clear. These are the people who actually like you and want to be kept up-to-date on everything you’re doing, thinking or saying right now. If they didn’t why would they ‘follow you’?

Using Contact Lists

In business your contact lists include current and past customers, as well as the names and contact details of everyone who has made an enquiry or sold you something, down to people you’ve met at every business event, meeting, or conference you’ve attended. These ‘contacts’ may also include lists you have produced or purchased for marketing campaigns and have typically taken years to develop.

Regardless of how these lists have been constructed, they have a cost (in building and maintaining) and a value, which is usually measured according the conversion rate (i.e. sales) they deliver when you make contact.

It doesn’t take much to recognise these same lists apply in the Social Networked world, where they have potentially even greater value. Unlike your corporate list, which may identify and rank customers by value, on social networks you generally get unrestricted access to a lot more personal information. As a minimum this is likely to include a brief “bio statement”; but is more likely to include not only how they know you, but also who their friends are, what movies and music they like, the events they attend, the groups they follow, and even down to where they went last night and their forthcoming holiday plans. Given the amount of personal data you can now access, it is clear these followers have value and is why social network list building is now a commercial business.

But how do you value your follower list?

Cashing in on ‘Friends’ and ‘Followers’

While figures may vary it’s not unusual to record a 1% click thru on status update links; and has the effect of delivering real users to that site.

Let’s say you have 20,000 followers and each time you post an update 1% click on the link. That’s 200 clicks, or 200 eyeballs you’ve just delivered to this webpage. Now if you were to ‘value’ these eyeballs @ say 5p per visit, which is lower then a typical Pay Per Click campaign on Google or Facebook, then each status update is worth £10 (200 eyeballs @ 5p each).

OK, most of us have no way of extracting this value, but if your business is about selling products or services, then the more people who actually access this offer, the more sales you’re likely to make. If this wasn’t the case, perhaps you could explain how Google makes it’s money and what Facebook expects to do with it’s 200 million members.

List building services recognise this and make one simple offer - they will help your business to grow by growing your followers.

It probably doesn’t matter if this list building is carried by yourself, your PR or Marketing agency or provided by a software based service that selects new users according on an algorithm. The results are what matters and is ultimately what your list is for. The key question you have to ask is how you’re going value these followers. Personally speaking, while many of my ‘friends’ have limited commercial value, a select few are priceless.

You may not have heard of Twitter, but you will. It is the latest social media craze and has many attractions for both personal and business users; not least the fact that it’s year-on-year growth is around 1000% (according to Nielsen Online).

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users (Tweeters) to send and read updates (Tweets), 140 characters at a time.

According to Twitter, “It is a service for friends, family and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?“.

Users send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS), or applications such as Tweetie, Twitterrific and TweetDeck. These updates are available via the Tweeters profile, or delivered to ‘followers’ life-feeds.

What’s in it for Business?

While Twitter is still in the early stages and has relied on others to add functionality some common uses include:

• Establishing new contacts (using ‘following’)
• Building your network (of ‘followers’)
• Engaging with your community (by ‘replying to’ posts)
• Discovering Trends (using the search, #tags and analysis tools)

How do I use Twitter?

Getting started on Twitter is free and takes minutes. It begins with:

• Sign-up (The biggest challenge is choosing your Twitter name)
• Skip the next two screens (unless you have a Webmail account with Google, Yahoo, etc. or want to follow Twitters ’suggested’ Tweeters, I recommend skipping the next two screens)
• Personalise (by adding you own profile picture, your location, a brief bio and a suitable background image)
• Follow (find your contacts and local Tweeters using the email tools and Find People search. Also check the followers of people you know and build your network)
• Search (for Tweets on your subject, view the profile of the Tweeters who posted the items and follow them)

So once you’re set-up, how will you use Twitter?

Here are a few suggestions:

• Have conversations (Twitter is conversation tool, you post an update and people reply)
• Search on your company, brand and products (find people who are talking about stuff you’re interested in and follow them)
• Engage with people who are talking about the stuff you’re interested in
• Build positive relationships
• List your Favorites
• Publish helpful content (this builds your followers)
• Use #hashtags to promote products, events, etc.
• Take your Twitter relationships offline via Tweetups

Extracting Value

Twitter is perhaps the best example so far of a real time public news service. In fact it’s not uncommon for news to break first on Twitter, then be picked up by the Media. esp. where this involves some disaster, shooting or scandal.

Tracking the frequency of keywords gives Twitter watchers a real time view of what’s happening. If these updates relate to your company or products you have a measure of the ‘buzz’ that effects you.

These are some ways Twitter can help your business:

• Your Followers provides a measure of your reach (both quality and quantity are important)
• Grading your followers shows their influence and the stage of your relationship
• Using @Replies shows your level of engagement (the higher the better)
• Monitor inbound Traffic from Twitter to your website (is anyone listening?)
• Monitor sales linked to Twitter traffic (is it working?)

To make the most of Twitter you’ll need to use a few Tools & Resources. While this list is growing, these should get you started:

• Tracking the Buzz (TweetingTrends, Twist, Monitter, and TwitScoop)
• Tiny URLs (allow you to shorten the URL and fit the 140 character limit. E.g. bit.ly, is.gd, ow.ly, tinyurl.com)
• Twitter Feed (RSS feeds to / from Twitter)
• #Tags (used to index updates when keywords are not enough)
• Twitter APIs (Dan @Zambonini at BoxUK has produced a great Twitter API list)

Through using Twitter to engage with industry leaders and customers alike, and by tracking and analyzing Twitter activity companies gain valuable insight into the issues that are important today. How you use these contacts and insights is up to you.

Recently Tammy Corbett from Red Carpet Web Promotion posted a number of observations on Social Media. These are reproduced here for your consideration.

There has been a significant jump in the popularity of social media websites over the past few years. With it has come a shift in the way that people search for information and how they share and consult opinions on the Internet when making purchasing decisions.

Social media sites such as StumbleUpon and Digg, give users a voice on the Internet by providing tools to connect, exchange views, share content, information, and recommend products and services using the “thumbs up or down” approach. This has caused a huge shift in the way people search for information online. More and more, Internet users rely on the opinions of others before they buy into the validity of a product or service. “Word of mouth” is no longer only from mouth to ear, but is more frequently spread on social media sites and it has never been so powerful. Any product or service deemed worthy is promoted, shared or discussed in these online social communities.

A question that business needs to address is how to engage with these exchanges in a way that adds value and is profitable for everyone concerned; or to put it another way, “How should Business approach Social Media Marketing?”

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing (SMM) targets users by promoting content through bookmarking, blogging, online video sharing, and social networking to potentially expand audience and drive traffic. Businesses are beginning to understand the power of these influences when it comes to establishing a reputation and growing their online business. Social media marketing strategies such as a business’ engagement in various social media websites can help to reinforce the brand and build a stronger personal connection with users.

Publish Social Media Business Profiles. One of the most important social media marketing methods includes posting business profiles on social media websites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. Instead of waiting around for consumers to come to you, you reach out to your target audience. Solidifying your presence in the social media community creates a direct interaction between business and consumer that may not dramatically improve conversion rates but is definitely capable of establishing brand power and credibility. The valuable feedback consumers provide promotes insight in determining what business strategies are working and what should be re-evaluated to, e.g. make a website more user-friendly.

Engage with Search Engines. The influence of social media sites has changed the way search engines define placement. Images, videos and news content featured on social media sites such as Youtube, Digg, and Flickr are equally capable of sitting comfortably at the top of the search results leaving others, who have not yet jumped on the social media bandwagon, a little confused.

Use Social Media on your own Website. Take a hint from the popular social media websites by adding some type of interactive quality to your website. Engage the viewer and create an atmosphere of inclusion and direct contact that encourages a user to come back and visit again. Forums and social applications can help you compete for traffic in an evolving market.

Become an expert in your niche. Yahoo Answers is a great place to start. You can create a business or company profile and begin answering direct questions and supplying information to those in your target audience.

Join Social Networks. Social networking provides a means to promote association and the exchange of knowledge while also establishing business contacts and connections. Post your business profile in the popular social and business networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn, but also make sure to concentrate your attention on your niche audience by joining social media networks that represent and support your business or company’s ideas.

For example if you are selling organic produce and you set up a profile in a social media network such as Care2.com, an environmental portal, you are then communicating directly with those individuals who will support your product or service because of a shared interest. These types of social media communities will extend their approval by sharing in discussions about your products or services with other users and even in some cases “become a fan” of your featured webpage.

Some examples of popular niche social networks include:

• TravBuddy.com for the traveller
• Tipd.com for those seeking financial advice
• AutoSpies.com providing money saving and insider information on cars

Publish articles to popular social media news sites such as Mixx.com, Digg.com, and Propeller.com. These sites allow you to post articles and vote on news stories.

Share videos and images by setting up accounts with Youtube.com and Flickr.com, leaders in online video and imaging to reach a broad or targeted audience.

Use Social bookmarking on sites such as Del.ici.ous and Ma.gnolia.com provide an opportunity to store and share links.

Blog. Blogging enables you to provide information and updates about your business to customers. Unlike ‘News’, which is typically regarded as non-human corporate marketing; blogging provides the business with a personal and very human voice and one which is more likely to be respected and trusted by your customers.

In Conclusion

Businesses that incorporate social media marketing into their conventional marketing plan have the advantage of reaching audiences using a whole new approach. The benefits of strengthening the brand and increasing traffic to your website are just the tip of the iceberg. Establishing your business as a leading authority in your industry promotes good quality links and better search engine placement, which in turn improve your reputation and increase sales - something we can all benefit from in today’s tougher economic climate.