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Social Media and Usergenerated content – Establishing the implications and effects on the relationship between brands and consumers.
Citation preview
D i g i t a l R e v i e wSocial media impact Read a culture
Issue #1
Patrick Zinga/ George McCann/Anna Wasko/ Haiyi Tang
Introduction
c o n t e n t s
I s s u e 1 . J a n u a r y . 2 0 1 1
Dell Hell
Turning UGC’S to USP’S
Cover Stories
Dell Case study: The effects of UGC felt by
One ‘Blog’ Every Minute
No Space For MySpace
Face to Facebook
Report Summary
Reference
effects of UGC felt by PC giant Dell
Digital Review
6 www.facebook.com/leftclick
Welcome to the wonderful world of social media
Digital Review
mediaIntroduction
Social Media and Usergenerated content –
Establishing the implications and effects on the
relationship between brands and consumers.
‘Society can only exist on the basis that there is some
amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what
he thinks.’ - Lin Yutang
Socializing through e-mail, chat rooms, blogs and social
network sites is the killer application in B2C Markets. Billions
of e-mails are sent everyday and sms messages are catching
up. Leveraging the strong desire to socialize should not be
underestimated. Where consumers are, brands follow.
There is a steady movement that shows a vast amount
of people using cash less and opting for online transactions.
Technology is improving and the world is all heading online
so naturally, brands have to follow.
Offline marketing is slowly getting defeated as more
and more people are getting access to the internet, we need
to ask the question – How can brands utilise user generated
content effectively.
This report will explore and bring to lightsome Issues
revolving the exploration of the internet market and
how people are using their time on the net. Also how can
brands manipulate consumer behaviour through this growing
medium in this new digital age?
• Is the wrath of an upset
consumer important enough
for us to fear it?
• What opportunities does user
generated content provide?
• How can brands use it
effectively?
• What is the future in online
consumer content?
7 www.facebook.com/leftclick
• www.facebook.com/leftclickWxÄÄ [xÄÄ
The general view of the public is that customer service has
become worse but this isn’t the case customer service has
become harder. This is because of technology social media
has made customer service harder web 2.0 has given the
general public a platform to explode about their issues and
we are now sitting on a customer service time bomb. To
place the pervious statement in a business environment Dell
experienced the power of web 2.0 In July 2005.
Jeff Jarvis bought a Lemon off Dell he paid for a
premium four year warranty deal for the PC. Shortly after he
started to experience problems with his computer after
repeat request to fix the lemon and dell refusing to come to
his house Jarvis finally exploded and started to write a series
of blogs (the buzzmachine), this then sparked a war against
Dell. There were daily visits of more than 10,000 to the blog,
giving a platform for angered customers to complain and
create there own blog stories and the wave of User
Generated Content (UGC)
spread like wildfire.
These social media platforms are dangerous to business’s
and should not be underestimated from this one incident
WxÄÄ [xÄÄ g{x xyyxvà Éy háxÜ
ZxÇxÜtàxw VÉÇàxÇàTo tap into social online communities brands need to
plan for more open conversations with consumers,
listening and responding carefully emarketing
excellence (2009). This should be high on any media
planners list in understanding customers needs
listening responding, setting up your own social media
platform or putting your brand on a third party
independent community rather than setting up their
own critical mass site.
This is a great way to gather customer insight, manage
and respond to the comments in environment you have
some control over to help prevent damaging
consciences. Even though Dell have gone to major
lengths to tackle this problem, freedom of speech on
the web cannot be bottled and even with the right
management procedures in place you can only try to
prevent a similar situation. At the end of the day if your
brand slips, up social media will punish you, how you
handle that is up to you. Articles, blogs, online
discussions take place and can be damaging click the
link, see the bottom of this web page for an example of
Dell Hell sparking bad UGC:
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/au
g2005/tc20050825_2021.htmand should not be underestimated from this one incident
Jarvis managed to hurt Dells stock prices making the
power of User Generated Content very real. To combat the
Fiasco, Dell invested $150 million dollars into their customer
service sector.
Dell realised that the power of social media and
decided to use this power to their advantage by creating
Studio Dell and Ideastorm – A social media platform were
people can
promote positivity and complain about their problems. This
meant that all aspects of the business can be addressed and
improved quickly so the problem doesn’t escalate.
Understanding key management challenges when
dealing with social media is the vital to prevent negative UGC
effecting sales growth on and offline. Dells chief blogger
Lionel Menchaca says “ I agree with what Jarivis has to say:
Instead of trying to control information that was made
public, we should have simply corrected anything that was
made inaccurate we didn’t do that and now were
paying for it. Slideshare (2010).
Preventing your customers from exploding you must fight
fire with fire utilising web 2.0 and social
media should be explored since customers have a desire to
participate in social involvement it’s the key to
understanding consumers.
g2005/tc20050825_2021.htm
Bill Gates (left) Bono (middle) Michael Dell (Right)
Turning UGC’s
to USP’sDigital Review
10 www.facebook.com/leftclick
Are you loyal to a brand, why
what makes you loyal to that brand?
Ask yourself this question you may
begin to understand, a rhyme I made
up to get you thinking, sad but
effective none the less. You also
might be asking the question, what
relevance does this have to social
media? But this is a key element in
encouraging internet users to
produce good UGC for your business.
By building strong bonds and
relationships with consumers they will
become advocates for the brand, in
some sense brand disciples spreading
By giving them something to talk
about this in turn creates a knock on
affect leading people to advertise
your brand. This is done via praising
your brand online through comments
on social media platforms, review
sites and even to the extent of making
viral ads for your company
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
hKoB0MHVBvM)
This video currently boasts
13,036,278 views, so people have
consciously chosen to engage.
Engagement being the key word
there. Dell report that’s estimate
Although this is not initially
created by users they
do your work in moving the ad
across different platforms from
YouTube to Facebook, from
Facebook to a mobile phone, from
a mobile phone to a purchase
decision or at least creating
discussions about your brand.
Some of the most famous
campaigns to receive recognition,
are Tipex’s own You tube
interactive video which increased
Tipex sales by 30%, a goal that TV
ad’s rarely
Achieve. Please see hyperlinkssome sense brand disciples spreading
the good message across social media
platforms. The report so
far express’s and gives evidence
of the importance of social media
impact on business’s but the key
to utilising the effectiveness of
customer opinions is to create brand
advocates. This all boils down to
knowing your target market well
enough so your customers can form
relationships with your brand
(wanting people to become friends
with your brand).
To some people you might be
thinking the obvious is being stated,
but people wont shout about your
brand over social media unless you
turn your average customer from
liking your brand, into actually being
friends.
Because we all no the social need to
gossip about your friends to other
people, this works the same with
brands.
there. Dell report that’s estimate
that the average customer is worth
$210 (five year, net present value)
whereas a detractor costs the
company $57and a promoter
generates $328emarketing excellence
(2009). This shows the importance of
people forming strong relationships
with your brand in order to produce
profit. The key to them promoting
your brand is word of mouth, weather
this be done whilst having coffee with
a friend or by someone showcasing
admiration for your brand on The
Herald Blog. Word of mouth referrals
are a powerful tool and key to
creating a buzz around your business;
social media sites provide that service
with abundance.
At the cutting edge of creating buzz
for your brand is the viral campaign;
‘much of an advertiser’s work is done
for them when their prospective
customers forward it to their contacts
quickly building up an audience of
millions’, timesonline (2007).
Achieve. Please see hyperlinks
for further information:
http://www.buzzman.fr/casestudi
es.php and
(http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M) .
This ad engages consumers in
interaction and quickly built up an
audience of millions at costs that
will surprise every marketing
budget planner.
11
These types of innovative online
viral ads could potentially drive the
revenue out of traditional media as
we know it. To understand the
effectiveness of vials, you need
really to compare them with
traditional methods of advertising
for instance TV ads. Long gone are
the times when people trusted TV
advertising. In the eyes of the
consumer TV ads can seem biased,
pushy and unconvincing. This is the
great thing about vials, they aren’t
deemed as threat to customers,
letting customers choose when
they want to engage with the
brand; empowering them to
manage the relationship, building
trusts and emotion towards the
brand.
By giving the power to
consumer they choose when they
Internet users are active they enjoy
their power to speak their mind
online, unlike the couch potato
watching TV who is unimaginative.
TV can be looked at as a lazy form
of personal past time, internet
users want to engage and be
switched on.
The social media (UGC)
creates buzz and discussion, if you
see something on TV and have no
one to discuss with at the time it
can become irrelevant and a lost
cause, but online through social
media your thoughts can be heard
immediately creating talk about a
brand. Overall, social media (viral
ads) adds some sort of value to the
consumer, weather it is laughter,
shock or just creating something to
socialise with friends over
networking platforms. By adding
12
Something that will be left open
to discussion is the future of
viral video’s. Will they become
annoying to consumers, lose
their magic that demands
consumers engagement or will
they continue to remain
relevant and spread across
different technologies like an
unstoppable virus’s? No one
can say at this point but one
thing is clear, they are effective
at present and
should be utilised by businesses
while the opportunity is
available.
consumer they choose when they
want to view the brand which gives
the brand their full engagement
which essentially the objective Ad
agencies are looking to achieve. In
fact, in some ways, the battle for
'share of time/attention' is even
more important than the battle for
share of purse, because ‘if
you don't win the first battle for
attention - or 'engagement' – your
chances of winning the second
battle, for money, are greatly
Reduced’, brand republic (2011).
networking platforms. By adding
value, this makes it appealing to
the consumer which therefore
builds a stronger relationship with
that brand, even encouraging
purchasing decisions, this is why
viral videos are so effective.
Digital Review
13
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick
14
One Blogevery minute
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick
Chief Editor: Patrick Zinga
Chief Editor at Left Click Technology Solutions and esteemed author of One Blog Every Minute.
Blogs are vastly becoming the new
homepages of the 21st Century. They
are simple to produce and maintain,
free and easy. Defined as ‘an online
diary regularly updated by an individual
or group with topical news and views’,
Chaffey & Smith 2008 pg 485. They are
created so the people can communicate
The web 2.0 concept has increased the
prominence amongst website owners and
developers also encouraging the creation of
user generated content such as blogs Blog
creation, in the beginning required a
significant amount of technical know how,
but the base of those creating and reading
blogs, and the number of topics blogs cover,
One Born Every Minute Digital Review15
created so the people can communicate
with others that share the same
interests and problems based on either
personal experiences or knowledge.
Just another way the consumers can
communicate to each other online.
‘Brands need to think about the
different new ways that consumers
communicate’, Chaffey & Smith 2008
pg 114.
blogs, and the number of topics blogs cover,
has expanded as the technology has
become more accessible. ‘Blogs are gaining
popularity in all spheres where traditional
print media plays, including sports, politics
and entertainment’ Innoblog [2007].
Reports are said there to be over ‘14.2m
blogs based in the UK up from 7.8m in
March, (BBC News 2005), giving consumers
‘global voices’ and allowing for the instant
publication of ideas and interactive
conversations, through comments, with
friends or strangers. There is a vast range of
blogs, but this section of the report
specifically looks at how this form of
communication of online consumer blog
reviews can have effects on businesses and
brands. Looking closely at the correlation
between bad reviews and bad sales,
weather the blogger is a force to be
reckoned with or just another form of
manipulation that the brand can utilise to
feed information and promotions to attract
and maintain customers.
Why blog? Blogging gives the consumer ‘a global voice’, BBC News 2005, which in turn satisfies the need for self actualisation on Maslow’s hierarchy. It allows the consumer to promote their own power to reach a wider audience aside from friends and family duplicating the amount and effect of word of mouth, now seen as ‘word of web’, Forrester 1991. It seems that word of web is progressive as ‘55% of all new bloggers are still posting three months after they started’ but this also means that there are a big percentage of out of date blogs where people have started but feign
There is an obvious relationship with ‘digital’ countries with good web access and the third world countries that have a large population but not that much people with web access (India consists of only 100,000 bloggers which is relatively low in comparison with their population stats), Riley 2005.
Digital Review
date blogs where people have started but feign interest after a period, making their opinions and information out of date or dismissive.
There is an obvious relationship with ‘digital’ countries with good web access and the third world countries that have a large population but not that much people with web access (India consists of only 100,000 bloggers which is relatively low in comparison with their population stats), Riley 2005. The graph above shows how in the most technological advanced countries and the ones with higher population there is a high usage of bloggers. With this much people online, talking and passing information, the limits are endless, using this form of medium is sufficient enough to gather information based on facts and opinions from various sources. The problem with this is searching and finding the information that is relevant and specific to you, the person or business. Also there is a trust issue involved spoken of further in this report.
The graph above shows how in the most technological advanced countries and the ones with higher population there is a high usage of bloggers. With this much people online, talking and passing information, the limits are endless, using this form of medium is sufficient enough to gather information based on facts and opinions from various sources. The problem with this is searching and finding the information that is relevant and specific to you, the person or business. Also there is a trust issue involved spoken, of further in this report.
16
“ You don’t write because
you want to say
something; you write
because you’ve got
something to say”- F.
Scott Fitzgerald
PEOPLE VS
BUSINESSESThere are major differences in
personal blog reviews compared to
those on a business site reviews.
Blogger and other similar site are
looked on as real people writing real
depictions of their personal
experiences so there is a certain level
of trust bestowed onto the bloggers,
giving them more power than a
review site. Review sites especially
on brand sites such as Dell can be
Once again the effect of the ‘global
voice’ has upsetting resolutions as
people can abuse this power how
they please. There are many
blogging sites but the question is do
people respect those seen as
‘professional’ bloggers or give more
authority to the thoughts and
opinions of random strangerson brand sites such as Dell can be
deleted, altered or the company can
make there on reviews to balance
out the negativity.
The problem with this is
authenticating where the review
actually came from, be it a
concerning consumer or a paid
advertiser trying to manipulate
peoples opinions. After all, anyone
that has access to the web can
create a blog be it a fan of a product
or a person that detests a brand.
These are the people brands have to
be aware of, the die hard bad
reviewers who believe they have
more power entrusted upon them by
the almighty blog.
opinions of random strangers
Please check out the video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v
=N4ebLhBlQZs
This video demonstrates the
extent of the importance of
blogging and consistent updating. A
blog has to provide for continuity.
Just like a normal website if a blog
is not up to date then the hits of
the blog decline, popularity of
readership depends on the topics
and relevance, making blogs vastly
becoming mainstream media
entities.
The Blogger - TheConsumer - The Business
The Blogger
Forester, 1991 pg 29 actually
assed how the internet was soon going
to be a social standing as the
technology became cheaper and easier
available, ‘the preceding century gave
mankind the opportunity to bring about
a new and better social system’.
Forester continues to say that
commercialism over the web was
inevitable and by this the effects of
prompting good service ‘is essential to
extend good promotion online but
predominantly offline’, (pg 30)
reinforcing the fact that experience
offline has an effect on people’s
perception and what they go on to
write about online – if a service in a
store is appalling, it leads to the
As there is a sufficient
increase in the rise of people
actually using user generated
content such as blogging and
social sites to voice their
opinions, it is crucial that a
brand can adapt and assess
this new ‘social web’ trend.
‘The numbers, as shown
(appropriately) on any blog
show that growth is strong’,
Innoblog (2007).
Webs 2.0 has progressed and
this report goes on to
evaluate such technological
advances in social media sites,
The idea that we speak more to
friends and family over the internet is
becoming truer each day as even the
telephone is being overtaken by the
web (for an individual this is cheaper
than having broadband), ‘this paints
the picture of the web as a substitute
for a bar or club!’, Chaffey & Smith
2008 pg 115. This is due to the
advances in technology as the latest
phones have sufficient coverage
enough for the person to carry the
web with them.
Bt already has WIFI open zone areas
where it is free for consumers to get
onto the web and with the UK
government planning to make the UK
completely switch to digital, the
People vs Businesses 20
store is appalling, it leads to the
conclusion that the review will
showcase the faults.
This has become more important
for businesses to assess bad reviews
they get from these sites since they give
clear and precise reasons and opinions
on real peoples perception of the
brand. It can prove to be damaging
depending on the popularity of the blog
since the web has given consumer
experience the opportunity to reach
more than the just the friends and
families of the blogger.
In the argument presented in
Forester 1991 pg 131 ‘microworlds vs.
the real world’ the concept of
humankind living online is scrutinised. It
begs the question if we engage more to
our computer screens than people
themselves, then computer acts as the
middleman passing on the message.
advances in social media sites,
we see that there is only
room for improvement.
completely switch to digital, the
extent of Internet access availability
will be overwhelming and this once
again could be negative to a brand, if
a consumer is unhappy it will
probably take them only a few
minutes to write a damning report
and post in on their personal blog. ‘It
can help elect presidents and take
down attorney generals while
simultaneously celebrating the
minutiae of our everyday obsessions’,
Wiseman 2008.
The Consumer:
The main question about blogging is
‘is it really that important and does it
have a sufficient voice or authority to
change the attitudes of consumers?’,
Wiseman (2008). There are many
reasons why we blog and it
predominantly depends on the
individual weather or not they look
to provide information about
consumer experience offline, online
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick
Access to the web is vastly growing and
a brand or organisation has to ‘exploit
the unique characteristics of digital
media’, Chaffey & Smith (2008) pg 3.
Technorati which is an online database
that lets brands look up what is being
blogged about them also allows
consumers to look at the same
information, making the searching of
relevant information easier. The current
trend shows expansion, but at the end
of the day it all revolves around the
consumer, so control of information
provided is inexistent for brands,
making life just that extra bit difficult.
Usability is also major in maintain a
consumers interest on a blog, ‘If
adequate functionality has been
chosen, reliability is ensured’, Forrester
(1991) pg 170. If the system is easy to
use, (not just to create but also to
navigate) which most blog sites are
then the traffic increases significantly,
making the site more popular.
.
‘Google and other similar
businesses tend to score blogs
quite highly, giving them added
authority as new content tends
to be regularly uploaded’
Donker (2010). This increases
the likelihood that the brand
will be placed more highly on
search results. As well as
proving popular in keyword
searches , blogs are also an
informal way of providing
information and entertainment
to potential customers.
There are easy ways to
evaluate what is going on in the
blogging world, with surveys
such and sites such as
Technorati, ‘a search engine
that keeps track of what is
happening in the blogosphere’,
BBC News 2005. A brand can
Blogs are consumer lead, ‘the
same marketing principles apply
weather online or offline’, Chaffey
& Smith (2005) pg 17:
•Get close to customers
•Involve them
•Serve them
•Add value
•Find the best ones
•Nurture them and replicate them
•Test measure and improve
The Business
Do blogs affect sales? It is
hard to determine a relationship
between seeing as this is still
relatively new. Is all publicity good
publicity? Google analytics can
only determine weather people
have your brand in their minds
and show popularity by analysis of
search words, which once again
comes up with the problem in
All factors in human goals, if correctly
implemented can boost trafficking on a
bloggers site, they are crucial to keep
users less frustrated when navigating
on any web page not just a blog. Blogs
are easy to use; this is one of the
reasons linked to its success. The real
task it to deter consumers off hate
blogs and make them come onto the
brand blogs which a brand has more
control of when it comes to content,
making the brand more influential.
21
BBC News 2005. A brand can
utilise this tool to assess their
popularity on blogs.
Brand blogs can give you
an insight into consumer
engagement, just as well as e-
mail or subscriptions can,
valuable databases can also be
formed. It’s all about having
the correct employers and
strategy when it comes to
addressing and gathering the
information, separating the
importance of what is being
said and crisis management to
counteract the negative
reviews etc. These blogs can
also have rich internet
applications ‘interactive
applications which provide
such as product selectors or
games’, this can also help keep
people interested in creating
trafficking.
comes up with the problem in
advertising - measuring on an
opportunity level. Is the
information you receive from
these reports sufficient enough to
alter company objectives or
product and brand development?
Once again we also have to look at
its effect on SEO (search engine
optimisation) ‘a structured
approach used to increase the
relative ranking position of a
company or it’s products in search
engines’, Chaffey & Smith (2008).
‘It relies on people tagging - giving
keywords to - their blogs or blog
posts so that its search engine can
find them,’ BBC News (2005). With
the use of search bots, it is
established how much you are
sought out and the more you are
spoken about, through key
phrases, the better it is for
consumers to reach you, when
needed. This can also be used to
establish KPI (key performance
indicators).
www.technorati.com
SWOTANALYSISBRANDS AND BUSINESS BLOGS
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick 22
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick
23
24
As to every online, consumption of the
information is the most important
factor, how the consumer gets there
information and how easily they can
access it. Of course it needs to be
constantly kept up to date, If not
updated it depreciates in value of
content.
Advertising online has increased
ad spend as brands now what to
measure engagement, ‘Digital
marketing has meant that ad spend
online is likely to increase to more than
40 Billion’ Shields, R (2010). Giving the
ideal platform on which to promote
offers and provide backlinks to the main
portal. These in links can be appear
personalised as they are directed to the
specific consumer and topic discussed
Brief SummaryThe capabilities of behavioural target on
blogs is extended as consumers can be
assessed judging on their response to
certain discussions, which leads on to
customer profiling. brands can connect
with their consumer and find out the
answers who buys their products and
why. This can be linked to social media
site pages. Experimental marketing can
also be utilised, items in production or
even development ideas can be put
forward in blog discussion and the
company can judge on consumer
response on how effective the item can
be if massed produced.
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick
specific consumer and topic discussed
in the blog, (similar to affiliate
marketing) bringing the potential
customers to the products and services
on offer. In this case, blogs can be used
to provide a good, relevant internal
linking structure to many pages within a
brand website.
User generated content usually
interlinks; if one person is
blogging then they are probably
on Facebook or twitter or have a
YouTube account. To be
effective you have to establish
all of these and become good at
them. The blog page above
shows that every blog written by
an individual has links to other
user generated content, the
need of validation is essential for
consumers, so brands have to
utilise this effectively. The list
below shows obvious but
influential recommendations:
•Keep the blog up to date.
•Keep it easy to read easy to
take information from.
•Test products through affiliate
marketing and experimental
Blog Recommendations Digital Review25
marketing and experimental
marketing. Coupons and news
updates on the brand
•Make B2B strategy more
effective, link everything
together effectively.
Trends alter differently in this
sector of the internet market
and to market to your target
market more productively, a
brand needs to know what they
want the blog site or consumer
review site to show them. How
are they going to use the
information provided? What
impact will reviews have on the
brand image? And how can they
plan for any negative PR. If they
can answer these questions and
prepare for the worst, than they
will become more effective, but
more time need to be spent
online to become online
consumer behaviour gurus.
Brands should focus on obtaining more knowledge in this
market, which can be extremely beneficial and help generate
user brand blogs and brand advocates (people who advertise
your brand without even realising it or getting paid) increasing
customer loyalty. These are only a few things that make blogging
and business a perfect match. There are a million other reasons
as to why it is imperative to link blogs with business but ‘the best
way to find out more about them is by using them’, Maghirang
(2010).
Mobile technology is doing really well and smart phones such as
the Blackberry touch also allow you to blog, this opens so much
opportunity for marketing potential, most free apps have
advertising banners. It is easy to motivate and manipulate
consumers but brands should never underestimate the power of
the consumer blogger
‘’It's official acknowledgement on the part of MySpace that Facebook has indeed become top dog in the social networking space, and its better to be with them than against them at this point.“ Adam Ostrow
Digital Review 26
Background
After Friendster was released in 2002,
some eUniverse employees came
together and decided to copy the more
27
The first users of MySpace were eUniverse
employees. The company started a
contest for the employees to see who
The history of Myspace began as a for-profit venture
by eUniverse in 2003, bolstered by generous start-up
money. MySpace was intended to compete with similar
services such as Friendster to help people network with
one another in an easy to use and enjoyable manner.
The domain name was once used for a virtual data
storage site, but it was re-purposed for what would
come to be a far more lucrative business.
together and decided to copy the more
popular features of the website. The
first version of MySpace was ready for
launch ten days after they decided to do
this. The MySpace start-up team had
everything under control when they first
launched. The MySpace project was
overseen by Brad Greenspan, who was
eUniverse’s founder and CEO. He
managed Chris De Wolfe, who was
MySpace’s managing CEO, Josh Berman,
Tom Anderson, who was president, and
a team of programmers provided by
eUniverse.
contest for the employees to see who
could sign up the most users. After
eUniverse had reached 20 million users on
MySpace, they used them to put life into
the network and make it number one.
Toan Nguyen was a key architect and
technology expert who helped MySpace to
become what it is today. MySpace.com
was a brand associate with YourZ.com. By
2004 MySpace.com made the transition
from a storage site to a social-networking
site. After the site had launched, Chris De
Wolfe wanted to start charging a fee for
the MySpace service. Brad Greenspan
disagreed; he believed that keeping the
site free was what would make it large and
successful.
EUniverse was purchased in July of 2005 for$580 million. Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorporation, who is the owner of FoxBroadcasting and other media enterprises, wasthe buyer. Of the $580 million, $327 milliondollars was added to the current value ofMySpace. One of MySpace’s goals is to releaseversions of the network for multiple countries.
They have already launched 28 internationalversions. Most of the users of the site are intheir teens and early 20s, making it a veryattractive market for advertisers. The natureof the site as a social networking butmarketers have an access to vast amounts ofdata about the people who visit it. Early on thesite's development, a decision was made to
It's become indispensable for established artists and new ones alike.
MySpace shares an office building with itsowner, Fox Interactive Media, in Beverly Hills,California. Fox Interactive Media is owned byNews Corporation whose headquarters are inNew York City. In 2006 MySpace was the mostpopular social networking website in the U.S.A.
MySpace was overtaken in 2008 by itscompetitor Facebook. The 100 millionthaccount on MySpace was created in August2006 .
28
site's development, a decision was made toensure that all of its features remain free touse. That has turned out to be a veryprofitable choice, as the rapid growth in theuser base of the site as provided substantialrevenue for the site.
One interesting aspect of Myspace'sdevelopment is the role that it has come to playfor the music industry. Many popular bands useMyspace to provide free samples of their music
and post news along with concert dates topromote themselves.
Digital Review
Usability
One of the reasons that Myspace has stood out from some of its competition is the ability for users to customize the HTML mark-up of their profile pages, making it far more customizable than that of their major competitor, Facebook.
This also has the negative side-effect of subjecting many hundreds of thousands of people to some of the worst web design imaginable. The site also offers free blogs to all users along with some in-depth profiles that they can fill out to their heart's content.
In 2008 the MySpace home page was designed into simpler layout that was more appealing to the eye. MySpace music was also recreated in the fall of 2008.content.
Throughout the course of 2007 and 2008, MySpace made many changes in the layout and function of the site. The user’s home page was the first function that was redesigned. They added new features such as applications, status updates, and subscriptions.
Facebook had many different and better functions then MySpace, so MySpace had to catch up
the fall of 2008.
•
“Myspace is a platform for people to be whatever they want, so we’ve decided to give them the space
to do it.” - Mike Macadaan
In October 2010, Myspace introduced new page layout to theaudience. According to the article in Guardian The MySpaceredesign: Voice of a generation - or dressed up to sell? They havedumped a lot of old features, including the logo and 'a place forfriends' strap line. The main focus of the new site is music, as youmight expect, and it's all about personalisation.
Right now it has everything you would expect in a music focusedsite, down to the rounded corners of the graphics. Their new lookis more retro, design is cleaned up, tabs moved to the page top,and also contains news feeds of activity; musicians have new toolsto design their pages; accounts can synchronise with Facebookand Twitter and there are loyalty badges for users.
Digital Review 30www.facebook.com/leftclick
Here are some of the features of a personal profile on
MySpace:
• Moods a person picks an icon to display which type of mood
they are in.
• Blurbs,
• Blogs - has standard fields for content, emotion, and media.
• Multimedia: There are two blurbs, “Who I’d like to meet”
and "About Me." In addition, profiles contain an "Interests"
section and "Details" section.
• "Status"
• Zodiac Sign"
• Photo gallery
• Chat window
• One of the images can be chosen to be the "default image”.
• Playlist
• Friends lists
• Comments
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick 32
Control
The change is part of MySpace’s new public commitment to privacy. The once-dominant social network’s stated goal is to simplify privacy
settings, is to simplify settings and let users more clearly post updates publicly, to friends only, or publicly to anyone 18 or over.
Digital Review
updates publicly, to friends only, or publicly to anyone 18 or over.
MySpace’s privacy strategy appears to be the exact opposite ofFacebook’s current strategy, as late last year we saw the companydramatically alte privacy settings for members to encourage publicupdates. That move caught the company some flack, but controversyaround Facebook’s “Like” button and Instant Personalization featuresdominate headlines now. Perhaps it is the perfect time for MySpace tostrike. In a blog post on MySpace, Co-President Mike Jones doesn’tspecifically call out Facebook, but writes that, “We respect our users’desires to balance sharing and privacy, and never push our users toan uncomfortable privacy position.”
32www.facebook.com/leftclick
The true value of social networks is just becoming clear to marketers.
MySpace earned $820 million in ad revenue in 2008 the amount spent on advertising itself in the UK is tiny by comparison. This is more marked by the fact that social networks that have a greater
Advertising2
Source: Mintel
social networks that have a greater market share in the UK are in fact lower spenders than MySpace.
36Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick
On 11th of January, the media published an information that MySpace releases more than 550 employees , currently numbering about 1100 people of the international staff.
(...) One example of a social network directly advertising itself is MySpace, whichlaunched a banner campaign in May 2009 featuring stop-motion animated toys actingout scenarios of using the social network’s new products and services. This isn’tnecessarily money down the drain: Mintel’s research shows that the more advancedfunctions are still not well used within sites, such as playing games (used by 20% ofrespondents) and watching videos or listening to music (10%).
These are activities that social networks need to encourage because they are revenuegenerators. In the case of gaming, especially virtual worlds, networks have the chanceto profit from the sale of virtual goods (such as via game FarmVille which sells virtualfarm equipment to allow users to advance). Greater use of video could also attractmore advertisers to pay for in-video adverts as well as invest more into paid-forsearch.
37
about 1100 people of the international staff. The message appeared, among Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph, and All Things D. The majority of employees in the service are U.S. citizens. Reductions also will include staff offices in China and Britain, which will be reduced to an absolute minimum.
Exemptions are not so unexpected. At the end of 2010 newspapers reported about this possibility, and even in 2009, MySpace greatly diminished its staff. The workforce reduction is a result of the difficult situation the service, which leads to loss of its owner, News Corp.
B2B
When all the dust settles does anyone think this “partnership” between Facebook and
MySpace will do anything to save MySpace?
Last summer MySpace found a way to getMySpace status updates into Facebook.And last November at a special pressevent that everyone was invited theyannounced more integrations.
Facebook Connect integration so that userscan associate their MySpace accounts withtheir Facebook accounts and then log in toMySpace via Connect. Part of that isalready live. MySpace will suck in as muchprofile information as possible and use itto help with advertising and the interestgraph (bands, musicians etc).
They have also announced that Facebookusers will now be able to push all theirFacebook status updates to MySpace. SoFacebook stream will appear on MySpaceprofile. Now all MySpace has to do isfigure out how to get at least some ofthose users to hang out at MySpaceoccasionally, not just at Facebook. In a few
10% of MySpace traffic left the socialnetwork to search on Google anyway, sothe formal relationship with Google makessense from a customer retention andrevenue generating standpoint.
MySpace has also partnerships withSpringWidgets Beta, People ChoiceAwards, Windows Live Messenger andHotmail, Ad.ly, an in-stream advertisingplatform and many more.
39
occasionally, not just at Facebook. In a fewmonths, everybody will know if it workedand if there is any long term business forMySpace.
‘Myspace and Google, Inc. todayannounced a multi-year agreement torenew and expand their long-standingsearch and advertising relationship. Underthe terms of the new agreement, Googlewill continue to power Myspace searchand search advertising and will alsoprovide additional display advertisingservices to enhance the richentertainment content experienceinherent on Myspace. This agreementbrings together Google’s expertise insearch and advertising with Myspace’sstrength in social entertainment.’(MySpace.com)
Of course, it is a great deal for News Corpbecause they have collaborated with thenumber one search engine provider and acompany that has proven it can monetizetraffic. It's been estimated by HitWise that
Digital Reviewwww.facebook.com/leftclick
B2CB2CA music discovery tool
MySpace helps people expressthemselves and allows brands to tryto relate to those expressions.Influence of marketing is anessential part of online marketing.DJs are still around, but they arenot the only ones introducing peopleto new music. It’s about tapping intosocial capital and how people sharethe music they have discovered withother people. Myspace invites itsusers to be in that conversation andit depends on making people part ofthe experience.
Users of the site can create profiles and post the recorded tracks in relevant section. Everyone can also find their favourite kind of music, listen to the new, fresh tracks. For many artists, internet users are the first listeners. Others, though already have a debut behind them, still put new music to promote their new albums.
From the beginning MySpace was theforge of the young talents; it allows
41
the experience.
’MySpace is still around — and it's still one of the most popular sites for musicians and bands to promote
themselves.’
Almost every band has a MySpacepage, which is a free and easy wayto let people hear your music. Butit's not necessarily a way to getdiscovered — there are more than 5million artists registered onMySpace.
forge of the young talents; it allowscomposers to exist, and to deal withthe reaction of a virtual audience.
Artists like: Lily Allen, Katie Nash,One Republic, Arctic Monkeys orSean Kingston were discoveredthanks to Myspace.
Digital Reviewwww.facebook.com/leftclick
Conclusions
MySpace has become a niche service focusing mainly on musician, fans and bands. The announced changes may improve the current situation of the service, they also
sound really appealing, but may not be enough. More importantly Myspace doesn’t do a good job selling itself, it has a lot to do with spam, malware, hacks that
seemed to overrun the site. MySpace has to realize that it is unable to compete with MySpace has to realize that it is unable to compete with Facebook, which is consuming more markets (most recently defeated Zuckerberg site Orkut in India, a traditional bastion of Google's site.) The only way to
survive is to find a new idea for themselves - and to offer their users something new, and fresh. Something, what
they will not able to find on Facebook.
For now, MySpace had set a specific goal: to become profitable till the end of the financial year (June 2011) . If it fails, (like analysts predict) within two years, service will
be sold - for less than $ 300 million.
HistoryIn February 2004 Mr Zuckerberg
launched "The Facebook", as it was originally known; the name taken from the sheets of paper distributed to freshmen, profiling students and staff. 1,200 Harvard students had signed up Within 24 hours, and after one month, over half of the undergraduate population had a profile on Facebook.
It became Facebook.com in August 2005 after the address was purchased for $200,000. US high
The site's features have kept developing during 2007. Facebook users could post free classified advertisements, give gifts to friends and even develop their own applications.
As of Sep 2009, the company made that clear by announcing that they now have more that 300 million users, making it the largest social-networking site with an education focus.
Recently, Facebook is the largest
45
purchased for $200,000. US high schools could sign up from September 2005, and then it began to spread worldwide, reaching UK universities the following month. Until September 2006, the network was extensive beyond educational institutions to everyone with a registered email address.
The site continues free to join, and makes a profit through advertising revenue. Yahoo and Google are among companies which have indicated interest in a buy-out.
Recently, Facebook is the largest and fastest-growing online social networking site in the world. Besides its large audience, Facebook also has some of the most accomplished advertising tools. Advertisers can use this function attaches great importance to the consumer targeting movement and feed a specific audience segment in order to promote word of mouth marketing.
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick
Many of early social networking sites were short-lived because a lot of users lost interest. Three early decisions and innovations helped Facebook keep fresh in market share: Trusted identity combined with clearly defined networks: Most freshmen arrive on campus, they don’ t know anyone, and so rapid networking is critical.
Confirming online identity, Facebook has become an obvious extension to the offline world. Everyone can join common interest groups in a Facebook network. In contrast, user s of many earlier social networking sites, the reason why they lost interest is when the quality of their networks became diluted with strangers. Without
servers online had the added benefit of creating certain reputation of exclusiveness.
Although Facebook is now open for anyone to join, its early positioning as an exclusive service helped make it seem more desirable and drive an essential mass of users. Early on, it was only possible to search, browse, and view profiles within one’s own network, which further helped to intensify the sense of trust on the site. In the meantime, Orkut and Myspace members were getting bombarded by message spam and connection requests from random strangers. Providing continual engagement: How to keep members engaged on a continual basis is one of the reasons why
friends, called New Feeds, when people log in, is shown on the Facebook home page, and a summary of activity updates specific to each Facebook user appears on that individual‘s profile page wall.
Paradoxically, the News Feed feature, which has proven so helpful to Facebook’s permanence, was initially a big source of argument. Feeds are now one of he top reasons why members keep returning to Facebook. Facebook has transformed from novel thrill to repeat destination, because of the continual sense of decency about the information. The concept of activity feeds has ever become a best practice copied by other Internet sites to sustain site traffic.
If all of your friends are on facebook to share everything, you will
Why Facebook? 46
diluted with strangers. Without trusted identity and a clear formula for when to accept or reject friend requests, friend networks degraded to strangers, spam, and junk.
Facebook’s decision to begin with limiting the number of schools on the service, and only gradually grow as it was able to get new
basis is one of the reasons why Facebook grew substantially. Facebook provides incentives for people to come back to the site –‘wall posts, photos, new friends connections, videos tagged of the individual, and event RSVP people canbroadcast updates about friends’ are just a few developed recent activities. A summary of updates across all of one’s
facebook to share everything, you will also want to join in, and be a part of them, and interact with your friend group. People are less likely to join or change a different social network where you know fewer people. Facebook has over 110 MILLION users from all interest and business groups, it will be easy to find lots of people in the place market. The fast-growing 25+ demographic to university students are building the social marketing promise-land. If people devote an hour a day to social marketing on Facebook, over time they can: Increase traffic numbers to website by the thousands• Get lots of relevant inbound links• Target the advertising• Advertise the business for free• Improve SEO with news feeds• Get the word out about yourself and
your products
SWOT
Strengths
• The clean layout and the simplifying of the profile page All your personal information is in one place and all your applications are on one tab now called boxes.
• Integration of Wall and Minifeed Makes Sharing Even Easier with one dedicated tab and a host of new features to play around with.
• New Features
• Facebook Notes can import their posts automatically and then tag
Weaknesses
• Initial Teething Problems
• Harder To Customise
• Harder To Judge by First impressions
• No shortcuts on the Profile page
• Viral Potential Restricted
• Application Developers
• Designed for Advertising
• The Money Spot
• Flash Distractions
47
Opportunities
• A Great Place To Network to promote yourself, your business, your product or any services you offer .
• Facebook Pages With the obvious refocus on advertising those who learn how to use facebook social adds will have a great opportunity to get very targeted advertising.
• Marketing Tools polls and surveys which a range of powerful marketing tools
• Integration With Other
• Services allows users to link all their social media activities together sites like Digg.
• Power structures will Change
Threats
• Facebook Is Now In Control what people see when they land on your page.
• Spamming Wall spam has now become a much bigger issue with the merging of the mini feed and wall.
• Allow More Choice to allow users to decide
• Self Expression to be able to pick exactly what page is displayed to new visitors uld also be a good option to add.
• Tagging directly into their profile page
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick
People can increase traffic to website by taking
advantage of Facebook applications:
Social marketing with Facebook Notes:
If people want to set up a Facebook page that
will pull people back over and over, then
Notes great. Once install it people will see
it on the applications list found on profile.
If click on “mynotes” people will see a
spot where they can add the RSS feed
which will look something like
this:[http://blog.YourSite.com/index.xml].
Facebook tends to have a morning rush
hour — people come in to work and check
Facebook. So think of the network’s time
zone and try to have something new in the
feed by around 7:30 – 8:00 am.
Social marketing with My Box +: people
can add any HTML to Facebook page with
this great little app. So start with an opt-in
offer to email list. And take the opt-in
code from people’s website, install My
Box, and paste in the code. Then people
can collect email addresses right from
Facebook.
On social implications:
Reaching new audience Online social
networking encourage entrepreneurial
networks by offering casual interaction
modes and the ability to support a greater
48The Effects of Social
Marketing
Social marketing
with Flog Blog: Another great application
is Flog Blog which lets people add RSS
items to Facebook profile, displaying the
headline and lead sentence, lead
paragraph, or a set number of characters.
Posts displayed in Facebook profile can
either link to blog or to the Flog Blog
application’s “canvas page,” within
Facebook. It will net more friends as well.
In Facebook, people are watching what
their friends are looking at. On top of that,
people get to link back to their own
website.
modes and the ability to support a greater
number of weak ties. This is good news for
marketers. Entrepreneurial networks can
help brands build bridges from existing
audience to new one.
Social shopping and recommendations
The future of shopping will be social. Social
network members are already starting to
engage with specific products and services
through virtual gifts, friend
recommendations, and e-commerce.
Social network communities Online social
networking sites provide an ideal medium
for engaging with existing customers and
building loyalty. Social network
communities, such as Myspace group, Hi5
group,
On engagement:
Companies around the world are using Facebook to make the Weba more social place, and how to engage through social andpersonalized features.
Users are creating word-of-mouth for events. Word-of-mouth has always been one of the most powerful tools ofmarketing. According to a survey conducted online byNielsen in 2009 of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50countries, 90 percent of its consumers surveyed trustrecommendations from people they know.
The power of content sharing through mediums such asFacebook’s social plug-in can help leverage your brand andcreate word-of mouth. Your sites can become more socialand engaging and have the potential to reach a vast networkof users. It’s a service that’s worth trying and it’s easy toimplement.
Social plugins:
The Activity Feed plug-in
Displays the most interesting recent activity taking place onthe site. Since the content is hosted by Facebook, the plug-incan display personalized content whether or not the userhas logged into the site. The activity feed displays storiesboth when users like content on the site and when usersshare content from the site back to Facebook. TheRecommendations plug-in shows personalizedrecommendations.
Like Box
The Like Box is a social plug-in that enables Facebook Pageowners to attract and gain Likes from their own website.
Login Button
The shows profile pictures of the user's friends who havealready signed up for your site in addition to a login button.
49
Like Button The Like button lets a user share your content withfriends on Facebook. When the user clicks the Like button onyour site, a story appears in the user's friends' News Feedwith a link back to your website.
T
already signed up for your site in addition to a login button.
Facepile
The Facepile plugin displays the Facebook profile pictures ofusers who have liked your page or have signed up for yoursite.
Live StreamThe Live Stream plug in lets users visiting your sitand comments
in real time.
Commentse or application share activity The Comments Box easily enables
users to comment on your site'scontent — whether it's for a web page, article, photo, or other piece of content. Then the user can share the comment on Facebook on their Wall and in their friends' streams.
23% of Twitter followers follow businesses to find special promotions or sales, 25% of Customers connect with brands on Facebook to receive discounts.
More than 50% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter users are more likely to make a purchase from the brands they follow. Facebook and Twitter visitors spend 1.5X more online that other Internet user. People can use Facebook
Credits to buy digital goods in more than 150 social games and applications on Facebook. Facebook already collects 30% on purchases of virtual goods. Now estimated to be worth $5bn annually. But now it’s possible for brands with fan pages to display and sell products via Facebook. There are a numbers of 3rd
50
pages to display and sell products via Facebook. There are a numbers of 3rd platforms arriving on the market which allow anyone to build a Facebook e-commerce storefront meaning that consumers can purchase products
without leaving the Facebook environment. Brands can sell through status updates and tab stores, ecommerce functionality stays with the post
wherever it goes.
Please access the video link below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jTZiNZVtQE
In the US Facebook credits are not only available to buy online, but can also be picked up in local supermarkets, and started selling the gift cards in the lead up to Christmas. Now people can also buy Facebook credits in UK
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick
B2B
A number of celebrities and organizations on Facebook are already using this feature to publish the content on their Facebook Page to Twitter and reach a wider audience. Twitter was a natural next step to link with Facebook Pages because it is a powerful tool for broadcasting short messages widely.
Facebook will be releasing a feature that allows administrators of Facebook pages to publish their Facebook updates to their Twitter accounts automatically. This will only link Facebook Pages to Twitter, not the individual profile.
If people want to manage a Facebook Page, now will be able to decide whether to share updates with their Twitter followers, and also will be able to control what type of updates to share: status updates, links, photos, notes, events or all of them. If people have multiple Pages, they will have the option to link each of those Pages to different Twitter accounts. This new feature will be soon be available at
51
new feature will be soon be available at http://www.facebook.com/twitter.
Facebook & SEO
Microsoft and Facebook have announced a new partnership that brings “Like” data and profile search to Bing. The deal marks a big leap forward in social search and also represents a new advantage for Bing . Bing users now get an experience that’s customized using
Facebook Instant Personalization. Yahoo had already been trialling the approach, using Google IDs. Facebook and Google IDs will work across all Yahoo services, apart from Yahoo email and instant messenger.
The future of social businessThe online social graph allows relationships and business goals, rather
than technology limitations, to drive business strategies and decisions. In fact, in the best online social graph disappeared, fully
52
decisions. In fact, in the best online social graph disappeared, fully integrated into the online and offline tasks, transactions, and
interactions confirmed.
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick
53
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick
Victoria’s Secret, a well-know U.S. retailer of
sleepwear and lingerie, has a successful
facebook page for its PINK line targeting
high school and college students. Less than
a year after establishing its official
community on facebook, PINK has nearly on
million fans who have collectively posted
tens of thousands of wall posts, videos,
photos, and discussion forum message.
Any facebook member can become a fan of the
PINK page. Members can post photos,
access event, and participate in the
discussion forum and wall. PINK then
appears under the “page” section in the
Case studyVictoria’s Secret PINK & Facebook
Besides the officially sanctioned PINK page,
there are also over 500 usercreated
groups dedicated to Victoria’s Secret,
including over 300 dedicate to
the PINK line. There are group such as “
obsessed with PINK*by Victoria’s
Secret” “i’m addicted to Victoria’s Secret
PINK, but damit make some bigger
bra’s!” and “Victoria’s Secret PINK-at
USC!!” they groups range from having a
few members to tens of thousands of
members, and play an important role in
influencing how people engage with the
Victoria’s Secret brand on facebook.
In fact, a few dozen of these groups were
started in response to an official
54
appears under the “page” section in the
user’s profile, and as an ad(if had have been
purchased) or social story in the News Feed
when friends log in.
Victoria’s Secret advertisers PINK through
Myspace and Facebook, as well as
partnership with MTV and youth-oriented
blogs. According to those who follow the
industry, the PINK brand seems to be the
fastest-growing line launched in the history
of the company.But Victoria’s Secret brand
presence and influence doesn’t end there.
started in response to an official
contest announced on the PINK page
challenging college women to nominate
their school to be part of the PINK
collegiate collection, special-edition styles
branded with school colours and logos.
56The Future of
social media
Digital Review www.facebook.com/leftclick
Good marketers no the market upside down and
inside out the importance of knowing what’s
round the corner is vital to avoiding the dangers
that may lie ahead. Is the future of social media
Facebook that’s the question on everyone’s mind
when it comes to advertiser’s digital spending
budget.
Big brands are looking to move to add
ecommerce to their sites with more than 500
million active users logging on to Facebook any
given day its no wonder brands have taken upon
themselves to try and increase their sales
opportunities by using this vast social media
platform Easy Jet look to be the first to introduce
a fully functional e commerce page onto facebook
Katie Stitson, UK marketing manager for Easy Jet,
said, “The group holiday planner lets you co-
ordinate dates and availability and invite your
friends via Facebook and email. We’re looking to
develop this further by adding booking
functionality.” nma (2010). New media trends
states that: 64% of respondents in a global study
by Sheraton Hotels & Resorts said they use social
The Future of Social Media Digital Review57Seemingly on paper this seems to be an
excellent for Facebook and brands a like it
will increase brand awareness, Facebook will
become a more powerful tool being able to
analyse peoples spending habits in relation to
their profiles, it will encourage spending
helping the growth of Facebook and the
brands as it will become a powerful
purchasing tool. The likely hood of this being
a failing endeavour is up to debate as it
hasn’t been fully tested yet but the theory
behind the logic seems conclusive meaning
the implications to Facebook could make
Facebook one of the most powerful e
commerce tools on the net which only adds
to their already heavyweight champion
status.
Facebook’s current competitors are looking
for a route slip past the social media giants
but the door gets slammed shut every time.
Myspace once the Facebook of the web tried
to regain market share by, looking to return by Sheraton Hotels & Resorts said they use social
media to make their travel plans. This provides
added evidence that this could be a successful
tool for Easy jet to utilize but the question will
remain is Facebook appropriate for all types of
brands e commerce endeavours and how many
brands will take the same steps as Easy Jet
.
Another brand that has seemingly embraced this
idea is online retail fashion brand ASOS.
Asos’sFacebook app will have the same
functionality as the Asos website, including add-
to-basket, edit cart contents, check out and
order-tracking features. It will also have increased
social media capabilities including the ability to
"like" and share items and purchases with friends.
Items that are listed by users will also appear in
their friends' newsfeeds, with the capability to
click through to the Facebook store brandrepublic
(2011). In relation to the power of UGC discussed
in this report this is a great way to generate buzz
around the brand.
to regain market share by, looking to return
to growth and compete more effectively with
Facebook. The main issue here is that the
loyal Myspace followers are mainly using
Myspace as tool to share their passion of
music, chasing Facebook would seemingly be
a lost cause they now fall into niche category
of social networking and should focus on
what they do best music rather than trying to
get back their market share of being social
networking site for friends a clear brand
status needs to be put out so people
understand were exactly Myspace are
positioning themselves in the market or
Myspace could be looking at further looses.
Mintel (2009) states with the launch of new
tools, such as MySpace Music in December
2009 these strategies look to be the way
forward for Myspace in the current market.
?
Facebook does encounter some challenges mainly from
their biggest rivals on the internet Google. Google are
looking to launch Google me there has been speculation
that this is just rumours but with many indicators suggest
otherwise it’s hard to ignore this possibility. Whether or
not they will be able to challenge Facebook in the social
media game is yet to be convincing with clear examples
from Google's previous social networking endeavours,
Google Buzz and Orkut garnered lack-luster responses
and low consumer retention - especially when compared
to Facebook's 400 million active user base independent
(2010).
If they do manage to provide a successful social media
site it will be healthy for the market as it will challenge
Facebook to push themselves to excel at the moment
their in a comfortable position and new threats will make
the market work harder to develop Web 2.0 to fight
against new competition.
Facebook’s growth and rapid innovation means that Facebook’s growth and rapid innovation means that
Google now has its first credible competitor – but this is
partly because the search engine has been a victim of its
own success.
56
In order to advertise on Google, brands bid on key
search terms. However, as the search engine
became recognised as the one type of online
activity all brands had to get involved with, this had
an inflationary effect (making it more expensive).
This proved opportune for Facebook, which was
able to offer lower prices, as well as greater
marketing accountability (ie a wider range of tools
to target users and measure the results of
campaign mintel (2010).This could be the
inspiration for Google big push to compete with
Facebook in the social network market as they feel
their advertising revenue is being threatened.
To Smart For Your Own Good
Clear continuous growth in the mobile phone market as location
services grow in sophisticated smart phones become key to retail
strategies. Here brands will be able to differentiate themselves by
offering useful tools that blend location (such as the nearest pub)
with views of friends or others in the community (for example,
whether or not it serves good food) Mintel (2010). The broadening
of the app model will play a role, and marketers must find a way to
deliver ads across a variety of devices this will be a key challenge as
well as to create the kinds of content their targets want to consume
magnetic pull will be key with advertising through mobile social
media being welcome instead of annoying or interruptive. Social
networking on smartphones will continue to grow as well as
handsets designed to accommodate social networking will continue handsets designed to accommodate social networking will continue
to encourage wider usage on the move.
At the same time, marketing activity is also likely to be increasingly
focused on mobile social networking, which will be compelling.
Growing penetration of smartphones, as well as handsets to
accommodate social networking, will continue to encourage wider
usage on the move. This will be reinforced by increasing innovation
from social networks to produce more compelling mobile
applications that simplify that simplify and speed up the process of
connecting with friends on the smaller screen Mintel (2010). Mintel’s
research shows that social networks are the second most popular
internet mobile activity, accessed by 16% of internet users.
Future of
Social Media
The two tables above show the clear indication With Facebook continuing to grow rapidly leaving
60
The two tables above show the clear indication
of belief that advertisers in the US and the UK
have in online digital advertising and the
effectiveness of advertising on social media. UK
social network ad spending will reach an
estimated £275 million ($430 million) in 2012,
more than double the £130 million ($203
million) spent in 2010. 2010 was a
breakthrough year for social media in the UK
emarketer (2010). The growth in advertising
across social media is clear cut and shows a
sustainable growth to continue in years to
come with more people migrating to use digital
social media platforms in their everyday life.
emarketer estimates that 21.8 million people
used social networks—almost half of the
online population. By 2014, about 60% of all
UK web users will be social networkers. One
thing we can be sure on is that the growth in
social media will remain strong and how high
marketers value the effectiveness of
advertising through social media.
With Facebook continuing to grow rapidly leaving
rivals beneath their wings and with their CEO’s
only dreaming of success’s of Facebook not to
mention Facebook obviously got web giants
Google fearing their grip over the internet. It
seems to be there is continuing pressure for other
social media concepts to compete with the big
players sometimes if you can’t beat them your
only option is to join them something Twitter
seemed to realise yet some stubborn brands are
unable to recognise the business opportunities.
The main message is social media will play a
massive role in our futures so embrace it now or
be left in the past, just remember to be careful as
with technological advances as were always only
one step away from finding the next
breakthrough in today’s technology driven world.
Digital Review
61End Report SummaryMain Conclusion:
Moore’s law states that the power of the chip duplicates every two years so the technology
today will be far faster, better and easier to manage as years go on. User generated content is
just at the beginning stages, it is so broad and vast right now which makes its success harder to
determine. Despite this fact there are obvious signs that with technological advances, the drive
of consumer illustrated articles, reviews, blogs or social sites will just continue to be as
influential and essential as they are now. Recent trends show that this is a world of opinions
and the want for these opinions to be shared has increased. As more people get more
comfortable with the technology of web 2.0 and its advances, the need to ‘tell the world’ will
increase significantly. Brands just have to learn to ride the wave but be consistently on top or
otherwise risk drowning in bad publicity.
Main Recommendations:
Growth is foreseen and expansion of this market is unstoppable. The problem with this
particular market is that control of user generated content is simply unattainable. This does
not mean that control management should not be incorporated; instead it should be at the
forefront of any brand development strategies, by interlinking the main corporate strategies
with how they influence the consumer online, the brand produces less risk. Offline attitudes
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with how they influence the consumer online, the brand produces less risk. Offline attitudes
affect how people behave online. There will always be an unhappy consumer somewhere out
there in the world, bad publicity is unavoidable no matter how good the brand is, to be
successful in maintain a good overall public image the brand has drown out the voices of
negativity and replace them with the positive, so much so that it easily counteracts the
negative PR.
Planning is the most important thing. Who knows where the road of consumer generated
content research may take us, the incorporation of good management and the structure of the
brand online is what will help drive sales. The market value of Facebook is extensive and has
continuous growth, brands have to utilise this effectively through e- commerce. Retail strategy
will be affected by broadband.
What Next:
E – Businesses will be most effective with user generated content, in the sense that evaluation
will be simplified. B2C selling could prove to be more important and take over B2B as brands
will be able to contact and reach customers directly. The world is soon becoming digital and
our curiosity of different cultures and attitudes will drive us online. We purchase more online,
we socialise more online, we are the new digital age and not only brands but also advertisers
will have to follow this movement to be more effective is B2C selling
Contact Page Digital Review62
Contact us:
Left Click Research Agency Site:
http://digitalmarketingnetwork.ni
ng.com/group/leftclick
Email:
http://www.facebook.com/leftclic
kk
http://www.twitter.com/leftclick.
Magazine Design Editor: George McCann
Articles: Pages 8-13, 56-60
Magazine Writer/Editor: Patrick Zinga
Articles: Pages 7, 14 – 25, 61
Magazine Writer/Editor: Anna Wasko
Articles: Pages 26-42
Magazine Writer: Haiya Tang
Articles: Pages 43-55