Social Media & Online MarketingUniversity of Washington

January 2009

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Agenda

What is Social MediaAwareness & DemographicsSocial Media ComponentsKey InfluencersSocial Media AdoptionSocial Media and MarketingHow to Use Social MediaProceed with Caution

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What is Social Media

Online Recommender• Technorati• Boing Boing• Reddit

Online Sharing• You Tube• Flickr et al

Microblogging• Twitter

Online Bookmarking• Yahoo My Web• Delicious

BlogsForums

Online Networking• Linked in• FaceBook• My Space

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Awareness & Demographics

1998: a few thousand blogs2008: 180 million

• Blogs: 78 million• Facebook: 41 million• My Space: 75 million

Blogosphere is doubling in size every 6 months

Personal Blogs: 83% female, 76% male

Corporate blogs : 38% female, 50% male

4 Blog typesActive InfluencersInactive InfluencersActive, not influencerInactive, not influencer

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Social Media Components

Format: reverse chronological journalingCurrency: time stamped entries, frequency of postingTrackbacks: out-links to supporting materialsPerpetuity: archived entriesSyndication: RSS feedsVoice & Tone: author passion/focusParticipation: comments, in-links from supporters

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Key Influencers

83% of people prefer consulting with friends or family before major purchases

Influencers are the market movers4 Types of Influencers

• Long term• Average term• Transient• Burgeoning

Metrics of influence• Frequency & length of postings• Referenced by others

• Trackbacks• In-links

• # of comments• Frequency• length

• Out-links/annotations

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Measures of Influence

Technorati Authority ScoreBlogstreet Influence QuotientIRank

Pointy-headed view of HP IRank algorithm

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Social Media Adoption

A significant portion of colleagues use social media• 8% of Americans are deep users of the participatory Web

and mobile applications• Another 23% are heavy, pragmatic tech adopters – they

use gadgets to keep up with social networks or be productive at work

• 10% rely on mobile devices for voice, texting, or entertainment

Blogs are a common means of sharing thoughts and ideas among friends, colleagues and strangers who are interested in same subject

5% of studied blog users generate:• 59% of the bookmarks• 64% of the comments• 64% of the trackbacks

http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000436.html

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Social Media Marketing

Brand Management• Monitor conversation and intercede• Initiate conversation and manage community

Viral Marketing• Develop early adopters and evangelists• Seduce key influencers

Customer Support• Forums and groups to support products

Research (and maybe development)Study tag patterns and posting for context, sentiment, awarenessGet indirect indication of customer knowledge

• What they know• What they want to know

Online demand generation – search engines love blogs

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How to Use Social Media

Know what your customers are saying• Visit social networking site and use your product or service

as search term• Facebook• Linked in• Technorati

• Visit online bookmarking sites (Del.icio.us) and use your domain as a search term. See what customers are bookmarking and what user tags are associated with it

• Visit online bookmarking sites (del.icio.us) and use terms that you believe best describe your product/services and see what sites users have bookmarked

McCann Universal Social Media Research Wave, September 2008

Global reach is achieved through multiple applications: Orkut, Friendster, Skyworld, Mix

• No one platform serves the entire world

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There Be Dragons…

Trolls• Be prescriptive in social media strategy• Respect the community rules and guidelines• Secure your information and infrastructure

Blogs are Op/Ed pieces, seen as such and rarely treated as fact• Make social media a component of a fully integrated marketing strategy

Bloggers lack wide perspective and long-term or corporate judgment• More reactionary than illuminating• Maintain complete transparency about motives

While there are a lot of blogs, the demographics skew young and influencers are few and temporal

• Start with observation before action• Pilot test with a few pack leaders and approach directly

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Resources

The New Influencers: Paul Gillin; Quill Driver Books (March 1, 2007) Organizing and Searching the World Wide Web of Facts - Step Two: Harnessing the Wisdom of the Crowds; Marius Pasca, Google Inc; May 2007 [paper]

How to Connect with Bloggers; Peter Kim; Forrester Report; July 2008Exploiting Social Networks for Internet Search; Mislove, Gummadi, Druschel [paper]On Modeling Trust in Social Media Using Link Popularity; Kale, Kolari, Java, Finin, Joshi; May 2007 [paper]

Web (2.0) Mining: Analyzing Social Media; Joshi, Finin, Java, Kale, Kolari [paper]Can Social Bookmarking Enhance Search in the Web?; Yanabe, Jatowt, Nakamura, Tanaka; June 2007 [paper]

Identifying Influentials in the Blogosphere; Agarwal, Lui, Tang [paper]Modeling the Spread of Influence on the Blogosphere; Java, Kolari, Finin, Oates; May 2006 [paper]How the Social Web Will Impact on Web Search; Susanne Koch; Pandia.com How Can We Measure the Influence of the Blogosphere; Kathy Gill; May 2004 [paper and hometown favorite]

Mining Knowledge-Sharing Sites for Viral Marketing; Richardson, Domingos; 2002 [paper]What is Next for Semantic Blogging; Steve Cayzer, HP Laboratories; October 2006 [paper]Tracking Influence and Opinions in Social Media; Akshay Java; PhD Thesis; November 2006Implicit Structure and Dynamics of BlogSpace; Eytan Adar; May 2004 [PPT on Irank]Challenges in Mining Social Network Data; Jon Kleinberg; 2007Universal McCann Social Media Research Wave 3; www.universalmccann.com/Assets/wave_3_20080403093750.pdf