Dear reader: looking at this post, I have to say it makes a much better chapter than it does a blog. I will at some point come back and add a heap of pictures and so on, but in the meantime you’d do better to simply scroll down, pay with a Tweet and download the book. Thanks!
I talk about social networks to clients and other groups now and then, and one of the bread-and-butter parts of any presentation is an overview of each of the main networks, who uses them, what for, and so on. If you’ve ever heard me talk about this – or pretty much any other topic to do with numbers of people using a technology – you’ll know I like to use geographical metaphors. I started doing this at a Google conference called Digital Now 2009. The hot topic back then was the iPhone, and the attention developers and their clients were paying to making applications for it. During the presentation, I asked the room (marketers, mainly, plus a smattering of advertising bunnies like me) how many of them were considering or working on iPhone applications. About a third of the hands in the room went up. Then I asked how many people were working on something special for people who lived in Timaru. (Timaru is a town in the South Island of New Zealand. About 40,000 people live there and I’m sure every one of them is very nice indeed.) Same population. No hands. Now, I know there’s more to audience numbers than quantity, and the iPhone population has grown a little faster than Timaru’s in the year since then. The one thing that has endured, for me, has been the power and simplicity of geography as a simple anchor for social network statistics. That 1.7 million, 250,000 and 70,000 New Zealanders use Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter respectively might not stick in your mind. But Auckland, Christchurch and Palmerston North just might. (Or Pavlodar, Turkistan and Karagandy, if you live in Kazakhstan.) Anyway, that’s not the point of this chapter. I’m here, as the title says, to give thanks to Tai Tokerau chiefs Tuki Tahua and Ngahuruhuru. In 1793, the dastardly English kidnapped them and whisked them off to Norfolk Island. Not to enjoy a safe, all-meals-included 10-day package holiday as advertised on old people’s radio stations, but to teach the convicts how to turn flax into linen. Unfortunately for the kidnappers, they were wasting their time. Processing flax was women’s work. On this count, Tuki Tahua and Ngahuruhuru were no help at all. They did create something very special though: a map of Aotearoa / New Zealand. Ngahuruhuru drew two; one on paper, and the other on the floor in chalk. I think about this map every time I talk about social networks, and here’s why. If you’re from New Zealand, or if you know your New Zealand geography, you’ll know that this map doesn’t look much like New Zealand at all. Orientation aside, the shapes and proportions are all pretty shocking.
Apart from the area where Tuki Tahua and Ngahuruhuru lived. Compare their map to a modern map of the top of the North Island and you’ll see a heap of accurate detail, including harbours, inlets, islands and beaches. The further south (left) you go, the more vague the detail, and the smaller the features and land areas become. And that’s why I think about this map every time I think social. I live in Twitter, mostly. I visit Facebook most days, and make the trek to LinkedIn now and then to visit friends. I know a few landmarks in the other networks, but can find my way around Twitter with my eyes closed. That doesn’t mean it’s bigger (it isn’t), has more features (it doesn’t) or is more important (it depends). It’s important to remember that. What’s your Northland? Where’s your Te Wai Pounamu? Something to bear in mind the next time you’re kidnapped, taken to Norfolk Island and made to draw a map on the floor. Welcome to the neighbourhood In the next few pages we’ll be looking at three of the more important social networks (as of late 2010): Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. They’re not a “how-to” – check each platform’s own website or YouTube for that. They’re more an introduction, especially from an advertising or marketing perspective, of what each network does, what they’re good for, and an example or two of how smart marketers have used them well. Facebook is to social media as Jupiter is to the solar system and fat people are to McDonald’s. As the tired to the point of near death cliché has it, if Facebook were a country, you wouldn’t want to live there. If you’re looking to build a personal or corporate brand in mainstream social media, you just can’t ignore Facebook. With well north of 500 million users, there’s nothing niche about it. It’s not just for kids either; the fastest growing group on Facebook is over 55 years old. Like former social media champions Bebo and (recently relaunched) MySpace, Facebook didn’t start out so much as a place to do business but (as the Australians put it) do the business. Facebook was designed as a place for real world college classmates to continue their real world relationships online. Marketers would do well to remember that. In the same way that when we make a TV ad we’re leaping uninvited into someone’s lounge when they really wanted to be watching a Seinfeld rerun, taking your brand into a social space needs to respect the space for what it is: a social space. Facebook isn’t an online shopping mall filled with people wanting to buy your stuff; it’s an endless strip of bars, nightclubs and cafés with people out having fun with their friends. Using traditional push marketing techniques to sell stuff in this environment just isn’t going to work. Of course, not all brand activity on Facebook is connected to the businesses that think they own the brands. As I said in an earlier chapter, people own brands, not businesses. So many businesses’ first experience of Facebook is the day they discover they already have a page – courtesy of their fans, haters, or staff. Here in New Zealand, mainstream beer brand Tui had exactly that experience, with a Facebook fan page that grew to 35,000 members before Tui found out who was running it. It turned out to be a (female) fan of the brand who was beginning to find herself overwhelmed by the popularity of the page and the effort it was taking to administer it, especially since she was expecting a baby. When Tui offered to take it off her hands she was only to happy to agree. (The page has since grown to over 100,000 fans.) New Zealand general merchandise retailer The Warehouse (think Wal Mart) had a similar experience … just as well, as its staff-created page became essential infrastructure when New Zealand was hit with its most devastating earthquake in almost 100 years … The Warehouse: networking through New Zealand’s worst earthquake When Christchurch, the biggest city in New Zealand’s South Island, was rocked by a magnitude 7.1 earthquake before dawn on Sunday 4 September 2010 it wasn’t just many of the city’s heritage buildings that collapsed. Communications networks took a hit too. Dozens of mobile phone aerial towers were knocked out, and those that remained were quickly overloaded by hundreds of thousands of people calling and texting friends and families (mainly with good news – despite its strength the earthquake caused no direct fatalities). In the days that followed, contacting people was made even more difficult as houses, streets and entire suburbs were evacuated as the ground they were built on liquefied during the earthquake and many aftershocks – making landline contact futile. For The Warehouse, New Zealand’s biggest general merchandise retailer, this posed huge problems around communicating with staff. While some stores escaped unscathed, others, and the Warehouse’s massive South Island Distribution Centre, sustained considerable damage. Enter Facebook, and a page that just months earlier The Warehouse knew nothing about. Like many organisations, The Warehouse’s social media strategy was a step or two behind reality. While it was considering whether or not to set up a Facebook page, someone – they didn’t know who – went ahead and did it. One of the challenges Facebook presents to brand owners is that there’s nothing stopping pretty much anyone setting up a branded page – providing they’re prepared to tick a box saying that – honest, mister! – they’re the official representative of the brand or product. Eventually, The Warehouse head office team uncovered who had set up the page – an employee in Christchurch (fittingly, as it it would turn out). When he realised he wasn’t going to get into any trouble for setting up the page, he was more than happy to hand management of the community over to the company. When the earthquake hit, The Warehouse’s Christchurch Distribution Centre was badly damaged, and several stores were closed due to fallen stock and damaged shelving. Many staff – The Warehouse employs a large number of younger workers – found that the mobile phones they usually rely on were out of action and that the store numbers they were calling were unattended anyway, as they were among the many Christchurch buildings declared (at least temporarily) unsafe to enter. For the company, communicating with staff by landline was made difficult by the fact that many of them had been evacuated from earthquake-hit parts of the city, making their home phone numbers useless. The Facebook page quickly filled the information void. Warehouse head office team quickly added an “Earthquake” tab as a place to give staff and customers information about which stores were closed and which were open. It also became a place for the company and its staff to share stories about their earthquake experiences, including images of damage to stores and the Distribution Centre. It wasn’t just Christchurch staff who used the page; Warehouse people from all over the country used it to post messages of support. For Christchurch Warehouse employees, the page gave them a sense of belonging and community even though they weren’t at work. And for the Warehouse, a Facebook page they knew nothing about became one of the most powerful staff and customer communication tools as the business – and its community – faced its biggest ever natural disaster. Arnott’s Tim Tam Breast Buddies: social media for social good Like many FMCG marketers, Arnott’s commits a chunk of its marketing budget each year to charitable donations. In many countries, breast cancer charities are the go-to causes, and Breast Cancer Awareness Month sees everything from bottled water to Blu-Tack turn pink in aid of, depending on what you want to believe, saving women’s lives or leveraging disease to turn over product. In recent years there’s been something of a backlash against the second angle. “Pinkwashing” – marketing a “Pink” product in a way that benefits the marketer more than the charity – has become increasingly unpopular. At its worst, pinkwashing sees marketers spending many times more money on advertising the donation they’re making (and the product they’re selling) than they actually give to the charity. Arnott’s New Zealand wanted to reverse that trend, by creating a Facebook-based campaign called Tim Tam Breast Buddies. It was pretty simple: instead of selling specially packaged Tim Tam biscuits as they had previously, Arnott’s created a Facebook Fan Page called Tim Tam Breast Buddies. Then every time someone became a fan, they donated $2 to a breast cancer charity. Not surprisingly, the offer spread virally, as every time someone became a fan, a message appeared on their own Facebook page telling all their friends what they’d done. Within days, tens of thousands of people had become “Breast Buddies” and in a couple of weeks the donation target of $60,000 had been met. The last time I checked the page was sitting at around 45,000 fans. Breast Buddies also delivered an even more valuable benefit than the cash donation. Many of the people who became fans had been affected in some way by breast cancer. So the Breast Buddies page became somewhere for people to talk about their experiences, offer support and make connections with other women living with the disease. While Tim Tam Breast Buddies might not have led to directly measurable sales, it used social media in a powerful way to build a community whose members supported each other while at the same time sharing positive stories about the Tim Tam brand. Importantly for me (disclosure: I was involved in this campaign) it showed FMCG marketers a way to support breast cancer charities and build their own brands, without resorting to pinkwashing. ASB Bank Facebook Branch
When I blogged this a few months ago, I titled it “Banking where the fish are.” I wasn’t suggesting that ASB Bank’s customers have gills and taste nice with chips, but that what ASB had done was to set up a branch where their online customers already were, rather than creating a brand new online destination and hoping people will turn up. It’s funny – in the real world banking or retail business this is basic stuff – you’d be nuts to open a branch in the middle of an empty green field. It makes much more sense to build something in the middle of a big town filled with people who want to do business with you. ASB applied this thinking to the online world, and opened their branch in New Zealand’s biggest online community (or maybe second biggest, behind online auction site TradeMe). Essentially, the ASB Facebranch is a Facebook application (app) that provides visitors (just like a real branch, you don’t need to be a customer to come in) secure real time consultations with online tellers. Once you’ve clicked through to the app (and watched a weirdly sexy introductory video from a rather fetching fembot) you’re faced with names and photographs of the branch’s eight staff, along with an indication of whether each one is free or available. Once you’ve picked a teller, a dialogue box opens up and away you go. You can’t transact here, and the tellers stop short of offering the kind of financial advice that might get them in trouble if you sell your house and invest everything in chickens. (Heard of chickens?) But you can have useful, real, human conversations about banking. The eight staff are very well trained – they have a great knack for knowing exactly when to link you to a product page or suggest you flip over to online banking. But trained staff or not, the ASB Facebranch is a hugely brave move for a brand in a traditionally risk-averse category. Looked at with your Risk Goggles on (available on the 85th floor of a bank headquarters near you) ASB is essentially letting its staff write its website on the fly.
Looked at through Human Goggles though (usually handed in as you enter the lift on the ground floor of a bank headquarters near you) they’re doing nothing more than having the kinds of conversations real-world bank tellers have every day. The ASB Facebook Branch is officially a trial, but with bank marketers around the world watching it just as closely as the ASB head office team, I don’t think it will be long before we see this customer service model pop up elsewhere on Facebook. Twitter: what Lance Armstrong had for lunch Twitter is a little bit like the Fight Club. You have to be a part of it to really understand what it’s all about. That said, this would be a pretty rubbish section if I left it at that, so the next few pages will explain what Twitter is, how it works, and why you should give it a go. Twitter, in its raw form, is an endless stream of short messages from people you choose to follow, viewed on a computer, phone or mobile device. From those simple building blocks, Twitter can help you not just enhance your real world network, but build an entirely new one online based on shared interests and expertise. There are several ways to use Twitter. The Twitter website itself, twitter.com is the obvious one but, at least until its recent redesign, wasn’t particularly user friendly. (It’s pretty cool now though.) Most Twitter users I know use third party applications such as TweetDeck or Tweetie, or Twitter’s own iPhone and iPad applications. Which one you use largely comes down to personal preference and there’s no reason you can’t use different applications on different devices. Whichever tool you use, the basic elements are the same: Your Twitter username
Like any social network, the first thing you do when you join is choose a username. This can be anything that isn’t already taken (but be careful about pretending to be a famous person or brand – unless you happen to be one). It’s worth thinking carefully about your choice of username. You can change it later on, but it you’ve built up a bunch of followers a changed username is an easy way to lose touch. I use my own name: @vaughndavis. Your Twitter bio
The only time most people will see this is when they’re deciding whether or not to follow you. So if you want to be followed, make sure your bio and avatar together give people enough reasons to do that. Your Twitter avatar No, not the movie, but an image that appears alongside each of your tweets. It’s a quick way for people to spot a friend in the flow of tweets, so choose a distinctive image. Remember that it will often appear really small – especially on mobile devices – so complicated images or text won’t usually work. You can change your avatar whenever the mood takes you, but like changing your username it can confuse your followers. I’ve changed mine a couple of times, but currently use a cool caricature I had done by New Zealand graphic novelist Dylan Horrocks. On that note, if you’re tweeting as an individual, a picture of you is a nice way to connect with your followers, but keep in mind that your tweets are public, so don’t use a photo if your privacy is super-important to you. Your first tweet A tweet is 140 characters of text, and that’s that. The characters can include links to websites (sharing information is a great way to make yourself useful) or pretty much anything you want. Believe it or not, I reckon it’s a good idea to tweet a few times before you even follow anyone. Why? So when you follow your first person and they look at your tweets, there are enough to help them decide whether or not to follow you back. Following The only tweets you will see on Twitter are from people you choose to follow. There’s no right or wrong number of people to follow, but every person you add to the list means more tweets flowing past you … so there’s no point in following people if you’re not interested in what they have to say. See the “who to follow” section in a couple of pages for more. Your followers If you’re interesting, useful, or people just like you, you’ll be followed and people will read your tweets. Sometimes people will automatically follow you back just to be polite. And sometimes people will follow you in the hope of a followback, just to build up their numbers. Raw follower numbers are a pretty crude measure of Twitter engagement … obviously you’ll get more from Twitter with more followers, but who those people are and how often you engage with them counts far more than how many there are. Here’s a bunch of mine, put together in a mosaic by sxoop.com. Some of the avatars work better than others. Retweets: sharing the love One of the ways Twitter builds online communities is through retweets. A retweet is simply passing on a tweet from someone you follow, to the people who follow you. As well as being useful to your followers, retweets introduce them to people on Twitter they might not know – maybe giving them a reason to follow someone new. Direct messages: tunneling under Tweets are public. Let’s say that again: tweets are public. Every tweet you send appears on a publicly viewable web page that can be seen by anyone, whether or not they follow you. Even if you delete a tweet, assume Google has captured the data and it will be searchable. Direct messages are a little more secure. A Twitter direct message can only (in theory) be viewed by the person you send it to. So if you want to say something private or exchange personal information like phone numbers or email addresses, a DM is the way to go OK, I’m on Twitter. Why has my life not changed?
So you’ve taken the plunge and gotten yourself a Twitter account, chosen an amusing handle (username), followed MC Hammer and tweeted once about the weather. Now what? The three Rs of Twitterrr
I reckon you can’t go far wrong by starting with my three Rs: relationships, research and recruitment. Weather updates and MC Hammer aside, they cover some of the most useful ways I’ve used it in my role (goat farming creative director). They’re not exhaustive, and I’m sure you’ll find other cool uses too. But they’re a start, and you have to admit they do all start with R. Relationships: this is the big one. Twitter’s power is in bringing people together on the basis of shared interests. So when you see a tweet that interests you, follow whoever tweeted it. Also check out the Twitter Lists that person is on – some of them are sure to relate to an interest you have in common. Follow interesting-looking people from those lists too. Before long you’ll be part of a circle of friends defined by what you’re all interested in. This is a great way to overcome constraints of time and geography to connect to people in the same profession or whatever else interests you. It also means your Twitter circle becomes a pretty powerful tool for the next R ... Research: OK, you’re connected to a bunch of people who are into the same things you are. Looks like you’re part of an expert network! The great thing about the network you’ve created is that, chances are, there’ll always be someone who knows more than you do about any given topic. So tweeting a question to the “hive brain” or “lazyweb” is a great way to find quick answers from people you know and trust. Just like Wikipedia, though, take care with treating any one answer as gospel. (Of course, this is a two way street. You’re bound to know more than some others in your network about certain things, so if you have an answer to someone’s question, tweet it. Karma!) Recruitment: Part research, part relationship, completely brilliant. Assuming your Twitter circle is based on shared professional interests, Twitter can be an unbeatable way to advertise new positions and connect with potential hires. Part of the reason is that job ad tweets get lots of retweets – not surprisingly, since passing on a job lead could be doing someone a real favour. So don’t be afraid to ask for retweets. Job title, organisation and a request to DM (direct message) for more details is about all you should need. There are lots of other ways to use Twitter, but if you’re just starting out, these three are as good a foundation as any. And because they all start with R, they’re super-handy when someone asks you at a party – just like you once did – what Twitter is all about. Imagine it! Attractive but ignorant fellow partygoer: “Say, what’s Twitter all about?” You: (momentarily stumped) “Aaaahhhh….” Her: “Aaah?” You (remembering this chapter): “R! Three of them in fact. The first R stands for relationships … speaking of which, are you single?”
Look who’s stalking: choosing who to follow on Twitter
This is one of those questions that, once you’ve been on Twitter for a while, gets filed under “duh”. But when you’re new to it, “Who do I follow?” is almost as common a question as “What do I talk about?” The short answer is, of course, to follow whoever you like. The slightly longer answer is to follow these pointers to help you quickly build your Tweet stream to the point where it’s (hopefully) informative, entertaining and relevant. Search for people you know in real life. This is as simple as using the “Find People” function in the Twitter web interface and clicking “follow” when they appear on the listing that results. Make sure you’re following the right person though ... If your friend has a common name you might not. An easy way to check is to look at their tweets before following. If you’re after a model train enthusiast friend, wall to wall tweets on scuba diving would suggest you have the wrong person. (Or that your train enthusiast friend is something of a renaissance man.) Look at other people’s followers and followed lists. If you’re following someone you can see who they’re following too, and who’s following them. Chances are, you’ll know some of these people. Take a look at their recent tweets and biography. If they seem interesting, follow them. Look at who’s being retweeted. This is one of the coolest things about Twitter, and one of the main ways it leads to organically formed communities based on shared interests. When one of the people you’re following likes a tweet enough to retweet it, there’s a good chance you’ll like other tweets from the original tweeter too. Click on their username and see what else they’ve been tweeting about. Sound interesting? Follow! There are lots of other ways to find people to follow (including the Twitter Lists feature) but these three are a good starting point. Business time: how can a brand use Twitter?
Sadly, unless you are very famous indeed, no one really wants to know what you had for lunch, and unless you’re a celebrity chef it probably doesn’t relate to your brand. A lot of businesses believe, though, that they should “be on Twitter,” without considering exactly why, and how it relates to business objectives. Or even asking themselves if enough of their customers are on Twitter to make it worthwhile. Assuming you’ve ticked both those boxes though (I am such an optimist!) some reasons you might consider investing some time in Twitter are: Customer service: a growing number of customers – especially tech and media savvy ones – are expecting brands to be available and responsive on Twitter. Don’t overlook the “responsive” side. Once you hang out your sign in Twitter, people will expect answers to their questions within minutes, 24/7. Here in New Zealand, @telecomnz @asbbank @flyairnz @vodafonenz all run pretty smooth Twitter based customer service accounts. Promotions: follow me and win a pony! Well, why not? This can work as direct Twitter-only promotions or as a way to alert your customers to limited time or availability offers elsewhere. Because of the way tweets constantly flow past your followers though, Twitter isn’t always the best way to get a message in front of a customer. “Pull” tactics such as answering customer questions will usually work much better than “push” ones like sending out offers. @airnzfairy, the Air New Zealand Fairy (formerly known at the Airpoints Fairy) is a good example of combining pull and push. Each day the Fairy asks followers who would like a wish granted. From the requests she receives, she chooses one and makes it come true. Not surprisingly, requests for wishes and discussions afterwards build up a fair amount of chatter each day, increasing her popularity and building her community. The Fairy isn’t the airline’s only Twitter presence (see the “dozen bonfires” chapter for more on that) but she does one thing and does it well. Connecting: simply engaging directly with your customers through Twitter – or any social network – can be a powerful way to slice through the barriers that usually stand between you and find out what people think about you and how they are feeling. For customers, the opportunity to connect with a real person puts a human face to what might otherwise be an anonymous corporation – strengthening their connection to your brand too. Twitter also offers brands the opportunity to advertise directly via promoted Tweets and Trends but so far this attempt to (finally) make money from the platform has met with a fair degree of resistance and in some cases has done the brands involved more harm than good. If you’re considering this approach, tread carefully! However you choose to use Twitter, the two main points are to treat it as a commitment – once you’re on there your customers will expect you to be active and responsive – and to make sure that commitment is connected to a business goal. If it isn’t, and it becomes nobody’s job, all you’re going to create is a pissed off online community. Get the whole book! Just hit the button below to download the entire 90-page ebook for the price of a Tweet or Facebook status update. Please also jump in with your comments and corrections in the comments section on this page. (These may form part of any future revisions or editions of the book so please only leave a comment if you’re cool with that.)
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