Social Media

(Google +) = (- Interest)

April 23, 2012 By John Kimbell

My self-imposed break from Facebook and Twitter is over.

As part of a one man (not so social) experiment, for the last week I haven’t logged in to either social platform as I endeavoured to become a Google+ convert. To be honest, this little experiment was long overdue having ‘upgraded’ (current Google users don’t ‘join, but upgrade to G+) when it first launched, but never done anything with my ‘account’.

So, spurred on by reading about Google+ undergoing a revamp and boasting of its 170m users, I decided it was time to see what it was all about.

Whilst I understand (and Google later reiterated to me in person) that G+ isn’t supposed to be a like for like replacement for Facebook or Twitter, I felt the best way to truly appreciate what the platform could offer would be to give it my exclusive “social attention”.

I chose to treat using G+ as any other punter would (as opposed to scrutinising it as a Digital Planner might) and to be honest the first few days passed without incident – literally. Given that only a handful of my friends outside of work are on G+, my ‘stream’ remained unchanged. Ok, so Mashable and Richard Branson had plenty to say – but to be honest that isn’t what I want in my personal social space.

I asked people in my ‘circles’ if anyone else was using Google+ “No – I don’t get it” and “Yes, but only because you sent me a message” came 2 responses. I was starting to feel a little isolated and was wondering what has happening on Facebook.

As the experiment went into days 3 and 4, what did become apparent was how engrained the other social platforms had become into the social ecosystem. I felt like I was cheating on Google when I checked my LinkedIn account to be confronted with Twitter updates from my contacts and everywhere I went I was being asked to ‘share this on Facebook’, or ‘login in using Facebook’ – but I couldn’t.

By chance on the 5^th day of the experiment I was at an industry conference where a guy called Kerem Atasoy (+kerem atasoy) spoke about how Google+ can be used by retailers and to be honest he did very little to convince me that Google’s dabble in the social world is going to be the soaring a success. I collared Kerem at the end of the conference and outlined how I had been solely using Google+ for the past few days and asked if he could tell me how many other people in the UK only were using it – “Only Larry (The Lamb? Grayson?) knows that” was the response. (Out of interest Kerem himself has only posted on Google+ 3 times in the last 3 months).

My interest was waning and I found myself digesting more than my average amount of daily digital news as I found that this (outside of a handful of brand pages) was the only real content I could find of interest. Yes, a lot of big (and some smaller) brands (H&M, Burberry, Intel, Manchester United) have jumped on the Google+ bandwagon, have lots of people in their circles and appear to be making a fair fist of things – but it felt very much as if I was an outsider looking in, rather than it being the social/interactive platform I was hoping for.

Many of these brands have gone to great lengths to make some really attractive looking pages and update regularly, giving those people that are interested much to digest – but at the moment it just isn’t mainstream enough to be of interest to the mainstream – clearly seen by the lack of responses to most posts.

In summary, Google will be the first to admit they are behind the curve when it comes to social. Facebook and Twitter stole a march on them some time ago and they are now trying to play catch up.

Whilst Google+ has some nice features (Circles and Hangouts especially), I think they are going to struggle to compete with Facebook and become a social media tool that is used by the masses. The current awareness campaign they are running may help turn a few heads and increase uptake amongst a few (hundred?) thousand of the more curious and tech savvy amongst us but I’ll be surprised if it ever comes close to being as widely used as Facebook.

Admittedly for fans (and employees) of Google, G+ does help close the loop on their many product extensions but in my view it just feels a bit too complicated for the average online user – there is too much for people to get their heads around and I think this counts against it. If you look at how simple other social platforms are to set up, understand and use, it just feels that Google have overcooked it a bit.

For brands that have the know-how and budgets, it is bound offer rewards if it is managed properly – as no doubt Google+ brand pages will rank better in natural search and see other social platforms slide down into oblivion and it may well be this fact that many brands will consider when looking at their brand pages. But on the flipside, this is yet another social platform that requires upkeep and moderation – putting extra pressure on all but the most socially active and well-resourced brands.

I’d like to say that I will continue to use Google+, but until less of the digital pluralists and more of my friends and the brands I am interested in are signed up – I won’t be.

Feel free to see what I don’t get up to :- +john kimbell

Useful links :-

http://www.google.com/+/learnmore/

http://mashable.com/2012/02/09/hm-google-plus-brand-pages/

http://on.mash.to/xWVjIb

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/01/23/google_is_fiddling_with_the_google_plus_stats/

Filed Under: Display, Search Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: facebook, Google, socialmedia

I must use Google+. I must use Google+. I must use Google+. I must use Google+.

January 31, 2012 By Sharan Cheema

At the start of 2012 the majority of people I asked about their New Year’s resolutions came back with the usual responses ”go to the gym more”, “drink less booze”, “cut out chocolate” etc etc. However I am pretty confident that my two personal resolutions for the year are pretty unique:- 1. By the end of the year to be able to ‘do’ the splits. 2. Increase my use of Google+. As this is a digital blog I’ll choose to focus on my second resolution in more depth…

I signed up to Google+ last year during the invitation-only phase and admittedly didn’t return too often in 2011 with the key reason being that I did not understand what I would get out of it. The two main social platforms in my life are Facebook and Twitter and they both have a separate use in my life; Facebook is used to connect and share with my friends and family with Twitter being used to keep up to date with people/topics/companies I find interesting. The question is how will Google+ add to and enrich my social experiences online? The only way to find out is to use it more which is what I have been doing since the start of the year.

My immediate thoughts are that the platform feels more visual with a key emphasis on users connecting with one another through photos and ‘hangouts’. To get a feel for the platform I have been adding people I know (which is predominately people from within the industry) along with brands and celebrities I find interesting. I believe that the success of Google+ in the future will stem from their focus on the latter – celebrities. Using high profile names will push the platform into the mainstream subconcious and allow Google+ to move beyond just the so-called early adopter members. It already has David Beckham and Lady Gaga using the platform which are two people who are arguably at the top of their profession and will only make more people aware of it. Larry Page announced earlier this month that Google+ has 90 million users which is double what they had three months ago. However the question remains how many of these users are engaging daily or weekly (for which a definitive figure was not provided).

So after my first full month of using the platform, I am still confused as to how it will enrich my social experiences online. Ultimately the success of the platform will be driven by the people who join and nobody I know from outside the digital industry is a member making it hard for me to comment on what my Google+ account adds to my life. In its current state it is something that I am using in conjunction with other social platforms and it is allowing me to connect with people within the digital world alongside other people I am interested in. My experiences will change as others share more on Google+ so I’ll be sure to share my thoughts as they evolve!

If you want to add me to your Google+ circle then feel free to do so…

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: Google

100 million and counting

October 26, 2011 By Sharan Cheema

In my eyes Twitter was officially validated last week when my father (the anti thesis of tech savvy) questioned me about Twitter and why I use it. My response was that it is informative, keeps me up to date with topics/people I am interested in and enables me to keep in touch with colleagues and friends. This response was in total contrast with my initial reaction to my introduction to Twitter over three years ago in which I exclaimed that it was ‘a waste of time’. Times have changed and Twitter has changed the way I access information and consume media and I am clearly not alone. It was announced last month that Twitter has 100 million monthly active users with 50% logging in every day which is outstanding growth for the platform.

I login several times a day and rarely tweet but the real value for me is that it provides streamlined access to topics and tweeters I am interested in. My following of brands is limited to just one at the moment (@adidas_official) but with the advent of increased advertising on Twitter just around the corner I am sure that will change. Recent survey results show that 75% of those questioned have never unfollowed a brand on Twitter which is a sign of loyal audience on the platform and the still relatively early stages of brands advertising on the site. Research earlier in the year showed that in contrast 81% of consumers have either ‘unliked’ or removed a company’s posts from their Facebook newsfeed which I feel is a sign of the size of Facebook and the growth of advertisers on the site. On Twitter users are still predominantly actively searching and connecting with brands they are interested with so are more likely to be engaged with the brand.

With such large growth and research available which validates the use of Twitter for brands, it would be easy for advertisers to dive in and start tweeting asap but this is where many fail. Brands need to get a unique Twitter strategy in place to complement the existing social, online and offline channels that are being utilised. Rather than thinking ‘how can Twitter promote the message of my brand’, brands should instead ask themselves ‘how can it be used to help enrich our consumers experience with us?’. Each brand’s proposition and consumer base is unique so there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach that can or should be adopted. I love Twitter (because I want to and not because I have to) and believe the benefits are there to be reaped by brands who are willing to embrace it and put the consumer at the heart of their strategy.

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: twitter

Social Media Monitoring @ Navigate Digital

September 7, 2011 By John Kimbell

Social media is changing business.

Brands are now being defined by the conversations taking place around them and brand ownership is no longer solely the domain of the institution. This is happening regardless of whether brand and/or marketing managers like it or not.

At Navigate Digital we are helping our clients appreciate that they need to understand and listen to ‘the social web’ before they can participate effectively. We understand that in today’s online environment, our clients should know what’s being said about their brand, the industry in which they operate and their competitors. We also know that listening is just the beginning and it is becoming increasingly important to measure, analyse and report on a brand’s social media marketing efforts.

To help facilitate this, we have a license agreement with ‘Radian6’ – the market leading monitoring and data aggregation company for social media.

This means we can now continually monitor what conversations are occurring in real time around any brand. The tool covers over 100 million sources worldwide each day and means we can track discussions around a brand across blogs, mainstream online news, video and photo sharing sites, micro-media, forums, discussion boards, and Facebook (only public discussion forums). Clients can therefore benefit from a one off audit (providing a snapshot of how a brand sits within the social space) or ongoing, monthly monitoring. Both reports will provide a fascinating insight into

The volume of social ‘mentions’ around a brand
Who is talking about a brand
Where these conversations are happening – it might not just be Facebook and Twitter….
What people are saying about a brand (brand sentiment)
Your share of voice amongst your competitive set

This data combined with our own insight will then enable you/us to develop a much clearer idea of how your social media footprint and strategy should evolve in the months to come.

For more information on our range of social media services and how they can help you, please contact us by email – hello@navigatedigital.com, Twitter @navigatedigital, or phone – 0203 178 8959.

Filed Under: Social Media

A Day with a Mobile Phone

August 17, 2011 By Rasa D'Alton

This story is really about a smart phone vs not such a smart phone. I’ll start by referring to the TV report I was watching a little while ago where they established that most people can’t leave their house without their phone. Not the keys or wallet – no, their phone. That’s not going to help you get back in once you’ve shut the door, is it? But never mind, I’m sure that’s still to come for mobile – electronic key for your front door linked to your phone, and we are already on the brink of paying for our coffee with our beloved handsets with NFC. So the fact is that the mobile phone has taken over our lives on a totally new level. It is true to say that without Blackberry messenger (BBM) the riots we are having at the moment wouldn’t be so well organised and pulling in as many opportunists. It clearly illustrates how powerful the two media platforms are when you put mobile and social media together. That’s why we have a dedicated social and mobile media division within Navigate Digital to help brands take advantage of it and reach their customers in a clear targeted way (www.navigatedigital.com/rapport ).

Anyway, back to the story. I decided to do my own research into how reliant we are on our phones and how much time we spend on them. My husband has an HTC smart phone and I am still in love with my old Nokia N95 – I am sure I can get internet on it! Now to do my qualitative research I’ve asked my better half to keep a diary for 1 day and record every action he made on the phone and I had a notepad ready by my side too. So here are the statistics for the day, marking how many times each activity occurred:

My man	Me
5 x Phone calls made and received	3 x Phone calls made and received
3 x Text messages received and written	5 x Text messages received and written
2 x Listening to music/radio
7 x Checked email
2 x Facebook
5 x Twitter
1 x Foursquare
2 x Games played
8 x Internet searches
1 x Looked at map
1 x Scanned QR code from TV ad

You can draw your own conclusion from this and maybe do your own mobile use diary to see how consumed you are by all it has to offer. For me, the results show that once you have a smart phone with ease of access to the internet, apps, email and the rest, you use your phone more and it tends to replace the time you spend with your PC. It even increases the opportunities you have to check in to twitter and facebook and look up interesting facts as you watch TV in the evening as we do tend to multitask mobile with other media.

So what does it mean for us, people working in the digital media world? Research documents published by IAB (if you are registered, I recommend you have a look at some of them: http://www.iabuk.net/en/1/iabresearchmobile.html ) suggest that “mobile is seen as fastest growing medium which will lead to most media agencies needing a mobile specialist” (Mobile and Market Snapshot 2009), and at Navigate we have done so already. IAB also highlights the need for more understanding of mobile media and lack of tracking, also case studies to illustrate the value mobile marketing brings to brands. Interestingly, 66% of participants in IAB research (Mobile & The Media Day Study, Jan 2011) cannot live without their mobile and 69% of people accessed content via mobile which means that brands need to ensure their site works on mobile which is becoming part of good customer service. It feels to me that brands need to move quickly and develop m-commerce sites now and not focus only on apps which might exclude people like me, who do not have an app enable phone (yet).

If you represent a brand and want to embark on your mobile marketing journey, call us on 0203 178 8959 – we are here to help!

Filed Under: Mobile, Social Media

Owen Hargreaves. Social media genius?

July 8, 2011 By Sharan Cheema

Fill in the blank – Owen Hargreaves is a ________ . If you asked 100 people to fill in the blank, I would estimate that around 90% would respond with ‘permanently crocked professional footballer’, 9% would respond with an unrepeatable explicative and 1% would say a social media genius – with that 1% being me. If I had been asked that question over a week ago, I would have probably responded with the former response, so what has changed in a week?

On June 30^th, Hargreaves joined Youtube & created his own channel . In just over a week he has uploaded 23 videos and his top 5 viewed videos have amassed a total of nearly 1m views to date. The only thing he is promoting is himself with the ultimate aim being to find a new club.

Hargreaves has suffered from a number of injuries over the past few seasons and achieved just a handful of appearances for Man Utd. This culminated in him being released by the club in May this year. When I saw his name trending on Twitter earlier this week, my instant thought was ‘what has he injured now?’. Having clicked on the topic I saw that he was the talk of Twitter having uploaded videos of himself to Youtube to demonstrate that he is fit and help end the perception that he is injury-prone. I have only watched a couple of the videos but the short videos go through a number of different drills to demonstrate that he is still able to stand the rigours of football.

A number of tweets have ridiculed him and there are already a number of spoofs but I applaud him. He has taken control and decided to communicate a message without relying on ‘traditional’ media. He could have chosen the route of doing an interview with Sky Sports and declared himself fit to play to gain publicity but that would have only got him limited exposure.

Creating his own channel has ensured that he is in control of the message he is sending out and has resulted in greater publicity, column inches and conversations about the player than I imagine he expected. No club will purely sign him on the basis of the videos but it does keep him front of mind in a market where there are already a number of out-of-contract players searching for new clubs. The latest rumour is that Sven-Goran Eriksson is said to be interested in signing him for Leicester City – that is what I would call a positive social media ROI.

Maybe the term ‘genius’ is a slight over-exaggeration but Hargreaves has succeeded in a channel where other brands have failed. Kieron Dyer must be looking on with interest…

Filed Under: Social Media Tagged With: socialmedia, youtube

Media Stacking Starts To Stack Up

May 31, 2011 By John Kimbell

Like many people in this world, I’m a busy person.

I live outside London, have a 9 month old daughter and run my own business – all of which means that ‘me time’ is precious and the days of watching TV in real time are long gone. It means that when I do get time to myself, my media consumption tends to collide and I end up digesting about 3 or 4 things at once – something increasingly referred to as ‘Media Stacking’. Whilst ‘Media Stacking’ isn’t a new phrase (it was coined by OfCom about 4 years ago), it is a new phenomenon for many people as their lives get busier, technology evolves and in turn they are offered more ways to consume and share media on a range of platforms and devices.

Primarily driven by people watching TV and using social platforms such as Facebook & Twitter on smart phones, tablets and laptops, this simultaneous consumption of media platforms is creating a platform commonly referred to as ‘Social TV’. The figures are pretty staggering – with one recent study revealing that 80% of under-25’s use a second screen to communicate with friends while watching TV and 72% use Twitter, Facebook or a mobile application to comment on shows. You only had to look at what was trending on Twitter during Saturday’s Champions League Final football or last night’s ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ Semi Final to know that these figures are true.

All this is great, but Media Stacking is giving me a couple of problems.

Firstly from a personal point of view, it means I have to go to extraordinary lengths to avoid finding out who was fired from ‘The Apprentice’ before I get a chance to catch up via Sky+ or iPlayer. Without realising it, I have become a media stacker and I now actually find myself having to avoid using my phone, laptop or tablet for fear of seeing the result tweeted, re tweeted or shared by a friend. More importantly from a marketing point of view, as media stacking becomes more prevalent in people’s lives, those of us in the media industry need to ensure the brands we represent are still being seen and heard in environments where consumers are more distracted than ever before. The convergence between social platforms and TV channels is increasingly being acknowledged and it’s partly for this reason we have seen an increase in spend on mobile, video and social advertising. Planners need to realise this trend is real and happening and can use it to their benefit it they are clever about when and how then run through the line campaigns.

In my opinion media stacking is good news for the entire media industry. Far from media channels operating in silos, we are actually seeing the gap between on and offline media narrow. ‘Social TV’ may well be what is needed to modernise the TV (advertising) industry by incorporating and encouraging more social interaction to complement rather than compete with programming. I have no doubt that it won’t be too long before Syco realise this and find some clever way of tying in online and offline channels and shows like The X Factor and BGT become 100% social.

Filed Under: Mobile, Social Media Tagged With: Media Stacking

The digital world in April

May 6, 2011 By Sharan Cheema

There are a number of daily digital developments and internally we always look to keep up to date with important and interesting stories within the digital and marketing space. We know that it isn’t always possible for everyone to keep a track of the key stories so every month we will compile what we feel are the top stories of the past month and post them on our blog to share in case anyone missed any notable developments. There are obviously hundreds and hundreds of stories but below is just a selection of key stories for the month of April.

Google launched their new +1 social search service as their major attempt to become more social. Here is a useful video explaining what it is and our thoughts on the development are here. Critically this will benefit consumers who search via their Google Accounts to ‘leave their seal of approval’ on relevant ads for their friends to see.

Facebook have turned their attention to marketers and developed Facebook Studio as a platform to showcase creativity. Here is our take on it and we are hopeful that it will lead to a greater pool of knowledge but it remains to be seen…

Behavioural targeting was once again thrust into the limelight as EU legislation is due to come into play later in May. To summarise, it essentially means that businesses who collect and store cookie data from visitors to their websites should gain consent for this moving forward – with the ultimate aim to protect consumers online. This is likely to have an impact on behavioural advertising moving forward and the Online Behavioural Advertising Framework has been launched as a self regulatory initiative. There are sure to be many developments over the coming weeks and here is our view on it.

The BBC have united with a number of commercial radio stations to launch an unified Radio Player that allows users to search by station, location, programme, presenter and interest on one site rather than having to go to each individual site to change the station. This will by no means be a challenge to offline radio but the ultimate aim is to make consumption of online radio easier. In terms of online advertising for the player, we still need to go to each sales house as there is no unified sales point as yet. The player is in its infancy but it will be interesting to monitor developments and listening figures over the first year to see how it evolves.

Online music service Spotify announced that users of its free service would be restricted to ten hours of listening a month with songs playable up to five times only free of charge. The move comes as they look to move people to their premium subscription account (in which there is access to exclusive tracks and also unlimited streaming) and as they also announced their plans to rival iTunes. The move coincided with this week’s nmain which research shows only 3% of people subscribe to music streaming services and shows the reluctance to pay for online content.

And finally, this last story isn’t a digital development but it is a campaign we came across and liked. Air France recently took to the streets of Manhattan with a free food gourmet truck which was promoted via their social media platforms and just demonstrated how brands can cross the bridge between online and offline ‘social’ campaigns

Filed Under: Display, Search Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: facebook, Google, OBA, Radio, socialmedia, Spotify

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