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Infinite Ripple –

The Social Media Revolution

Written by Glenn Mehta

For Info, Resources and to order visit

www.InfiniteRipple.net

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Chapter 1

The Social Media

Revolution

Social Media

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Definition

“Social media may be defined as internet and mobile-based tools that allow easy sharing of every aspect of a person’s life, including status updates, news, events, photographs and images, video, links, opinions and profiles.”

Glenn Mehta (2013) Infinite Ripple

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A Brief History Roots in early online communities 1985 WELL Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link

(Sausalito, California) 1995 Classmates.com

now Memory Lane / StayFriends.com 2002 Friendster 2003 MySpace

biggest global brand 2005-2008 2004 The Facebook Mostly California-based

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Revolution or Evolution? Not just for teenagers

But Gen Y and Z have very high engagement Humans as social animals Evolution in communication

“I’m eating my breakfast now” would have seemed a silly message 10 years ago. Now it’s a conversation starter

Catalysts of growth Hi speed Internet, Smartphones

Infinite Ripple effect Viral messages

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The Social Media Equation

High-speed internet connection +

ease of access through various devices =

perfect climate for snowball effect of social media

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Some Uses of Social Media

Complaint forum Monitor customer issues Trend development Part of IMC

integrated marketing communication Advertising

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Social Media in Ireland

Driven by US brands Facebook is biggest site used

Half of entire population Three-quarters of online population

Twitter usage growing 4G connections Recent backlash based on cyber-bullying/

privacy concerns

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Why is social media relevant to me...

Many cannot see benefits Practical / business applications not

understood Not enough time in the day already! Business have a lack of strategy “Get me one of those Facebook thingys!” It influences us whether we engage or not

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Why is social media relevant to...THE BUSINESS

Social media is one giant soap box Engages with business whether you want or

not e.g. TripAdvisor

Businesses must seek out advice and expertise

Develop a strategy Listen first, sell after relationship built

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Why is social media relevant to...THE CUSTOMER

Infinite repository of brand info Peer recommendations See how previous customers were treated

And how problems were solved Reduced customer stress Creates confidence and resolute customer Herd-mentality kicks in Saves time on customer service queries

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Why is social media relevant to...THE AVERAGE PERSON

Amplifies little voices Average person given a symbolic megaphone

Community stories and causes go global Even when traditional media won’t cover it

Complaints and compliments can go viral around the globe

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Why is social media relevant to...THE BARGAIN HUNTER

“When we buy together, we save together” Deals with minimum number of buyers

Encourages us to promote deal Massive savings Financial incentives to promote (€6 per

friend purchase; get 3 friends to buy and yours is free)

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Why is social media relevant to...THE RECRUITER

Pre-screening candidates Better than reference checks

Used to increase pool of candidates e.g. LinkedIn, ePortfolios

Exploiting social connections saves time and money

Care must be taken to ensure privacy and equality regulations are respected

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Why is social media relevant to...THE JOB CANDIDATE

Recruiters pre-screen – candidates must be careful about amount of information made public

What about the photos that your friends tag you in or places they check you into?

Steer the recruiter to your preferred online presence LinkedIn, Mahara ePortfolio

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Why is social media relevant to...THE STUDENT

Adept at multi-tasking – current millennial generation IS the social media generation

Absorbs info in snip-bits (status updates, tweets) Causes problems when trying to learn longer, more

complex pieces of information such as case studies Tweets in the classroom can improve attention

span and engagement Following news feeds puts current spin on theory

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Why is social media relevant to...THE EDUCATOR

Need to adapt to teach the millennial generation

Use social media But within set parameters

Consider collaborative learning approaches such as Wikis

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Why is social media relevant to...THE POLITICIAN

Keep in touch between elections Highlight messages before elections Get out the vote Presenting messages in format that voters

are used to and comfortable with Obama 2008 and 2012 Seán Gallagher and that Tweet (2011)

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Why is social media relevant to...PARENTS

Your children WILL be using social media so you need to be too

Blanket ban on children’s use not workable Monitor younger children’s activities to

protect from cyber-bullying and predatory behaviour

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Why is social media relevant to...THE NEWS OUTLETS

Not killing news, reinventing it UGC – user-generated content

But care must be taken to protect journalistic standards

Increased engagement with news by encouraging the conversation via social media #hash-tags e.g. #vinb

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Influence on Society

Increased communication but... ... Can lead to poor academic / professional

communications National media writings styles influenced... ...and their content is influenced by it too User-generated content (UGC) influencing

media and marketing Cyber-bullying Privacy

(All discussed in other chapters)

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Social Media Brands

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Recent Trends in Social Media

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YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world, and has more than 100 million videos Only Google is ahead of YouTube for searches YouTube is 4th most visited website in world

24 hours of new video uploaded to YouTube every minute

Video clip – the power of video http://youtu.be/dDSk7JUt8sA

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Facebook has over 60 million status updates daily Much of the content is web links, news stories,

blog posts, notes, photos, etc. shared with so many people using Facebook every day

Facebook fan pages have a combined 5.3 billion fans

Average user spends 55 minutes on Facebook daily

83% of all US companies use Facebook Timeline of innovations available at

http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline29

Recent updates: http://newsroom.fb.com/Key-Facts Over ONE BILLION global users 55% of these log-on at least once per day (552

million unique log-ons) 600 million use Facebook through mobile phone

475 Mobile Operators promote Facebook Average user has 130 friends, 80 community pages 250 million photos uploaded daily 20 million app installs daily 81% of users outside USA and Canada

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Ireland stats: http://www.socialbakers.com/facebook-statisti

cs/ireland 2.3 million users 49.37% of population 75% of online population

Recent trends: http://youtu.be/joMItZukjWY

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55 million tweets per day in 2010230 million tweets per day in 2011

340 million tweets per day in 2012 Up from 50,000 in 2007 140 million active users 50% of all tweets are generated by just 20,000 global

accounts Increasingly used by companies, charities, politicians,

celebrities, etc. Recognised as an integral part of social revolutions

(e.g. Arab Spring)

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Lady Gaga has most followers on Twitter (more than 31 million followers in 2012)

Full stats at http://www.socialbakers.com/twitter/

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Tweetdeck

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World’s largest professional network

187 million users 2 new users every second

63% outside USA 5.3 billion professional searches in 2012 College students are fasting growing

demographic http://press.linkedin.com/About

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http://www.cmo.com/sites/default/files/CMO-SOCIAL%20LANDSCAPE-R5.pdf

Where to from here?

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These PowerPoint slides are copyright of Glenn Mehta (c) 2013 and various other sources and may be used and distributed for training and educational purposes only.

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Infinite Ripple –

The Social Media Revolution

by Glenn Mehta

For Info, Resources and to order visit

www.InfiniteRipple.net

T: @InfiniteRippleFB: /InfiniteRippleCommunicationsE: info@InfiniteRipple.net