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Ipsos Digital Immersion Report #1 - 2011 What’s next for social media marketing. Image © of blog.bestiario.org - flickr SOCIAL EVOLUTION 1
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© 2010 Ipsos
Ipsos Digital Immersion Report #1 - 2011
What’s next for social media marketing.
Image © of blog.bestiario.org - flickr
SOCIAL EVOLUTION
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The Open Thinking Exchange
Think. Challenge. Innovate.
The Open Thinking Exchange is the innovation centre of Ipsos, an independent company which ranks fifth among global research firms. Our mission: to challenge convention, take risks and to tap Ipsos’ global people resources and intellect in the service of our clients. We do so through knowledge, storytelling, new technology and collaborative platforms ‒ to make data and human insights more accessible, more understandable, more meaningful and more actionable for people across the globe.
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Forward
Our future in a digital world.
With continued turbulence in our client’s business environment and the continued rapid evolution of marketing in the digital landscape, it’s never been more important for us to keep a finger on the pulse of what lies ahead for the industry.
Whether you are a brand manager, marketer, researcher or executive this publication will provide you with a forward thinking view of the world of social media to keep you informed, provoked and ready for a new point of view of where the world is headed.
Shelly Zalis CEO , Open Thinking Exchange
An opportunity….
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And a challenge
Social Media has become a fundamental part of the global online experience. Two thirds of the world’s online population now visit social networks or blogs.
In this rapidly evolving environment new rules are being written every day and the challenge of keeping pace with developments faces both consumers and marketers alike.
1. How are behaviours changing? 2. What are the opportunities for Brands? 3. What innovative ideas are coming into the mainstream?
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This document is about…
Inspiration… Inspira.on adj. [In-‐spir-‐a.on] A source of ideas and new thinking. A s.mulus
Innovation… Innova.on noun. [Inn-‐o-‐va.on] (the use of) a new idea or method. Change or Innovatory adj. new thinking
Filtering… Filtering noun. [filter-‐ing] A pro-‐ac.ve selec.on of the most important issues.
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Our mission with this report: Consolidate current thinking about what is happening in the Social Media space.
Discover the unexpected and slightly ahead of the curve to illustrate what forward thinking companies are doing right now. 5
What are we talking about?
Contents: • Section 1 – This is now • Section 2 – What about Brands… • Section 3 – A few predictions • Section 4 – Real life examples
The Power of Conversations – advice from Friends and Strangers The Power of Social Motivations – the value of social currency The Power of Human Connections – enabling new emotional behaviours aligned
with new utilities
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The insights, trends and examples we have used within this document are not survey centric, nor do they necessarily represent actual Ipsos insights - but they have been taken from a variety of sources and are meant to inspire new ideas across Ipsos and the Ipsos client network
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Andrew Leary Open Thinking Exchange
Social Community Innovator
“Ipsos, through our new community technology, is taking on the world of social media to collaborate and observe real people in real time. But we’ve only just begun.”
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Andrew Nelson Open Thinking Exchange Social Listening Innovator
“Social listening is a game changer for market research. Though we have room to make the medium more rigorous and disciplined for market research means, Ipsos is setting itself up to be a leader in mining insights from the conversations happening online.”
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About the Contributors Graham Saxton, Global Insights – Consumer Behaviours and Trends: Curious, persistent, and occasionally right, Graham has relentlessly travelled the globe in pursuit of consumer insights and emerging trends. He’s been part of the Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange for a few months blending research agency-side sensibilities with client-side learnings from a 10 years stint at MTV Networks as International Research champion. His past activities have included entrepreneurial media start ups, resulting in one winning the license for the UK’s largest independent Radio Station. He lives in the UK with his wife and two grown up (almost) daughters who provide an endless stream of logistical challenges, but also an entertaining and continuous deluge of anecdotal information about contemporary culture. His only vice is an indulgent interest in classic cars resulting in the ownership of a 23 year old Mercedes with an attitude problem.
Andy Hunter, Strategic Planner - New Media Innovation: Contrary to Google, Andy is not an international DJ. He does however play one from the comfort of his own laptop. He’s a husband, a dad, a design observer, a marketer, amateur photographer and tech enthusiast. His contributions to holistic consumer insight research have been recognized with ARF David Ogilvy Award and he currently serves as an advisor to the SXSW Interactive Conference. He’s been a consultant to venture funded technology start-ups, a video rental clerk, a media planner, an account director, a tv-delivery guy, a consultancy founder and a deli dude at a convenience store. He admits to enjoying the convenience store gig more than several of his advertising jobs. He lives in Austin, Texas with his wife and daughter and is co-strategic planning lead for the Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange.
© 2010 Ipsos
Section 1 Where we are now with Social Media
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Social Media has emerged from the Hype Cycle
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Unlike past dot com and digital technologies heralded with fanfare, publicity and high expectations only to fade into obscurity, Social Media is emerging from the “hype cycle” and is genuinely gaining traction with consumers and business communities.
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© 2010 Ipsos
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Is Social Media the new normal?
Not so long ago, the “Digital” world was seen as somehow different from mainstream consumer behaviour. Constant research and insight efforts almost continuously compared this new world with the “old” analogue world.
Move to the present day and arguably the landscape has seen seismic shifts in thinking. Commentators, Media Planners and Strategists are now suggesting that this same “Digital” world is the “New Normal”. What was new such a short time ago is now embedded (and taken for granted) in our everyday life. Social Media is simply part of the evolution in Digital. It’s meteoric and transformational evolution has created “hyper” interest in this area from marketers and consumers alike.
The implications of understanding emerging consumer behaviours with Social Media are profound ‒ everyone accepts it is fundamentally changing the way people both live and think about their lives and relationships.
© 2010 Ipsos
Putting Social into context Over 30 billion pieces of content shared on
Facebook monthly
Average Facebook user has 130 “friends”
55 million “tweets” are sent on Twitter daily
24 hours of video is added to YouTube every minute
Equivalent of 46.2 years of video is watched daily on Facebook
Estimated 126 million blogs on the internet globally
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© 2010 Ipsos
Source: “What the F*ck is Social Media Now?,” by Marta Kagan, Nespresso
1 in 6 marriages that occurred last year were between couples who met via social media
© 2010 Ipsos
Sharing ads and “liking” brands increases affinity
Source: OTX Q6e/Q6ee. Sample = 1,426 & 1,878 users of YouTube & Facebook respectively who have shared brand videos/’liked’ a brand (UK)
3 in 4 people say this impacts how they feel about the brand
© 2010 Ipsos
Base: all past month users, August 2010 (UK)
1/3 of users act upon recommendations
Source: Ipsos MORI
Recommendations impact behaviour
© 2010 Ipsos
Using the internet is in itself a social activity
59%
42% 42% 56%
41%
70%
Base: all past month users, August 2010 (UK) Source: Ipsos MORI
Q How often, if at all, do you tend to look at websites together with others?
© 2010 Ipsos
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There’s more to social media than Facebook and Twitter Prominent consumer social media outlets get most of the attention by the press and by marketers. However, history has sometimes shown that platform leadership can often be fleeting…
So despite the hype it’s important to take the longer term view and accept that…
In the future almost everything in marketing and business will have some aspect of social interaction and conversation built into it. Social Platform: Technology that enables open (yet filtered) dialogue.
Social Currency: Elements that provide an incentive to join, visit repeatedly and build useful utility in one’s life or work over time.
Social Collaboration: Opportunity to share, create or fulfill a “mission”.
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© 2010 Ipsos
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The Architecture of Social Media
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© 2010 Ipsos
Social media properties to know:
established players
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emerging platforms
new & noteworthy
QuirkyDisruptors
Social Media Typologies
MASS NETWORK PLATFORMS
COMMUNITY COMMERCE
CONTENT CREATION PLATFORMS
SOCIAL CONTENT HOSTS & DISTRIBUTORS
SOCIAL ENABLING APPLICATIONS
SOCIAL SHARING TOOLS & APPLICATIONS
SOCIAL GAMING
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© 2010 Ipsos
Section 2 Brands in Social Media
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If Social Media is “new normal”
Where do brands fit into this?
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Consumers appear to be increasingly open to asking about brands, sharing their thoughts and taking action on information they get from participation in social networks.
When a brand starts to engage its existing and potential consumers through a number of social media channels, the traditional rules of marketing are not necessarily going to apply
Having a brand presence in a social space is more than just “marketing” – it is a combination of content curation, a commercial offering, an on-going community dialogue and a content creation space as well as an extension of internal communications.
And measurement of ROI in this new world is obviously a challenge – depending largely on the role that social media is deemed to be playing.
© 2010 Ipsos
Do more, be inventive… Social Media is a challenge for brands given the rapidly expanding number of platform and technology options.
Brands have always needed to communicate with consumers in the places where there are the greatest numbers of potential customers – but adopting that logic to Social Media means that starting with the biggest and most obvious is simply playing catch-up.
As marketers rush to build Facebook profiles and Twitter accounts which are then not maintained, many fall into a trap of thinking this is a tactical, short term medium. There’s much to think through and do in the long term.
This report is less focused on highlighting the best known “mainstream” methods ‒ rather, we’ve dedicated efforts to emerging activities and proactive approaches that inspire new thinking and move past the here and now.
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Picture credit: The Invention of Hugo Cabret
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Key Questions from Brands…
1. How do I measure social media return on investment?
2. How do I reach my target markets with social media – will I be welcome?
3. How do I generate traffic and leads using social media?
4. What are the main reasons consumers follow brands in Social Media?
5. What are my competitors doing in Social Media?
6. What can brands do to improve consumers perceptions of them?
7. What is the value of having a Brand App?
What are the Social Media Marketing ground rules & best practice?
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Core philosophical shifts 1. “Social” conversations are with people not consumers
2. A Social Agenda is not necessarily the same as a Business Agenda
3. It’s all about continuous conversations – not campaigning (“always on” rather than “drip or burst”)
4. A longer term view is needed – not quick fixes
5. It’s marketing with people not to people
6. Be authentic not persuasive (Social Media is forcing a lot of companies to distil what they really stand for)
7. There are no final versions – accept everything will always be in Beta mode
8. Technology is changing much faster than people’s behaviour
9. Measurement, Measurement – there has never been so many options
10. Failure in Social Media is a very public experience
11. Change will never be this slow again!
26 Source – various - via the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising - UK
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87 of the top 100 brands in the published Superbrands list have a Facebook Page
Globally the total number of fans of these brands adds up to 30m
72 of the 87 brands are also on Twitter and 68 have a YouTube channel
Only 23 have a company blog
However only 15 of the companies overall have actively linked their Social Media activities to their main company websites
Top Company Stats:
On Facebook (Likes) - Starbucks (+16m) Coca-Cola (+15m) and Oreo (+12m)
On Twitter (Followers) - Google (2.20m), Starbucks (0.84m), Sony Playstation (0.24m)
YouTube (Subscribers) – Google (0.14m) BBC (0.09m) Sony Playstation (0.08m)
What are brands doing in Social Media?
What can brands do to improve consumers perceptions of them?
Provide a contact page on the social profile
Openly listen to consumers comments
Talk to bloggers directly
Create a blog about the company
Behaviourally target their advertising messages
Respond to mentions in microblogs
Become a friend in a social network
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What are the main reasons consumers follow brands in Social Media?
1. Sales discounts
2. New product details
3. Contests & giveaways
4. Responses from other consumers
© 2010 Ipsos
What are the most popular social media tools used by brands?
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Source – socialmediaexaminer.com
© 2010 Ipsos
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Section 3: 2011 horizon
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What’s Next for 2011?
Social media has been a hyper focus of marketing of late, but as with any new marketing technology it’s buzz will fade ‒ and like search, branded content, online display advertising and crm before it, social will become a mainstream and embedded part of media and marketing.
The potential difference is that social has implications that cross boundaries of business, marketing, journalism, management, human resources and politics and commerce.
Social Media isn’t just about media and marketing. It’s a disruptor that’s shifting the way companies do business and how people go through their daily lives.
What’s Next for 2011?
1. Majority of mainstream brands will employ social technology into comms, websites, retail and internal IT infrastructure.
2. Retail will see disruptive technology make “deal hunting” and “best product finding” even more seamless for consumers (a.k.a. Groupon).
3. Mobile technology will create new value for consumers, new ways to save money and time. Savvy marketers will adapt and invent new promotional channels, while more rigid marketers will be left behind.
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What’s Next for 2011?
4. Social media within business IT will accelerate direct connections and co-creation activities between marketers, executives and consumers.
5. Despite it’s lack of precision, the number of brands turning to social media listening, digital ethnography and new semantic search tools first for qualitative insights, measures of brand health and feedback for product development will rapidly accelerate.
6. Advertisers will experiment with new location-based mobile campaigns and find new breakthrough technology beyond Foursquare or Gowalla.
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2011: More social disruptors for retail?
The potential rise of “retail hacking”: Some believe we are just beginning to see a whole new dimension of retail emerging. Groupon, a group-sourced online couponing site almost acquired by Google for a record sum, along with our new economic realities, have fueled more speculation in this regard. From Wired Magazine:
“Groupon’s genius, is to to take the time consuming and previously unattractive world of coupon shopping from the striving fringes of culture and make it mainstream cool (acceptable amongst a group of peers). One might call it retail hacking: the reconception of shopping as not just a full-time job but a contact sport, a scrum in which consumers increasingly refuse to buy on the terms dictated to them.
In this passionate consumer underground, techniques for chiseling a few percentage points (or more) off a sticker price can quickly spread to millions of shoppers.”
Whatever the outcome for Groupon’s future…
2011 will surely reveal new disruptors for retail marketing with the convergence of social, mobile, location based tech and crowdsourced retail. This will allow for new methods of product discovery, shopping and
perhaps even an opportunity for loyal brand followers to become sales agents for the brand.
© 2010 Ipsos
Section 4 Real Life Examples
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What we are seeing today in Social Media
This section: • The Power of the Crowd – crowdsourcing and co-creation
• The Power of Conversations – advice from Friends and Strangers
• The Power of Social Motivations – the value of social currency
• The Power of Human Connections – enabling new emotional behaviours aligned with new utilities
An Index of Possibilities
#1 38
THE POWER OF THE CROWD
Image © of life.com
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Importance and power of the crowd.
There are small crowds and there are big crowds… The value of Word of Mouth has grown in importance across the marketing landscape.
This has been driven by the way friends and acquaintances can be almost permanently connected via digital and mobile devices. And of course the power of recommendation is not simply dependent on just friends and acquaintances. The opinion of total strangers has never before been so influential.
Companies have seized this opportunity that technology has provided to broaden the scope of connecting people ‒ both groups of friends and also complete strangers. They are actively exploiting this both at the point of sale and by “inserting themselves” into the conversations that are taking place.
Arguably this has changed forever the way that consumers make purchase decisions
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How important is the power of a crowd?
On a more personal level “Crowd Connectivity” has also changed the way that people both portray themselves and subsequently feel about themselves. Never before have profiles and personal information been so public.
The phrase “brand me” springs to mind - the means for consumers to market themselves (in almost in the same way as a brand communicates) and for them to package and control the way they are seen by friends and strangers alike.
Technology means this information can be shared and constantly commented on – with “personal” decisions often being taken by group consensus
© 2010 Ipsos
And then there is crowdsourcing
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This is the act of outsourcing tasks, traditionally performed by an employee or contractor, to an undefined, large group of people or community (a crowd), through an open call.
Marketers have latched onto it’s value or experimented with it. But where is it going now? The jury is arguably still out on the effectiveness of Crowdsourcing….
In purist terms ‒ it is not another form of quantitative study - often it is unstructured, not robust or controlled, but the immediacy and contemporary nature of the approach are compelling drivers.
Increasingly these “tactical” insights are finding a place in the overall research frameworks that companies are using to understand their consumers ‒ and in our view, the easier that digital technology and social connection makes this, the more it is going to be used.
Typical Crowdsourcing tactics It’s hard to clearly define exactly what constitutes crowdsourcing activity. There is a fine line between a public competition, an open on-line forum, message boards, twittering and a physical gathering of total strangers. All these have been reported recently as crowdsourcing activity by a number of brands.
A recent high profile example was the issue of Gap’s new logo ‒ only a week after unveiling a revamped logo, Gap decided to return to its original version after a “hurriedly launched” crowdsourcing exercise was undertaken to counter a wave of negative comments about the new logo on social networks.
Other interesting cases worth noting were the UK Government’s interest in asking the “crowd” how to reduce the country’s budget deficit ‒ probably the “biggest” crowd utilised to date.
And at the other end of the scale, Unilever broke new ground with a campaign for Peperami. Over 1,200 ideas were received from the public, with winners receiving a $10,000 prize. This aired on TV in August 2010.
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©Rob Cottingham
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Actual Examples
The following slides demonstrate a number of ways in which the power of the crowds are being utilised by both individuals and companies.
• As a tool to tap the opinion of small crowds of common interest groups or friends
• Or…..small crowds of total strangers • And also for tapping larger crowds of random people
Feedback from strangers on Self Image
Crafting “The Brand Called Me” While consumers can carefully control the clothes they wear, the brands they use, the photos they upload to Flickr and the comments they Twitter, it's more difficult to judge whether the image they're trying to project is really what others see.
Friends, family and online pals aren't objective enough, so who can they turn to for an honest image appraisal? German consumers can now upload a few pictures to checkyourimage.com and have impartial strangers evaluate their appearance
Just as brands routinely use focus groups to test a product's image and appeal, anyone can benefit from an honest appraisal by a crowd of strangers.
The results are only visible to clients, are private and don't turn into "hot or not" contests, which would likely be the case in a more open and transparent set-up.
Website: www.checkyourimage.com 44
Real Life Example
Source springwise.com
Facebook introduces groups
This is a high profile and mass market application that enables like-minded friends or groups of people connected by shared interests to collaborate and share ideas on line, in real time ‒ with functionality ranging from group chat to document sharing.
However, for those shunning the ubiquitous Facebook there are a number of smaller specialist applications available ‒ with this kind of offering typified by “Kluster”.
This is a commercial platform positioned as a customisable crowdsourcing application targeted at both business and also direct to consumers ‒ it offers the functionality “to collaborate in real-time to get stuff done”.
Source: Facebook.com/groups Website: www.kluster.com
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Group Co-‐Creation & Collaboration
Platforms
Real Life Example
Democratize or Commoditize through the crowd?
Crowdspring.com has risen from relative obscurity 3 years ago, to one of the first crowdsourcing business models to achieve sustained exposure and apparent profit. It’s also raised debate and ire from the design community. Some fear it cheapens the designers and hurts professionals while others maintain it democratizes the market and gives great designers in remote locations access to great clients. Whatever the case may be, clients including Doubleday, Tivo, Forbes, Dish Network, Starbucks, Barilla, Epic, ConAgra, and Random House. Crispin Porter + Bogusky, BBH, Element79, Shift Communications and Starcom IP Pixel have used the platform with good reviews.
Website: crowdspring.com
Successful Design Sourcing
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Real Life Example
Re-thinking “The Creative Department”
Naming Force is a specifically targeted business initiative aimed at capturing the input from the crowd to generate ideas for the naming of new products or services.
Consumers are able to join “the force” and can then take part in active assignments where they are asked to submit names for various projects.
In return the “namers” can receive cash payments for the best received ideas.
Website: namingforce.com
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Brand Naming
Real Life Example
Real Life Example
Global Ideas Overnight with Idea Cultures
If two heads are better than one, it's hard to argue with the premise of crowdsourcing, which taps multiple brains for a common end.
Now offering such capabilities overnight is “Ideas Culture” an Australian firm that puts creative thinkers around the globe to work via Twitter to solve a client's problem by next morning.
Ideas Culture gets the challenge out to its Twitter-based Ideas Agents, who spend 15 to 30 minutes each on the problem. There are more than 200 agents from eight countries on the books, and each earns AUD 100 for four sessions. Is there no stopping the power of the Twitter-enabled crowds? Website: www.ideasculture.com/ideas.ph 48
Twitter Overnight
Problem Solving
Real Life Example
Source springwise.com
Field Research - one respondent at time.
Field Agent turns field research on it’s head, recruiting respondents one-on-one. For small task-level surveys, mystery shops, product trials and competitive searches mission-by-mission.
Respondents interact and are solicited via iPhone app, receiving micro-compensation for each mission accomplished
Website: fieldagent.net
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Social Enabled Research & Shop
Real Life Example
The Crowd That Cares:
Another example of an effort to tap the opinion of the crowds (with sponsorship from Starbucks itself) was to find the best ideas to eliminate paper cup consumption. Some 58 billion paper coffee cups get thrown out each year in North America alone.
Creative thinkers all over the world were able to submit and rate new ideas for a sustainable and convenient alternative in the form of image, audio or video files.
A total of USD 20,000 in prizes was scheduled to be awarded to the developers of the winning ideas, including USD 10,000 for the top choice of Betacup's board of advisors; the remainder was to be split evenly among the top 5 community favourites.
Website: www.thebetacup.com 50
Sustainable Crowd Designed Product
Real Life Example
Source springwise.com
Ready to Wear?
GoTryItOn.com lets people give or get feedback on how they look - from either the whole “GoTryItOn” community or just close friends .
Users upload digital snapshots of themselves in various outfits and along with each outfit, they can list the brands included. Votes for or against it are cast by clicking the upward or downward facing hangers, signifying “wear it” and “change it,” respectively. Comments for the person in the outfit, including any suggestions for modification or improvement can also be left. Those wearing the outfits can later give feedback to those who provided reviews to let them know how the outfit worked out.
Website: www.gotryiton.com
51 Source springwise.com
Peer Fashion Advice
Real Life Example
Big Night Out.
A similar application but with the added benefit of immediacy and mobility is offered as an iphone app by the website ifrockup.com
iFrockUp is positioned as a way to get interactive fashion advice for events like formals, proms, balls and parties.
Friends and other contacts can rate everything ranging from dresses, hairstyles, shoes and more.
Website: www.ifrockup.com
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Source springwise.com
Real Life Example
iPhone Fashion Ideas
How Do I Look? Diesel stores in Spain have introduced Diesel Cam, an interactive installation that allows shoppers to photograph themselves and post the pictures immediately to their Facebook profiles.
As they try on clothes they can ask their Facebook friends for advice about which garments they should buy, or they can simply publish photos to show off all the new clothes they are buying.
Connection is made to Facebook via Facebook Connect, using a touch screen monitor on the installation.
ource: youtube.com (search: “Diesel Cam in Spain Store”)
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In-‐store Facebook Connection
Real Life Example
© 2010 Ipsos
Open Source B@B Co-Creation Community
P&G, recognizing that 50% of their most innovation products are a result of collaboration with outside innovators, have created connect + develop.
Via an open invitation for innovators to join the community, the online website hub promotes inventors and business innovators to join, contribute and begin the process of bringing new product concepts to life.
“Years ago, P&G focused on everything being homegrown, home developed. But with information and technology sharing happening at unmatched speeds, the race to market with exciting ideas and superior products continues to be increasingly more competitive. Thus, P&G, aiming to remain on the edge and in the lead, made a daring culture shift about 10 years ago from “P&G made” to “P&G made or discovered.”
Website: https://www.pgconnectdevelop.com
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Serious Business Innovation
Real Life Example
© 2010 Ipsos
Ventures For Good.
Beth Kanter, well known non-profit social media strategist has spoken extensively on big brands as they launch “social to be social” programs with mixed results. She notes that many brands can learn from purpose driven organizations, who craft strong strategy to create a business ecosystem. Ennovent is a social change enterprise based India that applies this type of disciplined approach:
Use of Connectors: Reaching out "connectors," people who may know of people working on projects ("solvers") who might be eligible to submit a winning proposal. Including a small incentive.
Submission Process: They are looking for companies to submit a proposal that they could fund to scale in India up to $500,000 via a simple submission form.
Vetting and Selection: Based on the submissions, Ennovent with the help of local advisors will short list ten projects to be presented to a panel of experts.
Website: http://www.ennovent.com/
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Sourcing Social Change
Real Life Example
Source: http://beth.typepad.com
Help me decide is an online application that allows the user to ask their own friendship community what they think whenever they have a question. Positioned as “less fuzzy” than a general forum ‒ the benefit is clear cut advice from people they know.
The feedback is obviously more personal than an open poll like Yahoo answers, with the difference being the advice is from people who are trusted. A great advantage is that access is through the users existing social community ‒ like Facebook for example so there is no need to download registration or gain access via a separate website.
Source www.help-me-decide.net
The value of Friends
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Real Life Example
On a less personal scale - Opinionaided claims to tap into the largest growing community of opinion and advice driven users, offering instant results to any question.
Primarily offered as a mobile application via iTunes (with a limited web presence) the functionality can be linked to the whole community or specifically to the members’ own Facebook connections. Whether it’s for advice when shopping, or a little reassurance, Opinionaided is positioned as a solution for questions and good advice.
Source www.beopinionaided.com
Instant Opinion via a Mobile App
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Real Life Example
© 2010 Ipsos
Anonymous pool of experrs Anonymous Pool of Experts.
Aardvark, recently acquired by Google, is a community of people that want easy access to answers of any kind through a social network of “everyday experts”.
With the basic truth that everyone has expertise in something, users register and define their interest areas geography and expertise. Answer seekers can then “ping” questions through the network via instant message, forum and email and these questions will be sent out to a global pool of people for answer.
http://vark.com/
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Real Life Example
Instant Expertise
Taking the concept to a whole new level, Hunch is a brand-new decision-making tool that gets to know the user first and then offers customised suggestions. Users begin by telling Hunch a little bit about themselves through an introductory set of questions.
Then, when it comes time to make a decision, a core algorithm based on machine learning asks the user up to 10 structured questions on the topic, any of which can be skipped at the user's request.
Using those answers - along with what it already knows about the user's particular preferences - the system proposes a customised solution.
Accompanying each decision is an explanation of how Hunch arrived at it, and users can vote on whether they agree with the result, as well as suggesting new topics and questions. In that way, the system gets smarter over time - almost Wikipedia-style, reflecting the corrections and suggestions of users.
Source: hutch.com springwise.com
Automated “Intelligent”Advice via the Crowds
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Real Life Example
© 2010 Ipsos
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THE POWER OF CONVERSATION
#2
Social Conversation
Electronic Word of Mouth? Deeper than just posting opinions, a conversation can either be one way (someone “tuning in” to the conversation of others) or a genuine two way exchange
Technology and the Social Media environment are patently facilitating the spread of on-line conversations ‒ but the game changing moment is that we are now seeing the emergence of tools to make that process so much easier. Either consolidating conversations or automatically linking them to transactions or activities.
And…there is obviously a challenge for brands to be part of the conversations – but ideally as a guest and not a gate crasher…
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Conversational tactics The following examples show how far the loose concept of conversations has moved on from people just writing random reviews or sharing experiences on forums.
In the first two examples - by linking the “conversation” or opinions automatically to a number of actual transactions the process offers so many more possibilities for interactivity.
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© 2010 Ipsos
Friends Helping Friends Buy Products
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Source bazaarvoice.com
Real Life Example
Social Retail Widgets
Bazaarvoice is one of the first successful technology ventures to prove the power of social media within the consumer purchase funnel.
Providing a suite of social apps that can plug-in and be implemented into corporate websites and e-commerce, these technologies allow customers, customer service and technical support people to converse and come to one another’s aid when in product conversations.
These tools have become common place in virtually every major retailer within the US.
© 2010 Ipsos
Swipely has developed a secure platform for consumers to share their purchase experiences online by rating the experience and adding comments or photos. Users begin by signing up and importing purchases from their credit or debit card accounts; email can also be used for purchases made online.
Many purchases are automatically geo-located to specific store locations, and Swipely supports product details as well by integrating catalogs and menus from more than 250,000 retail and restaurant locations.
Users can start conversations around “specific outfits, meals, songs, movies, gadgets and millions of other products”. Upon seeing a compelling new purchase, other users can click to see the venue on the map and add the item to their own wish list. For music, movies and apps meanwhile, users can just press play on select purchases to hear a song preview, see a video trailer or browse app screen shots.
Source springwise.com swipely.com
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Real time purchase conversations Real Life Example
© 2010 Ipsos
65 Source: blippy.com techcrunch.com
Real time purchase conversations
Real Life Example
Blippy is also a service that allows consumers create conversations around purchases.
It automatically shares their credit card transactions as they are made.
This includes the place when the purchase took place, the amount, and the item. This is all placed in a social stream where other Blippy users can comment on and “like” the various items.
In May 2010 Blippy users were reported to be sharing purchases worth over $500k per day in the US.
Shop Talk.
© 2010 Ipsos
Creating a Social Shopping Experience.
A few months ago, Levi’s was one of the first web sites to use social plug-ins on Facebook.
Their vision was to “socialise” the choosing of Levi’s products and promote the sharing of information between friends. According to Levi’s “The intention was to make shopping for jeans an interactive and fun experience - a way to bring friends into the mix’.
The activity dramatically increased the Levi’s Facebook fanbase and generated thousands of “likes”.
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Source: insidefacebook.com
Levi’s Like Minded Friends
Real Life Example
© 2010 Ipsos
Consumers going out to a bar or restaurant can already check in via sites like Foursquare to let their friends know where they are.
Now, GetGlue aims to bring like-minded capabilities to the world of entertainment, giving users a way to share, rate and discover new books, TV shows, movies and music.
Some 4.5 million new ratings and check-ins for TV shows, movies, music and books are submitted on GetGlue every month.
In a partnership with HBO, users who check in to HBO's hit shows can reportedly win exclusive branded stickers. The free service is available via browser add-on or iPhone app.
Another way to share, rate and discover media
Source Springwise
Source: getglue.comcom
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Image © of psfk/Berghs School of Communication
THE POWER OF SOCIAL MOTIVATION
#3
© 2010 Ipsos
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Social Currency
Rewarding consumers for loyalty to a product or service is not a new idea ‒ indeed the original concept
can be traced back to the era of Green Shield Stamps in the 1960s. Schemes have come a long way since then ‒ and digital technology and emerging behaviours are providing a number of exciting ways in which
companies are able to offer rewards and incentives. So the principle isn’t new ‒ but the activation is now definitely 3rd Generation.
The concept of a Social currency is obviously closely aligned to this. The social value of being seen (by friends) to be engaging in a particular activity with the added affiliation or association with a brand, is
potentially an important equation, particularly in the area of recommendation and referrals.
But what motivators are people using?
Social currency tactics Creativity is evident in the number of ways that companies are motivating consumers to collect rewards through social media activity. These range from benefits “in kind” such as free meals and travel all the way through to free products and cash.
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Selling Products for the Price of a Tweet Aiming to make social media's value explicit “Pay with a Tweet”is a platform that lets content owners sell their goods in exchange for a single tweet rather than cash.
Developed by German-American Innovative Thunder, Pay with a Tweet bills itself as “the first social payment system where people pay with the value of their social network”.
Purchasers of any kind of content tell their friends on Twitter about it. Interested content owners simply sign up with Pay with a Tweet, including the download URL, the tweet to be posted and a link to their company's website. Purchasers, then, follow a “forced viral” model to promote the product in question far and wide.
Pay with a Tweet is currently available for testing on Innovative Thunder's own book, “Oh My God What Happened and What Should I Do?”
Website: source: springwise.com www.paywithatweet.com
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Social Retail & Customer Tweet Fleet
A Swedish initiative - Restaurants give bloggers free food in exchange for social media exposure
Website: spotandtell.se
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Image
Selling Products for the Price a Post. Taking a page from TasteCasting’s book̶travel company YokmoK is now offering popular bloggers free trips. Owners of popular blogs̶which YokmoK defines as those with 10,000 or more incoming links̶relating to travel, adventure or adrenaline sports are invited to apply for free travel on one of YokmoK's upcoming trips. They need only submit their name, the URL of their blog, which trip they're interested in and a few sentences about themselves in order to be considered. Then, when YokmoK finds itself with an unused slot on a trip, it lets qualified bloggers know̶in general, at least two to three weeks before the schedule date of departure. If the blogger is available to participate, YokmoK will pay for all services included in the price for the corresponding trip. In exchange, the blogger is expected to share their experience of the trip, including at least four entries before the trip starts, one entry per day during the trip, and another four entries after the trip ends; each entry must include at least one direct link to YokmoK's website.
www.yokmok.com/bloggers-travel-free.html 73 73 Website: source springwise
Domino’s Recruits Fans to Sell Pizza Through Social Networking Pages The music industry has long been putting fans to work for help with promotions and sales, and now it looks like Domino’s Pizza is getting in on the action as well.
A new widget launched last month lets consumers serve as affiliate marketers for the brand through their social networking pages and blogs.
Domino's UK is apparently the first brand to test the new widget (see photo). All consumers need do is install the widget on their website, blog or social networking page, start promoting Domino’s on their personal web space, and then wait for the cash to roll in. The widget tracks all orders placed through their site and rewards consumers with 0.5 percent of every purchase.
Source: springwise.com www.dominos.co.uk 74
© 2010 Ipsos
In beta development, Knewsroom publishes the "Knews” every morning, featuring the previous day’s top stories - which stories rank as most important is decided by the audience of readers in a Digg-like fashion.
Going far beyond Digg though, Knewsroom rewards contributors with a portion of 20 percent of every dollar it earns in advertising revenue. Members of the Knewsroom community can participate by proposing topics for the next day, submitting syndicated or original stories, and voting on favourites.
Contributors of original content can earn an extra USD 150 for their submissions as well.
Website: www.kluster.com
Paying the Crowd for Ranking and Rating
Social Media Check-ins Earn Hotel Rewards It's standard practice for hotels and airlines to offer discounts and other rewards to their own best customers, but a new service aims to pass those benefits on to other consumers as well. Specifically, users of location-based social networking services including Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, Loopt, Brightkite, Google Buzz and Google Latitude can now coordinate their check-ins through Topguest for a variety of rewards.
Topguest is a free members-only service that automatically gives users real rewards program points for their location-based check-ins - users simply sign up for Topguest and sync their check-in app account(s) to the service. Rewards include a complimentary stays for those who check into four Standard hotels in the course of a single week, and a 25 percent discount for those who check into Standard properties 10 times.
Source springwise.com www.topguest.com
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Viral Tourist Ambassadors Promote NZ Event - in Return for Rewards “Pass It On” is an initiative to turn the “nearly one million” New Zealanders who live overseas into a network of virtual ambassadors in anticipation of the Rugby World Cup 2011 event.
It aims to get expat New Zealanders to spread the word about everything the country has to offer. With funding, distribution and content support from a variety of New Zealand partners, the effort offers monthly prize draws for participants with Kiwi-centric prizes for the winners.
Participants begin by signing up with the effort and then sharing stories from the Pass It On site with friends, family and Colleagues such as sharable videos focusing on travel and cuisine. When the recipients of those stories follow the sender's link back to Pass It On and sign up, the sender earns “pass points.” Those points then become entries in a prize draw.
Source springwise.com Website: www.passiton.co.nz
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Another reward based location check-in concept is Shopkick, an app that rewards consumers for actually walking into a store.
Currently available for the iPhone, Shopkick's free app dispenses “kickbucks” reward points for a variety of consumer actions, including standard check-ins at or near the store.
It also goes beyond the check-in however, and rewards consumers further for actually entering the store. An audio transmitter in each participating store emits an inaudible signal that's nevertheless detected by the app on the consumer's phone, thereby proving that he or she is in the store. That, in turn, entitles the shopper not just to kickbucks but to exclusive deals as well.
Source Springwise Website: shopkick.com
A Reward Based Check-in App
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© 2010 Ipsos
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Section 4 THE POWER OF HUMAN CONNECTION #4
Human Connection is a Powerful Driver….
This section deals with a couple of themes
Firstly - as with all emerging trends, there are a number of ways in which consumers adopt new behaviours and likewise a number of ways that companies line up to offer new services to cater for these.
Digital Utilities is a useful phrase to describe the explosion in applications and services that are aimed at better organising consumers’ online worlds.
The concept of a personal “online concierge” has been around for a while ‒ the idea being that a tool that could efficiently organise a disparate number of information sources to simplify a persons information / entertainment feed into an intuitive dashboard is compelling.
In the same way, as the amount of information we all collect explodes, we need better aggregation tools so that we can both see it more easily ourselves as well as showing it to friends
We are now seeing the emergence of the 3rd Generation of “smart”
self publishing tools which allow consumers to aggregate digital content
and social media output into digital magazine / newspaper style formats.
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Commercial Exploitation of Social Media Behaviours
• Secondly - another aspect that we think is important is how companies will exploit new social skills that consumers adopt.
• Examples in second part of this section illustrate: – the ability to consume multiple sources of bite size information in a “Twitter like” way. – the ability to create relevant commercial content that companies will pro-actively seek out and
use. – the opportunity for consumers to interact in new ways with companies – doing the searching
themselves.
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Addressing the need for consumers to pull together all their social media content, a new app has been launched for the iPad that creates a digital magazine.A variety of content can be used to create the magazine ranging from videos, pictures and postings.
The Facebook and Twitter sections let readers quickly flip through the latest stories, photos and updates from friends and trusted sources.
Because Flipboard renders links and images right in the magazine, readers no longer have to scan long lists of posts and click on link after link - instead they instantly see all the stories, comments and images, making it faster and more entertaining to discover, view and share social content.
Source: flipboard.com
iPad app turns social content into a personalised digital magazine
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A Social Streams Manager
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Another tool for simplifying the fragmenting activities of consumers in order to bring them back to one central place is offered by thecadmus.com
Cadmus is a real-time service that manages social media streams such as Twitter, FriendFeed and RSS by organising and consolidating the most relevant content.
It groups trending topics, conversations from within groups of friends and similar posts into conversations and places the most important ones at the top. It does all of the heavy lifting so consumers don't have to search through individual streams to find out what everybody is talking about. Cadmus also takes the @replies in a Twitter stream and groups them into conversations.
Source: thecadmus.com
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Applying the Format of Old Media to New Media
paper.li organises links shared on Twitter and Facebook into an easy to read newspaper-style format.
Source: www.paper.li
Unfriend Finder Lets Users Discover Who is “Unfriending” them on Facebook
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Digital “Unfriend Finder” is a simple installation that works with most popular browsers in conjunction with Facebook.
The tool is not retroactive ‒ it won’t allow the user to discover a group of lost friends ‒ but after the installation and once the user has logged into Facebook it works in realtime to highlight friends who “drop” the account holder thinking they won’t notice.
Source wired.com lifehacker.com
“Path” - A new Social Network that limits the user to only 50 friends
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A new “personal social network” called PATH has recently been launched which limits the user to a circle of just 50 Friends
The premise of this flies in the face of other Social Networking Sites where users embark on a hunt to find “trophy” contacts to “out do” their friends in building a network with the greatest number of friends
The other difference is that the only status updates allowed are through photos – which are the sole means of expression and communication. Described as a “giver” network, not a “taker” network PATH is positioned to capture daily moments.
All this is done via an iPhone app.
Source wired.co.uk
Vocabulary tool by Berlitz uses Twitter for Social Learning
A new tool from Berlitz adds a social element to learning with multimedia instructions and Twitter-like capabilities.
Users begin by entering the words they want to master̶input can be done manually, or via the “Vocabu Wordclipper,” which lets them highlight any word on a page and drag it to their browser for automatic inclusion.
Vocabu helps users learn the words from their “wordstreams” by trawling the web for visual references using sites like Flickr or for examples of the words used in sentences from real-time tweets on Twitter. Users of Vocabu can form groups for mutual learning and inspiration, and a “follow me” function mimics the one on Twitter for sharing and comparing the wordstreams being studied.
Apps for iPhone and Android are on the way, too. Vocabu will operate on a business model that offers both freemium and premium services.
Source: springwise.com www.getvocabu.com 87
The first thing every tween or teen girl does after a shopping spree is to show off their “haul” - and now girls in the US are doing more than bragging about their fashion finds to their best friends. A growing phenomenon called "haul videos" allows the girls to show off their purchases to the whole world on sites like YouTube. There are thought to be over 150,000 haul videos which are recording millions of viewsNow, major retailers are giving the haul video makers a commercial makeover by actively recruiting a handful of them for back-to-school marketing campaigns. The stores are also compensating some of the vloggers. J.C. Penny has deals with six girls to create back-to-school videos in exchange for gift cards from $250 to $1,000, according to reports. "It's one of the most innovative things we're doing this fall," Mike Boylson, chief marketing officer at J.C. Penny, told USA Today. "All of these haulers have followers and friends. That's how you start the ball rolling." In the same report - American Eagle is also getting in on the action, with its own version of AE hauls. Source ABC News & YouTube
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Major Retailers Latch on to 'Hauler' Viral Videos
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To be continued…..
This is the first report of a planned regular series on Social Media – next time we’ll be looking again at brands using social media – paying attention to the typical questions that marketers are currently asking, including:
• How do I measure Social Media ROI? • How do I reach my target markets with social media – will I be welcome? • How do I generate traffic and leads using social media? • What is the value of a Brand App?
For further information and feedback please contact: Graham Saxton – [email protected] Andy Hunter – [email protected]
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