The Impact & the Etiquette of Social MediaDavid Cushman
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Who am I?
20 years in media, advertising, marketing and organisational change
Author of The Power of the Network Blog ranked world No7 for publishing, UK’s
top 20 for marketing/advertising, Invited to speak on the impact of social
media from New York to San Francisco (the valley, too) Cannes to Cork
Helped Bauer/emap, Honda, Phillips, Sony-Ericsson, Gatwick Airport, Edge, UKBA, CWDC, DfT, Grey (London), MCBD, Digitas, RIOT/180, ThirdeyeT, Gambling Compliance, The Met Police, Coca Cola etc
Trustee of UK charity Citizens Online Ex-Director of Social Media at BrandoSocial Currently MD 90:10 Ltd (Ninety10group.com)
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Context
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What is social media?
Digitally enabled peer-to-peer networks
From email and sms to Facebook and Twitter
Distribution is by people to people
Content is by people to be shared with other people
POWER!
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Power?
Every hotel Every restaurant Every shop Everywhere…
Filled with published critics
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Peer-to-Peer?
The most powerful behaviour changer there is
We do what others like us do
Social media brings us together with people like us
Social media helps people like us act together
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Social media
Is not: A channel (it’s a network)
Is not: A place to broadcast (it’s for conversations)
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It’s all about the people, people
Where humans are talking to each other about things that bother/interest them – on a global scale
You are included. With or without your permission.
If you’re lucky/unlucky
If you contribute If you participate
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We’re all publishers now
300m blogs globally 73% of web users read blogs Facebook members 132.1
million unique users in June 2008 (now over 300m)
MySpace had 117.6 million users in June 08 (now declining).
Twitter has now exceeded 50m – up 49m in a year! (overtaken myspace in UK)
More video added to Youtube in last year than broadcast by TV EVER!
The revolution is speeding up...
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We’re all advertisers and marketers now
Friend-recommendation is responsible for 70%+ of all purchase decisions
34% write about products and brands on their blogs
20% of all tweets are brand related
23% of social network users have added applications
18% of bloggers install widgets
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Social media. Shared media.
Very different measures required. Not consuming; participating Co-creating the experience Communities not audiences To take part, you have to create part Think ears and mouths, rather than
eyeballs
Very different from the world of mass broadcast media
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How do we adapt?
The user is the destination now
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The long tail… and it’s getting longer
The idea that the majority is made up of people who don’t want the thing that the largest single group do.
Twitter Trends, the charts and often elections – surface the largest single group – not, by a long way, the majority
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Frightening Fragmentation
Q: How can we reach deep into and along the ever-elongating long tail?
A: Understand how messages/ideas and conversations evolve in the networked world
The internet is for people.
The internet is for people. For people to form groups
The internet is for people. For people to form groups
Groups with sharedpurposes
The internet is for people. For people to form groups
Groups with shared purposesGroups of people that can form at little or no cost
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That changes everything
http://flickr.com/photos/stuckincustoms/
Three key disruptions
Who gets to create content?
Who gets to distribute content?
Who controls the user experience?
Three key disruptions
Who gets to create content?Any and everyoneWho gets to distribute content?Any and everyoneWho controls the user experience?The user is the destination now, they control their own A-to-anywhere journey
You can’t target every community of purpose
They can
Here’s howhttp://flickr.com/photos/caribb/
You can’t target every community of purpose
They can
Here’s how
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THE STAGE
Scale = audience = where the eyeballs have gone
Message broadcast at audience
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THE STAGE
But in (social) networks the broadcast message doesn’t arrive
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They aren’t looking at The Stage.
They are looking at each other
Scale = lots of communities of purpose = where the eyeballs are focused
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•They share messages among their groups.•They adapt them to suit their groups •They make the message theirs
We share what we think is cool with people who (we think) will think its cool, too
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•The groups are not fixed (adhoc).•The message spreads when the groups reform around a new purpose
Users select what they think is cool (has utility) to take with them on their journey
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Participants adapt the message
to suit the group they wish to share it with
The people best-placed to adapt the message are in the group, not on the stage
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And so it continues; the message evolving to
survive. Or it dies out
We share what we think is cool. That which we co-create, we embrace
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They aren’t your groups they are theirs
They aren’t your messages they are theirs
Communication is not done to them, it is done by them
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In social media
WE are the (only) distribution, WE are the content, WE are the 'user journey', WE are how messages are
transmitted. WE are the medium and the
media carried by it WE are the connections.
and how the connections are made.
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Same as it ever was?
Key lessons for organisations
http://flickr.com/photos/cleversimon/
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Key lessons for organisations 2
Respond
http://flickr.com/photos/daveyp/
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Listen
The conversations are happening with or without your permission.
They are happening everywhere people talk
You can listen: twitter search; brandtags.net, Radian6, etc
Listen, enable, and serve.
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Business case for listening
70% of purchase decisions are friend-recommended.
How much of your current spend is focused on connecting to the conversations?
How much value do you currently place on these conversations?
If the answer isn’t 70%...
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2. Respond
Marketing isn’t done to them, it is done by them
Think less of where the eyeballs are and more about the mouths and ears
Place value on real-time, human interaction.
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Social media works best
When users can adapt the message to better suit those they would share with
Eg Youtube’s many incarnations of the Cadbury’s gorilla ad.
Where they lower the technical barriers
Eg Pampers easy-insert of your own kids’ pictures into a Christmas video message.
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Messy kitchens
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Interesting + together
Create interesting things for people to do together
Co-create with those you were going to do your content to/deliver a product or service to.
Now do it with them. They’ll find that more interesting.
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Connect communities of purpose
Make it easy for people who care to connect
People who care, act Action creates value (makes change) Their actions attract more people to the
purpose by amplifying and sustaining the conversation
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Success requires:
1. A willingness to relinquish control
2. Toolkits users can play with
3. Creative users
2&3 are in place.
Ready for No1?
http://flickr.com/photos/darwinbell/
Broken media
If you publish without allowing the reader to publish back, you state:
There, I'm done. That's all you need to know. All your questions have been
answered - because I say so. This is as good as it gets. Me producer, you consumer. Me expert, you little man/woman. Nothing to be challenged here. Move
along Your opinion counts for zip
Media that publishes without a comment box publishes broken
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What makes me angry?
1. Organisations insisting on massaging (messaging?) the humanity out of their best efforts to communicate with humans. There's a kind of insanity in that which is beyond grotesque.
2. Those who think they can 'use' us (that's me and you, kid) as a channel.
3. Those who think the conversation is trivial. They belittle what it is to be human and the value we place on relationships. Their loss.
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Remember
It ain’t social media if it doesn’t change your business…
Social + Media
Social = Groups, people, us, what we choose to do together
Media = Content, distribution, them, what they would seek to do to us
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Together 90:10
“The people who can make the biggest difference to your college don't work for it.
“Adapting to the network means they can.”
Contact:
David Cushman
FasterFuture.blogspot.com
twitter.com/davidcushman
Call or text +447736 353590
Or just Google me (no, really)
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