Conference: Social Fresh

One of the folks from class had asked about getting info on any upcoming conferences on social media. Here's one in St. Louis: Social Fresh.

Andy Warhol's Social Media (and not the 15 minutes of fame)

Andy Warhol was a true innovator and bizarre genius. Sure, his idea of 15 minutes of fame is so close to a reality through the social web, but beyond the ’15 minutes’ idea, Andy may have hit on a couple of the most appealing aspects of social media: Passive socializing and vicarious experience.

In The Philosophy of Andy Warhol: From A to B and Back Again Andy talked about how he would most prefer to spend his free time. Aside from watching multiple televisions and reading every magazine sprawled out on his bed, he would continually ask his friends what’s on TV, what’s been on, what’s going to be on. Essentially using them as proxies for the TV Guide, but getting so much more than just flat descriptions and star ratings. He got personal perspective. He got a peek into the minds and hearts of his friends via their preferences for what they wanted to watch while getting helpful information along the way.

But even more than this, he borrowed entertainment from his friends through continuous check-ins. “I love to while away the hours while other people do their meanwhiles, as long as they call in to report.”

This was written in 1975, so I can only imagine some of the types of updates Andy’s friends would have at check-in time.

But, isn’t this why we love our status updates? What did I do that would be entertaining to you? We hope the content of our experiences are interesting enough for someone we know to be entertained by it. We want to give all the Andy’s sitting in their beds watching TV get a taste of our lives to hopefully enrich theirs.

I actually like to think of social media used in this regard. It turns what could otherwise be a solipsistic motivation for broadcasting the minutiae of our lives into an altruistic purpose for all of us to entertain, enlighten and enrich each other.

Can we always count on the social graph for true perspectives

As a marketer and someone who truly values unbiased and raw consumer perspectives, it used to be the case that I could count on the social graph to provide just that. People would post their uncensored and pure perspectives not just in general, but specifically on brands. From these postings and dialogues, we could find out what people REALLY thought, and not in some isolated controlled environment like a focus group. In fact, it was this very behavior that simultaneously drew in and repelled companies when it came to social media marketing. Uncensored perspectives are both valuable and frightening.

But, are we starting to censor ourselves some? In just the last year or so, participation in the space has grown exponentially so that more and more people who may not be used to this kind of behavior are taking up a greater portion of the digitally active. Couple this with tendencies for companies to use social networks to keep track of their employees, vendors, and prospective talent (we’ve all heard the stories of job candidates who were shoe ins suddenly get the cold shoulder due to their would-be employer discovering some misbehavior of the candidate via social networks) and people begin to think twice about what they post. After all, most of us are accountable to someone.

Personally, I’ve become much more sensitive about what I post, knowing full well how easily a comment could get into the hands of someone I wouldn’t necessarily want it to. I’ve seen prolific posters curb their comments as well for fear of a quick status update coming back to haunt them.

Certainly, there will always be people commenting about products, companies, and brands, and doing so in an honest and intelligent way. This won’t go away. But, I am curious about what this will look like in the future. Will people always tell their full story? Will it be more thoughtful? And what will this mean for companies and individuals like myself who rely on honest perspectives to understand how best to develop brands that can actually affect people’s lives (hopefully in a good way)? My worry is that we’ll start to experience what we’ve already gone through with traditional research which is watered down perspectives biased by real or perceived group pressures.

To be honest, if things get too tame, I would be one of the first to miss some of the stronger more vehement harangues in the social space. They’re what makes the space fun to begin with.

Some Links

Here are links from our class. Enjoy!

Facebook in Real Life

Twitter Spoof


A Beautiful Mind Game Theory

Augmented Reality Clips
1
2
3

Kutiman’s Thru You

Oasis Case

Did you know – social media

Navy For Moms (didn’t show this, but a good case)

What Does Activity vs Number of Followers Look Like?

I just read a great article from Wired about how there comes a point when you have too many people following, in your community, etc. and the conversation essentially shuts down due to lack of intimacy, beginning to second guess posts, etc. But, then, with a much larger number, there’s no conversation to spoil so there remains value. Basically, the middle ground with tens of thousands followers is not a great place to be.

Being the nerd I am, I thought I’d try to graph this. Not sure it helps, but certainly worth the discussion.

The Advocacy Curve

We can generally break down people who interact with us, our company, or our brand, into three groups: Antagonists, Apathetics, and Advocates. These three groups can be plotted on a bell curve with normal distribution. While the actual percentage differs depending on the category, the topic/issue, or the brand/company, they roughly fall out the following way.

70-80% Apathatic: The vast majority falls into the Apathetic group since these are the people who have no real strong feelings one way or another. In an acquisition strategy, they may be the ones most easily brought into the Advocacy group.

10-15% Advocates: These are the people who love you! They use you regularly and talk about you to other people. In social media marketing, consider these the potential Influencers (or at least a subset of this group). Help them spread your word!

10-15% Antagonists: These are the people who actively don’t like you. They are the Bizarro version of Advocates, who will go out of their way to criticize and spread the bad word about you. In social media marketing, consider them the ones you are least likely to convert. However, this does not mean they should be ignored. Often, their perspectives are valid and you can learn a lot from them. Plus, they are often the foil for Advocates. They should be embraced (within reason).

Personality Profiling in Social Media

There’s a great quote in High Fidelity (the movie and the book) where the main character Rob says (something along the lines of) “It’s not what you ARE like, it’s what you LIKE that matters.” Books, movies, music, essentially our interests and passions define us. This point was made even further in a book based on a somewhat similar premise titled Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You by Sam Gosling.

I got to thinking about these ideas as I was coming through several Twitter feeds to see what people were talking about and linking to. It’s a quick way to understand what people are interested in because when someone posts a link, for example, they are telling us that they have taken the time to look for, find, read, and SHARE a piece of content. This is essentially shorthand for saying “this is what I am in to.”

As we think about using social media as a research tool, it becomes a great way to get a deep profile of the people we are interested in connecting with. What they talk about is, at least in part, who they are.

Role of Social Media in Contemporary Marketing

Here's the link for Ishman's paper. Good solid foundational info.

http://groovygenie.wordpress.com/2009/09/18/a-literature-review-role-of-social-media-in-contemporary-marketing/

Assignments and Due Dates

Hey gang,

Here’re the due dates for assignments:

Assignment 1 – Case study.
January 20

Assignment 2 – Research using the social graph
January 27

Assignment 3 – Development of a social media campaign
February 8

Let me know if you've got concerns or questions.

Some quick resources

First off, I’m thrilled to have met you all last night. Everyone seems to be coming at the subject with very unique and interesting perspectives, which means we all have a lot to share with each other and even more opportunities to learn.

I’m truly excited!!

Secondly, I wanted to share a couple of resources with you to help with your first assignment. If you want to check out site traffic (including blogs) here are a couple of places:
- Google Ad Planner (www.google.com/adplanner/) - you’ll need a gmail account to access. Play around with it, it tends to be pretty self-explanatory, but not everything is intuitive. So, feel free to send any questions my way.
- Technorati (http://technorati.com/)

Social Media Cases and Resources. A couple of you had mentioned some resources in class, so feel free to repost below. Here are a couple of others just based on a quick Google search:
-wiki.beingpeterkim.com/
-http://www.interactiveinsightsgroup.com/blog1/social-media-examples-superlist-17-lists-and-tons-of-examples/

Finally, I’m going to add a little bit about some basics of using social media for marketing/pr/etc to our discussion on Wednesday to help give you guys a bit of context and a foundation for your first assignment.

In the meantime, let me know if you have any thoughts or questions.

First Class

Hey guys! Welcome to the class! I’m hoping to make this as useful for you both personally and professionally.

During class, I’ll be providing updates, but feel free to check in here from time to time to see if there’s anything new.

And, feel free to comment as you like!

First up, the class syllabus. Here’s how it stands now.


Insights and Opportunities in Social Media
Jason Parker
jparker43@hotmail.com
Twitter: ParkSocClass

Overall Course Objective
With the ever evolving social media space and expanding arsenal of technologies therein, the course will help students learn strategic approaches to implementing, maintaining, and evolving social media strategies from campaigns to enterprise level solutions regardless of specific technologies.

Books and Course Material
- Here Comes Everybody by Clay Shirky
- Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff
- Additional references
o A Literature Review: Role of Social Media in Contemporary Marketing by Isman Tanuri (to be distributed by instructor).

Grading System
There will be several opportunities for evaluation throughout the course, with each representing a percentage of the total grade.
- Case study 20%
- Research report 20%
- Practice campaign 20%
- Exam (essay) 40%
Written assignments are expected to be completed and turned in on time. For each class period that an assignment is late, students’ grades on that assignment will drop a letter grade. Consideration will be given to any extenuating circumstances which will be discussed and assessed on an individual level.

The exam will cover material discussed in class and in reading assignments.

For all grades resulting from assignments, tests, and presentations, students will have an opportunity to discuss with the instructor.


Course Outline
Week 1
Objective: Overview of social media and its impact on culture and companies.
Reading: Here Comes Everybody. Chapters 1, 2, 3 and 8
Groundswell. Chapter 2

Class 1: Introduction
- Individual introductions.
- Course objective
- Topics the course will cover.
- Overview of books and chapters.
- Overview of grading system: Assignments, cases, end of semester exam
- Discussion of basics of social media
- Implications of Social Media on society, companies, and marketing
- Discuss first assignment: Case study on a company that has been effective in using social media.

Class 2: Trends in the social graph
- Overview of prevalent trends impacting and impacted by social media
- Types of collaboration in the social graph
- Work on case studies
- Distribute Role of Social Media in Contemporary Marketing

Week 2
Objective: Understand how to tap into the social graph as a source of learning
Reading: Here Comes Everybody. Chapter 7
Groundswell. Chapters 3 and 5

Class 3: Outlets in the social graph
- Overview of prevailing social media technologies and their evolution
- Applications
- Group behavior dynamics

Class 4: Approaches and tools for monitoring the social graph
- Monitoring vs. moderating
- Paid vs. free tools
- Demonstrations
- Discuss second assignment: Mine the social graph to better understand a target and company and develop a report.


Week 3
Objective: Understanding how best to activate in the social graph
Reading: Groundswell. Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9

Class 5: Joining the social graph
- Identifying whether a company should participate
- Determining best approach for participating
- Rules for participation

Class 6: Harnessing the social graph
- Approaches to transforming conversation into action
o Seeding content
o Responding to conversations
o Creating social momentum
o Crisis management
o Direct consumer input
o Beta/Testing
- Discuss third assignment: Development of a hypothetical social media campaign


Week 4
Objective: Understand the processes and practices for developing and implementing a social media program for a company

Class 7: Setting up a social media program
- Best practices
o Organizational structures
o Social media discipline vs. shared responsibility
- Process and flow of social media
o Starting
o Ongoing
- Legal implications

Class 8: Discussion and prep for final exam

Class 9: Final Exam