How did a company go from designing cheap websites to building the technology of giants? Aren Grimshaw tells a story that spans 4 years from being a consultant to an agent of change, and making the vital decisions that helped a small company make a big change.

Link to the original source on Like Minds - http://wearelikeminds.com/videos/aren-grimshaw-how-a-small-company-made-a-big-change

In his post, Mark answers this question with the answer – “There isn’t going to be one”. He goes on to justify this position by stating…

“…switching away from Facebook may be a more difficult decision than choosing a new home! In fact, most current users will probably never change to another social networking platform because the psychological and emotional investment in Facebook is so high. That’s where they have their circle of online friends. That’s where they go to check on the Farmville crops. That’s where they go to see the daily pictures of the new grandchild. And that is where they are going to stay.

The psychological commitment and emotional investment in Facebook is enormous, and it’s growing every day as the company adds functionality and embraces third-party applications that add to the fun and the amount of time people spend on the site.

Why won’t there be a “next” Facebook? Facebook is no longer a website. It’s a lifestyle. And changing your lifestyle carries very, very heavy switching costs.”

Opening up the debate on my Twitter timeline this morning, there were those that pointed out that the science of social capital and networking demonstrates that this is not the case. Others argued that the trust and privacy issues will be the service’s downfall. In a series of comments Ann Holman, a Devon based social architect and strategist, went on to state:

My last point on this is that FB has ceased to be a social networking site, its a marketing channel! We have blindly walked into a modern day newspaper!

This is a position I don’t agree with. I think as marketers that’s how WE tend to see it, but there are plenty of consumers out there who don’t. For them they have put the service to use for their own ends, often ignoring or resisting any attempts by marketers to encroach on their social networking activity.

The problem is as marketers we use the services as such, we look at it with our marketing hats on and see how the quality of conversation with companies is poor at best. We watch as our relationships appear to get shallower and shallower. We see our status stream fill up with meaningless updates from faceless corporations who have outsourced their community activity to a small team based in another office, and mistakenly think its like that for everyone.

Marketers need to get real!

Facebook users didn’t come to Facebook to be marketed to, but there is a marketing opportunity in them doing so. That opportunity doesn’t lie in broadcasting messages, in fact it seldom even involves a Facebook page. What it is about, for me at least, is relationships. Facebook provides us with the opportunity as businesses or individuals to build, maintain and extend relationships with other users, users who may be friends, colleagues, clients or future business.

I took the debate out to my local Starbucks this morning. I regularly use Starbucks as a remote office and have become friends with many of the other regulars, who represent an interesting cross-section of my local community. One lady, Julie, I have known for a couple of years and we have been speaking throughout her time on Facebook.

Julie is a mature user, that is, she is not one of the net generation or millenials. Julie has been using Facebook for about two years. Julie works as a life-coach and nutritionist. In her spare time she helps out with the local scout and girl guide groups. Her network on Facebook consists of friends (old and new), family (close and distant), leaders and participants in the local scout / guide community, clients, and the people she plays her game with. Her network includes those she hasn’t ever met, people she hasn’t seen in years and people she sees every day.

I asked her what she thought about changing to another service. I asked her how she used Facebook and whether companies were ruining her experience.

She couldn’t imagine using another service, not because Facebook was remarkable, in fact the site was an irrelevance, but because of the relationships she had built there. She saw that another service could come along and offer more but she was also realistic that it wouldn’t make a lot of difference to her. Facebook gave her so much, so much that was missing before, that she didn’t see what anyone could give her.

She told me how the birthday wishes had given her support during a difficult time. How her game had connected her with people all over the world. How she kept up with her family all over the world, filling the gaps between their calls. How the minutes from her recent scout meeting has been delivered on Facebook when email failed and how plans were already afoot to use the group function for future planning. How she had reignited relationships with her friends from primary school.

Now I know that Ann said this morning, “people said the same when other TV channels emerged to rival BBC!”; however, I would argue there is a big difference. Viewers invested nothing into that process, they just sat back and watched. When offered more choice they took up the option and voted with their viewing time, hardly surprising, it’s a lot easier to turn the channel than it is to rebuild your network, transfer all your content across and learn a new system.

The return we get from the social network is equal to the investment we have put into it. If I have taken time to build relationships with those in my network, to share my experiences, and to take part in theirs, I won’t want that to end, the returns are beyond what I can put a value on.

The problem is too many marketers have connected to other marketers, other marketers who fill their stream with recycled viewpoints and commercial messages. They think that their experience is the same as every consumer, it isn’t! Marketers need to get real, go and ask the people who really use Facebook what they think. Facebook isn’t a marketing channel, it’s a social network and the real problem is you can’t see how to use that fact to your advantage.

(Read the original post from Mark Shaefer at http://www.businessesgrow.com/2010/11/29/why-facebook-is-more-important-than-your-house/)

The first question I ask is “What was your reason for selecting Facebook over any other site?” closely followed by “…and what do you hope to achieve by using it?” More often than not the answer received relates to what the competition is doing, or an expectation they feel placed on them by all the hype and coverage surrounding social networks. It is seldom related back to achieving specific objectives for the business.

This is not confined to my one to one dealings with clients either. In my presentations to businesses I am often asked why I do not spend more time on the practical elements of using Twitter or Facebook. Why do I spend so much time on the theory, the ideas, rather than specific guidance on using particular services?

When it comes down to it, it’s all a matter of strategy.

Now a strategy all sounds very ‘blue-sky’, but in reality it’s just a name given to the process of assessing a market opportunity and putting forward a clear roadmap for delivering on a set of organisational objectives, using the resources available. It takes into consideration aspects such as the competition, the organisation’s market position and any existing relationship with consumers and wider stakeholders.

There are those who say you don’t need a strategy to use social media for your business, they’re of course right. You only need a strategy if you would like to achieve a specified set of organisational objectives through the use of social media services. Using them is relatively easy, getting the results you want can be a different matter.

The process I follow with clients builds upon the Forrester POST method, widely accepted as the industry standard, and takes a customer through the various stages necessary to develop a comprehensive set of actions for implementation. At the very end of this process is any decision to use Facebook, Twitter, or indeed any other social media service.

The decision to use one platform over another follows consideration of all the different factors: community, aims and objectives and resources. Prior to selecting the specific platforms a general approach is defined. Once these elements are in place the decision to use Facebook or Twitter is a relatively simple one. More importantly, the impetus for a client to allocate resources to their upkeep is a simple one.

On the other hand, those who start with the technology up-front, often find themselves dedicating a lot of time and energy to their Facebook or Twitter accounts in the early stages, only to find the results disappointing. This leads them to question whether their customers are really using these sites, whether there is any business to be done and whether dedicating time and energy into this activity is really worth it.

So before you rush to setup your Twitter, Facebook or other account, think: What would you like to achieve? What is the value of achieving that aim for your business? What resources are you willing to dedicate to achieving it? Define your approach first, add the technology later.

Do you agree or disagree, let me know by posting a comment in the box below. If you would like help in developing your own social media strategy please get in touch.

This is a subject which not only applies to us as businesses, but to all of as individuals.

The presentation below was one I prepared this week for a group of graduates looking to improve their chances of employment. They were all enrolled on an excellent 2 week course run by Unlocking Cornish Potential which aims to provide them with a range of insights into entering the workplace, provided by various business people, me included.

Prior to meeting the group I had been given their names and email addresses, enabling me to background search publicly available information, freely available to read via Google or other search indexes. (credit must go to David McGuire at the John Knowles Company for the great idea)

In most cases these guys and gals had been pretty savvy and had locked down their profiles using the privacy settings. However, there was quite a few surprises when I took time to show each of them individually (and privately) just what came up. (Old MySpace accounts from their uni days, photo libraries of drunken evenings with mates and some pretty revealing group memberships!)

In this presentation I don’t reveal what I found in any detail, instead highlighting other cases I have come across on the web.

The presentation includes some practical advice on what you can do to protect yourself and keep alert of new content, as well as providing suggestions on how you might turn the tables and use Social Media sites to put you ahead in the interview room.

I am always keen to hear your thoughts, comments or suggestions.. so if you have something to add please add a comment or get in touch via email. Thanks for reading, Aren.

A devoted Twitter user myself, I couldn’t let the story pass without adding my own comment and before I could make a cup of coffee was embroiled in an ongoing debate as to the worth, especially to businesses, of social networks and platforms such as Twitter.

I should have anticipated a response was just around the corner. Whenever a new study or piece of research lays into the so called world of ‘social media’ and its mirky complicated language, lack of purpose and general banality there are those quick to jump on board and exclaim that “it’s all just a waste of time”.

It’s unfortunate that the BBC failed to report the full details of the study. Amongst all the hype and bold headlines was an interesting study that uncovered some interesting insights into Twitter as a stream of information. Those who took the time to read through the full report, the categorisation used, depth of the study and methodology, coupled with comments from the wider audience and the researchers themselves, will know there was more than the headline suggested.

For those of you who have no knowledge of Twitter, let me explain the basics.

Users sign up to Twitter with an email address. They enter a brief bit of info about themselves (limited to 160 characters) and a website address for further information. They can follow other users by finding them through directories or while browsing the web. The user can post messages (limited to 140 characters) to Twitter for their followers to read.

The idea is that each user follows those that interest them. The interest may be based on their geographic proximity, shared hobbies, knowledge on a particular subject or any number of different reasons. Should someone you follow become ‘un-interesting’ then you have the power to ‘switch them off’ and stop receieving their updates.

This is where we find the first issue with the report from Pear Analytics. Their study ‘dipped’ into the network and grabbed just 200 messages per day from the public timeline. This would be the equivalent of tapping into the phone network and listening in on random calls, using your findings as a benchmark of how the phone network is used. It does not reveal a lot about usage it just shows what those users were doing at the time. You may get business people closing a deal or you may geta mother and son discussing the next door’s neighbors knee operation.

Studying 200 messages, when in the US alone (according to Pear Analytics CEO, Ryan Kelly) there are over 3,000,000 messages sent every day, seems a little too small a sample to make such sweeping statements.

Any Twitter user will tell you that Twitter becomes useful when you know how to filter or select the information you want to receive. No one that I know watches the ‘public timeline’, an amalgamation of every message sent over Twitter. Instead we select those we want to follow and filter for mentions of information of value to us.

Ryan Kelly knows this, that’s why after dinner with Twitter pro and social media enthusiast, Robert Scoble, he decided that they would cross reference their findings with messages sent by those ‘followed’ by leaders in the field such as himself and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams.

‘Only 8.7% of messages could be said to have “value” as they passed along news of interest.’

The BBC incorporated within their report another bold statistic. Just 8.7% of Twitter messages could be said to have ‘value’. A staggering indictment on the supposed ‘news value’ of Twitter. So how did they measure that? Well it would appear that they used the simple ‘ReTweet’ as a gauge.

Again, for those new to Twitter. When one user feels a piece of information is relevant or interesting to their audience (or followers) they can re-send a message that they have received by adding the letters ‘RT’ to the message. This indicates that they found the information ‘valuable’ and think that you may too.

So in just 8.7% of messages taken from the public stream where there found to be the letters ‘RT’ at the forefront of the message. simple. But what about all the information rehashed and sent out without the ‘RT’, or all the messages with an ‘@’ symbol at the front (directed at another user) listed as ‘conversational’ – what about times where the news originates from multiple sources and therefore does not require an ‘RT’?

In reality, this is probably the weakest statistic of them all. After all what one may find valuable is quite different to another. It is far too subjective to measure ‘value’ on the basis of this one factor alone.

40% of the Twitter messages are “pointless babble.”

The most headline grabbing statistic was of course that 40% of those messages interecpted were ‘Pointless Babble’ categorised as ‘“I am eatng a sandwich now” tweets.’.

Interestingly from a marketing perspective these probably contribute one of the most important types of Tweet for business. Why? Well let’s look at some examples of messages that might be included in this group (taken from Twitter’s public timeline):

• I am looking for an accountant who can help me with the legal aspects of my business.
• Just signed the papers to buy a rental property. Can’t believe I’m starting a business on top of everything else that’s going on.
• Off to Falmouth Week to watch the Red Arrows
• I’m buying a new phone tomorrow… Any suggestions?
• Listen to Pirate FM. They play for Cornwall. Great music and awesome friends.

OK, if they’re not your markets they may be pretty ‘pointless’ to you. However, think there are thousands of conversations going on out there that ARE relevant to your business. Knowing how to find the messages relevant to you can help you identify new customers, understand your market better and much more. They provide businesses with the opportunity to engage with potential customers at a time when they are thinking about your product or service.

The important thing to remember with Twitter is that the messages themselves may not have intrinsic value. It is what you do with them that can make a difference.

Consider Twitter like the mobile phone network. You can choose to have a basic mobile phone to make calls or you can add internet, cameras, the whole works to your package. Likewise, you can dip into the main Twitter stream or select an application that filters out the ‘noise’ and gives you the information or capabilities relevant to you.

You can choose to give everyone your phone number and invite conversations with everyone out there or you can remain ex-directory and call the people you want to talk to speak to. Likewise, you can watch the public timeline and add to the conversation or select those you want to talk to and connect with them.

If you would like to learn more about Twitter for your business please get in touch. Call me on 01872 273103 or email aren@arengrimshaw.co.uk.

• To read the full whitepaper from Pear Analytics click here.
• To read the original post from Pear Analytics and the comments click here.
• To read the original BBC report click here.

Understanding that there is a real need for training in this area my attentions have turned to establishing the areas avid social media see as most important and what they feel should be included in presentations or training courses on the subject.

Using LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter I posted the question below and received some great responses from the social media community. Do you agree or disagree with the comments so far? Do you have an idea of your own not already mentioned? If you do, why not add a comment at the bottom of the post?

“If you were leading a social media course what do you believe would be the 3 most important things to cover?”

@guavamarked (Twitter) monitoring, empowering existing users, engaging with new ones.

@sam_deeks (Twitter) 3 tips for Social Media course 1) SM wasn’t created for your benefit 2) Leave your ego out of it 3) Get a (real) life as well

@seasedge (Twitter) Understand your social media goals, tracking / monitoring your current interaction & attracting new customers.

@enterpriseiain (Twitter) depends on the audience.never sell a tragedy to an audience expecting a comedy. A vital point for all courses.

@cyberdoyle (Twitter) before i started I would watch this, its mega and full of wisdom for any social media peeps http://tinyurl.com/kvmods

@24x blogs, twitter, facebook for business…all of course accompanied by a latte

Sean McManus (LinkedIn)

A lot of businesses fall flat when they go into social networks and just start spouting off about how great they are. It needs to be more about building a relationship with people (two way communication), and messages need to be consistent with the tone of the community, and add value.

So I’d suggest the three priorities are:

- making sure that you add value to the community
- listening to what people say (not just pushing stuff out there)
- respecting that it’s not your community – follow the rules and netiquette.

I guess another part of it is that it’s a long term game – you can’t expect quick returns from social media. It’s about building reputation and relationships, not about making a quick sell.

Steven Stearns (LinkedIn)

1.) Face your market.
2.) Listen to it.
3.) Engage.

Aaron Shaffer (LinkedIn)

Good question. I would start with determining the goal of why a company wants to leverage social media. Is it a feeling that they have to, are they interested in a new venue for customer interaction, or is it just another way to brand or sell themselves. Based upon that goal, I would then begin to look at:

• How you want your community’s followers to interact with you, and for what purpose? As Sean said in the post above me, it really is about listening to your community. Establish a network of trust. I know there are a myriad of good and bad examples of this.
• Determining your long term value proposition. Are you simply a logo in cyberspace, or are you going to provide and disseminate information that would be important to your audience.
• While building credibility for yourself, respect the ethos of the specific community and your followers. At this point, we’ve seen sites come and go. Without that respect, are you going to be able to carry your users to the next platform?

Above all, stress the importance of building the reputation of the brand and providing a pathway for long term interaction and a sustained relationship.

Steve Buser (LinkedIn)

Suppose I am selling coffee. I want to get a dialogue going about coffee, not about my coffee. How to brew the perfect cup. The best coffee houses (let the users tell me where they are and why. THe best blends, The newest trends. Quote famous people on coffee. Great coffee moments in history. Best foods to eat with coffee.

But it is not just you telling them. Let them be the major part of the dialogue. A reward for the “best coffee story.”

Make coffee part of their lives, not just part of their shopping list.

Involve them, celebrate their ideas and input. Then you will be following the old marketing line “Sell the sizzle and not the steak.”

>Peter Graves (LinkedIn)

1. Making your social media efforts more targeted, mostly otherwise you’ll be marketing to friends, family, competitors and spammers.
2. Selecting the right site(s) for your market, personality and time-availability.
3. Working SMM in with your SEO – the SEO is lightly to bring you larger numbers of better targeted visitors, so those that forsake this for pure social media can pay quite a high price in the long term.
4. Doing it efficiently, so it creates maximum impact and involvement while swallowing up as little of your time as possible.
Good grief there’s so much isn’t there – good points from the others on this page too I feel.

Rob Duncan (LinkedIn)

1. Be where your market is (pick the right platforms).
2. Know what you are trying to achieve (stay on message).
3. Think “give” not “get” (invest in your network).

Claire Eason-Bassett (Facebook)

what are the benefits of social media and how can it be used to get them? e.g. writing good twitters. And how to join up between the social media forms and include social media in your overall marketing strategy.

A big thank you to all those who took the time to answer my question. Some really great responses which will give me a lot to consider when preparing the next course or presentation.

The original press release and Helen’s report at first seems to have some pretty compelling evidence; under 5% of social media users refer to social media in making purchasing decisions across a number of purchase categories ranging from travel to banking. However, on closer inspection of the study there are a number of factors which make this report less substantial than it may at first appear.

‘Social Media Users’

Starting at the beginning, the report is based around a study conducted by Knowledge Networks as part of their Home Technology Monitor and draws on one specific question asked to just 418 respondents considered to be ‘social media users’. These users are defined for the purposes of this study as:

“those who ever use any of 27 pre-specified websites commonly categorized as social media sites, or those who have used social media features on other websites that are not primarily social media sites.”

Now this may seem like a fair definition of a ‘social media user’ in general, but looking at the list of 27 pre-specified websites it is clear that the majority of the sites named are more akin to ‘social networks’ than they are ‘social media’. And secondly categorising those ‘who have ever used’ those sites as ‘social media users’ seems a little weak at best.

Any company investing time and other resources to implementing a properly researched social media strategy will know that success in social media does not come from social networks alone. A lot of social media activities rely on engaging content which may be hosted across a series of websites or blogs. This content may not be immediately apparent as a form of ‘social media’ to the consumer; however, they are right there at the core of the social media activity being carried out.

Social media users come in all shapes and sizes. Some will be evangelists spending every waking moment connected to the web, whereas others just dabble with it, spending ten minutes a week corresponding with their friends. To lump all these groups together as one only serves to water down the research and skew the data.

‘Refer’ to Social Media

The question used to compile the research read as follows:

“How often do you refer to social media websites or features as a resource for information, reviews, or recommendations when in the market for [category]?” Categories on offer to participants included: Travel, Banking, Clothes, Groceries, Restaurants and Cars.

In both the original release and Helen’s report, they headlined with the fact that under 5% in each category, stated that they ‘regularly’ refer to ‘social media’ when making the decision. However, what they fail to highlight is that this number doubles for the answer ‘sometimes’ with percentages ranging between 10% for Prescription and OTC Drugs purchases and 24% for Travel and Travel Services.

What’s more, the question fails to recognise that many consumers may have been influenced by recommendations, reviews and information over social media in the days, weeks or months leading up to their decision. These consumers may not actively ‘refer’ to social media in making their decisions; however, there is still a link between social media and their purchase that needs consideration.

In the same way that many consumers will not make purchases off the back of one display ad alone, the brand awareness created by a series of ads and the company’s wider advertising or branding leads the consumer into making the all important purchase.

(Also, what about the benefits of increased traffic to the websites used to purchase products?)

The Results

Looking at the age banding and categories employed in the results, it seems a little odd that Knowledge Networks felt it best to display the results for one wide age category of 13-54 year olds.

Would it not have been more interesting to look for trends amongst particular age groups and particular categories? After all it would be natural to assume that younger ages would place more trust in friends’ recommendations over social networks than their older counterparts.

Would it also not be likely that some ages would use social media to differing degrees depending on the purchasing decision to be made, and furthermore that each age group in each category may behave differently? For example, younger people may look more to social media for clothes or shoe purchasing decisions, whereas older groups may prefer to review banking or travel arrangements.

By lumping all the data together in one set, Knowledge Networks have missed a real opportunity to understand how those using social media actually refer to social media in making their purchasing decisions. As such, we are left with some pretty bland and misleading figures.

Return on Investment?

In reality this study has very little to do with the return on investment from social media. It focuses on one very small element of the potential returns.

There are plenty of examples of companies who have used the platforms available to achieve tangible business success. Below are links to two great examples of social media ROI and the Groundswell Awards Winners list which includes a number of great case studies along the same lines.

Twitter Proves Its Worth as a Killer App for Local Businesses

Case Study: ROI of Social Media Campaign for SeaWorld San Antonio – A Year Later

2008 Forrester Groundswell Awards Winners