I just got a newsletter from MediaPost in my inbox (MediaPost is like Alltop.com but for media, marketing and advertising professional's). The main story was titled “Survey: 7% of Social Network Users Would Look at Messages During Sex”.

It made me smile and reminded me of my days as a publisher. Of course, the people at MediaPost are publishers, and I guess they know that a headline containing the word sex usually gets some more eyeballs. So I took it a step further and titled this post ‘Will social media kill our sex life?”.

I bet some readers of this post will read this because they worry (“what, no more sex because my partner is on Facebook all day, tomorrow I throw out my computer”) and, yes, some visitors will probably come via Google after having typed in a phrase like “how to use social media to find a sex partner”.

OK, enough fun. What the article in MediaPost is really tackling is the issue of how addictive social media can be. And that's no fun.

It’s been covered in some other media too. And, as always, I have my own thoughts about the issue. However, let me start by saying why it’s becoming a hot topic again.

Social Media NZ

Jean Clark @socialemail

Founder of SocialEmailMarketing.eu and SocialMarketingForum.net

According to recently updated data from Nielsen, the amount of time that people from around the world spend on social networking web sites has increased by 2 hours per person each month from 2009.

The study asked participants in 10 major countries how long they spent each month on web sites like Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and Classmates Online. The average across the study concluded that each person spent around five and a half hours using such sites every month.

This included access both at home and at work.

The study also revealed some other statistics about worldwide social media participation increases.

Social Media NZ

Jean Clark @socialemail

Founder of SocialEmailMarketing.eu and SocialMarketingForum.net

You might be thinking that based on the title this is going to be a typical old school vs. new school marketing argument, but that’s sooooooo 2008. In 2010 it’s no longer an either or situation, nowadays it’s definitely all about both.

So how do you combine engagement and promotion without selling out? Good Example: Dunkin Donuts (1.2 million Fans)

The Dunkin Donuts "Keep it Coolatta” is a great example of effective social media promotion. It was a short term campaign to boost both Facebook fans and sales of Coolatta iced drinks. This short term promotion was combined with an ongoing customer focussed social media strategy.

Some of the key features of this campaign which have helped Dunkin Donuts succeed with their use of social media are:

An on-going focus on fans Dunkin Donuts actively celebrates and rewards their fans. This is evidenced by both their enduring ‘FAN OF THE WEEK’ campaign and the tag line “America runs on Dunkin’, and DD Facebook runs on You.”

Incentives for fan engagement

Rewarding fans who engage in both the short-term competitions, as well as those who engage in the fan page on an on-going basis is a vital part of making the fan base feel valued for their efforts. Offline/Online cross-over through the “Coolatta” promotion Dunkin’ have helped bring their fans’ offline experience with their products into the virtual world.

Not so good example: BMW (3000 Fans)

The BMW What Drives You - Graffiti Car Contest is a great example of how you can make a huge impact in social media and then have your fan base die off due to lack of sustained effort and energy. The Graffiti Car Contest involved a custom built Facebook application that allowed fans to colour in an outline of a BMW i-series. The top 5 creators won BMW Art Car models by artists such as Andy Warhol, while the 1st prize winner gets a $100 gift card to Amazon. In the 48 hours after it was launched it received one entry per minute. There were over 9000 submissions in the first 7 days. Sales increased over 12% during the 3 month campaign.

Some of the key features of this campaign which lead to its initial success are:

A Novel Facebook Application:

Creating a fun, creative and dynamic Facebook application was a huge part of the success of this campaign. The application allowed fans to unleash their creativity, and also automatically share their designs with friends; this created the viral spread of the campaign. Friends and fans chatted about the submitted designs and speculated over which one deserved to win.

Incentives for fan engagement

There were no major or on-going incentives for fans who engaged in this campaign. There was only the prospect of winning a minor prize, however this combined with the enjoyment gained from creating new car graphics enticed thousands of people to make submissions.

Why does BMW only have 3000 fans today?

The BMW Graffiti Car Contest while incredibly innovative and clearly successful ultimately was a short term gimmick geared to generate hype for the 1-series. It's now been over half a year since it was launched, and unfortunately it now has had a limited impact on the BMW brand.

On the other hand, Dunkin Donut’s social media engagement is a focal point of their marketing activities. The crucial element that is missing from the BMW campaign is the on-going community focus. Dunkin Donut consistently celebrates their fans and encourages them to share their Dunkin’ experiences with other fans.

So while the Coolatta campaign may have been short lived the fans Dunkin’ gained through the campaign have become part of something bigger (1.2 million and counting).

Promo matters.

You might be a social media purist, in which case you may very well believe that promo shouldn't be a factor in social media because promo is a numbers game and social media is not. But as much as it 'shouldn’t be' social media is a numbers game too. The world of business is still run by balance sheets and board rooms, this means that when business take up the social media challenge it's got to be a worthwhile investment, and social media is a cost.

So the reason promo matters is because promotions boost fan numbers, followers and page hits, and all of these are critical in squeezing out more coin from balance sheet.

Why do you need more coin?

• To fund the engagement side of social media (funding the time)
• To build applications/sites that add value to your community
• To reward your community
• To keep pushing the boundaries

So next time you see a promotion to boost fan or follower numbers think about why they're doing it. Is it a cheap trick or are they promoting to innovate and add even more value to their community? I’d love to hear what you think about social media and promotion.

Is it right or wrong? Is the amazing short term social media gimmick that BMW put together ok with you?

Bio: Sam Schuurman is a keen student of the new business world, the founder of iThnk.com, and a co-founder of TEDxDunedin

Sam Shuurman @SocialSammy and iThnk.com

Now that every man and his dog are well and truly in the socialspace, how much further does it have to go? Can companies become fully integrated social enterprises? The first hurdle has already been passed So far the biggest challenge in social media consultancy is reassuring potential clients that they can gain more than they stand to loose by ‘opening up their brand’. But, this is less of a challenge than it was even six months ago now that so many more businesses are experimenting with the socialweb. So many of us have become a fan of something on facebook or followed a company or two on twitter and the real freaks amongst us will even be the occasional reader of a corporate blog.

So even if your business isn’t in engaging in the social revolution it’s likely that you’ve had some exposure to the successes and failures that other companies are having in their social exploration. So now that we’ve all got some sort of understanding of what social success and failure is & most have gotten over their fear just how far can we take it? The Next Step In Social Evolution (is also here…) One of the things that is emerging from my research into corporate blogs is that people like transparency. Peeps didn’t seem to enjoy corporate blogs had unnecessarily invisible control. For example many of my participants prefered comment systems where they were able to have some control moderation, e.g. using digs/votes. Most people also seemed to enjoy being able to give feedback to companies as long as those companies were open and responsive. Combining open and responsive listening with feedback seems to be a winning combo, but surprise surprise it already exists. UserVoice (which is now 100% free) and Get Satisfaction are two of the most well known consumer feedback forums, all sorts of techy and web based companies are using them to help make 'wiser' decisions...(as shown). Now we’re just waiting for the masses who saw the potential for growth and embraced Facebook and Twitter to realise that it’s just as important to make informed, open and transparent decisions.

What Does The ‘Marketing Renaissance’ Really Look Like

Once again...it might just be here already. I've already written one post on how amazing threadless.com is and for the life of me I can't understand why more business peeps haven’t made moves towards the Threadless.com model...it just seems so perfect.

Business by the community for the community. Tiz a beautiful thang...what do you think?

Bio: Sam Schuurman is keen student of the new business world, the founder of iThnk.com, and a co-founder of TEDxDunedin

Sam Shuurman @SocialSammy and iThnk.com

Earlier this year I interviewed Jim Sterne, a few weeks before the SES conference in London, where Jim was a keynote speaker (you can read the interview here). The purpose was that I would attend the event, but unfortunately I couldn’t make it.

However, I closely followed the event online and saw an interview with Jim by Byron Gordon on YouTube (you can watch it below). In the interview Jim announced that he was writing a new book, onmeasuring the business value of social media marketing. Good news, for me anyway. So I thought it was time for a new interview and asked Jim to give a sneak preview of his book.  

He was kind enough to send me much more than a sneak preview. However, let me start with the answers Jim gave to the questions I asked him, before sharing some takeaways from Jim’s book that will be published by John Wiley & Sons.

Reach, influence, sentiment and business outcomes

First I asked Jim what metrics and KPIs marketers should take into account regarding social media marketing. But I also wanted to know what he thought about all these new metrics and KPIs “social media mavens” are introducing all the time. What can be measured and what can’t?

This is what Jim answered: “Social media KPIs are all dependent on the individual organization and its goals. But generally, we are looking at 'impressions' or reach. How many people had the opportunity to see the message? Next, we want to track influence to see whom we should be catering to and making sure we treat them well. Then, there's the question of sentiment - something we may never be able to monitor technically - to help us get a handle on and track brand attitude. Finally, we need to measure business outcomes. Is our activity on social media driving visits, downloads, registrations and sales?”

Sentiment is indeed hard to measure. How do you feel today on a scale from 0 to 10? How do you feel when you read a blog post from a CEO? And what’s the impact when you see that one ad you so despise on your attitude and sentiment towards that brand?

However, remember what Jim answered; sentiment is something we may never be able to monitor TECHNICALLY (noticed the last word?).

You can't measure the sales affected by a well known blogger saying nice things (and vice versa)

Next I asked Jim what he thinks about claims, coming again from some social media mavens, that you can’t measure the ROI of social media. I told him I always thought marketing ROI was about forecasting and measuring at both micro-levels and macro-levels to get the overall picture and that the best way to do it was to measure everything, starting from the tiniest metric and KPI to have a global view of the incremental revenue for every dollar spent.

This is what Jim replied: “Classic ROI is the number of dollars out for dollars put in. You cannot measure the exact number of dollars out on a branding campaign, unless you have some really good way to create a control group. In other words - you can't. 

Yes, @delloutlet can determine how many boxes shipped out the door based on a tweet like 15% off any Dell Outlet Inspiron Mini10v Nickelodeon Edition! Enter code at checkout: 1JM0JKHKHP?N4J at http://cot.ag/drTG70, but you can't measure the sales affected by a well known blogger saying nice things or an unhappy customer being made happy again in the course of an online, open, visible problem-resolution conversation”.

So, what can you do then? 

Jim: “You have to measure it the same way you measure all other brand investments. You ask (survey) people who have been exposed to the messages about a shift in their opinion or attitude about the company and/or the product”.

OK, now, what about that sneak preview of Jim’s upcoming book? Sorry, that will be for a next post. I still have to do some reading myself first but will try to come back to you, as soon as I can.

I can already tell you this though: read David Berkowitz’s “100 Ways to Measure Social Media” post here, it will come back in the next post about Jim’s view on social media marketing metrics and KPIs.

In  the meantime, watch the interview with Jim below and let me end this post with a quote from Fritz Henderson, CEO, General Motors in an interview with David Meerman Scott as it’s featured in Jim’s book:“Word of mouth is the number one influence on the decision to buy a car. . . Social media democratizes providing word of mouth to a much broader audience”.

Social Media NZ

John Clark @socialemail

Founder of SocialEmailMarketing.eu and SocialMarketingForum.net

One of the hardest tasks for any online business is finding great, reliable, and ultra-talented employees.

Especially if you’re looking for specific profiles that are hard to find because everyone wants them. Businesses and recruitment firms use all possible channels they have: their own databases, connections, online and offline media etc.

I don’t have to tell you that you also see more and more job offerings on social media like Twitter and of course via LinkedIn.

Traditional job websites are not fantastic. In the best case they offer a great deal of candidates but little in the way of remarkable personnel.

Furthermore, classified websites typically result in an endless barrage of emails.

Instead of marketing for jobs through the typical channels, use your social media presence to attract new employees, contractors, and even marketers for your business.

The top presences almost always check social media first, and by using it to your advantage you can tailor your results to only include the best of the best.

And ouf course there is crowdsourcing. OK, this is a short post (for once) but what I would like to know is, besides LinkedIn, Twitter and social networks in general, what ways of crowdsourcing do you see fit to find new employees?

Social Media NZ

John Clark @socialemail

Founder of SocialEmailMarketing.eu and SocialMarketingForum.net

A few days ago I bookmarked and tweeted a press release via Delicious, that said social media adoption by U.S. small businesses doubled since 2009.

The findings come from the so-called Small Business Success Index, that’s sponsored by Network Solutions and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business (quite a mouthful).

The key finding of the SBSI is that social media adoption by small businesses has doubled from 12% to 24% in the last year.

Social Media NZ

John Clark @socialemail

Founder of SocialEmailMarketing.eu and SocialMarketingForum.net

Note: Flittermedia is New Zealand's newest Social Media Agency. The agile company lead by Justin Flitter is focusing on helping businesses become more social through the mentoring program and creative campaigns. Graeme Russell, Hamish Coleman-Ross and Jen Corbett form the Flittermedia Team. 

Justin Flitter @JustinFlitter and FlitterMedia.co.nz

This graph shows the number of tweets per day. Its pretty clear that most people tweet the most while at work. Monday is pretty light to so Tuesday to Friday is when the action is. This translates to in NZ to Tuesdays to Saturdays if you are aiming for mostly USA based attention, traffic.

At 4pm-5pm, 56% of Twitter users are looking at tweets, but only 39% are sending them - a margin of 17%.

As a proportion of all tweets, use of the term RT (for retweet) is highest at 4pm 

The main peeks in reading seem to be as people arrive at work (9-10am), around lunch (12-1pm) and towards the end of the working day (4-5pm). There's a smaller peak later - after dinner perhaps. 

The interesting thing is when the biggest differences are - when people are more likely to be reading, and less likely to be tweeting. This difference is 20% at 11-12am, 19% at 12-1pm, and 17% at 4-5pm

Bio: Sam Schuurman is keen student of the new business world, the founder of iThnk.com, and a co-founder of TEDxDunedin

Sam Shuurman @SocialSammy and iThink.com

I’m not usually big on talking about best practice or making rules for social media. People who try to place rules and constrictions on things as dynamic as social media are usually proved wrong and made to look rather foolish over time….but when Social Media NZ asked me to write this piece I thought it’d be a great chance to mash together some of the best practice that I've seen with some of the insight from my research to try and make it useful for others.

• If you suck - stay on the curb - I don't mean this as an insult...to put it simply if your marketing sucked and people hated you prior to social media coming along then don't think it'll be the easy fix you were after (this vid explains it nicely). Stay off the band wagon and take the time to get your house in order before jumping head first into the socialweb. - One of the most common comments from my research participants was "oh but it kinda makes sense coz they're a crap company anyway".
• It’s all about community – “It’s not a monologue, it’s a dialogue” - @Ophil. Embrace your community encourage them to share with each other and maybe your community will take on a life of its own – the more open the platform you provide the more co-created your social media efforts will be and the more engaged your community is likely to become.
• Add value – I know that this seems rather ambiguous as there are so many different things that people find valuable. Thinking about what you find valuable and why is always a good place to start. Your value add could be…terrific insight, aggregated info, humor or even just pretty pics - and if all else fails then just try and bring some joy to the people around you.
• Find Your Purple cow – Every single participant in my research seemed to believe that having a distinguishing and obvious "reason for being" was critical to successful online interaction.
• Reference sources - retweets, mentions for twitter - hyperlinks and trackbacks for blogs. Why? Well it’s not about proprietary info and it’s not just about courtesy…it’s about placing yourself within a wider conversation. It gives your viewers/readers the chance to watch what you’re watching and read what you’re reading and then form their own opinions.
• Talk about more than yourself – There are loads of experts who get this so wrong. One who gets it right is Guy Kawasaki – he doesn’t just tweet about AllTop he tweets about all sorts of interesting things, bits of news, funny vids and posts from sites that aren’t related to AllTop in the slightest.
• Try not to patronise– All bloggers are egomaniacs by definition - we think we have something important to say and that the world should listen - what a bunch of jerks we are! My research tells me that the more street-cred you've got the more condescending you can afford to be e.g. I often find Seth Godin’s ramblings quite belittling...but then if I take a step back and consider the wicked experience and insight that back up his posts all of a sudden it doesn’t seem quite so bad...so in the end it's probably just a value judgment about how cool you think you really are.
• Be transparent– easier said than done - if you mess up admit that you messed up and be willing to laugh at yourself. Flickr are pretty dam good at this...if you want proof check out their post tittled "Sometimes We Suck".
• Don’t be afraid to be human and have a personality – tiz always a struggle to suppress the inner bot but try to have fun...professionalism is great but no body wants to engage with a stiff- if you're looking for inspiration this is a great collection of funny bloggers.
• Be a real person – This might sound stupid but my research tells me that pseudonyms and fake avatars are a no no if you’re wanting to build cred! “If you’re gunna say something have the balls to sign your name to it, or don’t say it at all” -research participant #6
• Online/Offline cross-over is key! Being able to link your offline world with your online persona is key to building cred and making what you say tangible. This is might be tricky for those who only live in the online world...but my research participants seemed to believe that this was one of the keys to developing your own Purple cow.
• Tweet, post and comment regularly– social media aint no one night stand, to be good at it you need to give it consistent love and attention it deserves. Click here to read about why this can be so important…but remember no one likes a spam artist.
• Write well– once upon a time it was cute to have typos in your blogs posts – it was part of the real-time human interaction…no more is this the case. Sloppy writing leads to disinterested viewer. For my site iThnk we started off pretty sloppy but then I found out about the Typo Eradication Advancement League and we decided to put a proofing process place. - eeeek hopefully there's no typos in this post.
• Ask for feedback & use it – One of the biggest benefits of social media is the real-time feedback that you can get free of charge – whether you do this in a poll, an add-on service like uservoice or through examining your comments is irrelevant, the point is, that if people care enough to tell you about what they want to see then you should care enough to listen - it could turbo charge your business.
• Experiment with new tools to understand the mediums – One of my research peeps put this better than I ever could…"people don’t understand how easy it is to make their posts dynamic, if they did they wouldn’t just expect it they’d demand it”. – So try to insert polls, vids and other saweeeeeet tools…
• Sexy Matters - Just ask Apple....sex sells - always has and always will, so spending the time to make your social media assets sparkle is never a waste. Anyone who tells you otherwise has probably lost their soul. (looking for inspiration...check these blog designs).
• Say Thank You - reward your community, make them feel special give them preferential treatment and they're more likely to keep coming back.

The truth is social media is tough to get right. Hell, I just tested myself against these points and only just passed. Some of these insights are easier said than d0ne, while others are newish insights whcih I haven't had time to put into action (watch this space). Now I must have missed something along the way so fill me in/tell me I suck and lets start a conversation about how social media could be done better in NZ! img from http://insidenorthpoint.org/

Most people earn a living day in day out and yet, they still haven’t heard of Facebook and Twitter or social media in general. Are they missing out? The wise and sought after writer Debbie Mayo-Smith says 'at the end of the day, what matters is the bottom line, for them the bottom line is mainly driven by a real personal relationship'. On one side we have most businesses that do not have a social media presence (90% and more of the companies of this world do not have a presence) because they have not realized the power of new tools and technology, they are not interested, they keep focusing on their day to day business, they keep building their business on personal relation, one smile at a time, the old fashioned way.

On the other side we have us, the businesses that have a social media presence. Everything begun a few years ago because we all liked the idea of engaging, interacting, participating, everything really begun because we wanted to know each other better. Chris Mcdonald from Saatchi & Saatchi DGS talks about the paradox of virtual relationships and how important is the real life, we are all avatars but it is also important that we get to respect each other in real terms. Now that we all have so many followers, every time that we send a tweet that involve other people do we really think about how it would be taken in the community and how good and how bad is it for the other party. Are we adding value to the community? Or I am looking just a bit more like a twitter star? The shift in power to the people through the conversation channels should also be coupled with an increase in responsibility to the people that are part to that conversation. But are we ready?

In a community the approach should always be what can we do to help the next. The approach that I see coming out from many of us on social media is what can I do to help the star called me me me and this is putting me off Twitter a bit. It might be something personal but I will be more concentrated in building personal relation, one smile at a time, the old fashioned way. I am not leaving Twitter though. I will be using it differently from now on. I will be concentrating on the humanity side..

Thanks to Social Media we have so many new ways to connect and interact and help each other today, the personal touch is being avoided and this is what matters at the end. We have many more opportunities to be personal on a virtual level than on real one.. but some of us have forgotten the consequences of their actions and keep using the social media as a megaphone, a soap box or even worst as their army.   I personally call these people as virtual cowboys.. instead of guns they have iPhones. They twitt quick and write blogs like no others, their best target are vodafone, Telecom and general utilities, they are sheriff of their own ethic and they are usually indignified if you say something not quite right, and are ready to retweet it or make it big until everybody knows about it. Their only ethic works only under the name of freedom but they forgot  what is the word respect, and there is not freedom without respect. Thats why without respect Twitter is a chaos. Behind a Telecom/Vodafone account there is people that is trying to make it working.  When I expressed this view to Simon Young from #SY, he said we need to hold on to our humanity and our care for each other, that's what  made Twitter so amazing at the beginning...  but where is that humanity on twitter? Where is the generosity of offering support? Where is the empathy? 

Giapo joined Twitter because we wanted to help and be helped respectively, we wanted to be part of the community where we live and offer our open support where needed. this is the basic of our business plan as well.. 

Respect is the basis of any mature behavior and all get to that famous “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you"  because the online world is not so different from the real world when it comes to relationship and community. And there is not a succesfull  community if there is no respect.

Are you a Virtual Cowboy? Let's find out together, post me your answers to the following questions and we will go through them together.

If your favourite supplier/twitter friend was not performing the way you had expected, what would you have done? Would you have tried to help the company/the twitter friend by giving feedback in person (privately yes twitter offer the Direct message option as well and they work wonders) like you would do in real life? Or would you use a megaphone? Going straight to your Iphone and try to give a lesson to the company/ or twitter friend by posting a public message on the public feed?

Do customers and business have an alike responsibility to show a high degree of moral relation? If not, why? If yes, how does would that work?

If a person has sent public message without paying attention to somebody's else reputation, can he/she still be part of the community of  the damaged person? And If not? why not? is that legitimate choice compared to the others respectful people?  If yes, is that still a community?

If it is not a community, what is it?

Founder of Giapo
The Genuine Italian Gelato company.
Follow me on twitter @gpgrazioli and @giapo