Content marketing tactic: Trusted Filter
As early as 1967, Canadian philosopher, scholar and writer (of "The Medium is the Message" fame) Marshall McLuhan stated that information has become “electric” leads to information overload:
One of the effects of living with electric information is that we live habitually in a state of information overload. There’s always more than you can cope with.
"Information overload" as a term was popularised in the early 1970s by American writer and futurist Alvin Toffler to refer to the limits of human attention. “Electric information”, or digital data and content distribution have radically reduced the cost of creating, storing and sharing information and opinions.
There is, however, a solution. In a September 2008 keynote, American writer, consultant and teacher Clay Shirky famously said:
It's Not Information Overload. It's Filter Failure.
More on this concept in my keynote on Trusted Filters at VRT's ZepposFestival:
Innovation is the real ROI of social media
If your company is serious about including the social dimension must be included in each department and embedded within the company culture, this means that way your executive level and their departments work must change. But the good news is: by doing so, companies are able to discover the real return on investment of social media: Innovation.
Twitter in Belgium
- Average amount of followers: 38 (global: 87)
- Average amount following: 59 (global: 91)
- Average amount of tweets: 126 (global: 390)
- Average amount of tweets per day: 1.94 (global: 1.77)
New business models for the social web
Facebook's service is free to end users. Its revenues currently generated entirely by advertising, although financial transactions (Facebook Credits) are enabled and expected to generate increasing revenues in the future. According to InsideFacebook, Facebook will exceed $1B in revenue over 2010.
W3C's Social Web Final Report mentions some other examples of how social network services try to make money:
In Japan, Gree, Mixi and Mobagetown provide their social networking for free and generate revenues from sales of advertisement to brands, sale of premium options to members of the community (e.g., extra storage for photos, a larger virtual ΄room‘ for their avatar, a new template for a blog with professional graphics), as well as the sale of digital goods ( games, wallpaper, accessories for avatars). We expect the trend towards combining current business models to continue, leading to the desire for secure Web-centric identity and Web payments.
This need paves the way for new business models. These five are quoted from W3C's Social Web Final Report:
- New kinds social applications that enable new kinds of collaboration to take place that take advantage of social data-mash-ups from multiple services.
- Software sales, maintenance or tuning of new identity-aware and privacy-aware Social Web applications that offer strong guarantees to users.
- A more flexible and open market of low-cost social media paid for by Web payments
- Increased liquidity of social data with strong assurances of a lack of legal liability.
- Integrating social features into all aspects of existing applications and computing in general.
The report hints at (paid) services offering "a highly robust authentication mechanism that would be considered a value add due to its prevention of identity theft or the enabling of Web-based e-commerce based on micropayments."
Maybe even individuals could make money over their activities on the social web, selling "bundles of privacy-protected data about the user that [the user] puts up for auction on personal data exchanges (similar to stock markets) wherein other providers can bid and acquire these data in order to provide new and valuable services back to the user."
What do you think of that last idea? Would you, as a (personal) user of social networks, ask for money whenever an advertiser or seller would want to interact with you?
Further reading:
- W3C Social Web Final Report @ w3.org
- Facebook Revenues Up to $700 Million in 2009, On Track Towards $1.1 Billion in 2010 @ insidefacebook.com
- Facebook Credits @ Facebook.com
How Klout measures individuals’ social reach
Klout.com is an online (and free) web tool that helps you rank people who talk about your products or services in social media. Recently, their "Klout Score" metric started including Facebook in the
score analysis. This is what that looks like for my personal accounts in terms of "true reach" (= size of my engaged audience) and the amplification potential of my messages (= likelihood that my content will be acted upon) .
Klout does not just measure influence by counting the number of friends or followers on Facebook or Twitter, but by the ability to drive action. Examples:
- Reach: followers, friends, mention %, and retweet %
- Amplication: retweets, mention count, unique messages retweeted, in/outbound message ration, Facebook likes, and Facebook comments
Someone's true network, in other words, is not made up by the sheer volume of friends or followers, but by retweeters, likers and commenters.
How to pop up in Facebook users’ News Feed
How does Facebook decide who and what to put in your feed? Former Wall Street Journal bureau chief and Internet columnist Tom Weber (@tweber on Twitter) conducted a one-month experiment to break the algorithm.
A few highlights from his excellent article at thedailybeast.com:
- If you’re low on activity, you’ll be low on the list of feed priority
- The more people click on your stuff (i.e. ‘like’, comment, share), the more you pop up in other feeds
- The more you comment, the more visible you are to all
- Links are more powerful than status updates- it’s about user engagement
- Photos and Videos are more powerful than Links
- The more people “Facebook stalk” you, the more you’ll be in other people’s feeds
Further reading:
- Cracking the Facebook Code @ thedailybeast.com
- EdgeRank: The Secret Sauce That Makes Facebook’s News Feed Tick @ techcrunch.com
How does geolocation for trade shows work?
In June, Echelon Design released a white paper that highlighted a number of industry expert opinions on the current trends of social media in trade show and event marketing. Today they released its first infographic.
Full infograph here: TradeShowSocialMedia.jpg
Facebook is more efficient for sharing videos than Twitter
According to content distributor Goviral, Facebook is more efficient for sharing videos than twitter.
Further reading:
8 important trends for your 2011 online media plan
It's that time of the year again. Author and speaker Gini Dietrich (@ginidietrich on Twitter) has summed up her 8 communication/marketing/social media trends for next year:
- Content, content, content: all companies should become media companies, in that the content they provide is valuable, consistent, and non-salesy.
- FTC [U.S. Federal Trade Commission] rulings, e.g. disclosure on blogs, paid reviews, ethics and how we approach traditional journalists and bloggers.
- Net neutrality: if Google and Verizon are successful, the Internet will become a paid model, just like cable television.
- Customer engagement: engage them as human beings and not as people who you think want to be sold
- Social commerce
- Group buying e.g. Groupon
- Q&A sites e.g. JustAnswer
- Mobile: watch for movement toward mobile payments
Further reading: