FreshNetworks Blog

SXSW image by benjamin ellis

This week I’m going to be reporting from the South by South West Interactive (SXSWi) festival in Austin Texas. SXSW is World’s largest digital and interactive festival/trade-show/conference/party/event/get-together. Around 20,000 people will be joining me in Austin to uncover the latest thinking in digital and, I suspect,  to network like nutters.

I’ve been looking for an excuse to make it to SXSW for years. A few months ago my prayers were answered and FreshNetworks was picked by UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) to be one of 40 companies chosen to represent the UK at the festival. The grandly titled Digital Mission aims to help UK digital companies expand internationally and develop overseas business relationships.

The list of events is monsterous. It’s taken me a few hours to get my itinerary in order. I suspect I have fallen into classic SXSW-newbie mistake of trying to plan out a perfect route between each session to ensure a schedule that optimises my time here. I’ll probably find the plan goes in the bin half-way through day1 one.

Some frantic session planning on the plane

Here are just three of the sessions I am looking forward to:

• Time + Social + Location. What’s next in mobile experiences – Foursquare and Gowalla are hot properties inn the social media world at the moment. This session includes Naveen from Foursquare.
• Can the Real Time Web be Realised – a panel debate featuring some great speakers – Scott Raymond, co-founder of Gowalla, Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb and Bret Slatkin from Google who created PubSubHubBub which you will hear a lot about in 2010.
• Banking 2.0 – financial services driven by people and emerging technologies – as a social media agency, FreshNetworks has always done a lot in the financial services sector, so I am keen to test some ideas we’ve been discussing back at base.

And finally, one of the delights of coming to SXSW as part of the Digital Mission is the opportunity to spend lots of time with other UK entrepreneurs. I have always found that spending time with peers not only gives me new ideas, but also (because I’m rather competitive) it tends to raise the level of my personal ambition.

There are a few companies that I am especially interested in learning more about:

• oneDrum – embedding collaboration in Microsoft Office documents
• Silence Media – cost per engagement ad network for video banner ads
• Slicethepie – crowdsourced band/music funding

Let me know if you want me to bring you anything back from Texas.

Read all our posts from SXSW

It is a truth universally acknowledged that everybody makes predictions at the end of a year about ‘the big thing for next year’. Sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong. And sometimes you only really start to notice trends and change when you are in them. In social media it is becoming clearer and clearer that the big thing for 2010 is location-based tools.

We’ve posted before about how businesses can use Foursquare and only yesterday about Fourwhere, the Foursquare and Google Maps mashup. Foursquare is a great tool that lets you share where you are and add tips and reviews of cafes, shops, restaurants, bars, theatres. Anywhere really. From a business perspective it can offer invaluable insight into who visits your business, how often, what they think about it and where else they go. All good stuff. Of course, there is a serious downside to location-based tools (as we saw with Please Rob Me) and people should be aware of and sensible about any information they share in social media.

Why are location-based social media tools growing?

Location based social media tools are possible because more and more people own mobile phones that are GPS enabled. Phones that can tell you where you are and plot this information on a map. This is then data that can be shared with others or used in conjunction with discussions, reviews and other information to build a resource and community that is location-dependent.

There are many instances where location can add significant value to an online community:

• People reviewing cafes and bars in a certain area and recommending places people might like to visit
• People sharing tips of good and safe running routes
• Groups of local activists looking to organise themselves
• Parents wanting to find other parents near them to help organise safe walking to school
• People wantingto identify and report on things that need mending in their neighbourhood
• Friends wanting to share their location and tell others where they are

The utility of location in social media is huge and there are many cases where tying location to reviews, discussions and other content will really help, either for those generating the content or those looking for and benefiting from it. Adding in location could also save us from updates that say “Iam at…” with that information instead being tagged as in the tweet above. You can use the update to say something that has real semantic value rather than just indicating where you are.

What’s happening and what’s coming

Location-based tools are not new but they are growing and new developments are happening all the time as people use them more and in different ways. Some important developments recently discussed are as follows.

• Twitter: Twitter has for some time allowed users to tag their updates with their location details – this has mainly been done through third-party apps, such as Tweetdeck, and to date locations have not been shown on Twitter’s own website. Briefly this week they started showing location on Tweets on their site – with maps overlaying tweets on both the individual tweet page and on the main stream. This update was quickly disabled but adding this back in would certainly add significant value to the Twitter site and pave the way for search for people and issues that are trending ‘near me’ – based on where people are when they share their information and not where they say they are in their location.
• Foursquare: Foursquare is growing in use and in the ways in which people are using it. The most significant recent development is increased analytics for businesses. They have recently introduced a dashboard for businesses to see information about who had ‘checked-in’ at their location. This reports on when people check-in, how they communicate this (do they share it on Twitter, for example), the people who visit them most often and those who visit most recently. This is useful and valuable information for any brand as it lets you start to understand your customers in a way that you haven’t previously been able to do. Brands should be taking advantage of Foursquare and of the ability to control their profiles (adding in ‘Staff’ for example) and should use this dashboard and analytics in a clever way to inform their understanding of their customers and identification of their advocates.
• Facebook: Perhaps the most interesting announcement this week is talk of developments at Facebook to include location features. The speculation is that location will accompany status updates and changes to Facebook’s Terms and Conditions last November appear to have been made in preparation for this (“When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post.”) Sharing location in Facebook status updates would highlight both the importance of mobile use of Facebook and of the spread of location-based social media tools. It will also add yet another set of data that Facebook captures, can report on and can be used by other users to find people, information and discussions. It will be interesting to watch both what Facebook release and how users use it, but it is likely to yet again highlight the importance of search to Facebook as the amount of data and content it captures grows.

I’ve just been playing with FourWhere. It’s a mashup of Foursquare location data and the Google Maps API. It has been built using the Sysomos social media monitoring tool

It is neither as fun as PleaseRobMe nor as useful as Wikitude, but it is mildly interesting to see what is being said at venues near me. And more features are promised in the future.

Most of all, this mashup reminds me of why I have been impressed with Sysomos recently. Sysomos is behind this mashup and they are  one of many Social Media Monitoring tools that we use. Over the past month they have really cranked up their PR efforts and seem to be emailing me with news every week. For examples see their analysis of Oscars buzz and their look at how people use YouTube.

In the next month we’ll be releasing a study of buzz tracking tools (subscribe to the blog to ensure you get to see it) and Sysomos have scored highly with many of our team. Their tool is very easy to use – especially good if you are likley to have multiple people from your company accessing your social media monitoring dashboard. They also allow for post-search filtering of results; essential for international or multi-segmented buzz tracking projects. And they also offer a simple influencer search.

There are drawbacks – for example,  I would treat the sentiment analysis with care. One test we ran on blog sentiment showed a 40% innacuracy in sentiment analysis (once you strip out neutral comments). But overall, it’s a good tool if put to proper use. They are definitely one of the market leaders and we look forward to telling you how they compare to Radian6, Neilsen Buzz Metrics, Alterian and many more over the next few weeks.

Should people be allowed to leave anonymous comments in online communities and forums? It’s a question that has been debated many times and people have different perspectives on it. Some say that “No, if people don’t say who they are then its easy for discussions to get out of hand”, whereas others say “Yes, if you want people to be honest you need to allow them to be anonymous”.

The issue of anonymity when commenting in online communities is actually more complicated than some arguments would suggest. And the answer is both yes and no.

What do we mean by anonymity?

When talking about anonymous comments we need to consider two types of anonymity:

1. If the commenter should be anonymous to other members of the community
2. If the commenter should be anonymous to the site owner and community manager

These two aspects of anonymity are often confused. As a general principle of online community management, anybody wanting to add to the discussions and debates in the community should share at least a minimum of information with the site owner and community manager about who they are. This is not just so that they can capture the data, but because the social exchange of an online community works on the basis of openness, transparency and honesty.

This of course works both ways – in a successful online community neither party should be anonymous to each other. The brand, organisation or people behind an online community should be honest about who they are and why they are sponsoring or running the site. And people who want to comment on or add to the discussions on the site should be open and honest about who they are. At least privately to the people running the site. You will also find that asking for a minimum of information about people before they add their thoughts or comments will make them more likely to consider what they are saying. Even if other community members don’t know who they are, the site owner and community managers will and will be able to contact them.

So in this respect, no comments should be allowed from members who are anonymous to the online community manager or site owner.

Should people be allowed to be anonymous to other community members?

So, even if we say that users should not be allowed to add to the discussions in our online community without telling us who they are, should they be able to remain anonymous from other community members?

This question has always intrigued me as there is a whole spectrum of ways in which community members can identify themselves depending on the community and on what the individual member chooses to share. And they offer varying degrees of anonymity that could be offered to me as a user

• I could have a generic username, ‘Anonymous’ and no further information about myself – this is perhaps the most anonymous I can be to any other user of the online community
• I could choose a username that reveals nothing about me, ‘Grey2834′ – by allowing users to choose their own username there is an increased risk that they will share information that will allow us to identify them. Perhaps I use the same username on other communities and forums and this will let you understand more about who I might be.
• I could choose a username and have other information on my profile, perhaps by city (London) and age range (30-39). The more information I share the greater the chance people will start to identify me.
• I could use my first name (Matt) and some other information – the more I share the less anonymous I become
• I could share my full name, date of birth, address, email address and mobile telephone number

Different online communities will ask for different levels of information and different users will share different amounts. The only way to allow truly anonymous comments would be to allow users to use a generic username (such as ‘Anonymous’) and share no other information about themselves. Even then they will never be truely anonymous as the subjects they write about, the examples they give or the things they say will share things about who they are and what they do.

As a general principle, the more users share about themselves, the more others in the community will learn about them and identify with them. The more the community will grow. This does not, of course, mean that I need to share with you my name, date of birth and address. You could also identify with me based on my contributions and the things I say without needing to know who I am at all.

However, people do interact better with others if they know something about them. If they have a name to call them, for example, whether or not that’s their real name or a username. If they know where they are or some other things that let us understand more about them and the things they say. For this reason, where possible, community members should be encouraged to share some information about themselves.

Should anonymous comments be allowed in an online community?

So should anonymous comments be allowed in an online community? The simple answer is ‘no’ because the social contract of any successful online community is honesty and at the very least community members should not be anonymous to the community manger or site owner. But does this mean that community members cannot be anonymous to other community members? This question is more complicated. Online communities work best if people share some things about themselves with their fellow community members and it is very difficult to ensure complete anonymity. As part of that same social contract, community members like to know something about the people they are talking to online, even if it is just a username of some description.

Of course, there will always be exceptions to this rule, where the need to encourage contributions and discussions will supersede the benefit of building a community based on members knowing something about each other. Dissidents in China or Iran sharing information and experiences would be one such example. Discussing sexual health issues with teenagers might be another. In these and other cases, anonymous comments are perhaps the only way to encourage honest and open discussions. But in the majority of cases such protection is not needed and completely anonymous comments should not be allowed.

Drupal, Drupal, Drupal. Ever since I organised the “Drupal for Doughnuts” gathering during social media week back in January, all I seem to hear about is Drupal.

At our nfp and membership breakfast seminar a few weeks ago, Bertie Bosredon from Breast Cancer Care was talking about the benefits of Drupal as a content management system. And while some of the US government’s various administrative bodies have been using Drupal as their CMS system for some time now, the big news for Drupal in the UK was when Tim Berners-Lee and Professor Nigel Shadbolt unveiled Data.gov.uk, a new government website allowing access to public sector data for mere mortals like myself. The Data.gov.uk website uses Drupal web technologies to encourage people to create and manipulate data in clear, imaginative ways – a great validation for Drupal’s adoption of the semantic web.

Here at FreshNetworks we have always believed in the power of Drupal, which is why we’ve chosen to use it as our social media software platform.

Now I’ve heard, time and again, from our Tech team about why Drupal is the best choice for developing online communities, but being a layman and not a Drupaler (I work in Marketing), I thought it might be beneficial to explain, in simple terms, my top 5 reasons for using Drupal as a social media platform:

1. Drupal supports the tools and modules needed to develop a successful online community

In order to engage your community and get them talking to each other you need to provide them with an online arena to interact. With a bit of techie know-how, Drupal can be used to build the various tools that are proven to encourage online conversation, including:

• Blogs: a person or multiple people can publish posts and comment on posts on a regular basis.
• Forums: an area for a structured group discussion about an idea, theme or topic.
• Profiles: people can publish information about themselves to help engage users and make the experience more “real”.
• Wikis: several people can jointly edit a document or group of documents to encourage collaboration and teamwork.

In fact, we’ve used Drupal to develop a variety of different tools and modules so that we can alter the function of the community depending on the needs of our clients.

2. Drupal is open source

Drupal is an open source platform. This is a fancy way of saying that the source code for the software is published and made available to the general public so that everyone can access it.

To me, the benefit of an open source platform is that it is supported by a large developer community. This means that if you use Drupal as a social media platform it’ll be improving all the time – vital in the fast-moving era of social media marketing. And as Drupal is quite a mature platform, it has been through several different version releases so it’s an extremely secure system.

3. Drupal is highly scalable when coupled with a good hosting platform

In a nutshell, Drupal has history of running big websites with lots of content. So you are free to add videos, articles, newsletters and downloads to your online community platform without fear of it crashing.  It also means you can keep on increasing the size of your community and its members.

4. Drupal has great SEO

You don’t have to do much to Drupal for it to be SEO friendly – it has good SEO straight out of the box. You can easily add in page titles, metatags and URLS to give your online community more SEO juice.  Drupal can also be integrated with google analytics so that you can track and monitor the success of your online community.

5. It’s easy to add, edit and change content in Drupal

Once your online community has been built you will want to add, edit and change content on the site. Speaking as someone who barely knows their cascading style sheets from their linen bed sheets, Drupal allows you to pretty much create and update content without any programming knowledge. This means that whoever manages your online community should have no problems changing, adding and altering things, making life easier and freeing up more time for other stuff like growing the community and managing online reputation.

Take a look for yourself at some notable brands running Drupal sites:

• Warner Bros. Records
• Sony BMG Myplay
• FedEx Newsroom

At FreshNetworks, we aim to bring you the best posts in social media, online communities and customer engagement online. In case you missed them, find below our top five posts in February.

1.The Economist on Social Networking

At the end of January, the Economist published a special report on on social networking.Their special report on A World of Connections, provided an excellent overview of the current state of social media for those still trying to get to grips with it. You can download a free pdf of the report here. Or check out our summary of key highlights in this post.

2. Vodafone, Twitter and the challenges of managing your brand in social medial

An interesting afternoon at Vodafone in the UK saw a tweet on their official @VodafoneUK account that was clearly not the kind of message the brand intended to share with its customers. You can read about what was actually said elsewhere. But, in addition to some rather questionable grammar, the message was offensive and not appropriate for a brand’s Twitter stream at all. It was clearly the work of either a hack, a case of very bad judgement, a disgruntled employee or an inappropriate sharing of passwords.

Putting aside any short-term issues and negative publicity, there are a couple of things we can learn from what happened to Vodafone. First in how you should manage your use of social media as a brand, and second in how you should respond when things go very wrong.

3. Facebook’s redesign shows how important search is for social networks

In February, Facebook rolled-out a redesigned homepage and navigation to its users. There four main areas where the site had changed: improved use of space n the main panel, made messaging easier, put notifications together in one place, and moved the search box. It is the last of these improvements that is, perhaps, the most significant. Facebook did more than just move the search box, they increased its importance on the site and showed the importance of search for Facebook, and indeed all social networks and online communities.

Facebook is huge, but to many of us feels very small. We mainly access content through feeds, messages and notifications. Training us as users to make search an integral part of our Facebook experience will make it a much bigger and more useful tool for us all.

4. The Matthew Effect – linking and how things become viral in social media

The Matthew Effect dates from the 1960s. It is the theory, first expressed by sociologist Robert K. Merton, that those who possess power and economic or social capital can leverage those resources to gain more power or capital. Put simply: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In this post we discuss a great presentation and video from Torsten Henning Hensel that explores the power of linking online and how the Matthew Effect can help us to understand how things become viral and spread online and in social media.

5. Russia: the fourth largest social networking market in Europe

In a post from almost a year ago we look at data showing that Russia was the fourth largest market in Europe for social networking behind the UK, Germany and France.

I’m a podcast fanatic. I listen in the shower, on my cycle to work (sorry mum, I know that’s not safe) and when swimming (using the excellent Speedo Aquabeat). I have tried hundreds of different podcasts to find some that are consistently good. I thought you might like to know my favourites I’d love to hear about yours.

Social Media Podcasts

1. Jaffe Juice and JJTV – author of “Join the Conversation”, Joseph Jaffe is a coherent and straight-forward social media commentator. Some of his podcasts are conversations with other industry leaders which can take occasionally random, but generally interesting paths.
2. For Immediate Release - by Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz. Recorded in the US and UK, this podcast provides a frequent deep dive into weekly events in the PR-focussed social web. I enjoy listening, but always do so at double speed – it’s very long and I feel they can spend more time on issues than necessary.
3. CMO 2.0 Conversations – Francois does an excellent job of securing some superb client-side interviews for these podcasts.  He has a very relaxed style that gets people talking, but sometimes I wish he’d push them harder for more detail or hold them to account on some of their statements

Marketing and Digital Podcasts

1. 3 Minute Ad Age – short and snappy. Often a video from a marketing conference. Wide subject area so it can be hit-and-miss, but great for filling that few minutes of a journey.
2. HubSpot TV – a digital marketing weekly TV show from the lovely people at Hubspot. The show is full of great guests and bristling with sexual tension. I often think I’d like to listen in double time, but being a video, I have not worked out how to do that yet.
3. DishyMix – I’ve been listening to Susan Bratton since meeting her during the Travelling Geeks trip to the UK. She’s an excellent interviewer – never lets her subjects off the hook with wooly statements. Some of the topics veer off into self-help and I do find myself having to fast through the adverts, but in general she gets strong guests and uncovers interesting insights.
4. NMA podcast – now only monthly. A useful overview of what’s been going on in the UK digital marketing scene

Other good podcasts

1. David Maister’s Business Masterclass – everything you ever wanted to know about running a successful services business. I always listen to Maister in the week leading up to my board meetings because he gets me thinking. It’s a bit like having a virtual (and free) non-exec.
2. More or Less, Behind the Stats – Before FreshNetworks I started the research consultancy, FreshMinds. I suspect it’s my background in research that makes this my favourite podcast. Tim Harford, FT journalist and author of The Undercover Economist, brings an indepth analysis of every-day statisitcs and seeks to uncover dodgy analysis.
3. The Bottom Line with Evan Davis is another BBC Radio4 podcast. Some excellent business guests (usually UK CEOs) and gentle probing from Evan make this a good listen. For some reason I find this is always where  start with when going for a run in the park. I particulary enjoyed the recent argument about PR
4. Business Week – Behind the Cover Story – This is the best Business Week podcast. There is also a good innovation one and the Welch Way with Jack Welch. Sadly John Byrne, Executive Editor,  seems to have handed over his host role to others in the editorial team. That’s a shame as he had a wonderful style and eclectic music choice. But it remains a good topical podcast.
5. Economist podcasts – I never find time to listen to all of these. A great shame as The Economist’s journalists deliver sharp insight and a beautiful turn of phrase at every opportunity. Recently I have enjoying their new book of the month episodes.
6. Great Lives – Matthew Paris piecing together some womderful biographies of famous folk with celebrity guests
7. Harvard Business Ideacast – useful overviews of the books that HBR authors are about to publish.
8. TED talks – no list would be complete with out mentioning these amazing set of downloads. some of the world’s most interesting (and random) speakers on topics that range from global finance to microbiology. Ken Robinson is a must-listen.
9. Listen to Lucy – Lucy Kellaway of the FT taking an entertaining swipe at corporate bullshit. If you’re after something more heavy-hitting, Martin Wolf the FTs Chief Economics Commentator, is excellent. But you really have to concentrate. Sadly I’ve had to stop listening whilst cycling as I almost crashed twice trying to decipher his arguments.

That’s my listening list. What’s on yours?

A useful survey from global PR firm Burson-Marsteller this week looks at the ways in which the Global Fortune 100 companies are using social media. The tools they are using and how they are developing a social media strategy. The survey looked at 100 firms in the US, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Latin America and examined how these firms are using social media.

The summary presentation is below, and is Required Reading here at FreshNetworks this week, and the full report can be downloaded here.

The survey highlights the ways in which these firms are using social media and is also insightful in terms of the tools and platforms (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or a corporate blog) they are using. It is interesting to compare the use of the different tools – Twitter is the most popular and blogging the least. And to compare how behaviour differs by regions – particularly the differences between Asia-Pacific and the US and Europe.

Summary findings

• 79% of firms are using at least one of these social media platforms – this figure is higher in Europe (88%) and lowest in Asia-Pacific (50%) – and 20% of them are using all four
• The most popular platform is Twitter, with 65% of firms using this. Facebook and YouTube are next (54% and 50% respectively) with corporate blogs the least used (just 33% of firms surveyed)
• For companies that use Twitter the average number of accounts they are running is 4.2, with some companies (notably AT&T and Nokia) having a large number of accounts – 15 people in the case of these two firms
• For those companies who are engaging, their activity levels are mixed. 82% of those using Twitter have tweeted within the last week, whilst only 36% of those with blogs have added a new post in the last week

Twitter

• 65% of Fortune Global 100 firms have a Twitter account. In Europe and the US this figure is over 70%; in Asia-Pacific only 40% of firms have an account
• Firms are tweeting and average of 25-30 times per week
• Only 38% of companies are using Twitter actively to respond to other’s comments and questions
• In general companies are being followed by many more people than follow them. Typically they have about 1,500 followers and are following about 700 people

Facebook

• Facebook Fan pages are less popular that Twitter, with 54% of Fortune Global 100 firms having a page. They are significantly more popular in the US where 69% of fims have a Facebook Fan page
• Only 59% of companeis with a Fan page are actively using it with an average of only 3.8 posts per week
• The number of fans is higher than Twitter followers, with an average of 41,000 for firms with a Facebook Fan page

YouTube

• Half of all Fortune Global 100 firms have a YouTube Channel. Again firms in the US are more likely to have a Channel and those in Latin America least likely (59% and 33% respectively)
• 68% of firms with a YouTube channel are using it actively, with an average of 10 new videos each month
• Typically, firms are getting 40,000 views of their videos each month and over half of all Channels have comments

Corporate Blogs

• Whilst only a third of Fortune Global 100 firms have a corporate blog, these figures are much higher in Asia-Pacific (50%) and low in Europe (25%)
• The average number of posts per month is 7 (but again much higher in Asia-Pacific: 14), and almost three-quarters of blogs have comments

So the first FreshNetworks breakfast briefing has just finished and we had some great insights into how not for profit organisations (NFP’s) can use social media for strengthening their membership offering.

Breast Cancer Care Case Study

First up to speak was Bertie Bosredon, Assistant Director of Services (Information & Multimedia) at Breast Cancer Care. Bertie has been busy changing Breast Cancer Care’s social media strategy to utilise other social media platforms and contribute to overall integrated structure. More importantly changing the way they use social media to start listening and conversing with people online.

There were some key messages that resonated from his presentation, these were:

1. Have an integrated approach

Breast Cancer Care realise that a lot of conversations that were happening online were not necessarily happening in their space but through working with key influencers on other platforms supplying them with packaged information you can increase your presence online and collaborate with a lot more people.

2. Involve your members in planning

Bertie has been getting members involved in the planning of the current and future use of social media asking them what they would look for when engaging with Breast Cancer Care and how they could work this into a strategy that would best fit their organisational aims. Although a simple concept many companies forget that members and users usually know more about your brand then you do and can deliver some great insights.

3. Aligning all channels of communication

Breast Cancer Care have made sure that the social media strategy that they have been using is aligned with their offline print material so that it doesn’t matter where members go for the information. This means that they can use the channel that they prefer and the message will be consistent.

A popular point from Bertie: it doesn’t matter about the traffic to your site; care about how many people interact with your content even on other sites.

Social media marketing for not for profits

The next speaker was our very own Charlie Osmond from FreshNetworks. Charlie was speaking about how social media can be used for marketing and with specific reference to NFP organisations. Engaging people online is not about going for that quick win viral campaign but to successfully engage people online you need sustainable engagement.

Some key points to take away from Charlie’s presentations are:

1. The importance of the community manager

Engaging people online especially for sustainability requires a good community manager. They need to be able to reach out to people and facilitate discussions on a multitude of different platforms.

2. Know your tools but don’t let them drive your strategy

In order to be able to know what channels are available to you, you have to have a grasp of what’s in the vast social media environment. To create a successful strategy you should be looking at the aims of the business and the needs of the people that you want to engage.

3. To drive word of mouth for a certain cause take the ‘believe, belong and bear witness approach’

A great way to get people involved in a cause is to find people that believe in it, help them become involved in it and then help them bear witness to what they believe in this will help spread the message of the organisation through yours, and their own networks.

Steve Bridger on social media in charities

Finally but by no means least was Steve Bridger. Steve is a social media consultant and has some great (and extensive) history in community management for various charities. One of the more prevalent points of Steve’s presentation was the importance of putting people at the heart of your social media strategy

Some great points from Steve:

1. Help your advocates to amplify their voice

A lot of member organisations were using their current strategy to try and control conversations and go against ‘the flow’ of what people were online to do. They had a clear goal that they wanted to achieve and member organisations should be “enabling and empowering” these people to help deliver your message.

2. It’s about relationships not transactions

Member organisations and more specifically charities are currently set-up for transactions and are very ‘me’ focussed, there is greater value for charities if they position themselves for conversations and engagement.

3. You have to be in it to win it

A lot of companies are hoping for a win in social media what ever that may be but they don’t have a social media policy or ban social media access completely. A restrictive approach rather than a guided one causes bottlenecks at many organisations and restricts valuable internal knowledge.

It was great to see the focus on relationships and emphasis on the value rather then how much money can be made. There were lots of interesting perspectives and too many to write all in this blog post. A big thank you to all the people that attended there were some great discussions and insight from lots of different organisations and another big thank you to the speakers involved.

There are many opportunites for the insurance industry in social media. Afterall, it’s the ultimate experience good – you can’t judge the quality of what you have purchased until you claim, potentially years after payment.

As a result, it’s well suited to storytelling and sharing of experiences. Ratings and reviews have the potential to be an especially powerful tool for the insurance industry.

But social media marketing isn’t the only game in town. The insurance industry has another opportunity – using social media as part of the actuarial process. Insurance firms prefer to cover people who are less likely to claim. Social media may provide ways of helping to qualify in or out some people.

Have a look at Please Rob Me. A site that aggregates people’s check-ins on Foursquare and their GoogleBuzz locations to tell you who is away from home. Right now.

It is just a bit of fun, but the site makes an important point and should provide food for thought for armies of actuaries up and down the land.

—  —  —
PS for an insurance-related social media case study, here’s an example of a research community that we built for a client