FreshNetworks Blog

FreshNetworks, Social Media Agency

You may have noticed we’ve just rebranded, launched a new identity and redesigned our site. I thought it might be worth giving a quick explanation. I also wanted to take the opportunity to mention what it is we do (just in case you only know us for our blog).

Back in 2008, FreshNetworks was primarily a provider of social media technology. Whilst we always had a range of social media agency services wrapped around the tech (Community Management, Social Media Strategy and Social Media Monitoring), we led on being a technology provider – a builder of online communities.

The change in brand and design reflects our progression from being primarily a developer of online communities that happens to offer supporting social media services to a full-service Social Media Agency with in-house community building capabilities.

On it’s own that flex in emphasis was perhaps not worthy of a rebrand. However, as most entrepreneurs can attest, you often kick off with a brand and identity that you’re only 80% happy with because it’s more important in the early days to focus on your attention on delivering some great results for early clients. Thus the change in emphasis to a Social Media Agency was an opportunity to rethink our identity.

What are the services of a Social Media Agency?
Our services cover three areas: Listening, Planning & Execution and Technology

Listening
We use a range of different social media monitoring tools to carry out one-off Social Media Audits and on-going buzz tracking and reporting.

Planning and execution
These cover both consulting and on-going agency services. From helping organisations tie down their Social Media Strategy to providing ongoing Online Reputation Management and Community Management support.

Technology
We use our Online Community Platform to embed social tools (e.g. blogs, video sharing, ratings and reviews) into exisitng websites. And we also create standalone online communities. Some communities are closed (e.g. research communities or VIP advocacy communities) and others are open to all to help encourage search or directly increase sales by activating Word-of-Mouth.

We’re very keen on our new design. And we’d love to get your feedback.

Media140 Social meetup in London

Almost every event organsier talks about creating an engaged and involved audience. Sadly it rarely happens.

On Thursday I spoke at the Media140, a Social Media Meetup in London. The event was mostly dominated by Social Media agencies and consultants. There was a lively atmosphere, a loud shouty man and most of all, lots of energetic interaction.

I am still trying to work out exactly what the magic formula was. Perhaps because only a hardcore bunch made it through the snow; so they were determined to speak up. Or maybe it was the free drinks that created a positive and friendly Twitter back-channel from the off.

So what can event organisers, searching for elusive interaction, learn from the Media140 event? One factor that definitely made a difference was the style and approach of Guy Stephens (Carphone Warehouse) and Richard Baker (formerly General Manager, Virgin Trains). They kicked things off with an informal open conversation about Social Media. And they brought two key things to the debate:

1. A specific angle, social media for customer service, in which they had clear expertise

2. An openness to debate. Their style was non-lecturing, they didn’t pretend to know all the answers and it was clear they wanted to be challenged and learn from the audience.

Perhaps it’s something about Social Media – we’re all learning together – that makes interaction more likely. But clearly personal style goes a long way. And I suspect it’s especially important to make sure your first speakers have the right tone.

If you’re working in social media in London then I recommend you sign up for the next Media140 Meetup Thanks @andegregson and @KatePickering for organising it and for @Guy1067 and @Richard_Baker for the engaging conversation on Social Media for Customer Service.

Oh and my favourite Social Media takeaway of the event was that Social Media Agencies need organisational change management skills as much as they need marketing, PR or customer service capabilities.

Image courtesy of Iain Weir

We wrote a couple of weeks ago about the role of mobile in the Japanese social networking market. It is a market where consumer internet use is driven as much by mobile devices as by PCs. Japan, and other Asian markets, are known for having more established mobile internet usage than in Europe, America or elsewhere. Therefore it is great to see a report that highlights the growth and development of the the global mobile internet marketing.

Morgan Stanley’s 2010 Mobile Internet Report, published in December 2009, predicts that 2010 will be a tipping-point for mobile internet globally. Perhaps most notably it will be the year when 3G penetration is expected to increase to more than 20% globally. In Western Europe, the penetration rate will creep above 50% of all mobile connection.

This growth will drive a change in behaviour to increase the use of mobile devices in three notable areas:

1. Social networking – consumers want to connect with others from their handset
2. Video – consumers want to find, select and watch video from their handset
3. VOIP – consumers want to chat via a mix of voice, messaging and video from their handset

The 2010 Mobile Internet Report from Morgan Stanley is full of a wealth of statistics and analysis on these issues and the mobile market more broadly. That’s why it’s Required Reading at FreshNetworks this week.

Social media and social networks allow people to connect either because of a shared experience, a shared interest, concern, question or problem. Social networks, on one hand, are about connections – they allow people to connect and organise themselves and to keep in touch with people. Online communities, on the other hand, help connect people who share a similar experience, problem or situation.

In Haiti, both these types of social media have been helping victims. From giving them a voice and letting victims tell and share their stories, to providing tools to help find the missing, social media is a valuable tool in dealing with the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake. There is much we can learn from this, many great inventions develop from crisis situations and looking at how people in Haiti are using social media.

Three examples of how Haitians are using social media stand out as great examples that we can learn from.

1. Providing a voice for victims

Too often, people object that social media and, specifically, tools like Twitter are full of people updating with seemingly meaningless statuses. This is not true. Twitter, specifically, allows people to share what they are doing or thinking at a particular time. These updates are not intended to be read by all or appreciated by all. But they are and they will be by some.

Twitter has proven to be a particularly important tool getting messages out in a crisis. Allowing those on the ground to inform those elsewhere about what is really happening. We saw this in Iran in the summer of 2009 and have posted before about the benefits (and challenges) of user-generated news.

For the victims of Haiti, social media has enabled them to share their story with the outside world. It makes them feel less isolated by providing them with a way to share what they are experiencing. And it provides us all with a real connection to people on the ground in an earthquake zone. Social media is a great way for people to share information and it really allows people to start to see and experience an event through the experiences of people who are there.

The kind of stories being shared include:

“Just experienced a MAJOR earthquake here in Port au Prince – walls were falling down. – we are ALL fine – pray for those in the slums” troylivesay

“The St Gerard Church has a school behind it that collapsed.I heard someone speaking from the rubble, feet were trapped he couldn’t get out” RAMhaiti

People in the streets are chanting as the night settles.” fredodupoux

2. Informing rescue attempts

Within hours of the earthquake hitting Haiti, victims and their families and friends started to organise themselves using social media tools. A huge task for aid agencies in crises like this is to compile and keep up-to-date a list of people who are missing. Tracking who is missing, who has been found and what their status is.

Social media has been helping with this task in two ways:

1. Building user-generated lists of the missing. Groups on Facebook has grown to list the missing – with hundreds of thousands of names gathered by people who are missing friends or family. Users update the information they know and together they crowd-source an up-to-date list of the missing
2. Co-ordinating rescue attempts. Twitter has provided a way for people who are missing to publicise where they are – sharing locations where they are trapped or from where they need rescuing. Using a common hashtag, the missing were able to attract rescuers to come and help them.

Social media is an especially useful tool when a large number of people each know a small piece of information, which when put together build the bigger picture. By getting users to tell us about the information they know and to keep this up-to-date, we can build a larger picture of what is really happening. This can be done with much less effort than trying to build a central picture from scratch.

3. Providing eyewitness content

The first images to emerge from Haiti on Tuesday this week, whilst most news agencies were still waiting for their correspondents to arrive in the country, came from mobile phones and were shared online. In a crisis situation like this, imagery and stories are critical to securing the donations needed to support rescue and relief attempts. And for both of these, time is of the essence. The sooner people donate money, the quicker support can be on the ground. Social media allowed imagery and videos to be shared and distributed more quickly and before some traditional news outlets were on location. It is these images that we have seen on social networks and across the news output and it is these that have prompted many people to donate and support the attempts to bring relief to the country.

Real eyewitness content does not replace balanced and informed reporting by traditional news organisations. But it does have a real role in communicating what is happening and letting people see what those on the ground are seeing. Social media allows these images and eyewitness stories to be spread more quickly than ever before. In a situation where time is critical, this is very important.

Vitamin Water’s latest flavour, launching in March this year, was developed and named by the brand’s Facebook fans. The black cherry and lime flavoured drink will be called ‘Connect’ and one Facebook fan, Sarah from Illinois, won $5,000 for her role in developing this new product.

The competition was interesting and unique in that it used Facebook fans to develop all aspects of the product:

• Choosing the flavour – over the summer Facebook fans were able to monitor and add to buzz about different flavours. The more chatter about a flavour online, the higher it was rated on the Facebook page. And by mid-September the most ten talked-about flavours were put to Facebook fans for them to vote for their favourite. This is a good example of using a community to help sort and rank ideas in a co-creation process. Fans couldn’t create their own flavours from scratch, but could influence the top 10 flavours and then vote for the best.
• Designing the packaging – when the flavour had been selected (in October last year), the Facebook fans were able to use the app to design the packaging – the look and feel, the blurb and colours used on the label. Fans could collaborate with up to two more Facebook friends to develop the packaging and the final winners were chosen by a panel of experts.
• Naming the product - alongside the packaging and look-and-feel, Facebook Fans were asked to name the product. The team who created the winning name would be given a prize of $5,000.

This is a great example of co-creation and working with your customers and fans to help to develop your product. Using experts from the brand at critical input stages – choosing the original flavours that could be shortlisted and then selected, and reviewing and agreeing on the winning product design and name. The community was used to help shortlist and select the flavour to be produced, and to create a range of options for the design and name of the product itself. Many brands would be anxious of allowing consumers to create a product like this, but at every stage the brand and consumers were playing different roles and doing different things. It is true that some of the best and most intelligent people don’t work for your company (whoever you are) and so working with them in a controlled but creative way like this can have great results.

And for the more than one million Fans of of the Vitamin Water Facebook Page, they feel like they have had real involvement in the development of the new product. That’s one million people who feel ownership of this product. One million potential purchasers when it launches.

Read more of our Social Media Case Studies