FreshNetworks Blog

We’ve written before about the ways in which politicians are using social media, from US President Barack Obama, to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. These politicians, like many others, are using social media as a way of engaging directly with the public. They often use they use these tools as a way of focusing on specific topics or issues that are of interest to them. And social media can be a great way to open up and bring people inside the organisation and see what is going on and feel like they have a direct connection with those people making decisions. Just as this is beneficial for brands, so it is also beneficial for organisations and governments

The latest world leader to start using social media is Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (鳩山由紀夫). On the 1st January 2010, he started Tweeting (@hatoyamayukio) and blogging (Hato Cafe).

He currently has almost 150,000 followers on Twitter, not bad for his 12 updates. He says in his bio that this account is not just to talk about politics and the updates so far range from politics to insights into Hatoyama’s life and routine. On cold mornings he likes a warming cup of tea and a walk, apparently. Even sharing a video of the pigeons in the garden of the residence from one such walk. On the blog – Hato Cafe (or Dove Cafe) he has reported on his trip to India and his discussions with Japanese astronaut, Soichi Noguchi, from the International Space Station.

On the blog, Hatoyama explains what he is using social media for:

I started this blog as a first step to burying the gap between people and politics as well as changing this country together.

It will be interesting to watch how this use of social media develops and changes. The update so far have been a mix of personal reflections, insights into the Japanese Prime Minister’s life and reflections on official trips and events. He talks about engaging the public in public policy debates via both the blog and Twitter and this would be a fascinating development in the Japanese political landscape where traditionally engaging people online has not been part of policy during elections or governments.

But there is a lot to be said for just using social media to engage people and let them see behind the scenes and into the live and perspective of the Hatoyama himself. Social media tools can be a great way to let people understand more about the individuals – what they do, think and experience. This is, on its own, very important – breaking down barriers between the public and politicians in a way that has previously not been possible to do on such a large scale. Whilst a small number of people might once have heard a Japanese Prime Minister’s story of the birds in his garden as he takes his morning walk, we can now all know about this and even experience it with him through his video. Do not underestimate the importance of this. The more we understand about people the more we engage with them.

Three-quarters of Japanese social network users access the sites only from their mobile phones.

This observation comes from a survey conducted last year with almost 4,000 social network users in Japan by Mobile Marketing Data Labo. They found that 75.4% of respondents only accessed social networking sites from their mobile phone (and not from their PC). The number only accessing it from their PC (and not their mobile phone) was very low at just 2%.

This is a reflection on the mobile nature of the internet in Japan where 3G penetration stands at 95% of the market and 85% of customers have a data plan added to their contract. This is a much more developed mobile market than we see in Europe or North America and their use of mobile online services is world-leading.

These an other insights into the Japanese mobile social networking market is found in the great presentation below from Alexei Poliakov.

There is much that we can all learn from looking at the use of mobile internet, and the way it has influenced social networks in Japan. Whilst in other markets the growth in social networks sees a growth the likes of Twitter and Facebook, in Japan, homegrown social networks dominate. This is, in part, a result of the English-centric focus of these sites, at least initially. But also mobile social networking leads to a different type of site and different uses by consumers. In Japan, mixi and Mobage-town and Gree are incredibly successful social networks. Mixi has a reported 17 million users in Japan, compared with 1.4 million Facebook users and about half a million Japanese people on Twitter.

These social networks are very different in two main ways:

1. They put gaming either central to or highly within the user experience. Facebook and Twitter tend to be about content exchange or organisation whereas the Japanese social networks have a strong gaming element that attracts and connects users.
2. Premium content is often paid-for. Mixi, in particular, provides premium content and features at a fee to users and this is easily done by adding it to their mobile bill. (This trend explained the rumours that Twitter would charge for access in Japan)

Whilst it is unlikely that other markets will necessarily develop in the same way, it is interesting to see how these sites work and operate in Japan. An increasing penetration of 3G access and data-plan adoption in Europe, and the US, will see more and more people using their mobile as a major access point to the internet in 2010. And with social networking sites from Facebook to Twitter becoming more mobile friendly (such as the launch of push notifications on the iPhone from the Facebook app this week in the UK) it is likely that use of social networks from mobile devices will increase this year.

So we should learn more about what is happening in the more developed mobile markets like Japan. Whether it is simple things – such as brands allowing customers to complete a whole journey (from social networking site to purchased item) on convenient mobile platforms. Or more complex things – such as the adoption of paid-for add-ons to the mobile social networking experience. There is a lot for us to observe and a lot we should experiment with.

A good friend of mine started a new job for the new year – working in social media for a UK charity. She asked me what reading I could recommend for somebody looking to learn more about online communities and how they can be launched and grown. There are a whole range of great books out there on how social media is used and the impact this is having on society (anything by Gladwell or Shirky would be a great starting point), but she was interested specifically in things that help managing and growing communities online.

Here’s the very short list I shared with her (and a few extra ones added in). There are many great books, articles and blogs out there and we’d love you to share your favourites in the comments below. But this is a good starting point and we would consider them essential reading for online community managers.

Books

• Community Building on the Web : Secret Strategies for Successful Online Communities, Amy Jo Kim (Amazon) – a great text explaining the how to grow online communities, and explaining through examples why they grow like this.
• Managing Online Forums: Everything You Need to Know to Create and Run Successful Community Discussion Boards, Patrick O’Keefe (Amazon) – another great textbook of how to set-up and manage online forums and discussion boards.
• 18 Rules of Community Engagement: A Guide for Building Relationships and Connecting With Customers Online, Angela Connor (Amazon) – a pragmatic approach to planning and building online communities, you can read our review of this book here.

Blogs

• FeverBee – a great blog from practical community-builder Rich Millington.
• Community Spark – a community-building blog from Martin Reed.

Articles

• Using Social Psychology to Motivate Contributions to Online Communities (2005) – a look at how to combat under-contribution to your online community, examining how social psychology impact when and how people will contribute online.
• Understanding Community: A review of networks, ties and contacts’, Working Paper, Real Life Methods (2007) – an interesting perspective on and review of the different ways communities form and bond online

This is purposefully a short list – what would you add to it? Let us know your essential reading in the comments below.

We posted on New Years Eve the most popular posts on the FreshNetworks Blog in 2009. Alongside some popular posts we covered a number of series of posts that were well read and referenced – here are three of the most popular.

1. Getting Started in Social Media

In this series we outline our thoughts on four steps any brand should do when they are getting started in social media. The aim is to give any brand who is looking to use social media (or indeed to use it better) a framework to work through, some ideas and also a lot of questions and decisions that will need to be made.

• Part One:  Do you know what people are saying about you? Buzz tracking, social media monitoring, the power of understanding who is talking about you where and why, and some great free tools for any brand to use
• Part Two: What do you want to achieve? Working out your brand’s aims and objectives (and making these measurable) is the single most important factor in a successful social media strategy. Do this before you think about technology.
• Part Three: Have a go and experiment with social media Once you have clear objectives that are measurable it’s time to get going. Try things out and experiment, but make sure you do them where you know you will have the greatest chance of achieving these aims and engaging the people you want to engage.
• Part Four: Track and evaluate the success you are having When you are using social media tools it is essential that you are measuring and tracking your performance against these aims. Measurement is critical and assessing the benefit you are having will help you to refine and improve your strategy overall.

2. Online Community Examples

People are always asking us for great examples of online communities in their particular industry, so we thought we’d start a series of great examples from different industries: Online Community Examples. Each week we looked at a different industry and showcased three short case studies of online communities, whether for marketing, customer engagement, market research or other reasons.

• Examples of online communities in the automotive industry: Harley-Davidson Museum Blog, Mini Insider, GMnext
• Examples of online communities in the retail industry: Wal-Mart’s Elevenmoms, Sainsbury’s Online Community, MyStarbucksIdea
• Examples of online communities in the not-for-profit sector: The US Navy’s Navy For Moms, American Association of Retired Persons’ Online Community, UK Fundraising’s Forums
• Examples of online communities in the travel industry: Best Western’s On the Go with Amy, Marmara’s Marmarafit, Qantas Travel Insider
• Examples of online communities in the financial services industry: Royal Bank of Canada Next Great Innovator, HSBC Business Network, Wesabe
• Examples of online communities in the telecoms industry: Telstra’s nowwearetalking, Sprint’s Buzz About Wireless, T-Mobile’s Sidekick Wiki Community
• Examples of online communities in healthcare: Mayo Clinic Blogs and Podcasts, AIDSPortal, Novartis’s CFVoice
• Examples of online communities in the TV industry: Rate My Space, Heroes, The Sex Education Show

3. Insight from online communities

Not all communities are online research communities, but all communities can be a useful source of insight. Just watching the conversations can be invaluable and bring real insight to any organisation, but there are ways that any community can get real insight value from the insight of your members. In this series we described eight ways of getting insight from online communities:

• Profiling data: gathering the right information and then analysing the profiles of  your community members can bring significant understanding of the people who join your community.
• Focused discussions: focusing the discussions in your online community make it easier for people to join the debate and also let you concentrate on those issues that are of most interest to you and likely to bring greatest insights.
• Learn their language: the language community members use is often overlooked, but provides a real insight into their lives and their perceptions on a product, market or issue.
• Rating and voting: not everybody wants to begin or even add to discussions, but we can understand what they think and get insight from them by offering and than analysing their use of different ways of communicating.
• Photo uploads: photos offer a real insight into what people think and also allow us to gather opinions people who are not as comfortable expressing themselves in words.
• Photo activities: get community members to upload photos on a specific theme or in response to a specific question. Isolate the most interesting photos by using the opinions of community members.
• Discussion events: as your community matures, people start to use the community at regular times.Take advantage of this by offering discussion events where people discuss a different issue at a certain time each week.
• Quick polls: any community can use some simple insight tools, and quick polls are one of these. They are a great way to get instant and top-level quantitative insight from your community.