FreshNetworks Blog

Social Media Hub and Spoke

We’ve always had strong views about the best ways for companies to get value from social media.

We’ve battled against the consensus view: only fish where the fish are swimming. We’ve campaigned for recognition that people operate in different modes in different social spaces (online communities vs social networks) and as a result have always pushed the concept of an integrated social media Hub-and-Spoke model.

That’s why I was delighted to read Jeremiah Owyang’s latest post and see his excellent slide show about integrating social tools within your website.

Enjoy:

Matt Rhodes at the FreshNetworks Breakfast Briefing

Another successful FreshNetworks breakfast briefing has just come to a close. This time the topic was ‘social media and retail’. The two speakers were Naomi Paget (Head of Direct Marketing at TM Lewin) and our own Matt Rhodes.

The breakfast briefing was split into three main parts. First, Naomi talked about how TM Lewin has been using social media as part of their e-commerce site and then Matt presented the results of a recent campaign we ran with Jimmy Choo. He also discussed how to take the first steps towards looking at social media from a business perspective.

First up was Naomi. She is one of our clients here at FreshNetworks and has been working with us since spring 2009.

TM Lewin: the Off the Cuff online community

TM Lewin have a very clear strategy of what they want to achieve from social media (some of these aims include things like “educate and excite customers about the brand and product, Get customer insight into our product, marketing and services and be seen as an authority on business dress”) and they now have a presence on various social media platforms including a Facebook page, YouTube channel, Twitter account and their own community ‘Off the Cuff’. The strategy is performing well against their objectives (see #FreshNetworks tweets for some of the highlights) but one thing was clear from Naomi. Internal passion is the key to success.

TM Lewin has made the most of their community because the employees utilising it have a passion to proactively engage with community members. Because of this enthusiasm, community members have direct contact with the senior management team at TM Lewin, making them feel more valued and increasing loyalty. TM Lewin is using this engagement to help spread positive messages through its current (and prospective) customer bases, gaining valuable insight and feedback on their activities.

TM Lewin has also noticed that people who enter the ecommerce site via the community are more likely to convert on their first site visit and so the community is directly attributing to sales (we can’t share the exact numbers but they are not insignificant!). It was great to hear Naomi’s talk because it highlighted the fact that social media isn’t always about the £ sign – sometimes this comes second to the other benefits that engaging with social media can offer a business.

Jimmy Choo: CatchAChoo

Next up was Matt Rhodes talking about Jimmy Choo , the CatchAChoo campaign and the importance of having a solid strategy for the foundations or all your engagement.
We have just finished running a campaign for Jimmy Choo where we organised a treasure hunt around London using Foursquare to help promote the launch of their new trainer range. There were a number of clear objectives behind this campaign (full case study coming soon) but the main reason we used this approach was because learnt from working with Jimmy Choo on a previous project that the actual purchasing of the shoes is part of the appeal, therefore using Foursquare seemed like a perfect opportunity to bridge the gap between online and offline engagement.

Four steps to building a social media strategy

CatchAChoo, followed a process that was the basis of the second part of Matt Rhodes presentation – a four step guide to building social media strategy:

1. Understand what people are saying – Before you start any social media strategy you need to know who is talking, where they are talking and what they are talking about. This is an important step as it allows you to identify the needs of the people you are engaging with and how you should go about approaching them.
2. Know what you are trying to achieve – Matt used an appropriate analogy to sum up this point:“if you were going to the moon you would have a solid reason for doing so! You would just invest all your time and resources doing it for no reason”. Social media it is not as grand as flying to the moon but it does follow similar logic. If you’re going to be invest time and resources, have a clear strategy of what you want to achieve and how you will measure this.
3. Experiment – Social media tools are changing all the time so using your initial insight from step 1, keep your aims in mind but try different things out. There are no right or wrong ways to use different tools; it all depends on your audience and your business so try different things out until you are meeting your aims.
4. Ruthlessly measure the impact you are having – This is the most important stage. All your interactions however they are being undertaken should meet the aims of your initial strategy. Regular reporting will allow you to have a diverse strategy and understand what is working well (and what isn’t) so you can change your tactics to make them more beneficial to the business.

It was a great event with some really good questions and thoughts coming from the people that attended. Thanks to everyone that came and we hope that you all took something away with you (besides a load of chocolate muffins) and if you have any thoughts on what was discussed it would be great to hear your comments!

I’m not sure what my favourite statistic is about YouTube. It could be, as we learnt today, that two billion videos are viewed every day. Or maybe it is the fact that this means that every minute we collectively upload 24 hours worth of video content to the site. Or that these videos mean that every 60 days more content is created on YouTube than has been aired in 60 years of programming on the main three US TV networks. Or maybe it’s the fact that 3 million people are sharing videos automatically through other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, and that each time a video is shared seven new people see it.

All of these statistics tell us one thing clearly. In the five years since YouTube launched we have all become used to creating, sharing, viewing, commenting on and rating videos online. Video is a great way of conveying information, ideas and emotions and can be a very engaging medium. It can be the best way off  expressing a complex idea and helps effective engagement, establishing a connection between the people on the video and the people viewing it. Production quality matters less than content and passion. And perhaps of most importance is the ability to share the content.

Video is one of the most versatile of all social media tools and enhances any online community. And with the increased penetration of handheld cameras that will easily upload content online we will see even more content created.

If these statistics are impressive (and they are) they will only get more so. As the video below shows, a lot has happened in the first five years of YouTube. The next five years promise to be just as exciting. And I suspect my favourite statistic is yet to come.

Lots of people I meet and talk to worry about how they should speak in social media – what their, or indeed their brand’s, tone of voice should be. They recognise that social media is different – structurally (Twitter requires you to express yourself in no more than 140 characters), and in the nature of what you write and how you write it. Online communities and social media allow people who don’t know each other to share thoughts, ideas and information. They need to write and express themselves in a way that builds trust and exchanges information and this impact on the language you use and indeed your use of other tools, including video and images. Overall social media requires you to express yourself in a different way to spoken language or much written language. And brands and individuals needs to go thorough a learning process to develop their own tone of voice.

One of the best ways to get used to the type of language and tone of voice you should be using in social media is just to experiment and have a go. Twitter is a particular useful tool in this regard. It forces you to think about what you want to say (and express it in just a few words) and allows you to try engaging with other people and joining conversations. And above all, Twitter is quite a forgiving environment. It is moving and changing so quickly, and there are so many conversations and updates every day, that if you try something and it doesn’t quite work then you can quickly find yourself back with a relatively blank canvass to start again.

That’s why we encourage our clients to each experiment with Twitter themselves personally if they want to get used to social media and to start to really understand the benefit it can bring to their brand. And it’s why I have been delighted to discover @ClassroomTweets.

What we can learn from @ClassroomTweets

The six year old students in the Orange Class at Holy Trinity Rosehill school in Stockton-on-Tees in the North-East of England are on Twitter. The students tweet as @ClassroomTweets, sharing their thoughts and experiences every day in the classroom. They are able to update Twitter from a computer in the classroom that shows Twitter at all times. And their tweets are unmoderated by teacher @MultiMartin apart from a few sensible rules, including not being able to respond to messages or talk to other people on Twitter without a teacher present. Some of the things we learnt from @ClassroomTweets this week included “it is high school musical week”, “wow this class is very fun” and perhaps my favourite of the week “we are not doing spelling”.

The updates are a great way for students in the classroom to express themselves, and to get used to using social media and so experiment with new ways of expressing themselves and improve their literacy skills. But, as @MultiMartin says on his blog it is also a useful source of insight:

It’s extremely interesting to read as the class teacher. For example, I’ve learned that my class only class a ‘literacy lesson’ as the time I am teaching from the front of the class – they believe the time they are at their desks working isn’t classed as ‘literacy’ or indeed a lesson.

The use of Twitter is benefiting both the students in the classroom, the teacher and of course everybody who follows them and who’s day is brightened by hearing what they are doing. It is a great learning tool for everybody and a great way to experiment with social media.

There is something we could all learn here. Just start using social media. Learn how to express yourself, what works for you and what doesn’t. Report on your life, or on something that you are interested in. The subject doesn’t matter really because you are just using Twitter as a way to learn about social media, the way you use it and how to express yourself in it. There is a lot we can learn from these six year olds. And many of us could benefit from experimenting with social media in the way that they are doing.

Image via Flickr by 160e29c6

We’ve spoken at more social media conferences and events in the last three months than in the first three years of FreshNetworks’ existence. One of the benefits of all the talking has been the opportunity to listen to other social media speakers and experts.

As a social media agency we’re often  asked to recommend a few social media speakers for events (particularly in London and the UK), so I thought it might be useful to note down  some of the people who have recently impressed us and why.

Neville Hobson @jangles – sage advice with a strong PR-slant on social media. I thought Neville was at his best when it came to social media disaster scenarios and social media crisis management.

Gary Veynerchuck – Gary was the highlight of SXSW for me. He’s brimming with passion and energy and has some excellent hands-on social media experience. He spent 10 minutes talking and 45 minutes answering questions. You can easily get a taste of Gary online – just search YouTube. Or submit yourself to the full experience by listening to him read Crush It, his new book

Michelle Goodall @greenwellys – from Econsultancy. Michelle is a great social media trainer. Especially good at educating an audience to give them a common understanding of social media. I’ve heard Michelle speak about social media at a couple of events recently – Technology for Marketing and Advertising and FreshIdeas Events – and both times walked away feeling the learning points were super clear.

Joanne Jacobs @joannejacobs is a force of nature. Guaranteed to wake up any audience, she combines years of  social media experience with a ferocious presenting style. I am certain there is no one more capable of keeping a post-lunch audience stimulated.

James Hart @ASOS_James is eCommerce Director at ASOS.com. James (and ASOS) have been among the early adopters in community building and social media marketing in the UK. He’s a wonderfully open and frank speaker (no social hype, just his practical experience). However, I am told he may have recently hung up his speaking boots.

Geoff Quinn, CEO TM Lewin – I was on stage with Geoff at a recent Retail Week e-commerce Conference. I think it’s hard to beat listening to a CEO talk about where they see social media fit in to their broader business goals. In addition to the fact that Geoff is really open and frank about the process, they have been  giving real ROI numbers and developing detailed plans for the future. You can get a sense of his style from this recent Radio4 Bottom Line interview (disclaimer TM Lewin is a client).

Brad Little @bradleyjlittle – Brad runs Neilsen Buzzmetrics in Europe. As a result he’s great on social media monitoring content and thinking. He’s also full of energy and enthusiasm, and a great speaker.

Anna Rafferty @raffers from Penguin Books. Anna has a great case study on building a community on a budget that really engaged Penguin’s customers. An engaging speaker who provides good takeaways.  Oh and Anna recently recommended Jon Davie from Zone as a great speaker.

Steve Dunn Steve is a very energetic performer. I spoke alongside him at a CIM event and he did a good job of covering off high-level social media basics. In particular he brought a PR perspective.

Chris Brogan – Chris is one of the handful of truly global social media gurus (although I am sure he’d hate the term). I really enjoyed his combination of a conversational and relaxed style with excellent story telling. Chris is particularly good on B2B and SME social media.

Steve Bridger @stevebridger has years of community management experience working with charities and membership organisations. Steve always brings solid, practical tips to his social media sessions.

Louise White @louisecwhite – I really enjoyed listening to Louise recently. She has a refreshingly honest and open style giving a no-holds barred account of life inside a publisher as digital and social are changing the world around them.

Paul Hopkins, Head of Customer Experience at easyJet – I was on a panel with Paul at the Call Centre and Customer Management Conference. As you’d expect, Paul is particularly knowledgeable speaker on customer service opportunities and issues arising from social media. He is heavily involved on a day-to-day basis with easyJet’s activity.

Martha Lane Fox – @marthalanefox – As Digital Inclusion Champion, Martha is clearly an expert on digital engagement issues. She’s also a captivating speaker, always good at pulling out key facts to get her point across.

Dom Sparkes @DomSparkes – Dom runs the moderation agency, Tempero. He’s especially strong on community management of children’s websites and the processes required to run them in a safe manner.

Thomas Power – I have not heard him speak myself, but heard a rave review from Neville Hobsbon on his podcast. Thomas set up Ecademy and is famous for being one of London’s great connectors. Whilst I don’t agree with all he says e.g. “the most important thing about your network is size, not quality” he’s clearly very enthusiastic and engaging.

Matt Rhodes – OK, so Matt works with me at FreshNetworks. I am biased. But time and again he gets rave reviews from his audiences whenever he’s asked to speak about social media. Matt is one of the foremost thinkers on social media in the UK (he’s the reason why this blog is consistently one of Europe’s Top 3 social marketing blogs). And despite being a Cambridge graduate, he generally has an insightful perspective on all social media topics.

Tim Hwang‘s SXSW talk was one of the most entertaining in Austin. Not because of his speaking style, but purely down to the content: What we learned watching kids with homemade flamethrowers. You can catch a great video here.

Two more speakers
These two don’t fit into the social media speaker bracket, but they are two of my favourite business speakers ever:
Dennis Turner – Dennis is Chief Economist at HSBC. He manages to make macroeconomics both enthrawling and easy to understand. A delight to watch.

BJ Cunningham – BJ tells a fantastic story about Death Cigarettes – a brand he founded 20 years ago. He’s a superb speaker.

Your turn
Have you been struck by an excellent social media speaker? who was it and why were they good?