FreshNetworks Blog

In Brazil 86% of internet users regularly use social networks and other social media sites. This places them top of the league of social media users globally, with Italy in second place (with 78% of internet users regularly using social media) and Spain in third place (77%). This data comes from the Nielsen’s study of the reach and usage of these social media sites by country which looks at the reach of social media sites in individual countries and the amount of time users spend on them.

Reach of social media in Brazil

The popularity and reach of social media in Brazil is due, in no small part, to the use of Orkut, a social network operated by Google that is incredibly popular in Brazil. In April, almost half of all users of Orkut came from Brazil and its popularity continues to grow in the country. This shows the rise of social networks beyond Facebook – which has a reach of just 26% in Brazil – and the importance for global brands of developing a social media strategy that takes into account these regional differences and the importance of different social media tools and patterns in different countries.

Social network and blog site reach by country – Top 10 (April 2010)

Source: The Nielsen Company

Social media accounts for 22% of time online

This data reveals not just the countries with the greatest reach of these social media sites, but also how long the typical user will spend on them. Overall, time on social networks and blog sites has reached 22% of all time spent on the internet. The same as one minute for every four and a half minutes spent online. Australia leads the pack here – with over seven hours per month spent on social media sites. And Japan is well below average at just less than three hours.

Time spent on sites is an interesting measure and one that needs further investigation to fully understand it. For example, in Japan people are very likely to be accessing sites on mobile devices and so are less likely to spend time browsing sites and more likely to achieve particular tasks that they are looking to do. And of course, spending a long time on a site may be an indicator of slow connections or poor design.

But even with these caveats, we are spending much more time on social networks and social media sites and the reach of these sites continues to grow. All over the world.

Last week we looked a ranking of the top ten brands on Facebook globally, based on the number of people who ‘like’ them. There were no real surprises – Starbucks came top and the rest of the top ten was filled with well-known consumer and fashion brands. When considering brands on Twitter this story is sometimes different and it is not always the obvious brands that are most followed.

The same dataset, from Famecount, can be used to look at brands on Twitter and, unlike with Facebook, it throws up some unexpected findings. For example the most followed brand in the UK isn’t a consumer or fashion brand, an airline or a bank. It’s a museum: @Tate.

The top five brands on Twitter (UK)

*Note: figures from Famecount and updated where relevant to be correct as of June 13 2010

Why is a museum the top UK brand on Twitter?

We have been discussing recently why people follow brands on Twitter. With Twitter there is not necessarily a need for people to follow the brand in order to interact with it. You typically follow the brand if you are interested in their tweets and message being part of your feed. If you want to know what is happening, what they say and what they think. The data above shows that people are more interested in following a museum than they are fashion retailers, a financial services firm or a travel agency. But why?

There are some structural reasons why the Tate will attract followers. Twitter is great for events and experiences and a museum has lots of these. So if they are using Twitter well any museum should attract people interested in the events that are going on there. People also want to be updated about what’s on and when it’s on and Twitter is a great way for museums to do this.

However the success and popularity of the Tate is about much more than this. It’s thanks to the way they use Twitter. There are three simple characteristics of the way the Tate uses Twitter that all brands can learn from, and that contribute to their success:

1. Informing – Twitter is great for information. Simple and straightforward information and the Tate is great for that. It uses Twitter to provide a one-stop-shop to find out what’s on, when and where at the Tate. Telling people about what is coming up and what is currently on. (See this typical informing Tweet)
2. Responding – The Tate uses Twitter to respond to people who have been to their galleries. They ask people what they thought of their experience and respond to the feedback that they give. They also go out of their way to help people who have queries or problems and the manner in which they do this shows clearly that there are real people updating Twitter and interacting with people on it. (See how they have helped @gorgeousuk)
3. Having fun – The Tate has a clear personality on Twitter and has fun that is relevant to the museum, its galleries and the interests of its followers. From fun photos inside the galleries to fun tweets they show that they are real people and that they really connect with their followers. I particularly like when they compare the weather on a day to pieces in their collection. (See this Tweet comparing this weekend’s weather to a John Samuel Raven study)

There is nothing particularly revolutionary about how the Tate is using Twitter, but that is the beauty of it. They have identified their target market and are using Twitter to inform, engage and entertain them. And they are doing it rather well.

Starbucks is the most popular brand on Facebook when ranked by the number of people who ‘Like’ a brand (’Fans’ as they used to be called). Over 7.5 million people like the coffee chain on Facebook, almost 2 million more than like the second most popular brand, Coca-Cola.

This data comes from Famecount which ranks brands (and people) based on the number of people who follow, like or friend them in social networks. It shows that food and drink brands are in each of the top five places, with fashion brands making up most of the remaining places in the top ten. Consumers are interested in what these brands are doing, or at least want to flag their interest in the brand or product on their own Facebook profile.

The top ten brands on Facebook (Global)

*Note: figures updated where relevant to be correct as of June 10 2010

Do the number of Facebook Likes matter?

Data like this is great for understanding user behaviour in Facebook. Showing us for which brands, and for which type of brands, users are more likely to click to say that they ‘Like’ it. However, for the brand, does the number of people who like you on Facebook matter? Not always.

The number of people who like you on Facebook is not the most important measure on Facebook. A more powerful measure is the number who engage with the brand. Liking a brand is an easy step and people do it for many reasons. At one end of the engagement spectrum because they want to hear from and exchange ideas with the brand. At the other end of the spectrum because they just want this ‘Like’ recorded as a badge on their Facebook profile. They may have no intention (or indeed desire) to engage at all with the brand.

And it is this engagement number that is of more use for brands. They want people who talk to them, like their posts and images, share their content and are active advocates of the brand. This means more than just ‘Liking’ the brand but doing something with it and engaging more deeply with it in Facebook. For any brand it is typically better for it to have 1 million fans, of which 5% engage with you on a regular basis, than to have 2 million fans with less than 1% engaging.

This number also shows the value of your presence in social media. It can be relatively easy for brands to build large numbers of ‘Likes’. It is less easy to get them to actually do something and to engage with you. But it is when they do that brands get real value.

So Facebook ‘Likes’ are important for brands, but actual engagement is even more important.

According to a recent report by emarketer, business-to-business (B2B) spending on social media is set to increase dramatically over the next few years.

Outsell, a company who provides business intelligence for publishers and information providers, estimates that B2B marketing on social networks will grow by 43.3% in 2010.

Perhaps even more interesting is Forrester Research’s prediction that B2B firms will spend $4.8 billion on social media marketing by 2014 – an increase of $2.3 billion in comparison to 2009 spend.

Emarketer’s Evelyn Jung, author of  a new report called “B2B Social Media Marketing Heats Up“, believes that B2B marketers will realise they can use social media to generate quality leads and to position themselves as thought leaders in their industries.

Currently B2B marketers tend to spend their money on customer communities, podcasts and blogs. Paid advertising on social networks—banners, text ads and search advertising, as well as the more targeted advertising on Facebook and MySpace— accounts for just a small proportion of B2B marketers’ social spending.

The expectation is that when companies budget for social media marketing in 2010 and beyond, a substantial portion of their money will go on social initiatives like creating and maintaining a branded profile page or online community, managing promotions or public relations outreach and using social media monitoring to check the impact of social media on a brand or business as a whole.

The Hay Festival has been looking for the ‘most beautiful tweet ever written’. For the last ten days, the literary festival has been seeking nominations and then creating a shortlist of tweets. Today the winner was judged by Stephen Fry.

The winning tweet was from Marc MacKenzie:

“I believe we can build a better world! Of course, it’ll take a whole lot of rock, water & dirt. Also, not sure where to put it.”

This is a concise but informative tweet and perhaps is a great example of how people are using this new medium.

What makes a tweet beautiful?

As the Hay Festival’s founder and director, Peter Florence remarks:

The definition of most beautiful tweet could fall into a number of different categories: it could prove the most eloquent; the most impassioned; the best demonstration of a clever pun or metaphor; the most evocative description of a place or emotion, or perhaps prove that brevity is conducive to levity, and be the wittiest tweet ever committed to the Twittersphere

The beauty in Twitter, and in the tweets people send, is that they convey emotion, opinion, information and expression in a relatively short period, and they, broadly speaking, do so in public. Unlike other conversational forms, Twitter, even when you direct a tweet at a specific person, has a broader audience and often an audience you don’t know. And of course you only have 14o characters with which to express yourself. Marc MacKenzie’s tweet is a good example of this new medium – the audience is unclear and the tweet manages to convey information, opinion, belief and also humour. All in 140 characters.

How you use this medium to convey information is where the beauty lies. It is a different type of communication that is developing its own style of writing, using new elements, such as hashtags, and mixing in media. It is a type of communication where we can all benefit from practicing and trying new things.

So was the tweet the most beautiful ever? Well different people will probably have different opinions and we’d love to hear your’s below. What is clear is that this is a great example of how Twitter is being used in new and different ways to convey information. Perhaps of more importance, though, is the fact that this competition happened in the first place. Through it, Stephen Fry and the Hay Festival are showing the importance of Twitter and the innovative nature of this new medium for communication.

What are your thoughts on this tweet and the beauty of Twitter? Leave your thoughts in the comments below

Some brands are very successful on Twitter. They might be using it for customer service, to engage with customers or to discuss issues that they might be interested in. For many brands, Twitter is a great way for brands to engage directly with consumers, to learn what they are saying and to react and respond to this where relevant.

The question for many brands, though, is why would people want to engage with them on Twitter. In some instances this is clear. For example, when Twitter is being used as a servicing channel it is a way for customers to ask questions, complain or get support. In other instances it is less clear. And as with any social media strategy, it is critical that you think about why people will want to engage with you as much as why you want to engage with them.

When discussing this with clients and others recently, the question that always comes up is if brands should aim to gather a lot of followers on Twitter (as opposed to engaging a lot of people regardless of whether or not they follow you). And with this goes the question of whether brands are expected follow people back who follow them.

This week we published the final report in our Review of Social Media Monitoring Tools (download the final report here). Reflecting on the report and its findings with clients and others this week, we have found ourselves discussing the importance of not just listening (although this can often be a good first step for those who are not yet doing it) but also acting on what is said about your brand and other terms of interest in social media. As the report shows, the different social media tools are of value for different purposes and choosing the one that is most suited to your brand and your needs is an important step.

Even before you have your social media monitoring in place, any brand can benefit from working out a plan for what you will do with all this information you are going to gather. Dashboards and reports can be useful, but the ability to take actions or make decisions using this information is much more useful for any brand. What you do with your social media monitoring is as important, if not more important, than getting the monitoring in place in the first place.

Different brands will want to engage with the conversations they discover online in different ways. The following are three great ways for any brand to engage with these conversations. The first two are ways in which you can capitalise upon the outputs of your social media monitoring internally and the last one on how you can use it to engage externally. They all require you to connect with different teams and functions in your brand and may need internal process change to make a real difference.

1. Inform the language of your marketing and communications

Observing and analysing the way people talk about your brand, competitor brands and the market you are in more generally can be a real and valuable source of insight for marketing and communications teams. It lets you learn how people talk about you, the language they use and how they compare you to other competitors and substitutes in the market. By properly searching not just for brand terms but also the terms that people use in relation to them you can start to explore the language that people use. This has a number of benefits. You can use the language and keywords to refine and ammend your search strategy. You can use relevant language and expressions in your marketing and PR activities. And you can start to use the same language when you are engaging in social media.

This relies on you ensuring that different teams across your brand are connected to what your social media monitoring reveals. And probably more importantly that you set up the reporting and analysis to ensure you are looking not just at what is said, but more importantly at how you can change your own communications and language on the basis of this.

2. Predict market changes

One of the real benefits of social media monitoring is that it allows you to track over time the things that are discussed in relation to your brand and your market. By tracking what is discussed over time allows you to identify when more conversations about certain issues being to emerge. Imagine, for example, that you are a large chain of pizza restaurants. One of the the things you might monitor is references to pizza being bought in a supermarket or eaten from take-away restaurants. Your social media monitoring should be set to alert you when and unusually large number of conversations of one of these kinds are present in social media. What is causing people to talk more than is usual about a topic and what can you do about it.

This kind of trend spotting can be of huge value to any business but relies on you having the mechanisms to capitalise upon this knowledge. Usually this would be a good indicator for your insight or research teams, or a marketing function to explore the trends that appear to be emerging and to make sure you are putting plans in place for any changes it may be spotting early.

3. React and respond to mentions of your brand online

Finally, any brand should consider its process for reacting and responding to what people say abotu you online. Whilst the previous two activities are very internal, this is external and involves engaging directly with people in social media.

There are many ways in which people refer to and mention a given brand online. And in most instances there is typically no need to respond. You can just leave the mention and monitor it if you think relevant. We have written before about how to react if somebody writes about your brand online, and the process described here is a great starting point. The next step is to integrate this with your own internal processes and to change these to ensure conversations online are engaged with and responded to when relevant.

This touches heavily on the importance of sentiment analysis – often negative comments need to be responded to in one way and by one set of people, and positive comments in a different way by a different set of people. We’ve written before about the problem with automated sentiment analysis and the best advice is to make sure that you keep a level of human involvement and analysis to make sure you’re responding to the right things in the right ways.

Read the other posts from our social media monitoring review 2010 or download our final report

Facebook today announced new features to address the criticism that is has faced recently for its privacy settings and processes. In December 2009 and then again in April this year, the site made a number of changes to its privacy options and settings. In essence they opened up more data to users beyond your friends and immediate networks and changed some of the default settings. This led to the situation where users had 50 different settings and 170 options to control the levels of access to and sharing of the data and information on their profiles.

As somebody with quite strict levels of access and privacy on Facebook, I know the complexity of these controls and the amount of time and effort needed to control access to your profile and your content. Sites like Openbook, which searches publicly viewable status updates, highlighting the vast amount of content that is out there for everybody to see. In many cases this isn’t because people have actively chosen to share this information outside their friendship groups and networks, but a result of not changing or fully managing your privacy settings.

What Facebook’s privacy changes mean

Today’s announcements are designed to make it simpler for users to see what their Facebook privacy settings are, and to manage them. The changes, to be rolled-out over the coming weeks, will mean that users will be able to:

• have one simple control over who sees their content – everybody, friends-of-friends or just your own friends
• easily see what their profile looks like to others
• opt out of sharing their information with third-party applications
• opt out of sharing your friends and pages

How easy the process will be, and how much you will actually be able to change will be fully understood as the new privacy settings roll-out, and there are already discussions about the ‘Recommended’ settings shown by Facebook. These will suggest that users share with everybody their status, photos and posts, biographies, family and relationship information. This may be more than some are willing to do.

The real test: will people manage their brand online

However, the real test of the new privacy settings will be the extent to which users actually make use of the ability to edit what they share about themselves and the information they add to Facebook. The previous settings did not help people to make these decisions and changes and to take control of their brand on Facebook without a lot of hassle. The power of the new changes will be if they encourage people to take control of their brand online. This may not mean that everybody stops sharing things, but is more likely to see people making sensible decisions about what they share and why. And this can only be a good thing.

We use social media tools, such as Facebook, for different reasons. Maybe we use it to keep up to date with school-friends, or maybe as a personal organiser for our lives right now, or maybe we just document our holidays with photos. Different people use Facebook for different reasons and so a single approach to privacy settings is not appropriate. That is why it is good that Facebook lets users manage their own settings – we each own our own brand online and should make sensible decisions about how we interact with and share from any social media tool we use.

The real test of the new privacy settings on Facebook will not be how many people share more or less of their data. The real test will be how many people take control of their personal brand and make sensible, and often personal, decisions about what to share, with whom and in what circumstances.

For ten days every summer in the UK, more than 100,000 people gather in Hay, a small Welsh town on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park, for a festival of literature. Bill Clinton once described The Hay Festival as the “Woodstock of the Mind”. This year’s festival starts on 27th May, and, along with authors including Nadine Gordimer, Martin Amis and Phillip Pullman, the line-up includes a special place for Twitter. In fact a special prize for Twitter, as Stephen Fry will be awarding a prize for the most beautiful Tweet ever written.

As the festival’s founder and director, Peter Florence remarks:

The definition of most beautiful tweet could fall into a number of different categories: it could prove the most eloquent; the most impassioned; the best demonstration of a clever pun or metaphor; the most evocative description of a place or emotion, or perhaps prove that brevity is conducive to levity, and be the wittiest tweet ever committed to the Twittersphere

I’m not sure many of my Tweets (@mattrhodes) are eloquent or impassioned and I don’t often weave a clever pun or metaphor into them. But maybe now is time to start. I love the concept of the competition, but perhaps more I love that Twitter is being discussed and reviewed alongside more traditional understandings of the word ‘literature’. Too many people, often those who have never used it, think that Twitter is full of people saying such things as “I just ate a sandwich”. The truth is that most people are using Twitter to convey meaning, information, opinions and emotion. It is a new and growing communication medium which has spawned its own style of writing and expression. An award for the most beautiful Tweet ever written is exactly what we need.

How is the most beautiful Tweet being chosen?

Judging begins on Monday 21st May and nominations can be sent to the official festival Twitter account: @hayfestival. A shortlist will then be posted on the festival website and the winner announced on the 6 June.

So choose the Tweet you think most beautiful and send it the the judges now to see if it wins.

I have just typed “How do I” in Google today, and the fourth suggestion that it proposes is “…delete my Facebook account.”

There’s clearly some discontent out there. What’s the cause of these rumblings? Well, it was reported last week that there has been a significant review of security policy at Facebook HQ. Facebook user profiles are publicly accessible by default, and it seems that a growing number of commentators such as Jason Calacanis, chief executive of the question-and-answer website Malaho, are calling for a boycott of what is now a “not trustworthy” site.

And yet, this is against the backdrop that Facebook will shortly announce over 500 million users, and that’s 40% of everybody on the internet.

So, the dichotomy for businesses that have online security as a top priority, such as in the financial services or pharmaceutical industries for example, is how they should engage in social media when Facebook, the most popular of social media tools, is so open. And this question is always most loudly voiced in the Boardroom of the banks and insurers, where the decision-makers for a social media strategy will be immediate detractors because they consider the simple equation is “Social Media = Facebook”, and they can see no further!

The important resolve at the Boardroom must be that the social media strategies for banks and insurance companies should not focus upon social media tools. Instead, the message for the Boardroom is that the best uses of social media will demonstrate that it can yield amazing results without compromising security or the confidence of your customers. And to achieve this it can be better to think of more creative ways to engage people. We’ll be looking at some of these in the coming weeks.

Read all our posts about social media for financial services