FreshNetworks Blog

In a recent article titled “The people formerly known as the audience”, The Economist looked at how social media technologies have changed how we gather, filter and distribute news.

Jay Rosen, a professor of journalism at New York University, has termed this change “horizontal media”.

Thanks to the rise of social media, news is no longer gathered exclusively by reporters and turned into a story. Instead, it emerges from an ecosystem in which journalists, sources, readers and viewers exchange information.

Today it’s quick and easy for anyone to share links with large numbers of people via Facebook or Twitter and without the involvement of a traditional media organisation. In other words, people can collectively act as a broadcast network, sharing information in a horizontal way rather than top down from the traditional media organisation.

With this in mind it was interesting to see The Economist’s graphic about the traffic drivers to the main US news websites (see graphic above).

Typically around 20-30% of visitors to the websites of big news organisations still come from Google’s search engine or its news site, Google News. And while the proportion of visitors referred from Facebook is smaller, it’s growing quite quickly thanks to social sharing and the “Like” button becoming more commonplace and easier to use.

Josh Nieman of Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University believes that more and more news sites will see referrals from social networks exceed those from search engines:

“This year you’ll see more and more news sites where referrals from social networks exceed those from search engines…Facebook is beginning to join Google as one of the most influential players in driving news audiences.”

Some news sites already present visitors with a list of stories recommended by their friends because they realise an endorsement from ‘someone you know’ carries extra weight. And according to Liz Heron, social media editor at The New York Times, journalists are becoming more inclined to see blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other forms of social media as a valuable adjunct to traditional media – an important shift in attitude and one that journalists will need to adopt if they want to keep at the forefront of new developments.

It’s also interesting to see that Twitter is notably absent from these statistics. According to The Economist, surveys in both the US and here in the UK show that only 7-9% of the population use Twitter, compared with almost 50% for Facebook. But Twitter users are the “influencers”, argues Nic Newman, a former media executive at the BBC and a visiting fellow at the Reuters Institute at Oxford University. So the news itself is on Twitter even if the audience isn’t, given the reason why increasing numbers of journalists are cultivating both their profiles and followers on Twitter.

So while its not necessarily true that everyone is now a journalist, social media has created a culture of “horizontal media”, helping to ensure that more and more people are involved in creating and sharing news.

In the latest Technology Quarterly in this week’s edition of the Economist, there is an article about reviews online. This piece explores well why people read and trust reviews, and the value of both positive and negative reviews. John McAteer, Google’s retail industry director is quoted as saying:

No one trusts all positive reviews

For him you need some negative reviews as well as everybody knows that no product could per perfect. And this is certainly true. In fact, negative reviews can help people decide if a product might be for them, especially if they don’t associate themselves with the negative reviewer (“it wasn’t for them, but it might be for me”).

The article also looks at the value of having multiple reviews and cites a great experiment conducted by Bazaarvoice showing how products with more than ten reviews saw “drastically” higher conversion rate both for the products actually reviewed and for other products from the same brand.

So the value of reviews to brands and customers is clear. What is explored in less depth in the article is why people would write reviews in the first place. The example of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Amazon is cited, which has over 3,200 reviews. Why, the article asks, would people continue to write reviews? They quote Clay Shirky in response to this:

Mr Shirky suggests that in many cases, writing a review is more like writing fan mail (or hate mail) for a product, and the people who post them do not really expect it to be read.

I think this issue needs to be explored in more depth. There are a number of reasons people might write a review:

1. They are paid to do so (as per the recent case of Belkin hiring people to rate their products five star)
2. They are forced to do so in order to gain some other incentive (TopTable requires you to rate restaurants you have been to in order to gain points for their loyalty scheme)
3. They write reviews to increase their standing in a community (where, perhaps more reviews give them more credibility or access to more features in the online community)
4. They write reviews because they want to look good / impressive / intelligent amongst their peers
5. They write reviews because they had benefit from some and they want others to benefit in the same way from their advice
6. They write reviews because they have something to say

I am sure there are examples of all six out there – from people gaining financially or socially from the review, through people wanting to share their knowledge, to people just wanting to air their opinion (whether or not people read). But, I suspect people write reviews more for the reasons at the bottom of the list than at the top. And it is certain that the reasons nearer the bottom of the list lead to more genuine reviews.

Why do people write reviews? Well most likely because they are given the opportunity to voice their opinion. They want want to help others or may just have something to say. But once we give them the chance of doing so they will. That’s one of the real benefits of social media. It encourages us all to share our thoughts and opinions and then gives us other tools so we can sort these and only the most interesting or relevant rise to the top. Give people the chance to write a review and many will do just for the chance to air their views. Show the benefit they can get from reviews and even more will write their own. Allow voting on reviews or promotion of good reviews and you will get a higher quality of comments in return.

In social media people model behaviour. They want to express themselves and if you give them the tools and permission to do so, and you show them how to express themselves then they will do. You really don’t need to pay or incentivise them, in fact this can generate a lot of much lower quality reviews. What you do need to do is understand your customers, why they might want to review and how. Then offer them the ability to do what they want to do anyway.

Reviews are useful. They increase conversion, time spent on site and have a positive halo effect for other, associated, products. And people want to write the reviews in the first place. You just need to get the social architecture right so they feel they can.

Subscribe to updates from the FreshNetworks Blog

Some more reading

• Do You Trust User Reviews on the Web? (technologizer.com)
• Belkin Responds to Fake User Review Charges (technologizer.com)

The Economist Debate Series is in full swing. The latest debate is centred on the proposition that “The competitiveness of today’s rich countries is in permanent decline”. The rules are familiar to anybody who’s seen debates before. Somebody is arguing for the proposition and somebody against. And those viewing the debate can vote. But this Economist debate is online.

The online debate series uses a simple online community functionality:

• the debate has a moderator and a individual commentators or experts who are for and against the motion. Their arguments are put to the debate when the community is launched
• individual readers can access the community site, read the arguments and vote for or against the motion. They are asked to post their comments and reasons with their vote
• the experts return twice more – each time a few days apart. They respond to the other expert’s comments and to the comments of the community members who have voted
• community members can change their vote during the period of the debate, either because their opinions change or develop, or because they are convinced by the developing arguments
• the debate closes after ten days and the winner announced

I love these Economist debates. They are a great example of one of the real benefits of online communities – they allow real and true reflection on your opinions. Rather than just getting to vote once, or getting just a couple of hours to consider a complex issue, people get ten days and can read arguments multiple times. They get to comment and have their comments responded to. They are entering into a real and reasoned exchange.

We find in our online research communities that people give better depth of response and more reasoned reactions when they have time to think about and consider issues, and to read and re-read any inputs or arguments. The Economist debates allow this and I think reading through the comments from community members that you can really see the benefit that comes from this time and reasoned comment.

Overall this kind of online debate programme probably generates more reasoned comment than its offline counterpart. As such it is a great example of where online communities can enhance the previous offline experience.

Some more reading

• The Economist’s Oxford 2.0 Debates
• The Economist’s Open Online Debate on Education & Technology

I used to live in France experienced first-hand the frequency at which some parts of the economy would go on strike; and now living in London I get to experience the frustration when the Underground is closed due to strikes. An article in this week’s Econmist shows how employees and trade unions are building communities online to campaign against businesses there rather than in the real world. The outcomes of these actions, however, are very much real world.

The technology to build communities and momentum online has come at the same time that workers are starting to favour short, sharp walk-outs (typically less than a day so there is minimal impact on the consumer and on the worker’s wages). The problem is that these short walk-outs don’t have the ongoing impacts that the six-month walkouts of old would have had. So workers are going online.

An interesting example of sustained campaigning online is the blog ‘On redoute La Redoute‘ (we fear La Redoute – a French store chain). The blog is used to inform workers about potential store closures, to get store workers across France to join and network with each other – to test campaigns that would work and to get feedback from workers.

This blog represents an active community, and whether you believe or not with the politics, it shows some of the benefits of a successful online community. The ability to get members together, sharing ideas, contributing to cocreation or innovation, building advocacy for the cause and as a source of insight for those running the community. These are core to any successful online community, whatever it’s being used for, and core to our work at FreshNetworks.

A further example given in the article shows what such online communities can acheive. Workers campaigned against an IBM pay-deal by protesting their property in Second Life. The campaign was a success both in a resolved pay deal but also as it was awarded a top award at the Forum Netxplorateur, a conference held in Paris in February. A real success for online community activities!