iMediaWorksConnect by @iMediaMichelle

Why Do You Use Twitter? Part 3 - Relationships

At last we come to what I now consider one of the most important drivers behind Why Do I Twitter series - Reason #3.

(3) Relationships

Most people I talk to about social media seem surprised that I have “real friends” on Twitter:  The idea that I’ve cultivated meaningful personal and professional relationships through social media channels still feels very alien to most.  “How can that be?”, they ask.  “You don’t really know who these people are, do you?”  My reaction: Um, wasn’t that the original idea to begin with – to get to know people slowly by interacting on a day to weekly basis?  For a select group of other people I know, having several hundred Facebook Friends or 400+ LinkedIn Connections is no big deal, but thousands of Twitter Followers seems hard to understand since the average person is not regularly keeping up with a crowd this size.

When I was an undergrad student at UVa, I actually took a class on the subject of Friendship [believe it or not] as part of my psychology major.  During our study, we learned about a theory on the cognitive limits of friendship called Dunbar’s Number.  According to British anthropologist Robert Dunbar, there is a neocortical processing limit we each have that dictates the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained.  It lies between 100 and 230, but a commonly used value is 150.  In our study, we learned how one’s friends are divided according to various degrees of friendship – there are those who are friends throughout life and there are many more who are “friends of the road” – these are the individuals who come into your life at a certain stage and are with you for a defined purpose and time period.  Both types of friends are important to have but are cultivated in completely different ways.  I see this same framework applying to relationships on Twitter – no matter how small or large your following is if you want to cultivate and curate relationships – you have to WORK at it.  Over the past year, I’ve observed and started to practice much of the following:

(a) Being a Human, Not a Robot – if you want to make real friends and not come off as a robot broadcaster, then you need to humanize your tweets.  Instead of just ReTweeting others, take time to say hello or ask how they are doing with an @reply.  A heartfelt congratulation also goes a long way.  I’ve noticed more tweets wishing Happy Birthday, Condolences and prayer requests being asked and responded to from the folks I follow.  Earlier this year, @zenaweist tweeted about her dad’s illness and saying good bye to him in the hospital – I know she felt true support from her Twitter community.

(b) Becoming a Regular – like the neighborhood pub, those who show up consistently often trade personal greetings with one another.  For the last year, I’ve regularly attended several tweetchats and a few live podcasts.  These are now marked with hello, glad to see you again types of tweetouts.  I also tweet out “missing you” or “wish you were here” greetings to regulars who are not able to join.  Again, this helps build purposeful relationships, not just a faceless following.

(c) Connecting Offline – seek your Twitter followers in the offline world when you can.  Take advantage of conferences and meetups to connect and catch up face to face – it will greatly enrich your relationships.  Ask one of your Twitter connections to meet you for coffee or lunch.  In the past year, I have had several one-on-one in real life (IRL) get togethers with great folks like @virginiasuliman @jeffpulver @armano @applegirl @seanmcginnis and @VSDieguez.  Watch for Tweetups happening in your city.  Can’t find any?  Then organize one yourself :)

So, there you have it, the 3 Reasons I Twitter: Opinion, Reputation and Relationships.  Many thanks to Mat Orrego for being the inspiration catalyst of this blog series.

Why Do You Use Twitter? Part 2 - Reputation

In my previous post, I began discussing one of the main reasons behind my steadily growing use of Twitter.  Since publishing my views on the subject I had several encounters with various “opinionaters” that I want to address before moving on with my Why Do I Twitter Reason #2.

Let me start by saying that I feel it’s extremely important for all of us to be able to honestly share and express views and opinions and debate them objectively with one another.  I think a Twitterverse filled with just a bunch of RTs and Amens would be a very boring one indeed.  So, I do welcome the skeptics, the devils advocates and anyone else who can offer an interesting and substantive other side of the coin view to mix up the conversation and keep us all thinking on our toes.

Unfortunately, there are more than a few individuals who just like to lob cannon balls into the discussion that offer no constructive challenge.  Instead of either asking for clarification, or stating they think there might be another side to things – they emphatically poop on others tweets without listening and understanding before speaking.  My favorite example of this Twitter violation is when people lob tweets about event hashtags that they say make no sense – even when their organization is affiliated with them.  This is especially blatant when they use commentary hashtags to further accentuate their elevated and elitist opinion about a group of Tweeters they have not taken time to hear and get to know.  My rule of thumb: If you don’t know, ask; If you don’t agree, offer a helpful, constructive point of view.  Bashing just makes you look small.  Okay, now on with the main subject of this post…

(2) Reputation

There have been scores of articles, presentations, discussions on the power of personal branding – essentially building and amplifying your reputation online.  I definitely believe that curating contributes significantly to reputation – after all, you are who you hang your hat with, right?  A few ways curating reputation on Twitter happens:

(a) The Crowd You Keep – who you chose to follow, which ones you decide to list and retweet, link to their blogs or sites and #followfriday all say something about you.  For example, I just started reading the Influencers Daily, a Twitter Newspaper of “Star Analysts” created by Ray Wang (rwang0) – this Twitterzine is filled with solid content and opinions from seasoned and well respected social veterans.  Creating this resource tells me that Ray keep a sharp eye on the industry and values critical thinking.

(b) The Subject You Master – what are you known for - great insights on enterprise 2.0, search marketing, scrapbooking?  Whatever your passion, take the time to pull the best of the best and add your own analysis to the dialog.  Don’t be afraid to have a professional side as well as a personal one.  Some Tweeps that I feel do an excellent job with this are: @pfasano @spunstephanie @iainbluett @thomasls @eric_anderson

(c) The Help You Offer – are you someone who answers questions, responds to others requests for help, promotes others causes and initiatives?  Paying it Forward is something we should all strive to be part of our reputation. @jeffpulver is a rockstar here.

Are there other areas that I missed?  Drop me a comment and let me know how you build reputation.  Stay tuned for Part 3 – Relationships next week.

Why Do You Use Twitter? Part 1 - Opinion

A few weeks ago I attended The Beat Live, a unique and highly interactive forum for travel industry executives to discuss and debate marketplace trends, here in Chicago.  Throughout the event, there was great discourse on when, where and how social media should be made part of the travel space.  While perspectives differed across participants, the general consensus was that social is a channel we can no longer afford to ignore.  But for many, the reasons behind social media’s seemingly meteoric rise in our society are still a mystery, especially amongst professional users.

During one of my conversations, someone asked, “Why do you use Twitter?”  Content curation was my initial reply which quickly led to the follow-up question: “What are you curating – opinions, reputation or relationships?”  This question gave me pause and I started to smile.  Interesting, I thought, what is really behind the tweets and links we share via Twitter and other social networks?

For starters, let me clarify what I mean by “content curation”.  According to Dictionary.com the term “curator” refers to a person in charge of a museum or art collection – in other words, a person responsible for finding, selecting and sharing the best of the best from a collection of treasured works with a larger audience who might not otherwise have the opportunity to access them.  I see this act of “curation” a natural extension within the social media world, especially Twitter.  Now, back to a few of the reasons I see behind some of the great “content curators” I’ve come to know and admire.  The first being - opinion.

One simple motive behind all the tweets, re-tweets, status updates, likes, favorites and blog posts – people want to share what they think.  Over time, a trust starts to develop between sharers and their audience, which requires an editorial mindset to sustain in my opinion.  There is no shortage of opinions being shared online, so how does one tap into their breadth while ensuring quality and credibility are maintained at the same time?

Seek out those who are talking on the subjects you care most about and read their LinkedIn bios, blog posts, podcasts and participate in their TweetChats – are they consistently delivering substantive insights and commentary?  Leave a comment or reply – can they engage in a healthy and respectful debate?  Eventually, you’ll glean the ones who have depth, experience and knowledge and consistently show up with something new to bring to the conversation.  Some great Tweeps in this category are @AaronStrout @jasonbreed @Marc_Meyer @armano @JohnAByrne @AmberCadabra @adamcohen @thebrandbuilder @peterkim just to name a few.

I also think it’s critically important to search out views that are different than your own.  The art of curation really starts to kick in when you can weed through converse opinions and extract out a solid takeaway that challenges your own personal thinking.  Following others who operate from a different vantage point than your own is key to learning best practices and developing new strategies.  I tend to seek and follow people who are in different roles and industries than my own, which can be incredibly helpful in challenging the status quo.  Another fine collection of folks that come to mind from my Twitter list include @jsandford @mikemost @jkarpf @cbarger @chimoose @zenaweist @scottmonty @elhoust @brightmatrix @techguerilla and many others.

What do you think?  Are the people you follow and connect with online curating opinions which are helping you become better at who you are and what you do?

This is the first of a three-part series.  Stay tuned for Part 2 – Reputation.

How Do You Define Mobile?

For most people “mobile” has traditionally = cell phone = talking.  But in the last two years the mobile landscape has changed dramatically, especially in the U.S. with the debut of the iPhone, Apple App Store and now Kindle, iPad and other similar tablet devices.  Mobile is quickly becoming about information access, either through the mobile web or stand-alone applications you can download and store on your device de jour.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project and The Nielsen Company released a joint report last week, “The Rise of Apps Culture”, which illustrates just how fast and how prolific the voice to data consumption change has occurred.  According to Pew’s estimates, of the 82% of adults today who are cell phone users, 43% have software applications or “apps” on their phones. When taken as a portion of the entire U.S. adult population, that equates to 35% who have cell phones with apps.  While usage of apps is still maturing and the propensity to download and maintain applications is high – the average adult has 18 applications on their phone, with younger adults typically having a much higher number of apps on their smart phone.  According to Nielsen, gaming, news/weather and maps categories currently top the most popular downloads list.

Is the consumer’s mobile app addiction just a fad, or will this behavior start to define new standards for the user experience?  My three predictions:

(1) Apps Are the New WWW

Just like the websites of the late 1990s, consumers will soon expect apps to stop being basic “brochureware” and become more interactive and useful.  For an app to become sticky, it will have to enable the consumer to perform functions that are core to their daily lives.  In the travel industry, capabilities such as mobile booking, check-in, rebooking and upgrades will quickly become the new standards.

(2) No One Is An Island

With thousands of apps available and limited screen space, users will soon quickly discard those that perform only a single niche function.  Instead, they’ll be looking for branded apps that integrate well with other applications in their mobile toolkit.  For example, I might be using my airline app and shown a weekend fare deal that I want to save and come back to later when I have more time.  A great option would be for me to be able to tag the deal with some keywords and then add it to my Evernote, which is another app I use for maintaining my overall to do list.  Perhaps it would also link to a travel guide book for that destination the next time I open my iBook reader on my iPad.

(3) The 4^th Screen Becomes Intuitive

I’ve talked a lot about apps, but that doesn’t mean that the Mobile Web will be ignored.  In fact, I think the app culture can help improve the mobile web browsing experience.  One way I see this happening is through Mobile Web Landing Pages becoming true Portal Pages.  Mobile is all about where you contextually are in the moment – place, time of day, season, surroundings, etc.  So why not have mobile web landing pages that read all of those aspects and deliver a true contextual experience?  Imagine being at the Starbucks at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport and seeing an airline’s mobile web landing page that shows you pictures of their lounge, map of the concourse you are on, targeted ancillary and other retail offers, tweets and status updates from other passengers nearby and quick links to customer service if you need it (it knows you already went through security in Terminal 3 and are waiting to board your flight).  Conversely, if it’s Wednesday a few weeks before a holiday and I’m working at a Starbucks while on a business trip, the airline’s mobile web landing page would display inspirational destination content based on the recommendations of my social network, a Starbucks coupon, targeted ancillary and other upgrade offers for the return trip home and a mileage calculator showing how close I am to my next free trip.

There are lots of opportunities for brands to engage their customer through mobile - it will be interesting to see which devices will dominate next: smart phones or tablets?  What are your predictions?

What Foursquare Could Be When It Grows Up

With over a million users and growing, Foursquare has quickly become one of the new darlings of the social media stage.  The allure of mayorship and offbeat merit badges initially provided user stickiness; however for some consumers those novelties may be wearing thin (several valid reasons listed here in a recent post by friend and industry colleague, Jeff Hilimire).  Local businesses and larger brands such as Starbucks have jumped on board hoping to build greater one-to-one connection with its user base.  But, are leader boards and status-driven coupons incentives enough to sustain or even scale location-based social networking and truly impact customer inspiration, acquisition and loyalty long-term?

Given the continued adoption of smart phones and other mobile devices, maturing geo-location and augmented reality capabilities and the dawn of 4G, I think location-based social networking and subsequent location-based marketing are inevitable.  In today’s social web, entertainment may get you noticed, but its proven utility that sticks.  Thus, Foursquare needs to raise their utility game in order to succeed with both consumers and brands in the coming year:

3 Ways to Create Stickier Users

1. More Insider Tips – Since moving to Chicago, Foursquare has become an even richer discovery tool for me, beyond just keeping up with old and new friends.  It’s nice to see where people are going, but it’s even better to understand why they go and in some cases keep coming back.  Having that extra insight, from a local’s perspective is a real treasure to an out-of-towner or newbie on the local scene.  Currently, the inside tips are hit and miss for the locations that I’ve checked into or seen others visit.  Giveback is so important – I’d like to see a quality inside tip submission required for users attaining mayor status.

2. More Meaningful Badges – You never know which check-in will unlock a new Foursquare badge.  While the surprise of a new badge can be fun, that too starts to fade quickly without purpose and deeper meaning.  I think there are some great opportunities to evolve this feature within location-based networking and achieve more of a two-way street between the user and the location such as:

• unlocking a new set of privileges and experiences that non-badge earners do not have access to (how can I move up in the Foursquare world?)
• collecting and applying a collection of badges towards a bigger ticket reward
• earning multiple affinity-based badges along a particular area of interest (culinary, wine, theatre, etc)
• enabling the location to earn specific badges too based on the numbers, types, time of day, day of week users check-in and the inside tips they leave (Yelpitize or Zagatize the locations so to speak)

3. More Filtering Options – As the amount of check-ins and tips grow, users will require more options for searching and sorting out locations beyond a general or favorite list of places and friends nearby or other cities choices today.  How about being able to find places nearby that are pet-friendly, an entrepreneur zone or good for 1-2 person meetings?  Give me the ability to filter places and/or friends by category, user rating or badges.

3 Ways to Create Stickier Brands

1. Richer User Profiles – In order to provide even more contextually relevant content and rewards, brand must know more about the users than what Foursquare currently requires.  More meaningful badges will help, but also acquire info on the users through graduated use (after a certain number of badges achieved, offer to show other hidden or previously undisclosed locations).  Of course, the user would always retain the option to keep details of their profile information hidden from public display.

2.  White Label Application – Location-based platforms offer a rich environment for loyalty member program activation.  Some programs could be offered within the larger public location-based space and others could take place in private versions that only members of specific loyalty programs can access.  This allows the brand to create more visibility and personality within a closed, protected environment.

3. Talk Back Live – Currently, Foursquare users can shout out to their friends and locations through check-in, but brands do not have a reciprocal way of talking back to their fan base except through special offers.  One way to address this would be for Foursquare to send an auto Direct Message (DM) notification to the location’s Twitter or Facebook persona of users who check-in and check-out, leave comments, etc.  This would give brands a means to say thank you, ask questions and interact with the person who just patronized their business.  It would be the breadcrumb for the brand to follow-up and invite the user to begin a dialogue and ultimately a relationship.

Foursquare and its other location based networks offer unique opportunities to improve and enhance brand and customer relationships. Time will tell whether those relationships take place here, or within larger community platforms like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.  Guess we’ll have to keep checking in to find out J

The Journey to Social Business: Lessons from the Trenches

For the past five years, media and marketers alike have been star struck by the rise of macro social community platforms such as MySpace, YouTube, Second Life, Facebook, Twitter and now FourSquare and Gowalla.  But to focus solely on the individual platforms misses the bigger cultural transformation taking place thanks to the real-time mobile Web.  We now need to shift the conversation to understanding the new business models that will result from a social business driven marketplace.

 

Yesterday, I kicked off my South by Southwest Interactive (#SXSWi) week by spending the day with corporate pioneers, leading practitioners and industry thought leaders at the Social Business Summit 2010 (#SBS2010), hosted by The Dachis Group.  Jeff Dachis, Peter Kim and team did a superb job of assembling a wide variety of perspectives on key topics such as: open leadership, operationalization, cultural change, integration, user experience and business metrics.  The presentations contained rich insights for approaching and adopting a healthy internal as well as external social ecosystem.  Summarizing the takeaways was no small task – thanks to Liz Philips (@iizliz) for helping me walk through my notes and #SBS2010 tweetstream in order to pull out a few key takeaways below:

 

PASSION

(@samdecker) Sam Decker – Create customer oxygen by building a continual chain of participation inside and outside the organization – a little peacocking and woodpecking goes a LONG way.

(@jahagel) John Hagel – Go to the edges of your organization to find passion and less predictability – the best way to create new knowledge is with a little friction.

(@karenmcgrane) Karen McGrane – Find out your users’ deep down motivation for using social media and help them jump the chasm by keeping things simple.

PEOPLE

(@rushkoff) Doug Rushkoff – The pendulum is swinging back to a peer to peer economy, where people are at the center – create a culture of expertise.

(@katenieder) Kate Niederhoffer - We all say we want to be social but then we go back to our desks and don’t talk to anyone - need to make people aware of their anti-social behavior; too easy to talk the talk.

(@jackiehuba) Jackie Huba – the 1%ers are your best friends – make sure you find them, give them something to join and let them help you refine and improve along the way.

(@ttaxchristine) Christine Morrison – your customers are your best advocates - activate the community to connect with their friends and find meaningful product reviews

(@leebryant) Lee Bryant – Foster a culture of getting things done together; sharing must be a by product of an individual’s everyday work.

 

OPENESS

(@charleneli) Charlene Li – Change mindset - letting go will yield more results. Start with the organization’s goals, and then pick an area where social can have real impact.

(@jpunishill) Jamie Punishill - Stop social media control freaks with process overload. Everybody understands the need to be open and organic eventually.

 

SERENDIPITY

(@dhinchcliffe) Dion Hinchcliffe – Unintended consequences of sharing can lead to interesting and often better results.

(@monstro) Lane Becker – Less hierarchy, more improvisation is needed in the organization.  Product development moves from the waterfall to the washing machine.

 

INTEGRATION

(@comcastcares) Frank Eliason – Don’t lose sight that there is a customer who needs help and that customer doesn’t just live in Twitter; forums, blogs and message boards count too.

(@KFC_Colonel) Rick Maynard – Make social media part of all marketing plans with a major focus on building know-how across the organization.

 

3 Lessons from the Corporate Trenches:

1. Evangelize Constantly – Don’t underestimate the time you need to spend on this (at least 25%).  Speak in terms your management will understand (think P&L) and continuously share snapshots of success at every aspect of the business.

2. Establish Command, Not Control – Every group has to staff, no one person or group can do it alone.  But also expect to do everyone else’s job (at least in the beginning) until your fellow colleagues get up to speed.  Lift existing processes, make a social version of them and keep updating the manual.

3. Don’t Be Afraid to Fail – Build in the capability to recover when failure appears.  Go to the places where your customers are online, apologize and follow-up to resolve the issue. 

 

If you’re looking for the perfect moment or place to jump into social, you’ll never find it.  Social business is a journey, not a race.  Get started now or you’ll miss where your customers, partners and competition are already going.

 

For additional insights and links to presentation content, check out Adam Cohen’s (@adamcohen) #SBS2010 archive tweetstream here http://bit.ly/ccYqHN

Has Your Social Media Turned the Corner?

Social media adoption continues its meteoric rise not just with individuals, but also with brands.  Last year, over 300 of the Fortune 500 joined either Facebook and/or Twitter.  While 2009 was the year of Facebook Fan Page friending campaigns and Twitter following contests, for a few it was the beginning of their transformation towards social business

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Social business is the permeation of social culture and technologies throughout the corporate enterprise that lead to an open, intuitive and integrated means of conducting and transacting business in the marketplace.  It is in this unique environment that we experience the core aspects of a company: the brand, the products/services, the customer service and the loyalty in an entirely new way.

 

 

Brand 2.0: Rather than flat, 2-dimensional transmissions of messaging, brand experiences become 3-dimensional, real-time exchanges amongst employees, brand advocates, consumers and partners.  The brand emerges as a tribal identity that is lived out and shared with others.  Community feedback and ideas are the norm, not the exception.  A great example of this shift in thinking is Ford Motor Company’s Brand 2.0 approach to introducing the new Ford Fiesta to the U.S.  Phase 1 of the Ford Fiesta Movement generated more than 6.2 million YouTube views, more than 750,000 Flickr views and nearly 4 million Twitter impressions according to their blog.  The Fiesta Movement also set a Guinness World Record for the most attendees at a tweetup by bringing together 1,149 Fiesta Movement agents and Twitter friends.

 

Product 2.0: Consumers are seeking products and services that are tailored to fit their personal needs.  The social web offers tremendous opportunities for sourcing product/service ideas directly from customers.  Several brands have started to realize the benefits of this Product 2.0 approach such as Starbucks My Idea community, which attracted 70,000 submissions from consumers in its first year of inception and Virgin America’s Twitter call for suggestions on how to best stock their in flight bar.  Going further, brands will have tremendous opportunities to leverage contextuality of the marketplace to deliver adaptive product and service offerings that satisfy real-time need states and desires.  More on this in upcoming blog posts.

 

Customer Service 2.0: It goes without saying that customer service is the brand.  However, the adage it takes a “village to raise a child” can now be applied to the world of Customer Service 2.0.  Call centers, public relations, sales, marketing along with a corporation’s key strategic partners should all be wearing the customer service jersey through social channels.  Brands such as Best Buy’s Twelpforce, ComcastCares, UPS, JetBlue and many others have successfully demonstrated the value in taking an integrated team approach to capturing, acknowledging and responding to customer inquiries on Twitter.  But the employees alone are not enough – consumers now are active, rather than passive participants in customer service.  In the coming Social Business age, consumers will continue to help one another and collaborate with brands to pass on critical alerts and resolve breaking service issues.

 

Loyalty 2.0: Loyalty in the Social Business world will be rewarded more on overall contribution to the brand ecosystem, than just product usage.  In the travel industry, traditionally loyalty programs have been based on the number of miles/segments or stays a traveler makes.  But what about the consumer who stays “off the road”, but still shares valuable information with his/her fellow members and provides insightful, constructive feedback to help employees and staff?  In the Loyalty 2.0 world, an individual’s status would also be influenced by the community’s perception of the value that individual contributes.  I think there is a huge opportunity to activate this through location-based networks and applications.  It will be interesting to see which brands begin to make moves in this area.

 

For social media to evolve into social business, brands will need to stop viewing it as the shiny new object, something to be treated as an afterthought or experimental portion of their company.  Rather, it must become the central part of a company’s DNA – where brand, product, customer service and loyalty are born and nurtured within the larger social community.

This week I am attending the Dachis Group’s Social Business Summit in Austin, Texas, where leading thinkers on social business design are coming together to explore the external and internal drivers on customer engagement, workforce collaboration, and business partner optimization required for brands to succeed in this journey.  I’ll be posting highlights and welcome your comments on this blog and via Twitter.  Join in the conversation with us at #SBS2010.

Brands: Unlock Your Social Reach

Recently the CMO Club reported nearly two-thirds of chief marketing officers plan to increase their spending on social media marketing next year.  Their research found that more than eight in 10 respondents (81%) expect to link up to 10% of their annual revenues to social media investment next year.  That’s no small bet.

Despite this deliberate shift in media spending, many of these CMOs are unsure about their return from marketing on social networking Web sites.  TV, radio and print have all enjoyed the confidence and repeat investment by brand marketers for over half a century.  Yet there is still a pervasive perception that social media is not as legitimate or proven to garner the same level of consumer eyeballs and interest around a particular brand.  Given that the population of social networks like Facebook and Twitter are exploding, this comparison hardly seems fair.

In fact, the influence of the Social Web is quickly maturing and we’re now starting to see its direct impact on actual consumer purchase behaviors across the purchase funnel:

Most telling is the correlation between consumer social media exposure and their online shopping behaviors.  Social media is a bona fide traffic driver to brand websites.  With the expected growth of smart phone adoption and the mobile web usage, that linkage is certain to become even stronger.

Social media influence clearly matters, but how much of it is out there?

According to Facebook, the average user has 130 friends.  For Twitter, the average account has 40 followers.  While these figures may not translate into exact uniques, they do start to convey the potential reach and power of Facebook page and Twitter account audiences.  And for some Fortune 500 brands, their combined potential Facebook and Twitter reach are starting to rival some of the most popular television properties:

• 15 F500 brands have a potential social reach that exceeds a single episode of American Idol (29.5M),
• Another 2 F500s have more potential reach than an evening of NBC Sunday Night Football (20M),
• Another 5 have more than Glee (8.17M),
• And an additional 22 beat an hour of The Daily Show (2M)

Check out the Fortune 500 brands in the Social Power Top 50 for combined social reach:

 

Imagine being able to tap into these potential audience levels all day long, instead of just a 30-60 minute time block one night or one day per week.  While lots of large brands may have captured the initial interest of social consumers to “tune in” via channels such as Facebook, and Twitter, few have taken steps to capitalize on it:

Few are Part of the Real-time Conversation

For the average Fortune 500, barely a quarter of the brand share of voice directly comes from real-time status updates, which are quickly becoming a part of consumer’s daily routines.  Photo and blog posts still eclipse Twitter updates as primary sources of brand social mentions.

Some are Not Connecting Frequently with Fans

The average Facebook Fan audience for an F500 company is 75,000; for Twitter it’s almost 13,000.  Taking into account the reach factor of both channels, the potential combined social reach for an average F500 brand exceeds 10 million.  Amazingly, 43% of F500 Facebook Fan Pages and 41% of Twitter Accounts have remained inactive for more than six months.

Most are Not Integrating their Social Presence

Only 9% of Fortune500 brands feature any part of their social media presence on their website Home Pages.  Amongst those who do, typically only one social media channel is highlighted.  When it comes to cross-pollination of key social media channels within one another, the pattern is only marginally better at 12%.

Time to Unlock Your Social Reach

Still believe you shouldn’t get engaged on social channels until you have the perfect strategy?  Watch out…if you don’t start tapping into your brand’s social audience, someone else eventually will.  Here are three simple steps you can take to begin unlocking the power of your social reach to engage and potentially influence your consumers:

1. Stop Playing Hide and Seek - Make it easy for fans to find you.  If your brand already has a Fan page, then openly join, talk to the creators, start participating in the existing conversations and add a visible callout above the page fold of your Home Page, About Us and Contact Us pages.  Don't limit cross-pollination to just your blog page; include visible references to all of your key social channels within your YouTube profiles, Facebook Fan Page tabs and Twitter Account backgrounds.
   
2. Inspire the Crowd - Offer people something meaningful to do with their time.  Invite followers to help shape decisions on corporate philanthropic efforts.  Educate and entertain the crowd with demonstrations unique to your product or service.  Challenge fans to come up with their most innovative uses of your product.  Share some little known brand history or solicit past memories through brand nostalgia with classic tv spots, radio jingles, famous billboards or other memorabilia.
3. Feature the Best of the Best - Curate and promote valuable content.  Aggregate and feature the best consumer-generated "how to" videos out there for your product within your YouTube Channel.  Create Twitxpert lists of subject matter experts and known insiders within your industry field and tweet your favorites of the week.  Run Facebook Polls ala Digg style to uncover interesting bloggers and others posting content around relevant hot topics of interest to your fans and feature the results on your the Landing Tab of your Fan Page.
   

Superbowl season is fast approaching and with it a blitz of high-powered media for one of the single largest consumer audiences worldwide.  But with the potential social reach power of Facebook and Twitter, many brands may already have a superbowl size crowd just a click away.  No matter what you choose to do in these channels, maintain your human side.  Your customers and fans will thank you for it.

Research Note:  The Fortune 500 data cited in the above post was collected in 2Q2009 and represents the largest Facebook Fan Page and Twitter Account per brand on the individual day of collection.

RESEARCH: The Social Media Habits of the Fortune 500

We’re on the verge of 2010.  A decade ago the World Wide Web was starting to catch on within our society and soon after brand marketers claimed they “just needed a website”.  The rules of Web 1.0 boasted by self-proclaimed experts were straight forward and simple – “build it and they will come”.  Well, for those of us who were rolling up our sleeves and getting our hands dirty with global content management systems and complex e-commerce integrations, that mantra quickly proved to be false.  Websites needed dynamic content and specific calls to action.  They also required intuitive search to drive traffic and smart interactive design and editorial programming to attract users and keep them engaged on sites.

Now ten years later, social media is on a similar rise, with most brands “just needing a Facebook Fan Page and a Twitter Account”, believing their fans “will just come”.  But instead of a single digital domain that brands absolutely control, the Web has evolved into a multi-dimensional conversation with scores of voices and influence that brands no longer dictate.  The digital world is now run by everyday individuals, many of whom not only have access to, but actually have a direct hand in creating the innovative tools and rich content that are shaping the Integrated Social Web.  Hmmm…I’m starting to hear those familiar Twilight Zone sounds, are you?

Social media is the next frontier brands are aspiring to master and master it they should.  We are already starting to see that good social media habits matter in 21^st century marketing along several areas:

• Customer Satisfaction - consumers are increasingly using social channels such as Blogs, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter to express their satisfaction levels with specific brands and seek problem resolution. (Airlines in particular are learning this; some are excelling and others are learning lessons the hard way)
• Cost Savings - consumers freely share tips, best practices and other product and service how-tos with one another, helping to reduce strain on customer call centers as well as resources needed to create and maintain self-help content
• Direct Sales - consumers are proactively seeking out new channels within social to research, shop and purchase discounted goods and services. (Dell has demonstrated the power of social shopping with sales through its Dell Direct Twitter Account)
• Revenue Generation - unique social campaigns that become viral are sparking branded searches that help drive users to a brand's social as well as Web sales channels
• Brand Love - as social media increasingly becomes part of the mainstream, more consumers are relying on a brand's participation within social media to serve as a benchmark for its personal credibility and immediate relevancy (see my previous post, JCrew, Whoops: Your Personal Shopper is Socially MIA)
  

Earlier this summer, I became increasingly curious about how large brands are utilizing the Social Web and the audiences they attract through their key channels.  Were there thriving communities or desolate graveyards in the F500 social landscape?  Were F500 brands and their agencies learning anything, or just repeating the same patterns from Web 1.0?  To answer these and hundreds of other questions, I began an independent study on the Social Media Habits of the Fortune 500.  My research examines eight social media habit dimensions, within eight key social media channels, across sixteen industry segments.  Some interesting highlights so far on the F500:

• Over 6 million people are engaging F500 brands in key social media channels
• LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter are the most prevalent channels amongst F500 brands
• YouTube, iPhone applications and Podcasts are the most heavily used to promote product usage and sales
• Over one third of F500 key social media channels have been inactive for over six months
• Facebook Fan Pages drive 77% of the Fortune 500 audience within their key social media channels
• Photos and blogs are primary channel sources for brand mentions for 59% of the F500
• Facebook Groups are the largest source of negative branding for F500 brands
• Only 18% of the F500 are integrating their key social media channels
  

You can view more of my initial summary observations via my SlideShare Presentation.  Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing additional snippets of the benchmark data, along with my and industry peer’s analyses on the implications for brands on their road to social.  Stay tuned for upcoming segments on specific industries, channels and habit best practices – as always, your comments and questions are welcome.  For my readers, a little poll to kick off the discussion – which industry, do you expect to have the “best” social media habits and why?  Please tag your posts/tweets with #getsocial.

Tempurpedic’s Approach to Social is Right On Target

Normally I tend to ignore television commercials, but recently one by Tempurpedic Mattress caught my attention.  The ad features real customers discussing their Tempurpedic sleeping experience and invites consumers to use social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as part of their own bed shopping research activities.

Instead of the usual “Come to our Facebook Page” or “Follow Us on Twitter” calls to action in the video, Tempurpedic demonstrates that they understand the true power of the social web to connect and engage one another through Trusted Agents (ala Chris Brogan) to gain information, be entertained and share life experiences.  Hopefully we’ll see more of this attitude and approach in campaigns to come.