Facebook updated their guide to Insights not so long ago. It’s a very useful guide and a must read for any page administrators. Understanding how your Facebook marketing is performing (and not just how many new fans you have) is essential for success.After all wouldn’t you like to know what your fans enjoy about your page?
The Facebook Guide to Insights gives a thorough run through of each metric and what they mean. There’s certainly a few more measure’s I’d like to see added, but for now Facebook Insights are the best guide to measure how your Facebook Page is performing.
Google is constantly updating its search feature, be it a little tweaking to add signals form social media, or this handy new feature that allows you to search using an image. The image can be one thats already online, one on your desktop just by dragging and dropping. And it’s made even faster thanks to a Chrome and Firefox extension, that allow searching by image with just a right click of the mouse!
Twitter isn’t the most obvious platform for marketers to engage in. The 140 character limit is probably the biggest stumbling block. It’s restrictive and requires marketers to be even more creative in how it’s used. The attraction of Twitter is it’s realtime connection, it’s people online right now, which could also prove daunting. Dealing with a realtime online audience removes a lot of control from the side of the marketer. But one thing the recent post on Irish Social Media statistics shows, is the rapid growth in the use Twitter in this country. More people are flocking to Twitter and I’m noticing more and more old accounts, that have been dormant for a year or two, coming back to life in recent weeks. Perhaps the media coverage over the UK Superinjunctions is demonstrating the role Twitter can play, and in doing so demonstrating the value in Twitter. These older posts Twitter Marketing in Action and More Twitter Marketing Campaigns may also be of interest.
For inspirational purposes, here’s the best 15 Twitter marketing campaigns – ever!
1. Ben & Jerry’s Fair Tweets
Ben & Jerry launch a Twitter application to promote Fairtrade Day on May 14th last. The app will turn your unwanted Twitter characters into a message promoting the day.
2. Tweeting Fridge’s & Tap’s
From Brazil, a fridge that automatically tweets a message when opened. Bontafont in Brazil wanted to remind workers to drink at least the recommended daily amount of water and so sent a fridge to one of their most influential tweeters. The fridge tweets when opened. Each tweet, leads users to a website promoting the importance of keeping hydrated. If the fridge isn’t opened it tweets it’s owner reminding them to drink some water. Once a month a new personality joins the campaign and receives a tweeting fridge. Believe it or not this isn’t the first tweeting fridge either; this one reminds its owner how much milk is left and this one from Samsung has a number of apps including Twitter. But these aren’t the first inanimate objects to be given a voice through Twitter either. I found this Tweeting Bar, it’s more of a tweeting bar tap, from 2009.
3. Uniqlo – Twitter Sale
I featured this last year, but it’s worth including as it demonstrates a way of using Twitter to drive sales. Instead of putting up a boring holding page while their new website was being developed, Uniqlo held a sale. 10 items from their online store were displayed and the more tweets each item received the lower the eventual price was. Some items went for as much as 50% off.
4. Nike – Who Follows Who
This is very unusual, a Twitter campaign integrated with a 10km race in Argentina. Who follows who? Do I follow you on Twitter or do you follow me? Let the Nike 10km race decide.
5. Vodafone – Upgrade a Stranger
There’s a number of similar campaigns to this operating in Ireland at the moment where people are suprised with some sort of gifts. People will always appreciate a gift, especially if its a prize. But this Vodafone campaign from 2009 puts a spin on that. Two people are filmed on a Dutch street, broadcast live on a website and viewers vote who should receive an upgrade by tweeting. Gifts are given to the winners right away. Not sure how filming unsuspecting people on the street and broadcasting it live might go down, but if you got a decent gift out of it you might be ok about it.
6. Turkcell Twitter
This live Twitter competition was used to promote Turkcell’s new smartphone, by targeting the very people who generally avoid online advertising – heavy users. This campaign also used a live video feed, had game players tweet promotional messages and of course play games to win prizes.
7. Orange
Orange is one of the most active brands in Twitter, with regular competitions and games for their followers. The Singing Tweetagrams (video blow) has been featured here before, but more recent campaigns have been #MyRoyalPlate to tie in with the recent Royal wedding the best tweets with the hashtag would be turned into commemorative tweets. Tweeter’s who included the #WinterWarmer hashtag could nominate friends to receive hot chocolate and scarves from Orange.
8. Uniqlo – Virtual Line Campaign
Uniqlo developed a ‘virtual line’ to celebrate it’s 26th birthday. Every 26th person to join this virtual line would receive a voucher worth around 10 euros. Over 15,000 Twitter users joined the virtual line on May 25th, this increased to 60,000 by day two and even further by the end of the 4 day campaign – the brand was also a worldwide trending topic during this time. This campaign was extended to China and Taiwan late last year. In Taiwan the virtual line reached a peak of 640,000 users!
9. Radioshack – #ifihadsuperpowers
A promoted trend #ifihadsuperpowers asked users to submit a photo of themselves holding their hand out to camera. Radioshack would then put a cape and mask on each person and send the photoback. Some even picked up Radioshack related prizes.
10. Interactive Twitter Mural
Twitter content promoting Canada was broadcast on interactive murals in the USA. This was to promote Canada as a holiday destination to Americans.
11. Mercedez Benz – Tweet Race
When you consider the dynamics of this campaign, 140 characters can pretty much do anything. This was a race between 4 teams who embarked from different locations, and their Mercedez Benz vehicals were powered by tweets. Each tweet would power their car 1 mile, while their location was followed in realtime on a microsite. Watch the end of the video for some really impressive stats on the campaign.
12. Uniqlo – UTweet
The third entry for the fashion retailer in the top 15, but they keep coming up with interesting ideas on how to integrate Twitter into campaigns. This campaign was to promote their new line of Tee’s. It’s quiet straightforward – it pulled tweets from your timeline and put them into a music video. It could be executed a little better and towards the end it does become more of an advert for the brand. The first twenty seconds of this video are blank.
13. Old Spice
This had to be included at some stage! Old Spice replies to invdividual tweets by video. You can see all the Youtube messages here
14. Don’t Tell Ashton
Live artwork that features profile images of twitter users who have tweeted the hashtag #DontTellAshton. The size of the profile pic in the overall artwork depends on how many followers that person has. So the more followers you have the larger you feature. Of course if Ashton is told about this, he could ruin it by joining in and because his number of followers is so large he would feature so prominently. The campaign video is below, the website is here, and they even presented the finished project to Ashton last June
15. Tok & Stok: 140 Character Instructions
To communicate how easy their furniture was to assemble Brazillian furniture store Tok & Stok condensed their instructions to just 140 characters, including a link to a diagram. Consumers just have to search for the hashtag to their item and follow the really simple instructions. It’s a great idea, but the profile, launched in March only has 136 followers. This kind of highlights the flaws in Twitter, the account is static so no new information will be added, so is there any point in following the profile? But without many followers the campaign looks like it hasn’t been successful and there’s no way of knowing how many people have viewed the account and used the instructions. The closest measurement will be checking to see how many clicks the diagram has had. On its own 136 looks like the brand don’t know how to use Twitter, but their official Twitter account has over almost 14K followers, so obviously they do, just no one will follow a static account.
Are Blogs More Important Than Facebook or Twitter for Marketing? A new study from Shop.org, a division of the National Retail Federation in the USA would suggest they are. The survey was conducted amongst over 1700 adults in the USA during April 2011, and the results suggest blogs are better for engagement, referral traffic and product research. Not so long ago I compared the advantages and disadvantages of Blogs, Twitter and Facebook which might be worth a look at in this context.
Social Commerce Study
The survey has a number of takeaways including;
42% of US online adults follow a retailer via Facebook, Twitter or blog
Average US adult follows 6 retailers; and does do primarily for special deals (58%)
Other top reasons were for new product news (49%) and to participate in promotional contest and events (39%)
47% of consumers access customer reviews in-store via mobile handsets
34% of Facebook users access Facebook from mobile devices at least once a day
32% view YouTube videos on a daily basis from a handset
19% of US online adults have purchased from group-buy sites such as Groupon
57% of which having spent over $100
35% of consumers would buy products on Facebook, and 32% would do so from Twitter if possible
Researching While Shopping
I think there’s two key points from the survey, besides how important a blog is for engaging with consumers, the other is the important role played by the mobile phone when shopping. In the survey nearly half of respondents admitted to conducting some form research into an item while in store. In this case customers accessed reviews. It’s an incredibly high number, and goes to underline the importance of having a well optimised mobile ready website, with easy to navigate social content that can aid in the purchase decision.
Are Blogs More Important?
In the study the blog ranked higher in almost all categories. Consumers are more likely to make a purchase via a blog, to leave comments about goods and services on a blog, to research goods and services on a blog, and to click through to a website from a blog.
This isn’t really surprising when you think about it. If you’re making a purchase decision, chances are you will start with a search engine which is less likely to lead you to a blog posting rather than Facebook update or Tweet. Content posted to both social networks loses value very quickly, within an hour on Twitter and within 8 to 12 hours on Facebook.
What this means is that blog content, reviews, previews, news and insights will always feature more highly in search. Social search will merely provide social reinforcement of that blog content – ie. a Facebook friend has ‘liked’ or ‘tweeted’ a review. Blog’s may catch people further into the decision making process than a Twitter or Facebook user, while also providing more content to make an informed choice. After all how likely are you to make a purchase based on the content of a 140 character tweet?
The most surprising stats point to people being more likely to leave comments on a blog rather than on a Facebook or Twitter post. Do blog reviews, for example, elicit more of a response than a tweet or Facebook comment? I wouldn’t have thought so, especially comments related to customer services as people are more than happy to vent their issues almost anywhere as long as they get heard.
It’s certainly something to think about, and this will be more relevant to certain brands than others. Especially where consumers do research prior to purchase. If you are still undecided about what is best for your brand checkout this post on the advantages and disadvantages between all three platforms.
The online team have been increadibly busy working on a the new Neworld website for the last while. It finally went live last Friday and it’s looking pretty cool, if we do say so ourselves!
A big burst of colour greets the viewer on the way in, while our projects and client list can be viewed by department – Digital, Corporate Design and Packaging Design. There’s also case studies, the company portfolio, video and audio clips of various TV and radio appearances made by Pat Kinsley the MD of Neworld.
in March we completed a project for Glenisk called the Tune Challenge. The purpose of the campaign was to find the soundtrack to a Glenisk TV advert, from tracks submitted by Fans via Facebook. The ad had run originally in 2010, without music featuring the sounds of ‘nature’ to keep with the organic feel of the brand. The campaign launched on Ray D’Arcys Today FM show in January. The competition element was coordinated through Facebook through most of January up to the end of February and the finished advert made it’s debut on TV in March.
Glenisk Tune Challenge
I posted a case study on the campaign just as the TV advert aired back in March. At the time we only had Facebook metrics to show how the campaign performed, but now, two months later we have some more data which is certainly worth sharing. This campaign involved radio, TV, press, online (website) and social media. Glenisk experienced a sales uplift of 35% while the TV ad was on air. This is in comparison to when the ad was originally run in early 2010, at that time experiencing no significant uplift in sales. This integrated approach, clearly delivered tangible results for the brand, much more so than just a the television advert alone.
The Campaign
Stage 1: The Entries
The first stage of the app allowed fans to submit a piece of music and short biography. Once content was published to the app, other fans could listen and ‘like’ the tracks. The contest received an impressive 650 entries, much more than was expected. The judges in the contest comprised of a representative from Glenisk, Today FM and the advertising industry. They whittled down the 650 entries to a shortlist of just 6 tracks.
Stage 2: Fan Favourite
The second stage of the app featured the shortlisted tracks synced with the TV advert so fans could see what the finished version would look like. While judges would select the eventual winner, fans could also vote on a ‘fan favourite’. Knowing public votes often encourage non-users of the brand to vote for friends, those who voted were rewarded with a coupon for a free Glenisk yogurt to encourage sampling.
The tracks were displayed on this section of the app in the style of a leader-board, based upon the amount of votes they had. Due to the overwhelming popularity of the contest, and extremely high quality entries, it was decided to extend the duration of this part of the contest in order to give the judges more time to choose the eventual winner.
Stage 3: The Winner
The winning track, chosen by the judges, was revealed on Ray D’Arcy’s Today FM show on February 25th. The track by Twobit Melody (is featured below) also received €2,500 and the advert was one of the first television adverts to credit the songwriters and credit the Tune Challenge Facebook competition on screen.
The Results
Because it was a novel idea and way to use Facebook, both PR and radio really got behind the campaign. Glenisk estimate they achieved:
A sales uplift of 35% when the ad aired
National air time on Today FM, plus national and local PR coverage to a value in excess of €200,000
In excess of 25,000 Youtube views for the TV ad online.
Facebook fans doubled
New fans, who joined for the contest, were encouraged to become customers through free yogurt coupons
Traditional Vs New media
The effect on sales is the point most marketers, and brands, will be interested in. A 35% life in sales is hugely significant, especially in the current economic climate. The more cynical might say the sales were only experienced during the TV advert, so therefore the TV ad was the critical factor. However, this is a slightly different scenario because virtually the same advert was aired in 2010 with little impact on sales at the time.
Emma Walls from Glenisk explain’s why the ad worked more successfully this time;
“This time around the ad’s success can be put down to a number of factors – better script, better music etc. but critically, the ad was heavily pre-promoted before it aired – via Today FM, via Facebook and via PR.”
This proves with a well crafted campaign, that connects with consumers across different media, Facebook can help directly increase sales for a brand.
The campaign also made the final list for this years Social Media Awards.
Let’s start with some attention grabbing headlines;
Twitter has almost doubled its Irish accounts
Facebook is adding 900 new Irish profiles per day
LinkedIn is growing at a much faster than Facebook – in percentage terms at least (11% versus 4%)
Facebook is still the giant in terms of social networks. But how much more growth can be achieved? At this almost everybody who wants a Facebook account must have one. Or certainly those who are allowed to have one by their parents. Some data on under 18′s and parents use of Facebook is included below.
The number of Twitter accounts has jumped significantly. Data from Ipsos MRBI show’s that Twitter is now used by 11% of the population, up from 7%. While data from Ad Planner shows an even bigger surge from 200K users to 570K. What’s also significant is the number of those checking daily which has declined by percentage, but stayed the same (according to Ad Planner) or increased slightly (according to Ipsos MRBI) in terms of actual numbers.
It must be remembered Twitter users also log in from a number of 3rd party services like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck without actually going to Twitter.com. This may skew figures somewhat as heavy users probably log in from 3rd party services. This leaves new, or light users, who may be unfamiliar with Twitter accounting for daily users on Twitter.com.
Some data marked with * is carried over from the previous post as the figure may still be relevant. References that aren’t hyperlinked are linked at the end of the post. If there is any research not listed below that may be relevant please post a link in the comments or mail me Luke AT Neworld DOT com.
Social Networking in Ireland
84.2% of all Irish Internet users used social networks in December 2010. This is up 8.1% on December 2009 (*Comscore)
The average Irish person spends 18 hours and 7 minutes online each month (*Comscore)
Facebook
There are 1,942,980 Irish profiles on Facebook (Facebook.com)
The average Irish person spends 4hours 10 minutes on Facebook per month, well ahead of competitors Google sites (2hrs 51mins), Microsoft sites (1hr 36mins) and RTE.ie (22 mins). (*Comscore)
49% of the population over 15 years of age are on Facebook, thats down 1% from Feb (Ipsos MRBI)
49% of the unemployed are on Facebook (Ipsos MRBI)
47% of Facebook users log in daily down from 50% in February
24% every couple of days (same)
12% log in weekly (up 1%) (Ipsos MRBI)
Facebook Users by Age
13 – 15 years of age = 7%
16 – 17 years of age = 6%
18 – 24 years of age = 24%
25 – 34 years of age = 31%
35 – 44 years of age = 17%
45 – 54 years of age = 8%
55 – 64 years of age = 3%
65+ years of age = 2% (Socialbakers.com)
Irish kids 9 to 12 years of age (London School of Economics, LSE)
21% of Irish kids aged 9 – 12 years have a Facebook profile
49% of this group admitted to faking the age on their profiles
14% of this group admitted to having their profiles set to public
6% listed their home address and telephone number on their profile
11% listed their school
8% have more than 100 contacts
25% contacted people they didn’t know (apart from through the internet) on social networks (including Facebook and others)
Irish teen’s 13 to 16 years of age (LSE)
47% of Irish teen’s aged 13 – 16 years have a Facebook profile
14% of this age group admitted to faking the age on their profile
8% of this age group admitted to having their profiles set to public
11% listed their home address and telephone number on their profile
58% listed their school
35% have more than 100 contacts
22% contacted people they didn’t know (apart from through the internet) on social networks (including Facebook and other)
Irish Parents of Kids & Teens (LSE)
39% of Irish parents don’t allow their children to have a social network profile
42% of parents allow their children to use social networks freely
20% of parents allow their children to use the social networks without supervision
60% of females aged 9 to 16 years and 58% of males aged 9 to 16 years have social networking profiles (this figure includes Facebook and others)
The Over 50′s
Four in ten over 50s use the internet. Of this group the top three visited websites are Google (38%), Facebook (19%) and Ryanair (13pc). (*National Consumer Survey of the over 50’s)
Of this same over 50′s group 80% have an email account, 37pc have a Skype account; 29pc are on Facebook, and 2pc have a blog. (*Amárach)
Facebook Check-in’s
According to Facebook the number of Irish people accessing the network from their mobile has increased to 800k (*via).
This is up from around 500k from last summer.
Top Check-in Locations:
Location – Amount of check-in’s
Dublin Airport – 7,484
Dublin Airport Terminal 2 – 5,570
Aviva Stadium – 4,202
Dublin International Airport – 4,133
Temple Bar – 2,608
The 02 – 2,468
Croke Park – 2,050
Terminal 1, Dublin Airport – 1,939
Cineworld – 1,479
02 Arena Dublin – 1,325
The next Most popular places were Shannon Airport, The Temple Bar (Pub in Temple Bar), St. Stephans Green, Ikea and Grand Canal Theatre. Shannon Airport (at No. 11) and Thomand Park (No. 42) were the only locations outside of Dublin listed in the Top 50. (SocialBakers.com)
Youtube
In 2010 Youtube had 1.3 million regular Irish users
And 400 million views per month (Daragh Doyle, Content is King Conference 2010)
Estimate daily unique traffic of just under 500,000 users
2.1 million unique users per month.
This data jar’s somewhat when compared with Facebook’s own figures, as it may suggest Youtube is more popular. However, when both are compared using AdPlanner you can see Facebook has double the daily unique traffic (at 1 million), and slightly more unique users (at 2.3 million).
What this data does show is Youtube’s popularity in Ireland. It’s not as popular as Facebook, but is much more popular than Twitter and LinkedIn.
Twitter
From Ipsos MRBI:
The number of adults over the age of 15 with a Twitter account has grown from from 7% to 11%
This is estimated to be at 385,000 people in Ireland have a Twitter account over the age of 15.
The daily usage of Twitter, amongst this group, has fallen from 30% to 21%.
Although a decrease in percentage terms, it is an increase in actual numbers from 73,500 to 80,850 daily users.
In March there were 177,000 active Twitter accounts
Active accounts are those who sent at least one tweet during March
This figure is expected to have grown by up to 20% since March (data yet to be released)
Approx 60,000 unique users active per each rolling 5 day period.
Average of 159,000 tweets were sent per day (avg over 31 days)
47% of tweeters sent only one tweet in a 5 day period
78% sent less than 10 tweets in a 5 day period
22% sent 10 or more tweets and accounted for 85% of all tweets
In March Barry Hand, estimated there to be 180,000 Twitter users in Ireland. This was based on Ad Planner data which showed 200,000 unique visitors to Twitter.com in January. April Ad Planner data is showing this figure to have increased significantly to 570,000 unique visitors. While this is a huge surge in numbers the number of daily unique users has remained the same, in around 50,000 per day.The increase in new accounts may also explain the dramatic rise in users who claim to log in less frequently than once every fortnight. In February this figure stood at 31% of all Twitter users, however in May this had risen to 44% of users. (Ipsos MRBI)
Of course it must be worth noting Twitter is accessed by a range of 3rd party services such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, therefore traffic to Twitter.com may hide the true number of users. Not to mention those who operate multiple accounts – this makes estimating the actual number of individuals who use Twitter a very difficult task.
How Twitter is Used
Re-tweets on Twitter account for 8-10% of traffic (Knexsy)
71% of Irish journalists use Twitter as a news source
Mentions of Twitter in the Irish media increased from 16 mentions per month in January 2008 to 2,058 references in March 2011.
27% of mentions were related to entertainment
27% of mentions were related to politics
28% of mentions were related to sport (of 1,100 broadsheet articles in Irish papers) (Kantar PRII)
General Election – Tweets with the #GE11 hashtag peaked at just over 40,000 tweets on Saturday Feb 26th, the day counting in the election began. (Knexsy.com)
Knexsy Sentiment Analysis (positive versus negative tweets)
In percentage terms LinkedIn is growing at almost three times the rate of Facebook
Ireland still has the 2nd highest penetration of LinkedIn users in the world.
LinkedIn’s reach in Ireland has increased from 14.7% in July 2010 to 21% in March 2011. (Comscore)
The number of people claiming to have a LinkedIn account fell from 9% in February, to 7% in May.
9% of LInkedIn users logged in daily (Up 1% from Feb)
11% log in every couple of days (down from 14% in Feb)
31% log in weekly (same)
The average LinkedIn user is aged between 35 and 44, employed, living in Dublin and AB social class. Just 2% of the unemployed are on LInkedIn. (IPSOS MRBI)
Foursquare
Foursquare is a location based social network, accessed via a mobile phone. Worldwide the service claims to have over 11 million users, which is small number when compared with any of the others on this list. It is very similar to Facebook Places, except with a gaming element. Foursquare don’t release data on any individual country so this has been sourced from Google Ad Planner. You have to wonder will Foursquare ever break out into a wider audience, especially now when it has to compete with Facebook Places and the fact a lot of people just don’t check in anywhere. Facebook may say 800k Irish users are accessing the service via their smart phone, that doesn’t mean they’re checking in with Facebook Places.
The Foursquare in Ireland data for May 2011;
Unique visitors (estimated cookies) 13k
Unique visitors (estimates users) 10k
Reach 0.3%
Page views 53K
Total visits 17k
Average visit per cookie 1.3
Average time on site 3 mins 20
Of course if anyone has any official data for Ireland please leave a comment below.
Knexsy.com – Some data provided by email, some via RTE’s TwitterOnTrial documentary Knexsy provided research data for. Most stats have been individually referenced in the post.
Update May 24th: A 5th nomination for Neworld in the Social Media Awards, this time for Agency Use of Social Media.
The finalist list for the Social Media Awards came out earlier this week. Neworld and our clients have received 4 5 nominations in three different categories.
The nominations are;
Integrated Facebook Campaign
Glenisk for Glenisk Tune Challenge
Jelly Bean Factory for Dream Bean Contest
Blog of a Business
Neworld (Yes this blog!)
Facebook Page of a Business
Glenisk
Agency for use of Social Media
Neworld
We’re all a little excited to say the very least! The is the first outing for the Social Media Awards (or Sockies) and they take place next Thursday May 26th at The Mansion House in Dublin. The full list of categories and nominee’s can be viewed here. While tickets can be purchased from here.
Last October I posted on how Bing and Facebook were going to integrate their search offering, to bring social signals deeper into search results. This week Bing announced even greater integration with Facebook. This raises a number of concerns, which I will go into below. But first lets look at what new Bing features you can expect to see.
Trusted Friends
Bing mentions the Friend Effect as the reasoning behind its move towards greater social integration. According to research the Friend Effect states we are 90% more likely to make a decision once we get a seal of approval from friends. With this in mind the new Bing results will show us what our friends have ‘liked’ not only what stories, but also what pages and sites they appeared on. With personalised results, content liked by friends will now be pushed to page 1.
Collective IQ
You can’t rely on friends to provide the answers to everything, that’s where Collective IQ comes in. This call’s on the collective expertise of the web in order to find the best content for your search. Collective IQ highlights popular content from within websites. For example the image below displays the most ‘liked’ content within a recipe website.
Social Search: The Problems
There’s a number of issues with Social Search that can skew our results. I say our results because, each individuals results will differ due to these social signals. One of the more obvious problems with social search I highlighted some months back - the race for likes.
1. People sometimes don’t really ‘like’ the Page
The race for Likes is where brands go all out to get new Likes, because now each Like can help boost a businesses ranking within search. People sometimes don’t really ‘like’ a Page, they just want to receive the incentive to Like it, then hide the page from their Newsfeed. I know people who Like brands they don’t really even know, just to enter competitions. Social Search depends on every person being accurate in their Likes, their tastes not changing and when they do change they remember to Unlike the page and not merely hide that brand from their Newsfeed.
2. Doesn’t allow for changes in taste or opinion
Some people may take the time to Unlike Pages and not just hide the content because they want to de-clutter their Newsfeed. Thinking to de-clutter will only be possible when you see Brand X has posted again this week, and you have tried Brand X but you now you realise you don’t like it. So you click Unlike. But what about that web page, or website article that you liked. That won’t be posting content to your Newsfeed, so although you may have had very controversial views some time ago, and Liked such content, you will hardly think of going back to unlike this content. This liked content is building a history of you on the web, but it doesn’t allow for changes in taste and opinions.
One of the best articles I have read on Social Search is this one by Econsultancy. It looks at Google’s +1 and some of the next few points are from that article.
3. Apathy
Only motivated people will like or share content, what about people who aren’t motivated? Their opinions are simply ignored.
4. Value of Opinions
I have friends who Like just about everything. This reduces the value of that persons opinion. In social search these people who Like everything will feature much more prominently. Will searchers looking for results that exclude certain people have to look further down the page or even have to look at page 2?
5. Reluctance
Social signals only show the opinions of people willing to be associated with that content. In the Econsultancy article the author mentions a hair restoration treatment, would people overcome embarrassment to ‘like’ that enough to be associated with it?
6. Lack of Knowledge
Social media only reflects the opinions of those who are competent enough to use it, which may skew results that favour younger, tech savvy and time rich individuals. Although, I feel, this will change overtime.
7. Choice Paralysis
Will you tweet it, like it, send it, share it, digg it, stumble it, recommend it, +1 it, share this? Or none of the above? Too many choices to make. Google pulls in data from Twitter, Bing from Facebook. But what about all the other social signals? Am I likely to miss out on an amazing article because someone recommended it on LinkedIn instead of Liking or Tweeting it?
8. Conformity
Bing’s argument for Social Search is based on The Friend Effect, which isn’t too different to the Bandwagon Effect. In the Friend Effect, from the Bing Blog, “90% of people seek advice from family and friends as part of the decision making process”. The bandwagon Effect “arises when people’s preference for a commodity increases as the number of people buying it increases”. Change commodity for search result, Facebook Page or whatever. They’re not exactly alike, but the more popular content amongst my friends, my connections and then the wider Facebook community will rank higher. That can’t be a good thing. Will this conformity make people Like content of a lesser quality because others have?
9. I Can’t ‘Like’ Bad Stuff
By this I mean bad reviews, or content that goes against the general flow of thinking. I like to read reviews especially when I’m going shopping for electrical items. It’s not the good reviews I look for, it’s the bad reviews. The bad reviews, even for items that have a good rating overall, are often better at highlighting the deficiencies of products. They might be extreme examples, or be one off cases, but they make you better informed about your purchase. Take for example Apple fanatics, who will probably Like a totally positive review for a new Apply product. This gets bumped up in search rankings by so many fanatics Liking it and any review that is more accurate, painting the highs and lows, gets pushed down the rankings.
10. Filter Bubble
The filter bubble only gives us what Facebook and Google think we want to see, things that fit neatly in with our world view. The type of stuff that refuses to change our opinion. Think of it like this, your only exposed to Fox News in the USA as your one source of news. Fox is sensationalist, right wing and often mis-informed on issues or certainly decides what to ignore in order to fit its own agenda. How would that affect your opinion? It’s these filter bubbles that spurred Mark Little to set up Storyful, to find content we may not otherwise get to see. Perhaps its one silver lining that a new industry in identifying this type of content can work successfully. This next video by Eli Pariser better explains the concept of Filter Bubbles and why they could be bad for democracy.
And Finally
Social search could prove to be a better search product, but its over reliance on people may work against it. Where results are not more accurate but more diluted because its taking opinions, rather than facts to determine what the results are. How social signals will inform search is going to be a hot topic for a while yet. Not least because Google’s inability to get behind the walled garden of Facebook, which is Bings major competitive advantage.
This past week has seen the release of some interesting research in the UK and the USA as to the use and awareness of location based social network services. The two biggest of which are Foursquare and Facebook Places. Of the latter Facebook have stated there’s 800,000 Irish people accessing Facebook from their mobile, this group can also access Facebook Places, but the question is, are they?
Location based networks are controversial, mainly due to privacy concerns, do you want people to know where you are? According to research carried out by Microsoft 52% of their respondents (1,500 people based in Japan, USA, UK, Canada and Germany) “express strong concern with sharing their location with other people or organizations”. Sharing your location opens up a can of worms that can have serious repercussions, it could even raise the cost of your home insurance.
Microsoft Research
The Microsoft research into wider Location Based Services (LBS) such as GPS and weather alerts, released in January, found:
6 in 10 are aware of LBS, but confusion remains about what LBS are.
Among those who use LBS, 94% said they were either very valuable (41%) or somewhat valuable (53%).
52% express strong concerns about sharing their location.
18% share their location with others.
Of those receiving a location-based advertisement, 46% took action and 80% considered the ads valuable.
It must also be remembered the stat pointing to the value of LBS, is looking at usefulness in a wider context such as providing directions or local weather and not just in terms of ‘checking-in’.
Dubit Research (UK teens)
This research was conducted in the UK amongst 1,000 peoples aged 11 to 18 year olds. Although conducted within a younger age group, this data also points to a general lack of understanding, a fear of sharing your location and low levels of use.
52% of teens have heard of Facebook Places, Foursquare, Gowalla and SCVNGR
58% of those did not use them because they ‘do not see the point’
45% believe that services which allow users to check-in at a certain location are unsafe.
33% of teens neither ‘loved’ or ‘hated’ the services
Out of those who had heard of location based services;
44% were aware of Facebook Places, 30% used it
27% were aware of Foursquare, 5% used it
3% were aware of Gowalla, 1% used it
2% were aware of SCVNGR and no one surveyed used it.
17% of the US population have checked-in using an app on their mobile device
49% of the population didn’t feel there was any real motivation to check-in
48% have never checked in due to privacy concerns
90% of people who have checked-in have done so using Facebook Places
31% have disclosed their location on Twitter
22% have checked-in using Foursquare
55% of people who have never checked-in would most likely use Facebook Places, followed by Groupon (40%), Foursquare (6%)
Of those who currently check in the reasons to do so were;
Get deals & discounts (54%), meet friends (33%), learn about the location (32%), promote the location (30%), to get a badge (21%)
Most likely to check into: restaurants (53%), Coffee shops/cafes (40%), hotels (38%) and Bars/clubs (36%)
Of those who do not currently check in, the reasons they might check in would be;
To get deals and discounts (41%), learn about the location (19%), meet friends (12%), enter games or contests (12%) promote the location (8%) get a badge (1%)
Most likely to check into: homes of friends or family (35%), followed by restaurants (33%), new cities is neighborhoods (27%) and large general retail stores such as Walmart (23%)
What it Means for Brands.
Although carried out in different geographical locations, and amongst different age groups there’s a few themes coming through;
1. Privacy
This is a major concern amongst almost half of all respondents in all three surveys. Privacy on these networks is beyond the scope of brands and ultimately it’s down to Facebook, Foursquare et al. to remove these fears. However, given Facebooks general poor reputation (although it is trying to be more transparent) in the area of privacy and security it’s unlikely that these fears will be quashed anytime soon. In fact with Facebook being such a huge corporation there will always be a section of the population unwilling to share any data with it.
2. Lack of Understanding and Awareness
Whats the point in checking in? If brands can answer that question on behalf of the consumer this will help improve general understanding of these services. Same too with awareness, although this could be more of an adoption issue amongst users. There seems to be a lack of awareness of these services but Facebook Places only launched last summer in the USA, and it’s the best known service of the lot. Smartphone use will dominate the mobile market, so naturally over time, awareness and understanding will grow in this sector. However, if brands can’t answer ‘what the point is’ then neither will the consumer.
3. Facebook Places is by far the best known and most used
Although no official figures on how many people use Places, it is head and shoulders above its closest competitor – Foursquare. And that even includes in the USA where Foursquare had first mover advantage on Places. I suspect Foursquare may continue to grow, but will always be the marginal cousin to Facebook Places, unless they can differentiate their service. At the moment their better known for their game elements such as badges and Mayorships, but, according to Beyond, non-user simply don’t care about them.
4.Discounts, Deals and Friends
The Beyond data points to discounts and offers as being the key motivational factors followed by meeting friends. A deal or discount will make people consider checking in, even amongst those who don’t currently check in. So these might help drive awareness and understanding. However, is the only way forward for brands to constantly offer discounts and deals? There’s so many deals and discounts of late we’re in trouble of being swamped with them. To the point where none stick out, and we only end up taking advantage of deals because we’re in the location already, or we’re a deal hopper and unlikely to return unless it’s with a deal – and it’s better than a deal offered by a rival! Deals and discounts aren’t long term strategies for brands will need to look for other ways of utilising location.The most obvious being an exclusive product/item/service only available to check-in’s, and make it a group activity based around friends. Something like this has no real monetary value and the overall brand isn’t damaged.
There’s a lot of negativity here, but in the long term location based networking is going to grow – as people see more benefits in using the services. I remember some of my friends being uneasy about using the likes of Facebook in the beginning, but that was because they just didn’t see the point. All it takes is that moment when the penny drops, and it would seem from this research we are not there yet.
Facebook updated their guide to Insights not so long ago. It’s a very useful guide and a must read for any page administrators. Understanding how your Facebook marketing is performing (and not just how many new fans you have) is essential for success.After all wouldn’t you like to know what your fans enjoy about your page?
Are Blogs More Important Than Facebook or Twitter for Marketing? A new study from 
in March we completed a project for Glenisk called the Tune Challenge. The purpose of the campaign was to find the soundtrack to a Glenisk TV advert, from tracks submitted by Fans via Facebook. The ad had run originally in 2010, without music featuring the sounds of ‘nature’ to keep with the organic feel of the brand. The campaign launched on Ray D’Arcys Today FM show in January. The competition element was coordinated through Facebook through most of January up to the end of February and the finished advert made it’s debut on TV in March.
The Campaign
Facebook Users by Age
Dublin Airport – 7,484
In 2010 Youtube had 1.3 million regular Irish users
Twitter
LinkedIn
Trusted Friends
One of the best articles I have read on Social Search is 
Microsoft Research
What it Means for Brands.
