Job title of the future: social media analyst
July 26, 2006
Job title of the future: social media analyst: ”
Dave Sifry has another ‘State of the Blogosphere’ report, and this time he quantifies the total number of blog posts per day. That seems like a more impactful measure than just the total number of new blogs created every per day.
Total daily blog postings in February 2005: roughly 500,000. One year later: nearly 1.2 million.
At that rate, it means about 2.5 million postings per day by February 2007.
Pair those numbers now with YouTube; it appears that the number of videos posted to the video-sharing site is tripling every year. Right now, daily video uploads are about 35,000. Based on a four-month trend, daily uploads could be 100,000 by the end of 2006, with some 130 million daily viewings.
That’s a substantial amount of data to follow, categorize and analyze. (It seems, too, that the world could use a Technorati that follows video sharing sites.)
All of this seems to point toward a new job responsibility inside companies whose growth depends on word of mouth: social media analyst.
If a social media analyst could port into Technorati’s data warehouse (or BlogPulse’s) and rely on her imagination and knowledge of company strategies to create her own, real-time dashboard of gauges, maps and charts of what’s being said online, she would probably become the company’s most foremost expert on trends, word of mouth and the democratization of culture.
Update: Stowe Boyd on the idea of a social media analyst:
‘Maybe that’s too remote: all that staring at graphs and so on, like the
foo-foo dust that business intelligence firms peddle. I think it is
more likely that a role analogous to press relations will arise: blog
relations. These folks will keep tabs on Blogpulse and Technorati, to
see what is going down, but they will also maintain and active and
on-going relationship with the major bloggers in their sector.’
It seems like the responsibility of blogger relations could fall under the job duties in PR, customer service, marketing, call centers… A job responsibility like that is not easily painted across every industry.
I see the role of a social media analyst as someone who crunches numbers on all of the data being generated by social media. From that analysis would come guidance on what companies should do.
A social media analyst could also be responsible for quantifying the effects of social media-driven word of mouth on sales.
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(Via Church of the Customer Blog.)
Wal-Mart Garners Attention with Social Networking Brand Site: ”
Wal-Mart has gotten some attention this week with the launch of a social networking brand community site loosely based on social phenomenons like MySpace. The site–called The HUB–School Your Way–focuses on the impending back to school season and coincides with the launch of the store’s school clothing lines. The likenesses to more general MySpace sites, for instance, are only a loose affiliation, however, as the site focuses on the back to school rush and Wal-Mart clothing lines.
Many responses to the release of the School Your Way site is based on Mya Frazier’s scathing review of the site in Advertising Age. Among Frazier’s gripes were the inauthenticity of the kids in videos on the site, the sanitzed and censored replica of MySpace that would not appeal to kids, and the focus around a clothing line that kids just don’t see value in. Considering the strong degree of corporate backlash against Wal-Mart, especially by those that consider the low prices retailer as censors selling lower-quality wares, the response in the blogosphere is not surprising, and several bloggers have continued with Frazier’s line of attack. Particularly, these folks are attacking the idea of trying to copy the success of a major social phenomenon in a watered-down product that only serves to make the brand seem more low-rent instead of ‘cool.’
On the other hand, Seth Godin makes a compelling argument as to why the site may well work–even if it’s not cutting edge in any way, Godin says, doesn’t mean it won’t work because ‘the early adopters out there will push hard,’ but ‘the middle of the market’ is pretty profitable as well. For all the parents out there forbidding MySpace in their house, for kids who don’t feel safe on MySpace after hearing all the news reports of the site’s potential dangers, or for those kids who love the Wal-Mart brand (Frazier’s choice of interview subjects for her story indicates that there are few teens that fall into this category, but she didn’t present the most objective report, either), the site may draw well.
GSD&M, a partner here at the consortium, is Wal-Mart’s ad agency. I’m not sure the involvement of the agency in this project and have not discussed it with them, but I think Seth’s argument is a compelling one that we can’t forget. Just because this doesn’t reach out to the people in the blogosphere or to those of us who are LinkedIn and who have face time on Facebook or who have long been established in MySpace doesn’t mean that there isn’t a strong market out there for the product.
Of course, I’m no advocate for closely monitored censorship, even when it comes to teenagers, so I’m not so crazy about this controlled communication forum (if you aren’t really allowing open communication nor private correspondence on the site, is it really a communication forum?). Wal-Mart’s site may end up being successful, and it may catch a lot of new users uncomfortable with the jungles of MySpace or the more technical social networking sites out there for teens. That sanitized and protected and censored site is appealing to many parents and even teens. For the sake of trickle-down innovation, I hope the site does attract kids to the potential of social networking and encourage other old media companies to continue brainstorming ways to extend their brand into community forums. Let’s just hope that the limits of the Wal-Mart site doesn’t become the norm.
Thanks to C3’s William Uricchio for drawing my attention to the current debate.
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Social networking sites draw tremendous traffic
July 26, 2006
Social networking sites draw tremendous traffic: ”
According to Comscore, and as of March 2006, 23% of US Internet traffic visit Myspace…(see earlier post for some more stats on MySpace)
(via software only)
[Technorati Tags: myspace social networking online advertising stats social media]
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(Via Emergence Marketing.)
Mobile Social networking
July 26, 2006
Business Week writes:
Just how big could mobile social networking get? This application’s usage could become ‘as big as online social networking,’ says Dennis Crowley, founder of wireless social network Dodgeball, owned by Google. About 45% of active Web users have been to online social networking sites, according to a recent study by Nielsen/NetRatings. As MySpace expands beyond its core market of teens and young adults, ‘We expect penetration of MySpace mobile to match penetration of cell phones,’ which are owned by 80% of Americans, says Digiaro. Mobile access could become even more prevalent outside of the U.S., where in some cases more people use cell phones than personal computers to surf the Web.
Indeed, it’s the cell phone, rather than the personal computer, that’s the constant companion for today’s hip and socially networked. Why wait till you get home to log onto the PC to tell your 20 closest personal friends about your date? Teens can use a network-friendly cell phone to relay stories, pictures, and videos instantaneously.
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(Via Emergic.)
Socially Integrated Media
July 26, 2006
Robert Young writes:
Social integration targets the ownership of critical assets in the social media supply chain (e.g. social networks like MySpace or People Aggregator, socially-programmed video services like YouTube or VideoEgg, social photo services like Photobucket or Flickr, socially-curated news sites like Digg or Newsvine, etc.). But in a radical departure from the old vertical and horizontal integration strategies of traditional media, social integration recognizes the fact that social media, by definition, shifts much of the media supply functions directly into the hands of the audience itself.
In other words, with social media, the consumers are in control of production, programming, and distribution … which is a complete reversal of the traditional media model. This reversal in control leads to some interesting consequences, the most obvious being the impact it has on the translation of core competencies within traditional media organizations (they become largely obsolete in the context of social media). But the greater long-term consequences of social integration involve strategic market development.
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(Via Emergic.)
Online Social Networks Can Create New Forms of Community
July 26, 2006
Commentary: The Future of Advertising
July 19, 2006
Commentary: The Future of Advertising: ”
The summer issue of Strategy+Business came out with ‘A Field Guide For The New Marketer.’ It’s big and juicy and I’m still working on it, but one quote from an article on the future of advertising by Booz Allen Hamilton executives begs to be lifted: ‘Does that mean gloom and doom for the rest of us? Hardly. These can be glorious times for media companies and marketers that are capable of change.’ Free registration required to read; passwords for the lazy available on bugmenot.
– via emergic
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(Via MIT Advertising Lab: future of advertising and advertising technology.)
Creationist WOM Eggs-ample
July 19, 2006
Last year, CBS promoted its fall television shows on Water Coolers and Prescription Bags. This year, CBS is using ‘On-Egg Messaging’ from Egg Fusion to promote its new shows.
‘On-Egg Messaging’ is a classic example of Creationist WOM at work. Marketers believing in Creationist WOM contend meaningful Word-of-Mouth Marketing can be an artificially amplified occurrence. These marketers believe they can create conversations between customers through capturing their attention.
According to a Dallas Morning News article, Egg Fusion frames its sales pitch by promoting there are at least four consumer impressions per egg. The first impression happens when you open the egg carton in-store to see if there are any broken eggs. Second impression occurs at-home when you transfer the eggs from its carton to the egg container in your refrigerator. The third impression is when you take the eggs out of the refrigerator as you prep for a meal. And the fourth impression happens when you crack the egg shell. (Impressed?)
George Schweitzer, CBS Marketing Group president, bought the Egg Fusion sales pitch and has high hopes for the effectiveness of the advertising tactic. He’s quoted in the Dallas Morning News article as saying, ‘It’s one of the ways we can be intrusive and inclusive. It’s right in your face. You can’t avoid it.’
I agree with George … we can’t avoid it. However, we can be annoyed by it. This ‘On-Egg Messaging’ advertising tactic reeks of ad creep to me.
Let’s hope CBS saved some of its marketing dollars to spend on making their television shows worth talking about because if the only thing worth talking about is their ‘On-Egg Messaging’ … then CBS’s Fall Schedule is in trouble.
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(Via Brand Autopsy.)
Social Networks and Online Markets
July 19, 2006
Social Networks and Online Markets: ”
The very smart Ross Mayfield reports on a paper by the very smart Peter Kollock of UCLA and E. Russell Braziel of Bentek Energy on How Not to Build an Online Market(pdf) that stresses the importance of social capital, even in markets where contracts are the formal lubrication for transactions (such as the propane markets studied by the authors):
The interconnected networks of relationships were important because of the structural roles of intermediaries, but these networks were also key because of the informal economy of favors that flowed through these social relationships. Solving problems is a central function of many market participants, and the key risk the individual is concerned with is career risk — the extent to which their job or their bonus is on the line. Having friends in the network to turn to for favors in order to solve problems is critical. Economies of goods rest on economies of favors.
The informal insurance that comes from the flow of favors is a particularly important example of relational contracting ‘informal agreements sustained by the value of future relationships’ (Baker, Gibbons, and Murphy 2002; cf. Macaulay 1963). Contracts can be a formal means of dealing with some of the risks of transactions, but informal means of managing risks are fundamentally important for at least two reasons. First, contracts simply cannot cover all the possible things that can go wrong. Second, formal approaches to dealing with the risks of transactions can be exceedingly, even prohibitively, expensive. A transaction that does not rest at least in part on trust and the flow of favors is an expense that can rarely be afforded
This social capital approach to risk management is an important feature even in the centralized Texas market, and dominates the dynamics of sub-markets such as California propane.
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(Via Smart Mobs.)
New study on effects of Internet use on social networks & neighborhoods: ”
Keith Hampton has completed a new paper, e-Neighbors: Neighborhoods in the Network Society on the effects of Internet use on social networks and neighborhoods. It is under review for publication, so it isn’t posted online yet, but Hampton will send preprints via email on request.
Abstract:
This study examines in detail the specific contexts where Internet use affords local interactions and facilitates community involvement at the neighborhood level. Studies of Internet and community have found that information and communication technologies provide new opportunities for social interaction, but that it may also increase privatism by isolating people in their homes. This paper argues that while the Internet may encourage both home-centeredness and communication across great distances, it may also facilitate interactions centered near the home. Unlike traditional community networking studies, which focus on bridging the digital divide, this study focuses on bridging the divide between the electronic and parochial realms. Detailed, longitudinal social network surveys were completed with the residents of four contrasting neighborhoods over a period of three years (suburb, apartment building, gated community). Three of the four neighborhoods were provided with a neighborhood email discussion list and a neighborhood website. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) was used to model over time the number of neighbors recognized, emailed, met in-person, and talked to on the telephone. The neighborhood email lists were also analyzed for content. The results suggest that the Internet use has already been adopted into the maintenance of neighborhood social networks. However, neighborhood effects reduce the influence of everyday Internet use, as well as the experimental intervention, in communities that lack the context to support local tie formation. Early adopters of the Internet and active users of the neighborhood email list built larger weak tie networks over time.
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(Via Smart Mobs.)
