Social Networks -- Ubiquitous?

The scariest thing about this report is its conclusion: If your target audience isn’t already on social networks, it probably will be soon! However, according to a study by Anderson Analytics, different audiences will be concentrated on different networks. The soon-to-be-released study was shared with the ReadWriteWeb blog over the weekend; that’s where I found it.

The RWW blog has a good overview of the demographics of users of the 4 major platforms. There’s a substantial amount of overlap in usage. Just visually, it appears that Facebook has the most unique users, followed by MySpace, although the absolute number appears smaller for MySpace. Neither Twitter nor LinkedIn have many unique users. They both have a big overlap with users of Facebook. LinkedIn has almost no “unique overlap” with MySpace.

That squares with a lot of what we already know about users of the 4 platforms. It also provides interesting confirmation of the most interesting report of the day. I found this report from Morgan Stanley on an @mattrhodes Tweet. What makes it intriguing is that it was written by a 15-year old on “work experience.” MS liked it so much they published it, and if your work has anything to do with young people, you ought to read it.

Two quotes:

No teenager that I know of regularly reads a newspaper, as most do not have the time and cannot be bothered to read pages and pages of text while they could watch the newssummarised on the internet or on TV. Ouch! Maybe double ouch!!

Facebook is popular as one can interact withfriends on a wide scale. On the other hand, teenagers do not use twitter. Most have signed up to the service, but then justleave it as they release that they are not going to update it(mostly because texting twitter uses up credit, and they wouldrather text friends with that credit). In addition, they realise that no one is viewing their profile, so their ‘tweets’ are pointless. He says it’s about the profile—fascinating!!

The Anderson Analytics study breaks social media users into 4 segments. According to Ad Age:

Anderson's research breaks down general social-media users into four categories: business users, fun seekers, social-media mavens and late followers. Of those, social-media mavens are the key group, not only because of their high incomes and decision-making power at companies but also because their large social-media footprints can make them brand allies and evangelists, Mr. Anderson said. Fun seekers are also an important group because they are the up-and-coming mavens as they transition from students to employees.

The report also segments non users:

Contrary to what some might think, people who spurn social media aren't tech haters. In fact, they spend as much time as social-media fans surfing the web. But they say they don't use social media for three basic reasons: They don't have the time, they don't think it's secure or they think it's stupid. While the first two groups -- which Anderson labels "time-starved" and "concerned" -- may be swayed to join eventually, don't hold out much hope for the last group: 94% said they will never use social media.

Their commentary about the concerned non users is especially interesting:

The concerned non-users are an older demographic (one-third are retired) who don't use social networks because they're worried about their privacy. However, they do recognize value in social media and may join as they become more comfortable with it.

The study also found that almost 50% of the “time-starved” consumers expected to use a social network within a year.

Hence the conclusion: social networks are soon going to be ubiquitous among all except the oldest Internet users—and they may give in also!

There’s more to come from this interesting study. You can follow Tom Anderson’s blog and the Anderson Analytics website—and do a lot of thinking about where/how to best engage with your target audience!

Another CPC Launches New Product Online

One point of yesterday’s post was corporations doing well by doing good. A recent article in Ad Age (subscription required) highlights another example that takes a more controlled, corporate-focused tack, but still engages in cause marketing.

Johnson’s® adult body care line is not new, but apparently they have reformulated the line with aromatherapy and maybe other elements. So perhaps it’s a relaunch, but it’s definitely starting in social media. After the social media program is established they’ll support it with print and digital advertising (no TV mentioned); that may be more for the baby products contest (more below) than for the adult skin care line. The hub of the program is a MySpace page, chosen for its entertainment and beauty issues value.

Ashanti is the spokesperson for the campaign. She launched the “cause parties" with a party to benefit the Boys and Girls Club of Harlem, with which Ashanti has a personal relationship. The idea of the cause parties is to allow women to host parties in support of a cause of their choice with Johnson’s® providing body care products. Johnson’s® made a $10,000 donation to Ashanti’s chosen cause to get the campaign started, and there was a lot of buzz in the online beauty and music world so that part worked.


In fact, the nature and content of the buzz supports their choice of spokesperson and strategy. Ashanti seems to be a permanent resident of MySpace, and the comments on beauty blog postings I read were all about the party, the dresses, the celebs. I didn’t see a thing about Johnson’s® body products, but I suspect they were pleased with the attention given to the initial party.

They have reached out to bloggers associated with Mom Central to promote the program. A second party is already scheduled. Latoicha Givens, the author of Luxe Tips, will give a party in Atlanta on April 19 to raise money for CARE’s Women Empowerment Initiative. There’s obviously cross-promotion between the beauty blog and the body care product line. Johnson’s®, Ms. Givens’ blog, and CARE will all benefit. A win-win-win!

In fact, the campaign seems to be quite woman-friendly. According to Ad Age the “program looks to let women who may be out of work remain active by volunteering for causes important to them and enable working women to help out charities whose coffers have been depleted by the recession.”

The campaign is not without detractors. One of the commenters on the Ad Age article said, “Great brands like Johnson & Johnson shouldn't be climbing on borrowed-interest bandwagons so obviously insincerely. It makes products women have always trusted to most--J&J Baby Stuff [a separate program on YouTube happening simultaneously]--seem shallow and suspect.” I’d peg that as another “just doesn’t get it,” whether we’re talking about moms entering videos of their babies in a contest or women hosting parties to benefit causes they care about. What’s not to like?

It seems to me that Johnson’s® has it right. According to Rich Hildebrandt, group product director-new ventures for Johnson’s® , ”the goal of both programs is to deepen engagement rather than reach a maximum number of people.” He wouldn’t say how much they are spending, but it has to be less (probably a lot less!) than a traditional television launch. And the body care program has the halo effect of women they have identified as influential bloggers and of the meaningful causes they support.

Their alternative was intrusive, expensive mass media advertising. I like their choice. What do you think?

Women of a Certain Age on Facebook

You may have noticed the story on Marketing Charts yesterday about the rapid increase in the number of women 55 and over on Facebook. The stats come from Inside Facebook, a site you should track if you are interested in marketing on Facebook. They are consistent with more general stats from eMarketer (February 9, 2009) that show rapid growth for a broad “adult” demographic.

If any of us had any doubt that social media are not just for the kids, this should put those doubts to rest. My question was why women over 55 are rushing to Facebook. I don’t find any clear answers to that question, although I did find a commenter on one blog post that pointed out that it’s easier to use than MySpace. I’ve argued all along that Facebook is a somewhat more civil environment than MySpace, one in which older consumers may feel more comfortable. Perhaps both are true, but that doesn’t give a solid answer to the question.

I wondered if the predominance of women over men on Facebook was a hint. Women outnumber men in every age category—that’s interesting. Is it the ability to communicate easily on Facebook that draws women? I think so. Is it the fact that men have sports networks to occupy their time? There may be something to that also, but women have special interest networks—health, family-oriented etc.-- other than Facebook too.

A very few marketers are beginning to see ways to take advantage of the presence of women and their predisposition to communicate. A good example is Dove’s Pay Beauty Forward app. Basically it allows a user to send an e-flower to another Facebook user. Note that for each e-flower Dove contributes a dollar to its Self-Esteem Fund. That’s a nice touch, and it ties this marketing effort back to the long-running and highly successful “Real Beauty” campaign. It is all nicely integrated and that may be part of the reason 12,726 e-flowers have been sent since the app launched last year. I imagine you’ll have to be signed into Facebook to explore the program, but it’s worth the effort. Be sure to see the "what is pay beauty forward" screen; it's hard to link to.

Ok, so women of all age groups are on Facebook. Can you use it to reach your target audience? Use Facebook’s targeting tool to find out.

But that’s not the biggest challenge. Can you come up with an app that engages and provides value to your target audience? And, oh yes, it has to support your brand promise! Notice that I’m not defining customer value here; there are a range of possibilities from entertainment to philanthropy to communication. The challenge—both strategic and creative—is to come up with something appealing and to execute it in a way that’s at home in the Facebook environment and attracts your target audience.

Most of us are not very far along that road. How to increase our understanding? “Participate on Facebook and/or other social networks” is the answer I keep giving. That’s the “listen first” rule.

With a certain level of understanding, you then may want to talk to members of your target audience about how they are using social networks. Does anyone know of a marketer who is using a social network to talk to customers about how they use the network?

Email on Steriods

Email marketing isn’t going away any time soon. Can it be made more effective—even viral—by including social networking options in email? Silverpop thinks so and has a product to do just that. Their Share-to-Social product was introduced in early October, so it’s a bit hard to find examples of use, but the prospects are fascinating.

Basically the product allows Silverpop clients to embed links in their emails that allow recipients to easily post messages—social emails?—to their social network pages. It’s new, and there are no detailed case studies. Two users identified in the Silverpop white paper are Diapers.com and GodTube. According to the white paper:

• One of Diapers.com’s emails was posted on 50 different social network profile pages. That kind of customer endorsement turns email “push” marketing into a powerful “pull” campaign. (page 2)
• GodTube, a global technology company that creates social networking tools for the faith-based and family marketplace, achieved significant viral activity from its social email marketing campaign. An email sent with Silverpop’s Share-to-Social links had an open-to-click rate of 31 percent, and nearly 15 percent of those who clicked in the email posted the message to Facebook or MySpace. Astoundingly, 25 percent of the posted emails generated additional clicks, compared to MarketingSherpa’s estimated average clickthrough rate of just 2.5 percent for BtoC marketers using third-party lists. (page 4)

The potential communications impact is obvious. Beyond that the product allows the marketer to track the resulting messages, something that can’t be done on the social network sites themselves. According to the Getting Email Delivered blog:

The SilverPop service also offers tracking “which social network the recipient posted the message on, telling marketers which one achieved the best results. Silverpop creates a unique tracking code for every shared message, so marketers can tell, for example, that an email posted by a recipient on Facebook was opened 1,000 times while one posted on MySpace was only opened 100 times.”
Their tracking system even measures the number of click-throughs generated by the posting at a given Facebook or MySpace page, so you can know which of your user’s posts to Facebook or Myspace generated the most clicks. SilverPop suggests that you can use such tracking to spot and target influencers, saying that “Such sought-after influencers are easily identified and targeted. Lists of social influencers can be created in Silverpop’s solution with one click by simply viewing the “recipients who forwarded” list.”

Again, under ordinary circumstances you can’t track what’s happening to messages on social networking sites. Once they move from your own page, where you get limited stats, you don’t know what’s happening to them.

Here’s more on how it works for Diapers.com from Internet Retailer:

The widget, plugged into e-mails, allows Diapers.com to embed in the e-mail a set of links that allow recipients of the e-mail to easily share content of that e-mail on their Facebook or MySpace page, by automatically creating a thumbnail image and a blurb of the featured item the e-mail recipient wants to share. The e-mail recipient can then add this summarized content to her own social network site page, e-mail list or blog for distribution—and that content includes links that allow viewers to see the full, original e-mail which contains links back to Diapers.com to view and buy the product.

Silverpop says that in order to make this work the marketer must identify the “hot buttons” to which her audience responds and align messages closely to recipient interests. This capture from the white paper (page 3) is probably the best example of how the service works short of getting an email from a user. They also point out that once the content is posted on the social network page it’s under the control of the user, no longer the marketer.

It’s interesting to consider the two sites that are in the news as having successfully used this service. Diapers.com serves a target market—young mothers—that is notoriously communicative. Consider GodTube’s own stats on its audience. For different reasons both these target audience are responsive to particular messages and are eager to share with other people like themselves, including through their social networks.

If you have a good product—one that people will like to talk about and to share with their friends and families—then this type of email sharing is going to be of interest. For the right targets it's a great way to get your customers to share your messages with their own contacts--improving not only their reach, but also their credibility!

The H.O.G.®s Roar Onto Facebook

. . .and MySpace and YouTube. A few days ago I got an email from Overdrive Interactive CEO Harry Gold. He invited me to check out the new social media channels Overdrive developed for Harley-Davidson.

The H.O.G.® (Harley Owners Group) is a classic customer community, long predating the Internet. HD says it was established in 1983. Long before that Harley owners were getting together to take rides that ranged from a few hours on a weekend to cross-country treks. Harley owners are passionate about their cycles and actively participate in activities. HD has been smart enough to nurture these activities and to insist that their employees participate. How better to learn what their customers are saying?

H.O.G.® chapters are sponsored by dealers. I couldn’t find out exactly how many, but I used the dealer locator. I found 6 dealerships in Massachusetts. Each one of them sponsors a H.O.G.® chapter. Some even have their own websites. There are also specialty chapters like the Chrome Divas who ride to support causes like a cure for breast cancer. Overall, they are clearly a force, with over a million members according to the Owners website. When you look at that site, it’s clearly an HD site although its set up to serve the H.O.G.® membership. It’s not very interactive. It publicizes member events and activities but I can’t see that it gives members much opportunity to participate and contribute content.

So social networking pages make sense. The YouTube Channel is pretty typical and a lot of the content has been provided by HD. There are 36 videos promoted on the page, all of which are from HD. When you access those, there are plenty of user-submitted videos you can access. There is also a series of Rider Stories, all of which seem to be HD-submitted material.


The comparison between the Facebook and MySpace pages is really interesting. Visually the contrast is striking. Some of the differences are probably dictated by the requirements of the two sites. You’ll have to visit the Facebook page yourself to see it all. What I found interesting is that there’s a clear distinction, both in the photos and the videos, between Harley-Davidson material and fan-submitted material. Other marketers might bear that in mind. The MySpace page is more edgy,but it’s also clearly structured between corporate and fan content. Again, there’s more than I can show in a static screen capture. When you take their invitation to “Tell Us Why You Ride a Harley” you find yourself back on the HD site, on a page called “Lets Ride,” which solicits owner experiences.

All this is really interesting and food for thought for the marketer. No marketer wants his or her brand to be entirely at the mercy of what the public says, even if it’s an audience that is overwhelmingly favorable to the brand. It’s rather clean and neat; not the free-for-all of personal pages on Facebook and MySpace or of the YouTube site (that’s why they have channels!). That makes sense. This is, after all, branded content and I’m sure it will be monitored for acceptability.

Harry says they’ve signed up over 60,000 friends and fans in the first few weeks. He’d be welcome to keep us updated on how they do/what they learn from this social marketing program!

Is Facebook the Hub of the (Internet) World?

Several months ago I asked if social networks were the new portals. In the intervening time I’ve had a lot of anecdotal evidence that they are. Teens and young adults “do everything” through their social network account, including most of their email. They don’t use opening pages from portals like AOL and MSN or my beloved personalized Yahoo! page. They do it all through their social network, and increasingly in the US that network is Facebook. My Space is still larger, but Facebook continues its incredible growth, increasing 305% in monthly unique visitors between January 07 and 08.

Two questions: what are teens and young adults doing on these pages (the question of the hour for all parents!) and how much impact does this social networking have?

A recent study from the Pew Foundation sheds light on the first question. The study shows widespread use of social networks by this age group; finding that 93% of American teens ages 12 to 17 use the Internet (P. 3). More than half, 55%, use social networks and 55% have also posted a profile online (p. 11). The study found the teens taking some precautions to protect their identities online; I just hope they were telling the truth! Some information is all right to share; some is questionable. Girls are more careful than boys are about revealing personal information.

Is the answer to my first question, “Just about everything, but they are exercising some judgment?” I think so; I hope so!

How much impact is an even thornier question, but a conversation a few days ago got me thinking about it. I spend a certain portion of my professional life with young working professionals, primarily my graduate students. They use social networks—with care. It was interesting to sit down for two evenings with a large group of undergraduates, mostly from Brown University.

Across the seder table the talk turned to politics and whether young people would turn out for the November election. Older adults were sure the traditional pattern would hold—that young people would say the right things but not turn out to vote. The students were vocal about the fact that young people were registering in large numbers and were confident they would show up at the polls. Skepticism from their elders. What I realized is that there is an active political force this year that has never been present before—the social networks, for this group entirely Facebook. When I made the specific observation, the young students were quick to agree that Facebook would rock the vote among their peers in a way never before seen.

The political impact depends on a number of things that happen between now and November, but the social impact in undeniable. Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and maybe others are the hub of communications for an entire generation, and the impact of that across the board—on social issues and on marketing ones--will continue to be felt in ways now only dimly perceived.
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A Social Network for Mobile

An AdAge story on Monday announced that CBS was partnering with social network Loopt on a location-based advertising program. According to AdAge, this is the way it would work:

First, a Loopt subscriber must turn on the phone's locator button, which broadcasts its location. (Even without a GPS, the location can be approximated based the phone's relationship to the cellphone tower receiving its signal.) Then when the subscriber checks the mobile-web version of CBS News, MarketWatch or Sportsline, the page will display a banner ad targeted based on the subscriber's location.

Ads are on our mobile phones, as you probably already have experienced. eMarketer (newsletter MARCH 7, 2008) quotes a Nielsen Mobile study released in March that found that 23% of mobile phone users had seen an ad in the last 30 days; the figure was 46% for users aged 13 – 17—no surprise there! What may be more surprising—and what we might take with a tiny grain of salt—is the fact that 32% of mobile data users said they were willing to accept ads if it lowered their bill and 13% were willing to accept ads just to improve content.

So if ads are at least marginally acceptable on mobile phones, are social networks going to be a way to deliver them? Both Newsday (US) and the New York Times (Paris bureau) have recently reported that there are many mobile social network providers. Some of them are the usual suspects—Facebook and MySpace and the ubiquitous Twitter. It’s interesting to look at the mobile page on MySpace, which until recently has had a closed platform, vs. Facebook where there are over 300 mobile apps from providers including Loopt.

Loopt is a good example of the functionality. They describe it as “Connect, Share, and Explore” and when you get further into the site they add “Control.” The functionality is pretty straightforward and they have a brief but informative tour. Friends on the network can connect with one another; through GPS technology you are notified when a friend is in the area. Do you want maps showing you what friends are in the same area? Do you want to know what they are doing at the moment? Do you want to send instant messages with your location automatically attached? Do you want to look into your friend’s journals (or more likely, do you want them looking into yours?) to find new places and events? If you’re in my generation, the answer to a lot of these questions may be a resounding “NO,” but as least you are glad to know that you can hide your location from everyone or your can select the friends you want to share with.

Do younger users want this functionality? You bet they do! I’ve had students proposing business concepts and developing cool marketing plans for network- and location-based mobile services for years. Their peers are engaged by the concepts.

As usual, the mobile applications are further advanced in Europe and the Pacific Rim than in the US. Marketers need to be constantly alert for what is going on there and learn from their leadership. It also seems clear that the market is seriously overcrowded with providers, so marketers will need to choose their opportunities and perhaps to hedge their bets. They also need to be on the lookout for unintended consequences. Trucks keep running into the low bridges on Storrow Drive in Boston because they are looking at GPS directions, not the signs that say very clearly, “No Trucks.”

But all of that begs the most important question of all when it comes to mobile. Is the issue getting customers to accept our ads on their mobile devices? Or is it finding out how to offer meaningful branded content on mobile devices? Is there a generic answer to that question, or does it depend on your target audience? Past data has shown younger people more willing to accept ads for freebies.

Only a lot of testing and experimentation will tell! Hopefully the results of the CBS test will be known and it will give us all some signposts in this important journey.
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Why Bebo - Why Now?

On Friday AOL announced that it was buying European social network Bebo. The WSJ described it as part of AOL’s attempt to transform itself. I’d add the word “continuing” to that; clearly AOL has been trying to reinvent its business model for quite some time.

The same social media phenomenon is occurring in Europe that is evident here. The EIAA’s recent report on Internet use in Europe documents the phenomenon.
The report says that:
•42% of internet users now communicate via social networking sites at least once
a month, putting it in third place (behind only search and email) in terms of most
popular online activities . . .
•European internet users also enjoy sharing information online:
o The number of people contributing to rating and review sites has seen
a growth of 42% since 2006
o Over a quarter (26%) now share their thoughts on forums

That portrays a bright future for social networks in Europe, and Bebo is already well-established. It’s not as large as MySpace or Facebook, but it’s growing faster than MySpace. According to comScore, since Facebook opened up registration in September 2006 it has grown rapidly in Europe. Bebo is still larger there with a growth rate that exceeds other European sites.



Both WSJ and eMarketer point out that advertising revenue isn’t growing as fast as the networking sites had hoped. Still, the future is here somewhere, and hopefully it’s going to be profitable. Bebo has an interesting video site called KateModern. If you don’t want to watch the 150 videos from the first season to catch up on the story, I’ll give you a hint. It is an interactive video site. By that, they mean you can contact the characters (not the actors, the characters) and discuss the story with them.
Think about the site stats if new visitors watch all 150 videos to catch up on the story line, such as it appears to be. That’s a lot of time on the site. Then all visitors, returning and new, can discuss the story line with individual characters. That’s more time on the site. There’s got to be some room for advertising, sponsorship and product placement here!

The potential is clear. It may be this type of content entertainment site, or it may be something that we haven’t seen yet. But it’s for sure that if we’re not looking, not experimenting, we’re not going to see the opportunity. So we should all watch this AOL venture with interest.
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Income Tax and Social Media--Really??

360i’s David Berkowitz had a great post on his blog not long ago. In the press of events I ignored the original one, so I’m glad he did a reminder and gave links to the social media pages. What struck a lot of us, including the Wall Street Journal, is that a tax preparer—not a breed known either for innovation or sense of humor—was mounting a campaign that included major elements of social media.

H&R Block’s Digits site might be described as a community site. Apparently people actually do want to discuss tax-related issues. I looked at some of the “Current Conversations” and I believe they have used professionals—some from H&R Block, others creative professionals—as conversation starters. That’s a good idea, and it seems to be working, judging by the number of comments. As seen on the home page they are even in Second Life, although I’m not sure I’m eager to find my Tax Mojo!

Besides Second Life, the campaign includes pages on Facebook, MySpace and YouTube. When I looked at the Facebook page, I suspected the young man singing the Ode to Block was a paid presenter. The MySpace page introduces Truman Green as the young man at the center of the campaign. I found he listed his profession as “blogger.” Given his singing, maybe he should keep that as his day job. Couldn’t resist that--but the fact is that he’s professional but informal—probably a good selection for what is obviously a campaign targeting the young adult market. The YouTube page is also Truman’s page.

I’d particularly encourage you to look at the Facebook page. There’s a lot of stuff going on there—an interesting model to consider. Clearly this is a professionally-designed and managed campaign, not a DIY effort, but we all can learn from it. One thing to think about is that they apparently have used paid presenters as well as their own professionals. It rachets up the quality level of the campaign. They haven’t exactly posted banners about that aspect of it, but people are carefully identified and I see no attempt to deceive—to flog. They did, however, advertise on both MySpace and Facebook to draw people to the page. That seems to be Facebook’s model—take a look at their Business pages.

And now, I’ve got to go finish my taxes—really!
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Quarterlife--New Incubator For Programming?

Did you see the first episode of the new NBC series last night? If you’re anywhere close to my age, you probably didn’t unless you just stumbled upon it as I did. Actually, I knew that the first series to have originated on the web and move TO television was to be aired, so I stopped and took a look.

To me, while there was no obvious story line there was the usual navel-gazing andtwenty-something angst. It’s interesting, though, that the first episode prominently featured Dylan’s video blog as sort of a centerpiece of the social interaction.

For all of us who didn’t know, the webisode series debuted in November on MySpace. It got media attention because seasoned Hollywood producers were behind it. About the time it debuted on the Internet it was picked up by NBC for a broadcast series. The interplay between broadcast TV, Internet and the writers’ strike is interesting. The timing made the independent content attractive; how much pre-planning went into that I do not know.

The series had its own website, quarterlife.com. Here’s what it says about the series today. There’s lots of video, a community, and a dozen or so channels on which users can post UCG and discuss subjects ranging from art to love. The ones I looked at seemed to have active content.
With the debut of the TV series the show has a page on the NBC website where, among other things, you can watch full-length episodes.

The package has a clear target audience—young, creative professionals. It has interesting cross-promotion between web and television. What is says about the future of programming on both screens (until/unless they converge to become one) is less clear to me. It occurs to me that the Internet may prove to be a faster, lower-cost way to test story ideas. If television is first, will movies be far behind?

It’s an interesting new wrinkle in the already-chaotic new media world!
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Visualizing the Social Graph

One of the fun things about doing research for a blog like this is that one thing leads to another. Yesterday I briefly mentioned the term “data visualization” in the context I think most marketers use—how can we transform mountains of raw data into graphics we can use for understanding and decision making? At least, that’s how I’ve thought about it ever since statistics and marketing research courses.

But I ran across a couple of sites that reminded me of something else—the “social graph.” With the rise of MySpace, Facebook and specialized social networks, it’s a concept that has been much discussed over the last year. My personal opinion is that it is not different from the idea of social networks that many of us remember from sociology courses; Wikipedia has an article that describes the sociological concept. Chris Brogan has a brief video that does a good job of tying the two concepts together and Mitch Joel has a thoughtful post on the subject. The Economist had a contrarian view last fall.

“Social graph” is clearly the term used in the social networking space, so I’ll stick with that. We are all part of multiple networks today, for better or for worse. Even for us as marketers, some of it is personal, as when I posted my travel photos on Flickr and invited friends to view them. Others are clearly work; probably most of the people who read this are on LinkedIn or some other professional network. Some would be best described as research. I continue to maintain that all marketers should have multiple accounts on sites like Facebook, MySpace, Second Life and other new media sites. We should join some groups and visit from time to time. How else do we know what’s going on? Having it filtered through employees or our teen-aged children is just not the same thing.

The really cool thing I ran into is a set of applications listed on Mashable.com that allow users to visualize networks of various kinds. These are only two of the 16 applications they list:


That lead me to check out similar applications on Facebook. I’m not a serious user, I’m a research user, so I was astounded to find that there are over 15,000 apps that Facebook users can put on their sites. Here are some of the currently most popular—notice how many of them connect users with one another. No wonder that WSJOnline reported this week (subscription required) that MySpace had opened its platform to allow developers to build apps for it! Lack of this “fun stuff” may be one reason MySpace has fallen behind Facebook. If you are into diy, Google recently announced a Social Graph API that allows users to build graphs from publicly-available data and connections.
Finally, it made me stop and read the Terms of Use and Privacy Police on Facebook. That’s a subject in and of itself; I’ll return to it next week.

The implications for marketers and advertisers are clear. In the past, we had to conduct segmentation studies in order to identify homogeneous groups of customers and prospects. Now users are doing it themselves. How far should we go to take advantage of the social groups that are forming on the web? That presents troubling issues of privacy and trust that marketers need to consider openly and carefully.
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The Super Bowl and New Media--One Last Time

It’s the Monday morning after and most of the pundits are working on Super Bowl ad reviews. My interest was UCG content, and I also watched for ads that were designed to drive traffic to websites.

Of the UCG contests I listed on Wednesday, the only winner actually played during the game was Doritos “Kina: Message from Your Heart.” Doritos introduced it by saying they were offering her a large stage, and as far as I’m concerned she represented the brand better than most of the celebrities that were ubiquitous (obnoxious?) in the agency-produced ads. The Upper Deck winner apparently made it to the game, but not to the advertising slapdown. Hope the KFC winner enjoyed his big party; the players followed league rules and didn’t engage in “hot wings dance”—thankfully. The NFL invited text messages to vote for MVP during the game, not an innovation, but engaging nonetheless.

I found myself watching for ads that were designed to drive viewers to web sites. It reminds me of the golden days of direct marketing in which a classic question was, “If it contains a 1-800 telephone number, does that make it a direct-response ad?” The answer to that is a resounding, “No;” the ad must have an explicit call to action in order for it to be direct response.

The same is true of listing your URL in an ad. It doesn’t qualify as direct-response but it’s still a reasonable thing to do as brand building. The usual suspects—GoDaddy with its teaser on the rejected ad and Sales Genie with its free sales lead offer—have drawn huge traffic in the past and surely did so last night.

The Tide ad in which the interview was disrupted by the talking stain was pretty bad. I took the bait and visited MyTalkingStain.com. Another contest, but this one is fast paced with daily prizes. It’s an application of mashups—pun intended. Another that had a direct call to action, even though I thought the commercial was uninspiring, was Sunsilk shampoo. It turns out that the tie in with the commercial that opened with Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe (young women even know who they are?) is a chance to become a “new international icon” by posting your hair-care story on MySpace. Well, maybe. . .

Because I found so little that was inspired or inspiring, my favorite hands-down was "Clydesdale Team.” How can you loose with a goal-oriented horse, a dog, and one of the most inspirational movie themes of all time? The one I disliked most was the first eTrade spot, which ended with the baby throwing up. Appropriate, I thought. It was closely followed by the Coke commercial that parodied political season. Neither James Carville or Bill Frist are particularly appealing personalities and the idea they would bond over a Coke is ludicrous. Actually I agreed with Bob Garfield who didn’t like most of them—does that make me an old curmudgeon? Seriously, Garfield's video has some social commentary worth thinking about in the struggle to be heard over all the advertising noise.

If you missed anything, AdAge has all the spots posted. MSN has them all and a contest to boot. Nielsen will do a webcast on its ad reviews today at noon. And all the rest of us self-appointed pundits will continue to pontificate for some time to come.

But enough’s enough. It’s time to get back to the serious business of a new media age in which our audiences are looking to us for more than the same old thing. For my money, they didn’t find it on the Super Bowl!
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