How SMS changed the world
This fascinating infographic gives the global lowdown on the 4.2 billion texters and the volume of SMS messages sent.
Signed Finds – how social can drive retail and charity engagement
Signed Finds is a new social media marketing initiative for Vinnies, a.k.a St Vincent de Paul. The premise is simple: get Australian and international musicians and bands to sign and donate their t-shirts, with a photo of said musician holding up the signed tee. Then the t-shirts get hidden in a Vinnies retail store, the [...]
The future of journalism – do media companies have to start thinking like technology companies?
I went to a new type of media briefing a couple of days ago. “New” because it was the old media world reaching out to engage with the new media world. The old media in this case was News Limited’s masthead The Australian – shortly launching their digital subscription/ freemium business model, a.k.a paywall. And as uneasy as it would have made the old guard feel, the proof was that we, the new media world of bloggers and social influencers, were there to chat, ask questions and perhaps offer insights, in our analysis of where the future of journalism was heading. The old guard is listening.
How do you measure social media app traffic?
There is now more activity in the “internet of apps” than on the “traditional” web. Most of this is invisible to marketers. Isn’t it about time we rethought how we measure digital activity?
Don’t shoot the social media messenger
I was horrified to read UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron was considering blocking social media networks because of their role in the UK riots. Blaming social networks for the speed and ease of communications, and blocking them, is the digital equivalent of shooting the messenger. Twitter’s position of “tweets must flow” is the central tenet of its network. Twitter doesn’t censor individual tweeter’s content, and that’s its power as a channel. For British politicians to block or attempt to censor social channels they are exhibiting the same traits as Egyptian’s totalitarian regime.
Social content and context
I became the fodder for a news article a week ago which attempted to drag my reputation through a 1950s rectitude filter. The article, which you may or may not have read, included: The fabrication of a “sex scandal”. (Which should be the real scandal here.) Deliberate misinformation and libelous claims, by referring to a [...]
11 social media marketing trends for 2011
Yes its February, but part of the reason this is so late is because of the launches that have been pumping out in the last few weeks. So with 11 months left of the year, I figured its a good time to look at the trends shaping the rest of 2011.
Measuring social media influence
Greenpeace Australia came and did a presentation for Social Media Club Sydney, about the social media component for their global campaign to get Nestlé to stop buying unsustainable palm oil from Sinar Mas, a global supplier that was destroying the south east Asian rainforests where orangutan’s were being threatened. I ran a social media analysis using Alterian SM2 to see how the Kit Kat brand in Australia was affected by Greenpeace campaign. The results show a clear negative impact on Kit Kat’s brand sentiment, that’s clearly attributable to Greenpeace’s localising the campaign.
Blog action day charity:water
As you probably know, the upcoming Blog Action Day is October 15 – and this year’s focus for Blog Action Day is water. To participate in Blog Action Day, you simply register your blog and then write a post. BUT what can you write about? Here’s where Age of Conversation comes in! Charity:water is one of the participating partners for Blog Action Day. So what I’d like you to do is to help us with a Bum Rush on the Amazon charts – generate sales for AoC3 and raise money for charity:water.
Social Personas: implications for social marketers
Social Media Club Sydney’s sponsored event Social Personas: How different is the social media you from the real you? probably achieved the aims that the research set out to do, which was to cause people to question the “acceptable” behaviours related to authenticity versus superficiality in social media in Generation Y. The other speakers, demographer and historian Bernard Salt, and researcher Dr Rebecca Huntley focused on Facebook and the reported, self described superficiality in Generation Y behaviour’s particularly on Facebook.
My presentation was intended as a bit of a tongue in cheek thought starter, rather than fighting the superficiality and behavioural traits, maybe marketers should just play up to it?
Australian Election 2010 – social media match fitness
The 2010 Australian Election is going to be an interesting one for social media analysis, because for the first time we will see to be able to see whether social sentiment is going to have an impact on how people vote. I started looking at this on Friday 16 July, the day before the election was called, and left Alterian SM2 monitoring tool looking at the same keywords over the weekend which included the day of the election announcement.
This analysis is from 1 to 18 July and includes mainstream media as well as strictly “social” media channels. Twitter has by far the largest volume of mentions for both parties.
World Cup social media statistics infographic
Love this infographic summarising the 2010 World Cup social media and brand statistics from Ireland’s simply zesty. The big win seems to be the English team’s Facebook Page.
Mobile phones are changing the way we use social media
This infographic confirms what we already know: global access to social sites and networks via mobile phones is growing at a rate even higher than the uptake of smart phones . My favourite statistics from this:
* People who use Facebook on their phones are twice as active than non-mobile users.
* Growth in mobile access to Facebook grew by 112% year on year whereas Twitter access via mobile grew 347%
iPhones dominate Australian mobile internet
Recent statistics show the iPhone and iPod touch is dominant operating system – 93% of phones or mobile devices accessing the internet in Australia and NZ are iPhone iOS. Is Australia & NZ heavy iPhone penetration because Blackberry and other smart phones didn’t have much mainstream uptake prior to iPhone release? Or is it because Australians are the heaviest users of social networks and social usage continues as the fastest growing mobile category?
5 social media trends to watch
photo credit: cycle60 There are some social and digital trends which seem to hit like an avalanche, and others that build quietly and don’t go away. I wanted to share this list, as a bit of a combination of both types, originally written for The Communications Council of Australia. You can substitute “social” with “digital” because there’s [...]
Who owns social content?
A year later, most clients are now active in social media – they are asking for Facebook apps, one of them has even replaced their corporate website with a Facebook Page and many of them are even using Twitter, personally if not for their brands. The legal/creative issues for user generated content have not gone away – the clients lawyers are still saying “no” to many creative, social content campaign ideas.
It goes like this:
1. Creative team pitch in a cool, engaging user generated/social content, game/application/tactical campaign
2. Client loves it
3. Digital producers spec it out, and it all looks like its all systems go.
4. Then it gets run past the lawyers
5. Lawyers say no
6. Campaign gets killed or its “Back to the drawing board”
Introducing the authors of Age of Conversation 3
I am very excited to be part of a new book, Age of Conversation 3: It’s time to get busy!. It’s going to be a physical book, available directly from Amazon and other online book stores. The new cover, was designed by Chris Wilson. And the website, was designed and built by my friend, Craig Wilson and the hard working team at Sticky Advertising. The editors, Gavin Heaton and Drew McLellan have done an amazing job pulling it together
Australians increasing social media use is led by Facebook
Nielsen reports today via Nielsen’s 2010 Social Media Report, that there are now 9 million Australians interacting on regularly on social networking sites with Facebook dominating – more than 83% of social networkers naming Facebook as their main social networking platform, up from 72% in 2008 and 34% in 2007.
Overall, Facebook is Australia’s most popular social network with 75% of online Australians having ever visited, and via time spent per month (more than 8 hours per month which is seven and a half more hours than its closest rival site YouTube)
Women use social mobile more than men
Nielsen posted these mobile social stats from December 2009 about the gender differences when accessing social networks via mobile devices. You may be surprised to discover women were found do use their phones to “tweet” and “friend” 10% more than men. Nielsen research also showed the 35-54 age group had more active mobile social networkers than any other group.
