social media policy

ZUBAR

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , .

(Which, of course, is an homage to the seminal late-eighties meisterwerk of cinematography, ‘Tango & Cash’ – and obviously you’ve spotted how clever I’ve been in adapting it to suit my own ends in introducing yet more musings on privacy and Facebook.)

For yes, dear blog snorkellers, we are all Zucked up – some many millions of us more than others. The nasty, odious geekwipe who decided in his own grubby mind that privacy was no longer a social norm, has taken note of the groundswell and has – apparently – done something about privacy on Facebook.

What he’s done, I have no idea. I don’t understand. I don’t have a clue whether what he’s done will work or not and whether it even addresses the issue. If it was me, I would stick with May 31 (Quit Facebook Day) and just have done with it. You see, the horrible Zucker has more to share, in regard to his philosophy around what people should and shouldn’t be, think or do.

Here is a post by Danah Boyd, a fellow (athough she’s clearly a lady) (this is a gag that my US snorkellers may not wholly ‘get’) at the Harvard Berkman Center (sic) for Internet and Society. Which impresses the living hell out of me. It’s worth a read, you lazy, lazy snorkellers and no, I am not going to paraphrase it for you. The bit I am going to reproduce here – and careful before you read it – it may make you feel queasy – is another quotation from the boy-demon, Zuckerberg. He said, last year:

“You have one identity… The days of you having a different image for your work friends or co-workers and for the other people you know are probably coming to an end pretty quickly… Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.”

Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity?

I’d say that sticking with one is – at best – an example of an Aspergers-like inability to function properly in society and – at worst – an example of the lazy attitude exhibited by the Northern (English) nouveau-riche – “take me as you find me, that’s what I’m about, say what I mean, mean what I say, spade a spade” etc etc etc, as if it’s some kind of virtue. No, you nasty fuck, it’s just intolerant rudeness.

Problem is, the hard-of-thinking that populate Facebook are having their ability to adopt seperate identities – which we all do, to relate to people, to get on in life, to avoid getting arrested – taken away from them. It’s actually, now I come to think about it, a real threat to society as we know it. And I don’t think I’m being overly alarmist.

The last word goes to a Daily Mash article – read it in full here:

“I’ve got an idea for a website. It’s called How’s About We All Just Leave Each Other the Fuck Alone for Five Minutes.

 “Book.”

The Zucked-Up Society We Live In

Posted on by in Social Media and tagged , , , .

This from the Evening Standard yesterday, entitled ‘Just What Is Privacy in the Era of Google and Facebook?’, and discussing the gradual erosion of personal privacy, brought about by society’s obsession with empty, unearned (and certainly not merited) fame and the seemingly unstoppable fixation on all things social media. As I think I’ve said before, it is eeee-ville.

The thrust of Mr Greenslade’s piece is not new. I’ve posted about it before, and as I am in no way an original thinker, this means that better and weightier pundits than I have had a go as well.

In brief, our society’s need for validation, expressed through the lust for Warhol’s 15 minutes, the desire to be Cheryl Cole or Alex Reid, the need to be orange and blond and falling out of Krapz nitespot in Basildon, clutching a footballer or a glamour model, in a drunken state of undress, to be papped and red-topped – this, combined with the arrival of social media and true (if unregulated) freedom of expression, has given people the motivation and opportunity to reveal far more about themselves, to far more people, than they ever have done before.

And, as we all know, it comes back to bite you on your fake-baked bum. The girl who got fired from her job for complaining about it on Facebook, the NHS staffers who played the ‘lying down’ game at work and posted the pictures, the Dixons shop assistants who set up an anti-customer page and wondered why they got caned.

But the Standard article reminded me of something far more sinister than the antics of the idiocracy and the cretinarchy. It ran the quotation attributed to your friend and mine (dear blog snorkellers), the unwholesome – and somehow unsavoury – Mark Zuckerberg, who said  that he no longer believed privacy to be a ‘social norm’.

This is the man who is in charge of (apparently) a virtual nation that, were it a real country, would be the world’s third-largest. If it were real, he would be a dictator – he already is, in point of fact. And he is telling you, oh foolish of facebook, that he no longer believes privacy to be a norm. What he’s actually telling you is that you no longer have a right to privacy. (Google seems to believe this as well – if you aren’t aware of the Google story (because of some unfortunate circumstance like being stuck down a mineshaft for the past three weeks), then might I suggest you Google it?) (Irony, d’you see?)

Actually, many of you may not have a right to privacy. You gave it away when you posted your holiday snaps on a photo-sharing site. But the point is, you made that choice.

Now you and I are having the choice taken away. Some pasty geek is telling us that privacy is no longer the norm and 400 million people are having to accept that point of view.

Or you could, I suppose, take radical action. And close your Facebook account. Go on.

You’re Zucked!

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Evaluation, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

Proof, were it needed, that Facebook is eeeee-ville.

Well, OK, it’s not actually proof, per se, and it’s not actually Facebook, per se, it’s more a bunch of opinions about the loathsome whelp who started it all, Mark Zuckerberg. Who, incidentally,  sounds like a genuinely unpleasant nerd with few ethics and a touch of the pulling-the-legs-off-flies Asperger’s about him. 

(But that’s just my tuppence worth and I am happy to state – for the record – that it is in no way based on fact or personal experience and is merely a conclusion drawn from available material and thus only probably bang on the money.)

Anyway, if, lazy, slothful, comatose blog snorkellers mine, you were (for once) to follow the link that I’ve posted, you’d find yourself inside the head of one Jason Calacanis, who definitely has a downer on the Zuckerbergster. And, if half the things he’s saying are half true, then perhaps he’s right. (Although he does go on at quite some length, implying that he may have an axe of a personal nature to grind.) 

I was taken with the term ‘You’re Zucked’ which appears to describe the state of having had your ideas stolen by someone, or having been screwed over by a business partner. Apparently, his behaviour has been so bad that those in the know are now calling for a boycott of ‘book, and have decreed that ‘book is seriously uncool.

(Mind, if ‘book really has 400 million users and is the third largest country in the world by population, I think it may take a little time for this uncoolness to filter down. I also cannot help but thinking – what did you expect? His Zuckness is an entrepreneur and a businessman and you don’t get anywhere by being nice and holding the door open for people. But maybe that’s me.)

My worry is that if ‘book goes down – what hideous creature will rise in its place? See – I don’t believe the social media hippies and I don’t believe in the inherent goodness and niceness of all and sundry. There’s always someone who wants to make money and screw everyone else – and if it’s not the Zuckerburger, then who (or what) is waiting in the wings?

Maybe we should be careful what we wish for. (Or, as I’m speaking for myself, what I wish for.)

Quiet in here, isn’t it?

Make Or Break For Social Media

Posted on by in Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , .

Here’s a link to dailyfinance.com and a piece about Twitter’s new ad plan, which you can only be ignorant of if you have spent the last day with your head in a bucket of ostrich poo. The journalist calculates that Twitter needs to make between $146 and $241 million in order to justify the current (and apparently sane) valuation of its service of $1.4bn.

(I cannot help but remember Mark Ritson in Marketing magazine saying – and I’m paraphrasing – ‘Twitter worth $1bn? Bollocks to Twitter!’)

Tha means a revenue of $1.95 to $3.21 per user per year. Which apparently is nothing compared to Facebook’s per user revenue of between $3 and $5. Which brings in more than $1bn a year, for the hard of thinking. (I cannot help but suspecting, mind, that this is nonsense of the horrible horseshit variety, but – hey – that’s just me).

Anyway, suffice it to say that there is an opposing school of thought which says that the Twitterads simply won’t work – no matter what anyone says, it’s not like Google (a search engine) and the ads are limited to 140 characters (difficult to communicate at the best of times). On top of that, these ads rely upon people re-Tweeting them and passing them on – a concept which I, personally, find difficult to understand.

The opposing school of thought also points out that Twitter’s infrastructure costs $25m each year to run. Currently it makes no money at all. It simply HAS to find a way of monetising itself – and no, Biz Stone, there’s no time left to do this in a gentle and questioning fashion. It’s acts together time boys, or you’ll go the way of MySpace, Bebo and Friends Reunited.

In fact, now I think about it – and as predicted on this blog last year – there’re only two social media sites left (when I say left, I mean with any sparkle in them). It’s Facebook and Twitter. (LinkedIn is a business medium – and even that, if you listen to the rumours, is on its way out.)

Two big social media brands, one of which will inevitably be eaten by the other in their rush to ‘monetise’ and justify their valuations.

TwatFace, anyone?

Social Media – Les Twittes Francais

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Crisis Management, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

Another fascinating example of what social media is actually good for. Tittle-tattle.  Scuttlebutt. Gossip. Prurient  – and some might say, inappropriate – interest in the doings of others. Destroying the careers of powerful men.

Hold on – what? Yes – Nicolas Sarkozy, 23rd and current President of the French Republic is apparently ‘avin’ it away with the karate-chopping Chantal Jouanno, his (and I hope I won’t get accused of being sleazy when I state, quite attractive) 40-year-old Ecology Minister. Good grief, she’s young enough to be my slightly younger sister!

Apparently, it’s in reaction to his slightly taller wife, the fragrant – and self-confessed anti-fan of that outmoded convention, monogamy – Carla Bruni doin’ the do with Benjamin Biolay “a musician six years her junior” (this courtesy of the breathless, soaraway Daily Telegraph).

Now – I will confess I have enjoyed writing about this, but there is a point. And I’m not going to labour it.

The affairs – if indeed they actually exist outside the fevered minds of the gossiping classes – came to light via a rising tide of Twitter buzz, which gained critical mass and, in so doing, migrated into the – if I can use the term – mainstream. This is what Twitter – and indeed all social media – is good at. Taking a story with a hint of gossip, salaciousness, controversy and/or sex and spreading it far and wide, regardless of what the truth or reality might actually be.

This is why non-one can afford to ignore social media – not because it is a valid commercial communications, marketing or sales tool, but because it moves so quickly that it poses a real threat. When social gets you – you’ve no time to prepare – you’re back-footed and it’s damage limitation time.

There are two courses of action therefore. One, as I’ve said before, is to prepare for the issues that might happen, before they do – and monitor, monitor, monitor. The second is become President of the French Republic.

Apparently they’ve all had affairs and it’s not damaged a single one of them. Gotta love the French.

Social Media – Thoughts For The Day

Posted on by in Corporate Religion, corporate reputation, Public Relations, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

(N.B. dear blog snorkellers, there will be no links in the copy today. This is because I can’t be bothered to tell you where I’ve been and also it’s a test of faith. Like so many of the social media posts and threads that I stumble upon, today I am going to say ‘trust me’. Take what I say as read. Don’t ask for proof. For once in your lives, believe in something. Me.)

Facebook, apparently, has 400 million users, half of which log in every single day. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I don’t think is true. Today I ran across a reasonably authoritative article that quoted a figure of 160 million logging in every day. But hey, what’s 40 million users per day between friends?

I’ve also made a big point of my belief that no brand, business or organisation is yet to make a significant commercial return on their investment in social media. This has got me into a lot of trouble – but I stick by it – every time I scratch the surface, the same old names crop up – Starbucks, BestBuy, Amazon, Dell, Coke, Ford. I gave myself into the gentle embrace of that most Googlicious of search engines and tried variations along the lines of ‘big brands social media’ and ‘brands social media success’. I know this isn’t scientific, but I couldn’t find any list of branded social media successes more recent than July/August last year. Not terribly reassuring, is it?

Mashable.com – useful blog, but hideously heavy going – published a list of Top 10 Twitter trends for last week. Tell, just who in the hell is Justin Bieber? I’m guessing here, but I’d imagine he’s got the same level of social and cultural significance as The Jonas Brothers, Tiger Woods, Super Junior, Lil Wayne and American Idol. I don’t think anyone’s in danger of drowning in this particular knowledge pool.

And, finally, I had a quick skim round the various Twitter feeds belonging to some of the bigger brands, just to reassure myself that the ‘Big Conversation’ hadn’t somehow become more valid and meaningful over the weekend. It hadn’t. Here’s where we’re at with corporate tweeting: “Woo-hoo! Just launched! check out the brand new http://www.starbucks.com/” (It’s the least I could do – give them a bit of a plug. Apparently, the fact that Mr Bux has got some social media icons on the home page, that’s enough to make the average punter believe they’re soc-med savvy. All smoke and mirrors.)

(B*gger – there’s a link in my copy.)

Anyway – conclusion for the day? Social media is obfuscation, flim-flam and chiffon gauze. (Sort of.) It still does not represent a route to market. An ROI cannot be extrapolated from social media. All business is about sales, and the value that those sales deliver to the brand, business or organisation – social media do not sell, nor can the effects that they may have on an audience be defined or evaluated. At best, social media raises awareness – but not of overtly branded messages because if you break the unwritten rules of the feral community, its members run back into the shadows, yelping abuse.

By all means – experiment. But don’t waste too much time, resource or money on it.

Social Media – Fact Or Facebo**o*ks?

Posted on by in Communications Strategy, Evaluation, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , .

Today, blog snorkellers mine, I is mostly having difficulty getting my head round this. I’m not saying it’s not true, mind, simply that I am having difficulty getting my head round it. It’s called ‘Visualising Six Years of Facebook’ (it’s actually called ‘Visualizing 6 Years of Facebook’, but this title, as it stands, is ugly, depressing and incorrect) and it shows – pictorially – salient statistics illustrating the rise and rise of this social media phenomenon. And, as I’ve said, I’m having difficulty getting me ‘ead around it.

Listen, right. The global population, according to the United States Census Bureau, is estimated to be in the region of 6.8bn. (Obviously, the USCB counts some US citizens twice, because they’re so gosh-darned saturatedly fat, but even so, it’s a pretty accurate and informed stab at the number.) According to the ‘Book, it now has 400 million users. That’s (for the sake of argument) 4% of the world’s population. Which means that four in every hundred people have – at some point – logged on and registered themselves wiv da Face’. Then, further to that, it appears that 200 million of these users log in every day.

Every day. 2% of the global population log in every day. Two people in every hundred, everywhere, log in to their Facebook account. Is it just me – or does this seem just a little far-fetched, especially given that global internet penetration stands at 25.6%? I mean – here are the actual figures – population 6.8bn, internet users 1.7 bn. This implies that 25% of internet users are on Facebook and 12.5% of them log in to the ‘Book every day. Sorry, as I say, I’m having difficulty wiv me ‘ead.

Further than that, even, this piece of work says that the ‘average Facebook user’ (they don’t define what they mean by ‘average’) spends 55 minutes every day (every day!) on the site. It’s one of those stats that seems faintly plausible – just so long as you don’t look at it too hard, or think about it too much.

No – I’m sorry. I don’t buy it. I don’t know where the data is coming from. My suspicion is that someone is feeding it into the marketplace and there are enough gullible souls and snakeoil salesmen preying on the gullibility that it gets picked up and touted around and then becomes fact. I feel a conspiracy theory coming on – after all, usage data should be very simple to get from a site like Facebook – but it just seems too high.

Anyway, I am probably completely wrong and the world is, indeed, being smothered by da Face’. Sooner or later, it’ll achieve sentience and then we’ll be properly f*cked.

In the meantime, despite this data being used to big the ‘Book up and point out how great it is, and how it’s changing the face of our society as we know it (eating it from the inside, more like), it still remains true to say that no-one has found a way of harnessing it for a commercial end. Social media as a business marketing or communications tool still doesn’t work. The feral communities that these sites create simply will not be leveraged, herded, corralled or targeted.

Say this data’s true. Say that 200 million people do log in each day. That’s an enormous amount. Should be like shooting fish in a barrel. But I’d say that if big business can’t get a result with these sorts of numbers – well – doesn’t matter how big it is, it’s still a white elephant.

Social Media – Who Will Rid Me Of These Troublesome Twits?

Posted on by in Social Media and tagged , , , , , , .

It’s genuinely insidious. Barely a day goes by without a further example of a misguided attempt to bend Twitter to a purpose for which it is clearly unsuited. In fact it isn’t actually suited to anything except self-promotion by a few deluded individuals – sorry, influential socmed evangelistas – now I come to think about it. What is it about Twitter that makes people think it’s some kind of digital messiah? I think it’s possessed of some sort of electronic voodoo and is turning otherwise sane people into the living braindead. It seems to be well suited to people living in the ‘Bay Area’ (wherever the hell that is, but it sounds deeply troubling) who appear to have an all-encompassing desire to tell people about their tall, decaff, skinny, soya lattes and the new to-die-for herbal muffin at Pratt’s Deli, but other than that, it’s pointless mojambo. Oh yes it is.

Anyway, there’s a few recent examples which I will list here, in the hope that, by listing them, I can break some small part of the Twittery spell. If just one Twitterator reads it, stands back, and says (a eureka moment): “I see it all now! What a fool I’ve been! It’s crap!” (oh yes it is), Then I will feel justified. So:

Why did the BBC feel the need to broadcast live coverage of the Chilcott enquiry on the telly, and split the screen to feature live tweets from the self-same enquiry? This is so wrong on so many different levels – not least of which is I’m watching it on TV, I really don’t need someone giving me 140 character commentary on what I’m watching. Especially when that commentary was along the lines of ‘Tony Blair is looking visibly shaky’. I know, you f*ckwits, I can SEE it.

Twitter from space – big noise about how the astronauts on whatever cosmic caravan is currently spinning happily along the Earth orbital are tweeting about their tasks. Well, they clearly aren’t fulfilling one of Twitter’s major ‘selling points’ (what are you doing now) because a) there’s little or no mobile device network coverage in space and b) even the iPhone is difficult to manipulate when you’re wearing a spacesuit.

Olympic Twitter – apparently (here’s a random piece from a Google search I did) there are athletes at the Winter Olympics twittering. For those people with such a small amount of life that they’re following competitors in a winter sports event. And again, it’s not really of much real use – is it – because it’s not about what they are doing now. No downhill skier is going to be tweeting his experiences as he hurtles down a mountainside, barely in control, at 90-odd miles per hour.

So, there you have it. Three examples of totally superfluous Twitter use. It is the answer to the question that no-one asked. It is a tool for the horrifically self-important and the sadly less than self-worthy. It is shallow and superficial. Unfortunately, even athletes, TV producers and astronauts have ego and validity issues – and Twitter just feeds off them.

That’s why it’s called a Twitter ‘feed’. It’s like a tapeworm of the soul.

Ew.

Social Media – 20 Tools For Social Media Monitoring

Posted on by in Evaluation, Marketing, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , .

In the spirit of entente cordiale (although, if I’m to be honest, if I ever drink cordiale, it’s normally cassis), and in order that it never be said that I don’t give you (dear blog snorkellers) a little something every now and then, here is a post wot I ‘appened upon recently, providing a list of 20 free tools for use in monitoring social media – both for the results (yeah, right) of any social media marketing activity you may be (misguidedly) undertaking and generally, for mentions of you, your company and your brand.

The list contains splendid-sounding stuff like Addictomatic, Buzzoo, Surchur, Brandeye, Tazzup, and SocialMention amongst others – however, before you rush off and fill your boots with free monitoring, might I sound a couple of words of caution.

Also included within the list, and put forward as a a good and sensible solution, are Google Alerts. If you’re like me, then you’ve been using Google Alerts to monitor online news feeds for quite some time, and recognise their shortcomings. In the nicest possible way, Google Alerts are not groundbreaking and simply ride on the back of Google’s raison d’etre – being a good search engine. The results they deliver are far from complete and miss great chunks of – sometimes important – content.

This does rather imply that the other 19 solutions on the list are also not rocket science – and, having had a quick go myself, I can vouch for this. They’re not rocket science and they’re far from being complete.

Sorry – and I can’t help myself – I think the tools for monitoring social media are like the media themselves – misunderstood, over-estimated, inaccurate and not delivering of much in the way of value.

But – hey – make your own mind up.

Social Media – Pepsi Syndrome

Posted on by in corporate reputation, External Communications, Social Media and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , .

It’s like Stockholm Syndrome, but especially for social media. What happens is that a company, brand or organisation becomes aware of social media – either from within (generally the rot starts in IT) or from without, via the snake-oil salesmen des nos jours, the self-styled social media gurus.

The background noise becomes a barrage, once aware of social media, you cannot simply ignore it – it’s like hives – and before you know it, you’re a hostage to the phenomenon. No part of your business is immune to the lure of the Shiny Object – no department is without its social media evangelist. It’s particularly bad in marketing-led organisations, riven (as they are) with insecurities and staffed by those who cannot be left behind and are possessed of a spectacular herd mentality.

Eventually, while you have to give credit to the decision makers in any organisation, who will understand that they are being coerced and will see the unhealthy nature of the relationship, the company, brand or business learns to love its oppressor.

And that’s when Pepsi removed the $20m from its sponsorship of the Super Bowl and decided to plough it into social media.

I came across this blog, by a lady called Christine Hueber. Because I know that you, dear blog snorkellers, are inherently lazy, and won’t click on the link (even if it were to save your life), I reproduce it here in full:

“Pepsi: Social Media $20 Million — Super Bowl $0

LinkedIn was the initial source for me of this wonderful news:   Pepsi is spending $20 million on Social Media instead of Super Bowl advertising!

What do you think this news means for Social Media?

Best,

Christine

Christine Hueber

Engaging Social Media Relationship Marketing with Results!

+1 530.582.8091 Direct”

What does this mean for social media? Nothing. What does it mean for Pepsi? That they’ve completely lost the plot.