If you needed any convincing, this latest video “Social Media ROI: Socialnomics” by Socialnomics authorErik Qualman paints a convincing case. Memo to all companies and businesses everywhere: Ignore at your peril.
This article and video have been put together with the hopes of it being a viable tool for those with a vision to get those seated in the back row to stand up and see the social media light.
The latest offering is packed full of bold stats, so I’d advise some degree of caution in blindly accepting the detail. However, what cannot be disputed is social media isn’t just flexing its muscles, it is fast becoming the most powerful technological revolution to sweep the globe. It is critical for the power of the social media discontinuity to be fully understood. Those that do will prosper.
The video follows on from Qualman’s hugely successful YouTube video from a few months ago called “Socialnomics: Social Media Revolution” which has over million views.
A survey by IT services provider Morse calculates that personal use of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter by employees during working hours is costing UK businesses an estimated £1.38 billion a year in lost productivity, but more importantly says companies need clear policies to ensure brand protection.
Of the 1,460 office workers questioned, 57% said they used social media sites during the working day for an average 40 minutes each which added up to the equivalent of a full working week a year, Morse said in a press release.
Is this such a bad thing? Is the true cost as high as Morse is suggesting? Probably not. People at work have always found ways to use (waste?) time in ways that do not directly contribute to company productivity. In the modern office environment how many less people now go off for tea or cigarette breaks? How many people have changed the way they use the internet to spend proportionately more time on social networks rather than traditional websites? How many use their lunch hour to catch up with their “friends” and “followers”?
But while Morse will generate column inches with its headline-grabbing figure of £1.38 billion, it is clear that social networks offer both threats and opportunities. Morse makes the point that too many firms have not formulated clear policies on the use of Twitter or other social networks to ensure professional reputations are protected.
When it comes to usage policies it is clear many businesses have some way to go, as of those surveyed just over three quarters (76%) said that their employer hadn’t issued them with specific guidelines with regards to using Twitter. Without guidelines and usage polices businesses are leaving themselves wide open to a reduction in productivity, brand damage and security risks.
Morse consultant Philip Wicks said:
However, if implemented correctly, the use of social networks can help facilitate closer ties with employees and customers. Therefore, businesses need to strike the right balance between engagement and productivity when it comes to employee usage.
It appears executives at Disney and DreamWorks — where Diaz and Myers are lined up for next year’s Shrek squel — are paranoid that by pre-empting carefully choreographed press releases, Tweets from top performers are leaking information that could harm the film industry reputation.
While, Hollywood has a long history of gagging its top performers, it should be looking for effective ways to engage with social media through the huge numbers of followers its stars can call on. American actor and former model Aston Kutcher, has become the most followed person on Twitter with a count of 3,845,728 followers and still rising.
DreamWorks can be found on Twitter at @DW_Studios, where it has managed the grand total of just 18 Tweets.
MaYoMo (Map Your Moments, www.mayomo.com) is a new Web 2.0 service that simply offers users the chance to ask “what’s happening, where and when” with the idea of empowering user generated content to lead the news agenda. It aims to deliver a “socially-connected, real-time platform for global news reporting — and conversation about that news.”
A key difference with our model is that we attract content from both young, aspiring journalists, as well as experienced independent journalists and bloggers.
The site claims that from “Alpha” and “Beta” launches over the last year it has gained users in 120 countries that have posted 57,000 news articles.
But it’s still early days. Despite @MaYoMo pouring out over 3,000 tweets since July, it still only has 340 followers, while on Facebook it counts just 146 fans.
A poll from the UK Association of Online Publishers (AOP) says about half its members currently charge for some or all content on their websites, while a further 20% said they were planning to begin charging in the next 12 months. Big change from a similar poll two years ago when 54% of AOP members said they had no plans to charge for online content.
In the AOP 2009 Content & Trends Census, association members were asked about digital opportunities, threats and trends, as well as paid and free content; user-generated content (UGC); social media; content delivery mechanisms; mobile sites and mobile applications.
Not surprisingly, the biggest opportunities were seen in
Mobile Web (85%), UGC (75%), High speed broadband (75%), Community/social networking (73%) and behavioural targeting (73%).
And the threats:
The economy (70%), Competitors (53%), BBC (50%), Google (38%) and Government and legal restrictions (35%).
Lee Baker, Director of AOP, was quoted as saying:
“We’ve all been talking about a tough year for industry and particularly for publishers, but again our Members show their ability to adapt and take on new challenges in the form of exploiting new formats. A strong vote for Mobile and Mobile Apps is encouraging for the industry as a whole; and use of Twitter is a particularly interesting development in terms of use of new mechanisms to publish content.”
Nic Newman, Controller of Future Media and Technology in BBC Journalism, recently spent three months at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, grappling with social media’s impact on traditional media organisations. He will be sharing his findings in a panel discussion in London tomorrow (Wednesday 30 September).
In a posting on the Reuters blog “The Great Debate“, Newman writes:
Politicians, entertainers, marketers and captains of industry are just some of those waking up to the potential of social media in transforming the way they relate to voters, fans and consumers.
But where does all this leave the traditional media organisation? Disintermediated? Bypassed? Stripped of all power and influence?
He offers us five key thoughts.
Ignore the sceptics.
Social media is relevant to journalism.
Journalists are embracing social media. “Same values new tools”.
Social media, blogs and user generated content is offering an important extra layer of information and opinion.
Social recommendation is an increasingly important driver of eyeballs to traditional news content.
**
Here’s a great video by Socialnomics that puts things into some kind of exciting (or scary, depending on where you are) perspective.
**
To us social media converts and news junkies, Newman is merely stating the obvious. But he is sounding a wake up call to any traditional media organisation that sticks its head in the sand or thinks adding a couple of videos or the oppportunity for readers to comments online will make it a modern service.
The commercial pressures are huge, and the inevitable consequence of diminishing revenues is that content quality will suffer. Yes and no. Again, this needs a creative approach. This week it was reported that US broadcaster CBS News was linking up with GlobalPost to use the latter’s network of 70 correspondents in 50 countries round the world.
As reported in the New York Times, GlobalPost has three strands to its revenue model — subscriptions, display advertising and syndication. GlobalPost founder Philip Balboni said they had no trouble attracting readers with some 400,000 unique users each month, but only a few hundred subscribers paying $100/year had been signed up and display was less than robust.
But the attraction of services such as GlobalPost or other citizen journalist services such as Demotix is not to the consumer, but potentially to the trade. It’s an expensive business having permanently posted foreign correspondents, or even parachuting in the firemen to cover breaking international stories. Newspapers can now fill their pages with cheap (but possibly great, or possibly dubious) content, broadcasters can fill their schedules with similar, but who is ultimately going to pay? Already this year, Scoopt, a citizen journalist media agency shut its virtual doors.
As Newman says, media organisations need to adapt to survive:
Taking social media seriously doesn’t mean you have to leave your core values behind, but organisations that fail embrace the power of the network will struggle to survive.
Fine. But as I said above, ” Where’s the money?” We’ll explore that in detail in the future.
(Council Chambers, BBC Broadcasting House, Portland Place, LONDON, W1A 1AA)
A panel discussion to launch the new RISJ Working Paper by Nic Newman, Controller Future Media and Technology in BBC Journalism, and former Journalist Fellow at the Reuters Institute entitled ‘The Rise of Social Media and Its Impact on Mainstream Journalism’. Nic Newman will present his findings in a discussion chaired by David Levy, Director of the Reuters Institute with Meg Pickard, Head of Social Media Development at Guardian News and Media and Kate Day, Communities Editor at the Telegraph. A reception will follow.
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About Andy Soloman
Andy Soloman is a champion of editorial excellence who over 25 years has had a career spanning all the main media platforms. He spent 10 years as a foreign correspondent in Vietnam, Pakistan and elsewhere in Asia, and has most recently been at the forefront of delivering significant growth in premium online global B2B subscription services.
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Roy Greenslade is professor of journalism at City University, and was editor of the Daily Mirror from 1990-91
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