What is Social Media?

Social Media is a term often used to describe a range of online services created to foster participation and shared meaning among people over the internet. Popular services include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and You Tube.

Unlike traditional media, such as newspapers, radio and television, Social Media encourages the reader, viewer or listener to participate and add new meaning to stories or other topics of interest.

Sharing may take place through posting an item to a personal profile on a social networking site such as Facebook, through to commenting on a bookmark saved within a social bookmarking service such as Delicious or leaving a reply or comment at the end of an article or blog post.

In a wider context the term Social Media can also be used to refer to a mixture of sociological and technological changes that have seen the rise of user generated content (UGC), consumer generated media (CGM) and collaborative working arrangements such as crowdsourcing.

Why Social Media?

Through opening up dialogue around a particular story or topic, it may be that we change our understanding or learn more about the issues or details reported.

There are growing communities on the Internet where people share information with each other, highlighting stories of interest to each other. Through building these networks, we as individuals can track opinion and change more easily leading to a better awareness of the world around us.

In a business context, these networks can help us identify emerging trends, access expert information from leaders in our field or create new interest in our products or services. Many tools can help us form new relationships, attract new business, gain publicity or create new partnerships.

Social Media Platforms

There are literally thousands of different technical platforms falling into the Social Media category; however, these different services generally fall into one of the groupings below:

Social Networks
Sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn and Ecademy are referred to as ‘Social Networks’. These sites allow the individual user to create and maintain a profile on the Internet like a personal webpage. Users can share information about themselves, their interests etc or can link to information or content they believe to be worthwhile or interesting. Users can find friends, colleagues and acquaintances on these services maintaining their relationships with them via the sites’ messaging, sharing and other related services. Many sites allow users to join groups (online communities of shared interest) or become fans of pages (organisation profiles). Social Networks can be useful to businesses in a number of ways including; raising awareness, engaging with consumers, testing ideas or products, gaining new business or keeping in contact with existing customers or other interested parties.

Blogs, V-Logs and Microblogs
Blogs or ‘Web Logs’ is the name given to websites that are regularly updated by an individual or organisation with new information or ‘posts’. There are a range of blogging styles ranging from detailed ‘How To’ guides or tutorials through to personal accounts or diaries. More recently we have seen growth in V-Logs and Microblogs which spun out of the blogging phenomenon. V-Logs are similar to standard blogs with the difference being that entries are left in video format instead of written articles. Microblogs allow the user to submit short entries instead of full posts with each submission limited to 140 characters with the potential to link to more detailed information. Popular blogging platforms include; Wordpress, Blogger and Microsoft Live Spaces. The most popular mircoblogging platform is Twitter. V-Logs may use one of the other platforms or can be hosted on video sharing sites such as You Tube, Vimeo or Viddler. These sites provide new opportunities for businesses and organisations to begin an ongoing conversation with customers, they allow customers to comment or add to stories and can be effective in ‘passively marketing’ products or services.

File Sharing Sites
Sites such as You Tube, Slideshare, Scribd, and Flickr allow users to upload and share documents, images, videos, presentations or other files online. These files can be shared with teams, customer groups or openly to anyone on the Internet. Many services allow the uploaded file to be reused (referred to as ‘embeding’) on other sites to make static information more interesting or engaging. Interesting content can become ‘viral’ meaning that consumers forward links to the content via their social network or their own websites/blogs. These sites have a range of uses to businesses or organisations including knowledge sharing, making marketing materials available online and creating buzz or word of mouth recommendation around your product or service.

Forums
Forums are  online discussion or messaging boards where participants with a shared understanding or interest can leave open messages to each other. They can be seen as the natural evolution of the traditional bulletin board. They often foster the growth of communities around a shared interest or topic and can be stand alone or part of another website. Forums can have a number of uses to businesses or organisations including the ability to foster a community, provide a platform for customers to contribute their own content or enabling common questions or issues to be answered by other users.

Wiki Sites
Wikis are websites that allow the easy sharing of information through the editing of a number of interlinked web-pages via wiki software . The term ‘Wiki’ comes from the Hawaiian word for ‘Quick’. The most prominent wiki site is Wikipedia, the multilingual encyclopedia supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. In a business context they can be a highly efficient platform for team collaboration, knowledge management and information sharing.

Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking sites enable Internet users to store, organize, search, and reference bookmarks or their favourite websites so that they can return to the information at a later stage. Unlike the bookmarking function on a typical internet browser, social bookmarks are stored in an online directory and can be accessed from anywhere via a standard password and login. Social bookmarks really become ’social’ when the referenced information is shared with other users who can access your links or where you may access theirs. Social bookmarking can be useful to businesses in sharing information across teams, referencing information for later use, identifying popular pages or websites and in promoting their own content.

Virtual Worlds
Virtual worlds are computer simulated environments where Internet users can adopt a virtual persona or body in order to navigate the environment or socialise and interact with other users. The most notable virtual world is Second Life where members can potentially profit from their activities via the exchange of Linden Dollars (a virtual currency which operates within Second Life). Virtual worlds have a number of business uses including opening up virtual offices to meet customers or other parties, testing building designs or layouts within a realistic working environment or hosting events in a location where potentially anyone can attend via their home PC or laptop.

Does it make any money? (Return on Investment)

A common concern for businesses and organisations looking towards Social Media as a route to market or promote themselves is the potential for Return on Investment (ROI) and the measurement of results. Many find it difficult to measure their success as they do not fully understand the returns they are looking for or how to measure them.

The key to success in using Social Media comes from executing a well thought out and documented strategy with clear objectives. Objectives should be linked directly to Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) defined at the outset such as; website hits, new business enquiries, customer satisfaction levels, number of word of mouth recommendations and so on.

Many companies fail to fully consider what they are trying to achieve, focusing instead on the technology platform and securing a position amongst the competition. That said there has been some impressive examples of companies succeeding in their objectives through the use of Social Media. We have listed a couple of more notable successes below; however, if you would like to see more evidence please get in touch and we will fill you in on some of our own successes to date:

Dell
Dell recently reported that they can attribute $3m of sales to date to their @DellOutlet Twitter account started in 2007. $2m was in direct sales through Dell Outlet with a further $1m in sales via Dell.com from users who entered the site via the Twitter account.

Young & Free Alberta
Young & Free Alberta, a Common Wealth Credit Union in the Canadian province of Alberta used a Social Media campaign to generate more young customers. As a result of their activities they gained 2 million impressions on their website, 2,300 new accounts, and $4 million (Canadian Dollars) in new deposits.

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