Facebook users today were greeted with a message that a letter from founder Mark Zuckerberg was waiting for them. As this is not your every day occurrence, most of us ended up checking it out.

And while we found out that the galloping giant had moved beyond the 350 million user base number, it was also bringing about some significant changes in the coming days, to the way it has been functioning. While details about the exact implementation will be known over the next few weeks, there is enough information to generate many early reactions, to these changes.

I have a slightly different view to the opinions in that story in Business Standard.

1. On the subject of the regional networks which will not remain anymore, I have not seen any serious value to this so-called regional network, including the one of India. Networks, groups, communities are worth if they truly unify, generate exchanges and interactions, and are active. The specific Facebook Fan pages or groups that actually engage its members are the kind that are actively managed, have reasons for engagement, and have a common passion. Not the kind where you just ‘belong for the sake of belonging’. Regional networks were largely of the latter type.

2. The privacy factor, on the other hand is very crucial. As a father of two daughters who are active on Facebook, and as a consultant  and speaker on Social Media, this is one fact that I have highlighted many a times.

Let me explain with an example.

You go to a vacation at a beach resort, and have a rollicking time. Fun photos of the trip, including several in your two piece bikini find their way to your Facebook page. You are comfortable sharing these with your friends. After all, you have been selective about choosing your friends on Facebook. And as always, you get a lot of comments from your friends, on your photos.

Now few of your friends have large friend groups of their own, on Facebook. As they comment on your photo, a status update goes out to their friends, that <your_friend> has commented on <your> photo album. And in that status update, the ‘photo album’ is a link, that your friend’s friend can click on, and view!

Oops..that is not something that you expected / wanted / anticipated. And yet, you did not even realize that this could happen, because there were no apparent warnings (current version of Facebook also has selective privacy settings for many of its features, but often the default sharing is ‘everyone’ and most users do not realize the need to change it!).

And while that friend’s friend cannot comment on your photos, he can definitely view them, and should he have mal-intentions, he can do worse.

Not your best case scenario and something that is very real and happening, right now. I must admit for example, to not have any major celebrities as friends, but some of my friends have such friends. And once in a while when I see my friend commenting on their celebrity friends’ pics, I have been curious to check the pics out. I am sure the celebrity did not mean to share those with me, or many others like me!

So considering these risks, it is indeed a move in the right direction, to enable and basically prompt users to choose the level of sharing, for any piece of content that they update on Facebook. In a growing and large space, where abuse is so easy, even if it means a little change that we have to deal with, I think the privacy changes being proposed are a step in the right direction.

3. But does that mean that I will need to go and look over my hundreds of friends, one at a time, and set privacy settings for each of them? Surely that would be very tedious?

No, I don’t think that will be necessary at all.

Consider again:

a. At this time, the higher level of privacy was not present. It is being introduced. So whatever content you uploaded on to Facebook, you were comfortable to share that with whoever (largely, your friends) had access to it via your Facebook page. Just because you now have a choice to be selective, you do not HAVE to go and change privacy settings for your existing content. It was visible to your existing friends, and if you don’t do anything special, it will continue to be visible to them.

b. What is a choice for you is the NEW content that you will start uploading hereafter. At that point, while uploading, you may have a choice to decide if you want to share with friends, of friends of friends, or everyone. Again, as I read the open letter, it does not state anywhere that you will get to make selective permission settings within your friends. As long as someone is a friend, he is equal to all other friends. So you do not go and set levels of permissions to your various friends.

After all, Facebook wants to continue to remain a common user’s utility, and does not want to become a techie application. Multiple level of permission settings on users, is a techie activity, which I am sure, Facebook will not indulge in.

So what kind of consequences do I see as a result of these changes?

1. As an individual user, your privacy settings are certainly better protected. I would then recommend users to set their settings correctly, e.g. have private photo and video albums to be only shared with your friends and no one else. But if you post a link to your blog, which you actually want more people to reach, then that content can be allowed to be accessed by ‘everyone’. And of course, if it is just someone else’s content (like a neat video that you see), fell free to share it with ‘everyone’ again, as you have no need to protect that further!

2. But what if you are a brand? The one thing that brands found favorable about Facebook was its viral nature. Where good content could potentially fly on account of features like ’share’ and ‘like’. Will Facebook become less viral now with these changes? Will your content not move that fast?

I would think not. Unless users make mistakes in their personal settings.

As a brand, the content that you produce, you will anyway want maximum people to see it. So you will not put any significant privacy protection levels on the same. You will set your content to be accessible to ‘everyone’ (as against only fans, or friends of fans or something like that). With that setting as your content moves out from your fans to others, there are no stops really. The viral aspect remains.

Unless.

Unless some users have made their settings such that “all that they share is only accessible to friends” and no one else. Ideally they want to protect their personal privacy, and would protect personal content, photos and all. But a mistake in user settings could well make ALL content that they share, only reachable to friends. In SUCH cases, the content that passes through such friends may perhaps stop flying as much, as it will not go to the level 2, beyond their friends.

This should not happen, but if it happens to a small degree, to that extent, the viral flight of good content may be diminished to an extent.

Other than these factors, I do not see major consequences of these new features of Facebook.

What are your thoughts? Have I missed something? Do you agree? Love to hear your thoughts on this.

I have many good friends in the traditional advertising world. A few clients as well. And many prospects. And I have a lot of respect for their work. They are among the most creative folks I know in life.

So I want to assure that this post is not meant to be critical of them.

There is a perspective based on observation and experience, about how traditional advertising agencies are finding some aspects of Social Media to be challenging, and which is shared here.

As an opinion. And looking for other opinions, in fact!

Over the few months that we have been in business as a Social Media agency, we have pitched directly to clients as well as via advertising agencies. In doing so, we have had good experience interacting and working with both types of prospects.

Having seen this at close quarters, I observe few fundamental challenges, for advertising agencies to adapt to Social Media that easily:

1. There is a ‘campaign’ focus: Agencies have traditionally been involved in campaigns. Those that may demand a lot of hard work, high creativity, long hours, but which are finally one-off shots (whatever be the length of that one-off shot).

Social Media is not quite like that. Social Media is an ongoing process, something that needs to happen all day long, day-in-and-day-out. This is unfamiliar territory, in principal, for the agencies.

2. Intuitive and smart writing is required, need not be masterpieces: Agencies have the best creative talents, no doubt. Especially copywriters, who create that magic, with the use of few words that get on to billboards or on print ads or the script on the TV ad. They may work on several iterations before they get those 4 words right, but those 4 words then, are very right and work wonders in an advertisement.

Such excellent copywriting would work very well on social media. Except that it is unaffordable. And perhaps not required. Each tweet does not have to be the masterpiece copy that comes on ads. Each Facebook update does not have to be discussed and debated in a creative brainstorming session.

Social Media is about being ‘just right enough’ on the creative front, being more intuitive and natural, and being almost casual in your content. Whether it is on Facebook or on Twitter or other formats.

The extremely creative copywriter of the agency can do this, but her presence for each tweet or each FB update, will not be affordable then. And anything less might not do, or may not be available in the agency team!

3. There is huge effort in getting it right, and then getting it ‘out’. As mentioned earlier, agencies work hard to get the ad right, and for which long hours and very hard work is the norm. But it all culminates at the point, when the campaign is pushed out, after all the final approvals. And that’s it. After that the team can relax, as it is then, for the campaign to deliver. Or not.

In social media however, there is no one ‘out’. Social Media is about conversations. About dialogs. Once you put your message out, you will get responses. And you have to respond back. And it goes on. And each time, you need to put your best foot forward. And the ‘campaign’ does not really ‘end’ at all! This again is something to get used to, for agencies.

We have seen many a social media initiative of agencies falling into the ‘campaign’ slot. Most times, it also continues to be a ‘broadcast’ as against a conversation.

While we do not agree to it being called a ‘social media strategy’ then, we have ourselves worked with agencies on such initiatives. Considering at our end, that we are participating not in a true social media effort, but rather, in an advertising campaign, where a blog or a Facebook page or Twitter is serving as a media, and we are delivering the content for that advertisement.

This is really the type of Social Media involvement that we are seeing a lot of, from advertising agencies.

We hope that agencies get convinced about the “real” social media. The type which involves long term and ongoing engagement with your customers. The type that creates relationships and not just one-off branding or sale opportunities. Where the brand truly mingles with its customers, and becomes their very approachable friend.

Once agencies are convinced about this opportunity, and then they can convince their clients too, perhaps we can see a shift in the approach.

However it does appear to be a steep mountain to climb, from where we are at this time. There are a lot of old learnings to be given up, and new ones to be learned. And in that, amongst other things, the agency revenue models may also get challenged. And which is the biggest status quo that no one wants to disturb.

As long as the current situation prevails, agencies may keep doing advertising and using social media platforms as advertising media. While others, including agencies like ours, will strive to convince clients about an alternate approach. One which is the true social media.

Yes, I might have ruffled a few feathers here. And so I am open to be corrected.

Do you think agencies are changing faster than I give them credit for? Or is their current approach the right one anyway? Your opinions are welcome, in the comments below.

Because customer conversations do not happen on your laptop’s C drive, they happen in the Social

space!

Say what? Yeah, ok, I kind of jumped the gun.

So let’s start at the beginning.

As we meet clients and talk to them about Social Media initiatives and strategies, many times, we realize that what we are advising is something that a client can so easily do himself. Well, not all parts of it, but many of the simpler ones.

So then, why does the company need us? Why can’t they do it themselves?

Some of the reasons in response to these questions:

1. Unless it is a day job, it does not get done well: There are times when there is a “mood” to jump into Social Media. Usually starts somewhere at the top levels of management. And the plunge is taken. Facebook page is started or a Twitter account initiated, or some blogging takes off. May even go on for a few months. And then, one of many things could happen:
   • a. The ‘champion’ of the project leaves the job, or
   • b. A joint venture initiative comes up, which occupies the mindshare, or
   • c. The CFO asks some awkward questions on resource utilization, etc.

   And the effort dies down. Slowly but surely, it fizzles out to a zero. Nobody even tries to clean up the mess. The ‘fans’ on the Facebook pages are left high and dry. Nobody responds back to the tweets. The blog looks like an abandoned ghost town.

   Impact on the brand? I am sure you can imagine!!

   If alternately, an agency was involved, such holes would not remain, usually.

2. You know all the stuff, but you do not how to present it: The business belongs to the client. She knows her business better than anyone else, and we, as Social Media consultants cannot even come close. However, with the client’s knowledge of her business, and her ability to put content together about the business, there may be a shortfall in the area of presentation.A very long blog post may be written, that no one reads through. Posts may sound too technical and boring. There may be a struggle to communicate in short for, say, 140 characters, for Twitter. And of course, fundamental language skills may not be that good.

   Here again, the Social Media Agency will fix all of these issues, and create content of suitable size, suitable style, and present it well.

3. There are only 24 hours in the day: Many times, we find that on the scale of good intentions, clients score 110%. That they want to go after Social Media and want to crack the puzzle, and they want to blog, and they want to tweet, and they want to do everything that comes in between. And they want to do it themselves too.With that kind of earnestness, the task begins and is taken up. The ‘honeymoon’ period goes like a breeze. They are frequent blog posts, there are regular updates on Facebook, on Twitter, etc. And then…. then, a big tender / RFP comes up, and getting that business could mean wonders for the client. OR, perhaps there are some regulatory / compliance issues that come up and grab the time of the client. And the first casualty of time is the Social Media plan. Because it is not delivering short term results!

   A Social Media agency would ensure against gaps of this kind!

4. The best things that you do are also often, your best-kept secrets: Most companies have, over time, worked on some amazing projects, some outstanding work for their clients. In doing so, they satisfied their clients no end, perhaps even earned some bonuses for themselves. They have probably even made a case study document out of this, with an intention of showing it to some other client, if a similar case comes up.There are also times when companies have come up with this brilliant presentation about themselves, and which they shared to their bankers or potential investors or while pitching for some new accounts.

   Such case studies, such presentations are then, hanging around somewhere in the C drives of computers. And sitting there, they do not have a chance to impress anyone else.

   A Social Media Agency will typically prompt the client to come out with such “secrets” and which are then showcased strategically, via Social Media, and then, have a chance to reach a wider audience!

In conclusion, I repeat that as a Social Media Consultant, or a Social Media Agency, there is almost nothing that I can do, which my client cannot do. There is scarcely any ‘technical’ skill that I bring forth, that a client would not have.

The only reason then, for a client to engage us, is because, “we will get Social Media done”, and left to themselves, clients may or may not do it consistently / regularly!

Yes, I generalize to an extent, to make the point. What do you think, though? In your experience, do you think this generalization is valid?

Executive Summary: Is Social Media Monitoring just an academic exercise, or can it lead to concrete benefits to the Brand? We conducted a Monitoring exercise to find out. The chosen domain was iPod and iPhone speakers and docks. To know more about what we found, read on. (Hint: It was the latter)

The method used for conducting this Social Media Monitoring exercise was essentially similar to the previous exercises carried out by us (Online Travel Sector in India and Hybrid Cars – Whats the Social Media Buzz). The study differed however, in that we completely focused on deriving points of action from it. We specifically chose this particular market  (iPhone and iPod docks) to conduct the exercise, because it was very close to another market/domain (iPods and iPhones themselves) which have a very high level of noise. We would have to ensure, therefore, that the search was very well defined, so that the number of irrelevant results retrieved would be kept in check. The entire exercise involved:

1. Identifying the appropriate search terms to enter into the Social Media Monitoring tool, so as to reduce the number of irrelevant results retrieved. (We restricted the searches to retrieve four days worth of data, June 12th to June 15th)
2. Running the searches, and allowing the Software to perform a first level classification of the results.
3. Our Social Media Executives cleaning up the results, to remove all the irrelevant ones.
4. Higher level, intelligent classification, categorization by our Executives.
5. Analyzing these results to extract points of action, and identifying influencers.

Our learning:

If I was a company about to launch an iPod Dock/Speaker system, what would be the features I would ensure that my product had? Apart from the obvious feature, viz. Good Audio output, our monitoring exercise revealed two features which were highly appreciated:

1. Compatibility with different generations of iPhones/iPods: What may seem to be an obvious enough feature, was not present in some models (eg. Bose SoundDock Portable). Conversely, whenever a mention was made of a dock which had this feature, it was highly praised (eg. GenevaSound Medium).
2. Ability to charge your device while music is being played: This feature, as well, wherever present was highly praised (eg. Harmon Kardon Go + Play). Yet, not all systems seem to have this feature.

On Social Media, Issues resurface, constant vigilance is required. The Bose SoundDock Portable, mentioned above, had a problem. Days after the 3G iPhone was released on 11th July 2008, people started talking about issues with the SoundDock Portable. While charging the iPhone 3G, the dock made a popping/clucking sound, every 5 minutes. This was reported on a particular thread on the Apple Support forums. We saw users helping each other, recounting  their interactions with Bose’s support  (which incidentally, did not reply in the thread). The problem was solvable, requiring the users to send the dock to Bose, who would modify it and send it back. As it happens, three new posts was posted on the the same thread, on 15th June 2009 (which is why the tool picked it up).  These people had the same issue, one year later, and still had to help each other solve it.

Action Required:

We identified results, which merited response as ‘Action Required’ results. They were further classified into ‘Action Required: First Level Response’ and ‘Action Required: Escalate to Customer Service’. Within these four days, we found three results on which we determined action would be required, in terms of escalating those three results to Customer Service. They were all related to the Bose SoundDock and problems associated with the same. The first Action Required result was about Bose SoundDock not being able to charge a users iPod Touch. The second and third results were from the apple support forums, with users talking about the popping/clucking sounds being made by the SoundDock Portable.

Influencer Identification:

From among the various sources where iPod docks were spoken about, Social Media Monitoring also helps us identify the influencers, viz. sources with the widest reach. While the largest number of reviews of various iPod docking systems were on the blog Smart Reviews Online, the popularity rating for this particular blog was 2 (out of a maximum possible rating of 10). On the other hand, the blog Geek.com, which did not always talk about iPod docks, had a popularity rating of 10 (highest rating possible). The only talk about iPod docks on geek.com in this time frame was about the passPORT home dock enables the Soundock to charge iPods while playing them. Another big influencer, with a popularity rating of 10 (source with highest reach or popularity) was, unsurprisingly Apple’s support forums, which had a single thread active, with only three posts during this time frame. It became clear, that frequency of posting (which may lead to a particular blog/channel being seen as influential) may not really be the most popular source.

The above study is an illustration of how monitoring Social Media can very clearly be used to derive well defined and specific action steps. It also helps in identifying which are the most influential sources of information about your product or brand.

The categorization done by our analysts, opens up opportunities for some interesting insights. First let us look at what is the ratio of relevant to irrelevant results from the one’s extracted by the tool:

Ratio of Relevant to Irrelevant Results

How do users percieve your brand? What are the thoughts, words they associate with your company? We can analyze the themes being touched upon on Social Media, when people are talking about your brand. In this example, we did this themes analysis on the entire set of relevant results, viz. across brands.

Themes Associated with iPod Speakers/Docks

In the tag cloud shown above, larger the size of the word/tag, more closely it is associated with the brand (in this case across brands). The above cloud, for example reveals that the word ‘System’ is very closely associated with speakers/docks, something which should be considered while thinking of a branding strategy for your next product. The word ‘dock’ is individually bigger than ’speaker’, however, the word ’speakers’ also figures prominently in the tag cloud.

Now that we know the themes being touched, we want to see which domains have the maximum volume of conversations about iPod Docks and Speakers (a reminder, we are doing this study for the four day period from 12th June to 15th June. It can easily be conducted for longer durations, and on an ongoing basis). The most popular domains, which spoke about iPod speakers, were as per the following image:

Domains with maximum results about iPod Speakers/Docks

If we look at the above graph carefully, we see that there are two posts on Craigslist. Which means there is probably a resales market for iPod docks. We classified these posts concerning resale, and now we can see, which brand has the most resale related posts  for the given duration:

Resale related posts, by brand

These resale related posts were not restricted to Craigslist alone. Done on an ongoing basis, this can help identify the size of the resale market for a particular brand, or even a particular product.

In previous Social Media Monitoring exercises, we have seen some basic data analysis, including Ratio of Tone within brand, Tone analysis related to product etc. As we can see in this post, much more complex and insightful analysis is possible.

Your questions/comments are invited. What other insights would you like to be able to draw from Social Media?

If you wish to download the White Paper for this study (PDF), you can visit the Resources Page on our website.