Beware: Social Networking is on the Rise

Does it seem like everyone and their mother is talking about social networking? Well, to me it does. Even my 60-year-old father asked me about Twitter and its purpose. The truth is that people are talking about it, using the websites, and referring friends to sign up. As a result, social networking among US broadband users has grown an impressive 93% since 2006, and has increased the amount of time people spend communicating online 18%, to 32% of total online time, according to a new report from Netpop Research, LLC that delves into social networking trends and habits, reports MarketingCharts.

The "Netpop Connect: Social Networkers US" report also reveals that at the same time as online communications has increased, the time spent on traditional forms of online entertainment has declined 29%, and is now down to 19% of total online time:




This, Netpop said, is changing the face of how entertainment is defined, and giving rise to a new form of leisure built around talking, sharing, and providing opinions and perspectives.

Today, some of the most popular social networking activities include sending emails, sending instant messages, sharing photos, commenting on messages, engaging in blogs, and posting “Tweets.” As a result, it is not enough for companies to have a strong digital strategy, it is also important to be relevant in this social media world. Magazines have tried diligently to maintain their relevance and ultimately, have migrated content to the Web to capture more eyeballs. More companies are starting a blog and asking employees to be involved in order to make it active and engaging to consumers. Additionally, management is looking for feedback from blogs. Furthermore, we’ve also seen brands put up Facebook pages.

So what is next? Social networking is growing. The research estimates that 105 million American broadband users (76%) now contribute to social media. As websites give more space to user-generated content it will be interesting to see how companies track and monitor the conversation with consumers. Other popular websites and applications such as Digg, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yelp and YouTube will likely become more popular as well. Ultimately, this means that if you don’t like social networking, you better get used to it because more and more companies are likely to jump in on the fun. Likewise, if you don’t know about these sites or understand the purpose, it is probably in your best interest to get up to speed.

Interview with Brad Reisner, Co-founder of Igicom

I am very excited that Brad Reisner agreed to do a Q&A for my blog. Brad is a co-founder of Igicom, a web development and applications firm specializing in database applications. At Igicom, he leads many engagements including projects for Time Inc., DDB Worldwide, EnergyBrands, Nike, Cablevision, Charitybuzz, the AFL-CIO, AIG, Jones Apparel Group, Tommy Hilfiger and others. Brad’s knowledge of current and emerging technologies, software development trends, high availability infrastructure, and expertise in database design and relational database management software (RDBMS), provides clients with intelligent, effective solutions. Previously, Brad was the Vice President of E-Commerce and Technology for Time-Life and Book-of-the-Month Club/Bookspan in the Time Inc. book division. At Bookspan, Brad was responsible for backend architecture and infrastructure, for imaging and content management systems, publishing more than 70,000 pages annually across 12 businesses. Twice nominated for the prestigious Time Inc. President’s Awards, Brad lead the technology design and implementation of Time Inc.’s first digital imaging project leading to an annual cost savings of more than $5,000,000 for his division alone.

Below you’ll find some key insights on how Igicom enables its clients to meet their business goals by designing web solutions that emphasize intuition and usability.

Many of us know that brands need to have a strong digital presence in order to be recognized. In fact, if brands are not connecting with their users on the Web, they are missing out on lucrative opportunities. What do you recommend for brands that are trying to stand out above the noise in this type of advertising environment?
I think it differs by brand and product/service type. Using a digital presence for straight branding purposes doesn’t really work as well as it used to – brands need to figure out how they can add value to their customers online – they really need to use their online presence to connect to their users and offer them something that they can’t easily get through other channels. Downloadable skins/themes for Ragú is irrelevant today; an online recipe database that centers around Ragú products that will SMS you recipe ingredients when you’re at Safeway, or inventory your cupboard and tell you what you’re missing to make a recipe you like – that’s something that will stand out, and make a customer come back.

Do you think print is a dying medium?
I think the relative importance of print as a medium is lessening, definitely. I don’t think it will ever disappear completely – people still like to hold and touch their reading material, and there are still plenty of issues to be worked out with the alternatives – web, e-readers (Kindle), cable news, etc. I think the days of the daily newspaper are just about done – very few people still get their news from a daily newspaper, I suspect. I haven’t bought one in a long time. For certain types of information – especially news – I see a dismal future for print.

If so, do you think certain print titles have an opportunity to grow their presence online?
Definitely – but the barrier to entry is so much lower online, which makes the competition more difficult. Also, technologies like RSS and other forms of syndication mean that for the most part, I can have the same news stories that anyone else has – so I need to differentiate myself in other ways – editorial, original content, features and functionality, cost, etc.

Which print tiles do you think are doing a good job of keeping its readers involved on the Web?
That’s a tough question. I read a lot of online media, and a lot of magazines… but they tend to be mutually exclusive - i.e. there are not a lot of magazines that I read cross-media. The Time Inc. Business Finance Network titles seem to be able to cross from print to digital and back, so even though I subscribe to 3 of their titles in print, I’ll generally read part of the magazine online and part offline. People handles it well, with breaking news and images online and larger stories with Monday’s issue. Magazines like Real Simple and some of the Condé Nast titles handle it well, especially when it comes to tip lists, recipes, added content and functionality.

Can you please tell us about Igicom’s methodology for creating a powerful digital strategy?
Generally, everything we do here, we try to do with a user focus. So, the first questions we ask are around who the users are and what they need to accomplish. Once that is determined, we work with our clients to determine the best ways of helping their users achieve their
goals – website, email campaign, microsite, CMS, etc. It could be that the users are potential customers, and the client wants them to sign up for some kind of service; it could be that the users are the client’s marketing department, and their goals are to maintain a site.

Igicom has a prestigious client roster. Can you give an example of a client that you’ve worked with that needed help revamping their digital strategy?
When we started working with Nehst Studios, they had already built out a number of web applications, with a group of vendors. None of them were performing up to Nehst’s expectations, and there were constant problems. Upon taking over operations, the first thing we did was stabilize the environment in its existing location. We then sat with Nehst management to determine what their 2 year, 5 year, and 10 year plans were as they related to their business and specifically their online presences. We determined that the best course of action was to rebuild the most prominent application (screentest.biz) first, and use that as a model for all future rollouts. We’ve been working with Nehst since Q1 2007, and have relaunched 2 of their online businesses, and are actively working on another 4 applications now. Our work with them is more of a collaborative partnership, and less of a client-vendor relationship; besides application design and development, digital strategy, and other online directives, we also serve as a technology advisor for issues that affect Nehst and their industry – DRM, distribution, formats, etc.

It seems like brands are vying for our attention on social networking. Do you think it’s necessary for brands to have a presence on various social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and MySpace?
I think it depends on the brand and its audience. The various Prius pages on Facebook seem to have roughly 1,100 fans each, on average – none of them appear to be official or maintained in any way by Toyota; the Skittles page has 618,993 fans. Depending on the brand and product, you want to make sure that you keep an eye on the fan pages that get setup for you – because it can be difficult to determine what is official and what is not. Outside of that, I’d say that if you’re going to do it (have a presence on one of the social networking sites) you need to do it well, and not just throw up a fan page and hope for the best. A weakly executed page with no traffic is worse than not having a presence – by far. What we’re seeing is a lot of “we want to be on Twitter/Facebook/MySpace” but not a lot of backup – people want to be there because everyone else wants to be there. That said… there are some very interesting things out there, a lot of which are very well executed and smart.

Which social networking sites do you recommend for your clients?
It largely depends on the audience they’re trying to reach and what they’re hoping to accomplish. We have a client that does online auctions for nonprofit organizations, and they need to be on all three of those communities – they’re doing an event for Yoko Ono that Ms. Ono has publicized on her own Twitter feed; they’re doing an event for Selena Gomez that she has put on her MySpace page and sent via SMS to her 80,000 SMS subscribers; and they are on Facebook to reach the Barack Obama fundraising audience.

What do you think is the next phase for these social networking sites?
Each of them has a developer application programming interface (API) for extending their functionality, and they’ve all been pushing that pretty hard. I think we’re going to start to see less things happening ON Facebook or ON Twitter, and more Facebook-ish things happening on other sites, more Twitter feeds showing up off of Twitter, etc – so more interconnectivity. Instead of going to Facebook to do Facebook things, you will go wherever it is you go, and Facebook things will be there.

Can you give a few guidelines or best practices when trying to figure out the best tactics to use in this fast-paced digital world?
I think the one thing to remember is that although things change every day – or more often – making your customers happy and serving some need better than anyone else in the market is really the key to success. Being the first to market with some technique has its benefits – but there’s little out there that can’t be copied – so it’s better to be the company that takes a little longer to setup the Facebook fan page, but adds something that keeps their customers engaged and coming back than it is to be the first company out there with the whizzy Facebook page that is the hit of the day, but then fades away.

Unless you have something that’s so compelling that’s going to keep customers coming back day after day, they’re not going to come to you anymore – so you need to go where they are. That means using existing APIs and services to reach them on social networking sites, syndication of content and functionality, and partnerships with other companies.

Social Media and the Workplace

It has become the norm today for people of all ages to participate in social networking. I’ve become accustomed to reading status updates on Facebook and each time I wonder why certain people feel the need to tell everyone that they are tired, hungry, thirsty or ready to party. As a member of Facebook, I can honestly say that I’ve only added one status update and that was to tell my family and friends that I had the best weekend ever—I got engaged to my boyfriend of five years. I thought that special moment deserved a mention. It was the one stop shop for everyone to find out, including my coworkers.

Posting friendly messages to these social networks is harmless and sometimes comical. But what happens when someone posts status updates to Facebook or “tweets” about client meetings and goals? Heather Rast, an avid member of the social networking space describes her real-life story of how social media involvement affected her corporate career. As a follower of Joe Pulizzi’s blog Junta42Match, I came across his interview with her and was shocked. Since social networking is a hot topic these days, I felt this interview was worth blogging about and passing along to friends. Additionally, I learned a few things and have made a mental note for any future use of social networks. You might want to do the same.

According to the interview, Heather explains that the company she was working for didn’t have a social media policy. She says,”Because of my level of responsibility, I thought it within my purview to choose methods for generating interest among outside parties about what my team did, and what we had to offer. I used Twitter to share ideas like ‘Just had a great client meeting. I think they’re understanding what a SEM campaign can do for their short-term search goals.” However she also stated that she never mentioned a client by name and never detailed any client project.

Apparently, people at the company didn’t agree with her approach and decided to selectively cull certain Tweets and Facebook status updates and presented them to executive management. They claimed that she was sharing confidential client information and using poor judgment.

While Heather is no longer with the company that questioned her social networking activities, she is proud to say it was worth the fight and she would do it all over again. She now works for a company that has full disclosure of her blogging and Twittering and they support her writing and sharing with others openly.

At the end of the interview Heather give some lessons that will stay with her forever:

Heather’s Lessons Learned:

• “Be very intentional about what I write anywhere. Have awareness about if the first and the fourth (example) sentences were stripped away, could my idea be misinterpreted, or used against me?”
• “Have a healthy respect for dissenters. Threatened people will resort to surprising behaviors. Take actions to preempt their plans by being as transparent as possible.”
• “You are replaceable, and your achievements are only as noteworthy as your weaknesses are few. Bad things can happen to good people.”
• “Isolate what is really important to your career/professional happiness. Then make sure you’re working at a place that truly allows you do those things. Life’s too short to just work somewhere; find that career that offers fulfillment.”

Check out Joe’s blog for the full detailed interview.

Many companies do have workers that participate in the social networking space for the good of the company, but the important point is that they’ve also made an effort to have guidelines in place. IBM and Edelman are some of the companies that have such policies. People have to be aware of what their own company guidelines are and think twice before they publish information for the world to read in the social networking space.