While nobody is suggesting that a photograph on Facebook of you sipping a nice, cold beer on a summer evening will lose you that dream job, a similar photo of you falling out of a taxi – Bridget Jones style – and the worse for wear, may present a more negative image.

Pictures and references to traveling, not altogether surprisingly the researchers found, indicated openness to new experiences and a sense of adventure. The number of friends on a person’s profile may indicate extroversion (or possibly a need to get out more).

While the researchers caution against using social media analysis to screen job applicants, there are thousands of studies that show personality tests predict performance. Years ago analysis of a job applicant’s handwriting was often applied   in identifying the ideal qualities for a role. In the noughties we have moved on into an internet based world where our digital signature leaves an equally distinct imprint, one that can be – and more and more frequently is – tracked, amassed and analysed.

Of course, it’s not just recruiters who can check out applicants. People use social media to judge a brand, make purchases, book holidays and much more. This process is, of course, all highly subjective. It does, however, highlight again the need to be very circumspect about what you are posting online whether for personal or business purposes.

1) Game changing trends (and the red herrings)
2) Setting the news agenda
3) The balance of influence
4) How the corporate communicator should adapt to the changing landscape

The panel members brought knowledge from different areas within the communications arena and included: Jon Bernstein, Deputy Editor, New Statesman; Paul Sutton, Head of Social Communications, Bottle PR; Eva Keogan, Lifestyle Blogger and Head of Innovation, Fishburn Hedges; Katie McLean, European Digital Manager (Remington & Russell Hobbs).

Working at a PR and social media agency, it’s always interesting to hear the opinions of other experts within the industry and there always seems to be a few key messages that repeatedly come up and are definitely here to stay.

•    Relevancy: content and activity needs to be relevant to keep your audience engaged. This is something that has always been the case with communicating no matter what, and this goes for online as well as offline.

•    Experience: one thing that social media has definitely magnified is user experience. Brands need to always be thinking about this, from which platform you choose through to how messages are conveyed.

•    Goals: as with any business activity realistic objectives need to be set out from the beginning. It’s easy to lose sight of what you can be trying to achieve in the busy and fast moving social media space, so it’s important to keep this in mind throughout.

•    Play the long game: building lasting and beneficial relationships online take time if you want to truly reap the benefits that communicating online has to offer. Time and effort need to be invested in order to get to know your audience, what they’re interested in and what makes them tick.

When it comes to evaluating the future of communications, it’s clear to see that the basic principles have always, and will always stay firmly in place. New technologies and ways of interacting with people don’t present new challenges – only old ones in a different format. Above all, most brands will find that the online social sphere is a great place to operate in and should be approached with healthy dose of attention, thought and care along with a whole load of enthusiasm.

The inherently global nature of social media presents brands with an abundance of opportunity to engage audiences that previously may have been out of reach due to physical geographical barriers. Sounds good, yes? However, problems arise when you remember that although various social platforms may have the ability to communicate on a global scale – they don’t have the ability to navigate through the potential minefield of language differences, cultural systems and beliefs. Even the age old favourite topic of conversation – the weather – can impact a brand’s social media effort, especially if you’re in the business of fashion, for example.

The panel included: Anna O’Brien, Greenlight; Jamie Punishill, Thomson Reuters; Georgie Haigh, Reiss and Ruth Zohrer, Hydra. Each raised some interesting points on the subject and gave their perspective with honesty and openness.

As a brief summary, here’s a few points that are well worth considering if you’re about to go for a paddle in international waters (as it were!)

•    Know exactly what your business stands for, in regards to principles and key messages – and what you want to achieve out of social media

•    Provide employees with guidance and training on how best to use social media to empower employees to be valuable brand advocates

•    Social media guidelines should focus on general conduct online, rather than provide rigid rules and regulations for each channel

•    Choose platforms that maintain great user experience, as well as suiting the brand

•    Produce consistent accessible and relevant content – think about why your audience is interested

It’s virtually impossible to maintain total control of a brand’s social media presence on a global scale, however, confidence in core principles and messages is crucial in order for these to filter through to the different markets effectively.

An interesting snippet in the news this week looks at the demographics of SNS (social networking site) users. Are Tweeters also loyal Facebook users? Do ‘pinners’ stream on Spotify? The smorgasbord of social media available – it seems there’s a new one practically every week – means there is just not enough time in the day to participate in all internet forums, even when using a multi-browser like TweetDeck or iGoogle, and so we all choose our favourites.

The question then, from a business point of view, is just who is your online audience?

Over 800 million people use Facebook, with over 30 million in the UK and more than 150 million in the US. A study found that 68% of SNS users said they had an experience that made them feel good about themselves and frequently see acts of generosity by other users. In comparison, 18% of the adult group say they see helpful behaviour “only once in a while”.

From a PR perspective getting your on-line messaging on-brand is one (very important) thing but it’s also paramount to make sure this is both appealing and accessible to your target audiences and inoffensive to everyone else.

Whether you are starting from scratch or feel confident that you know your hashtags from your btly’s, there are many excellent bit-sized training courses available to ensure that – in an ever-changing digital world – you keep your social media best practice and strategy bang up to date.

]]> http://www.thebluedoor.com/blog/social-media-who-are-you-talking-to/feed 0 http://www.thebluedoor.com/blog/apple-8-inch-ipad-kindle-competitor http://www.thebluedoor.com/blog/apple-8-inch-ipad-kindle-competitor#comments Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:28:42 +0000 Rich http://www.thebluedoor.com/?p=1922 The news today is that Apple is currently testing a smaller version of the iPad tablet – perhaps in retailiation of the Amazon Kindle and Samsung Galaxy Tab…

Although the Apple iPad is still the best selling tablet in the world, my guess is Apple wants a ‘bite’ of the Amazon Kindle marketing. The Amazon Kindle is currently 7 inches, so, of course, Apple’s new smaller iPad is 8 inches.

But it’s not just the smaller Apple tablet that fans are eagerly anticipating… Apple’s latest 10-inch iPad, the iPad 3, is extremely likely to be announced during the first week of March 2012 and released sometime in the middle of the month. The iPad 3 is rumored to have a 2048-by-1536-pixel Retina display, a quad-core A6 processor, and 4G LTE networking.

The smaller iPad isn’t likely to be announced at the same time as it is still in development – oh, and Apple are now the biggest company in the world.

So, how do you achieve this? It’s important to remember that you need to be operating and visible in the space where your customers are, so they are able to reach you as, when and where they need to. As more and more consumers use online and social media to fill a variety of needs including purchases, research and advice, it then follows that investments should be made in making sure you have an online presence, for not only selling your services, but maintaining them.

If you sell your products or services online, then your customers will expect to be able to contact you through the same source. Imagine buying something from a sales-person in a shop, only to find that when you return with any questions/concerns/problems with the product, you come to find out that the salesperson has washed their hands of the situation and isn’t able to offer any help or advice – frustration doesn’t quite cover it!

Word of mouth recommendations are priceless and considering the amount that people now share on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook, a good (or bad) experience has the potential to reach a huge spectrum of potential leads.

If your brand is investing in social media, ensure that you are able to utilise platforms to the maximum by not only using it to generate leads, but provide advice and help to your existing customers as well – you’ll soon start to see the benefit!

Path

Path is a new social network of sorts which has most and more of the functionality Facebook has. You can share your location, status, photos, music, video etc – with the added functionality of sharing what time you go to bed and wake up, if you want it?! The slogan for Path is ‘The smart journal that helps you share life with the ones you love.’ Now, at first I was wondering what this does that Facebook doesn’t already do, well, the use for Path is that you can share all this information across Facebook and Twitter. So it’s sort of your ‘one stop shop’ when sharing with your networks. It does also work as a standalone social network, but as with any new social network – it’ll be hard-pushed to get enough connected users to get off the ground.

Rather than ‘Likes’ it uses a series of ‘smiley faces’ (and angry ones) which becomes a ‘Dislike’ button of sorts. Path is an app only and a web-based version is not available. It’s also worth knowing it reached 2 million users in just over a year of operation.

So, security issues…

It was discovered yesterday that:

• Path uploads your address book from your phone to the Path servers.
• This upload is done without an opt-in or warning first – compromising privacy.
• Although this is the case, Path does not do anything nefarious with the information gathered (that we can see at the moment).

What does this mean?

• Now the secret is out it upsets users because they feel cheated.
• It probably violates EU privacy laws.
• It doesn’t say much for Apple’s App vetting period.

Pinterest

Pinterest is an online pinboard. Its slogan is ‘Organize and share things you love.’ It should not be confused with Path as from what I can see they are unrelated in terms of founders / HQ.  Users can log in a share items, shopping, website etc that they enjoy.

So why are they under fire?

If you post a pin to Pinterest, and it links to an ecommerce site that happens to have an affiliate program, Pinterest modifies the link to add their own affiliate tracking code. If someone clicks through the picture from Pinterest and makes a purchase, Pinterest gets paid. They don’t have any disclosure of this link modification on their site which perhaps they should…

Why is this a big deal / newsworthy?

• Pinterest is monetizing their site while in the early beta stage, which is almost unheard of for a newish social network.
• Pinterest has taken this action in a quiet, non-disclosing way.

It’s essentially a little underhand which users will undoubtedly not appreciate.

The growing importance and power of search engines for marketers and brands is undeniable. What will be interesting is to see what the impact will be of tomorrow’s launch of version 2.0 of the Wolfram Alpha search engine. The original Wolfram Alpha search engine launched three years ago. What makes it different is that it finds results from within its own databases rather than searching the Web.

The initial introduction was met with skepticism, but since that time the technology has developed and is now deliving many answers for the popular iPhone 4S Siri assistant.

However, the search engine still has a mathematical basis and there may well be more development work to be done. This particularly applies to the meaning of words and their impact on search. Google and Bing continue to have a human focus, trying to increase semantic understanding into general search engines. Wolfram Alpha may have some way to go with this, but its development could bring a new dimension to search and therefore marketing / PR in the future.

The Superbowl averaged more than 10,000 Tweets per second, making it the most tweeted sporting event in history. This is only likely to grow over the next year as more people turn to tablets and smartphones, enabling them to Tweet while watching the game on TV.

What’s interesting for brands and marketers is that the commercial advertising breaks inspired as many, if not more, Tweets than the actual game. USA Today even partnered with Facebook to create an admeter, allowing fans to rate and share feedback on their favourite ads in real-time.

In contrast, today we’re hearing that the British Government is already warning businesses and people to be prepared for the Internet to slow down and mobile phone networks to become flooded during the Olympic Games. They are even talking to ISPs about introducing data caps to manage traffic flow.

Whether the UK is just being typically British and cautious or the Olympics will rival the millions of Tweets of the Superbowl, the fact remains that social media continues to offer brands a huge opportunity. For brands, social media looks to be a long game, but also definitely one worth getting fit to take part in.

Here are some facts and figures from the overview of the report:

•    40% of Facebook users in the sample made a friend request. 63% received at least one request
•    Users in the sample pressed the like button next to friends’ content an average of 14 times, but had their content “liked” an average of 20 times
•    Users sent 9 personal messages, but received 12
•    12% of users tagged a friend in a photo, but 35% were themselves tagged in a photo

Prof. Keith Hampton, the lead author of the report, explains these findings:

“First, it turns out there are segments of Facebook power users who contribute much more content than the typical user. Most Facebook users are moderately active over a one-month time period, so highly active power users skew the average. Second, these power users constitute about 20%-30% of Facebook users, but the striking thing is that there are different power users depending on the activity in question. One group of power users dominates friending activity. Another dominates ‘liking’ activity. And yet another dominates photo tagging.”

So, what does this mean for you and your brand? The results highlight that people use Facebook in different ways, which means that in order to maximise engagement with your fans, it’s essential to utilise as many tools and activities available on the platform as possible. Be sure to vary the content – share insights, ask questions, post videos and images – and remember to keep it relevant! By varying the type of content posted, you’ll be more likely to build relationships with your fans.

For more information and to view the full report visit: www.pewinternet.org