Social Networks – Are niche communities the future of networks?

More often people are fed up with all that self-referential talk of individuals on social networks. Or, companies which do not understand the idea of an online conversation, including clients and not just broadcasting the old-fashioned marketing and sales way. Just today, I had some people in my Facebook stream and my Twitter updates telling me how the weather was, what their kids had for breakfast, or that their wives don’t understand their affinity to social networks. OK, nice, fair enough… Interesting? No!

And then I hear my wife saying… “Why keeping up the contact to so many people if there is no option to even get actively into 10 per cent of the conversations happening in these online relationships?” True, but you never know when some contact might need you, or vice versa.

Checking Facebook and staying up-to-date on Twitter becomes challenging on a busy day, with kids that are happy to see dad in the evening for some minutes, and long-time friends complaining why they don’t hear anything from you anymore.

So, is there another trend coming up in the future that might go for niche social networks, niche communities? Why? We had that offline for ages. Years ago, people have spend hours in their football club bar after a training session, or went to book readings to enjoy the discussion afterwards, or went to a vernisage in order to “philosophy” about the latest gallery exhibition with someone they don’t know. The reason for doing it was just their share of interest in something, a hobby, a passion, or a kind of affinity. So, are we seeing social networks for art geeks going on virtual gallery tours in the future?

My father was telling me that he uses a Bridge community and plays daily for one or two hours. A friend of mine is a DJ and he spend hours in communities for DJs like My DJ Space or Mix DJ. Some even still (or again?) love vinyl and become members in a community there. These music enthusiasts do nothing more or less than share their interest in being DJs, and obviously loving to mix tapes. The special interest is the centre of their community engagement.

Some years ago, somebody approached me with the idea of an international golfer network (http://www.golffriends.com/welcome/community). As I love playing golf (though don’t have enough time to play often…), there was some interest to become a member, if not more to become more engaged in the business idea. But then, time and the thought of managing many private interest networks -as I have quite some hobbies- next to my business networks and the top networks made me not investing too much time in that vision. Maybe I should have done…

Mothers share their passion for coffee on Cafemom, and if we think about all the Starbucks communities it does not surprise us. Games exchange ideas and thoughts on Raptr, or real social activists use Care2. Even more “nichy” is the passion of men for their moustache that they express online to the public. And others share their interest in Whisky or Wine networks.

So, my question is if niche networks could take a big portion of the market share of global social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, etc.) in the future? Can you see people going away from the self-gloryfying popular networks that the mainstream web user is engaged in? Tell us of niche networks you know and how you see this trend?

My 5 learnings for management from the WorldCup

The FIFA WorldCup is over. The matches are played. Spain is the new World Champion. The team really has deserved to get the Copa del Mundo (…not only because they won against Germany.. ;-)… ). Now that the tournament is over I thought about it and asked myself, what were my management take-aways from the last five weeks…for me.

1. The team is the star. Worldcup 2010 was like Enterprise 2.0: Teams with top stars fail (Rooney, Ronaldo, Ribery, Kaka, etc…), real teamwork wins.

2. A scarf seems to be a team managers fashion guarantee for success. Though, managers who wear a scarf built world-class teams, it’s no guarantee to make a world-class team win the cup (Jogi Löw, Bert van Marwijk, etc.).

3. Managers need to have the courage to change long-serving systems in favor of integrating young players techniques, visions and ideas (Mexico, Germany, Uruguay, etc.). Nevertheless, the accompany of “old stars” as motivators is a great back-up…

4. Management stand-still is a killer. The market-competition for the “on-paper” leading countries is increasing. Globalization, new training opportunities and new markets offer countries great opportunities to become a challenging competitor for the old market champions (England, France, Italy, Brasil).

5. It’s all about communication, authority needs to be defined anew. There is no right or wrong in leading until the communication is not aligned with the culture and mentality of the players (France, France, France,…).

What are your key-findings, take-aways from a management perspective. Share them with us… And by the way: If it is serious fun you would like to share, just go ahead…

News Update – Best of the Day

Many people are producing and publishing advice for social media in businesses these days. It becomes more and more difficult to find the best content resources. Some of my business contacts asked me to set up a list with my favorite Twitter accounts. Here it is: The Twitter Digest.

We all would love to know how the future digital world looks like in 2020. On a future world conference in Boston technologist Michael Rogers shared his view on how kids will take awareness of the offline world compared to online which is definitely a remark that needs to be discussed…

“To kids born in 2019, we’ll have to tell them what offline is,” said Rogers. “Online will be the normal course of things.”

As a client service director Matt Rhodes from FreshNetworks gets to know the issues that arise when companies are trying to develop a social media strategy for European markets. In this video he shares his thoughts on different countries in Europe and good social media tactics.

News Update – Best of the Day

What is the effect of web 2.0 technology on business results? It seems to be proven that it increases business results. This is the main insight that the latest survey by McKinsey offers, derived from asking more than 3.000 business executives. 31% of the respondents whose companies use six or more Web 2.0 technologies increased market share above their nearest competitor compared to 20% of respondents using just one or two technologies. 60% indicated that Web 2.0 had some impact on bottom-line profitability. From a technology usage perspective these decision makers favor Social Networking (63%), Blogs (48%), Video sharing (42%), Wikis (35%), and Podcasts (32%). See more results in this post by Michael Hamlin.

BUT… New findings of studies show the importance of freshing up relationships and networks by meeting offline – and not only staying in touch (via email and social networking) with friends and business contacts in the social digital space. While we may be gaining time with social web technologies, we cannot rely on their connecting power. The quality of relationships may suffer from too less offline networking, says the TIMES Magazine.

Nevertheless, when looking back at our social web activities in 2020, 85% of Americans will say that web socializing -the way we know it today- has impoved their lives. This is the result of a Pew Internet study.

Could be interesting to see how the rest of the world would evaluate web socializing in the future. Don’t you think?

Global Generation Z study: How teens see the digital future

There are not many studies telling us how the teens between 11-18 envision the future. One of the key findings of last year was that they expect access to social networks at work.

But what else is important for the lives of the Gen Z in the digital future? Tomorrow’s business might be affected in two ways: Offline meetings will be replaced with online interaction say 34% of repondents of a new study and travel habits might change. Why travel and work oversees when there is the option to be mobile at home?!

Habbo Hotel, celebrating their 10th anniversary this year, released a new worldwide research amoung 49.000 digital natives who have online more friends than offline – between 100 and 200 in their social networks. And these social networks shape their confidence in a positive way state 64%.

Let’s look at the key findings…

Content should be free…
The study makes clear that 32% of the respondents never pay for money at the moment, and 26% will only pay for content if there is no free content available on the web. How different the markets have developed shows the comparison of the
countries: In Spain and Italy 48% of Gen Z’s claim to never pay for content, in the UK it is only 21%.

Sharing is not popular…
While sharing is one of the main principles of the social web, not more than 23% regularly share content online, and when they share, it is music (54%), games (35%) and images (35%). 39% rarely or never share content.

TV and radio will stay…
The majority of teens cannot imagine a world without good old TV or radio. TV and mobile phone are the device that are most important for Generation Z to live with. Traditional print media (books, newspapers and magazines) will be gone some time in the future think 55%. Just 18% see their existance next to other media.

Digital language transforms to offline…
A third if the reponsing teens (34%) think that online language (SMS and online chat) could be used for offline conversation. In comparison 31% of the Habbo teens responded that they needed to stop using abbreviations outside of the internet.

Spot On!
When it comes to education the Generation Z states that the web has a big impact on their process of learning. 46% see a regular use of virtual worlds replacing traditional methods in school. Especially, when we read that 43% prefer the digital approach and find it easiest to learn from the internet. Nevertheless,it seems that books still have a standing in the learning process: 38% like the combinated learning from print and online. And even 16% chose books as their preferred way of learning. Although I can imagine that the new world might look like the Gen Z tells us, I think business budgets, resources and cultural differences might turn the world slower in their direction than we think. My learnings from the last decade in business…

What is your perception of these results?

News Update – Best of the Day

If you are a car manufacturer, the “2010: Automotive Marketing Return On Investment” study by Foresight Research helps you to identify the relevance of the web and social media in purchase decisions of car buyers.

- 86% of all new vehicle buyers used the internet in their new vehicle purchase process (2009) – thereof, 90% compared vehicles and pricing, while 83% checked for incentives online.
- 13% of all new buyers used some form of social networking to share information on their purchase decision. Especially young buyers under the age of 35 used 24% social networking to share their decision.
- Among the most influential car buyers 93% used the internet, 29% offered vehicle recommendations on social networking sites.

The combination of traditional online advertising and integrated social web community content is quite seldom to see these days. Ericsson took an interesting approach with their “2020 Shaping Ideas” microsite where interesting people from Vint Cerf, Don Tapscott to Charles Leadbeater have been recorded with their visions and good arguments. And you can share the content via loads of options or embed the father of the internet for example with his view of the future…

On the social web, companies need to be aware that customers will ask questions starting with a “WHY…?” which will reflect the way they handle their customers. So, companies should be prepared for answers, not just sit back and make a fool out of their customers like this company Canadian insurance suggests in their new commercial.

Openness and authenticity are the things that drive brands

One of the great things about being a busines blogger is that you have the opportunity to exchange thoughts and views with interesting and successful business people. People you would never get to known in life but then meet them for a drink, for dinner or -which I really appreciate- for lunch. Sometimes you are the initiator and sometimes it is them who do the first step to invest time in networking and in exchanging “brand and business philosophy”.

In the end, it is all about conversation, and conversation is key for building trust.

Last week, I had one of these comfortable meetings when Aedhmar Hynes, CEO at the PR agency Text 100, spent two hours of her busy time with two her nice colleagues and me in Germany in the restaurant lounge Schweiger2. Apart from enjoying a wonderful menue (should have written the review in English), we exchanged our views on the latest development concerning the challenges for brands on the social web in the future.

In order to share some of her valuable and deep knowledge, Aedhmar summarized her view of the impact of social media on brands for us.

The funny thing is that the restaurant definitely won two “fans” for their delicious showroom cooking, received a positive review and it would be interesting to track the offline word-of-mouth buzz the restaurant gets from us. One of the reasons why I asked her later on, what she things about the power of the brand-vangelists (or brand-advocates) and how to leverage those for business.

Just before I recorded these statements, she said “Openness and authenticity are the things that drive brands”, and I could not agree more. Nevertheless, I think brands still have a lot to learn to make this real from a customers point of view.

Would you agree?

News Update – Best of the Day

Foursquare, the location-based application, is one of the rising stars for innovative marketing efforts with social networks. But often employees take the fun out of the game for business purpose, and quite often the most tech-savvy employee is the mayor (checking in every day…) so that customers cannot get the mayorship award. How to get around it, explains David Griner. Why businesses should have a close look at the location-based app services reveals a tweet and a world-wide study by uTest on Foursquare, Gowalla and Brightkite. People love touse the service as of ease-to-use factor though personal privacy and security concerns are high and disappointment on the deals and coupons opportunities.

It is always important to get some insights in what digital experts are thinking will make the trends in the future. Richard Edelmann shares some input from a future media panel and how media is re-shaping. Adam Shlachter, Director of Digital Investment, MEC shares his view what 3 things are working with new & emerging media, like social & mobile…

Global warming is an issue for everyone of us. Watch the video and think about it…

News Update – Best of the Day

According to a recent word of mouth study by Yahoo people are talking offline about content they found online three-quarters of the time. Some more findings…

- 38% of people have brand-WOM conversations both online or offline
- Two-thirds of WOM is positive – only 8% is negative
- the best vehicles for influencing WOM come from consumers who play in social networks. These “Conversation Catalysts” drive a disproportionately higher percentage of WOM activity.

Have you ever thought about good arguments for your Facebook fan page engagement? This study by Syncapse states that the average Facebook fan spends an additional $71.84 on products for which they are fans compared to non-fans. Isn’t this arguments enough?

In a very compelling key-note presentation Jeremiah Owyang explained the future of social business why companies might have difficulties to scale with their businesses.

Study: Social Networks influence brand participation and engagement

There has been a lot of talks in businesses lately on how much social media and social networks influence consumers’ lives and affects communication, shopping and other activities. The more proof the world has on the fact that this is a valid business reason to take care off, the more companies will reorganize, rethink and restructure their business brand strategy.

A recent US report by ROI Research, released and sponsored by Performics, illustrates the consumers behaviour online and leads to insights for marketeers how brands could profit from the engagement of people in social networks.

The general behavior of the 3,000 U.S. social network user responding shows how much people are engaged in social networks today…

- 80% have an active Facebook account, 23% without an active Facebook account plan to join in the next six months
- 67% have reconnected with people through social networking sites that they never would have otherwise
- 51% say scocial sites are the best way to communicate with friends/family
- 39% of Twitter users respond to other people’s tweets once a week or more
- Over 30% access Facebook and/or Twitter from mobile phone once a day or more

The more important fact for me is the way in which consumers connect with brands in social networks. Brand engagement on social networks cannot be underestimated any longer when we face the following numbers…

- 50% of Facebook users click on Facebook ads to “like” a brand
- 40 % use social sites to connect with brands and products
- 37% learned about a new product or service from a social networking site
- 32% have recommended a product/service/brand to friends via a social networking site
- 32% of Twitter users re-tweet content provided by a company or product

“Social networks have made real and substantial changes in the lives of their users, in part by empowering them to more actively participate with brands and each other,” said Daina Middleton, CEO of Performics. “More than a third of all respondents reported using a search engine to further learn after seeing an ad on a social networking site, for example, and more than a third think social networking sites are good sources of information about companies and products.”

It is interesting to see that companies get good ratings for their Facebook pages and engagement. More than a third said most or all of them were doing a good job. 90% said that at least some of the companies and/or products they are a fan of are doing a good job providing relevant content.

“Users are not only satisfied, they want more, which is a good sign for marketers,” noted Scott Haiges, president of ROI Research. “Respondents expressed a strong desire to get more printable coupons (49%, notifications of sales and special deals (46%), and information about new products (35%) from companies or products on Facebook, and this rings truer in some industries more than others.”

Spot On!
Facebook could become the driving force of social network brand engagement. Personally, I do see Facebook as the social web lab for new advertising and brand engagement formats. Nevertheless, brands should be aware that brand engagement for most users is a “Give-and-Take” game. Especially in times, when brand engagement is rising, companies should try to find out who their brand advocates (see report by Deloitte) are. They could use these as their “unnamed” pre-sales force (word-of-mouth) and try to get in touch with them to establish new products, new services, and finally new business.

Any ideas of how this could be done? Share your thoughts with us…

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