Top 5 Examples

Advertising & Marketing
If you’re in advertising you will have to bite the bullet on social media if you want to continue to offer a full range of marketing services to your clients. Some agencies have not figured out Web 1.0 let alone social media, and naturally feel that social media (controlled by the customer) is the antithesis of advertising. But good marketing today doesn’t try to ‘sell’ the customer on something. It tries to help them buy it. Here’s where social media is perfectly positioned to launch a brand, run crazy Facebook groups that hit a million Likes and use social media tools internally to collaborate on projects.

Advertising doesn’t normally get into the realm of customer service or aftercare either. But social media enables you to keep in touch with customers, watch what other brands are doing and learn from it for future campaigns. You can make content portable so customers can consume it where they choose, even on mobile platforms, and well-done search advertising and email marketing campaigns will knock the socks of results in traditional media for a fraction of the cost.

Entertainment
The entertainment industry has obviously bought into digital social media since the benefits of viral marketing alone can now break an indie movie into the big time. They are contributing to the development of social media further with linked-up contests, applications, animations, interactive communication and creative displays. Watch this sector for the best examples of creative ways to apply social media to market your brand.

Finance
This sector has cottoned on to using social media to build dossiers on company movement, looking at hiring, firing and therefore shares and investment opportunities. Many online users have no idea that their personal data is being farmed in this way. But they will know that Amazon for instance, uses their data to offer them more personal buying suggestions. SM is also a helpful tool for identifying the right customers, and banks are perfectly entitled to use the information to make credit and lending decisions as information on social networks is clearly labelled as public. Credit card companies are already using social media to launch new products.

Healthcare
Some hospitals have indicated they are at the cutting-edge of medicine by tweeting live procedures from operating theatres! This creates excitement and raises public awareness for healthcare organizations. Will we soon see Facebook offered as part of a convalescence package for private hospital patients? Social media is currently used in training healthcare professionals, and provides a forum for asking and answering patient or staff questions, sharing success stories and communicating the latest information to patients, speedily – particularly crucial during national disasters.

Real Estate
Along with travel and tourism, the real estate market has seen the most benefit from social media marketing. Drops in market sales in 2010 have affected this profession significantly forcing a more creative approach. By using photo and video sharing to enhance listings, along with professional networking sites to hone their sales skills, home sellers have clinched sales in tough times. Agents, brokers and realtors have all found successes in lead generation, sales and brand building through use of mass audience social platforms.
Some real estate companies are on every platform and making the most of every link. “The quality of the referral traffic back into our main website has significantly increased. Not only are we seeing more traffic coming in, but visitors coming in from social media sites are staying longer and looking at more things.” (From Mashable: Real Results Series).

By uploading property tours, linking to neighbourhood profiles and sharing social media with related professions (promoting good schools, links to mortgage services and loans etc) vendors are winning. Couple that with using social media internally and training staff on sites that offer scheduling for appointments and contacts, and social media is the tool that every real estate veteran has to have nailed.

Sociologist Michel Foucault once said: discourse is power. The one who has information and uses it to engage in a conversation, or, in other words, the one who communicates effectively is the one who leads. Information and communication are what bring some to the top, and their lack is what can completely destroy others.

The explosion of social media has revolutionized communication. While a company could once communicate with its customers through a simple telephone call, today, channels of communication have not only tremendously multiplied, but also broken down the one-way business-customer flow into a series of two-ways communications. Social media allows information to be exchanged between businesses and consumers, but also between consumers themselves and amongst businesses as well.

Web 2.0 is by far the biggest marketplace that exists nowadays, which means it simply cannot be overlooked. The facts are indication enough of the incredible level of today’s connectedness. Every single minute sees more than 60 new blogs being created, more than 1,500 blog posts being written and more than 70 new domains being registered. If you look at Facebook alone – currently the most visited social media website in the world and virtually the flagship of the social media phenomenon – you will find that more than 695,000 Facebook status updates, about 80,000 walls posts and more than 500,000 comments are added every single minute. YouTube, another social media giant, sees more than 600 new videos being uploaded to its site every minute, making up a total duration of more than 25 hours, i.e., in one minute; you get more than a day’s worth of videos. How many times do you use Google per day? Probably much more than you realize: about 695,000 search queries are made on Google every single minute, and that is only one amongst several search engines.

This means that today’s consumer is active and very thirsty for information. But the story doesn’t end here. In those same 60 seconds, 168 million emails are sent, more than 370,000 voice calls are made on Skype, more than 320 Twitter accounts are opened and more than 98,000 tweets are made – all of this allowing people to communicate across the globe and at any time wished. Again, in those 60 seconds, 12,000 new ads are posted on Craigslist, more than 50 WordPress downloads are made, more than 100 answers on Answers.com are given, 13,000 hours of music are streamed on Pandora and 13,000 iPhone applications are downloaded – illustrating the magnitude of both the creation and consumption of information across a wide range of social media platforms.

These numbers are impressive indeed, but taken altogether, they translate into a simple and clear fact: people are constantly searching for information, digesting massive influxes of messages, creating huge loads of new information and sharing content across enormous online communities. Sharing, communicating, searching, creating – these are the key characteristics of today’s global citizen and businesses need to embrace this type of consumer to survive in an ever-expanding global village.

To cut the long story short, social e-space grows by the second and if you don’t catch this train on time, you might be left very far behind, very fast.

If the formal organisation is the skeleton of your business, then the informal network is its central nervous system. Employees gathered around the water cooler are just as likely to be passing on tips for better working practice as details of last night’s TV. So how can companies harness the speed, skill and efficiency of this communication network and turn it to company advantage?

Informal networks by definition have no structure. People responding to new work directives may act instantly to update their procedures, or may take days to organise themselves in line with company policy. The nature of employer-employee trust is such that managers cannot regulate how quickly employees communicate and carry out certain tasks, only by measuring the outcomes after the event.

“Informal networks: The reality behind the company structure chart: the network of informal relationships that make things happen in the business”    (Anand and Nicholson 2004)

The “grapevine” or “rumour mill” is the major informal communication medium in an organization. As the name suggests, the grapevine is entwined throughout the organization with branches going in all directions. Rumours are a rapid form of communication, uncontrollable and, once started, often hard to stop. Because rumours can harm both individuals and the organization itself, managers must consider how to control or manage rumour mills.

Generally speaking, studies indicate that informal networks transmit messages faster than formal ones. This means that information reaches its destination before formal communication networks even begin to communicate with employees. The characteristic of accuracy has also been researched, with estimates of accuracy rates ranging from 75 to 90 percent. Even if the grapevine is accurate as much as 90 percent of the time, it is the 10 percent or more that is inaccurate that can cause organizations problems.

Grapevine activity will increase under four conditions: a) during times of uncertainty, b) when the subject matter is important, c) in an insecure environment where formal communication is poor or lacking, and d) when the subject matter is ambiguous.

Given the current global recession, industries changing rapidly due to technological advances and skilled staff being headhunted by bigger fish, rumours of staff layoffs, cutbacks, new hires and company mergers are all contributing to an explosion in grapevine activity. Managers need proactive strategies to benefit from the positive consequences inherent in grapevine activity.

Knowing the informal procedures used in your company can mean the following:

• You can recommend proactive communications solutions to the boss
• You can participate in the grapevine and steer news to minimise fears and boost enthusiasm
• You can harness the topics posed online, via messenger or over coffee for their creative solutions

Informal business networks allegedly benefit men more than women, since women are less likely to be connected to individuals higher up in the company, (mostly men.) These female professions lack advocates of influence within the organization and even though this Old Boys Network has been derided for years, it still holds true in many blue-chip companies today. As a result more women pay attention to the grapevine as an opportunity to get ahead. Female communication skills being what they are, this is the number one method for most female employees to discover news, changes at work or threats to work stability. If your workforce comprises many women, it would not be surprising to hear that online social networks have been banned. However, harnessing this informal communication makes more sense – to keep current employees happy, encourage new staff to feel welcome and spot when a formal communication is necessary to kill a vicious rumour in its tracks.

Independent, off-the-grid communities have proliferated in recent years, and many companies have counted on them to deliver creative solutions to challenges that bridge functional gaps. Networking groups created by employees are as likely to take their skills to your competitors as bring brainwaves back to work. So encouraging virtual discussion space through social networks in the work place is a good way to keep track of some of the new ideas circulating. In which case, the grapevine may be more profitable for your business than you think.

For more on internal networks for business see Social Media in Business by Steve Nicholls (Bookinars)

Internal communication in business is basically the dialogue between employees and employer, and the dialogue between work colleagues.

1. Meetings with boss and employees – top down approach
2. Colleagues review of meeting afterwards – bottom-up approach
3. Newsletters, annual reports, memos and emails from the boss
4. Colleagues review of internal printed material
5. One-on-one meetings or appraisals
6. Internal telephone system, intranets, messenger, pagers, mobiles, personal texts
7. Online social networks
8. Video broadcasts
9. Road shows or external social gatherings (organised by the company)
10. Bar, golf club, after-work curry (organised by staff)

In all of these settings there is an opportunity for shrewd companies to engage with their smart, successful workers and keep them motivated.

Internal communications are best delivered in a language the receiver can comprehend, in a timely manner and comfortable medium, conveying one business topic, with an outcome that is specific and measurable. If that means you need to set up a Facebook page to communicate with employees, then so be it.

“However, communication strategies are about the alignment of internal communication with the goals of the business.” (Steve Nicholls – Social Media in Business, 2010). Companies have an image or a brand which they need to maintain by consistently delivering to their customers. A company’s employees are the means by which its services and products are actually delivered; therefore, it is vital for employees to know what the company wants to achieve. It is necessary for them to be aware of what they need to accomplish – in terms of both the brand image of the company and individual career goals.

In addition, a good communication strategy is not just about addressing employees. Guidance should be provided to the people who are conveying the message, along with tips which they can use in sharing the message. It should be focused on all the levels of the company – from the top to the bottom. The tone of the entire company is set when the boss begins her emails with Dear Faceless Workforce (or the equivalent); rather than Bob’s Great Marketing Team.

We cannot just imagine internal communication as a one-way street. All the component parts of a business must communicate well with one another, top-down, bottom-up, and across many strata; all depending for their success on whether the recipient is prepared to listen and whether the delivery of communications is well-timed, pitched and balanced. The effect of this internal communication determines the health of the entire company.

Internal communication should enable:
• Shared vision
• Loyalty
• Satisfaction
• Commitment
• Empowerment
• Service Focus

In essence, anything we can do to increase the effectiveness of internal communication through choosing appropriate communicators and receivers, an appropriate channel or medium and a concise, coherent message makes the firm more responsive and competitive.

Relatively unimportant functions like office gossip will be delivered alongside crucial informal communication that cuts across formal reporting procedures to get things done. This latter objective is one of the targets of boosting internal communications.

Therefore, the informal communications system is:

“…the human side of the organisation, which is maintained by employees communicating among themselves and sharing information.” (Crampton, Hodge & Mishra, 2007)

It is important to bear in mind at this point the spontaneous nature of much of this internal communication, which makes it more difficult to manage, control, police or measure. Because it is opportunistic, speedy and responding to situational changes, it is one of the most dreaded parts of a manager’s job.

Steve Nicholls of Social Media in Business states “Ultimately, as a forward-thinking manager you will want to lay out a vision for the company in which executives, management and employees work together to a common goal. You will need to confirm that you are committed to open and transparent policies, so as to attract the best and most dynamic new employees to hire. Putting in place policies for the use of social media at work can accomplish this, giving you a diamond-edge for your own promotion prospects, and cementing you firmly at the centre of communication strategies at work.”

For more on internal communications for business see Social Media in Business by Steve Nicholls

If you are reading this content on a website, you’re obviously tuned in to the internet for business or pleasure. But what’s all this talk of Web 2.0? And what does it mean when colleagues talk about using social networks for business?

Online Social networks have spread over the web in the last few years with Face book, MySpace, Friendster, Bebo, Windows LiveSpaces, Orkut, Friends Reunited, Twitter and Linked-In as some key examples. They have differences in approach but all follow a loosely similar format – you join, upload some personal information and interact with friends that you connect to online. Some provide multiple games, platforms for communicating about specific topics, quizzes, and other fun applications.

In March 2010 Facebook became the number one most visited website, surpassing even Google’s home page. It represents over 700 million users, and cannot be ignored as a business arena even though it purports to be simply a fun website for social activities.

Some of the networks have more deliberately curried favour with business users, for instance LinkedIn calls itself ‘a network of professional contacts’ and encourages users to discover inside connections to the top companies and corporations of the world.

It lists executives from all Fortune 500 companies as LinkedIn members. It says that users develop a competitive edge in their career, headhunt new employees, follow competitor companies, and help the people they trust in return. However, because it maintains a businesslike appearance and has fewer fun applications, its remit is limited to 75 million users in 2010.

‘I LIKE’ – Using Social Networks
Once you have joined a network, it becomes part of many people’s daily routine to check it for messages, post comments and hit a few Like buttons alongside checking your email Inbox. As a result, business cannot miss out on this potential communication channel and most sites are peppered with adverts and web links. Advertising on social networks may form part of your business strategy, setting up a business page on Facebook or a Twitter account to tweet the latest news about your business, alongside encouraging employees to consider the potential of the various sites for customer contact.

Social networking can also be seen as subset of a broader change in the World Wide Web. This is a fundamental shift which is best summed up by a move from information gathering to user participation. The latest version of the internet is known as Web 2.0 which merely indicates that it includes a host of online applications which will increasingly impact on informal communications. Work colleagues will most likely be ploughing through their favourite social networks to look for business contacts, customers and new arenas to expand your business profile. Social networking within firms is therefore an increasingly important field and is ripe for more research.

Whether you are studying the social networking sites to exploit their potential for customers, business contacts or affiliates, or to assess how best to allow their discretionary use to keep your employees happy on their tea-break, take some time to get to know the different types of web communities.

• Blogs and Blogspheres (web-logs or online diaries, for example:Technorati)
• Wikis (information directories, for example: Wikipedia)
• Podcasts (audio streams, for example: Loomia)
• Social networks (for example Facebook, OpenBC or Friendster)
• Social Bookmarking or Folksonomies (for example Del.icio.us)

Different social networks pop up almost daily, so it is not worthwhile listing them exhaustively here, suffice to say that at any given time you can find Google rankings for new sites, and most of them are self-explanatory. Just bear in mind that any social networking policy document that you draw up must be equally future-proofed, with general guidelines that will apply to all types of sites, and even the policy document itself should be reviewed annually to keep abreast of new technological developments.

For more on social networks for business see Social Mediain Business by Steve Nicholls

In 2007 a XKCD created a map of the social media landscape (fig 1) and in 2010 XDCD have updated the map (fig 2). The interesting feature of the map is how some social media applications have fallen from grace and others have taken off. The most striking change is Facebook, twitter and Youtube…Also another map inspired by the XKCD map was also published by Flowtown (fig 3)

I wonder what will change in the next 3 years?

(fig2 – XKCD – Online Communities 2010 – The changing Social Media Landscape)

The Flow Town Map has some feature that the XKCD map does not have such as Wikis, and porn/Dating section. Both maps give some really great insights into the Changing Social Media Landscape. truth is nobody knows where the internet is going because we are making it up as we go along!

(fig 3 -The Flow Town Map – The changing Social Media Landscape)

Flowtown – Social Media Marketing Application

Click here for interactive version

Brian Solis of outline a most comprehensive look at the Twitter Eco system:

Ring 1: Branding

Ring 2: Geographics

Ring 3: Interest Graph

Ring 4: Dashboard

Ring 5: Event Management

Ring 6: Live Streaming

Ring 7: Geo Location

Ring 8: Relationships

Ring 9: Marketing and Advertising

Ring 10: Rich Media Ring 11: Communication Management

Ring 12: Research and Analysis Ring 13: Stream Management

Ring 14: Mobile Applications Ring 15: Trends Ring 16: Social CRM

Ring 17: Influence and Resonance

Ring 18: Twitter Search

Ring 19: Causation

Butler used the data of 500 million people on Facebook. He plotted a point for each user at his or her registered location and drew lines between the user and his or her friends. The superior number of friendships within localities reflects more lines overlapping each other, forming a saturated image. To Butler’s surprise, his rendering showed geographic images of countries and territories with clear contours.

The brightest sections on the social media map are those of America, Europe and Asia. There is a heavy concentration of friends from the East Coast to the Midwest in the U.S. followed by a dim gap and the West Coast. Canada appears to have blended with the U.S. China, Russia and most Middle Eastern countries are not seen.

The absence of these countries from the map only mean there are no registered Facebook users from these territories. China only has a few Facebook users because of the Great Firewall. Tech savvy users from China with Facebook accounts do not register their actual locations at all as they bypass their network’s firewalls through VPN servers. However, Zuckerberg is said to be doing the rounds in Chinese software companies and is quite a celebrity in those circles.

Many contend that social networks in Facebook are not indicative of actual friendships. There are people who go on there and seemingly link to random people. What is actually more prevalent in linking among total strangers is a shared interest such as gaming and liking similar special interest pages or groups in this giant social media network. The friendships may not be anything more than superficial tie-ups for more gaming leverage however they have paved the way for people to be in touch with other social circles that they may have not known about otherwise.

The social media map represented in Butler’s illustration speaks volumes on how the internet has revolutionized human contact and expansion of social horizons. People in Facebook, regardless of the depths in their friendships, are privy to what others post such as personal pictures, favorite videos and their opinions. What this map also shows is that this much data has been collected and can be benefitted from by anyone with access and the proper tools. While it is a warm reflection of reality to most idealists, it may not be looked upon positively by others with a different world view.