And what a nice little strategy paper it is too. It’s fair to say it is more of a thought starter than a fully fleshed out document which tells businesses and investors how they can adapt to the ‘new economics of consumption’ – but that’s what Havas’ clients pay for I suppose.
The authors’ (I presume Umair Haque must be in there somewhere) argument is that business models based in user-generated content are failing. This failure is based on the idea that value doesn’t reside within user-generated content, but in fact within user-generated context.
To illustrate the point, Havas suggests:
“The vast majority of blog posts are context for newspaper articles. Connected consumers on MySpace spend much of their time discussing and connecting with bands … consumers aren’t creating content: they’re creating content for goods.”
Furthermore:
“it’s by letting connected consumers contextualise content that tsunamis of new value can be unlocked (just ask Google)”
In conclusion, Havas pulls out three general observations that reinforce how context is very different from content.
Context is not really ‘generated’ in the sense of simple creation, but evolves in a more complex way, often linked to specific cultural references that can often make no sense to outside audiences.
Context is not produced by single users, but only emerges when the views and information produced by users is aggregated.
The production of context does not open up direct competition with existing content producers – e.g. the advertising industry
I really like the paper and its challenge to conventional thought about socal media and UG content, however I think we need to put some its ideas into a wider framework.
For example, based on an analysis of Techmeme Havas argues that the most talked about and viewed content online is produced by professional content producers e.g. Techcrunch, CNET, New York Times, while amateur users produce context.
While I absolutely agree with their overall argument, the strategy paper does seem to ignore the fact that non-professional content producers exist... and produce compelling content.
And if we accept that there is professional and less professional content being produced online how does this fit into the idea that connected consumers produce solely context, rather than content?
Last month all round pick-me-up product Berocca generated a nice bit of online buzz among bloggers by giving away 'Blogger Relief Packs'.
The packs contained a tube Berocca and other neat giveaways and to get one you had to register by entering a set of personal details. But as Stephen Daviespointed out at the time:
"it seems there are no guarantees of receiving one [pack] and reading
the Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) they’re only giving the pack away
to the first 50 applications. Another caveat in the T&Cs is that
they may use my details for future marketing activity and potentially
share them with third parties in relation to Bayer plc, the company behind Berocca."
Standard T&Cs perhaps or a underhand way to spam bloggers? Either way I signed up for a pack.
But a month on and no pack. I Twittered to see if others received their packs and Clashcityrocker she had indeed received her pack.
Now, I get that there were limited packs available, but why not a short email from Berocca to say they have run out and I've not been lucky. The whole affair seems a bit short-sighted, lazy blogger relations and a #PRFail if you ask me.
The digital comms team at No 10 Downing Street are currently on fire doing all the right things in the online space.
Not only have they started using Twitter in a way that should be a case study for other government departments and administrations around the world they are using their Flickr photostream to give people a sneaky look at the new Downing Street website.
I won't go into too much detail about the site and its features, as Simon Dickson (who's company, Puffbox, has been involved in the development) gives a thorough overview on his blog.
However, expect lots of social media-type functionality as the new site has been built using Wordpress!
Well, I asked the Telegraph's Communities Editor, Shane Richmond, if he could enlighten us any further and he has kindly posted his response on his Telegraph blog.
What Shane says makes total sense and (perhaps unlike the ultra traditional Eye) I see no reason why media outlets shouldn't optimise their content.
In keeping with this idea, Shane provides a great insight into what other UK newspapers are doing - or reportedly doing. Shane writes:
"we’re [Telegraph.co.uk] far from unusual. As far as I know, staff at the Times get an email telling them what search terms are bringing people to their site, the Guardian, it's rumoured, has begun training staff on SEO and the Mail has recently hired an SEO manager."
In this fortnight's 'Street of Shame' (the section exposing the often shallow hypocrisy of the media) there's an interesting insight into how the Daily Telegraph achieves such high online traffic:
According to Eye:
"news hacks are sent a memo three or four times a day from the website boffins listing the top subjects being searched in the last few hours on Google. They are then exepected to write stories accordingly and/or get as many of those key words into the first par of their story."
Of course, most Private Eye material needs to be taken with a pinch of salt and to the ultra-traditional Eye journalists basing stores on digital consumer demand is a terrible thing. It is also the cause of the Telegraph's growing obsession with celebrity and news-lite entertainment stories.
But that's unfair, as the Telegraph has made some significant and well-thought out investments in the digital space under editor, Will Lewis. For example it was the first UK newspaper to reorganise its enwsroom to recognise the primacy of the web in the news cycle.
I wonder if the Telegraph's blogger Shane Richmond has anything to add to the Eye's story. Shane?
Readers of this blog will know that I haven't brought myself fully into the 'how we measure' social media debate because I haven't yet decided why we need to measure social media (apart from the usual "so we can justify our existence to the client" which is the one reason not to use to develop metrics, IMHO).
However, the following list of "10 somewhat immutable laws of measuring conversations" from Sean Moffitt helps get us a step closer to defining why we measure social media:
REACH—how far does it go?
RELEVANCE—does it support your intended direction?
INFLUENCE—who shares and with who? How many generations of
impact?
AUTHORITY—how trusted is the source?
ENGAGEMENT—how involved do they get?
INTERACTION—did they do anything with it?
VELOCITY—how fast does it travel (viral)
ATTENTION—how much time do they spend?
SENTIMENT—how positive are they?
NET PROMOTER—are they recommending you to others?
Would you
recommend Brand X to a friend or colleague? (On a scale of 1-10, the
formula is "People who say 9-10 (extremely)" minus "those who answer
1-6" = your score). And this is what really matters
most.
I watched the film, Be Kind, Rewind, on my way back from South America this week and discovered a line in the film sums up the ethos of the social web and social web in one nifty phrase.
In case you're not familiar with it, the film is about a couple of guys running a VHS-only video store who accidently wipe their stock. faced with the prospect of going out of business they set about making their own versions of blockbusters. As the film progresses and their idea becomes popular they start letting their customers appear in their self-produced hits.
Jack Black describes this as:
"Making our customers stockholders in their own happiness"
Ok it's a bit schmaltzy, but isn't this what social media and the social web is allowing us to do? The moral of the story is that their customers loved being involved in the film more than simply watching it. So let's see more of us PR people advising our clients that involving and empowering our customers isn't just a fad or marketing ploy - it's a reality that makes people feel good and drives sales (if you're cold hearted enough to only care about the cash).
PS. as a footnote I could add that the moral of the story could have been about the signifncant tensions the social web is putting our outdated copyright laws under. There's a scene involving the film industry's copyright police which isn't fully explored - but then it's a Hollywood film so they aren't going to examine their dirty laundry in public are they?
This isn't a particularly constructive blog post, but I thought I'd share two great examples of bad Twitter use.
The first one I didn't even bother clicking to view their profile page, because frankly why would I want to having received the notification email pictured left?
I mean, that's not even trying is it? It's not even setting up a Twitter stream as an affiliate link farm and pretending to be a real person.
It's just doing what it says on the tin: Top Affiliate1. Still, I suppose it's at least 'authentic'.
The second example of Twitter abue is slightly less forgivable. I received a notification that Coca Cola Zero was following me on Twitter (albeit in Portuguese) so I took a look at their profile thinking how interesting it would be to see what the brand was doing on Twitter.
Amazingly (and presuming it is an official Coke branded site - although I have no reason to think otherwise) the Twitter feed is more or less being used as a spam site. Take a look at the screenshot below:
You should be able to make out that the user is following about 5,000 people (me included despite not speaking Portuguese) while only having 200 followees. Also, although you probably can't make it out, they have only posted two tweets in over two weeks. That's a FAIL in my books.
As a footnote, I was in Brazil last week speaking to PR professionals - so I wonder if someone I met works on the Coke Zero account and has added me. If it was - feel free to drop me an email and I'll tell you where you could improve :)
So I'm here in Sao Paulo for a couple of days doing some social media training for Brazil's PR trade body, Aberje, as mentioned in my previous post and while I'm here I've been catching up my Edel-colleagues.
Yesterday I had a fantasic lunch with our Digital Manager, Thiane Loureiro at a restaurant where you can buy everything in the place. We had a great discussion over risotto and beer about social media, PR, relationship building, sustainable communications and anarchism - but despite having many shared interests I'm sure I keep mis-pronouncing her name! I think it's pro: Tee-ahn-nee. Tee-arn-uh. Thiane - am I right?
And then today I visited Edelman's rapidly expanding Sao Paulo office to meet the rest of the digital team. Our office is on the twentieth floor so you get quite a view from the window:
Anyway, I sat with the team and we talked about monitoring brands online, the difference between digital advertising and digital PR, the added value of relationship building in the online space and they took me through a couple of case studies - all of which were really cool, well thought-out and executed programmes.
I think it is really cool to see that even in another (pretty different) market that the fundamental ideas behind delivering online PR campaigns remain the same - and more importantly are successful.
The reason for this - I decided today - is that aside from a few cultural differences, people are people throughout the world. They are largely driven by the same desires, needs, likes and dislikes.
By putting them (indeed, us!) at the heart of our work then we can finally start to make meaningful connections with society on a global scale. And that can only be a good thing, can it not?
I'll end this post with a top quality Brazilian tune, Sex-O-Matic by Edu K. The Amazonian natural world video is amazing too. Check it, as they say:
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