Creative Traction » Social Media

How Are Global Fortune 100 Companies Leveraging Social Media?

Duane Brown — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 00:51:48 +0000

That’s one big question trying to be answered in a new study put out by Burson-Marsteller. If you don’t want to read the report. Then check out this very cool infographic that came out today care of Flowtown.

65 percent of the Fortune Global 100 had active accounts on Twitter, 54 percent had a Facebook fan page, 50 percent had a YouTube channel, and 33 percent had corporate blogs.
Only 20 percent of the major international companies were utilizing all four platforms to engage with stakeholders.
Companies based in the United States and Europe were most likely to use Twitter (U.S.: 72 percent, Europe: 71 percent) or Facebook (U.S.: 69 percent, Europe: 52 percent) than they were to have corporate blogs (U.S.: 34 percent, Europe: 25 percent), while companies from Asia-Pacific were more likely to utilize corporate blogs (50 percent) than other forms of social media (Twitter: 40 percent, Facebook: 40 percent).
Companies using Twitter are following an average of 731 people each and 38 percent of companies are responding to people’s tweets

I found the new study to be helpful and even started using it in a new client deck today.

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The future of social media monitoring

Duane Brown — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:24:35 +0000

This past week a report surfaced that only 50% of tweets are in English. The other 4 top languages are Japanese, Portuguese, Malay & Spanish. The release of this report got me thinking as more global firms get into monitoring their brand online and the implications for them by this report.

We already have many public relations, advertising and other agencies using more then one social media monitoring tool for a brand. The big reason for this is because every tool is different and using two tools increases your likely hood that you won’t miss anything online. Also, each tool is going to offer something different for each brand. I know a few friends at different advertising shops are really digging Sysomos right now. However, what happens when your team is based in North American or Europe and you want to monitor your brand in Asia.

Going Global
I know many of the leading social media monitoring tools have the ability to translate into different languages but I’m beginning to wonder how good of a job these tools do. There is something said for a firm like JamiQ who is based in Asia and understands the culture and language of that continent a lot better then a firm based in North American or Europe. It’s the subtle differences that are going to hopefully make a tool like JamiQ a lot better at monitoring your brand then a firm not based there. This starts to leave me with more questions then answers:

Should global brands being using a different social media monitoring tool for each continent?
Will teams need to start to be continent based?
Will the need for an agitator to combine each continents information into one dashboard exist?
Are global brands even beginning to think this way?

I’m not sure where we are headed but this is a trend that I’m going to continue to monitor as I see it effecting how we work. As more people jump into social media tools then this trend is only going to increase in 2010 and beyond. This post was spurred by a conversation I had with my friend Alex Conde and the team at Proximity on Wednesday.

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#CupCakeWednesday: another example of the power of Twitter

Duane Brown — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:19:04 +0000

All About The Cupcake
An innocent tweet last week has brought the joy of cupcakes to my door this afternoon. What started out as a conversation between two of my friends about cupcakes and Cinnabon launching their new cupcake line in the US this year. Got Cinnabon to not only connect with my two friends but help make their dream of bringing the goodness of #CupCakeWednesday to those lucky few in the downtown core today. Cinnabon didn’t have to join the conversation nor did they have to give my friends free product to share with their network around Toronto. But they understood that the economics are changing and they needs to nurture that new change in business.

All About The Benjamins
For my business readers who question the value of social media and building out your network with the right connections, let me just say this. My latest major client came from a connection on Twitter. I’m working on some important business that is key for my boss and the global agency he works for. I won’t say more then that as I’m a tight lipped person on new business and even if I had not signed an NDA. I still wouldn’t say anything as I’ve been telling everyone since last week when I started working on this business for Proximity.

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SocialTALK from Syncapse

Duane Brown — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 22:42:40 +0000

Syncapse launched SocialTALK this past Wednesday as a way to track all your different social media conversation in one place. You can read a post about it from Christopher Berry who works at Syncapse. Of course there is the press release or YouTube video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Social media analysis reports are a ripoff

Duane Brown — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 15:27:29 +0000

This morning I had the pleasure of talking with Katie Delahaye Paine (@PKDPaine) about my social media monitoring & measurement tools list. She pointed out a site that had a social media analysis report that was more comprehensive then my tools list. The cost of the report was $300. Since making my social media monitoring & measurement tools list last June. I’ve come across a few other social media analysis reports like this one that wants money for their information. I know it’s how Forrester & others make their money but it’s a rip off in my opinion. Let me tell you why.

I original made my list because I want something that focused on paid social media monitoring tools and I couldn’t find anything out there at the time for free. A lot of the lists I found mixed paid & free tools and made it seem like they were equal sometimes. I don’t think free tools are a good starting point for clients. You’re not going to get the data and information you need from the free tools to help you make an informed decision. A lot of the free tools can’t show you the history of your brand or company as you engage in social media like the paid tools do as you move past your launch date. We don’t yet have an equivalent of Google Analytic, from a robust & feature standpoint, for monitoring a brand or company online. Social Mention is great but is not quite there yet.

The reason I think these social media analysis reports are a rip off is because many of the firms producing them haven’t been in business that long to begin with. Many don’t have the history to back up how they came to certain conclusions in their report. Also each social media monitoring tool is very different in how they go about gathering date to presenting that date to you as a client. Each clients needs are going to be different and I think it’s key for clients to get a feel for the different tools and how they work. I can see some clients using the report as a crutch and not doing the critical thinking to make sure they are picking the best tool based on their needs, goals and organizational structure. As I’ve said before, these tools are not a one size fits all and we need to challenge clients to put in the effort for picking the best tool for them.

My other issue with these reports is that I find they try to group all these tools into groups of similar features. Of the 9 tools I’ve demoed over the last 8 months, I can tell you that no two tools are a like. It’s a challenge to group them because each tool gathers data a different way and some go as far back as 2005 and others don’t. Also how these tools look at areas including sentiment & buzz are calculated in a different way. Just take a look at Ken Burbary’s post The Dirty Little Secret of Social Media Monitoring. I can see some clients trying to fit their organization into the tool then working hard at finding a tool that fits within their organization. It takes some time but you’ve to put in this effort and research up front to get the value from picking the right tool in the begining. Simply holding yourself and your team up in a room reading these social media analysis reports is not going to do that.

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Social Influence Marketing Trends from Shiv Singh

Duane Brown — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 18:18:19 +0000

Shiv Singh, VP Social Media at Razorfish, gave a keynote presentation when Seesmic launched look early this week. The deck below looks at five trends with one trend having a closer look at the auto industry. Not everything is completely new but it’s a good read for the start of the year.

Social Influence Marketing Trends

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It’s not Facebook vs Twitter

Duane Brown — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:42:45 +0000

Even with Fast Company writing that Twitter to Compete With Ever-Expanding Facebook Connect. I still don’t think this is true for the vast majority of people. I still believe that Facebook and Twitter serve different audiences and do share some overlap but that’s it.

When you look at Twitter, you see that the majority of their growth is going international as we enter 2010. The US is still half of all users but as we enter more global times, the users signing up around the word is only going to continue to increase. Twitter is more a communication that connects you faster with like minded people around the globw. While Facebook is more about connecting you with more people just outside your current circle of friends.

On the flip side, you see that Facebook’s growth is stilll US based and especially with Gen Y males.

Inside Facebook reported that the US gain of more than 4.5 million monthly active Facebook users was the highest number of any country. Because of the large installed base of US Facebook users, it represented a 5% gain, compared with 10% growth in countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.

Facebook is still growing outside of the US but it’s still a strong US based growth. It’s 2010 and I think we need to move on from comparing Facebook & Twitter directly. Users use the platforms differnetly and those unique traits are what we should be leveraging when we pitch using the platforms to clients.

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JamiQ: Multilingual Social Media Monitoring and Measurement

Duane Brown — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 10:00:12 +0000

A few weeks ago I got contacted by Benjamin Koe who works at JamiQ.

About JamiQ is a multilingual social media monitoring and measurement solution that provides the largest coverage of the social media in Asia. JamiQ uses advanced data mining methods and natural language processing technology to produce real-time buzz trending, sentiment detection, influence scoring, and market segmentation, giving you the critical insights you need for immediate and strategic decision-making.

He had come across my social media monitoring and measurement tool list from this past summer, which I’m keeping constantly updated by the way. He wanted to let me demo their software as well as add it to my list of tools. The multilingual aspect of JamiQ doesn’t make it that special as many of the leading tools out there are multilingual. However, the fact it covers the Asia market is something to take note of. The fact we can track Internet chatter in Thai, or even Japanese and have the system know which of those countries the post came from is important for many global brands these days. Being able to translate that information into English or another language will be a key feature for JamiQ to look at as we head into 2010.

The data looks good but I’ll have to reconnect with Benjamin in 2010 and learn more about how they go about collecting their different pieces of data. Data collection and filtering is an important area when a client is looking to use any social media monitoring tool. Every company does it differently and it can lead to different results for the same client. I found their sentiment a little hard to read with the colours they used but that’s more of a user experience issue then a knock against the product.

The data shown above was based on a demo run for Starbucks. I wanted to let my readers know about a new potential social media monitoring tool. The industry is going to get more interesting as we head deeper into 2010.

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A Social Media Calendar

Duane Brown — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 21:40:51 +0000

Wed Worker Daily has a great post up today about using a social media calendar to help track and manage your efforts in social media. The author gives a couple examples, including one they use themselves. This a great idea and one I’ll be using a lot more as I head into 2010.

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Social media habits of people across Canada, the US and UK

Duane Brown — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 02:04:22 +0000

On Wednesday I talked about a new study looking at the social media habits of people across Canada, the US and UK. The study was done by some of my friends over at Cossette. I’ve spend the last few days looking and trying to dig a bit deeper into the study, which isn’t surprising as a whole but does point out some interesting facts that I wasn’t aware of before reading this. I wasn’t shocked that 65% of people in Canada and 51% of people in the US are on Facebook, which is fine and has MySpace trailer at 11% and 36% respectively. However, when you look at the weekly usage and frequency is when you start to notice something different.

Canada: Weekly us: 61%/ Frequency: 21.1%
US: Weekly us: 56% / Frequency: 16.4%
UK: Weekly us: 54% / Frequency: 11.4%

Penetration may be high across the board for all three countries but the US is visiting sites like Facebook at a higher rate per week then Canada and the UK. This means if I’m looking to get more face time with a user then the US might be a better bet as they spend more time on social networks even if they have less people as a whole using social networks. We still see users accessing social networks from different places such as their home (60%), work (25% among 25-34 year-old) and mobile phone (16% among 18-24 year-olds).

Now what people are doing on Facebook and other social networks or the Internet isn’t a big surprise. A lot of people are looking for product information or looking at news online. They take consumer written reviews (66%) and feel they are more valuable then top search result (52%) or company produced content (45%). However, the fact that 55% of user generated content is only 1% away from beating professional journalism at 56% is something that company’s and people in the public relation industry should take note of if they have not already. This has been a long time coming but it’s more of a reality as we enter 2010. The US is the most active in this space followed by the UK and then Canada isn’t a shock. The one area that the US and Canada are more alike is when adults 18-24 are talking about products/services and brands online.

The last part of the study continues the same trends of Canada having a high penetration rate but the US having a higher frequency rate when it comes to how they are spending their time using social networks and social media as a whole. Hopefully Cossette continues doing this case study on a yearly bases so we can start to track the trends from a historic point of view.

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