I've long been a fan of the Essendon Football Club's online marketing efforts. Indeed, I've profiled their good work in the past. And it's not just because I'm a rabid fan of the club. I genuinely believe that they are a leader and pioneer within the digital arena. So much so that I almost applied for a marketing job I saw them advertise recently. Almost. And today they were at it again with a unique concept tied to Monday's massive Anzac Clash with Collingwood – the Anzac Day FanCam.

The premise, while not completely revolutionary in nature, is an Australian first. It utilised Gigpixel technology to create a 360 degree interactive photo of the stadium half an hour before the bounce of the ball. The quality of the photo is so precise that fans can zoom in to pinpoint themself in the crowd. All 90,000 of them. Cool!

I love the concept because I think it will have true resonance with fans. Attendance at blockbuster matches is almost a badge of pride for fans. Indeed, during the match on Monday I found myself bragging to a mate about how he missed the best Anzac Day clash ever 2 years ago when Essendon won with the final kick of the day. The FanCam approach provides a great new way for attendees to commemorate and remember one of the biggest matches of the year. The only thing I don't like about FanCam is the fact I'm not in the photo because Melbourne's ever woeful public transport system couldn't get me there on time.

If early impressions are any indication, the initiative seems to have been a success with the fans. A quick visit to the site reveals that hundreds of fans have tagged themselves in the crowd (although I would have loved the ability to search for friends names/tags). And the page has already been shared on Facebook over 500 times at the time of publishing. My guess is that it will leapfrog 1,000 shares sooner rather than later.

Undoubtedly, the exact return on investment (and value) of the concept will be hard to quantify. Apparently, the cost of the exercise was close to $20,000. But when the name of the game is ongoing member satisfaction, this is an excellent gesture in my opinion. And I'm the target audience, which has to count for something.

Great work Essendon.

When it comes to social media, I typically cover business and marketing related issues. Yet today I'm going to take a slightly different angle and ponder the impact that social media is having on interpersonal social skills. Facebook has well and truly entrenched itself into the Australian way of life, and in a few short years has drastically changed what it means to 'socialise'. But has it influenced social norms in a positive or negative manner? Has it made us more social creatures, or are we now connecting in a more superficial manner? That's the topic for today.

First, let's have a look at how social media has affected social relationships in a positive manner.

Inclusion via Social Media

Most of my friends are relatively technically savvy, typically as a result of using technology within an office environment. They utilise email heavily. They're comfortable transacting via the Internet. And like most younger Australians, they integrate social media into their daily lives (Facebook in particular). In fact, social media has become a primary tool in the facilitation of their social lives.

My view is that Facebook socialites maximise their level of social inclusion. While wall posts and chat sessions may be relatively superficial forms of social connectivity, they provide low maintenance channels for people to stay in touch with friends they may have otherwise drifted away from (think former work colleagues). Friendships last longer, even if they lack real depth. 

Furthermore, by now Facebook is the preeminent tool for the organisation of informal social events. Email often supports Facebook event invitations, but Facebook has become the default. And the reason is simple – it's the easiest way to do it. Unlike email addresses and phone numbers, Facebook contact details don't change. Just create your page, send your invitations and you're done.

If you're not on Facebook, or if you rarely check it, you're likely to miss event invitations altogether. I can think of two friends in particular who have inadvertently been excluded from social events simply because they missed the invitations on Facebook. And of course, what we're talking about here is at the very minor end of the social inclusion scale.

At the most extreme end, social media can help the most isolated of individuals feel a level of inclusion. The recent case of bullied school kid Casey Heynes is the perfect example. A few weeks ago Casey didn't have a friend in the world (aside from his sister). Today he has a Facebook page with close to 200,000 fans after a video of him standing up to bully went viral. And it's hard not to feel glad that Casey has found a support network, even if it is a virtual one.

So I think we've established that social media can have a positive impact on social relations. But of course, there are some negatives…

Exclusion via Social Media

We've all got friends who are obsessed with Facebook. You know the type… they make multiple postings every day. They check their feed on an hourly basis. But at what point does a Facebook obsession begin to become detrimental to an individual's social behaviour in real life. The scenario presented itself to me a few weeks back whilst having lunch with a few friends. One friend was only slightly more engaged with the actual conversation around the table as they were with a conversation happening within Facebook. Now this didn't bother me, but another one of my friends commented that it was incredibly rude to regularly engage in online conversations (to the exclusions of others) while in a real life social scenario.

Which poses the question of whether social media is eroding away what is believed to be proper social behaviour?

I don't think so personally. I suspect it's merely an evolving social trend. Firstly, we're constantly connected to social media now with our smart phones by our sides. Which means we've got more cause for distraction. We're also increasingly becoming masters of multi-tasking. We listen to iPods while reading a book or the news on the train. We browse the web, chat with friends on Facebook and watch TV at the same time. So is it any surprise that we socialise both virtually and physically at the same time? I don't think so.

In reality I think it's simply a sign of shifting social norms. It wasn't that long ago that it was considered rude to answer a mobile phone on a train. Now, I'd be surprised if less than 40% of people on a peak hour train aren't engaging with their phone in some way. Likewise, I expect barriers between virtual and physical socialising to break down. Facebook have already set the wheels in motion with their Places feature. We're probably not that far away from the day when people at the same venue chat via Facebook as opposed to crossing a crowded room to chat in person. Heck, Gen Y'ers & Z'ers probably already do it.

So that's my take. What do you think? Are we fundamentally a more social society due to the advent of social media? Or is it responsible for the decay of important social norms?

By now, I doubt there's anyone in Australia hasn't heard about St Kilda Football Club's brush with a certain vengeful schoolgirl. Yet on a global scale, the overwhelming majority would be completely unaware of this extraordinary social media crisis. So… as hesitant as I am to grant her any more attention, I've made it the topic of my latest post over at Search Engine People. To my mind, it's certainly one of the most damaging social media crises seen to date. Players, club, managers and the league have all been tainted. But how does the international community perceive it?

Head on over to Search Engine People to find out – Is this the most damaging social media crisis ever?

Last year I wrote a post highlighting some of the excellent work Australian not-for-profits have achieved within social media. And while most of those are still fine case studies, I must say I've become somewhat jaded at how social media has been used for social causes since then. At some point, it seems that simply getting people to spread a message via social channels became more important than actual tangible outcomes. Which misses the point completely! And it's for that exact reason that I'm highlighting the work of Flood Aid today. Because it is truly is a brilliant example of how social media can be used in a way that makes a difference to people affected by misfortune (in particular those impacted by the floods in Australia).

When social media doesn't make a difference

Before I outline the extent of Flood Aid's awesomeness, I'll elaborate a little further on my beef. You see, in my opinion the use of social media to support social causes has become increasingly tokenistic. A couple of recent examples related to Breast Cancer awareness are cases in point:

1. An unofficial campaign encouraged users to report the colour of their bra via Facebook
   
2. An 'I like it' campaign asked females to state where they liked to keep their purse – Eg. 'I like it on the kitchen bench'

Both campaigns were wildly successful from a participation perspective. For a day that is. And then they disappeared, never to be thought of again. What's more, I question the core reason for people's widespread participation. Was it really to help raise awareness of Breast Cancer? Or was it for a quick laugh based on the sexual innuendo each meme inferred. My suspicion is the later. Yet even if participant intentions were good, the gesture itself is highly tokenistic in nature. It does little for the cause. And this is my point. It's a point which was also raised by Jonathon Crossfield in his excellent analysis of the RUOK campaign (highly recommended read!).

Status updates and Tweets don't solve problems! But Flood Aid does!

Flood Aid's purpose is simple. It aims to connect people affected by the floods with others in their local area that are willing to lend a hand. Simple, yet highly effective because it solves a key problem faced by those affected by disaster. While donations rack up by the millions across the country, it takes time for that money to filter out to affected individuals and their communities. In the meantime, victims are left to fend for themselves in terms of finding shelter, repairing property and cleaning up. It is often the inability to deliver an immediate response where governments and aid organisations are criticised (Hurricane Katrina anyone…?)

Enter Flood Aid! Users are able to both request help and offer help. It connects those in need with people willing to help. Requests for assistance typically cover issues relating to:

• Re-carpeting of housing affected by floods
• Replacing damaged furniture
• Replenishing supplies lost in the flood
• Transportation and logistics

Conversely, a range of generous souls are offering a broad range of services via the site including:

• Offers to donate furniture and other goods
• Offers of accommodation to those that have lost their home
• Offers to provide professional services such as carpentry, renovation, hard labour & data recovery for damaged PCs
• Offers to babysit children while victims resolve living arrangements and other issues

What makes this project even more remarkable is the speed with which it has been been launched. A call for arms via social media was met with over 500 responses from digital specialists. That group was filtered down to a team of core contributors, and within a matter a days the site was live.

At a time when social media tends to be dominated by narcissists, self-promoters & marketing stunts, it's comforting to know it can still be used to change people's lives when it matters the most. Congratulations to everyone involved in getting this project up and running!

A couple of weeks back I wrote about how search was increasing turning social with the integration of Facebook 'Like' data into Bing's search results. And yesterday we took another big step forwards into the inevitability that is social search. Indeed, we may look back upon December 1 as a historic date in the evolution of search engines, with two distinct cases emerging to validate the role that social will play in the future of search…

Case 1: Search engines confirm they use social signals

Many within the search industry have suspected that search engines have been utilising social signals as part of their algorithm for some time. Darryl King presented a compelling case study at SMX Melbourne recently on how social signals drove astonishing organic search results for the My Politician site during the Federal Election. Darryl contended that social signals had to be a significant factor, because there was simply no other way his new site could be outranking others with far superior traditional SEO signals.

Yesterday Google confirmed this to be true. In an interview on Search Engine Land, Google and Bing verified that they both analyse of the following social signals within their existing algorithm:

1. How many times a link is shared in social media
2. The authority of the person sharing the content

Perhaps most interestingly, both search engines indicated that they gave more credence to sharing behaviour on Twitter, as they had superior mechanisms for determining user authority within the microblogging platform. Personally, when consulting on social media I consistently advise organisations to invest in Facebook first, given its monopoly of the Australian social media landscape. However, this insight gives greater cause to consider Twitter as a serious social media channel for business.

Case 2: Google changes algorithm to penalise negative reviews

A few days back a rather large story broke on the NY Times regarding a businessmen who actively sought negative consumer reviews as they enhanced his Google rankings. Naturally this was a bad news story for Google. Any situation that brings into question the credibility and quality of their search results is a bad outcome for Google. So they  revised their algorithm to penalise businesses that generate poor publicity and bad customer experiences. While they stopped short of saying online customer reviews directly impact search rankings (because how easy is that to game), there's no question they want to integrate consumer driven reviews as an algorithmic signal in the future (look at Google Places as a clue).

Why this is a big deal for social media

The documented chain of events should be music to the ears of anyone providing social media consultancy services. Within Australia at least, social media can still be a relatively tough sell outside any industry targeting the youth demographic. In a country where many of the largest retailers still haven't transitioned to ecommerce, there are plenty who are still hesitant towards social media. Conservatism reigns supreme at the big end of town…

However, few organisations question the effectiveness of search. It is consistently nominated (along with email) as the most effective marketing channel in the arsenal. AIMIA's recent Australian Retail Industry study found Australian marketers rank search their second most important marketing channel. Thus, the fact that social media will assert an increasing influence over search engine rankings is significant. While it seems not all marketers see the value in communicating with their customers, there's no question they see the value of the SERPs. Every social media consultant should be working this into their PowerPoint presentations.

The exciting part is that they have only just begun! Social search technologies are only in their infancy. Google clearly hasn't nailed it just yet and have admitted as much. But they will continue trying. And… if there's one thing we know about Google, it's that they give weight/credence to age and history (domain age anyone?). You can be sure that if/when they nail social search, they'll be rewarding those brands with a proven track record and strong signs of authority and credibility.

The message should be loud and clear by now. If you're not in social media already, it's time to get your feet wet. Because your future search engine rankings will depend on it.

It’s been a huge couple of weeks in the search industry. Even in an industry renowned for constant innovation, the past couple of weeks have brought about two monumental changes. First came Google Instant. And while the concept sounded reasonable in theory, it added little to the search experience in my opinion. It kinda made me feel like I’ve got ADD (moreso…). But while Google was busy trying to convince the world that Instant revolutionised the search experience, Bing casually stole their thunder by announcing a change that truly could change search. And that was the integration of Facebook data into their search results! Which meant that for the first time, we have a serious social search product on our hands…

Social search buzz

Social search has been a buzzword within the industry for a couple of years now. It first gained momentum back in 2008 when Yahoo announced that they would integrate Delicious data into their search results. Of course, the Yahoo/Delicious initiative ultimately failed for a number of key reasons:

• Delicious lacked the scale and usage of the larger social networks
• Significant discrepancy existed between a user’s Delicious network, and their true circle of influencers (aka their social graph)
• Delicious data was too easy to game

Late last year Google also attempted to enter the market with its own social search product. Yet it failed for the similar reasons (not scale in this case, but an inability to create a relevant social graph). Despite the failures, search professionals continued to salivate at the true potential of social search. The reason is simple. People trust people. More than they’ll ever trust an algorithm.  Even in the age of Google, friends & family are still the most trusted source of information (even if they aren’t the most qualified):

So imagine the power of a search engine that considered the content your friends and family Like alongside the standard algorithm-driven results. Bing took the first steps towards delivering that outcome last week via the integration of Facebook’s ‘Like’ data into their search results.

How does Bing’s social search work?

Well… if I run a search for ‘running shoes’, Bing will return a standard set of results, as per normal. However, at the same time, it will scan my social graph to determine whether any of my friends have Liked content related to running shoes. If my pal Chris Liked a pair of Asics cross trainers, it’s likely that content would be integrated into the search results. Suddenly, search is able to expose content from the people I trust most. Content that would otherwise have been invisible to me. Pretty cool huh?

Of course, the key reason Bing’s social search product actually stands a chance of success is their partnership with Facebook. Because when it comes to social data, Facebook is the only kid on the block. No other network has the scale to power a search engine in a meaningful way. Delicious certainly couldn’t. And even Facebook has a long way to go yet. While ‘Liking’ behaviour is common, it probably needs to increase by a factor of 1,000 before it can truly influence search in a meaningful way. But nevertheless, the seeds are in place for a powerful social search experience in the future. And Facebook has shown time and time again that they have the ability to influence user behaviour.

What Bing’s social search means for digital marketers

The implications for the digital marketing industry are incredibly profound. In particular, three digital channels seem particularly affected:

• SEO: Of course, the SEO industry will be significantly affected if/when social search truly takes off. While many SEOs have long used social media to help spread content and generate indirect links, social search could mark the era when social media becomes a mandatory element of every SEO program. With Bing offering up two slots for social content on the precious page one real estate, it’ll be a brave SEO that continues to ignore Facebook. Much like universal search created a demand for image and video optimisation, so too will social search necessitate a unique skill set.
• Social Media – Naturally, social media marketing will also be strongly affected by the emergence of social search. More budget will surely flow into social media as a result. And I’d also expect a far greater emphasis on Facebook above all other social networks (even moreso than now). Suddenly, the value of a powerful Facebook community increases significantly. While a Facebook ‘Like’ is a nice little engagement metric at the moment, it gains a whole lot more value and credibility when it directly influences search results for related search terms. An army of fans with a tendency to ‘Like’ branded content will become a real corporate asset.
• Content Marketing - Like social search before it, content marketing tends to be another buzz word within the industry. Yet it too could become become a beneficiary should social search take flight. The ability to create content that people ‘Like’ will become a critical skill. Indeed, linkbait will be joined in the SEO arsenal by Face-bait. Organisations will dedicate time and resource into the production of content primarily for the purpose of gaining  Facebook ‘Likes’.

Before we get too carried away, it must be said that we’re still at least a couple of years away from having a social search product of any real value. Until the ‘Liking’ of external content becomes a regular habit for the average Facebook user, we simply won’t see social search have anything other than a menial impact of search results. But personally, I suspect we may look back at this in a few years as the moment when search took its next major evolution!

As many of you would be aware, Facebook Places launched in Australia today. Wooo! A few weeks back I wrote why I think Places is going to be an amazing application for marketers. Having finally been able to play with it today, I can now talk about Places from a user’s perspective. And again, it seems to be a kick ass little app. Indeed, I’m declaring it an immediate Foursquare killer. To be fair, I’ve never been a Foursquare fan in the first place. I doubt I’d have more than 10 Foursquare check-ins in total. The thing is… I just couldn’t see the point with Foursquare. But I can with Places. There are a number of reasons why…

Push Notifications

I may change my tune on this in time. I’ve deleted iPhone applications in the past purely because of overuse of the push notifications. But the Facebook Places push notifications seem to operate intelligently. A bunch of my friends checked-in around Melbourne and Australia today. Yet I only received a single push notification, which occurred when a co-worker checked in to a local restaurant for lunch. In other words, Facebook Places only alerts you when a friend is nearby. Sweet!

Conversely, Foursquare is reliant upon being manually activated before it alerts you to the whereabouts of your friends. Which I simply never remembered to do. Because I didn’t care enough. Push notifications are the killer feature for me. They remove a manual step in the process. If Facebook could remove the manual check-in component, without sending the privacy Nazi’s into cahoots, they’d have the perfect application.

Instant Social Graph

Facebook’s most precious asset is its’ social graph. It makes the Places application immediately useful. Because Facebook knows who my friends are. Foursquare didn’t. At least, it didn’t know who my real friends are (only a handful are tech geeks). So it created no real value for me. Because when people checked-in around town, I didn’t really care. But with Facebook Places, I do! Therefore I’ll use it.

My suspicion is that Facebook’s open graph will be its pillar of strength for many years to come. It makes applications useful, whether internal or external. I love the sound of Apple’s new Ping service. Some of my friends have amazing taste in music and I’d love to know what music they’re buying. But until Ping integrates Facebook’s social graph, it holds no value to me. I only care what music my friends are buying, not some random dudes. Any social application with a utility based upon discovery simply has to have Facebook integration nowadays.

No friggen gimmicks

Facebook’s Places product is simple. It does one thing really well – tell me where my friends are in real time. No gimmicks. And no friggen badges! The whole badge collecting element of Foursquare always felt massively lame to me. It was like I was back in boy scouts or something. Yuck!

Now… if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to delete Foursquare from my iPhone…

Back in the day, I was a bit of a social media purist (aka wanker). Indeed, in an early strategy doc, I once wrote that a campaign mentality was completely inappropriate for social media. I was wrong. Social media can be an immensely effective channel in activating and spreading marketing campaigns. For instance, Smiggle did an excellent job activating their Colour Crew campaign via Facebook. But… I’m still highly pessimistic about campaigns that are contained solely within social media channels. Because far too often, they become redundant assets once the campaign has ended. Or in the case of Toyota, they become spam infested cesspools…

Last year, Toyota launched perhaps the highest profile social media marketing experiment this country has seen. In an open pitch, they pitted 5 agencies against each other to see which could generate the strongest result. In my opinion it was poorly conceived. Five agencies with five agendas creating five distinct messages for the same audience at the same time. Mixed messages anyone…?

However, that’s not my beef right now. Instead, I’m more concerned with the state of those campaign assets. Almost one year on, they’ve become wastelands. In particular, the Ultimate City pages created by now defunct agency The Population are horribly spam infested, as can be seen below:

Interestingly, Toyota still links to these pages on their standard Facebook page. What’s the average customer meant to think when they click through to these spam infested pages? They certainly won’t understand the background of the project. They’ll simply see Toyota endorsing and supporting a bunch of spammers. Not cool…

While not meeting the same spammy fate as Toyota’s page, there are plenty of other examples of high profile social media campaigns that have been abandoned after the initial buzz of activity:

Ispylevis

Ispylevis was one of the more celebrated social media campaigns of 2009, and it certainly was a cute little idea. Indeed, it was nominated for a bunch of industry awards such as the B&T Awards &  Mumbrella Awards. Yet if you visit the ipsylevis Twitter account today, you’ll notice they haven’t Tweeted in 6 months. They may be planning a follow up campaign, but I do wonder how many of the 2,000 followers will be receptive after 6 months of silence.

The answer may be plenty, with a pair of free jeans at stake. But it sure would have been easier if an ongoing engagement strategy was in place.

Pepsi Refresh

Pepsi followed in the footsteps of Levis, launching a similar scavenger hunt for its Pepsi Refresh campaign. But like Levis, the Pepsi Twitter account has remained dormant since. Unlike Levis though, Pepsi’s account was generically branded, rather than being tied to a specific campaign. So a transition into non-campaign based interaction would have been perfectly acceptable. But obviously it didn’t happen…

So… are these shit campaigns?

No. That’s not my point. Each campaign was run well by a competent agency.  The problem is that they were just that… campaigns. I suspect it went down like this – each brand came to the agency with the budget and brief for a short-term social media campaign. Because social media is the cool thing to do right now. Each agency ran the campaign, but stopped supporting it once the client stopped paying them to do so (as they are entitled to do). So what is the client left with? Dormant social media assets, and a lack of internal understanding of how to maintain them…

It’s hard to see what the brands actually get out of this. Certainly the three brands mentioned aren’t short of awareness. So it seems to be all about generating some short-term PR buzz (and perhaps sales). Funny thing is though, the agencies probably get greater PR benefits from the campaign than the brand itself. The marketing industry will remember who executed each campaign for 12-24 months I suspect. Actual consumers will be lucky to remember it after a couple of months…

Short-term mentality = short-term result. Simple as that.

As more and more businesses jump into social media, case studies and success stories are becoming more prevalent. Yet despite the fact that small businesses are often just as entrenched as big business, the little guys are significantly underepresented when it comes to case studies. Today we’re going to fix that. I connected with Ann Nolan of Baby Sitters Directory earlier this year after compiling my list of Aussie businesses on Twitter (yes… it’s severely outdated now!). I was immediately fascinated with how a niche businesses such as hers was using social media. And I recently had the opportunity of talking to her about it, albeit after months of procrastination on my part. It gives a fascinating insight into why and how a small business uses social media.

Firstly, what is Baby Sitters Directory?

Baby Sitter Directory is Australia’s leading babysitter and nanny directory. While living in Queensland in 2006/07 for a year with two young children, far away from family and friends and my usual babysitters, I found no online services that allowed me to easily and cost effectively locate and contact babysitters directly. Hence Baby Sitter Directory was formed and launched in June 2008. It is the most effective way to find a babysitter, and the most social online babysitter and nanny community, connecting parents directly with babysitters and nannies.

Why did you decide social media was appropriate for your business?

Given that the vast majority of Babysitterdirectory’s members are women and given women’s use of social media, it becomes clear why  social media is something we see as  important! In June the “2009 Social Media Study” a US study from BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners found women are turning to social media for fun, entertainment and connection.

• Fifty- three per cent of the US female Internet population of 79 million actively participated in some type of social media at least weekly.
• Of the female social media participants, 75% took part in social networking and 55% used blogs.
• Twelve million posted to blogs and 8 million published them.

This is an impressive use of social media. Granted the findings are for the US market but it would not be presumptous to assume that Australian women’s use of social media is on par with their US counterparts.

How do you use social media for your business?

We view it as a medium to deepen our connection with the parenting industry, be it an individual parent, a nanny, a babysitter or a business seeking to connect with parents.

The social media platforms – Blog, Twitter and Facebook – we use tend to compliment each other. Ideally it would be great to engage equally in every social media platform that exists but reality and resources dictate that decisions have to be made about where to invest time and energy.

As Alex Bogusky, Chairman of CP&B said:

“You can’t buy attention anymore. Having a huge budget doesn’t mean anything in social media…. you’ve got to be
willing to play to play…”

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

What considerations should small businesses make before jumping in head first?

There is the aspect of how companies manage the expectations of fans/followers and communicate with them. When people follow you on Twitter or become a fan of your Fanpage on Facebook, I think there is an expectation by many people that they can engage in some dialogue with the company or at the very least the employee of the company.

The danger  is when companies and even ‘celebrities’ create a profile, people follow and try to engage with the company or celebrity and there is a deafening silence. No re-follow, no response to messages.  It’s as if this ‘celebrity’ or company is saying to their follower “Nothing you say is or ever can be of interest to me”. The dilemma  for companies is that if they have a lot of followers replying to every single message, it ends up being time consuming and costly. It will be interesting to see how companies respond to this challenge of balancing followers and fan expectations with communication versus the cold hard fact of resources and allocation of time.

What other practical applications are there for small businesses?

Firstly, there is job search. LinkedIn, Facebook and Social Media are gradually taking over the role of traditional job boards like SEEK and recruitment agencies. Only three years ago if you were looking for work either as a freelancer or consultant or even as a paid employee you would check the main job boards, your contacts of course and recruitment consultants. Now if you are looking to pick up some work or extra projects you tweet your availability. Within minutes you can have followers retweeting your availability and suddenly your whole networked has expanded. Smart recruitment consultants are leveraging this.

Secondly, there is sourcing information and referrals. Twitter has become a de-facto search engine and with the recent announcement by Google that its results will now integrate Twitter data, the reach has rapidly increased. People using social media to put out good quality, relevant and informative messages have more likelihood of visibility in search results for relevant keywords. And for companies, and even independent bloggers looking to build or expand their brand, this can only be a good thing.

____________________

Ann Nolan is founder of Baby Sitter Directory, an online community connecting parents directly with babysitters and nannies. Baby Sitter Directory hosts the Australian Nanny Network – a social networking community for nannies and babysitters.  She is also founder of a new concept website – Generous Party, due to be launched in January 2010. You can follow Ann on Twitter here.

The current Toyota social media “pitch off” has created debate far and wide across the Interwebs (background here). It has even attracted the attention of leading global industry analyst Jeremiah Owyang. In many ways, the topic  has become a philosophical debate on “proper” corporate social media implementation. In one corner we have the purists (with Laurel leading the charge), who advocate ongoing community engagement and participation. In the other corner we have pragmatic marketers, who need to turn client interest into agency revenue in a practical manner – aka campaigns. While more of a purist myself, I also need to approach the issue pragmatically as an agency employee. And at the end of the day, different approaches will suit different businesses. So you’d expect to see a split between both styles of social media engagement in the market. Except that we don’t. Within Australia at least, there seem to be a clear skew towards the campaign approach. Recent work by Warner, V Australia, Tooheys, Nissan & Levis is testament to that. And while many of these campaigns are neat executions, you have to wonder about the long-term value they deliver the client. Why aren’t we seeing more case studies based upon ongoing community engagement, like Holden? And more to the point… who is it that’s actually pushing the campaign agenda… the client or the agency…?

Before I enter the debate I should clarify that I do believe that the social media campaign has a place. The campaign is a viable approach in a range of different situations such as:

• When the brand is weak
• When a new product is being launched and needs to generate buzz
• When the product has a limited life cycle or a time dependency
• When the product is low involvement and natural engagement is unlikely

Interestingly, the Toyota case study meets none of these scenarios. In fact, it’s almost the polar opposite. So why was the campaign approach favoured? It’s hard to say. Especially when Toyota is already dedicated to the ongoing management of an impressive Facebook community (aka the purist approach).

In this particular case, Toyota was clearly pushing the agenda (no agency would volunteer a 5 way pitch). But agencies can be just as guilty of a campaign bias. Let’s take a look at the motivations both parties have for a campaign style implementation…

The Agency

Social media presents an interesting monetisation quandary for agencies. Indeed, I’ve been working through how to build a viable revenue model within our own agency. From an agency perspective, there is no question about which approach is easier to manage and monetise. The campaign approach. A campaign style implementation allows the agency to apply their established skill set in a conventional manner:

• Generate a creative/big idea in order to generate eyeballs
• Produce assets to support the campaign theme (micro site, Facebook app, display advertisements etc)
• Market that campaign in order to drive awareness and eyeballs (display advertising, search, mobile etc)
• Measure results (hopefully)
• Walk away

Conversely, the purist approach is far more difficult for an agency to monetise (although it’s still very much possible). It relies on a consultative approach rather than a technical one. Ironically, it is the simplicity of the purist approach that creates the difficulty. Rather than big ideas it relies simply on engaging with customers regularly and creating positive brand experiences. It entails monitoring of social environments, rather than the production of them. It entails speaking with customers rather than at them. And it requires an ongoing commitment of dedicated resourcing.

In short, it’s almost completely opposite to how agencies currently make money. So I guess you could say there’s a pretty clear bias in place…

The client

While the agency is motivated by cash and convenience, most clients are motivated simply by comfort. Social media is new. It’s different. It’s scary (iSnack 2.0 anyone…?). Few clients that I have met are willing to make the quantam leap from ground zero into a full-blown social media engagement. Indeed, conservatism is the dominant sentiment towards social media within many Australian businesses, aside from the not-for-profit sector.

Those businesses brave enough to enter the social web typically look for a way to test the waters, which is understandable. Thus, the campaign approach presents the perfect comfort zone for them. Indeed, many client briefs will instruct agencies to present a campaign style solution. The campaign becomes an experiment likely to determine future adoption of social media on a larger scale. Which tends to suit the agency just fine…

Chicken and egg scenario?

At the end of the day, the question of who should shoulder the blame is probably a classic chicken and egg scenario. There are valid arguments for each side of the story. In reality, it’s likely that both sides are contributing to the outcome.

My hope is that the agencies are simply using campaigns as a gateway to lead clients into more expansive long-term projects. I know that’s been my strategy when pitching for campaign based projects. Because while a campaign might create temporary buzz, it’s unlikely to contribute to real long-term business benefits such as customer advocacy or customer retention (which the purist approach certainly can achieve).

What do you think? Are agencies in it just for the short-term buck? Or do they really have a longer-term plan in mind for the client…?