360DigitalInfluence

There are more than 30,000 non-executive members of company boards across Australia. If you are one of them, what are the questions you should be asking about how the business you manage is handling social media?

We’ve put together five “starter” questions that corporate board members should ask to gauge how well the companies they oversee are managing the risks and taking advantage of the opportunities presented by social media.

What other questions should board members be asking?

I caught up with Yiying Lu Lu an artist and designer probably best known for creating the iconic fail whale that greets Twitter users when the service is down. We talked about the history of the image (hint: it wasn’t originally a whale) and how the guys at Twitter came across the image.

Here’s a clip from our interview…

Two teenagers have caught the attention of Dora Yin (BJ) with their iPhone speed test video. Social media makes anyone an influencer and means that highly influential content like this can appear at any time. For this reason it is essential for brands to constantly monitor what’s been said about them online.

两个英国小青年自制了一部测试四代iPhone速度的视频引起了尹禾（北京）的注意，老中青幼四部iPhone同时运行程序耗时对比明显。视频发布三天就已经被广泛转载传播。在这个草根阶层也可以产生巨大影响的今天，品牌需要更加时刻关注社会媒体了。

Huang Chao (SA, BJ) and Jeremy Webb this week met some guys from Jiepang – China’s leading check-in service. They talked about one of the first check-in marketing activities in China, a campaign that generated interest by inviting users to check in to the soon-to-be-launched Shanghai Apple store.

黄超（SA, BJ）和Jeremy Webb 昨天约见了街旁网的人- 他们的定位签到服务在国内领先。他们讨论了在中国的第一次签到营销活动之一，邀请用户去即将开业的苹果上海专卖店签到，这个项目吸引了大量眼球。

For those of you that haven’t yet read OgilvyOne’s Connected, Sarah Guldin (Corp Comms) has an even easier way to understand the report’s Chinese social media research: check out these YouKu videos for an explanation from OgilvyOne’s very own Chris Reitermann. 

对于还没有看到OgilvyOne’s Connected的人，Sarah Guldin (Corp Comms)提供了一个理解该研究中国社会媒体报告的更简单的方法：看看这些来自奥美自己人Chris Reitermann的说明片段。

Plenty of campaigns use pretty girls to get our attention yet few are managed as well as this online sensation from Acer laptops, thinks Liu Yan (DI, SH). Users of Sohu Microblog were asked to help a journalist track down a girl met in a chance encounter during the World Cup. Since the laptop left behind by the girl was one of the only clues available, the Acer Laptop enjoyed enormous exposure as it became the focus of this “romantic manhunt”. 

记者南非酒吧偶遇中国美女，燃生爱意。女孩的笔记本被遗落，记者在网上发帖寻人。在十万网友帮助下，女孩终于现身，未完的感情得以了结。刘燕（DI Director， SH）：类似借助美女炒作的营销案例不胜枚举，网民的眼睛更加雪亮，不少人只是“配合一下”。该案例值得借鉴的是其完整清晰的炒作脉络和过程管理。

A recent report by Inside Facebook highlights the interesting development of Facebook in Southeast Asia. Despite being blocked in China, East Asia’s largest and fastest-growing market, Facebook has grown phenomenally in the rest of Southeast Asia during the last few quarters.

How has this happened?

• In Taiwan, Facebook has exploded from 400,000 to nearly 7 million users in only 12 months
• Significant growth in Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia
• Indonesia is now the world’s #3 country in terms of total Facebook audience size (behind US and UK)
• Facebook has overtaken hi5 in Thailand and Friendster in the Philippines (formerly the top social networks)
• …But Facebook has seen little growth in Japan and S. Korea

Taiwan’s rapid adoption of Facebook is a particulary interesting example, as it is now one of the few non-English speaking countries with over 30% penetration, joining Hong Kong and Singapore as one of Facebook’s Asian sucess stories.

Why Taiwan?

• A key driver for this growth has been social gaming apps, like Happy Harvest, Pet Society and Restaurant City
• These apps pull users away from other social sites without games, like Taiwan’s other social network Wretch.cc
• More games are being developed in or translated into Traditional Chinese, such as Mahjong by Godgames

Though perhaps Taiwan doesn’t represent a gateway to the rest of Southeast Asia,  it does show that Facebook can be successful in the region. Perhaps social gaming will also open doors for Facebook in tougher markets like Japan and South Korea…

• Nielsen released its “Asia Pacific Social Media Report” yesterday which described in more detail the social media and WOM trends across the region.

Below is an excerpt from their press release:

Blogs rule in Japan

• Japan Internet users are the most avid bloggers globally, posting over one million blogs per
  month, significantly more than any other country.
• Japan’s adoption of Twitter continues to grow, with unique visitor numbers having increased
  from less than 200,000 to more than 10 million in the year to April 2010. Sixteen percent of
  Japanese Internet users now use Twitter, which compares to 10 percent in the US.

Grass roots celebrities attract China’s social networkers

• Bulletin board systems underpin popular social media behaviour in China – over 80 percent
  of social media content is bulletin board systems.
• Social media games are used as a stimuli to drive new users and gain reach with existing
  users, while content sharing behaviours are more popular among the more experienced
  users. Virtual product placement within social networking site games is becoming one of the
  most profitable methods of revenue for social networking sites, generating between
  US$200,000 to US$500,000 per month on product placement.
• ‘Grass roots’ celebrity tracking dominates online conversations in China, with grass roots
  celebrities such as Phoenix Sister and Mr Yuan outperforming real life celebrities in
  popularity. 
• Chinese Internet users are the most likely in Asia Pacific to post a negative online product
  review, and are the only consumers in the region more likely to share negative reviews than
  positive reviews – 62% of Chinese Internet users say they are more likely to share a negative
  review compared to 41 percent globally.

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Why Tweetup?

Some of you might have seen tweets about the Ogilvy’s APAC Digital Influence Summit lately. Ogilvy’s DI Summit is an internal event held by the Asia Pacific Regional team where all the digital experts from around the region will be attending a 3-day event in Hong Kong to exchange digital knowledge, connect and bond with other team

Although the event is not open for public, we would like to offer you a chance to meet our team, head of the global digital influence team John Bell will also be flying all the way from Washington DC! It is a very rare opportunity for you to meet all of us at once, in the offline world!

When?

Tweetup will be held this Sunday, June 27th at 7pm. Not the perfect timing for tweetup but due to the World Cup schedule, this is the only time when venues are available.

Where?

Tweetup will be held in RED Soho as usual.

Address: 2/f, Kinwick Centre, 32 Hollywood Road, Soho Central. (Right next to the escalator above hollywood road)

How to sign up?

Here

See you there!

There are some companies that are still unable to understand the true value of social media for their business. Now there is a better way to convince them, in a language they understand: ROI.

A recent study (pdf), conducted and published by Syncapse, examines social media in terms of ROI.  It does this by quantifying and understanding the impact of social media marketing investment on the top 20 brands on Facebook. The findings were pretty interesting.

This is particularity important, because quantifying the ROI of Facebook marketing efforts might change how we present social media as a marketing strategy to our clients.

The study examined the five leading contributors to Facebook fan value.

(1) Product Spending (2) Brand Loyalty (3) Propensity to Recommend (4) Brand Affinity (5) Earned Media Value.

Significant Findings:

ROI:

· Fans spend an additional average of $71.84 on products for which they are fans compared to those who are not fans.

· The average value of a Facebook fan was $136.38. On a McDonald’s fan base of 2,232,328, the worth of annualized value would equate to $580,003,461.

· No two brand’s fan values are the same: Fan value of BlackBerry ($83.98) versus Nokia ($180.87).

Repurchase

· Fans are 28% more likely than non-fans to continue using the brand

· 42.5% of fans indicating a heightened likelihood of continued product usage

Loyalty

· 81% of fans said they feel connection/empathy with the brand, compared to 39% of non-fans

· 87% said they felt warmth, gratitude, happy or satisfied, compared to 49% of non-fans

Word of Mouth:

· Fans are 41% more likely than non-fans to recommend a fanned product to their friends

· 44% Likelihood to try a product if close family member or friend became a fan

· 68% of Facebook fans indicated that they are very likely to recommend a product (One of the highest was Victoria’s Secret with 79.4%)

Shaping Fan Value:

· Factors influencing and impacting fan value include: Product price, purchase lifecycle, sales penetration, brand health, product health, Facebook marketing success, loyalty, spending, fan acquisition cost, affinity and media value.

Key Takeaways for Digital Marketers and Their Clients:

· Frame It In $$: More and more, we should present social media marketing to clients in terms of ROI, ##’s and $$. This allows us to demonstrate the power of this marketing platform in a business language most can understand.  It also portrays social media in a context that makes good financial sense. “Social media can make you money”

· Digital Deep Dive: This study, along with specific case studies should act as a digital gateway, by helping us in convincing clients to dive deep into social media strategies and allocate a bigger budget for social marketing.

· Act Now, Look Later: Social media marketing is a long-term process which aims at building networks of loyal and brand hungry consumers.  It might be comprised of various short-term campaigns, but brands must have a long-term view of social ROI

· Online Efforts Boost Offline Sales: The 20 brands examined in this study rely on offline sales to succeed. They use social media to drive offline traffic into their stores.

· Social Actually Works: The more you reach, connect, and effectively engage audiences on social media, the more you increase:

1. Long-term ROI

2. Brand perception and awareness

3. Brand loyalty, connection & repeated purchases

4. Organic marketing (facilitated online word of mouth)

· Ask Why?:  Finally, we should be able to easily explain to clients that “There is a reason why these big brands are pouring millions in social media, and moving away from traditional media:”

1. Cheaper and more effective than most mass media marketing

2. More targeted and audience specific

3. Generates added brand empathy and connection with consumers

4. Provides consumers access to the brand, anytime, anywhere and at their fingertips

5. Allows consumers to market & recommend brand products themselves

6. Timely and compelling, moves consumers to take action

7. Allows consumers to engage with brands in a FUN WAY (and not interruptive)

Connect with Haysam on Twitter: @hisom

Two recent studies, with interesting visualizations, take a look at the sociability of the Fortune 100. (h/t Daniel Brenikov for the links)

Disclosure: Many of the more social companies are Ogilvy clients.

The consultancy iStrategy created an infographic to help visualize data on the Fortune 100′s social savvy.

NetProspex has another take with a chart of the top 50 companies on Social Media.

I’ve come across a few interesting ideas this week. The first:

1. Mountains and Mona Lisa - Samsung >> this has limited application as an emerging media I admit, but I offer it firstly because I was bought up on Wales, but more importantly because it was the precursor to the second idea – which is much more applicable:

2. Monuments and masses – Samsung 3D projections>> 3D projection will grow and grow as a brand experience format. These two ideas  in tandem create quite an interesting space that Samsung is beginning to own – innovation with LED and lighting -  similar to the Crowdsourcing ideas in Liverpool Street and Trafalgar Square that T Mobile had so much success in. There are lots of examples of monumental 3D projections – one most recently by BMW in Singapore. I adore this sort of creative work, because it is the true fusion of physical and digital. It creates both a physical and digital Theatre for the Brand in which consumers co-exist and co-create. Developing these “sustained conversations and dialogues” is core to building brands and emotions between them and consumers.

I also really enjoyed Google Chrome’s browser speed test. In a world full of complications I think it is a good example of how to make an intangible USP, more tangible. Until your competitor, the Opera Browser,  responds with their own  repost the Opera’s Speed test. Both ideas are sort of traditional “advertising stories” but neither will ever pay for media on TV.

A week would not be a week without some passing mention of an iPad, so here are two explorations of the iPad on the left side of leftfiled – the first is the iPad magic show from Japan; the second a low tech adaptation to make the hi tech, better: Velcro + iPad

Also several bookmarks on data visualisations and info-graphics this week – helping creative and data minds meet, or not:
David Armano’s excellent visualisations of our communication and social world: and a few others from Hubspot’s 22 social media Diagrams: and finally a good collection from Nowsourcing .

A video describing our partnership with GoToWebinar and The Wall Street Journal for trainings on Social Media. Join the next one on June 2!