360DigitalInfluence

The first in a new monthly series of reports monitoring social media buzz about World Expo 2010 Shanghai says tickets to the big event is the hottest topic online.

Launched today by Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, and CIC, an Internet Word of Mouth (IWOM) research and consulting firm, ExpoSay is a monthly report on Chinese language IWOM – or Social Media buzz – related to World Expo 2010 Shanghai.

“This report’s findings show how China’s netizens are already discussing many aspects Shanghai Expo, from tickets to pavilions to sponsors,” said Thomas Crampton, Asia-Pacific Director, 360 Digital Influence, Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. “Chinese consumers can make or break brands online, so listening is the first step to developing a powerful strategy to engage them.”

Ticket-related topics were the subject of most online Expo chatter in December and phrases about “what to buy” and “how to buy” the tickets became the most popular keywords.

The increase of ticket prices to 150 RMB from 140 RMB announced in mid-December brought predictable criticism, but also some interesting responses. Some companies, such as the e-commerce site yihaodian.com, have started offering their customers tickets at the lower, initial price. Even Shanghai’s Jingan district is offering tickets as incentives for those touring historic Communist sites. This has served as a high-profile, attractive and relatively low cost promotion.

Meanwhile, students are using Social Media to self-organize to purchase tickets at group discounts and many people are discussing the technology behind the Expo’s mobile phone-based tickets. Netizens living in rural China have been using discussion boards as a way to find tickets.

To receive a copy of the report, simply register at Ogilvy PR’s World Expo Blog.

Korea’s second most popular search engine, Daum is preparing to launch its own Social Network Service called Yozm (http://yozm.daum.net).

Various modification of a Twitter-like services have developed in Korea to better serve Koreans’ socializing habit, needs and interest:
-me2day(www.me2day.net by NHN Naver), Twitter-like service instead offers 150 words
-sfoon(www.sfoon.com by Nurien), Connects your twitter, Me2day, Flickr, You Tube accounts in one viewing convenience
-itgling(www.itgling.co.kr by Mediare), socializing with people who share similar web surfing/using pattern rather than choosing to follow or request to be friends

So, how is Yozm different from the rest?

Well, first of all, Yozm, meaning “nowadays” in Korean, allows the user to select/type in
- What you like
- What you dislike
- What you are good at
- Where you go often to find friends.

Under each category, the user can enter up to three things, which can be changed at anytime.
This function, not offered in Twitter and Me2day allows the user to quickly socialize by allocating and becoming friends with people who share similar taste and lifestyle.

Like me2day offers 150 words to input a message but it also allows the users to upload image (not just a link) to the message box.

Yozm is being tested through active social media users now. It is expected to launch sometime in the first quarter of 2010.

Pic 2:   1) 150 word message   2) upload image, link, direct msg to a friend   3) view option (my msg, reply, favorite, private)

An annual survey of Chinese consumers by McKinsey took time to highlight the power of Social Media in China.

China really is a global-standard country in terms of involvement in Social Media by consumers. The landscape is, of course, radically different from other countries due to government censorship policies, but Chinese are incredibly involved in Social Media as a trusted source of information on many topics.

Samples vs Word of Mouth

The McKinsey study points to the influence of Social Media in terms beauty products in China, which is  we at Ogilvy have found to be totally true.

McKinsey found: 66 percent of Chinese consumers would be influence in the purchase of a moisturizer by recommendations of friends and family, while just 38 percent would be in the US and UK. By contrast 66 percent of UK and British consumers say that free samples could sway them, compared with 20 percent in China.

Excerpt from the McKinsey report:

The Internet is an increasingly important marketing tool. All the online media vehicles we tracked in our survey, including online advertisements, product articles, blogs, and forums, have significantly increased their impact (SEE CHART ONE). Consumers even rate the credibility of blogs and online forums higher than traditional TV ads.

This had an enormously positive impact for the company: word of mouth combined with 19,000 blogs encouraged drinkers to switch to Wang Laoji. One blogger developed the slogan: “If you’re going to donate, donate 100 million. If you’re going to drink, drink Wang Laoji.” This consumer-created ad was distributed widely online. The sales volume of Wang Laoji increased by 25 percent at one supermarket chain the month after the earthquake, and by 35 percent at one restaurant chain.

The below announcement is regarding a Social Media strategist position in our Shanghai office, but we are looking elsewhere in Asia as well, including Malaysia.

Are you the right person? Shoot me an email: thomas.crampton at ogilvy dot com

We need an ace Digital professional in Shanghai who knows the Internet and Social Media in China.

Your qualities? You have a passion for the changes in digital and communications. You get things done. You are supremely organized. You are always learning. You hate when things are not done as well as they could be. You are enthusiastic and love team work. You are curious about everything.

Today we held the third in our series of Executive’s Guide to Social Media, done in cooperation with GoToWebinar and The Wall Street Journal.

I moderated the session in which Digital Influence Global Managing John Bell and Managing Director of the Global Public Affairs Practice Jamie Moeller presented on how to deal use Social Media in a crisis.

As always there were great questions and discussion afterwards. You can hear all the questions and answers (as well as the presentation) on this video of the presentation.

Watch this blog for the timing of our next session!

Social Media for Crisis Management from 360 Digital Influence on Vimeo.

Third in our series of Executive’s Guide to Social Media, Social Media for Crisis Management presented by John Bell and Jamie Moeller

Faster Louder brings music to my ears. Literally. It’s home to just shy of 60,000 Australian rock music fans, and with almost 25,000 forum threads, over half a million posts, countless gig reviews, photos, blogs and groups, it does a truly stellar job of creating a home for musician and music lovers like. It’s one of the four community sites run by The Sound Alliance. All of their sites are focused on music and young adult culture in Australia. Among them is also inthemix, which is ranked #1 in the NetRatings Music & Radio category.

Having just celebrated its 5th birthday, Faster Louder is hardly what one would class as new, but even as a social media veteran, FL hasn’t missed a beat when it comes to keeping up to speed with all things social. There are so many features, I wouldn’t know where to begin. But, I’ll try.

Faster Louder has an army of over 2000 active contributors who are constantly reviewing, podcasting, interviewing, photographing, filming and sharing their love of music with like minded fans. Once you set yourself up on the site, you start having a personalised user experience straight away, with all the relevant gig listings and reviews for your city being available to you. If you like any photos, reviews or articles, you simply click the “I heart this” button, and it will be bookmarked to your profile, so you can start searching for like minded music-lovers to connect with on FL. Similarly, any events you’re going to will be added to your social calendar, so if you’re looking for a concert buddy you only need to check who else is going.

Competitions are constantly being added, so you’re never short of great chances to win experiences that money can’t buy. Pretty much anything you see or do in FL, you can broadcast it to the rest of your social networks, and if you’re on twitter, you can follow @fasterlouder to be updated every time there are new reviews, concert announcements or competitions. The crew at Faster Louder have also done a great job of connecting their community in real life: hosting parties and gatherings and members only gigs. What can I say? I’m a fan!

So, whether or not you’re a music-lover, I can’t recommend Faster Louder enough. Click around; become a member; take a look at how people who GET social, DO social.

Many people have great ideas, but not all good ideas have demand in the market; research is the only way to learn if the ideas can be executed. Research has always been the key when starting new projects; companies try to figure out their targets everyday and marketers have been trying to think like a customer in order to compete with others in the same industry.

In traditional marketing research, people hand out forms and “ask” people to fill in the information; gathering primary data this way not only can cost companies a fortune, but the data might not also be accurate.

I’m sure you have been asked to fill in annoying forms, most people don’t really take forms too seriously. In psychology, human beings always tend to avoid giving too much information to others (although you try).

Thanks to social media! data is everywhere these days, you just have to know how to get it, where to get it and how to analyse it. It’s like having hidden microphones on everyone around the world (of course without violating privacy policies), and listening to them at the same time about one single thing.

There are many free tools out there that can get you started, feel free to email me tim.ho@ogilvy.com or Thomas Crampton thomas.crampton@ogilvy.com to learn more about the power of “listening”.

A recent survey conducted by the Hong Kong Association of Interactive Marketing found that Social Media has an extremely high level of trust among people working in businesses.

The full presentation is available on Slideshare, but the below two charts struck me as most relevant.

The first shows that Social Media is shown as trustworthy and influential a media channel as television. What is interesting about this is the relative cost of using television vs social media. A Social Media campaign will generally cost a small fraction the amount of a television advertisement.

The second chart shows how businesses recognize the power Social Media provides in creating connections with customers. This is a unique aspect of Social Media and one that more and more companies are coming to recognize. The Nirvana of connection is, of course, a company joining in co-creation with its own customers.

These days in India, ordinary auto rickshaw drivers flaunt the latest cell phone, making you cringe and hide your own aging handset.

What started with cell phones is now creeping into the web. India is getting wired and “logging in” with unparalleled gusto.

Statistics, however, are sketchy.

According to AC Nielsen, there are about 50 million Internet users in India, out of which 20 million engage in social networking. Another report by the Internet Government Forum suggest that India has nearly 80 million odd Internet subscribers.

Some claim that by 2013 India will have the third largest Internet penetration in the world. Forrester reckons India’s Internet will grow by 10-20% every year for next 5 years.

Whatever the real number, a billion people are powering the Internet’s growth in India and it is already fascinating to look at comScore’s analysis of social networking in India.

While Orkut clearly leads the pack, Facebook’s 150 per-cent growth over the last one year is catching up fast. Facebook quizzes like “How well do you know Anand Sharma” have become a national obsession for Indians like Anand Sharma and his friends during office lunch times.

comScore further states that, “Orkut reigned as the most visited social networking site in December 2008 with more than 12.8 million visitors, an increase of 81 percent from the previous year. Orkut’s audience was three times the size of its nearest competitor in the category.

Facebook.com captured the #2 position with 4 million visitors, up 150 percent versus year ago, followed by local social networking site Bharatstudent.com with 3.3 million visitors (up 88 percent) and hi5.com with 2 million visitors (up 182 percent).”

So if we do a study in percentages, one will come to the conclusion that when it comes to India and social networking, all relevant stats are growing at over 100%! Mind boggling isn’t it?

So how do Indians spend their time on social networks? As per a survey done by Universal McCann the India DI team came up with a graphical interpretation of that study

Source- Universal McCann

      Even  A C Nielsen, observed the following facts  on the usage pattern of the social media websites in India.

   v  Top reasons for using the social networking sites

·          Keeping in touch with people they know:  82 %.

·          Reconnecting with old acquaintances they have lost touch with:  58%

·          Making New friends :   53%

·          Building professional network:      43%

v  Time spent on the social media sites

·  Three quarters of Indian respondents have been using social networking  websites for two or more years

·          Two-thirds spend more than half an hour on each session

v  Attitude towards using the social networking sites

All had a very positive attitude towards social networking websites.

·         The majority (71 per cent) consider social networking sites to be cool, but that is not to say that face-to-face interaction has become outdated or is on the decline

·         66 per cent believe that social networking sites are no substitute for actual face-to-face meetings with friends

·         43 per cent of respondents even consider it safe to meet people face-to-face whom they have met online

It is safe to predict that Social Media in India is starting to boom and organizations are waking up to its marketing opportunity. China is way ahead, but this gap will be lessening over a very short period of time.

Nate Cochrane pens his rules for social media etiquette on iTNews. And in a style true to the very fundamentals of social media which encourage active sharing and participation, he has made a point to list the rules he outlines as a work in progress and has opened it up for discussion on the site.

One of the rules that he points out is one that we tend to forget: ‘Quality NOT quantity’. Too often PRs get flack for doing a last minute dash to sign up as many people in their network to become friends/ fans on their clients’ Facebook groups and pages or on their Twitter handles.

As PRs, we need to continue to educate our clients that the real value does not lie in the sheer volume of people we sign up but rather in the quality of the people we engage (even if it’s only a handful!).

Consider who your target audience is, where do they frequent and how to reach them. Who is in your fans/ friends extended networks. Are they the right audience to target?

Using Twitter as an example, it’s important to do the analysis and drill down into who the person is that you want to connect with, get to know them, follow them for a while and find out what they write about. Also have a look into who follows that person, are they the appropriate person for your client to be reaching out to or is there someone in their Twitter network that is better?

This tool can help you determine the most appropriate people to follow:

If we want to get some real and long lasting results for our clients, the key is to make sure that we’re speaking to the right audiences!