4 posts tagged “s-commerce”

Thanks to technology and the Internet, the world is becoming increasingly transparent and accessible.  Social media is playing an important role in this transformation.  So far, most people seem to be responding to the power of social media favorably, and they’re using the power of social media for good.  However, there is a risk that the pendulum could shift in the other direction over time.  Below are the "5 Deadly Sins" of social media - pitfalls that proponents of social media should watch out for and proactively advocate against:

• Market saturation: There is a proliferation of social networking sites available – lots of sites are competing for users time.  Marketers are creating new social networking sites in record numbers to promote their products, and the number of traditional social networking sites (MySpace, YouTube, Bebo, Gather, WAYN, CyWorld, etc.) are also growing.  Users often use different for the same purpose but to meet different people.  If the market becomes overly fragmented, it may become less useful and more burdensome to user.  I hope that a natural market consolidation will happen eventually, but in the meantime, the industry runs the risk of users “burning out” from having to juggle too many different websites, on-line “friends”, different profile inputting tools, and passwords.
• Exploitation of social media at the expense of others: Social media makes it easier than ever to share information on-line.  While, the power of information sharing is good, it can also be dangerous in the wrong hands, enabling: fraud, misrepresentation of identity, identity theft, sexual exploitation, and unethical sharing of corporate or government secrets.  I just read an interesting article on the security risk that social media presents to corporations.  The same is true for governments and individuals.  The “Star Wars Kid”  and Paris Hilton were two of the first people to learn a thing or two about that.
• Eradication of privacy: This one is closely linked to the bullet point above on exploitation, but I felt it deserved its own section because it goes beyond exploitation because what is considered private to one person, isn’t necessarily considered private to another.  The Washingtonienne case is a good example of this.  Another example is that anyone can get an aerial photograph of your house at Google Maps or go to Zillow to find out what your house is worth.  Add location based social media services and mobile phones into the mix, and tracking people's location becomes easy via services like Helio's Buddy Beacon and Dodgeball.  While these are great services and they offer opt-in privacy, it's scary to think what could happen if either service were hacked.  Alternatively, imagine the damage that would result if someone's location information got into the wrong hands or was commandeered by a "friend" turned stalker. 
  
• Opportunistic litigation: Lawsuits like those filed earlier this week against News Corp. pose a strong threat to the health of social media.  If cases like these succeed, the rulings will send a dangerous message to the public: “You’re not responsible for your own safety or the safety of your children.  Someone else is.”  Unjustified lawsuits also stifle technical innovation and have the potential to strangle social media with excessive amounts of red tape.
• Opaque Marketing: Marketers are becoming more sophisticated about the ways that they use social media to their advantage.  It is already difficult to avoid pop-ups and other advertisements on-line.  And, with some social media sites, it difficult to tell what is advertising versus what is genuine, unbiased opinion.  Take, for example, bloggers who get paid by companies to evangelize products (I don’t, but a lot do).  Advertising on social media sites isn’t nearly as transparent as it should be, and social media runs the risk of being tarnished by overzealous marketers.

1/22/07 UPDATE: Thanks everyone for your insightful comments.  I just read a great article by Mark Zielinski, a UK-based security engineer.  The article talks about the threat that social media poses to corporate security.  In the article, Mark talks about how employees use their work computers to check their social networking pages and that this poses a threat to corporate networks.  Unsurprisingly, employees checking social media sites rather than doing work probably, has an impact on productivity - even more so than personal email. With these two points in mind, I'd like to add "Bringing Down the Corporation" as the 6th deadly sin of Social Media.

Today, the self-proclaimed “tech gossip rag,” Valleywag, published the following graph, suggesting that Social Networking is past its peak from a media coverage perspective:

Valleywag writes:

The social network -- the umbrella term for features of a website which allow users to track their friends -- is past its peak.

Mentions in the press of "social network" or another even uglier phrase, "social networking", reached 1,158 in September, but have declined since. That could mean a decline in media interest in sites like Myspace and Facebook or, more likely, an acceptance that all media will be social, all successful sites will allow users to "friend" eachother, and that it's no longer interesting to spotlight a feature so ubiquitous.

It is true that when a trend reaches critical mass, news media loses interest… “News” is only considered “News” if it is, in fact, “new”.  Case in point- the growth of corporate websites in the early 1990s… The first corporations to build websites made international news.  Today, I can’t think of any large, successful company that doesn’t have a website.  Websites are now a prerequisite for big business.  One day, the same will be true of “Social Networking” and “Social Media”…. I’m not convinced that that time is now, or that the recent downturn indicated by Valleywag’s graph is indicative of a “trend”.  Instead, I think it is indicative of stabilization in the market following several months of very big news.  (And, while I have no empirical evidence to support this, it may also be indicative of a shift away discussing “social networking” alone towards discussing “social media” as a whole.  If any of you have seen evidence one way or another on this, please post a comment.)

I’ve numbered several points on the graph to illustrate my point about stabilization.  Looking at the popularity of the word “social networking” in relation to some of the big events on-line over the course of the last year is interesting:

1. July 18, 2005: News Corporation acquires Intermix Media, Inc and MySpace
2. March 2006: MySpace was the second most trafficked site on the Internet (next to Google) with Facebook at number 7. At times, MySpace had more traffic than Google (Duffy, 2006)... And - Hitwise "US Consumer Generated Media Report," reports that visits to MySpace increased 51 percent March-September 2006, outpacing the 34 percent overall growth for the social-net category during the same period.
3. May, 2006: comScore Network reports that Myspace surpassed 50 Million U.S. visitors in May.  The Top 50 Web Rankings and Analysis report released by comScore Media Metrix in may suggests that online interest in the World Cup and NBA Championships and the Spring television season drove traffic to popular social networking sites (see graph) http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=906
4. October 6, 2006: Rumors about Google acquiring YouTube started on TechCrunch.  October 9, 2006: Google acquires YouTube

The “major” events in “social networking” over the last year or so have definitely been considered big news.  The general public, companies, and media outlets seem eager to watch how social media is changing the on-line and business landscapes. Sure, the apparent “lag” in the term “social networking” since October may be the start of a downward trend. In my opinion, it is more likely a brief correction in the market following the major news around Google’s acquisition of YouTube in September and rumors about Yahoo’s social media strategy.  After all, the graph indicates that the term “social networking” is still as popular now as it was back in August, which was the highest it had ever been before.

As the number of mainstream companies announce the integration of s-commerce/ social media into their overall marketing strategies, I suspect that the term “social networking” will be surpassed by more broad categorizations like “s-commmerce” or “social media” of which, “social networking” is a component. 

For any non-VOXers who want to post comments, feel free to email me, and I’ll manually post your comments: socialmediablog@gmail.com.

Note: As I was doing research for this blog, I discovered that Google News doesn’t allow historical searches of news articles between specific dates. If anyone has a site that they can recommend that allows for a historical news search between specific dates, I’d love to hear from you.

Sources:
Michael Duffy, 2006. “A dad’s encounter with the vortex of Facebook,” Time (19 March).

The World is abuzz today with all sorts of interesting news relevant to social media/ social networking.  Here are some teasers with links to keep you occupied with plenty of great reading:

MySpace is apparently the biggest site on the internet in terms of the number of page views.  Fox Interactive (largely MySpace) surpassed Yahoo, which saw a 9% reduction in overall traffic in November.  This is not all doom and gloom for Yahoo. Yahoo still has more than double the number of unique visitors to its site than MySpace - clocking in nearly 130 million unique visitors in November.  If you ask me, unique users is a better judge of website size, but I suppose traffic is also important.  Read More.

Speaking of Yahoo. Today, Yahoo and comScore Networks released a research report entitled, "Engaging Advocates through Search and Social Media."  This is a topic that I brought up in my recent blog "Social Networking and The Birth of S-Commerce: A Marketer's Dream Come True", in which I compared the power of social networkers to that of the folks that Malcolm Gladwell calls "Mavens" in his book The Tipping Point.  It's great to see research emerging on the subject.

Skype is planning to start charging for "Skype Out" calls to mobile or landlines effective January in the US and Canada.  If you sign up before January 31, 2007, you'll get the yearly cost for these calls at half price - a cheap $14.95/year for an unlimited plan (regular price is $29.95).  If you'd rather get a bill after every call, it's still super cheap - $.021/min!  Read More.

A new social media website called DareJunkies launched it's beta, which encourages people to submit videos of themselves executing on dares, which appear on the website. Call me juvenile, but it has the potential to be hilarious.  More importantly, it has the potential to be sticky. I'm not sure what their revenue model is, but I can see huge opportunity for ads, product placement in dares, etc.  TechCrunch calls it "A social networking site for jackasses".  I won't disagree, though looking at some of the challenges, a lot of it seems a bit more benign than the stunts of Jackass... more like videoing the dare component of a high school truth or dare game.  Take, the following example, which appears in the dating section:

See how many ridiculous pick lines you can try at the drive though window.  Try your best, your most suave moves, until they get increasingly more frustrated with you.  Finally get upset yourself claiming that “this is the Pick-Up window, if they weren’t interested they shouldn’t be working there.  If they can’t take a joke then order the Big Mac Combo…only if you’re not at Dirty Ron’s.  Read More.

And, lastly, MobileCrunch is reporting that SharpCast has been added to US carrier Altell's deck.  I've been excited to hear SharpCast's announcement for a while now.  While I've not seen the service working, I first heard about it last year when it was very much under wraps, as the company has quite a few folks that came from Palm, Inc./ PalmOne.  The service allows you to sync photos across all of your devices (phone, PC, etc.) seamlessly.  While this is not a social media site or technology, per say, I think it has long term potential to revolutionize the way that users of social media sync information with their computers to their phones and ultimately share. Read More.

An interesting new report from Hitwise says that one in twenty web visits is now to the top social media websites.  In a recently published report entitled, "S-Commerce: Beyond MySpace and YouTube.  A new approach for brands to participate in social networking," Boston based on-line market research firm, Compete Inc., says:

• More than two–thirds of on-line consumers visited a social networking site in June 2006;
  
• Social networks have grown 109% since January 2004 and are on pace to eclipse web titans Google and Yahoo
  
• On-line socialites spend a remarkable amount of time on social networking sites. Site usage, measured by pages viewed per member, has increased 414% since January 2004, nearly four–times faster than member growth.
• The average on-line socialite is 37 years old, just five years younger than the average adult Internet user. 
• Annual discretionary income for on-line socialites is nearly $8,000, 20% higher than consumers who have not used a social networking site, and they spend nearly 25% of their disposable income on on-line purchases (versus 17% for non–socialites).  
• Social networkers are early adopters; more than 40% of online socialites are the first among their colleagues to purchase new products or services, double the rate of non–socialites. They are also influential within their peer set; 37% of online socialites are regularly consulted by colleagues for their opinions on a topic, whereas only 15% of non–socialites claim this influence.

These findings are enough to get even the most skeptical and conventional marketers salivating.   The opportunity for marketers to engage not only with early adoptors but those with high disposible income and the ability to influence others is too great to miss. 

For any of you that have read Malcom Gladwell's book: 

Compete's profile of the average social networker is awefully similar to what Gladwell describes as a "Maven".  For those of you who haven't read the book, "Maven" is the term Gladwell uses to describe members of the public who create the "Tipping Point" for great ideas and inspire trends to take route amongst the public.  Marketers strive to appeal to mavens because they are the catlysts to the success of products and ideas. They are well connected and talk about what they know, what they love, and what they detest, and their friends, family, and colleagues consider mavens "experts" and usually request and take their advice. In his book, Gladwell says that if you can reach out and appeal to the mavens of the world, your product has a much higher chance to succeed.

Compete's study argues a similar point. I has coins the phrase "s-commerce" (short for "social commerce") to describe the way that marketers use social networking sites to to their advantage.  According to Compete, s-commerce presents marketers with an opportunity to:

• "Research consumers, while they research you and your rivals
• Create a channel connect consumers and your brand
• Engage consumers in a conversation: listen, learn, and leverage."
  

The study claims that the most successful players in s-commerce are utilizing one or more of the following strategies:

• "Branded Microsites
• Customer Forums
• Customer Ratings & Reviews"

This Compete study highlights the importance of going beyond on-line advertising on social networking sites and engaging with your consituents/potential customers. 

In a Q&A published on Marketingshift yesterday, Jason Zajac, formerly of Palm, and now General Manager, Social Media at Yahoo highlights the same thing.  He talks about how Yahoo and its partners are successfully using social media competitions and advertising to engage with enthusiasts to generate enthusiasm for products.  It's well worth a read.

People don't like feeling like they're being sold to. The beauty of social networking from a marketers perspective is that it offers the opportunity to "sell" to "mavens" by engaging, rather than annoying them with ads.  The most successful exploitation of social media to the marketers' advantage will be the subtle opportunities to integrate with potential customers without making those prospective customers feel unfairly incroached upon.

As an aside: Yhoo just launched its new service, Mixd, which looks like it could be a winner - especially for Gen-Y-ers.   It allows users to mass text message their friends - organizing last-minute meet-ups, sharing pictures and videos from their mobile, and sharing memories of particular events on specific websites for those events. With the initial success of advertising on Flickr, it will be interesting to see whether Mixd becomes an avenue for Yahoo to generate revenue on more viral marketing - espcially for venues, events, etc.