We're becoming more social

That graph comes from a recent survey by The Neilsen Company.

As you can see we are spending more and more time on social networks.

So much time in fact it makes me wonder what the future holds for corporate websites.

It looks to me like social networks are about to become a channel unto themselves.

Making it harder and harder for advertisers and brands to attract people away from their socialising and onto their website.

Are there any big thinkers or agencies out there pondering this situation?

I certainly hope so.

Earned Media

Seems like every week someone coins a new buzzword.

One term that's been a round for a while that I'm seeing/hearing a lot more of lately is 'earned media'.

Once upon a time we used to called that press coverage. But there's so much more to coverage in the media these days.

There's chatter on Twitter, Facebook groups, Fan pages, blogs and all the other channels we now call social media.

So what's the difference between social media and earned media?

After all it's hard to generate earned media without using social media.

And if a social media campaign doesn't generate enough buzz is it a failure or has it simply not earned enough media to be considered a success?

Fans of Facebook fan pages

I’ve been on Facebook for quite some time now and I often find myself wondering which brands are getting results out of.

I can”t recollect ever seeing an ad worth clicking on. Yet they’re supposed to be very highly targeted.

Facebook is, I think, a seriously missed opportunity for brands.

Sure there are plenty of ads, groups and fan pages. But really is there anything on Facebook (outside of the Burger King sacrifice) that you’d consider a major success?

Nope. Didn’t think so.

One area where many brands dabble is the fan page.

And why wouldn’t they be? They really easy to set up. In fact a child could do it in about a minute I reckon.

But are fan pages actually delivering any kind of value to brands?

I thought they were but it seems I might be mistaken. According to recent research by Sysomos fan pages are not always as popular as some brands might expect.

Their research looked at 600,000 Facebook fan pages and uncovered the following:

95% of pages have more than 10 fans
65% of pages have more than 100 fans
23% of pages have more than 1,000 fans
4% of pages have more than 10,000 fans

I’m not completely sure what to make of those numbers to be honest. But I’m sure you’d agree that 10,000 or more fans for a major brand is a good number.

The fact that only 4% of fan pages have that many fans is very disappointing though.

Social media habits

My social media habits seem pretty stable. Yet on closer examination they are constantly changing.

Each time I adopt a new social media tool it impacts on the others.

Some amount to no more than a passing fad. Others have impacted heavily on my media consumption as well as my day to day life.

I was an early adopter of Flickr and still have a Flickr widget on this blog. Yet I haven’t posted a photo there in close to 2 years.

Why?

At first it was because I could not see the value in paying a yearly fee to put my photos online.

But once I got involved with Facebook I started posting photos there instead.

I was sceptical of Facebook at first but quickly became a convert. After just a few weeks it became part of my daily routine.

When Twitter came along I resisted that too.

After a breakfast chat in Sydney with Julian Cole and Gavin Heaton I decided to give Twitter a go.

Suffice to say this also impacted on my social media habits.

In fact you could say it consumed them.

The more I used Twitter the less I looked at Facebook. Apparently this is common behaviour.

However because of Twitter I also found myself reading fewer blogs than I used too. I was also commenting on blogs a lot less.

Over the last few months my habits have started to change again.

I now have connections with such a large number of people on Twitter that it has almost become a broadcast medium for me.

Meanwhile my long neglected Facebook account has been rediscovered anew.

And the new kid on the block – Google Wave – sits unused and unloved because I just can’t find a way to fit it into my social media regime.

Who loves Honda love?

This Honda Love idea on Facebook looks really interesting.

It was developed by an agency called RPA in California.

Click the pic to get a better look.

I'd really like to know more about it. So if you know anything please leave a comment.

Lovemarks or friendship?

This very insightful quote comes from Mike Arauz. He has recently written a series of great posts on spreadable media. I suggest you go read them asap.

A look at the Whopper Sacrifice

To win an award these days it helps to know how to enter an award.

I don't mean simply filling in the form.

I mean doing everything you can to bring the genius of your idea to life.

One the most popular ways to do this is with a case study short film.

These films are rarely seen by people other than award judges.

This one for the recent Whopper Sacrifice campaign is well worth a minute and a half of your time.

Very clever idea. Explained beautifully.

Shakespeare on Facebook

I posted a while back about Shakespeare on Twitter. Now someone's gone and set up a Shakespeare Facebook. It was obviously done before the Facebook redesign but it's pretty clever none the less. Click here to take a look.

Say cheese!

Via

The next big thing?

Last month Facebook reached the magical figure of 150 million users.

It did it in just 5 years.

To put that number into perspective take a look at how long it took other products to reach that same number.

Facebook = 5 years

iPod = 7 years

Mobile phone = 14 years

Television = 38 years

Telephone = 89 years

Source

Social turns anti social

Seems there are a few people out there who are currently thinking about the same sort of stuff that I am.

Yesterday I posted Kevin Rothermel's thoughts on how self proclaimed gurus are impacting on Twitter.

Today I read a piece by Naked's Adam Ferrier on another subject I've been pondering recently - How social media types are becoming anti social.

Here's a snippet from Adam:

"Some of the online social networkers I've met online appear to be extremely opinionated, hostile, judgemental, and very black and white. If they displayed such characteristics in the offline world they would find it very difficult to form long term stable relationships with others."

I think Adam was talking more about people active in the blogosphere rather than people who use Facebook etc. He does make some very good points though.

Click here to see what he had to say.

Anti social media

Last week I went to a conference call The Digital Tipping Point.

I learnt about the conference on Twitter. Clicked on the link in a tweet and signed up.

Can't complain, because the conference was free, but...

Billed as 'The future of branding and social media' I expected it to be about that very topic. It wasn't.

The first couple of presenters focussed mainly on advertising and advertising units.

They showed vox pop videos of idiots talking about how much they loved the ads that appeared on their Facebook. Ads like these.

So I decided to share my displeasure with my friends and followers on Twitter.

Minutes later I recieved a tweet from one of the conference speakers asking me where I was!

When she got up to speak she acknowledged me by name and stated that she wouldn't be talking about advertising.

Had I inadvertantly invented virtual heckling?

Probably not, but I did prove my theory that social media has to feature voices of dissent as well as support.