Recently in Community Category
-
Apr30
Social Media Trends and Engagement
Social computing has decentralized brands and audiences, creating a new class of digital creators, curators, and watchful observers. Citizens of social media transcend time and space, shaping new opinions and carving out a niche audience in ways only an always-on globally-connected network can provide. This new form of distributed creation and communication changes the way brands must market and monitor their business to both new and existing audiences. Who is this new audience? Where do they hang out and participate online, and at what levels?
Forrester Research interviewed 4,500 adults and 4,500 youth in late 2006 to better understand consumer approaches to technology and various levels of social media involvement. Forrester analyst Charlene Li published the results of her study last week in a research paper titled Social Technographics, providing detailed break-downs of social media audiences already engaged in today's Web.
In this week's podcast I discuss social media engagement trends with Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li.
Current activities
Over 60% of young consumers use social networking sites at least weekly, and about 40% check their networks every day. These young creators grew up in the age of personal computers, graphical user interfaces, and digital social annotations. The social computing boom of the past few years has created an online identity and digital hub, altered as frequently as one's clothes.
Adults are also researching news and creating content online. 22% of adults read blogs at least monthly, and 19% of adults surveyed are members of a social media site. Customer ratings and reviews was the most popular online activity, with about 40% of survey participants utilizing sites such as Amazon to read the thoughts and opinions of peers before making a purchase.
Social media involvement
Forrester analysts identified six levels of social media participation in ascending levels of sophistication: inactives, spectators, joiners, collectors, critics, and creators. The categories are not mutually exclusive, as a blog author (a creator) will likely read other blogs (as a spectator), occasionally comment (a critic), and perhaps use web feeds or annotation tools (a collector).
These varied levels of social media participation highlight the need to better engage your audience across the board, easing them into the social media experience. Many social media sites focus on the joiners and creators, setting high barriers of entry and participation. A casual reader might mark a story or video as a personal favorite, or share a collection with friends. A collector might engage more audience members, creating a more focused community for a niche audience. Businesses and websites can engage multiple market segments and open up their community to wider participation.
Listen to the podcast
I discuss these findings and more with Social Technographics research analyst Charlene Li in this week's podcast on social media trends. Our conversation is 20 minutes in length, a 9 MB download.
-
Mar30
Moo Cards
Are business cards sexy? Richard Moross of Moo seems to think so, and created a new print company last year in London to transfer our digital bits into tangible mediums of exchange. Moo creates miniature business cards for online communities including photo sharing sites Flickr and Fotolog, social network Bebo, and virtual worlds Second Life, and Habbo. The compact business cards are custom expressions of digital creations, introducing each recipient to new stories pre-essembled in an online universe. My favorite Flickr photos, a Second Life avatar, or my carefully crafted social networking profile already express my identity beyond a simple logo and text. Moo has created a popular new form of offline introductions for independent digital content creators.
In this week's podcast I sat down with Moo CEO Richard Moross, who just happens to be visiting San Francisco from his home base in London. I was particularly interested in chatting with Richard about community and the ways his company ties an old-world business of paper and ink with the latest digital creations.
Moo's entire operations take place within about 100 square meters in London's printing district. Their website is created and maintained next door to their packaging center, which is right across the street from the printer. One of the largest post offices in the area is just down the street.
Moo gave away over 1 million of its cards for free in the last 6 months. These mini-packs were distributed to members of each partner site, introducing new people to the product 10 or so cards at a time. Richard mentioned this has been invaluable marketing for the company, getting their product to over 120 countries around the world and new on-the-ground marketers.
The company plans to introduce 5-6 new products by the end of the year, based entirely on customer feedback. They watch the blogs, notice what people are crafting on sites such as Etsy, and try to patch a few of their own pain points. The plan seems to be working so far, as fans post new ideas and their own experiences to the Moo Flickr group, among other places.
If someone told me a year ago there would be Habo Hotel business cards I would have laughed. I've seen multiple attempts at creating photographer business cards and press passes, but never in a way that was as expressionist as the Moo Mini cards I see shuffled at local tech events as the card distributor matches up just the right photo or expression for the recipient. I think these guys are up to something cool with their print meets web mashup, and enjoyed finally talking the details of the business with Richard.
This week's podcast, Moo Cards, is 27 minutes in length, a 13 MB download.
Niall Kennedy is a web technologist in San Francisco, California in the United States. I am very interested in the world of...