social networks - 3/15 - TheWayoftheWeb

Social networks helping me shop – a quick example

September 3, 2009 By Dan Thornton Leave a Comment

Social networks are an invaluable part of my life now, and having just amazed myself by leaving work, catching a tube, rushing to a shop, catching another tube and still making my normal train home, I felt like sharing it as an example.

(as a side-note, the train has already been delayed by 15 minutes as it’s apparently ‘lacking a driver’)

A debate on Twitter about a news story which mentioned cycling reminded me I needed to purchase a new bike pump as the Presta valves on my tyres make it almost impossible to inflate with my old hand pump – and a quick Google confirmed that there was a cycle shop at Holborn, which is on my tube route home.

But how did I know which one to buy, which one was the best value, and what to do with it once I got home etc?

Traditional option: Phone store and speak to person with possible vested interest in selling me anything they can.

New option: Send a message to one of my network on Twitter who happens to be a keen cyclist.

The new option has given me hourly updates from someone who recommended the type of pump I needed, the brand and model he uses, and what to do with it to ensure correctly inflated tyres.

And anyone else that has seen our conversation is able to join in – plus it’s archived for anyone else searching on the internet, possibly saving other people time and effort.

Which is probably a long-winded way of saying thanks to @CliveAndrews as reinforcing the fact that I now use Google for researching facts like business contact details and location.

But I use social media for quickly getting opinions from trusted friends on almost every subject. If Clive hadn’t recommended the right product to me, I can guarantee I wouldn’t have made my train, and probably would have struggled with two flat tyres for the next couple of days at least.

And just for the record, I now have a Topeak Joe Blow Sport ‘Track Pump’ which is £5 off at Evans Cycles at the moment.

And it looks like:

The comedy payoff for reading this far is that I underestimated the actual size of it slightly, and now have to try and carry a 2-3 foot high pump home on my bicycle!

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Filed Under: ecommerce Tagged With: ecommerce, recommendations, shopping, social networks

Has Twitter become a weapon?

August 10, 2009 By Dan Thornton 11 Comments

The recent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on popular social networks was mainly felt by Twitter, which seemed to either be more susceptible or hit harder by the action, resulting in it going offline entirely for a short period.

The concept of Governments using the internet for spreading information or cyberwarfare is not a new one – but the question is how prevalent it is becoming on social networks, and how many users are aware of it happening?

Twitter seems the most likely place for this question to play out – combine a design which lends itself to the fast spread of information, and an average user age which is more likely, as a percentage of users, to be interested in news and events (particularly political), than most social networks.

Examples of the fast spread of news are commonplace, particularly when it comes to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, or human disasters, such as terrorism or fire. And increasingly these pieces of breaking information are being repeated and picked up by unquestioning users seeking to capitalise on the interest, major news organisations, and even shops using it for spam purposes.

Usage of the media by both Governments and unofficial organisations has long existed, but the internet removes the need to engage with ‘official’ media sources to reach a large audience.

And now we’re seeing the potential for Governments or organisations to co-ordinate attacks against popular services. That’s something that print distribution has somewhat protected us against – you might be able to control or attack a printing press in your own country, but it’s harder to exert pressure on foreign media platforms (although not impossible).

But the internet is accessible from any location, meaning that those who don’t believe in freedom of speech or information are able to co-ordinate their attacks on whichever target they deem suitable – and when it comes to media and social networks, we’re relying on the efforts of private companies to respond. And whilst, for example, the UK Government might interject as best it could to preserve a media institution such as the BBC for the good of the country (being a mechanism to effectively reach the population in times of emergency), do we expect – or indeed do we want, Governments to be increasingly involved in attempts to protect social networks and microblogging?

What do you think?

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Filed Under: twitter Tagged With: cyberwarfare, denial of service, governments, hacking, microblogging, propoganda, social networks, terrorism, twitter

When numbers become meaningless and dangerous

August 5, 2009 By Dan Thornton 3 Comments

I’ve just been looking at the latest stats from comScore (Via Techcrunch), and the statistics for Facebook‘s arrival as the fourth biggest site in the world illustrated for me why site stats can become both meaningless and rather dangerous.

For starters, the numbers of the top sites are so big that we don’t really have any way of guaging them – as Eddie Izzard explains using the examples of mass murder (some NSFW swearing).

But the big problem with numbers like these is that they can become very dangerous, due to the tendency for people to quote them as law, and rely on them:

Venus Blindfolded by Gastev on Flickr (CC Licence)

Reasons to worry:

Monitoring services like comScore and Compete can only track online traffic to domains – no clients and no apps. A particular problem at the moment for Twitter, but growing for all sites.
A certain percentage of users are always unquantifiable thanks to cookie deletion etc, or end up showing up different times on different computers
In the comScore example, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo sites are bundled up into their respective companies, so you can’t tell what comes from Google Search and what comes from Orkut or Google Maps.
No accounting for OpenID, Facebook Connect etc.

But essentially, the big risk is:

Unless you’re one of the top 20 or so sites, the total number of users of Facebook, Myspace, Bebo etc won’t matter much – you’ll still be able to get 1000, 10,000 or 100,000 fans/friends. What really matters is what you want to achieve, the relevancy of the network, and how you work at building valuable relationships rather than numbers.
And rather than numbers, look at the interactions, or for the business minded, how many people actually buy something…

But on the bright side:

Besides the fact we can accept social networking reaches almost as far as the internet with Facebook getting 340 million uniques per year, the fact that Wikimedia Foundations sites clock in right behidn it at 303 million uniques also shows the undeniable value of crowdsourcing user generated input if it’s done relatively well.

And maybe the combination of my three blogs will crack the top 10 next year!

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Filed Under: Analytics, social networks Tagged With: Analytics, facebook, figures, flaws, monitoring, numbers, social networks, statistics

7 reasons why companies need social media managers

June 8, 2009 By Dan Thornton 4 Comments

There has been a lot of debate recently about the need for companies and organisations to employ social media managers and specialists in a dedicated role – the main criticism appears to be that the role isn’t needed because employees already use social media.

That might be the case in a limited number of small organisations, but someone will end up as an unofficial social media expert. And as someone who performed the role for a large organisation, I know there are a number of good reasons for having one person as the focal point – even if every employee is actively representing the group or company.

1. Justification: Are employees going to use social media effectively when they have senior managers questioning whether it’s worthwhile?

2. Guidelines: Most people have a reasonable amount of common sense, but if you haven’t got clear guidelines for employees to refer to if needed, you’ve got no excuse when they get things wrong. And all it can take is one personal attack for even the most responsible employee to make a mistake. That’s assuming they even keep up to date with the latest legalities of using social media in addition to their day job.

3. Analysis: Do you know what’s working? And is a social network referring the most traffic because of scale, or because other social networks are being ignored or done badly?

4. Co-ordination: Do you trust independant employees to know where exclusive news should be revealed first? Or could a status message or tweet destroy your carefully planned campaign? Is the right content going online at the right time, to coincide with the right development work?

5. Research and Development: Is Facebook more relevant to your company than Bebo? Will you reach the right people on Twitter? And should you be improving the forum on your site, or developing a widget for social networks? The answers are different for every organisation, and indeed, every campaign

6. Coordinating external resources: Do you know enough to decide between a good and bad external agency when it comes to social media? And in a large company, are you sure other departments aren’t hiring other agencies at the same time?

7. Crisis management: When something does go wrong, you need a plan in place, and someone who can manage an effective response.

Whether or not social media is a specialist role, or part of a wider remit, there needs to be someone with the authority and accountability to ensure that the work feeds into the wider business effectively, with an effect on product development, customer service, SEO, and business strategy.

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