Social Media and the Golden Rule

A significant amount of what needs to be known about being a successful Social Media Marketer can be gained from looking at how people that are successful in the real world behave. Social media is called that because it is "social" and mirrors many of our beliefs, social customs and expectations that we hold in the real world simply translated to the online environment and facilitated by technology. I touched on this topic some time back in a blog entry title "If you don't know, ask yourself". It was a cheeky title for a very practical solution. Since we are, above all else, social beings it stands to reason if you have questions about social propriety online you should be able to look no further than yourself for the answer.

When I ask myself these questions I find them supported by 3 significant influences I have had in my life. First, I was raised in a small town so simple pragmatic metaphors serve me well when trying to explain myself. They usually start with "and my grandma used to always say. . . ". Second is my academic pseudo career. My education is primarily psychology with a significant amount of study in statistics and behavioural psychology. The third leg of this stool is IT consulting. I have been an IT geek and web lover since day one. So put them all together and you get a down to earth farm boy keenly aware of human behaviour and loves the online world. Is there a better combination for a Social Media Expert?

So when you are puzzled by Social Media marketing or just how to navigate your own Facebook profile the simplest response is probably the golden rule:

“Do unto others as they would have them do unto you”.

Marketing Minute: Business needs Social Media

The business opportunity with Social Media is enormous. There are more than a billion people online and 60% of those are in Asia and using social networks. Social media sites are out pacing all other Internet areas by a margin of 2:1. Prosperity Research has been pioneering social media for a significant amount of time in Hong Kong. This V-blog quickly defines why "Business needs Social Media". However, that said it is a tricky place to do business and the inexperienced may not fare well. It is best to understand well before entering because the backlash for mistakes can be unmerciful.

Marketing Minute: What is Social Media

Funny that we can find ways to keep talking about the same thing in so many different ways. I revisited some writings I made 3 years ago and pulled out a very familiar message. I then reviewed a blog entry I wrote 2 years ago and found it to be virtually the same. I am now creating v blog entry saying much the same, but this time I am moving. Well I hope you like my good effort. And I hope after 3 years of reading and hearing me talk about it, there is still something fresh and exciting to be found.

Twestival Hong Kong 2009

More than 180 cities had the first ever global twitter party to raise money for the charity Water. Brought together in less than 4 weeks, this immensely successful global event demonstrated the power of Social Media. Digirati heavy weights, twitter fans and the just plain curious converged on Yumla in Hong Kong to twit the night away.

Asia to dominate online video market

Recent statistics coming out show Asia, China, South Korea, and Japan, to grow at a significant pace for online video viewing as reported by ReelSEO. These countries, along with Hong Kong and Singapore, enjoy huge Internet penetration rates and access to broadband. Consumers in these countries are showing an enormous appetite for online video as it quickly replaces TV and DVD sales as a primary source on information and entertainment. Keeping pace with this is online marketing spend. It is expected that in 3 years this will exceed 15 billion USD per year demonstrating a 50% increase. Prosperity Research has been anticipating this trend for more than 4 years now by advocating the use of video as a key marketing and communication tool. Now commonly referred to as Social Media it has many advantages over traditional models.

• Video is more compelling and engaging than static text or images
• Video crosses culture and language barriers better than text or still image
• Significant reduction in video production costs makes it competitive
• Effective alternative to TVC
• Affordable for SMB's
  
• Aren't things just better when they move?!

In summary Asia is seeing great resilience in surviving the U.S. based financial crisis and is poised to take the world's marketing solutions to a new level by leading in online video dominance.

Business says video most effective

It is an otherwise gloomy outlook for business with consumers spending less. Both offline and online marketing strategies delivering disappointing results for business. However, there does appear to be a silver lining shining through; video.

A recent interview with Schwab's Mike Naughton, VP of media and central marketing has put a focus on the effectiveness of video showing a 20% increase in consumer response over nonvideo online campaigns (banner) as reported by emarketer.

"We noticed that consumer interaction with video ads [in the “Talk to Chuck” online campaign, which ran from September to December 2008] was 20% higher than it was with nonvideo creative."

These results are being repeated with great predictabiltiy. Therefore it is no surprise that business is positioning their marketing strategy around these impressive statistics.

A study by Reardon Smith Whitaker and recently releaseed in emarketer shows clearly that online is a priority for advertisers and marketers, but in a consistent trend, banner advertisment (nonvideo) has fallen significantly out of favour.

Top Tactics for 2009 - eMarketer via kwout

PermissionTV also conducted a survey of advertisers to gauge the “tactics on which US marketers plan to focus their online marketing budget in 2009”, with the top response being video.

• 66.8% of marketers suggested that video would be their among their priorities for 2009,
• versus 22.8% for banner advertising.

Though most of the statistics are based on U.S. data they are no less credible when applied to global or more specifically Asian markets. Asian online spend is growing at a pace impossible in the sated North American and European markets. It stands to reason that by logical extension, a trend that is siginificant in North America and Europe becomes history making in a market like China.