Find out how your Favorite Brands are doing on Social Media - Do you agree with the results?

So do you wanna know how your brands are doing on Social Media? Just use the Digital IQ Index created by NYU Stern Professor Scott Galloway.

Digital IQ is defined as the benchmark for online competence.

The Methodology = Evaluating (Brand site 40% + Digital Marketing 20% + SEO 20% + Social Media 20%)

The Results? Take a look at the Top 5 Below, do you Agree?

1 REI Apparel

2 IKEA Home Furnishings

3 Threadless E-tailer

4 Coach Shoes & Leather goods

5 A|X Armani Exc hange Apparel

Download full report here.

How Premium Fashion Brands Are Maximizing Their Social Media ROI

This article is quite interesting and very applicable to my Capstone "The Democratization of Luxury Fashion Brands in Social Media". The article argues how, as a result of the new digital media, the luxury and premium fashion market is changing the way they connect with their consumers, sell their products, and changing their production cycle.

I was wondering what people thought about this given that the luxury fashion industry has usually been elite, autocratic, and secretive even when it came to their fashion collections; with social media, will they become more democratic and will their brands flourish as a result?

If you missed SLS...

If you missed the Social Learning Summit 2011, last weekend, here's a little recap highlighting the School of Communication!
There were a lot of great panels & panelists, but here's my #1 recommendation if you're on Twitter: follow @dcdebbie, @dcconcierge, and @citygirlblogs, all of who spoke on the TMI panel and had great suggestions for defining who you are and how much you share on social platforms. @dcconcierge suggested never tweeting (or posting, or blogging) when you're angry, and said she only blogs about places where she had positive experiences - and ignores the negative ones rather than write nasty reviews. I think this is a great policy and a good way to keep your blog or platform authentic but still interesting.
I know Delphine was there, and Prof. Kumar spoke on a panel, and you can check out the #SLS11 hashtag to see some great tidbits on social media in education, government, and more.

Women and their Facebook friends!

Today Mashable posted two really cool infographics about how women feel about their Facebook friends. I know that I have definitely felt the same way about some of my friends. It then begs to question why am I friends with them in the first place? I think a lot of it has to do with the awkwardness of deleting them as a friend. The proximity of being at school with them and possibly running into them has a certain weight. I also think it depends on how closer you are with them, are they friends with your friends? Are you actually friends with them and they just post somethings that annoy you? I'm curious to see more about this study in the future!

Social media and crisis

Turn a crisis into a social media opportunity !
This article about Toyota illustrates what we talked about today.

"Of all the ways social media can make a difference in the lifes of ordinary people, emergency management is one of the most important." That is what we saw in today class !

Social Media Strategy in 7 Steps

David Spark, a tech journalist, offers us this 7-step plan to creating a social media strategy. I think this quick guide is great because it is simple, it is a great jumping-off point for organizations with no social media presence and it discusses integration with other marketing and branding efforts. I particularly like steps 3 and 4 because they speak to the importance of producing relevant content and keeping up with the fast pace of social media.

Twitter - Definitely not Overvalued: JPMorgan in investment talks with Twitter

This is another example of how Twitter is becoming increasingly valued as a Social media platform and I think it would be amazing if JP Morgan does end up investing in Twitter and adding it to its digital growth fund. The fact that a company like JPM created a Social Media Investment Fund underscores the growth potential in this area and we have yet to see the full potential of Social media.

Report: JP Morgan in investment talks with Twitter

By Ariana Eunjung Cha

JP Morgan is reportedly in talks with Twitter to buy a minority stake in the micro-blogging site. Neither will comment on the talks, but anonymous sources confirmed to the New York Times, the Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal that the investment by JPMorgan's $1.22 billion digital growth fund would value Twitter at more than $4 billion.

JP Morgan recently established its social media investment fund to jump on the technology and social media companies that have seen exponential growth in the past few years.

Link to Washington Post article

Social Media and Search

This post from The Buzz Bin highlights a new report from Groupm and comScore about how search engine marketing and social media impacts consumer purchasing online. Some of the stats the report finds were surprising to me.

• Forty percent of consumers who use search in their path to purchase are motivated to use social media to further their decision making process
• Forty eight percent combine search and social in the buying process
• 64 percent of consumers are likely to follow a brand after a purchase via social media

Behoaviorgraphics

This is an interesting post from Brian Solis about the social media world and were we all fit. I think it is most interesting because of the labels, for example its funny to think of myself as a commenter. Where do you fit in?

PS- If you are not following @BrianSolis on Twitter, you should be

Even the U.S. ARMY has embraced Social Media

When we think of Social Media these days, we often think of Companies and Individuals such as Celebrities who are promoting their products, their services and themselves by reaching out to people via these platforms. And we don't often think of an organization like the US ARMY, however even they are embracing Social Media and I was quite impressed with the extent that they have done so. Take a look for yourself:

You can see pics at their media center: www.flickr.com/soldiersmediacenter

You can Fan them: www.facebook.com/usarmy (625,000 Fans)

You can subscribe to their RSS feeds: http://www.army.mil/rss/

You can listen to their podcasts: http://www.army.mil/rss/podcasts/

You can follow them on Twitter: www.twitter.com/usarmy

(56,000 followers, 4000 tweets)

And You can even WATCH them on YouTube, check out one of many actual training videos below: www.youtube.com/soldiersmediacenter (8000 subscribers)

This makes me wonder that they must have a very thought-out social media strategy given that they work with sensitive information in sensitive locations.

Do you think companies ought to emulate some of the US ARMY social media best practices?

Social Media's role in the Wikileaks case

I think we’ve all been wondering how Wikileaks will be prosecuted for disclosing classified documents last year. This Washington Post article describes the role social media plays in the case and how the defendants’ lawyers argued that releasing personal data from Twitter accounts violates the First and Fourth (protection against warrantless searches) Amendments.

The article really got me thinking about the government’s right and ability to access data in today’s 2.0 world and how social networking sites determine whether or not they will remain bipartisan on issues like this.

This article talks about the future of social media in journalism. "Social" approach will overshadow the traditional journalism in the near future, according to the article. It also talks about collaborative reporting as a growing trend. We can already see the a merger between the source and the content producer, and soon the reporting will be done by the witnesses of the news. I agree that is where reporting and journalism are going. However, does this mean there will be no need for "professional" journalists if all the reporting is done by witness?
http://mashable.com/2010/09/13/future-social-media-journalism/

A marriage between Social Media and Exclusive NY Nightclubs?

Ok too funny: Joshua Niamehr, owner of EnchantedDiamonds, LaundryLocal, COO FreshFanatic, and CEO of Online Holdings Corp, has scheduled a TechCrunch meetup at the Boom Boom Room, a very exclusive nightclub, for this Wednesday. Usually exclusive NY clubs don't even like anyone taking pictures but it seems Social Media "Nerds", as the article calls it, are now in and even Le Bain nightclub, another super exclusive, has a Facebook page! How do you think this affects exclusivity of night clubs, no change or does it dilute it?

http://guestofaguest.com/social-media/techcrunch-meet-boom-boom-room-the-hip-nerds-have-officially-arrived/

Social Media Trends for 2010

I came across there six social media trends for 2010 while reading a blog for Harvard Business Review:
1. Social media begins to look less social (or it might seem that way because of all the clutter and noise that we can see on Twitter, facebook, etc)
2. Corporations look to scale (more companies are looking to provide customer support on twitter, etc)
3. Social business becomes serious play (some networks, like foursquare, have a game-like component)
4. Your company will have a social media policy (and it might actually be enforced)
5. Mobile becomes a social media lifeline (as 70 percent of organizations ban social networks, employees might be looking to "feed their social media addictions on their mobile devices")
6. Sharing no longer means e-mail (for exmaple, "The New York Times iPhone application recently added sharing functionality which allows a user to easily broadcast an article across networks such as Facebook and Twitter.")

I thought it was interesting. You can read the full article at
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2009/11/six_social_media_trends.html

Why Companies Suck at Social Media

I thought this article wrapped up some of the major themes of our class -- why companies find social media so hard to take on, and what are the important things to keep in mind -- like listening, staying nimble, and being willing to fail.

http://tinyurl.com/28ptcxu

July 24, 2010 Life in a Day

Life in a Day is a "historic global experiment" produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald, the project will be a collaboration of film footage filmed by people all around the globe. The premise of the project is to show what it is like to be alive on July 24, 2010. The film will be similar to a time capsule, where it will capture a day in the life of people from all around the world.

"On July 24, you have 24 hours to capture a glimpse of your life on camera" the website states. Macdonald invites people "To make a film unlike any film that's been made before. Which is to ask thousands of people, everywhere in the world, on a single day, which is the 24th of July this year, to film some aspect of their day and then post that material onto you tube so that we can use it to make a film that is a record of what it's like to be alive on that one day. It will be kind of like a time capsule, which people in the future... could look at and say, 'oh my God, that's what it was like.' A portrait of the world in a day. "

Those who film a portion of their day-- anything from a monotonous daily commute to the birth of a child-- are asked to answer three questions:

First: What do you fear most in your life today?
Second: What do you love?
Third: What makes you laugh.


The last thing Macdonald asks participants to do is to pull out whatever is in their pocket and film it.

Those whose footage is picked to be a part of the video will receive recognition as a co-director. The film will premiere at the Sundance film festival in January, 2011.

The film is a social experiment that uses social media from every stage from spreading the word
to showing the final video. Social media provides the platform for users to share their videos. If this video had been produced five years ago, each participant would have to mail in their video and people would not be able to spread information about the project as quickly.

The projects official website is: http://www.youtube.com/lifeinaday

Social Media Demographics

This article is a few months old, but it offers really interesting insight (and perhaps useful content for your final projects...if you are not presenting tonight) into the age groups of each social network. Believe it or not, the average social network user is now....37 years old.

Remember when it was just for college kids? Well, now the average age of social media users is actually OLDER than the coveted 18-35 year old advertising sweet spot.

The article has a bunch of interesting charts, but the easiest for me shows each network by average age, ranging from Bebo (avg age 28.4) to Classmates.com (avg age 44.9) and everywhere in between.

Interestingly, the 18-24 group is not currently the dominant demographic in ANY of the social networks analyzed in the article. Most networks are dominated by the 35-44 age group, which has become the most “social” demographic. This is the generation of people who were in their 20s as the Internet took off in the mid ‘90s. So, those 'early adopters' have stuck with it!

Facebook hits the same average age as all social networks (38.4). This does raise a question -- has the average age of social network users actually shifted, or is 35-44 just the average age of everyone with access to the Internet? It feels like social media is just that ubiquitous...is there really anyone who isn't on it yet?

http://tinyurl.com/yctss8r

Is Twitter A Step Back?

As social media becomes more and more accepted as "just plain media," there are more and more tools and platforms to utilize this new social mediascape. In July 2006, Twitter launched to lukewarm fanfare, and gradually increased in popularity. As Twitter becomes the half-brother of Facebook – often mentioned as an aside – we start to study it for societal influence and opinion formulation. I love Twitter, I use it every day, every hour even, but isn't Twitter a step backward?

What is Twitter about? It's kind of like having a conversation on a train. It's about sending information out into the public timeline and sharing that information with whomever wants to listen. You can talk to me, but random people can chose to listen in or shut you out, listening and creating their own conversation.

In comparison...

What is Facebook about? Facebook is like being invited to a private party. It's about connecting a real person who has added interests, information, photos, purchasing decisions and using this as a digital representation of their personality. Its like a suburban backyard bbq, next to a shopping mall. I don't even see the next party over unless I'm out looking for it, networking style.

Click to read more...

Scientists use social media

Kenya is considering using social media to disseminate scientific information and findings. Kenya's National Council of Science and Technology, which advises the government on science and technology matters has created a strategic plan to spread scientific to younger generations by using Facebook and Twitter.

In many countries, scientists have already begun using social media to broadcast their findings. In Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Parks Canada have established departments to manage their Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and LinkedIn accounts. Scientists are able to share text based updates, pictures, and videos of findings, ongoing projects etc.

There are concerns among some that by using social media, the National Council will lose control of their information. Others, however, are certain that social media will provide a direct portal for communication and will provide the appropriate channel to spread continually evolving information .

http://bit.ly/dkCnKT

BP (really might) Care

If you haven't heard of it by now you must be living under a rock. BP Global PR on Twitter is an extremely popular parody account. Started by an anonymous person on May 19th, the account is definitely a parody, though it gives no indication of being so. Currently it has over 179,000 Followers and tweets rather humorous PR-like statements regarding the BP Oil Spill.

This brings into question, as a PR professional, how can you control a message in this situation? Is it even possible?! The account has been up for a month now, is still active, and seems to be prospering. On the other hand, BP_America the official BP account on twitter (for... America... wanted to point that out just in case) has only 16,000 followers and is mostly an object of ridicule in the Twitterverse.

What can be done? In this extreme situation, probably nothing, but it is an example of the worst Social Media job in the world right now, working for BP's twitter.