Gavin Baker » social network

The Student has become the teacher…on Facebook

Gavin Baker — Fri, 03 Dec 2010 21:58:50 +0000

Facebook, you know the social network that started for college kids has headed back to it’s roots in a unique way….an MBA. The London School of Business and Finance is now offering their Global MBA courses on Facebook. What I find most compelling is not that it’s being offered on Facebook – I find it amazing that they are offering all the content for free.

Read the read of my thoughts about this topic on the Moxley Carmichael New Streak Blog – Facebook moves to the head of the class.

Thoughts for MBA Students

Gavin Baker — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:26:57 +0000

Posted in social media

Flicker Credit: Phi1317

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak on a panel with my friends Chad Parizman and Lynsay Caylor to a class of very bright full-time MBA students at the University of Tennessee. Our topic was social media monetization, although we certainly talked more broadly then that in our time with the class. I enjoyed hearing their questions, and learning more about the challenges that Chad faces at Scripps and Lynsay at Pilot.

The most striking thing to me about the class were their answers to a few questions Chad asked about their social involvement.

How many of you have updated your Facebook status in the last week? 80%

How many of you have updated Twitter in the last few hours? 45%

How many of you only have a Twitter account to study it? 60%

How many of you use LinkedIn? 65%

(The room was also about 75% PC and 25% Apple)

I found these answers very interesting, particularly the LinkedIn stat. Facebook and Twitter stats are pretty consistent with what I’ve experienced, but I was very surprised that there were students who were not on LinkedIn. I don’t consider it to be the end all be all, but there are MBA students who have had jobs and are going back to school to further their career. Blew my mind that they weren’t on LinkedIn. The opposite take away is that LinkedIn isn’t a go to for these smart saavy students, so either it doesn’t present a value proposition to them OR they are unclear how to make best use of it. This will be an interesting one to watch.

I closed with the following advice “79% of the Fortune 100 currently uses social media in one form or another. Most of you expect to get jobs in the Fortune 500 and once hired they will expect you as a younger MBA to know social media. You don’t need to love every service, but you do need to use them and understand their application to business.”

I hope they jumped on and started experimenting. If you had a final statement, what would you have shared?

[UPDATE] eMarketer today launched some statistics on job sites used by HR professionals as well as the following quote, “The most helpful tools for career advancement were professional networks such as LinkedIn as well as best-practice communities, each named by about two-thirds of HR executives.”

How should brands engage online?

Gavin Baker — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 02:08:39 +0000

Posted in social media

I caught a piece on eMarketer by Clark Fredricksen today about the dilemma of customer engagement companies face when moving into social media. The basis of the post is found in the video embedded below. Tension ramps up between the desire to have a presence and the need to participate. To quote the post:

Most businesses have realized that when it comes to social networks like Twitter or Facebook, simply broadcasting content isn’t quite enough. Consumers want companies to engage with them on social networks — not because they want to have a relationship, per say, with a brand of soap or shampoo, but because they appreciate the opportunity to give feedback on products, receive meaningful information from brands, and catch the occasional bargain, among other things.

What he says is entirely true, launching a presence on a social channel (i.e.. facebook, twitter, yelp, flickr, blogging) is a great thing for many companies and their customers, allowing them to mutually share and receive information. The dilemma comes when a brand has to decide how, when, and who should engage. In my opinion, if a brand is opening an account they are already in the game so there is not the option to not participate so the question becomes how and who. This should adhere to some basic rules of responding to most mentions, answering questions, etc. and every company will have secondary rules they will need to explore that will work best for them. Two great examples of this choice on engagement are Best Buy’s @twelpforce or Comcast’s @ComcastCares – where they are defining their intent because while the CEO of Best Buy is on twitter – having the expectation that he’ll respond personally to every question/whim isn’t only crazy its incredibly of base. Along that path, deciding to do customer service is a common tactic for those companies who use twitter. This brings up the great point that Jeremiah Owyang of the Altimeter Group makes “As companies accelerate their social support efforts, responding to customers in public reinforces the behavior of complaining to everyone they know.” I’m certainly not saying that responding to customers on twitter is a bad idea, but it’s an interesting idea to consider.

Something else to consider is that with the growth of web technology the last few years, the barriers to entry have dropped to a level for where for all intents and purposes it’s 0. It requires very little technical skill to open an account on any of the pieces named above which presents the dichotomy that marketers face – the ease of use can quickly translate to accounts that amount to “hello world” but often get forgotten in the hustle and bustle of day to day work. Without a focus on any account, those customers (guests in Ruby Tuesday’s world) who were very excited at the entry of a company they cared about in a digital space – will quickly move from excitement to vocal anger as their tweets and comments go unanswered and seemingly uncared for.

Which means that brands must ask, and then quickly answer the question, “what type of social media engagement is right for our brand?”

The Social Media Bubble Part 2 of 3 from Hive Awards on Vimeo.

Armano’s predictions, plus one

Gavin Baker — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 15:38:51 +0000

Posted in social media

Image by doug88888

David Armano makes a three predictions for 2010 on social media and business.

1. Scale

2. Integration

3. Policy

I think he’s right on for 2 and 3. I’d add an additional prediction – that social networking sites and tools will begin to add offerings that appeal to business. I’m not talking about CoTweet ramping up it’s twitter tool, while it’s a good product. I’m talking about product design BY the sites themselves. Sites building out tools and frameworks that not only support businesses but invite them. Let me be clear, I’m not sharing insider information, I just know what I think would help us and other companies like us.

Most social sites are designed for the individual and rightfully so as relationships are what create and grow these sites. But now that organizations are starting to join the fray – their needs, our need are different. Take for example any national retail company in any vertical. Walmart, Best Buy, Ruby Tuesday, P.F. Chang’s, Moe’s, etc. the list goes on and on. The commonality with all these organizations is that they are national, if not international companies, but ultimately serve customers locally.

Each of those customers cared for locally visits a store, where there may be 10-10,000 locations and those local stores together create the global brand. The tension is that social sites know how to serve the local – they are even set up for that in most cases (i.e. requiring a geographic area) but they haven’t quite figured out the global range yet. Global brands need the ability to set parameters to maintain control while allowing for local flexibility.

I’d also add that this need “could” be filled by third party developers if the platform API’s allow deep enough access.

Exciting to see how this plays out.

Ning vs Facebook – a comparison of social networks at odds.

Gavin Baker — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 19:45:40 +0000

Posted in social media

UPDATED: 10/14/09 with new information about groups.

I developed this comparison (download) of Ning and Facebook for an internal discussion, but figured I’d share it since there didn’t seem to be much on the Internet in terms of a direct breakdown.

As an overview, Ning is a site that easily allows the creation of free private social networks.

This feature means sites are created around topics and groups. e.g. Knoxville Social Media Association is a group I’m a member of and we use a Ning site to organize around our topic. It includes tools that allow the creation of events, blog posts, forums, and discussion, and it’s scope is very focused. It’s also private – so if you’re not a member of that group, you can’t see the content. In short, Ning sites operate around the TOPIC.

Facebook on the other hand is also a private social networking site, and members can join groups, pages, etc. e.g. Knoxville Social Media Association also maintains a facebook page as a public outpost. That public profile also has forums, and discussion, but those can’t be limited to specific people. They are public. Additionally, facebook is primarily about me, my friends, my interests, so it exists as an ecosystem (or platform) and its focus is broad. In short, facebook operates aroud the PERSON.

Before we get too much further I want to cover one thing that the graphic above doesn’t – which is Facebook groups. This is a feature on Facebook where you can create small private groups around a topic. They can be open (public) or closed (private) but they do have a member limit and aren’t specifically suited to broad engagement across a topic. They also receive less visibility on the Facebook platform. UPDATE: All Facebook reports that Facebook is switching groups over to a layout similar to the public pages. I guess we’ll start to groups move away, and pages will have a private and public setting.

Analysis

One upside to facebook is that there is a chance that a large amount of team members already have accounts thus lowering the barrier

to entry and the level of adoption. The upside to Ning is that user accounts can be maintained and kept current with team membership

roster. One of the dangers of using a public network like facebook is that material e.g. Ruby Newsday is not intended to be public fac-

ing material and is directed at Ruby Team members, yet anyone (including competitors) can access the information. Ning allows all the

great benefits of facebook (including additional custom tools) and wraps them in a fully private system that assures private member-

ships. A private system provides a location for authentic internal dialogue, increasing the ability for the network to serve as a greater

catalyst for knowledge transfer and increased hospitality within Team Ruby.

Analysis

One upside to Facebook is that there is a chance that a large amount of people already have accounts (300+ million) thus lowering the barrier to entry and the level of adoption. The upside to Ning is that user accounts can be maintained and kept current with group your membership roster, including the removal of accounts via CSV file upload. For dues paying membership organizations this can be important.

One of the dangers of using a public network like Facebook is that material that is not intended to be public facing will be accessible. This information may not be trade secrets, but could be something as simple as a discussion on social media policy where the public sharing of information could be counter productive to an open discussion of the topic.

Ning allows all the great benefits of Facebook (including additional custom tools) and wraps them in a fully private system that assures private membership and provides a location for authentic dialogue. Facebook certainly wins the battle on the installed user base and the public’s familiarity with the site.

Facebook and Ning certainly serve different purposes and can be used interchangeably with success. Ultimately, either site will require users – so understanding their behavior within your goals will be important. A lot of people check into Facebook every day and will get a reminder of your content. If you go with Ning, is your content enough incentive to bring them to your site?

I’m interested to hear what you think. Please share any great examples of Facebook or Ning usage in the comments and I’ll be happy to update the post with your links. Also, if you’ve used a site not included here – please share your experience.