the visual web and what it means for you

Dirk Singer http://about.me/dirktherabbit

Twitter - @dirktherabbit

social photography and video The rise of visual social media and what it means for you, 9 April 2013 @dirktherabbit #SMCgr

three things you should know about me

I like stats (liesdamnedliesstatistics.com)

I’m a Rabbit I take pictures with my phone (London ambassador EyeEm)

more about visual social media - 8mpx.co.uk. On social media - @dirktherabbit

spot the difference

2005 2013

let's take a step back

“The mobile is the most important technology in

your life....except possibly the respirator”

Doug Grinspan (Say Media) SXSW 2013

smartphones are...

Changing human development

Our gateway to the outside world

The way we express ourselves

the rise of the smartphone

Most EU5 mobile phones are now smartphones

Making a phone call is only the 5th most popular activity on a phone

five consequences of phones being our new 'canvass'

1 - the point and shoot camera: going the way of the (print) newspaper, VHS, LP.....

"The top end camera - we think this will survive

- but the point and shoot lower end model will not survive in the

future" Keitaro So, Fujifilm

most entry level cameras - smartphones

According to ICS Research, last year camera phones outsold

standalone digital cameras 6:1. By 2016 the smartphone camera

market will pass the digital camera market in value as well as

volume

Digital camera shipments out of Japan dropped 42% last year,

with entry level cameras particularly hard hit

2 - this has led to a photo explosion

10% of all of humanity’s 3.8 trillion images was

taken in the past twelve months

Every 2 minutes we take more photos than in the

whole of the 1800s

3 - that now means online, we communicate through pictures

• 20% of the photos taken every day end up on Facebook http://is.gd/H9kkan

• 300 million photos are uploaded every day on Facebook http://is.gd/1vJ1il

• In November 2011, 20% of (Facebook) news feed stories were photos, now its 50% - http://is.gd/YjlyUN

4 - people respond to images over words

The most common factor when buying online? The photo (67%) ahead of the product info (63%) and ratings (53%) - http://is.gd/p0qMkl

Posts on Facebook that include an album, picture or video increase engagement by 180%, 120% and

100%

5 - photo sharing is now photo broadcasting, with its own social media

Photo-sharing Short form video / gifs

Story-telling and curation Longer form video

a look at the different categories

story-telling and curation platforms

• Everything from blogging platforms, to notice boards, to ways to tell stories via pictures

• Tumblr - the world’s largest blogging platform. Highly visual. Better favourability ratings among the under 25s than Facebook

• Jux - a new entrant, a more visual Tumblr

• Snapguide - create how to guides with a series of photos

• Pinterest - the online equivalent of putting magazine photos on a board or the fridge

one to keep in your sights - snapguide

"A do it yourself dream. A tool that makes

producing how to guides insanely easy"

Salon.com

long form video

• Use the video camera on your smartphone to capture and share

• YouTube - not a mobile social network as such, but has a new app allowing you to capture and upload

• Socialcam, once touted as the Instagram of mobile video. Put your video through filters

• Frameblast, splice together videos to create video stories

short videos and animated gifs

• Create gifs or very short videos. Put through filters. Share. Mobile friendly (creation and data)

• Vine - six second videos on a loop. Owned by Twitter, arguably already the most popular mobile video networks

• Cinemagram - animated gifs, you create from mobile video

• Viddy - 30 second (up from 15) video with filters

the rise of the gif

• An art form with its own influencers (for example ‘Mr Gif’)

• Driven by Tumblr, which now owns the SEO around it

• Has moved into the political mainstream, from specialist tumblrs, to Buzzfeed, to the Guardian

• Gifs are....”the political cartoons of our generation....in the past people were making cartoons for the New Yorker. Now maybe they’re making gifs on tumblr” (Jessica Bennett, Tumblr)

the rise of vine

So far, Twitter’s attempt to have its own ‘Instagram’ is paying off

sub-culture and community - the vine way of doing things is quickly evolving

Music brands from Rolling Stone to Enrique Iglesias

travel - the six second postcard 'vining and dining'

vine - who is doing it right?

Doritos Bacardi ASOS

watch out! the copyright police has this in their sights

photo sharing

• Take a photo with your phone, filter it with the in-app filters, or any 3rd party app, tag it, upload and share

• There is now consolidation in this space: Facebook owned Instagram with 100+ million active users

• Other major players - Berlin based EyeEm, a distant second but focuses more on content and community. The relaunched Flickr. And Hamburg based Tadaa

• There is now an eco-system and sub-culture of meet-ups, exhibitions, prizes, promotions and courses

so many social networks - how do I know they will be around in a year?

photo-sharing networks now

have social media

maturity. They have:

a critical mass of users

Instagram has 100+ million active users. BUT - critical mass isn't the same as the big number

in Greece?

#greece - 1.03 million images tagged #athens - 245k images #igersgreece - 74k images #smcgr - 26 images! (As of 2pm) @steliob

a distinct sub-culture and 'language'

#findingbeautyoutofshit #powerlineporn #sneakycommutershot

@linalemontree@chrysti@brandonturner80

its own influencers

@brandonturner80

the Instagramers and EyeEm ambassadors

as an aside - consider how it changes the news

Twitter - the "pulse of the planet" (Evan Williams 2009)

Instagram - will usher in a "bold new era of citizen journalism" and

will "tell the world's stories in a rich, visual way" (Kevin Systrom

2012)

"It used to be that you needed darkroom skills to make your photos look great.

Then when things switched to digital, you at least needed to be able to make your

way around Photoshop.

Now, Instagram handles it all. And it looks great for editorial purposes"

(Business Insider)

what should you do now

@cloclath

• People communicate and share via photos. They respond to images. So why use heavy text based posts to make a brand point?

• Text still has a role, but use engaging photos to draw people in

• Consider blogging platforms such as Tumblr (or even Jux), which are highly visual

• Encourage people to share - they will do so anyway

1 - adopt a picture first strategy

• People are going to post anyway, the first step to make sense of what they are saying and to channel the activity is the hash-tag

• Twitter (+ Vine) and Instagram already use them, Flickr and Facebook are introducing them

• Publish on your marketing material and on pre event social media

• Use it with physical prompts

• Make it easy to remember and short

• Use an album name for EyeEm

2 - use hash-tags to provide prompts

choose your hash-tags carefully

#finalshowdown

• Social photography, social video now have their own influencers. They are often not one and the same as your A-list of bloggers

• Find out who they are, start inviting them to events to take photos

• Court them early - find out who is active on Vine. Right now, working with them will be low cost. That will change

3 - find out who the influencers are

• We all work with people - people do stupid things sometimes. If someone in a customer facing role acts in a strange or erratic way, chances are it will be captured on photo / video

• The flip-side of that, have a sensible mobile photo policy when it comes to members of the public. A flat 'no' to taking and sharing photos is unrealistic and counter-productive

4 - build it into customer services

• The cost to entry is still low, now is a good time to try something new and to experiment

• You still get PR value out of it, the cost of a six second Vine is far below that of a decent YouTube video, let alone an ad. Mediums such as Vine also lead on creativity

5 - experiment!

finally - the barrier to entry doesn't have to be high and complicated

thank you for listening!

My visual social media blog - http://www.

8mpx.co.uk