Social Media in BusinessDr Nadia Amin

Principal Lecturer in Information Management

Westminster Business School

Email: aminn@westminster.ac.uk

Twitter: @nadia_mk

Evolution of web technologies

Source: Adapted from Spivack (2007)

The Emergence and Rise of Mass Social Media

Source: D.Hinchcliffe, Web 2.0 Blog, web2.wsj2.com cited in Turban et al, 2010]

Social Media

“ ..is the online platform and tools that people use to share opinions, experiences, insights, perceptions and various media, including photos, videos, and music with each other””

“Social network: a special structure composed of individual (or organizations) that is based on how its members are connected through various social familiarities”

*[Turban, King and Lang, 2009, Introduction to Electronic Commerce, 2nd ed]

Top 5 Social Media Myths

1. Employees will waste time

2. Social media is for kids

3. We will lose control to the ’nutters’

4. Social media is a security risk

5. There is no clear ROI

[source: Matthew Hodgson, September 20, 2009, www.theappgap.com ]

http://tjcnyc.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/ultimate-social-media-diagram/

Social Media Revolution

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFZ0z5Fm-Ng][Erik Qualman: Socialnomics]

– More than 500 million active users– 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given

day– Average user has 130 friends– People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on

Facebook– About 70% of Facebook users are outside the US– There are more than 150 million active users currently

accessing Facebook through their mobile devices. – People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are

twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users.

Ford Explorer Facebook Reveal

[Mashable.com]

Amazon starts selling stuff through Facebook

Gap Asks Facebook Fans for New Logo Designs

– Gap announced new “contemporary” logo– New logo outrages customers– Negative feedback on Facebook – Parody accounts on Twitter– Is Crowdsourcing an alternative?

– a micro-blogging social network to share content via short messages

– Used by businesses, celebrities and media – A post (tweet) is a 140-character message– You can ‘follow’ people, and they can ‘follow’ you too – You can protect tweets (privacy option) – You can create lists and follow others’ lists– A survey in January 2010 found there to be 75

million Twitter users. Many of these accounts were inactive; 40% had never sent a single tweet. There are around 10 to 15 million "active" Twitter accounts.

Reputation Management:BP and Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico

– Was BP oil spill the world’s worst PR disaster? – Fake BP Public Relations Twitter Account a Viral

Hit– BP Oil Spill Response Parodies Flood YouTube

– BP has purchased Google and Yahoo search terms in order to influence consumers’ views on the oil spill

BlendTech Marketing on YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAl28d6tbko&feature=player_embedded#!

YouTube:“United Breaks Guitars”

http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/ubg/song1/

Other ...

Obama’s Presidential Campaign

Government and Social Media

Email is important!

– Email is needed and complements social media – What happens when you sign up to network?

– What happens when you buy a product online?

– What happens when you receive a DM on Twitter?

– 92% of adult Internet users send or read email more than regularly visit any social network

– email marketing outperforms virtually all other media in terms of ROI

Liz Azyan,www.lgeoresearch.com]

Remember Google Wave?

Creating links between social media and e-mail marketing provides more ways for people to share

[Liz

Azyan,www.lgeoresearch.com]

Mobile phones / Tablets

Location-based services:Foursquare teams with Starbucks

Barista badge

Mobile coupons

Social Media ROI[Erik Qualman, Socialnomics]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypmfs3z8esI

Investment in social media still modest*

*Social media and Online PR Report 2010 by Econsultancy, September 2010

10 ways to measure social media success

1. Traffic

2. Interaction

3. Sales

4. Leads

5. Search marketing

6. Brand metrics

7. PR

8. Customer engagement

9. Retention

10. Profits [Econsultancy.com]

The marriage of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimization (SMO)

Tools to Monitor you Social Media Accounts

References

– Electronic Commerce 2010:Global Edition, 6/E, Efraim Turban, Jae

K. Lee, David King, Ting Peng Liang.

– Mashable Social Media Guide

http://mashable.com/social-media/

– http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/twitter/7782888/Spoof-

Twitter-account-that-mocks-BP-over-oil-spill-wins-more-followers-

than-real-thing.html