Past
It’s wrong to characterise what’s commonly called ‘social media’ as something which has emerged in the past 5 years or so and it’s worth remembering that many of the characteristics of social media have been prevalent online almost since inception: forums, chatrooms and newsgroups have a long heritage, the first wiki was born in 1995, the Cluetrain Manifesto and Friends Reunited (the first online social network to find a mass Market in the UK) launched in 1999 and blogging in a recognisable form has existed since the mid-90s. In many ways, the social media values of transparency, conversation and user value are the values of the World Wide Web itself.

Present
So, it’s not really new. Two developments have brought social media to the fore more recently. Firstly, the mass use of sites such as Facebook, Bebo, Myspace and Youtube (to name but a few) represents ‘normalisation’ so using social media tools is no longer niche (that said there is still a great divide between the use of ‘normal’ social media and more advanced services). Secondly, business is definitely taking notice and knows that there’s an opportunity to be grasped and exploited, even if there is some confusion about what that opportunity actually is.

And yet, according to HitWise only 10% of UK traffic is going to social media. Twitter, despite the hype, and massive growth in recent months only takes about 0.67% of the total. Facebook only recently overtook eBay in terms of visitors. Often ignored in the space are the large media organisations, notably the Guardian and the Telegraph. The BBC, in particular, must be the most influential (if not innovative) player with widespread use of blogs, forums, podcasts and UGC. Moreover, through the promotion of these features on air, the Beeb has been a vital educator, introducing millions to social media.

It is tempting to overstate the importance, influence, and revolutionary nature of social media. I believe that social media can be transformational to individuals and organisations and has the power to enhance business, politics and society. However, its influence is less in the technology itself but rather in the ‘mindset shift’ it can enable. Using Facebook or Twitter in itself isn’t enough. The benefits come from embracing the social media values of conversation, transparency, collaboration and providing greater value to users/customers.

The Curse of ‘Cool’
The net industry, pundits and tech journalists are prone to be inward-looking and blinkered, concentrating on niche products, cool and new technology whilst sneering at the commercial success and popularity of other sites. It’s notable that Martin Lewis with his MoneySavingExpert.com community (which has active forums and relies on UGC) is enjoying phenomenal success and yet is virtually ignored by the netocracy despite representing ‘best practice’. Darling of Web 2.0 circuit Dopplr is a miniscule service for frequent business travellers, and whilst beautifully engineered and delightfully designed, it shouldn’t be held in higher esteem than profitable, less cool brands.

Equally, the media and industry are prone to consider social media a vital link to younger audiences when the figures suggest otherwise. Contrary to received wisdom, more than half of the MySpace and Facebook audiences are over 35, and both have more female users than male. There is also a risk of transposing UK/Western trends on the rest of the world. Social media usage in Asia and South America (to name two massive and growing audiences) is completely different to that in Britain or USA.

One of the biggest risks of using social media, specifically as a marketing and communications channel, is the the reason then failure seems motivation. If ‘being cool’ or doing it ‘because we must’ is likely.

Future Growth
Obviously, the social media audience is going to grow in the next few years and the sophistication of the audience is going to increase too (some say that ‘digital natives’ are so savvy that they blank out commercial messages altogether.) The recession will probably see people using the net more as they go out less or try and save money online. However, as many social networks struggle to monetise, it seems likely that businesses promoting themselves online will be squeezed to cough up more. This will mean that honest, inventive marketing will be required if social media is to be a transformational channel.

Social Media and Media Agencies
Any organisation working on marketing or branding needs to have an eye on social media. It cannot be ignored but neither should it be hyped or peddled as a panacea. It’s interesting to note that many businesses making successful strides are SMEs or individuals. Stephen Fry is a good example of someone who successfully enhances his personal brand online using not just Twitter but blogging and podcasts. Moo.com and 37 signals use a rack of options to communicate with their very loyal userbases. This is surely because smaller organisations have an authentic and compelling voice.

Some bigger brands have been successful too: Dell provides discounts to Twitter followers. Walkers ‘Do us a flavour’ campaign has successfully integrated social media with traditional offline marketing and a great concept. Innocent Smoothies practice ‘radical’ transparency and amplify their trustworthy, chatty brand online with their blog and Twitter feed. BT communicate directluy with customers via @btcare on Twitter.

There is great value in reaching out to smaller communities where opinion formers and early adopters are found. Equally bigger, focussed communities (MoneySavingExpert springs to mind again) offer a valuable audience. But the tendency is to ‘broadcast’. Work I have done with PR people is instructive. PRs like control, and, even the most decent, have key messages and a script they don’t want people to stray from. Bloggers, for instance, are often perceived as dangerous, unprofessional and untrained: read as ‘harder to control and influence than press journalists’.

The Client Challenge
From work I’ve done with bigger brands, I’d say that there’s lots of keen, but not enough willing. To make social media marketing work, it’s necessary to give up some control and allow people a voice. There is concern about criticism. Bigger organisations are also not built to take part in a conversation. Legal approval, a nod from the Head of Marketing and screening by investor relations does not make it easy to respond. Brands and organisations have to flex a little to make social media forays successful. Part of a media agency’s skillset needs to be persuading and coaxing that change out of clients.

Social Media isn’t a ‘Dark Art’
Within a media agency, the social media offer opportunities that can and should be integrated in campaigns and projects. Indeed, sometimes social media can be the lead channel but treating it with too much reverence, mystery or magic is to overstate its possible impact.

To integrate social media effectively the people within an agency, at all levels, need to be conversant and confident users. It should be normal and every day. Social media should be on the minds of everyone during all stages of the creative process. It shouldn’t be a ‘plug-in’ or a specialism limited to a few individuals. When an agency and its people are successfully consuming and conversing using social media with the same ease as TV, radio and newspapers it can effectively sell the benefits to clients.

Links:
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2009/02/twitter_enters_top_100_websites.html
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/robin-goad/2008/12/facebook_youtube_christmas_social_networking.html

The idea sprang from the Brighton Future of News group. Spearheaded by the pioneering Online Editor of the Brighton Argus Jo Wadsworth, with Sarah Marshall and Steve Bustin, the map is a collaborative experiment to share the political conversations candidates have with voters in the relative privacy of the doorstep and away from the prying eyes of the media.

It’s a good idea and I wouldn’t be surprised if the aim was to expose possible discrepancies between what candidates say publicly and ‘privately’: that’s a good thing. We’re not yet 24 hours into the experiment and what do we see?

When the map was first published the Greens had a tiny handful of flags (3?) and a party apparatchik has spent some time in the past day adding those little green flags. Tory candidate Charlotte Vere told me on Twitter that her ‘flag count’ grew because she was “just including the points from my own map.” Labour candidate Nancy Platts has only used Twitter to add her red flags.

Can the best efforts of a local newspaper experimenting with social media, keen to report one of the most fascinating electoral races in the country, usefully shape a tight run race? I do hope so. If 2010 is the first ‘social media’ General Election, a map such as this with genuine input from voters represents a fine way for people to raise issues and offer perspectives on the campaigns. Politics isn’t just about broadcasting, I venture. It’s a conversation.

So far, from what I’ve seen, nobody unrelated to the three local campaigns has contributed to the Argus map. That’s a real shame.

As I have often said to businesses large and small over the years, the social media secret is letting go. Give up control and let other people chart the course of your journey. Even to someone like me involved in politics, this map shouldn’t be yet another channel we use to skew the discussion by showing how omnipresent and marvellous the parties are. It must be an opportunity to listen. Let’s follow the roadmap rather than draw it. Just for once.

This map will be all the more informative and intriguing if the party people leave it alone and ensure it’s a forum and outlet for the people that matter to express a view. I think we should let democracy breathe. I’m looking forward to day two… and three… and beyond…

Disclosure: I am a rank and file member of the Labour Party in Brighton Pavilion. These ain't nobody’s views but my own.

If you haven’t heard about Small Business 2.0, it’s a day dedicated to small businesses who want to get a bit of online action and develop their biz. That could be building a brilliant website, ecommerce, search marketing, SEO (search engine optimisation) social media, email marketing and all the rest. If we had a motto it would be “there are no stupid questions” because we recognise that plenty of small firms haven’t even begun to seriously exploit the online opportunity.

So what have we got at SB2 this time? Loads!

- Richard Kanareck from eBay will be in the house talking about developments there.
- The simply wonderful Emma Jones from Enterprise Nation will be hosting some of the sessions and be on hand to help out.
- The BT Tradespace team are sponsoring the event and the brilliant Ivan Croxford will be speaking.
- And we’ll have people on hand to talk Google, Bing, SEO and the rest from our host of exhibitors.
- And plenty more. It’ll only set you back a mere tenner.

It’s a good time to think about embracing the web, I reckon. Turning over a new leaf and learning new things is what January is all about. And the atmosphere at SB2 is good. We keep it informal and discourage the hard sell. Yes, we want to connect SMEs with service providers… but who said it can’t be a fun experience? There’s a bar this time so hopefully the time honoured British tradition of doing business over a pint will be in evidence too! People who came last time said they had a great day. Networking is definitely part of the fun and we can facilitate that if you’re shy.

And obviously I’ll be there. So it would be good to catch up. Incidentally we have a few spots for exhibitors left and if you’ve got a topic close to your heart we may be able to squeeze in a short talk or two. I may even have a few freebie tickets knocking around if you ask nicely.

Hopefully see you there.

Make a small grammatical error
It’s late. A glass of wine may have been taken. It could be the middle of the day and you just didn’t proof your comment in the forum properly. You were just in a rush. It doesn’t matter: there are no excuses in the eyes of your members. Be it a typo or a slapdash grammatical error, nothing gets them going more than a mistake. A mistake they can leap on and attack you for. In any case, it will cause a fuss and that’s great for traffic.

Someone will say: “This is typical of the contempt the moderators hold us in.”
Most likely historical comparison: This is how Rome fell. First grammar and then the empire. It’s a slippery slope!

Change something
Every community needs a refresh or a tweak now and then. It could be the colour scheme or the position of a button or two. Or it could be a total overhaul undertaken with the collaboration and consultation of the community itself. It doesn’t really matter: if you change something (anything), people will erupt in outrage. The stats will look great!

Someone will say: "If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it."
Most likely historical comparison: The rearrangment of the deckchairs on the Titanic.

Break something
It happens. It might be a routine update or a site wide upgrade. It doesn’t really matter. Sometimes something will go wrong and there will be an uprising. Every reassurance and platitude that all is well will be met with suspicion. Everyone will wonder what the conspiracy is.

Someone will say: "They’re up to something. They’re meddling. Mark my words. Something is going on. They’re lying."
Most likely historical comparison: Watergate.

Justifiably ban a popular member
Sometimes it’s totally essential. A much loved, popular and valuable member just crosses the line. Maybe it’s the last straw or it could be a one-off but serious infraction. Everyone will have a view. Fans, friends and even foes will emerge from the woodwork to protest: you can bank on it. The debate will be lively and the metrics very healthy.

Someone will say: "I disagree with what you say but will defend to the death your right to say it."
Most likely historical comparison: Nazi Germany.

Initiate a discussion about the moderation rules/code of conduct
It’s time for a refresh and review of the forum rules and obviously you want to consult the community. It’s a can of worms and you just opened it. Expect the airing of ancient grievances, the citing of unfair and incorrect moderation decisions dating back years and a huge suspicion that you’re only interested in stifling debate and silencing criticism. This is a discussion that’s just going to run and run.

Someone will say: "Whatever happened to free speech? We’re being censored!"
Most likely historical comparison: Nazi Germany/Stalinist Russia.

Announce you’re closing the forum
Nothing gets your usage numbers going through the roof more than announcing you’re going to close the forum. For months, your community might have been like a deserted wild, western town with tumbleweed blowing across the high street… but mention that you’re taking it away and… WHOOSH… every member you haven’t seen for years is back expressing their concern and mentioning the First Amendment.

Someone will say: “You want to silence us! We shall not be moved.”
Most likely historical comparison: Nazi Germany/Stalinist Russia/Communist China.

Image Credit: National Library NZ on The Commons.

Pew Internet provide this fascinating graph charting how various activities have changed online over the past few years. Rather boringly, I think the most interesting perspective is simply that people are using the net more and accessing email. But you may well disagree.

One of my usual rants regards how irritatingly inward looking net folk are. I totally agree with Blackbeard Blog's idea that plenty of offline experiences can inform online activity, especially when you're a community manager. One of my favourite sources of community wisdom is a builder.

If someone is threatening to kill themselves in your forum, you should send them an email. That's the advice of this piece from Managing Communities called "Dealing with Suicide On Your Online Community or Forums: How You Can Help and Protect Everyone". This article should have been called: "Washing your hands of all responsibility and pleasing your legal director when faced with suicide." It's practical, considered, cold and inhuman. If I had followed this advice in the past, I'd still be eating myself up about not going with my gut. I'd also have a dead community member haunting me.

I like this diagram from Next Engine, even if it doesn't explain everything and is grandly described as How Communities Really Behave. But the sentiment is right... you're not in control.

Teens don't like Twitter. And that's a very useful reminder that when it comes to online communities it can be a case of horses for courses. Matthew Robson, the 15 year old intern at Morgan Stanley provided interesting reading. But I wouldn't base a business strategy on his note.

I’ve been doing my bit for transparency and democracy in the last day or so, using the Guardian's crowdsourcing tool to scour the thousands of documents related to MP expenses.

I’ve reviewed just over 300 pages. It's taken me a fair few hours. Here are a few reflections.

• Great swathes of documents are tedious and I’m more keenly appreciative of what the Telegraph achieved when they reviewed the documents. Regarding the expenses themselves, there’s a lot of stationery. Outrageous amounts of stationery.
• There’s a lot of blacking out, but for the most part, the nature and amount of the documents is clear. Only a few are totally meaningless with some of the information redacted.
• Claiming for food (often up to £400 monthly max permitted) without receipts isn’t rare and an extraordinary perk. But more seriously, monthly claims for £250 petty cash without paperwork seem commonplace. For perspective, Jobseeker’s Allowance is £64.30 a week.
• I found a few fun claims: £860 sofabed, £200 deckchairs and for reasons unknown an XL hi -vis jacket for a tenner. Safety first.

On a more geeky bent, and whilst totally supporting the Guardian’s brilliant initiative, the tool needs some tweaking. Of course, it’s been launched with remarkable speed but things like choosing the date are terribly cumbersome. Also, with such a volume of documents, I would appreciate a quicker way of flagging the numerous boring and uninteresting pages. Classifying a document adequately as a claim form coversheet of no interest takes 3 clicks. That’s two too many.
I agree with much of what That Canadian Girl and Paul Bradshaw have written but this is only day two and we’re something like 10% through the task in hand. The gauges showing how many, and what percentage, of documents have been reviewed in total and by MP are fun.  It’s a very engaging way of visualising progress and certainly spurred me on to complete certain sets of documents.

But if I’m going to do 300 more documents I need a bit of loving. I’d welcome a chance to communicate with other reviewers to share best practice (that could be a forum or a wiki) because I have passed over a fair few documents because I don’t really know what to do with them. There’s perhaps also scope for a tool to flag tricky pages to others for peer review.

Also, let’s see some sort of league table of reviewers. Let’s unleash the competitive streak: I am desperate to know whether I’m a low-level reviewer or a whizz. It would be nice too if the Guardian could keep us reviewers up to date with an email letting us know how it’s going. I don’t have a meaningful sense of what the Guardian is going to do with the info and if I had a better notion I might be more active.

Day one of this crowdsourcing experiment was getting it started and keeping the wheels on and this morning thousands of more documents have been made available. But even with many hands making light work, this is going to take some time and I look forward to the Guardian honing and improving the way they’re engaging, recognising and communicating with the crowd who is making this all possible.

So when I discovered Councillor Kitcat was on Twitter, I obviously followed him. I have also read his blog for some time and also subscribed to the RSS feed. Nothing unusual there. I follow a load of people on Twitter and spend time every day keeping up with the vibrant chat and tweets of the people I follow. I wouldn’t do it otherwise. I also follow dozens of bloggers via RSS. It’s fun to read what folk say. I also try and reply to posts that provoke me to do so.

Obviously, this is relevant to the work I do but more importantly I get so much out of it. As far as I’m concerned, if you join up to Twitter, start blogging and reading blogs then you’ve joined a conversation. It shouldn’t be a chore and it isn’t compulsory.

But vitally, it isn’t about simply broadcasting. I could cite the Cluetrain Manifesto or just good old-fashioned manners. But I won’t. I’ll tell you why I’m in on it: I find it enriching. I love to find out what people are doing, enjoy the information and insight. I’m not waiting for people to come to me. I get out there and listen to what they’re saying. Different and challenging opinions are the bread and butter of social media.

I recently asked Councillor Kitcat why he only follows 21 people (those 21 are mostly Greens or the ‘usual Twitter suspects’). He is followed by more than 100 and also solicits Twitter followers on his blog.

He replied: "@wilsondan I'm trying to avoid school disco type popularity contest aspects of Twitter. Is it better to follow & ignore or not follow?"

I needless to say replied: "Idea: @jasonkitcat Why not consider & respond to the people you represent? Or are constituents just kids at a school disco, Sir? #brighton"

I though his final response was really rather telling: "@wilsondan I converse every single day by email, phone and post. Should I also subscribe to every RSS feed of residents who blog?"

To answer Kitcat’s question with another: why not? I’m following him. I read his blog posts. He is soliciting readers via his blog. And seeking followers on Flickr and YouTube. He is also seeking our votes. So why not proactively sign up to read and enjoy Brighton’s bloggers? This city is blessed with many brilliant talents, voices and characters he might enjoy. This city is home to a myriad businesses (many in his ward) who blog and tweet and converse. He may enjoy that too. I certainly do. I learn so much.

Councillor Kitcat is recompensed and required to converse with his constituents via email, phone and letter. He sought that responsibility. He is not shy about making his views known in the local newspaper. But it would be ever so classy if he also proactively listened and responded rather than just waiting for us to come to him. Why not sign up to some RSS feeds? Enjoy the tweets of the people of Brighton!

This Internet social web 2.0 thing is a conversation. It’s so much more than 'the Kitcat Channel'. It’s about being a human and using your human voice. And if anyone doesn't like that, don’t do it. But, alas, to Councillor Kitcat, we’re just kids at the school disco chattering inanely. Maybe he sees himself as the teacher, keeping us all in check?

Stephen Fry is a geek. The second man (after Douglas Adams) in Europe to own an Apple Mac, he's long enthused about technology (ever since I was a boy) and long websited, blogged, podcasted and more recently Twittered prolifically. This is a man who has nearly 100k followers on Twitter. That's love. That's credibility.

John Prescott is 70 and rightfully proud of his recent conversion to the internet. In the past few months he's taken to 'the Facebook' with enthusiasm and verve: he told us proudly that he was going to become a granddad one Sunday afternoon and shared his brilliant wife Pauline's birthday party pics only last week.

And in the past few days both have had their personal online credibility punctured by critics. Robert Scoble accused (and later retracted) Stephen Fry of emplying a social media agency to twitter on his behalf. The agency, we are social, rebutted the accusation forcefully. Scoble apologized.

Notable British Conservative blogger Iain Dale questioned, with typical civility, whether it was actually John Prescott himself blogging and Facebooking. Prezza, in his imitable style, put the record straight on YouTube. Dale took it all back.

As a follower of Fry on Twitter and one of Prezza's friends' on Facebook, I never doubted either. Fry was too personal and frequent to be false and Prescott too sent emails that were quite simply him. In short: they were both authentic. What a shame that it was ever doubted.

Fry employs an agency to help him (and with his following who can blame him) and makes all his tweets personally.* Prescott is open that he has expertise at his disposal, but that doesn't matter because evidently the words are his own. Both spoke with their own unfiltered, personal voices. And that's all that matters. It's a great example to everybody, everywhere: be yourself.

* Except last night when he told us he was handing the reins over to his webmaster Andrew while he was speaking at the Apple Store in London. I only add this footnote because if I don't, it will be pointed out.

The Faceparty Hissy Fit
A sense of humour failure from the people behind Faceparty resulted in, quite simply, the most breathtakingly arrogant attack ever seen by a community host on a community, I've ever seen. Funny, sure. But a really useful reminder to keep smiling and not publish anything while you're angry. We've all written stuff like this and circulated it to colleagues for a giggle. But publish it? Not so much.

Drudge Blows Harry's Cover
The Palace thought they could keep Harry's presence in Afghanistan a secret by striking a good old-fashioned agreement with editors and publishers. They reckoned without Drudge who broke the story and served as a useful reminder of the increasing importance of bloggers and how the 'old media' ways might not work in the 21st Century.

http://crooksandliars.com/2008/02/28/countdowndrudge-report-blows-prince-harrys-cover-in-afghanistan

Mayhill Fowler, Obama and Elitism
The story of how Obama-activist Mayhill Fowler struggled with her conscience about whether to publish comments made by Obama regarding how smalltown folk cling to 'god and guns' on a Huffington blog illustrated how the lines between bloggers and journalist are blurring. Apparently fundraisers have always been 'off the record'. Not any more.

Burmese Blogger imprisoned for 20 years
Nay Phone Latt was sentenced to 20 years in prison for publishing a cartoon critical of the regime online. Not everyone is as free as we are.

The BNP membership Mash-ups
The BNP lose their membership list and before you can say 'racist bastards' it's all over the web and geeks had shared it and started mashing it up. Some of the BNP maps were better than others. This episode highlighted two things. In the popular media, the net is seen as the wild west where civil concerns for privacy and politeness are not observed. Secondly, a geek with a bone will get on and do their thing asap and reflect on whether they should only as a secondary concern.

Flickr and Twitter come of age in Mumbai
As the drama and horror of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai unravelled, traditional media lacked the bite and proximity of the updates people on the ground were posting on Flickr and Twitter. It was compelling and the coming of age for citizen journalism.

- Ivan Croxford looks at the problems of user reviews and star ratings.

- Better Business Blogging provide a useful perspective on Why Negative Comments are Positive.

- Quite liked these 3 absurdly easy ideas for tying together social media and email from Convince and Convert.

- Gigaom make a plausible case for how eBay stopped being recession proof.

- Chris Brogan on Peter Kim's team effort on predicting the future of Social media in 2009.