14. “The popularity of social media is
undeniable – three of the world’s
most popular brands online are
social-media related (Facebook,
YouTube and Wikipedia) and the world
now spends over 110 billion minutes
on social networks and blog sites.
This equates to 22 percent of all time
online or one in every four and half
minutes. For the first time ever, social
network or blog sites are visited by
three quarters of global consumers
who go online, after the numbers of
people visiting these sites increased
by 24% over last year. The average
visitor spends 66% more time on
these sites than a year ago, almost 6
hours in April 2010 versus 3 hours,
31 minutes last year...”
Source: Nielson
18. A teen’s social media popularity translates offline,
as teen social media influencers are 40 percent
more likely to have attended a party over the last
weekend than average teens. They also are 20
percent more likely to have had a friend visit them
at home in the last week...”
(Source: Survey of top 15% users - 10,000 in total - aged 13-19, of MyYearbook.com)
http://newsroom.ketchum.com/news-releases/teen-social-media-influencers-wield-power-online-and-offline
48. “As we enter year three, we’ve
already received 90,000 ideas
and have launched 70 of them.
Most recently – Teach Baristas to
Say “Thank You” in Sign
Language, Computer Wallpaper,
and Pour Over Brewing. We are
not slowing down. Ideas from
MSI have played an integral part
in the way we work and are part
of many of our future plans to
provide an uplifting and inspiring
Starbucks Experience...”
http://mystarbucksidea.force.com/
I’m the newly appointed Director of Digital at Edelman in London. We’re the World’s largest independent public relations firm.
When I say newly appointed, I really mean it - today is my 8th day, the second of which I’ve found myself out of the office and speaking at a conference.
I’m also a Visiting Journalism Fellow at City University London, where from time to time they wheel me out to teach post-graduate journalism students how to use social media to reach out to new audiences, find contacts and content, and build a brand for themselves.
I also worked at the BBC - twice - where I helped launch the very first message boards at the BBC, the chat service, online engagement training for journalists and producers and, in my last role there just over two years ago, was the first Head of Blogging. I left to join a small social media consultancy which, as I’ve already pointed out, I left a couple weeks ago to join Edelman.
This isn’t the first time I’ve been to Karlstad - indeed, a few years ago I spoke in this very room and, as I still had this same jacket, used the fact that I found this photo of that event as an excuse to get it dry cleaned and wear it again. It’s my favourite jacket.
At the BBC, I looked after all sorts of social media projects. This one, BBC News Online’s Have Your Say, was one that I helped through a technical and editorial transition. They ask fairly open ended questions, and get this sort of response.... (next)
So one key take away from this is that you need to think about how you will encourage participants in any social media proposition you put together to participate in a way that is beneficial both to them and to you or your aims. Open ended questions just don’t cut it most of the time, and you may find yourself flooded with stuff like this...(next)
BBC News has a ticker tape that runs along the bottom of the screen, inviting audiences to submit images of - well, whatever - to “yourpics@bbc.co.uk”. What sort of response do they get? Well, on a good day, you’ll get a few fluffy kittens playing with balls of yarn.
So anyway, the blurb about this talk sounded pretty academic and theoretical and I don’t want to risk disappointing anyone who came for that, so let’s get going...
Over the last century, most products and services have been devised based not on genuine human need, but on the basis of cost of production and revenue potential.
This means we needed mass communication to help generate desire within target markets. That’s not to say there aren’t some benefits to mass communication, or that all mass produced products or services don’t meet the needs of the audiences and consumers they are targeted at - that would be too sweeping a generalisation, but it’s true in many instances.
Regardless, the “mass” mentality has been dehumanising. Along with mass production and mass communication, we also saw, in the 20th century, far too many examples of another kind of mass - mass slaughter.
Not to forget mass extinction through global warming, a problem we may just be able to help solve by learning to be social again... but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
The point is, social media might give us - for the sake of everyone, including young people - an opportunity to experience a different life than we’ve had.