Social Mediarology

So, is social media just a fad?

There are plenty of people who still dismiss social media as useless. In fact, there are studies that show that 40% of all ‘tweets’ are pointless babble. Even though that may be true, that doesn’t diminish the power and usefulness of social media in marketing and PR today. There will always be people who don’t understand new technologies and how they can be useful, and social media is no exception. The video below has been circulating online in the past couple of weeks and it does a fantastic job of highlighting how much a part of our lives social media has become. No longer can you ignore social media, in fact, in a recent survey of Indiana Tourism entities, nearly 30% of respondents use Twitter on to promote their destination and more than 90% use Facebook.

My favorite quote in the entire presentation is:

Social Media isn’t a fad – it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.

That’s such a true statement. Social Media isn’t just a way to waste time and talk with friends about useless bits of trivia, it’s truly a new way to communicate directly with consumers, with your customers.

Some other encouraging news for the use of social media is that more 80% of US adults use social media on a monthly basis. For more information about the different types of social media use check out these posts on Groundswell):

The video below is the precursor to the other video in this post. While this one doesn’t focus on social media exclusively, there is still some pretty amazing information in here.

Groundswell

I just finished reading Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies and I can’t say enough good things about the book. Not only does it give you a great insight into the world of social media, but it gives case study upon case study about how organizations have successfully integrated different social media initiatives to varying degrees of success.

I mentioned in an earlier post about Groundswell that this book is a must-read for anyone thinking about getting involved in the groundswell, but after reading the book cover to cover, I think this should be required reading for just about every organization. We’re quickly headed in a direction that will essentially require you to be involved in the groundswell for your business. A great example given in the book mentioned that if you visited a website in 1995 and it had one header image and some text, that was pretty commonplace. If you visited that same website now, they’d be far behind the times. This is likely to be true in the not-too-distant future with groundswell technologies. If you visit a website in 5 years that doesn’t have social technologies integrated into it, they’ll seem woefully out of date.

There’s no need to fret, and you don’t have to be worried that your website is currently obsolete, you just need to read Groundswell and begin implementing some of their suggestions. If you have any questions about how your organization could begin to dip their toe into the groundswell, please feel free to ask me.

A great place to start for most tourism organizations is with Google Alerts (TTC Blog Post) and Flickr (TTC Blog Post). The Google Alerts allow you to listen to what people are saying about you and Flickr allows you to put your best foot forward and show everyone what your location is really all about.

On a personal note, I hope that everyone has a wonderful Holiday season and a Happy New Year. I’ll return in 2009 with more Tourism Tech Corner posts and more information that can help you more forward in your business. If you have any questions or recommendations for Tourism Tech Corner post topics, either leave me a note in the comments below or shoot me an email.

- Jeremy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmykFKjNpdY]

You really should watch this Motrin ad before reading the post, but here’s a brief synopsis if you choose not to.

The ad targets moms, especially moms who use baby carriers to hold their young ones. It mentions that all different types of baby carriers seem to be in style now, and although they’re supposed to be good for the baby, they’re hard on mom’s back, neck and shoulders. In the end, the mom in the ad says that the pain is alright, because “it’s a good kind of pain – it’s for my kid.” Plus, she states “it totally makes me feel like an official mom.”

Motrin launched the ad above at the end of September, but a little over a week ago (on Nov. 15th) the ad was picked up by some bloggers and all hell broke loose. The very next day (Nov. 16th) Motrin yanked the ad and responded with an apology on their website. (see this timeline for the details of how the story broke)

The comments about the story ranged from support and understanding of Motrin’s goals to anger and frustration at the tone of the ad. Some felt Motrin connected with them about a deeply personal issue – their infants. Others were insensed that Motrin would insinuate that baby carriers were simply a style statement. Others commented that if you properly wear a baby carrier, it won’t hurt your back, neck or shoulders. Here are some examples of comments that surfaced on Twitter on the 16th. Pay attention to the last comment, it sums up how social media can be used to your benefit:

Just think about that last comment for a minute. There were thousands of people contributing comments about one ad campaign. Think about the possibilities if you could harness the knowledge and opinions of that vocal minority. Social media allows you to do just that. While this campaign turned out to be a bit of a PR mess for Motrin, they’ve been able to identify thousands of people who they could use as they begin working on a new campaign. They can leverage this groundswell of consumers to float slogans or ad concepts by and get feedback BEFORE causing another Motrin-gate ‘scandal’. (more…)

Groundswell

My brother gave me a great gift for my birthday this year. He gave me Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Forrester Researchers Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. I first heard about the book back in April at TIA’s TravelCom 2008 conference in Chicago. Charlene Li was one of the speakers and her session was titled: Welcome to 2013: The Changes in Technology and Consumers that Will Affect Your Business.

Her session was one of the most enlightening at the conference and it really lit a fire in me to begin working on more social media initiatives or the “groundswell” as she calls it.

This is a book that is a must-read for anyone thinking about getting into social media, and that should be every single one of you.

Not only does the book do a great job of explaining what the groundswell is, but it also gives you a breakdown of several different “groundswell technologies” – many of which I talk about here on the Tourism Tech Corner – including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, RSS, blogs, wikis and more.

One other benefit of the book is that, as Forrester Research employees, Li and Bernoff include solid numbers in the book that you can bring to your board of directors when you’re intersted in diving into some of these groundswell technologies. It might seem a bit silly to read a book about social media seeing as how it changes so quicky, but Groundswell was published this year, so it’s surprisingly up-to-date. That being said, you can be sure that the groundswell technology penetration percentages have climbed even since the printing of the book. I just read in the book last night that 8% of US online conusmers use RSS, and I just read that Forrester’s newest research puts that number at 11% now.

If you’re not quite ready to put down the money for the book, you can check out a PDF excerpt at the Groundswell website or read (and subscribe to via RSS) the Groundswell Blog. This is a book that won’t disappoint you.