I thought I'd take a moment to talk about social media.
Social media has had a few years under its belt now and I've got to say, while it has value, such value is nowhere near as high as its perceived value.
Take Twitter for instance. Yes, twitter is great but what impact is it really having in the real world? The easiest way to assess this, in my opinion, is to look at Twitter activity.
It's quite a shocking thing to do. Let's look at the one statistic that matters, people following tweets...
@ nikestore has 43,343 followers
@ blackberry has 204,174 followers (Research in Motion)
@ McDonalds has 80,152 followers
@ EA has 433,227 followers (Electronic Arts)
@ Cisco has 46,474 followers
@ CNN has 1.5 million followers
@ WSJ has 600,218 followers (Wall Street Journal)
@ britney spears has 6.6 million followers
@ barackobama has 6.3 million followers
@ sarahpalinusa has 384,953 followers
@ pmharper has 79,797 followers (Canada's Prime Minister)
Ok, that's probably enough examples.
Now, while the numbers might at first seem high I think we have to look deeper.
Corporate Tweeting
Take Nike, RIM, McDonalds and Cisco. Each of these companies has millions (plural with an 's') of customers. As I write this two pieces of my clothing that I'm wearing are Nike. I'd be willing to bet that 90 per cent of people in North America have at least one piece of Nike clothing in their closet.
So while 43,343 followers is impressive, it likely represents less than one per cent of their customer base. Actually, probably somewhere in the order of one per cent OF one per cent.
Same goes for Cisco, RIM or McDonalds. RIM makes over 100,000 phones every single day! So while 204,174 followers is great, it still represents less than one per cent of people out there in the world using their phones.
So if 99 per cent of customers could care less about Twitter, then just how valuable is it?
Well, it definitely has value because a lot of those followers are likely key stakeholders - investors, journalists, analysts, CTO's, employees, potential employees, etc.
So there's value there, but is that how we see twitter? Do we see it as a key stakeholder communications tool or a macro 'all publics' tool. I think it's definitely the later, but in reality, it's value is the former.
If you look at RIM's twitter page it's filled with a hodge-podge of items. A lot of entries are targeted at end users it seems (remember, far less than one per cent of their customer base is actually reading their tweets).
So we've got companies tweeting to their customers, but hardly any of their customers are listening on Twitter.
Meanwhile, the same companies (and I'm not inferring any of the above mentioned companies) are probably pulling resources away from traditional stakeholder relations activities in order to engage in social media, but not pushing out targeted information that would suit those key stakeholders.
So basically twitter is what it appear to be, a dumping ground for information and an open invitation for anyone who wants to follow that information dump. Which doesn't make Twitter bad, but it does make us seriously call in to question just how important something like Twitter is to public relations and brand equity (it's important, but just how important is the question).
And we should also perhaps ask, just how much of our interest in Twitter is ego based? When we issue a news release it's not as personal. When we tweet we get to say to ourselves 'Wow, what I just said, 44,000 people just read." Great, but what about the other 99 per cent of your publics that have no clue you said anything?
Media Tweeting
When we look at media, they get pretty high traffic. Not surprising as lots of people like to know when news breaks. And 1.5 million CNN followers is probably a little over one per cent of their regular viewership... while still under two per cent, it's still a lot higher than corporations experience.
Celebrity Tweeting
Where we see some real twitter effects is on the personality front. Spears and Obama each have over six million followers. That's a pretty amazing following and has tremendous value in terms of PR and brand equity - if I were them I'd ask everyone to send me one dollar! ;)
But we also see that superstardom must come before Twitter stardom. Even Sarah Palin who we all know, has under 400,000 followers. The Prime Minister of Canada has only 80,000 (for you non-Canadians, Canada's population is over 34 million).
Even for Obama though (the leader of the free world!), his followers are still well below one per cent of the American populous (forget the entire planet).
So for a single individual Twitter is definitely a major branding tool if, and only if, they are already known worldwide. But just as often, even for those who already have a high public profile, Twitter connects them with less than one per cent of the people they are trying to communicate with.
Social Media - value versus perceived value
I know I've only used Twitter as an example in this post (we could also talk about blogs, YouTube, Flickr, etc.), but that's mostly because Twitter is the most popular of all the social media services.
What we have to ask ourselves in conclusion is what is the value of social media?
It takes time to manage a Twitter account. Imagine having to pull and manage all that information from within RIM and post it every day. Then you also have to follow responses to your tweets and evaluate the impact your tweeting is having on your brand. While tweeting seems simple, it's still time consuming - and all of this to connect with less than one per cent of your publics.
In comparison, one article in the Globe and Mail hits nearly one million subscribers. If you include pass-along readership we can estimate up to five-million folks. Not only that, but an article in the Globe and Mail is read by other media outlets and often will spark further media coverage, reaching potentially millions more.
A news release from Nike probably hits most major media outlets and hits millions (plural) of people, exponentially more than their Twitter account does.
While Obama may have six million followers, billions of people receive their Obama-related info from non-Twitter sources.
The conclusion we have to reach is that Twitter has value, but not nearly as much value as we perceive it to have. And by no means should it, or other social media channels for that matter, ever supersede traditional media relations, analyst relations, public relations, corporate communications or marketing endeavors.
Recommendations
So should you tell your management team that you shouldn't tweet? No, of course not. Just put social media in its proper place.
Either target your Twitter account to key stakeholders (and manage content appropriately) or position it as simply an information-dump vehicle. An SMS version of your Web site.
I wish I could say position it as a preferred choice of certain stakeholders (but you simply can't say that, because you are arguing a commitment of resources based on less than one per cent of stakeholders and ignoring the other 99 per cent that other efforts could be undertaken to reach).
And while your management team might be eager to start tweeting, make sure they understand that the real ROI to your brand equity will come through traditional communications activities. While they are much harder and time consuming, they also reap far greater rewards.
It's a big mistake to oversell social media to your management team. Sell it by all means, use it, engage it, but not at the cost of other communications activities.
"Cisco has a Twitter account, why don't we?" might be the question you get asked. Your answer should be "We can get one up, but do you want to resource that activity based on reaching less than one per cent of our publics? Because realistically we'd be lucky to achieve that level of penetration."
Then turn around and say "Any chance we could get another body to augment our current communications activities that are geared at reaching all our publics?"
I know right now we are in the midst of a 'social media movement', which means lots and lots of hype. And the easiest thing to do is jump on the bandwagon and over-hype the importance of having a Twitter account to your management team. But if you are looking out for their best interests, even if it means telling them something they don't want to hear, then you have to set them straight on how social media needs to be viewed.
Valuable? Yes.
As valuable as everyone thinks? Not a chance.
Over Hyped? More than the housing bubble was.
If you've got your traditional communications operations running smoothly and efficiently and have the extra staff to engage in social media, fantastic. But if you don't, then get your traditional processes up to speed first, because while turning your back on social media might be painful, the real damage occurs when you turn your back on traditional communications activities.
Social media has had a few years under its belt now and I've got to say, while it has value, such value is nowhere near as high as its perceived value.
Take Twitter for instance. Yes, twitter is great but what impact is it really having in the real world? The easiest way to assess this, in my opinion, is to look at Twitter activity.
It's quite a shocking thing to do. Let's look at the one statistic that matters, people following tweets...
@ nikestore has 43,343 followers
@ blackberry has 204,174 followers (Research in Motion)
@ McDonalds has 80,152 followers
@ EA has 433,227 followers (Electronic Arts)
@ Cisco has 46,474 followers
@ CNN has 1.5 million followers
@ WSJ has 600,218 followers (Wall Street Journal)
@ britney spears has 6.6 million followers
@ barackobama has 6.3 million followers
@ sarahpalinusa has 384,953 followers
@ pmharper has 79,797 followers (Canada's Prime Minister)
Ok, that's probably enough examples.
Now, while the numbers might at first seem high I think we have to look deeper.
Corporate Tweeting
Take Nike, RIM, McDonalds and Cisco. Each of these companies has millions (plural with an 's') of customers. As I write this two pieces of my clothing that I'm wearing are Nike. I'd be willing to bet that 90 per cent of people in North America have at least one piece of Nike clothing in their closet.
So while 43,343 followers is impressive, it likely represents less than one per cent of their customer base. Actually, probably somewhere in the order of one per cent OF one per cent.
Same goes for Cisco, RIM or McDonalds. RIM makes over 100,000 phones every single day! So while 204,174 followers is great, it still represents less than one per cent of people out there in the world using their phones.
So if 99 per cent of customers could care less about Twitter, then just how valuable is it?
Well, it definitely has value because a lot of those followers are likely key stakeholders - investors, journalists, analysts, CTO's, employees, potential employees, etc.
So there's value there, but is that how we see twitter? Do we see it as a key stakeholder communications tool or a macro 'all publics' tool. I think it's definitely the later, but in reality, it's value is the former.
If you look at RIM's twitter page it's filled with a hodge-podge of items. A lot of entries are targeted at end users it seems (remember, far less than one per cent of their customer base is actually reading their tweets).
So we've got companies tweeting to their customers, but hardly any of their customers are listening on Twitter.
Meanwhile, the same companies (and I'm not inferring any of the above mentioned companies) are probably pulling resources away from traditional stakeholder relations activities in order to engage in social media, but not pushing out targeted information that would suit those key stakeholders.
So basically twitter is what it appear to be, a dumping ground for information and an open invitation for anyone who wants to follow that information dump. Which doesn't make Twitter bad, but it does make us seriously call in to question just how important something like Twitter is to public relations and brand equity (it's important, but just how important is the question).
And we should also perhaps ask, just how much of our interest in Twitter is ego based? When we issue a news release it's not as personal. When we tweet we get to say to ourselves 'Wow, what I just said, 44,000 people just read." Great, but what about the other 99 per cent of your publics that have no clue you said anything?
Media Tweeting
When we look at media, they get pretty high traffic. Not surprising as lots of people like to know when news breaks. And 1.5 million CNN followers is probably a little over one per cent of their regular viewership... while still under two per cent, it's still a lot higher than corporations experience.
Celebrity Tweeting
Where we see some real twitter effects is on the personality front. Spears and Obama each have over six million followers. That's a pretty amazing following and has tremendous value in terms of PR and brand equity - if I were them I'd ask everyone to send me one dollar! ;)
But we also see that superstardom must come before Twitter stardom. Even Sarah Palin who we all know, has under 400,000 followers. The Prime Minister of Canada has only 80,000 (for you non-Canadians, Canada's population is over 34 million).
Even for Obama though (the leader of the free world!), his followers are still well below one per cent of the American populous (forget the entire planet).
So for a single individual Twitter is definitely a major branding tool if, and only if, they are already known worldwide. But just as often, even for those who already have a high public profile, Twitter connects them with less than one per cent of the people they are trying to communicate with.
Social Media - value versus perceived value
I know I've only used Twitter as an example in this post (we could also talk about blogs, YouTube, Flickr, etc.), but that's mostly because Twitter is the most popular of all the social media services.
What we have to ask ourselves in conclusion is what is the value of social media?
It takes time to manage a Twitter account. Imagine having to pull and manage all that information from within RIM and post it every day. Then you also have to follow responses to your tweets and evaluate the impact your tweeting is having on your brand. While tweeting seems simple, it's still time consuming - and all of this to connect with less than one per cent of your publics.
In comparison, one article in the Globe and Mail hits nearly one million subscribers. If you include pass-along readership we can estimate up to five-million folks. Not only that, but an article in the Globe and Mail is read by other media outlets and often will spark further media coverage, reaching potentially millions more.
A news release from Nike probably hits most major media outlets and hits millions (plural) of people, exponentially more than their Twitter account does.
While Obama may have six million followers, billions of people receive their Obama-related info from non-Twitter sources.
The conclusion we have to reach is that Twitter has value, but not nearly as much value as we perceive it to have. And by no means should it, or other social media channels for that matter, ever supersede traditional media relations, analyst relations, public relations, corporate communications or marketing endeavors.
Recommendations
So should you tell your management team that you shouldn't tweet? No, of course not. Just put social media in its proper place.
Either target your Twitter account to key stakeholders (and manage content appropriately) or position it as simply an information-dump vehicle. An SMS version of your Web site.
I wish I could say position it as a preferred choice of certain stakeholders (but you simply can't say that, because you are arguing a commitment of resources based on less than one per cent of stakeholders and ignoring the other 99 per cent that other efforts could be undertaken to reach).
And while your management team might be eager to start tweeting, make sure they understand that the real ROI to your brand equity will come through traditional communications activities. While they are much harder and time consuming, they also reap far greater rewards.
It's a big mistake to oversell social media to your management team. Sell it by all means, use it, engage it, but not at the cost of other communications activities.
"Cisco has a Twitter account, why don't we?" might be the question you get asked. Your answer should be "We can get one up, but do you want to resource that activity based on reaching less than one per cent of our publics? Because realistically we'd be lucky to achieve that level of penetration."
Then turn around and say "Any chance we could get another body to augment our current communications activities that are geared at reaching all our publics?"
I know right now we are in the midst of a 'social media movement', which means lots and lots of hype. And the easiest thing to do is jump on the bandwagon and over-hype the importance of having a Twitter account to your management team. But if you are looking out for their best interests, even if it means telling them something they don't want to hear, then you have to set them straight on how social media needs to be viewed.
Valuable? Yes.
As valuable as everyone thinks? Not a chance.
Over Hyped? More than the housing bubble was.
If you've got your traditional communications operations running smoothly and efficiently and have the extra staff to engage in social media, fantastic. But if you don't, then get your traditional processes up to speed first, because while turning your back on social media might be painful, the real damage occurs when you turn your back on traditional communications activities.
This article was beyond informative and right on the money. You clearly get the industry and I commend that. As someone who spent years in PR it is refreshing so see there are people in the industry not completely blinded by the glits and glam that these "amazing" sites offer. I've spoken to many marketers and brand reps who have stated that they use sites like Facebook and Twitter because they have to. They are waiting for something better fit to pop up. I am a co-founder of ConvoNation.com what we plan to do is create TRUE value for brands to inhabit. With what you have written here I urge you to check it out. We'd love to have you as Thought Leader on the site.
ReplyDeleteGreat read.
Hi Adam... thanks for the kind words. I'll check out ConvoNation this weekend. I just signed up and it looks interesting, I can see the potential (especially with the dashboard helping users track conversations).
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that there has to be 'something next' when it comes to social media. The big barrier that I see right now is the resources it would take to build a back-end database and information management system that could do the job (not to mention collaboration among social networking companies).
Really what we need is an 'open converagence' portal of some kind - where all 'Web' social media tools are converged in to a central interface... msn, skype, linkedin, facebook, twitter, flickr, etc.
But I don't see that happening any time soon given that each major company in the space is more focused on staking out and building out their own community of users (the more users the more the company gets valuated at).
Who knows, this could end up being their downfall in the long run. YouTube recently announced that they were launching a live broadcast service on YouTube. As each of these outlets keeps building out their offering, it's only a matter of time until they have to start incorporating the features of other vendors. At which point Skype, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, etc., could all end up looking very similar to each other.