Dr. Kelly Page » Value

Getting Connected: Social Media & Marketing in a Networked Economy

Kelly Page — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 05:09:06 +0000

Last year I was asked by Cardiff University to deliver a lecture for the Cardiff Innovation Network (CIN) about Social Media and Marketing.

The request came after I’d published an article about the implications of social networking sites like Facebook for the marketing profession. So on 4th March 2009, I delivered a 2 hour public presentation entitled Getting Connected: Social Media and Marketing in a Networked Economy to an audience of 108.

The motivation for giving the talk was to more freely share some of the insights I’d learn’t over the years from case study and survey research of the implication social tools, technologies and channels are having for today’s marketers. The presentation gives a brief account of:

The properties of technologies to ground social media – Why is it different?
Types of social media – What are our options?
Three core learnings from Case Insights about using social media in marketing. These learning’s include to: Share value, Share control and Share real connections for effective marketing with social media.

The insights are drawn from the following Case examples:

The slides from the presentation are provided below.

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So Is Ease of Use or Usefulness More Important?

Kelly Page — Wed, 20 May 2009 19:12:21 +0000

This is an interesting question and one often debated!

Alot of the research tells us that in fact although how easy to use something is is important, its the value you get out of something – it’s utility – that really influences our behaviour.

Let me put it this way. If you think about your own behaviour, think about your responses to the following questions:

Why tweet on Twitter?
Why connect with friends on Facebook?
Why share photo’s on Flickr?
Why talk to your family through Skype?

Isn’t the phone, a BBQ, a photo album, a conversation over coffee technically easier? Yes!

But there is something of value in these technolgies that we connect with, especially over time and geography! Although ‘ease’ is important, especially in system design, it is tapping into the value your market get’s out of them and their functions compared to other channels or technologies is what really matters.

Let’s think about social networking!

According to report published in March by Nielsen (2009), two-thirds of the worlds Internet population visit a social network or blogging site and these technologies now account for almost 10% of all internet time.

Social networking has overtaken personal email to become the world’s fourth most popular online sector after search, portals and PC software applications Nielsen (2009).

Why do you think this is?

They provide a real human value over traditional modes of social interaction, especially email!

The scary thing for marketers (and somewhat for designers) is that this rising trend to co-create, share and comment on content alters our expectations.

It not only alters our expectations of interactions in general, but places more demands on our expectations of the ease of use and especially the value of the web (be it social or linear web). It changes our expectations of the offering you provide through the web and your brand overall.

So perhaps we need to ask less questions about the measurement of the use of these technologies by our communities – yes there are over 6 million registered people using twitter, So!

Why are they using it? What value is it? Let’s focus on figuring out and tapping into what ‘value’ our communities really get out of them and then work this into content and design to engage dialogue within the community.

So points to consider, what ever technology, tool or channel, if you use it in your marketing:

Make it easy to access, use and read
Make it easy to download, share, and participate
Understand what value your community get’s out of these technologies
Most importantly – make it’s use of real human value!

« CASE Insights: Exploring Marketing’s Evolution Through Technology »

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Usability is a Marketing Thing!

Kelly Page — Thu, 14 May 2009 00:16:59 +0000

This week was started by editing a research paper about what characteristics of a user influence their evaluation of web usability. This we are reserching not from a systems or technological perspective, but a marketing one. What are the marketing implications?

Is Usability a Marketing Thing?

No longer just the domain of web designers, system developers and the technological proficient. For marketers this area is of increasing interest as our communities (consumers, clients, buyers, customers, our fellow marketers), and even ourselves are facing greater technological interaction.

In my mind, this should be a core skill-set of the marketing profession not just tomorrow, but today, and yesterday! We are using technologies in customer service, communications, marketing research, service delivery … nearly every function of marketing, nearly every activity touches human-technology interaction. And if we are not using it, the people we are trying to reach surely are.

Yet overall, as a profession who knows our products and our markets very well, and can sell and promote to them, we are not that proficient in understanding the core basics of what it means for a technological interface in a hypermedia world is to be ‘usable’.

We measure trafffic, monitor sales and collect survey’s on satisfaction, but whose domain do we leave ‘usability testing’?

« CASE Insights: Exploring Marketing’s Evolution Through Technology »