Does social connectivity equal influence?

Last night I had the privilege of seeing @danielberkal present Project Butterfly – a study into the “effect learning about how sociable people interact in the real world has on the online space”. The purpose of this study is to help brands - and the agencies that work for them - understand “how highly sociable people work” and how “this knowledge can be used to build online social communities that act more naturally”.

All interesting stuff. I’m no market researcher, but the way this study has been conducted is groundbreaking and worthy of every award won to date.

My reason for being there was to understand the connection between sociability and influence, in particular:

-          Does real world influence translate to the digital world; and

-          Are those who are socially connected online, influential?

While the study wasn’t designed to answer these questions, it did offer some interesting and applicable insights.

In the real world Social Butterflies are those who can bend social conventions, but in a good way. They are experts at initiating friendships, but also at maintaining them. They’re interesting, interested and genuinely curious about everyone and everything.

We all know one: they’re the organizer, the one who keeps in touch even just to say Hi. They’re resourceful and will hook you up with anything you need. And they’re happiest when everyone around them is having a good time.

But are they influential? My guess is yes based on three findings from the study: Social Butterflies are early adopters, decisive and the kind of people you turn to for advice.

What they are not is digitally prolific. Their online presence is likely to be built around maintaining one-on-one connections rather than broadcasting clever one-liners to the world, making it near on impossible for brands to identify them using standard ‘connectedness’ metrics. And even if we could identify them, it seems unlikely they would use digital tools to exert their influence.

Instead brands have tended to consider those who are socially connected and highly vocal in the digital world as ‘influential’. Not anymore. According to this study these ‘hyperconnected’ people are delusional self-promoters who need external validation to make themselves whole. They crave attention and use the internet to overcome their social awkwardness.

While they initiate lots of connections, they have no interest in maintaining them. It’s a one way conversation – usually about themselves – which their audience soon loses interest in.

But are they influential? For me the jury is still out.

If the number of people losing interest is less than the number of new connections being made then surely they could maintain their influence – if indeed they had any in the first place.

And if I buy into their online persona by liking or following them because what they offer is interesting, entertaining or useful to me, then do I care who they really are IRL?

Heck, there are many celebrities out there with a million plus followers who don’t even write their own tweets so maybe it’s not just the highly connected that are living a fantasy life online….

So many unanswered questions, but as someone who works with brands seeking to influence in the digital space there were some definite learnings:

-          True influence is about quality and frequency, not quantity

-          Getting someone to tweet or post a status update on your behalf is not the same as influencing.

-          Brands who implement ‘influencer programs’ need to look beyond the digital world.

The Butterfly project is an utterly fascinating body of work, and I would encourage anyone who has the opportunity see this presented in person to grab it with both hands. Thank you @danielberkal for a truly thought-provoking evening.

Five things I learned at Ad Tech Sydney

This year I thought AdTech Sydney was good. Not brilliant. Just good. Good because the things I heard there confirmed my thinking – something which is important when you are working in a small and isolated market like New Zealand. And good because organisations seem to have gotten over themselves and are happy to share what they are up to in the social space – the good, the bad and the downright ugly.

So here goes - the five key learnings I took from Ad Tech were:

1.       Brand stories need to be cohesive even when fragmented:  according to Jeff Julian from www.monkeysac.com your consumers won’t see your campaign in its entirety, or – for that matter – as a story at all. They’ll dip in and out piecing the story together based on their own media touchpoints and social connections and most likely in a different order from that intended by the creative or media agency.

Making sure you have the right creative assets for each channel is critical. It never was acceptable to treat your TVC as a piece of video content, or cut up your magazine ads to create an online banner, but in today’s social environment it’s unforgiveable.  

Ensuring each channel stays true to the creative vision will enable your message to be received when consumed in a fragmented way. And if you do need channel selection take priority over creative vision ensure you understand why this decision is being made.

2.       When it comes to Social Media, timing is everything: Andreas Panayi of FTI Consulting (www.fticonsulting.com) presented a study of how 144 businesses operate in the social space. While 83% of businesses had social policy in place only 56% had a plan in place to manage issues breaking or escalating in the social space.

Scary – especially given 38% of social media crisis arise due to poor brand experiences, influencer relations, community censorship or just a plain and simple failure to respond – things that are completely within the brands control.

If you are managing a social presence, then ensure you have license to respond quickly. With 38% of crisis breaking on either Twitter or Facebook – even the slightest delay can be the difference between resolution and escalation. Which brings me to the next thing I learned…   

3.       The jury is still out on who manages social media: the answer to this is “it depends”. Speaker Ben Kimber (@benkimber) felt strongly that all social media activity should be managed in house – particularly if there was customer service involved. Yeah – like that’s never been outsourced before.

To me the more decisive factor is resource. If you need to be in the social space but can’t resource this internally, then outsource you must.

And what about brands that are more about experience than customer service? Coke, Lynx, Skittles to name just a few. I don’t know for sure, but I’d be willing to bet that their agencies are pretty heavily involved in their social presence.

4.       Socially enable everything: put as much focus on creating discoverable content as you do on finding ways to deliver content. How the content is found and consumed is what gives it power. Information sent – and so endorsed – by a friend, or discovered yourself through search, will always have more credibility than something you see in an ad – even if it is the same content.

Rob Norman (@robnorman) of http://www.groupm.com/ also made the point that the conversion rates from reach to engagement are so low that it’s absolutely critical for brands to work harder at turning engagement into advocacy.

5.       Life’s a game, play it: Create a game with a sense of purpose and before you know it you’ll have your customers doing exactly what you want them to do – and enjoying the experience to boot. They don’t have to be ‘gamers’ to take part - a good game can appeal to even the most conservative audience. An example of this is www.mint.com – gamifying your finances – or “Epic Win” (http://www.rexbox.co.uk/epicwin/) which turns your everyday to do list into a game.

According to @chriserb from www.easports.com, get it right and the rewards for your business are significant – increased engagement and loyalty and a lower propensity to shop around.

Looking through my notes, this list could have been so much longer – so stay tuned for more from AdTech over the coming weeks.