Social media solutions: Making it Pay

The current social media consumption chart looks like this according to Forrester.

At a high level it means that there are currently few people creating the content on the social media sites, but a great deal consuming the content that is created. On the one hand this could be explained as behaviour that should be expected. As general consumers have not hitherto intended to submit journalistic quality copy until social media’s advent, so they may be quite rightly reticent about producing content for public consumption.

On the other hand, as we learn to communicate in a different way through the use of social media, we will learn through time that we can produce content without fear, and mass adoption will occur.

With social media on the increase across the globe, there is just an excess of personal information we are divulging on blogs & SN profiles. “Overshare” is Webster’s New World Dictionary’s word of the year.

Overshare (verb): to divulge excessive personal information, as in a blog or broadcast interview, prompting reactions ranging from alarmed discomfort to approval.

That mass adoption will, and is leading now in the US to “Oversharing”. The description above lead us to a new challenge with social media. According to Forrester’s 5 Eras of the Social Web, we are currently in “Social Colonisation”.

Forrester’s 5 Eras of the Social Web

Social Colonisation is about having a shared ID between social media – so when you update a Twitter status it updates your Facebook profile automatically and more than that, it can be done from a mobile app such as Twibble for Blackkberry.

The timings that Social Media commentators at Forrester are putting on it’s 5 eras of the social web are all obviously dependent on the apps and technology being built. So far they are looking appropriate, seeing the take up of shared ID and so we are already in the 3rd era of the social web. A good way to explain the social context and the last phase of commercialisation of the social web is to look at examples. WAYN and Flirtomatic are good examples of commercialisation. WAYN makes money for its customers on the platform by allowing them to “sell” on information about places to visit, and Flirtomatic has one of the most successful flower-purchasing shops on the web to complement its single flirting platform.

But my favourite example must be how Simon Cowell lost an estimated $4m from NOT understanding the social web. When the unofficial Susan Boyle video appeared on Youtube (shortly after the show aired in the UK and added to Youtube by a TV fan from Newcastle) Simon Cowell’s production company should have had a buzz-tool running with contestants from the show as keywords, but they didn’t.

They had no idea that the viewed video on Youtube had reached a staggering 1.2m people after a few days. Nor did they then after a full week react correctly. They ought to have submitted an action to Youtube to remove unauthorised video of Britain’s Got Talent, submitted their own version with a post reel ad outlining the UK telephone number to call to vote for Susan Boyle in the final; thereby making at an average call value of 55p, and 44m views of the video somewhere in the region of $4m on worldwide calls. Some social media purists may argue that taking down videos is not on, however, good content that has to pre-reel ad to break the experience would have been accepted by the masses, as they would rather have good content than shoddy sound and images.

Who’s good at social commerce?

[Images of WAYN and Flirtomatic home page]

Who’s doing this? Can newspapers start charging for online content work?

The Guardian considers charging for content:
LONDON – May ‘09: Carolyn McCall, chief executive of Guardian Media Group, has revealed that the newspaper publisher is considering charging for content in some specialist areas of Guardian.co.uk

News International
NEW YORK – April ‘09: News Corporation boss Rupert Murdoch has led calls for newspapers to charge for online services.

Who else is making money from Social media?

Who’s good at facilitating this?

[Images of Blast Radius, Buddy Media and Friendfeed home page]

Mash up payment system

[Images of TipJoy home page]

Interlocking Social Media – making it pay

Brands need a strategy around social media, and the understanding needs to permeated throughout the organisation if it is to work.

NB: Since this article was published, News Corporation, publisher of The Sun and The Times, has said it will begin charging for all online content within one year.
Read article by UTalkMarketing

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