Social search alive and well in the UK

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Reports on WebUser today show that traffic to social networking sites outstripped that for search engines for the first time ever. According to the WebUser article, Facebook accounted for 55 per cent of all UK-based social networking traffic while Google led from the search side. So does this mean that the muted social search is actually gaining traction?

It’s often been argued (and I agree) that social networks are increasingly used as a source for news – both news on what their network is up to and more general news. However, I don’t think that people naturally gravitate to social networks with the intention on searching for news or information – I think they just find it there. And there’s a reason for that – they’re tapping into to a highly relevant pool of their friends and contacts that are naturally sharing information that’s interesting to them.

So, what am I getting at? Social networks are becoming one-stop information sharing points. While people don’t specifically head to Facebook to search for something, they might find that they are naturally being served with information that slowly but surely makes that search list smaller and smaller, probably without the individual actually being aware of it.

FarmVille crosses the mobile divide

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Amongst the various announcements at yesterday’s Apple keynote, one perhaps didn’t get the attention it deserved, and that was the announcement Zynga’s wildly successful FarmVille game is to go mobile with the iPhone 4 being the first platform. But why is this so significant? Well, I can tell you that as a social media and digital communications specialist, people like me have been very interested in working with Zynga to tap into their huge user base.

Casual gaming has always been something that has attracted vast numbers of users, but brands have found it very hard to find relevant and sympathetic ways of engaging with these audiences and have often jarred with the culture of these games. FarmVille on the other hand has two major things going for it – first of, it was built as a Facebook application and it’s where is draws the majority of its user base from and second, it has a huge female user base.



Not so long ago, FarmVille opened up certain advertising elements within the Facebook application and later on the spin off site. But with the mobile device continuing to eat away at traditional desktop-based surfing, the potential advertising revenue starts to flow away to the mobile platforms as well. Which is why, just as OS 4.0 comes into being with the iAd platform, it’s an extremely smart move for the guys at Zynga and perhaps a move that will become much more significant over the coming months.

Who won the digital election?

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It’s a tough one you know….I don’t think it was any of the political parties, I don’t think it was any of the media and I don’t think it was one specific politician. Following the groundbreaking US election that saw Obama elected, it was only natural for folks this side of the pond to predict something similar to unfold in our election. But alas, we have always been that slightly awkward character (that Hugh Grant tends to play) when compared directly to our American cousins. As Russell Howard jokes, we’re sort of looking over the pond like a slightly envious teenager who’s a bit embarrassed by their dad.

But who did win? Popular opinion, that’s who. And what do I mean by that then? Well, we had every single media outlet trying to tell us who to go for, why the other guy was the “bad guy” and how the country was headed for ruin should we not use our vote carefully. But then, something interesting started to happen……

As the traditional media took their sides and we ended up with selective and sensationalist reporting (one of my favourites was the Daily Mail’s “Nick Clegg in Nazi slur on Britain”) public opinion via social media remained steady and probably the truest representation of what Britain actually thought, for example this little beauty in response to the Nick Clegg story. It became increasingly obvious throughout the campaign that popular opinion was a lot different to the opinion being churned out by the major news outlets, for example the #nickcleggsfault hashtag in response to the increasingly negative stories about him appearing in mainstream media.

As such, Nick Clegg started to emerge a sort of social media rock star, the object of affection for many. Did he win this accolade through his own savvy handling of the social media space? Nope, Britain showed mainstream news that it didn’t want to be told its opinion, it wanted to share it.

UK Electoral Commission finds a friend in Facebook

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As campaigning for the UK General Election moves into full-swing, the Electoral Commission has a few other things to worry about, namely making sure that the number of registered voters increases. In a move targeted at getting more registered youth voters, the Electoral Commission is working with Facebook to target unregistered voters using the network.

Facebook Democracy UK page
This weekend, users who visit the site will be asked if they have registered to vote. Those that aren’t will be sent to a page linked to the Electoral Commission that lets them enter details online and download a registration form. There was estimated 3.5 million people that were eligible to vote in England and Wales in 2001 that were not registered.

In a quote given to the BBC, Electoral Commission spokesman Clinton Proud said “If you’re not registered, you can’t vote – it’s very simple. By downloading and printing a form through Facebook, users can now make sure that they are able to have their say on election day.” Interestingly, UK citizens cannot register to vote online. By law, a written signature is still required to register.

Integrated works best

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While we’ve known for a while that an integrated approach is the best way forward when it comes to marketing, social media can often be the fly in the ointment. Only this morning I saw a question on LinkedIn asking how you make sure Social Media is integrated as opposed to a separate being. My answer to this is simple: You need to start from the beginning of your planning process and not jump to ideas, tactics and channels. In addition, you need to view social media in the right way – it’s a channel, not an idea, tactic or strategy in it’s own right.

Starting from the beginning, ask yourself what you goal is, what are your objectives are, who you want to talk to and then you can start thinking about the best places and ways to achieve this. This is where social media comes in, if you’ve followed the path outlined above, then social media will naturally be integrated within your wider strategy. By viewing social media as a channel, you naturally have a unified approach, but the trick is to view this “channel” on it’s attributes, thus it become a “conversational” opportunity and should be utilised in this way.

Which brings me on to a post that featured on the GolinHarris (the company I work for) Speaking of Social Media Posterous page. The post in question covers a new piece of research from Physhster Inc. and AllRecpices.com  which found that social ads are most effective when complementing relevant content, which takes the integrated argument right through to the actual placement of your content. You can read the full post here or download the report here

New Ofcom research shows kids don’t care about age restrictions

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Nothing new there I suppose, but the actual figures are quite interesting. For instance, a quarter of children aged 8-12 who use the internet at home say they have a profile on Facebook, Bebo or MySpace, all of which have an age restriction of 13.  Perhaps even more interesting is the fact that 83 per cent of these children have their profile set so that it can only be seen by friends, and 4 per cent have a profile that can’t be seen – is this the generation that’s going to show the rest of us how it’s done?

Another very encouraging figure is that nine in ten parents of these children who are aware that their child visits social networking sites (93 per cent) also say that they check what their child is doing on these types of sites. It wasn’t that long ago that most parents were fairly clueless in this space. In terms of usage, Blogs or sites like Wikipedia where people can add or change information are visited by one in five (18 per cent) of 8-11s and half of 12-15s (48 per cent) who use the internet at home.

For more info, you can see the press release here and download the report here

Blippy – let’s take a look in your shopping bag

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Blippy, if you haven’t experienced it yet, it a social network entirely based on your shopping habits. Sounds like a shopaholics dream, doesn’t it. It’s part of an explosion of social networks that track, catalogue and share different aspects of your day-to-day life. Blippy links your online shopping with a social networking back-end so that you can share information about the things you’ve bought online.

From memory, you can link iTunes, eBay, PayPal and a host of other options. I wasn’t too sure at first, but once I started using it I started to see the benefits. For example, I rented a movie from iTunes on Saturday and this transaction appeared on my Blippy feed and also on my Facebook and Twitter feed (which I’d linked) and within a few minutes a number of friends had commented on it. Now, I enjoyed the movie, so I can actually go back and rate it – letting my friends know what I thought and thus creating user-generated reviews based on my own shopping habits within a network of friends. Powerful stuff

Landmark bill signed…watch it all on Facebook

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I just saw the Health care reform bill signed by Obama live on….Facebook. That’s right, not Fox, Sky, the BBC, the ABC, but Facebook. While live streaming through facebook isn’t brand new, it’s extremely interesting to see that the White House is using it as a major means of communicating, but then again, why not? Health care reform in the US effects millions, so it’s important that people are offered the news through as many different channels as possible, which is going to include the countries biggest social network.

Health care pic

As you can see from the screen grab – it’s a very simple and straight forward application, but another nice touch is the use of Facebook Connect next to it, letting you see the reactions of others. The most interesting thing about this is the history behind it. Countless US politicians have fought for this over the years, but it wasn’t until Obama that the job got done. What else would we expect from an administration that has utilised social media so effectively in today’s media landscape?  That’s right, you heard it first…..through Facebook.

Of, about and around – brand stories

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In a kind of celestial collision of heavyweights, the different disciplines that currently operate in the digital space regularly collide with each other when it comes about the best way for brands to operate in the digital space. Many people will tell you that there is one way to get it right and it’s usually the discipline that they work in. I firmly believe that this just isn’t the case, anyone that tells you there’s only one way to do things either doesn’t have the big picture, or doesn’t want you to see the big picture.

There is a difference between the way that the disciplines operate in this space and it’s usually in the way the story is told and that’s not to say that one tells it better than the other, i.e. advertising gets better cut through, PR is more believible. I remember working closely with some advertising cousins on a combined brief and the lead creative was somewhat struggling to come to grips with the social media space and said “I’ve always been taught that if you make something so f**king beautiful, so f**king interesting, funny or whatever…not only with they watch it and enjoy it, they’ll thank for your it”. I think that’s absolutely right and it actually applies to us all when working in the digital space.

The point of difference is the way we tell our stories, but fundamentally, shouldn’t what we all be doing  “something so f**king beautiful, so f**king interesting, funny or whatever…not only with they watch it and enjoy it, they’ll thank for your it”? The answer is yes and the true tick of marketing that uses all disciplines in harmony is that you end up with conversations that are: “Of” the brand, for example owned presences such as websites and so on, “about” the brand, which is where I feel truly great advertising and PR should operate, then finally “around” the brand which is where PR and WOM drive further user-generated conversation around a brand. The point is, if just one works in isolation, how can they possibly be effective?

FourSquared away

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I saw a very interesting stat the other day that FourSquare had added 100,oo0 users in a couple of weeks – phenomenal. I’ve been using FourSquare for a while ow, but on and off. What I have noticed over the past few weeks is that the type of people joining has moved past the social media mob to my more mainstream friends. Added to this, I recently approached FourSquare to see what the brand opportunities were with the them and to my great surprise, a marketing pack was promoting sent back detailing a number of different opportunities. So, I started to think – is FourSquare actually going to be the next big thing and will it be able to do what Twitter hasn’t done so far, partner with brands.

This has made me get more involved with FourSquare as a user and I have to say, I am now addicted. The combination of geo-location, updates and more importantly points and rewards make it a killer network. If these guys add pictures and video it’s a game changer. On the back of that, you can easily see how something like FourSquare could branch out into the fabled augmented reality network we’re all dying to see. In the meantime – be there, or be FourSquare.