BBC have used Social Media in the correct way to help analys conversation around the new budget for 2010. Check out the BBC's article to watch the video and find out more... it would have been more fitting if they used YouTube so it could be embedded easily and virally expanded!

Related links:

• BBC's Social Media and the Budget

The Yolk were asked by BusinessLink to deliver a presentation on Social Media for businesses this morning. It was based at the Forum in Norwich, Norfolk. First I've been there but a great setup for presentations. A highly recommended venue!

There will be a video of the presentation shortly. In the meantime, please see the presentation below:

If you are interested in developing your Social Media presence, please see our website or follow us on Twitter:

• Visit The Yolk website
• The Yolk on Twitter

I'm sure that you've heard the buzz about real-time search launched by Google... and good work guys! I looked into the real-time search options from Mashable's original post and realised that when I Googled "Phailanx" (the name of this blog incase you hadn't noticed!), my realtime tweets were appearing  despite a limited pilot on the functionality - I'm obviously taking that as a personal compliment from Google.

The real-time functionality adds a completely different dimension to how users can search, especially on the way in which they look for opinions, reviews and customer feedback/opinion. The ability to now showcase user communication via search becomes an important factor in corporate communication, reputation and commercialisation. With 28% of Shoppers saying that Social Media has influenced holiday purchases, real-time search instantly lifts the need for businesses to maximise social media marketing. Encouraging consumers to discuss brands is going to be a massive contribution to increasing conversions online, so businesses must get as much conversation going as possible. Just remember this basic rule:

Customer engagement + Simplicity = Success online

Related links:

• Mashable's full post on Google real-time search
• Follow Phailanx on Twitter

Recently I've noticed that Digital marketing seems to be a little more streamlined in approach and businesses are matching the needs of their consumers. With Social Media turning the traditional marketing methods on its head, there are a few companies that are starting to embrace the changes and meet their customers on the platforms of their choice rather than bring them in.

Social Media Marketing has changed the way in which businesses need to communicate and reach their customers. Not only does it allow businesses to manage their corporate reputation and start a discussion on a different level, but it is encouraging them to meet and greet their customers in their own comfortable environment. Almost to the point where customer service is reaching out to a new level and letting the customer know that they are the customer.

More and more TV adverts now contain Facebook urls instead of their own... driving consumers towards critical mass, engagement and discussion. The returns then arrive from this discussion as it is viewed as a longer term investment into acquisition.

So, is your company successfully penetrating the social sphere?

Related links:

• Facebook page for Liv
• Create a Social Media Marketing strategy

Over the past few years, High street retailers have been conquering online only retailers with regards to levels of traffic despite online retailers have the higher performance levels. However, this year online retailers are on the up - this time last year, high street retailers had 25% more traffic than online only retailers. In 2009, Online retailers have closed this gap to 18% which is a massive leap forward that is starting to start to blur the line on digital brand equity vs high street presence.

Ref: www.hitwise.com

It looks as though online retailers (being more specialised in online sales) have been focussing their digital efforts to maximise communication and marketing tools such as Social Media, online customer service and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Related links:

• Hitwise report/blog post
• Improve your e-commerce performance

Twitter are currently testing their new list system that allows users to create SEO friendly pages with lists that people can follow or be followed by. Users can add specialists to their lists (For example, a list created called Digital PR may follow @arrington or vice-versa).

Lists can be public or private to allow users to follow friends and family, or professional/hobby based lists. The functionality is in beta testing at the moment and is restricted but Tweeters should be able enjoy this new functionality shortly which will open up a new dimension to the fast-growing social media platform.

Related links:

• Twitter
• Follow Phailanx on Twitter

Social Media (arguably) has grown to the point where it is impossible for companies to ignore its use.The ability to empower users to communicate and share with others with the same interests is what is thriving the internet forward. Combining this with the core competencies of simplicity, aesthetics and purpose, the ability to engage customers and increase retention (during a very disloyal time for suppliers) is indispensible. 

With further inforamtion and interesting statistics on the gender use in social media leaning towards women, it shows why Sony Music has chosen to host last year's X-Factor contestant Diana Vickers, a social network using Webjam as their platform of choice.

Ref: www.chickerino.com

The flexibility that is shown with the Diana Vickers social network displays a massive leap forward in how businesses can use a branded environment with exponential growth potential. This is definitely an opportunity for businesses to jump on the band wagon without doing any of the hard work; with as you can see, fantastic results.

The thing that I love about the site is that it doesn't restrict social media engagement (which many companies may be looking to do). It takes a back door approach and embraces it by amalgamating information from other sources into one place. So it keeps the levels of engagement high and in all the places that count to not dilute your digital presence. However, this makes it much easier to monitor; Corporate reputation management, customer communication and general maintenance suddenly became so easy.

So, are we further developing a new opportunity of Social music...?

Related links:

• Diana Vickers Fan Site

I have been one of the lucky people to get a beta invite to new social gaming website Platogo and I have to say I love the concept. After an initial issue with emails (which has now been sorted), I spoke to a couple of the guys at Plotago and they were quick, helpful and seemed to be very on the ball.

About Platogo
"Platogo is a social gaming network, and is the first platform to apply the Web 2.0 paradigms of user-generated content and strong community focus to browser-based gaming in a way that's attractive to gamers and developers alike."

If I were to call the new hybrid generation of online engagement available, "web 3.0", then Platogo would definitely be in that category. Platogo takes what can be called social gaming into the new era of social media; similar to the principle of social commerce. It combines the success of the current saturated market of social networking and produces additonal purpose and community engagement.

One of my previous posts (The next step in social media) mentioned that the tide seems to be turning online to one of two possible routes: community engagement (places to host communities) or community montioring (integrated and amalgamated feeds of communities). Platogo seems to be addressing the first category very well by providing a purpose and niche market that people with a common interest can get together - and which most importantly includes that communal interest. With the recent exponential growth of online gaming and the monster that is social networking, the idea seemed like a logical approach. Platogo allows collaboration to create games which is a new concept in itself whichhas exponential opportunities for both netowkring and gameplay/interaction.

So, what makes Platogo better than other options?
The benefit of Platogo is that it builds a community around the games, and from what I understand, there will be complete interaction through online gameplay via building games and playing them. Some may say that you can play these type of games on Facebook - and you can (except game development). Nonetheless, Facebook is primarily a social tool, not a gaming tool and aims at a slightly different market. Platogo, although in its infancy stages, seems to be addressing theindustry of gaming, with the social part being an additional service which, if executed correctly, will make it a much more specialised product.

Why choose Platogo over traditional online gaming?
I wouldn't choose Platogo over traditional online gaming at present as the extent of Flash games can't compete with the likes of "Halo". However, I don't see it as an alternative but a complimentary product. It provides the more addictive, simplistic games that can be played online anywhere in the same way that you see hundreds of friends playing Farmville on Facebook. Platogo will hopefully be the appstore of online community gaming.

In conclusion, I think that Platogo knows that it has quite a large mountain to climb in order to meet the expectations of their (social) gaming community. However, if they time their launch correctly with the right games and the right interface to stimulate interactivity, I definatley think this will be one to watch - with many similar products in other industries to follow.

Related links:

• Platogo 

Facebook always seem to be targeted for privacy violations! However, this time (according to their blog) it is a rumour. There is a negative viral chain message going around that is mentioning that Facebook have changed their privacy policy so that 3rd party advertisers have access to users' photos. Facebook say on their blog that this is untrue and that they only open up profile information for applications. They have since stopped these applications from misusing information and breaching Facebook's terms and conditions.

This does raise the question of whether Facebook is doing enough to stop this on the upstream and how they passed the Facebook application checks...?

Related links:

• Facebook blog

A quick tribute to Chickerino for his social media content (below):

Looking at the digital marketplace and customer behaviour is something that I think every digital marketer and personnel should follow. Knowing what is out there, what can be used, and what will be coming soon is vital in online evolution.

If we take a look at all the large mass-market, global players in social media and ask what made them successful? We should hopefully come to the conclusion that they met the evolving needs of users at the right time, with the right approach.

If you look at some of the major players that have hit the scene over the last 5 years or so (E.g. Facebook, Twitter and blogs), they all followed a similar style with regards to market penetration. Both products were in a pilot stage for a couple of years with techies, digital specialists and/or niche markets and then expanded due to organic, exponential, viral growth. Each product delivered the next thing that customers wanted from the previous big thing.
Blogs fulfilled a need (I'm not sure if it was known at the time of creation) of how to communicate specialist information online without technical expertise to build a website. Facebook provided "update" engagement which previous social networks lacked - as well as providing the foundations for more user interaction online. Twitter followed on to provide a new version of the hugely successful “status update” combined with minimising the effort of blogging.

So by looking at this pattern, what are the next steps in Social Media? Well this can vary depending on the customer behaviour development, but if we look at current trends, I think there are two real opportunities in the social media industry:

• Amalgamated feeds and updates
• Community engagement (social and business)

Depending on how customer behaviour evolves over the next year or two, should determine which products are the “next big thing” online.
If users get involved more and more with Twitter and Facebook and the growing need for micro-blogging and tracking becomes a key aspect to online communication, Amalgamated services such as FriendFeed could really take-off. FriendFeed has received great reports on its functionality and use, and the ability to simplify the diluted presence that users now have on the internet by collating information into one place could be very successful.

Amalgamation could be an obvious next step but there is a chance, with the unpredictability of users, that they leapfrog this stage and tackle “community engagement” such as building/collaborating in your own social network. This will allow users to follow only the people that they want to follow from a certain community, or even broaden this out to mass-market audiences at their own discretion. However, this is a large jump but one that is possible depending on customer needs and commercial direction.

The main player for community engagement that is receiving some real attention from digital agencies is Ning.com.  Their white-label services as well as their community based functionality, is making them a leading contender for community engagement. However, let’s not rule out our faithful platform Webjam and the upcoming Google Wave who has positioned themselves in the social network/collaboration arena. With Webjam’s superior functionality and usability, they have a real chance of competing with the likes of Ning. If they can get up there with regards to status and credibility, they could edge the battle, but there is a hill to climb. If not (and if positioned correctly), all is not lost! I think Webjam could be the next big thing post-community engagement – Community engagement plus digital presence as the flexibility of the platform ameks a shift in direction easiliy achievable.

With regards to Google Wave, if this is executed correctly, it could be a very exciting time in how users interact online and other companies may need to rethink their approach... especially with Google’s upcoming launch of Chrome OS.

With social media, there is always a next big thing, it’s how we can predict what this will be and how the marketing will shift around these changes. As for digital marketers, we need to track and implement its usage effectively in marketing strategies by observing what is popular as well as second guessing what will work in the future.

Related links

• FriendFeed
• Ning
• Webjam

Social publishing seems to be something that has taken off in different areas of online. So what makes it so successful? Why does it work? It does seem to be an awful lot of writing for such little outcome. From blogging to micro-blogging, from Wikis to Widgets, Social publishing can help your business and/or brand in different ways. It won’t necessarily show you direct impact on the bottom line (although sometimes it can), but it will still benefit your business in the same way as regular marketing and PR.

How can I make social publishing work for me?
Social publishing can work for all businesses; it just depends on your business objectives on which platform/technology you should use and how you execute your campaign. You need to consider the different criteria on why you should use certain publishing styles to meet these:

• Communication
• Marketing (SEO, viral, etc)
• Brand equity
• Positioning/expertise in a specialist field
• Customer engagement

You may have more than one reason to why you think your business needs to use social publishing platforms and that’s absolutely fine. However, it is important to know what your objectives are upfront so that you can leverage on this type of social media to its full effect.

Social publishing is being used more and more in addition to, or sometimes even replacing, traditional PR. The ability to use social publishing, its users and its audience can be a powerful way to collaborate and/or communicate with your customers.

Communication
This being one of the most obvious forms of social publishing interaction with your customers. Social publishing allows the opportunity to talk to your customers/potential customers about information. It gives the opportunity to also increase/decrease visibility of information in accordance to the needs to the business.

Marketing
There are a number of ways in which Social publishing platforms can be used to help create/promote viral campaigns as well as being a good form of regular digital marketing. One of the most obvious forms of marketing interaction in social publishing is micro-blogging. You can easily maintain a micro-blog to help feed small pieces of information/updates to customers to help them identify with useful offers or information.

Brand equity
With the ability to customise and style templates on new platforms, the opportunity to increase brand equity and exposure starts to become a lot easier using online. The ability to strengthen your brand presence is exponential, especially if combined with a suitable viral campaign (i.e. template creation).

Positioning/expertise in a specialist field
Blogging was renowned for the ability to share experiences as an online journal but over recent years there has been a massive increase in the amount of specialist blogs that provide tailored, relevant information to online communities. Companies are also using this method as the preferred tool for communicating news/updates with their customers. Not only do blogs showcase specialist knowledge, but they can also help leverage positioning against your key competitors, showcasing how your business holds up against other industry players.

Customer engagement
Customer engagement is a hot topic at present which seems to be the crux between success and failure online. Wikis and forums (if appropriate) are just a couple of ways in which you can get customers to engage and interact with your brand via social publishing.

The opportunities are available; it is just a case of ensuring that you use these mediums that are appropriate to you. The application of technology, as in real life, is the most important part of success online.

FBHive - a website/blog that specialises in Facebook news and updates posted their recent findings on how Facebook could be hacked to find out personal information. It was a very simple way in which most developers would know... In fact, it was almost so basic that I had the tools to do this myself if I were the malicious type. Luckily I don't have the technical knowledge or the intent :)

Facebook Basic Information Exploit from FBHive on Vimeo.

With privacy being such a hot topic at present, especially with the ongoing public increase into the digital medium, this is something that needs to be addressed for any future social media platforms to succeed. Let's not kill the a positive trend because of complacency.

Related links:

• FBHive

The buzz term for marketing at the moment is social media, but how much does it actually impact customer engagement with your business and brand? Are you pro-actively using social media in the right way to help users engage more with you rather than the platform itself? Are you using the social media platforms effectively to increase communication channels and increase your brand equity?

Social media is a great way to do all the above, but your business model can vastly change the way in which you should be using these mediums. Ensure that your business is not giving your consumers the opportunity to engage more with your communication channel - entice potential customers to interact with you. If they use this platform, make them want to use it to keep track of you. As impossilbe as it may be, try to make yourself indispensible to the platform and your customer by showing relevant, useful content at the right time. Don't Twitter for the sake of it, make it count. Don't let yourself be a "bonus" - ensure you are heard, and you are key to the retention cycle. You will see a massive difference in your ROI.

Related links:

• Twitter