Today, brands and products are (or should be) engaged in activities in online social networks,  having a fan page (Facebook), become a treading topic (Twitter) and get thousands or millions of followers has become a principal element of any advertising strategy. In 3Metas we believe that the sudden importance of these new media for advertising agencies (and advertisers) come from different paths and join together to become the new communication channel everyone is looking for.  Social networks are here to change the way we interact with the products we use daily and the companies that make them.

Brands get alert about changes on markets some time ago, consumer  started to change and be more analytical and difficult to convince ( deceive) by advertising  after exposure to millions of hours of television, radio, newspapers and magazines. Back in 1999 (which in Internet years is an eternity), the authors Chris Locke, Doc Searls, David Weinberger, Rick Levine presented a series of conclusions about markets changes: The Cluetrain Manifesto: The End of Business as Usual,  an interesting book that sets out a list of ideas related with markets/customers interactions changes, each one of them is a simple but powerful idea that generally revolve around information sharing, establish conversations between representatives brand / product and consumers have more information and products available to the consumer.

In an earlier article, we discussed online social networks as an evolution of the social networks that humans build, the studies on which we based also show how humans as a group interact with markets. One interesting concept to analyze is product or service price generation based on demand, in general we know that the price of a product depends on the laws of supply and demand (Adam Smith, 1776), if a manufacturer can increase demand for their products or services the price will rise. That’s the biggest and most interesting contribution to brands from social media: growing demand and therefore grow products price or value perception.

The online social networks importance for brands and markets is reflected in the possibility of building a conversation with consumers, interact with them in new ways, listen and react, It is the possibility of applying the principles of the Cluetrain Manifesto using new communication channels.

The opportunity is huge for any company, is the opportunity to lead new media, to build huge groups of fans and people willing to speak good (or bad) of a product or service. But the risks are too great, some of them:

• Do not respond to the conversation, thinking that social networks are just another TV channel and not realize that success is two-way interaction (Perhaps the biggest mistake)
• Not to be authentic, current users are smart and recognize the differences between real and virtual world, there can be no contradictions between the levels of service and the promises of value that are advertised online and experience the consumer has with the real product.
• Run a media campaign and leave once they have achieved the objectives (so common in the political arena but which results in a later article)

Conclusion
Today all the brands and products are exploring new opportunities offered by online social networks, despite what you might think this is the formation of a new communication channel between the markets and consumers, it is a way to create the kind of conversation expected by Cluetrain Manifesto (1999). Here at 3Metas we believe that the biggest contribution from online social networks to brands and markets is increasing demand and its consequent impact on the price or perceived value of the product or service.

Reference

David Armano Blog

About

Social Media Lounge is a place for the construction and exchange of ideas related to Social Media, its application in business scenarios, tools and success stories. Every week will address a topic. This is our first season.

3Metas is a digital strategy company that designs, implements and executes plans to use digital technologies to help clients achieve strategic objectives. 3Metas work is reflected in service-oriented applications (SOA), Web sites, mobile applications, applications on social networks like Facebook, social network customization such as YouTube, Twitter and also in the way we build and monitor online customers’ reputation.

Today more and more people spend more time online than watching TV or reading newspapers and magazines, most of it goes to social networks like Facebook or YouTube. In 3Metas we don’t see this as a fad but as the evolution of the concept of social networks that applies in the real world and has been tested in scientific studies for years. This article develops the theoretical basis on which to 3Metas believe that online social networks are here to stay and continue to evolve creating huge business opportunities.

The social networking concept is not new, thinkers like Hobbes and Rousseau have been associated with the terms “social contract” and have theorized about what actions or processes are in the best and most beneficial form of interaction between humans.

Stanley Milgram subsequently developed an experiment that led to a popular theory today:  The Six Degrees of Separation, which concluded that all humans are connected with a maximum of six degrees of separation with any person in the world.

In the past 30 years the work of professors Nicholas A. Christakis and James Fowler in the study of social networks enabled a better understanding of the dynamics we connect as human beings while introducing the following definitions:
• A social network consists of all the connections and links between a group or collection of groups of people.
• A Contagion: is what flows between the connections (germs, money, violence, fashion, happiness, obesity, etc.).
• A Connection: is a relationship, who is connected with whom (links to family, friends, coworkers, etc.).

These studies concluded that there is a statistically significant influence affecting our network up to three degrees of separation, this influence was named Three Degrees of Influence, the actions, emotions, habits from friends (Grade 3) of friends (grade 2) of friends (Grade 1) is affecting us .In practice that means that we are affected by people who do not even know.

Information Flows

One of the most interesting elements of the dynamics of social networks is how information flows through them, what roads information follows on social networks and how it gets retransmitted. That’s an interesting topic that has been boosted in recent years with the emergence of the Internet and online social networks. We will explore that topic deeper on coming posts.

Impact

The effects of knowledge on the dynamics of social networks, its definition and study, together with the use of social networks introduce interesting ideas, for example, if we are all connected by 6 degrees and our influence affects up to 3 grade what we are basically saying is: we can reach by our actions, habits, ideas and emotions half of the planet.

Studies conclude about happiness very interesting things regarding the scope of a thrill when transmitted by the social network, in summary states:
• If you want to be happy and are connected to a happy person, it increases your chance of being 15% (grade 1)
• In grade 2 the probability is 10%
• In Grade 3 the probability is 6%
• Conversely every unhappy friend whom you are connected decreases your chance of happiness by 7%.

Other studies show that an increase in revenue of 10 hundred per year only increases your chance of being happy in a 2% versus 15% of having a happy friend or 6-10% that someone you never met, but which is linked indirectly, is happy. There are more chances that you are happy because your social network than your income.

Practical applications

Abstract concepts, but measurable, such as happiness and obesity are interesting, but these studies have also provided the basis for practical applications, one of the best known was developed by Muhammad Yunus who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for development and implementation of a banking system that used micro-credit groups, usually women, in support of claims, which in practice means that people who had access to credit were using their social network and their connections as an asset to access credit.

A practical application of the concept of social networks led to the construction and consolidation of the social network’s most popular online today: Facebook, it has the ambitious vision of being the first company to achieve construct the complete graph of social interactions. Since the emergence of these and other social networks brands and people begin a process of adjustment to find the best way to communicate and distribute information in these networks.

Today, every brand on planet are asking itself this question (or should be asking) how to communicate with audiences no longer watch television and consume few magazines and newspapers?. It is in this field where 3Metas sees a tremendous opportunity to build new channels and forms of communication, to explore a new form of social interaction and to be leaders and pioneers in developing tools for social networking.

Conclusion.

Those who think that social networks are merely a demonstration in Internet applications such as MySpace, Facebook or YouTube are wrong, social networks are an intrinsic element of human nature and is present even at the genetic level, we now know that social networks have existed and there will always, at this point the technology only increases the number and extent of interactions among network members. This basically means that online social networks are here to stay and represent both a challenge and an opportunity for individuals and trademarks in how to introduce and distribute information. It is important to remember that social networks are not only about the influence others have on us is also how we affect others. 3Metas work researching and exploring these new areas not only from technical perspectives or trends monitoring but also from the theoretical foundation, that way we understanding and dreaming about future uses of technology in social networks.

References:

• http://connectedthebook.com/index.html
• http://christakis.med.harvard.edu/
• http://jhfowler.ucsd.edu/

More information about the work of professors Nicholas A. Christakis and James Fowler, we invite you to see his lecture at TED.

Social Media Lounge is a place for the construction and exchange of ideas related to Social Media, its application in business scenarios, tools and success stories. Every week will address a topic. This is our first season.

3Metas is a digital strategy company that designs, implements and executes plans to use digital technologies to help clients achieve strategic objectives. 3Metas work is reflected in service-oriented applications (SOA), Web sites, mobile applications, applications on social networks like Facebook, social network customization such as YouTube, Twitter and also in the way we build and monitor online customers’ reputation.

Trying to explain what 3Metas do is a little complicated. We have two business divisions: B2C is looking to improve communications between our customers and their customers and MyBusiness which improve internal process and operations; on both cases what we use is the state-of-art technology to help our client to achieve their strategic goals.

But nothing is better than an example, so let’s use client’s site (www.vargaslleras.com) to show what guys (and girls) from B2C division can do.

When we joined the German Vargas Lleras running for president 2010 – 2014 campaign we just start our work with something like this:

1. Communications Strategy: we identified the messages and channels the campaign were using and the success of them. Our first recommendations included changes on what they were sending to voters, we move from “transicioncolombia”  -political party-  to “vargaslleras” -the real person-  the candidate, of course that wasn’t only on social media, that change included traditional communication channels.  Some details we can share: for example we create a strategy to unify the tagging on all the sites related with the candidate, and then we selected communication channels, message tone and frequency.
2. Then, we redesign candidate website, now the candidate, ideas and activities become more important and we have a place with all the info unified.
3. Social media integration was really important; we integrated the site with YouTube, Flickr, Facebook y Twitter and google calendar.
4. A unified image on all the social media was development.
5. A unified registry system allows us to record Information from supporters from the web site, social media applications and even third party systems.
6. Of course we implemented a CMS, a SEO strategy and improve the CMS security system. Tools for tracking and measure of WOM also were integrated on the site and in the monitoring team.

Right now we are development new ways to share the campaign message. Facebook applications are good examples (http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=148891498278).

So far, the results have been great, the candidate, the campaign, supporters are really happy and last week the site was selected as better politician web site in Colombia in 2009.

Those skills (communication, strategy, software development, design) combinations, the people back stage plus our commitments with the global strategy define us as a digital strategy company. Hope our B2C business division work has got better explain now.