Being Buff: Marketing the social economy

Why it’s important to always look past “survey” story headlines

Last Friday, the Toronto Star online ran a story about a new Angus Reid survey titled, “Newspapers among most trusted media, survey finds.” This headline did what it was supposed to do: got my attention. It did so because it suggested a result contrary to the conventional wisdom that newspapers are dying a fast and richly deserved death. However, upon closer inspection, that contrary result is not so clear. Here’s what the Star quoted from the survey:

Among consumers of all ages surveyed, family and friends were the most trusted source of information, at 78 per cent and 68 per cent respectively, followed by radio at 45 per cent, print newspapers at 41 per cent, online news sites at 39 per cent, television at 31 per cent, print magazines at 28 per cent and finally online social networks and blogs, at 13 per cent and 8 per cent respectively, Reid said.

The problem is that the results confuse “sources” like family and friends with “channels” like blogs and social networks. So the survey tells us lots of people trust their family and friends as sources but ignores the fact they use multiple channels – blogs, social networks, face-to-face -  to communicate with them. If the surveyors are confusing channels and sources then chances are good respondents are too and that makes the results questionable. The other thing that makes them questionable is the respondents are paid. The article says, “Vision Critical [who Angus Reid works with] has developed hundreds of “panels” of people willing to participate in multiple surveys, for which they are paid $1 to $4 per survey”. Last time I checked “random” samples weren’t drawn exclusively from people paid to answer questions.

Look closely before you quote surveys or, more importantly, base marketing and communications decisions on them.

ps. There was no link to the actual survey in the article.

Tags: Blogs, Newspapers, POR, social networks
Posted in Blogs, Newspapers, Public Opinion Research, social networks | 1 Comment »

If you haven’t heard about Social Media Breakfasts then get thyself to Google to find the nearest one near you. They are another in a line of free (or nearly so) high quality learning events that all marcom professionals should jump at the chance to attend. The Ottawa SMB is co-organized by Simon Chen and Rob and Ryan (who’s last names I don’t know). Last month’s breakfast featured Stuart MacDonald, founder of the hugely successful travel site, Expedia.ca. I was there and recorded his talk which I bring to you here.

One of the key takeaways from Stuart’s talk was that people want to share stories and if you give them a way to do it that is easy and engaging they’ll come. Do you have a product, service, or mission that lends itself well to stories? If so, consider creating or joining a space where you can help people who want to tell stories that involve your thing.

Posted in Marketing, social networks | No Comments »

This is a story about how companies should do the right thing and use all channels, including social media if appropriate, to maintain open communication with employees and customers. And it’s about how those same employees and customers will use all channels, including social media if appropriate, to nail companies to the wall that don’t do this.

I heard about the example that inspired this post on my local morning CBC radio program and the CBC wrote about it on their site. The story is that a local outlet of the Canadian coffee chain, Second Cup, whose manager refused to pay wages to ex-employees, according to the former workers. However, since they started a Facebook group asking people to boycott the store, three have been paid.

Treat people right because it’s the right thing to do and because people have powerful tools to punish organizations that don’t.

Posted in social networks | No Comments »

So the latest polls indicate that Barack Obama will cruise to victory in the Nov. 4th U.S. election as his lead over McCain is too great for the old guy to overcome. (see the Globe and Mail article on this)

Now, there’s been a lot of talk about how successful Obama’s online campaign has been compared to McCain’s but it wasn’t until I came across a great post on the LivingPlanet blog that it became clear just how much more.

The post compares the two campaigns’ Web 2.0 stats and the contrasts are startling. Here are some of the ones that jumped out at me:

* Google: Googling Obama gets you 79 million page results compared to McCain’s 18.9 million.

* Facebook: Obama has nearly 4x more Facebook supporters at 2.24M compared to McCain’s 595,167.

* YouTube: Obama has 571,000 videos viewed 85,082,123 times compared to McCain’s 176,000 videos with 22,598,936 views.

* Blogs: Obama leads McCain 4,624 to 3,928 in blog mentions as measured by Technorati.

This last one gave me pause….Less than 5000 posts from millions of blogs on the most important election ever? And that compared with 85 million video views…What does that say? 

Well, one thing it suggests is the ever increasing power and reach of video and the question it raises is: what are you and your organization doing about it?

Posted in Blogs, Facebook, Video, social networks | No Comments »

The latest episode of the great Radio Canada tech show, Le carnet techno, and none other than the Washington Post’s online edition, washingtonpost.com, warn people to watch out for bogus YouTube pages that contain viruses. They work by sending users an email inviting them to watch a YouTube video. Once on the page, users get a message saying they’re missing  a program they need to watch the video and are invited to download it. Needless to say, when they download it they get more than just hours of viewing pleasure.

Practise safe Tubing!

Posted in Video, social networks | No Comments »

The Fair Copyright for Canada Facebook group does. You read right: 70,000. The group was started by University of Ottawa Internet law professor Michael Geist, and jumped in numbers last week when the Canadian government tabled its proposed new copyright law, C-61. Oh, and by the way, the 70,000 are against the bill.

The huge number shows two things: that lots of people hate C-61 and the power of Facebook as an organizing tool.

The most direct implication for social economy marketers is to encourage all your partners that are so inclined to use Creative Commons licensing because if they don’t everything they produce is completely copyright protected by default and, therefore, harder to share.

For great info on the bill see Michael Geist’s blog and Wayne MacPhail’s rabble.ca column.

Posted in Copyright, Political activism, social networks | No Comments »

Well, the short answer is no, but they might as well because they can use it almost any way they want.

I did my first social media client pitch this week and one of the things I recommended was that the company start a Facebook group. And then I got a great question from the marketing director: doesn’t Facebook own everything posted on it and, if so, won’t they own our logo if we post it? I didn’t know the answer so, of course, tapped my social media network for answer and got a great one from Andy Kaplan-Myrth who was flipped my question by Mark Blevis of the Canadian Podcast Buffet. Andy is an Ottawa-based lawyer and manager of the Law and Technology Program at the Faculty of Law of the University of Ottawa. Andy’s informed response can be found in his post.

It never ceases to amaze me how social media makes almost every information problem solvable in five minutes.

Mmm…think I’ll go Twitter the question: how do I make a million dollars by tomorrow night?

Posted in Copyright, Facebook, Trademark, social networks | No Comments »

One of the ongoing challenges of all organizations, especially progressive ones, is getting media coverage that is on message – or any coverage at all for that matter. An example of this came up recently at the coop with which I’m doing some work.  One of the former co-executive directors was interviwed on U.S. National Public Radio and the journalist used two confusing clips from the two hour interview she did.

So the classic question is: how can progressive organzations bypass the media gatekeepers and get their message directly to their target audience. Social media seems to be one answer but another challenge immediately comes up that I have run into at the coop: the folks are so busy they don’t have time to do labour intensive things like blogs for example.

So what can work? Right now I’m exploring a Facebook group and some video on the coop’s website. As for the Facebook group, I can’t strongly recommend they start a group for the following reasons:

1) not many of their partners or competitors have sites to cite as models

2) the sites that are there have spam filled comment sections

3) a Facebook site needs regular content updates but the only regular external content the coop currently produces is a bi-annual newsletter. They would, therefore, have to produce new content to feed the group.

4) having a such a group, like a blog, exposes the coop to criticism in a very popular, public venue that could require reaction….

I am checking with one of the coop’s main partners that had a Facebook group and appears to have taken it down to ask them about their expericence. More on that when I get it…. 

Posted in social media communications plans, social networks | No Comments »