This document provides an introduction to social media. It discusses what social media is, why businesses should care about it, common social media platforms like blogs, micro-blogs, social networks, social bookmarking, wikis, and video/image sharing sites. It also provides examples of companies using social media successfully and reasons why social media strategies can fail.

1. An Introduction To Social Media James Fraser, @jamesfraser Ciarán Norris, @ciaranj baraka27 on flickr

2. 2 Agenda What are we talking about? Why should you care? What does it mean? How do I do it? Who’s doing it well?

3. 3 Before we start When to shoot me…

4. When to shoot me... 4 Cambodia4kidsorg on flickr

5. 5 What are we talking about? What is social media?

6. 6 Social media supports the human need for social interaction with technology, transforming broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

7. 7 What on earth does that mean? Technologies that allow people to connect with each other and create and share information over the Internet. Mindshare SocialMedia8

8. 8 Why should you care?

9. PC Mobile 9 Twitter Tools

11. Facebook would be the 5th largest country in the world

12. Over 133 million blogs created since 2002

13. 15-24 yr olds spend 2.14 billion minutes per month on Bebo

14. 800 million photos uploaded to Facebook every month

15. Social media sites are 5 of top 10 most popular globallySources include TechCrunch, Facebook, Wikipedia, Technorati, Bebo, Alexa

17. 85% have watched a video on a video sharing site

18. 66% of internet users in UK read blogs²

19. 25% have started a blog²Sources: ¹ comScore Oct 2007; ² Universal McCann Social Media Tracker Wave 3 March 2008;

20. 12 Why should you care? “I think more positively about companies that have blogs” 33% of global internet universe Sources: Universal McCann Social Media Tracker Wave 3 March 2008;

22. Social networks

23. Social news aggregators

24. Social bookmarking sites/folksonomies

25. Wikis

26. Video sharing/image sharing sites

28. Somewhere for silly pictures of cats?

29. 16 Blogs are just publishing tools

30. 17 Blogs So forget about blogs and bloggers and blogging and focus on this - the cost and difficulty of publishing absolutely anything, by anyone, into a global medium, just got a whole lot lower. And the effects of that increased pool of potential producers is going to be vast Clay Shirky, 2004

31. 18 Micro-Blogs Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. Wikipedia

32. 19 Micro-Blogs Twitter? That’s just like Facebook updates, right?

33. Twitter is just a communication tool

34. Defining social media Micro-Blogs

35. Defining social media Micro-Blogs

36. Defining social media Micro-Blogs

37. 24 Social Networks Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Bebo, Orkut Places where people can talk & share

38. 25 Social News Aggregators Online newspapers where the readers pick the stories and what goes on the front page Can send large amounts of traffic, useful for talking to certain types of user

39. Defining social media Social news aggregators Online newspapers where the readers pick the stories and what goes on the front page Can send large amounts of traffic, useful for talking to certain types of user

40. Defining social media Social news aggregators Online newspapers where the readers pick the stories and what goes on the front page Can send large amounts of traffic, useful for talking to certain types of user

41. Defining social media Social news aggregators Online newspapers where the readers pick the stories and what goes on the front page Can send large amounts of traffic, useful for talking to certain types of user

42. 29 Social Bookmarking/Folksonomies Like an online version of Internet Explorer’s favourites bar. Allows users to share content: approaching human edited search

43. Defining social media Social bookmarking sites/folksonomies Like an online version of your Internet Explorer favourites bar. Allows users to share content: approaching human edited search

44. 31 Wikis Collaboratively edited web sites Made famous by Wikipedia

45. Defining social media Social bookmarking sites/folksonomies Like an online version of your Internet Explorer favourites bar. Allows users to share content: approaching human edited search

46. 33 Video/Image Sharing Sites Sites where people share videos & images, unsurprisingly. Powerful niche communities, with varying reach & scope – YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine in the world.

47. 34 Video/Image Sharing Sites Sites where people share videos & images, unsurprisingly. Powerful niche communities, with varying reach & scope – YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine in the world.

48. 35 Video/Image Sharing Sites Sites where people share videos & images, unsurprisingly. Powerful niche communities, with varying reach & scope – YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine in the world.

49. 36 Video/Image Sharing Sites Sites where people share videos & images, unsurprisingly. Powerful niche communities, with varying reach & scope – YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine in the world.

50. 37 Social Aggregators Tools that allow you to centrally manage all of your social profiles. FriendFeed recently bought by Facebook

51. Why else does this matter? Blended search makes it easier for social media content to go mainstream

52. 39 Why Else Does This Matter? Blended search allows social media content to go mainstream

53. Why else does this matter? Blended search makes it easier for social media content to go mainstream

54. 41 How Do I Do It? Planning a social media strategy: People Objectives Strategy Technology Forrester POST Methodology

56. Publish or maintain blog

57. Upload video to sites like YouTube

58. Comment on blogs

61. Watch peer-generated video

63. 43 How Do I Do It?

64. Why else does this matter? Blended search makes it easier for social media content to go mainstream Case Studies Phineas H on flickr

65. Why else does this matter? Blended search makes it easier for social media content to go mainstream Case Studies

66. Why else does this matter? Blended search makes it easier for social media content to go mainstream Case Studies

67. Why else does this matter? Blended search makes it easier for social media content to go mainstream Case Studies

68. 48 650% uplift in sales

69. 49 650% uplift in sales

70. 50 650% uplift in sales

71. 51 650% uplift in sales 100,000 asked for Ubuntu Linux: Dell added it

72. 52 $3 million sales in 18 months

73. 53

74. 54

75. Who’s getting it right? Refresh an offline brand (publishing) Increase interaction Drive more ad revenue (CPM)

76. Who’s getting it right? Refresh an offline brand (publishing) Increase interaction Drive more ad revenue (CPM)

77. Who’s getting it right? Promote a product that’s been on sale many times before Utilise viral elements of social media Encourage user interaction Circa 480,000 followers

78. Who’s getting it right? Promote a product that’s been on sale many times before Utilise viral elements of social media Encourage user interaction

79. Who’s getting it right? Promote a product that’s been on sale many times before Utilise viral elements of social media Encourage user interaction

80. Who’s getting it right? Promote a product that’s been on sale many times before Utilise viral elements of social media Encourage user interaction

81. Who’s getting it right? Promote a product that’s been on sale many times before Utilise viral elements of social media Encourage user interaction

82. Who’s getting it right? Promote a product that’s been on sale many times before Utilise viral elements of social media Encourage user interaction

83. Who’s getting it right? Promote a product that’s been on sale many times before Utilise viral elements of social media Encourage user interaction

84. 64 Ryanair’s ‘Apology’ Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion.It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again.Lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are far too busy driving down the cost of air travel

85. 65 The Depressing Thing “Bloggergate”

86. 66

87. 67

89. Lack of defined objectives

90. Strategic timidity

92. Lack of defined objectives

93. Strategic timidity

94. Flawed technology implementationpsd on flickr

95. 70 Give us a shout Ciarán Norris Head of Social Media Mindshare ciaran.norris@mindshareworld.com