MBA Workshop, University of Southampton, 30th March 2012

1. MBA Creator Module
Social Media: Business
Applications
Lisa Harris
March 2012

2. About me
Lisa Harris runs the MSc programme in Digital Marketing and is
co-chair of the University’s Digital Economy Research Group. She
is an accredited tutor for the University of Liverpool online MBA
programme. Lisa has on going research projects investigating
how ‘early adopters’ of new technology are using social
technologies to ‘punch above their weight’, integrating digital
literacy into the curriculum, the interaction of ‘real’ and ‘virtual’
space in learning contexts, and the development of new
business models in publishing and recruitment.
• http://lisaharrismarketing.com
• www.twitter.com/lisaharris
• www.slideshare.net/lisaharris
• www.delicious.com/lisaharris1

3. Session Plan
• The history of technological change
• Current ‘big pictures’ trends
• Challenges and opportunities for businesses
of recent developments in social media
• Guest presentation on Chinese social
networks by Ring Xu (@ciciyun)
• Building your own digital presence with guest
presentation by Maria Serres (@mjserres)

4. Events that might interest you
• Creative DigiFest #SXSC 18 May
– Showcasing innovation and creativity in the digital
space, all welcome
– Student Union, Highfield campus from 10am
• Digital Literacies UnConference 14 June
– Wide Lane, Southampton Airport

5. History

8. Technological change examples
• Gutenberg's printing press
• Radio and early TV outside broadcasting: Phar
Lap
• The secret history of social networking (Rory
Cellan Jones, 30 mins, audio)

9. Fear of new technology...

10. Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation
With successive groups
of consumers adopting
the new technology
(shown in blue), its
market share (yellow) will
eventually reach
saturation

11. Christensen: The Innovator’s
Dilemma/Solution
• Business innovation that uses a disruptive strategy rather
than a sustaining strategy to overturn dominant /incumbent
players
• “Sustaining strategy” relies on incremental improvements in
performance of an established product
• “Disruptive strategy” provides a radical “good enough”
alternative – starts at bottom of market but progresses
because it is ignored by complacent incumbents
– Microsoft, Dell, Toyota, online publishing
• Clayton Christensen video (9 mins)
• Clayton Christensen Video 2 (2 mins)

12. Internet technology has changed the world
■ Years it took to reach an audience of 50 million:
Radio 50 years TV 13 years
Internet 4 years iPod 3 years
2 years 2 years
1 in 8 marriages in US now as a result of online dating.
US Dept Commerce

13. Exercise 1:
What technologies are being discussed here?
• “The modern world overwhelms people with data and this is
confusing and harmful to the mind” (Conrad Gessner, 1565)
• “It will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls, because
they will not use their memories.“ (Socrates, 469-399BC)
• “It socially isolates readers and detracts from the spiritually
uplifting group practice of getting news from the pulpit”
(Malesherbes, 1787)
• “It might hurt radio, conversation, reading, and the patterns
of family living and result in the further vulgarisation of
American culture“ (Ellen Wartella, 1962)
• “It’s making us stupid” (Nicholas Carr, 2008)

14. Current Trends

15. http://www.socialnomics.net/2011/12/28/infographic-every-60-seconds-on-the-web/

16. The changing media landscape
ADVER ING
TIS
Paid search
Display ads
Affiliate marketing
Digital signage
Atomisation Paid
of content Paid
into ads media
placements
DIGITAL PROPER TIES
Website(s) P TNER NETWORKS
AR
Publisher editorial
Blogs Owned Earned Influencer outreach
Mobile apps
Social presence media media Word-of-mouth
Social networks
Atomisation of
conversations through
through shared
APIs and social widgets
http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy-alerts/new-media-options/

18. Mobile stats: www.smartinsights.com
• Global mobile data traffic grew 2.6-fold in 2010, nearly
tripling for the third year in a row
• Mobile network connection speeds doubled in 2010
• Smartphones represent only 13% of total global
handsets in use , but 78% of total global handset traffic
• Predictions:
– Global mobile data traffic to increase 26-fold between
2010 and 2015
– There will be nearly one mobile device per capita by 2015
– Two-thirds of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video
by 2015

19. Growth in mobile apps

20. Web advertising grows from smallest to largest in 6 years
£ millions
TV Advertising
Web Advertising
Press Display
Direct Mail
Press Classified
Outdoor
Radio
source: IAB (2010) PricewaterhouseCoopers / Internet Advertising Bureau / Advertising Association / Radio
Advertising Bureau / WARC , March. N.B. WARC Recruitment data included from 2003 20

21. Facebook spreads across the web...

22. The 1:9:90 rule
• 1% are content CREATORS (aka make a lot of
noise)
• 9% will COMMENT (aka make some noise)
• 90% will CONSUME (aka say nothing, but
presumably still obtain value)

23. What is SMO?
• Two views:
– Narrow: Using social activities to support SEO
– Broad: Improving effectiveness of all social
media marketing
– Optimising this process – from central hub:
http://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing-alerts/what-is-social-media-optimisation-smo/

24. Emerging research themes
• Social media platforms are moving from identity
construction to full scale WOM networks, driven by
developments such as ‘Like’ and Beacon
• Peer recommendations are trusted more than
advertising messages originating from the company
concerned (Sen, 2008)
• Social capital is built through credibility and
willingness to share (Ellison, 2007)
• Identification of key influencers and the role of
‘weak ties’ on WOM (Lauchlin and MacDonald 2010)

25. Social Media for Business

26. Applications of social media for business
• Engaging with customer fan base
• Resolving customer service issues
• Effective, real time internal communications
across the enterprise and hierarchies
• Tracking trends and testing the “zeitgeist”
• Crowdsourcing of new product development or
market research
• Networking to source expertise or business
partners
• Improves search engine visibility

27. It’s all about doughnuts 
• Here’s why

28. Exercise 2
• Look up these examples of business use of
twitter:
– www.twitter.com/ronandunneo2
– www.twitter.com/albionsoven
– www.twitter.com/delloutlet
– www.twitter.com/smartinsights
– www.twitter.com/southamptonuni
• What do you consider to be the strategy
behind each of these cases? How effective is
it?

29. The Scope of Twitter
• Customer service Become known as a reliable and informative source of help
@comcastcares @albionsoven
• Special offers @delloutlet
• Get Feedback. Ask for advice and you’ll receive ‘collective intelligence’ from
your community @ibmresearch
• Direct traffic. Include links in a tweet to direct traffic to your blog or to the
recommended posts of others.
• Read News. subscribe to feeds for specific websites/conferences, or from
content providers such as the BBC.
• Network for business benefits. Interact with other like-minded people, or
experts in your field. Develop relationships for future mutual benefits such as
testimonials or peer recommendations.
• Find Prospects. Twitter can be used as a means to find potential customers or
clients online.
• Provide Live coverage. For example to provide real time coverage of
conference keynotes, or travel information @tubeupdates
• Set Up Meetings. An informal and casual way of arranging adhoc meetings.
• Satire @fakesamcam
• Fundraising @bletchleypark

30. Facebook brand pages
• Recent changes allow anyone to direct message a
brand page - responsive companies will gain
competitive advantage
• FB ‘Offers’ allows brands to offer coupons to fans
directly into their newsfeeds
• Real time insights and competitor insights provide
metrics on the reach and impact of individual posts
• Timeline now available to brands
• Full details on We Are Social’s blog

32. Best practice examples
• Dell for Business
• The Intelligent Garden:
– 2011 update (9 mins)
– Part 1 – Overview (7 mins)
– Part 2 – Tools (9 mins)
– Part 3 - pulling it all together (9 mins)

33. IBM on Social Media
• No IBM corporate blog or Twitter account
• 17,000 internal blogs
• 100,000 employees using internal blogs
• 53,000 members on SocialBlue (like Facebook for employees)
• A few thousand “IBMers” on Twitter
• Thousands of external bloggers
• Almost 200,000 on LinkedIn
• 500,000 participants in company crowd-sourcing “jams”
• 50,000 in alum networks on Facebook and LinkedIn
• Results:
– Crowd-sourcing identified 10 best incubator businesses,
which IBM funded with $100 million

34. It works for them...
• Decentralised social media is driving unprecedented
collaboration and innovation.
• IBM lets employees talk—to each other and the public—
without policing
• IBM does have social media guidelines (created by
employees) They state that IBMers are individually
responsible for what they create and prohibit the releasing of
proprietary information.
• Internal tools developed and tested by employees can later
be added to product portfolio

35. EMC Community

36. Dell Case Study
• The ‘exploding laptops’ disaster in 2005
prompted major change in how Dell interacts
with its customers Dell Laptop Fire (4 mins)
• Dell Social Media Command Centre
• Richard @ Dell @ Le Web (6 mins)
• Check out www.dell.com/community for
Dell’s current social media based interaction
with customers

37. Heinz: purchase from within FB

38. Heinz Social Media Campaign
• 3,000 bottles of limited edition ketchup with
balsamic vinegar available exclusively to
purchase through a F-commerce app
• First branded food product to be launched
and sold through FB in UK
• Made available pre-launch to 57 bloggers
• Launched for real at agency’s office “business
breakfast” event
• Subsequently available in supermarkets

39. Exercise 3
• Look up these examples of business use of
Facebook:
– www.facebook.com/avgfree
– www.facebook.com/dogstrust
– http://www.facebook.com/groups/wigglywigglers
– www.facebook.com/asos
• What do you consider to be the strategy
behind each of these cases? How effective is
it?

40. Business Challenges

41. www.briansolis.com

43. United Breaks Guitars...
• The original video
• What happened next, including interview with
Dave Carroll
• http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/

44. Exercise 4
• What a) opportunities and b) challenges do
you consider that businesses face with regard
to social media developments?

45. Opportunity or threat?
• Allow interaction and engagement between business and
customers
• Allow customers to engage with each other
• Customers now more likely to take recommendations from a
stranger than one directly from the supplier
• Companies can no longer control the content of their
message, but can influence the dialogue to some extent
• http://mashable.com/2009/09/22/social-media-business/
“Businesses who choose not to adapt to the new culture will be at an increasing
disadvantage…we are now in the age of open communication, engaged dialogue,
and transparency, and business success has less to do with the size of ad budgets
than the quality of interactions with customers.”

46. Resistance to change
• Businesses are often tied into complex and bespoke
IT systems and traditional organisational structures.
• Management permission is required for IT changes.
• Fear that trade secrets might be given away, so
creativity is limited by “walled garden” IT policies
• Mindset is still about broadcast rather than
conversation
• Change is regarded as threatening and disruptive.
Unwilling to change the status quo, on the basis that
“if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”
• Banning access to social networks puts their staff at
an increasing DISADVANTAGE

47. Early adopter research by McKinsey
• Survey of 50 ‘early adopter’ executives
• Level of investment in web 2.0 expected to grow by
15% annually for next 5 years
• The research identified issues with:
– Restrictive organisational structures
– Resistance to change
– Inappropriate use of social media (eg for one way
communications)
– Lack of support from senior managers to ‘scale up’
creative ideas from workers

48. Summary
• Businesses cannot avoid social
media...conversations about the brand will be
taking place online regardless
• Social media is moving beyond an
experimental marketing strategy to impact
upon all areas of the business
• Structural and cultural change may be
required to realise the benefits
• Disruptive potential of value chain
‘unbundling’

49. References
• Sen, S. (2008) "Determinants of Consumer Trust of Virtual Word-of-
Mouth: An Observation Study from a Retail Website", Journal of American
Academy of Business, Cambridge, 14 (1), pp.30-35 http://tiny.cc/495ub
• Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C. & Lampe, C. (2007) "The Benefits of Facebook
“Friends:” Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social
Network Sites", Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12 (4),
pp.1143-1168 http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html
• Laughlin, J. & MacDonald, J. (2010) "Identifying Market Mavens Online by
their Social Behaviors in Community-Generated Media", Academy of
Marketing Studies Journal, 14 (1), pp.55-70 http://tiny.cc/8q2mb
• www.delicious.com/lisaharris1 (mang6235 tab)

50. Online Resources
• Eric Qualmann (video, 2 mins)
• 10 Years of changes in technology, BBC report by Rory Cellan-Jones
(3 mins): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8434373.stm
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDi0FNcaock (Future of
Shopping, Cisco, 1 min)
• http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/evan_williams_on_listening_t
o_twitter_users.html (Evan Williams @TED, 7 mins)
• Schawbel, D. Personal Branding Blog,
http://personalbrandingblog.wordpress.com
• http://mashable.com/2009/09/22/social-media-business/ (4 ways
SM is changing business)
• Jeremiah LeWeb keynote: slides plus video