1.
MBA Creator Module
Social Media: Contemporary
Business Applications
#sotonmba
Lisa Harris, Chris Phethean and Ian Brown
March 2014

2.
Today’s Plan
9am:
11am:
1.30pm:
3pm:
Lisa Harris - brief history of
technological change and current ‘big
picture’ trends
Chris Phethean – what can
businesses learn from evaluating
social media?
Ian Brown – what can businesses
learn from “big data”?
Lisa Harris – closing exercise

3.
Lisa Harris
Lisa (@lisaharris) is a Director of the Web Science Institute, a
Chair of the Digital Economy Research Group and an Associate
Director of the Centre for Innovation in Technologies and
Education (CITE). She runs the MSc programme in Digital
Marketing and is also an accredited tutor for the University of
Liverpool online MBA programme. www.about.me/lisa.harris
Chris Phethean (@cpheth) and Ian Brown (@_ianbrown) are
Web Science PhD students
Chris’s blog: http://chris-phethean.blogspot.co.uk/
Ian’s blog: http://webscience.me

4.
My projects
• Director, Web Science Institute
• Educator, Web Science MOOC
• Curriculum Innovation:
– Living and Working on the Web
– Online Social Networks
• “Students as Partners and Change Agents”
• Digital Marketing MSc and MOOC

5.
A BIT OF HISTORY

6.
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)

7.
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)

8.
Internet technology has changed the world
■ Years it took to reach an audience of 50 million:
Radio 50 years
Internet 4 years
2 years
TV 13 years
iPod 3 years
2 years
1 in 5 marriages in US now as a result of online dating.
US Dept Commerce

9.
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
10

10.
“BIG PICTURE”
TRENDS

11.
Exercise 2
Using the googledoc quickly brainstorm a list of
the various opportunities/challenges of social
media for business.
This exercise is deliberately placed to get your
first thoughts, before we consider any recent
developments in detail.
We will return to this list later on…

12.
Social media for business: an
introduction
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
How big data is changing lives (5 mins)
Technology Will Kill…(2 mins)
Socialnomics by Erik Qualman (4mins)
Parody of the Socialnomics videos (3mins)
BBC Internet Growth Report
Satire by The Onion (2 mins)
The power of video (2 mins)
The virtual choir (Kickstarter video 5 mins) & the end
result
• Background reading

13.
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)

14.
http://www.socialnomics.net/2011/12/28/infographic-every-60-seconds-on-the-web/

15.
Source: Internet Trends 2013 by Mary Meeker

16.
Source: Internet Trends 2013 by Mary Meeker

17.
Source: Internet Trends 2013 by Mary Meeker

18.
Pew Internet
• Photos and videos now key social currencies
– 46% of adult internet users post their own photos
or videos online = creators.
– 41% take photos or videos they have found online
and repost them on sites designed for sharing
images = curators.
– Pinterest, Instagram, ScoopIt and Tumblr have
made curating easier because they are organised
for easy image and video-sharing.

19.
Oxford Internet Survey 2013
• The Internet is now used by 78% of the British population,
up from 73% in 2011.
• The biggest increases in Internet use are seen in lowincome households (58% of households earning less than
£12,000 / year use the Internet, up from 43% in 2011).
• The challenge of getting the last fifth of the population is
growing every year. This persistent core of non-users will
present a problem for Government ‘digital by default’
services
• Social media use has plateaued at 61% (up from 60% two
years ago) – but new social tools eg WhatsApp not included
in the survey

20.
Communications Report (Ofcom 2013)
• Increasing range of devices: 3G dongles, smartphones,
iPads, netbooks and eReaders are driving “always-on”
connectivity
• 51% have smart phones (up from 27% two years ago)
• 24% have tablets (up from 11% last year)
• 49% “media stack” while watching TV
• 25% “media mesh” while watching TV
• “Huge growth in take-up of smartphones and tablets is
creating a nation of media multi-taskers, transforming
the traditional living room of our parents and
grandparents into a digital media hub”

21.
Digital Trends 2014 by Smart Insights
• Complete the poll and view the results. See also link to free
webinar
– Mobile (think smartphones and tablets)
– Content (engagement through SMM drives SEO)

22.
The changing media landscape
ADVER ING
TIS
Paid search
Display ads
Affiliate marketing
Digital signage
Paid
media
Atomisation
of content
into ads
DIGITAL PROPER
TIES
Website(s)
Blogs
Mobile apps
S
ocial presence
Owned
media
Paid
placements
Earned
media
P TNER NETWORKS
AR
Publisher editorial
Influencer outreach
Word-of-mouth
S
ocial networks
Atomisation of
conversations through
through shared
APIs and social widgets
http://www.smartinsights.com/digital-marketing-strategy-alerts/new-media-options/

23.
Applications of social media for business
• Engaging with customer fan base to build relationships,
recommendations and hence sales
• 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

24.
How we buy stuff
1.How is shopper behaviour changing in a
digitally powered world?
2.What roles do new media like social and
mobile play in the shopping experience?
3.How are shoppers expectations of the physical
retail store changing? Think “showrooming”…
4.How does pre-shopping change actual
purchasing?

25.
Showrooming
27

26.
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

27.
Business Challenges

28.
Social media can make or break your brand
• United Breaks Guitars: the original video
• What happened next, including interview with
Dave Carroll
• http://www.davecarrollmusic.com/

29.
www.briansolis.com

30.
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

31.
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

32.
What’s next? - Google Glass
• Here is a taster (with detailed analysis and
video demo )
• And another (sceptical) argument by Andrew
Keen (@ajkeen)
• Check out #ifihadglass on twitter
• Is this a game changer?
• What are the privacy implications?

33.
Exercise 3
Look back to the points you noted at the start
about opportunities/challenges of social media
for business. In what ways has your thinking
developed during the day?
Check out Best FTSE100 use of social media

34.
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’ and new business models

35.
Exercise 4
• 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/unisouthampton
• What do you consider to be the strategy
behind each of these cases? How effective is
it?

36.
Exercise 5
• 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?