Digital Perspective Blog

PEW Internet recently released a report on the use of social media among teens and young adults – one of their main findings was that blogging had dropped among teens and young adults (by 28% of teen internet users in 2006) while at the same time growing among older adults.  Other interesting finds include:

• 47% of online adults use social networking sites, up from 37% in November 2008
• By 2009, just 15% of internet users ages 18‐29 maintain a blog—a nine percentage point drop in two years. However, 11% of internet users ages thirty and older now maintain a personal blog
• This decline is also reflected in the lower incidence of teen commenting on blogs within social networking websites; 52% of teen social network users report commenting on friends’ blogs, down from the 76% who did so in 2006

You can read the complete report here

Interestingly enough – almost at the same time that this report was published, my father (70 years old and somewhat digitally savvy – has been blogging for three years and is on Facebook – no Twitter) wrote a post about how blogging and the internet has had a profound change on him – the post is titled “Blogs, friends, and the Internet”

“I would like to show you that Mark Harding  is not only an excellent videographer, a dedicated shark friend and manta conservationist, a professional still photographer, but also, as you will see, a talented blogger.

How did I meet my good pal Mark? Simple – over the internet.

That leads me to think that some of my very best new friends were internet acquanintances that evolved into solidly established cyber-friendships before I met them in person. Just to name a few: Jean-Francois Avenier (”Jifa”), Marcelo Mammana, Mike Neumann.

Beyond that, what and where would I, and countless others all over the globe, be without the blessings of the internet?

That story which has yet to be written, has changed, and is still changing, our civilization in such a profound way that it could only be compared, perhaps inadequately, to man’s ‘discovery’, and use, of fire.

I am still unable to grasp the internet’s astounding dimension and importance….

Anyway, as a retiree I am glad that it exists otherwise I would have to collect stamps or, worse, get even more on my wife’s nerves. ”

Original post here

Anyway, as a retiree I am glad that it exists otherwise I would have to collect stamps or, worse, get even more on my wife’s nerves.

I have to confess that I was very excited when I realized my Delta flight today was equipeed with wireless Internet. I grabbed my laptop as soon as we reached 10,000 feet and quickly created my new account. A simple charge of $9.95 later and I was surfing.

From a functional perspective it worked great. There were momentary lapses where the signal would drop but it always came right back up without any effort on my part. Transfer speeds were fine, and I was able to get a lot of work done.

At first I was pretty excited about this, but then I started thinking about how much I truly appreciate my time in the sky. I fly a lot, and often it is the only uninterupted time I get to write. Or think. Or both. I had a bit of writing to do today but I found myself checking email frequently. I was able to stay on top of new email, but my flights are usually time to catch up on the email I missed.

Ultimately I decided that I am still excited about it. If I don’t want to be connected I don’t have to log on. And on a day like today where there were numerous high profile projects that required my speedy attention, the wireless with wings was a lifesaver.

From the way he ran his campaign to the way he is setting up his office, President-elect Obama is the first to use the Internet as an integral part of both his communications and operations strategy. We talk to clients frequently about how digital media isn’t just about marketing and communications, but rather impacts every area of an organization including HR, operations, sales, etc., and Obama is a case study in proving this to be true. Another truth about digital communications though is that lessons learned offline can truly impact and instruct what works online as evidenced by Obama’s community organizing and fundraising via the Internet.

So, how is Obama setting up his new administration? The NY Times reported today on the job application process and detailed how it is the most comprehensive questionairre ever put forward, covering grown children, ten years of details, and requesting information such as Internet aliases and Facebook links. I’ve used social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn in recruiting for quite a while now, but not from a content audit perspective, but rather to ensure people I was interviewing for digital strategy jobs walked the walk. I would not want to be judged for appropriateness for a job based on my Facebook page or Twitter stream, although I’d think that my LinkedIn profile or this corporate blog I write would be fair game. I guess the question in my mind is around the boundaries between free time and your professional presence and whether or not they are blurring beyond the point of any demarcation. Either way, I’m glad I’m not applying for a job in the White House.

That said, the US federal government has been more aggressive about the use of technology in the past several years, using digital media to connect with stakeholders, educate the public, and create experiences around important topics. Mashable wrote about NASA’s Colab program that includes a blog, twitter stream and second life presence, the Army has been aggressive in using digital for recruiting, and even our work for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing has gotten some buzz due to use of YouTube, digital unveilings, and blog outreach.

Given President-elect Obama’s campaign, I was curious to see how he’d leverage digital media in his transitions, and how he’d deliver the change he promised during stump speeches. Sure enough, he is President 2.0, having already launched Change.gov, complete with a blog, a dynamic newsroom, and a request for all Americans to share their stories. I’m excited to see how he evolves the White House, making our president more assessible and our voices louder as President-elect Obama moves into office, and look forward to a wave of new innovations in social media and in government as digital media has a more significant role in shaping our future than ever before. Perhaps there is an opportunity for consumer-generated government!

The presidential election cycle in the US is unlike any other for many, many reasons. I won’t bore you with my thoughts on politics, but i will say that keeping up with the constant flow of information has been nearly impossible. I knew I had a problem when I’d wake up in the middle of the night and before getting a glass of water I’d refresh MSNBC on my browser, or check the feeds on my blackberry.

Burson-Marsteller recently created an alliance in a great new company, Social Median that is what I’d consider News 2.0. Essentially the site is all about customized news – the topics and sources you deem relevant as well as news from people that you consider to be “newsmakers.” I thought the site was excellent before, but now they have launched a new microsite that is a game-changer as far as I am concerned.

Elections.socialmedian.com aggregates news and user-feeds related to the 2008 US presidential election and allows users to join in the election coverage and discussion. Developed in partnership with The Washington Post and it aggregates both election news and social commentary (twitter, flickr, youtube, facebook, etc.) as well as includes a widget to allow users to participate in real-time election discussions. So, for news junkies like me, I can get all my news in one place, and have a new system for deeming what is important to me based on what people I trust find valuabe. Check it out. And, while you are there, let’s share some news.

As Samuel mentioned in the previous post, we had the opportunity to attend WPP’s second annual “unconference” in Athens, Greece called Stream. As I was fortunate to receive a return invitation following last year’s inaugural program, I was really looking forward to connecting with some of the Internet industry’s smartest minds and sitting in on some fascinating discussions. Now, there was only one problem I: trying to attend every interesting session was physically impossible as my laptop, notepad, pen, BlackBerry and digital camera could only go so far. The “Big Boards,” as they were called at the unconference, dictated which presentations were available during Friday, October 3 and Saturday, October 4. I wanted to attend every discussion but needed a figure out a way to do so.

What was I to do?

Like Erin, as I’m essentially connected all the time, I feared the digital jitters. Yet, I put down my laptop, Blackberry, camera and realized: “Now’s the time to go analog and social network with real and not virtual Tweeple.” In order to maximize my time at Stream while meeting participants during the two days, I followed two rules: (1) Meet as many people as possible and (2) write your thoughts in your Moleskine. I met attendees from some of the largest Internet companies in the world to those venture capitalists who were bullish on the current economy. I even had the chance to ask Jason Calacanis why he and Michael Arrington chose Footnote, a social network for the deceased, as a TechCrunch50 Finalist (something I’ve been dying to know since I saw Footnote present a few months ago). His answer: “We wanted to see the crowd’s reaction,” and what a reaction the crowd gave!

As I met more Stream participants, the pages in my Moleskine started to get filled with scribblings of their respective interests: monetizing social media, cultivating innovation, helping European entrepreneurs, the future in 2010, or reducing our carbon footprint with the help of technology. By the end of Stream, I had a sizable amount of notes to review on my plane ride back to New York City. After looking over my notes, I achieved my goal: hyper-multi-tasking and networking with just a pen/paper. “Wow,” I thought, “I don’t have to be connected all the time.”

I was right. In hindsight, I learned and absorbed much more information than I could have while working on my laptop or BlackBerry, always pinging with new emails to distract my thought process. I’d suggest stepping away from email for a few hours and just use a pen and paper to capture your work. You’d be surprised how much you can get done!

For more information about this year’s awesome Stream unconference, browse the Twitter time line.

Following is a guest post from Samuel Degremont, Manager in the Digital Practice in our Paris office. Samuel advises clients on corporate and marketing digital strategy, blogs and social media actions, online buzz creation and crisis management as well as online community management. You can follow his up-to-the minute thoughts on Twitter or read his commentary on the Burson-Marsteller Paris Blog (in French). For other guest posts on the Digital Perspective blog, see here.

I’m back from Stream 2008, where I met WPP’s top digital minds as well as a lot of interesting people including Tim O’Reilly, Jason Calacanis and Yossi Vardi – a lot of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, tech and media participants.

Focusing on how our Digital industry would evolve in the coming years, the “unconference” allowed everyone to participate in discussions related, one way or another, to Digital. See below for a few examples.

Adaptation in Africa

Google’s Anil Hansjee explained the business development logic of the company within developing countries, particularly West Africa (see an introduction to the discussion here). Africa is viewed by Google as a “huge long-term market,” in other words, the infrastructure and usage does not allow Google to market their already successful advertising solutions and productivity tools (including GMail).

For instance, in Kenya, infrastructure in terms of Internet connectivity is rather poor, and equipment rate (computers, Internet access, Internet cafes) is relatively low and lack a presence. Internet business is split among a lot of small players (about 20 ISP with an average of 3000 users). Local content production (which would be searchable, indexable, and of value to local Internet users) is not produced in mass.

Kenyans, however, do connect together with low-end devices such as inexpensive cell phones. From what Anil mentioned, there are more SMS messages exchanged in Nairobi per day than in NYC.

In this difficult local market, Google sees a lot of potential and adapts its global strategy to more practical tasks than “organizing the local content”. Rather, Google empowers local users with tools that allow the development of local use and content.

Google therefore invests time and money with local partners to build a more robust technical infrastructure (for Internet access) and partners with local Telcos to work on mobile (SMS) based solutions: weather forecasts for agricultural needs, SMS banking systems, Classifieds etc.

It’s a sound strategy (relying on local partners and leveraging their local knowledge) which will probably benefit Google in the long term, both commercially and in terms of brand loyalty.

Adaptation in India

Back from Stream, I gave some thought to the SMS solutions available to developing countries, and I found the example of India of interest.

The situation in India (not discussed during Anil’s presentation) is slightly different than what happens in Africa. The subcontinent has a much better infrastructure in terms of mobile carriers, with an estimated 300 million mobile phone subscribers at the end of 2008. Internet use is not much developed, with an estimated 40 million users (2006).

Local players (see below) have adapted to this situation, and offer therefore services for SMS users that allow effective reach and advertising distribution.

• SMS Gushup: This Indian startup allows users to create groups to which they can send SMS updates. As compared to the web-based Twitter micro-messaging service with an estimated daily exchange of about 3 millions messages per day, SMS Gushup sends about 10+ million SMS per day to its groups of users. The “Rockstar” group on SMS Gushup has 99627 members, top groups appear to have 50k members on average…which is enormous. The business model is based on advertising, where every single SMS sent to the group contains a small ad link, which pays for the service. Premium groups are ad-free but require a monthly subscription.
• Google: Finding a more developed infrastructure in India than in Kenya, Google released an equivalent to SMS Gushup called Google SMS Channel, which you can access once logged into your Google Account. The service was just released earlier this month so the number of group members is still low (in the 2000 figure), but it shows how Google adapts to the local markets it operates into.

Adapt, or Perish?

In fact, global models distributed the same way across the world don’t work. It’s the case for cars, it’s the case for a lot of consumers goods. It’s also the case for web-based models, which definitely need adaptation to the technology and uses at work in each country. When there’s not much use, help build it. When usage is different from your primary target countries, adapt to it, or fail.

And its also the case for leading PR and Media companies around the globe.

First, companies have adapted to the growing, exponential Internet use by hiring Digital specialists and allowing resources to internal training (as we do regularly at Burson-Marsteller – see here) – and if they did not follow this adaptation path, they’ll probably be considered less and less pertinent by their clients.

Second, companies need to constantly adapt to their local markets. They’ve done this in in traditional PR and Advertising for decades, and they need to have the same approach towards Digital campaign conception and implementation.

Because every country looks about the same in terms of Internet use at a macro level, it’s tempting for companies to go for global Digital campaigns. However, on a micro level, usage and maturity of the audience are so different from one country to another that adaptation – at least – is mandatory, but it’s even better to have a co-creation with the local Digital specialists.

That’s what we’re trying to build at Burson-Marsteller, with Digital Strategists in charge of coordinating different market areas where our clients operate. The Strategists ensure that a global Digital vision is implemented with an adaptation to local Internet needs and usage.

Last week, I traveled to the San Francisco Design Center for the TechCrunch50 conference, highlighting early-stage startups that are pushing the boundaries of technology. Besides some amazing presentations around Youth and Culture as well as Advertising and Commerce Monetization, the focus of the conference (from my point of view, at least) primarily centered on acquiring the right customers and connecting entrepreneurs with the right people. Although the core of these two themes were not necessarily technology related, it was the individual who was discussed, analyzed and even praised.

Many of the companies I met over the course of three days were concerned about finding and hiring passionate leaders who shared a vision for driving innovation. (Innovation, of course, is something that Silicon Valley has no shortage of.) Interestingly enough, innovation is only as good as understanding your customers.

For marketing communication professionals, our job relies on building and enhancing relationships. It’s also our job to focus on servicing the client but also educating them on what works as well as what fits for their unique problem. In many ways, our responsibility, like that of an entrepreneur, is helping propel applicable innovation in markets where possibilities are limitless (and occasionally, limited).

Although I was in room of 1,700 hyper-forward-looking technologists and venture capitalists who may sometimes drink the “kool-aid,” I was (and still am) a firm believer in incorporating new thinking for the benefit of advancing desired goals for not only a company, but also the customer. Technology is just the start of this process.

Where have you seen entrepreneurial spirit in the marketing communications industry?

The Internet has had a profound effect on the media industry (just think about where media companies are investing and how they are delivering content) and the way in which we receive, consume, participate and interact with news and entertainment. The result is a rapidly dynamic media landscape and environment where the only thing that stays the same is the fact that it is changing. Traditional media is being forced to rapidly re-create and re-engineer business models in order to survive and consumers today wield as much power, if not more, than the most well resourced corporate marketing teams. Corporations must think on their feet or risk becoming irrelevant in this new economy, they must anticipate the Future of Media.

To that end, Burson-Marsteller will participate as a strategic partner to the Future of Media Summit, an innovative un-conference that will video-link speakers and delegates in San Francisco and Sydney over the 14 and 15 of July. In its third year, the Future of Media Summit is hosted by The Future Exploration Network and its CEO, Ross Dawson.

Ross today released the central framework of the 2008 Future of Media Report, which paints a vision for a continuous flow of content and engagement. He stressed the fundamental role that media will play as an even more fundamental diver of the US economy in the years to come.

This event is a must-do for any media professional, marketing/communications executive, or digerati. Hope you can join.

This is a guest post from Theresa Rice, Director US Hispanic, and Mireille Grangenois, Managing Director of US Multicultural. Theresa and Mireille lead the Multicultural Practice here at Burson-Marsteller, overseeing internal and external efforts in the realm of multicultural marketing communications. The Multicultural Practice currently focuses efforts in the Hispanic and African American communities and plans to add more in the near future.

Have you heard of theroot.com, the Washington Post’s news and opinion site for black audiences? What about the search engine Rushmoredrive.com, designed to prowl the Web for results that people of African descent globally can’t always find on Google? Or urban radio titan Radio One, which has moved decisively into the (surprise!) Hispanic, Asian, gay and faith-based social network scene? Or blurdigital.com which focuses on biracial, multiracial and multicultural audiences? What about amigosdeobama.com, an unofficial Hispanic voter outreach site whose reggaetón and corrido songs in support of the Illinois senator’s presidential candidacy have been a viral sensation for months?

A powerful wave of digital initiatives targeting communities of color, culture and clout is forming. What it reflects is an exploding demand for news, commentary and other information reflecting the cultural, political, consumer and social sensibilities of particular communities—as well as the mass market portals’ failure to satisfy it.

B-M’s own African American-fluentials and Hispanic-fluentials studies reveal that digital and social media are being embraced by the most Web-savvy blacks and Hispanics even more than by their general market population e-fluential peers. They spend more time online than e-fluentials, have larger networks of online and offline peers whom they influence on a daily basis. They are also more likely to respond to certain online marketing initiatives, as well as commonly forward information on products and issues of importance to them, making them prime candidates for digital and word-of-mouth initiatives.

Burson-Marsteller’s proprietary research also indicates that blacks and Hispanics are demanding that the websites they visit reflect an understanding and respect for their cultures. They are looking for things like links to the other ethnic sites they visit, images of people like them and information tailored specifically to their demographic—hence the explosion of community-specific sites.

Behind the increase in media outlets—which of course can come and go, so I won’t venture to predict which will succeed—is something more significant. It is self-determination 2.0: communities that before were mainly recipients of messages are electing to self-identify, form networks and create connections on their own terms. They have become not only active members of a dialogue, but powerful influencers.

Marketers must understand and join in the conversation while recognizing that in many ways, the bar has gotten higher. Phil Dixon, chair of the department of Journalism at the John Johnson School of Communications at Howard University, said to me last week, “Younger people are very careful where they place their trust because there is so much out there. You can’t make yourself credible. The audience declares you credible.” Plus if companies don’t get it right, the results can be disastrous. For example, Hispanic-fluentials are nearly twice as likely as e-fluentials to spread the word online and offline about a negative experience with a product or company.

According to a new Online Measurement and Strategy Report, “companies are typically failing to adopt a coherent strategy that ties in web analytics data with business objectives – just 18% of surveyed firms do so.” Apparently, organizations are “under-investing in internal analytics staff and failing to implement a coherent measurement strategy which can help them turn their data into something of real value to their business.”

Approximately 700 companies took part in the survey, including 434 client-side companies and 229 supplier-side respondents (constituting agencies, consultancies and analytics vendors).

Although 88% of companies polled said that web analytics are important for measuring traffic to websites, cost and resources were seen as the greatest hindrance to effective data analysis. 48% of organizations do not have any dedicated web analysts.

For anyone who participates online, whether via blogs, social networks and even instant messenger, having some form of a history log is helpful to gain a better understanding of past trends and possibly predict the future. Sure, there are some frustrations with current web analytics offerings, but as we continue to live in an increasing hyper-digital world, effective measurement and targeting will become a necessity.

For more information about Burson-Marsteller’s evidence-based approach and strategic analysis offerings, see our Strategic Development section on www.bm.com.