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I'm beginning to get annoyed with the attitudes I'm seeing both in the mainstream press and at many conferences discussing social media.
The discussion is still about how important social media is becoming, how if you don't get on now you'll be left behind and about the antics of celebrity and sports tweeters.
To me these are all signs of how early we still are in the process of adopting social media as one of the many tools in our toolkits - quite a versatile and flexible tool, but still simply a tool amongst others.
It's reminiscent of the coverage and conferences about the internet around ten years ago - where the internet was seen as a bright new toy that people had to use, even if they were not sure why.
To my recollection it took a dotcom bust and about three years of solid achievement in the online space before internet moved from a buzzword to a toolset - when people noticed that after all the hype there was a solid core of value in using the internet channel alongside, or replacing, existing communications, marketing and fulfilment channels.
Social media has been around as a term for around five years now - however for most of that time it was below the notice of the popular media and organisations were a little shy of the concept of 'social' being more than after work drinks.
I think we are seeing some solid achievements now in the area and hope that soon legacy (traditional) media, conference organisers and management will begin treating social media with no less AND no more respect than it deserves.
It's a tool - a good one for some purposes and a poor one for others - no more.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Waiting for social media to stop being the story and start being the medium | Tweet |
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Media after empire - what's next for old media? | Tweet |
Mark Scott, the Managing Director of ABC, has written a very interesting piece in Unleashed about the future of 'old media' empires entitled, Media after Empire.
While it's not specifically about Government, I thought it had some very interesting comments about 'empires' which resonate with some of the challenges that the public sector faces in the digital age.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
What's the median age of social network users? | Tweet |
Often it's assumed that teenagers are the main users of social networking tools from Facebook to Twitter.
However the research conducted over the last few years indicates that the real situation is a little different.
Based on the most recent Pew Internet research (of US internet users 18+) the median age of popular social networks are as follows,
- Twitter median user age 31yrs (stable from May 2008),
- Facebook median user age 33yrs (up from 26yrs in May 2008),
- MySpace median user age 26yrs (down from 27yrs in May 2008),
- LinkedIn median user age 39yrs (down from 40yrs in May 2008).
Neilsen data from February also suggests that Twitter is most popularity among older demographics, with adults ages 35-49 having the largest representation on Twitter in February 2009, comprising nearly 42% of the site’s audience.
Pew Internet's profile of a (US) Twitterer also provides useful information on who is Twittering - and why.
Age Distribution of Twitter users (Comscore - April 2009)
Source: http://blog.comscore.com/2009/
Thursday, October 01, 2009
Adapt the service not the user | Tweet |
I've been rereading the ABC article about the two girls who got caught in a drain and used their mobile phone to update their Facebook status, rather than call Triple 0.
A representative of the Metropolitan Fire Service (MFS) in Adelaide said that,
If they were able to access Facebook from their mobile phones, they could have called triple-0, so the point being they could have called us directly and we could have got there quicker than relying on someone being online and replying to them and eventually having to call us via triple-0 anyway.Professor of Media and Communications at the Queensland University of Technology, Terry Flew, says public education campaigns are facing an ongoing struggle to compete with social media.
I think that the main point has been missed.
The internet and digital devices are changing cultural and personal behaviours. In some respects they are even changing our physical behaviour and may be changing our brain chemistry.
I don't believe that it is the role of Public Authorities to try to turn the clock back by 'competing' with social media - reinforcing messages such as if you're in trouble call triple-0 - just to preserve the 'way the system has always worked'.
In usability terms this is similar to releasing a human-unfriendly system, then producing a huge user manual and communications campaign to attempt to train people to work the way the system works (except in this case the system remains the same and it is people who have changed).
Often it is cheaper and more effective to turn this approach on its head. Re-engineer the system to work the way that people think.
Successful companies have learnt this. They change their products over time to suit emerging social and cultural norms. It's a Marketing-based approach, where the organisation figures out what people want and provides it, rather than a Communications-based approach, where you build products the way the organisation wants then try to convince people to accept them.
The lesson I draw from this emergency situation is that the public service are still grappling with the questions of whether and how to adapt their systems to suit their audiences.
For the girls down the drain it may have been faster for them to call Triple-0, however this wasn't the behaviour they are used to. It was not 'normal' in fact they've probably never done it before.
So why not adapt our emergency services instead?
Have a presence on social networks that people can use to contact them in emergencies.
Create smartphone apps that people can install and use to send the information the emergency services need to act.
Set up Twitter accounts that can be used to call for help.
Even simply point '911' to '000' so either number reaches our emergency services - most Australians hear '911' far more often in movies and on TV than they ever hear 'Triple-0'. The original rationale of '000' being less likely to be dialed in error due to being more difficult to call on dial phones has disappeared anyway with keypads.
Some of these avenues may be 'less efficient' for the system. They may increase the time required for emergency services to response.
However they will ensure that the emergency services CAN respond.
It may even increase the number of people who legitimately contact emergency services - those who wouldn't call Triple-0, but will put a note on Facebook that, for example, they are feeling suicidal.
Certainly checks and balances will need to be in place to prevent fraudulent use, but we managed to do it with a telephone number - surely we're smart enough to do this in other mediums.
The issue of adapting services versus adapting users isn't unique to emergency services, it affects every interaction between government and public.
Every time the government forces people to use the channel it prefers - be it telephone, paper, in-person (or even online) - it is attempting to adapt the user to suit its own processes and needs.
This can reduce citizen engagement, satisfaction and completion rates, resulting in poorer outcomes for individuals.
Instead the government should seek to understand how people prefer to engage and seek ways to adapt its services to suit peoples' needs. AGIMO's report, Australians' use and satisfaction with e-government services—2008, provides some ideas.
Sure there are many cases where it may be legally impossible to accept channels like the net for transactions with government. However there are many services where we can adapt - it just takes a little creative thinking. We may even save the public money or provide a faster service and we will not be 'competing' with social networks, we'll be leveraging them for public benefit.
Let's seek to change our public sector philosophies and adapt government policies and services wherever possible, rather than attempt to adapt our users to suit 'how we prefer to do things'.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
What does the internet believe about you? | Tweet |
MIT have developed an interesting visualisation tool which can be used to map various online statements about an individual and present a chart which provides a view on what is known or believed about them.
While it's really a toy at this stage, it shows the potential for mapping the view of the public towards individuals or organisations in a more holistic fashion, based on online commentary.
Why not see what the internet believes about you at MIT Personas.
Here's what it believes about me:
Monday, September 14, 2009
US launches Gov 2.0 consultation on national broadband network | Tweet |
The US is a little behind Australia in considering a National Broadband Network, however it has taken a very different approach in consulting and engaging citizens, opening up the discussion to the US community in a Gov 2.0 manner.
The US Government's Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has launched Broadband.gov as a web 2.0 enabled site to manage the central conversation around a US National Broadband Plan.
It has also introduced an Ideascale portal for individuals to raise, vote on and discuss ideas and potential challenges at national and local levels and shake out the key issues for the community.
The FCC also has a blog, Facebook site, interactive Twitter feed (where the FCC responds to questions), YouTube channel and RSS feeds. It is also holding face-to-face and webinar workshops to discuss what US citizens want in a broadband network. All of these workshops are recorded and made available online.
What I think is most important is how the FCC is using these channels in a consistent and integrated manner to support public discussion and engagement.
Often organisations don't have a strategy (communications plan) behind their online engagement channels and, as a result, they do not function in a synchronised and mutually reinforcing manner - and in some cases can act against each other, reducing the effectiveness of an online conversation and reducing the online credibility of the organisation.
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Integrating an online community engagement strategy | Tweet |
When I wrote my first online community engagement strategy for Telstra's Wireplay service in 1997, one of the factors I considered was how to 'complete the loop' - integrate inbound and outbound online channels to reach, engage and promote interaction across the widest possible audience.
In those days we used mass media, product sponsorship and events as the drivers to build audience reach and awareness and online forums, IRC chat, newsgroups and email to interact online and generate repeat traffic.
It was an effective combination - although limited by 2009 standards.
Today there are more online channels alternatives when building an integrated marketing or engagement strategy, however the principle remains the same,
- Use media (inc online) channels to drive initial traffic to the site
- Make the on site barriers to engagement and interaction as low as possible, provide rewards for activity and a variety of ways to engage/interact to suit different comfort and skills levels
- Promote return traffic through alerts and email news
- Build audience by providing reasons for visitors to refer your site to others
- Increase your reach by providing options to integrate your content into other sites
Sometimes their strategy was to spend their month on building and launching an online engagement site, then hope people like it enough to spread the word themselves - the build it and they will come approach.
Sometimes organisations treat the delivery of a website as the end of the project - rather than the start.
And sometimes the value of word-of-mouth promotion and an outreach strategy is not recognised - some organisations still believe that the mass media is the most powerful traffic driver.
Fortunately for those of you struggling to enlighten organisations who believe any of the above, IAS B2B has published an integrated channel strategy diagram which provides an excellent illustration of how to effectively design an online community engagement approach.
I've included an image below, and you can download the integrated online strategy diagram PDF here (103kb).
At first glance the diagram can appear a little daunting - which is possibly why Marc Keating has made an accompanying video to explain it in depth.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Are you engaging bloggers in your media mix? | Tweet |
No-one really knows how many blogs are operated by Australians.
However it could be up to 4 million, if you refer to Technorati's State of the Blogosphere report 2008, which reported that 3% of global bloggers were Australian and over 133 million blogs had been created since 2002.
Likewise Forrester's Groundswell research found in late 2008 that 25% of online Australians were 'Creators' - likely to operate a blog or contribute content online.
Large numbers of Australians also tend to read blogs, with AGIMO reporting that 22% of online Australians read blogs at least monthly.
Even if you didn't accept that 4 million figure, there are at least thousands of Australian blogs, a number of which already attract audiences significantly greater than the circulation of regional Australian newspapers.
These top blogs are legitimate media outlets in their own right, providing news and commentary that influences the views of the community. They often break news stories and are quoted or used as sources by legacy media outlets.
In the US bloggers have become an important channel for both companies and government. Commercial goods marketers court 'mummy bloggers' a large and vocal group that can significantly affect the use of household products and major personal purchases. Movie makers target film buffs, who command enormous influence over viewing habits, as do computer game makers work with community advocates who blog and establish fan sites for games.
Politically both major US parties fete top bloggers as they do other top reporters, reflecting the enormous effect they have on electoral decisions and fund raising.
From a government perspective, agencies are briefing bloggers on medical crises and product recalls, as well as educating and engaging bloggers to support government initiatives and programs.
So back in Australia, where do blogs figure in your media and communications plans?
When launching a new program, or making a new policy announcement, does your Department seek to engage bloggers alongside legacy media representatives?
Or are they ignored and left to report whatever they like?
I believe that Australian government departments needs to follow the lead of the US, identifying and engaging the appropriate bloggers to support various government initiatives.
How should an Australian government department identify the top blogs that post on subjects appropriate to a particular program or announcement?
This is fairly easy to do. Firstly a number of top lists exist for Australian blogs, from purely the Top 100 blogs by traffic numbers through to topic and demographic specific lists, such as the Top 100 Women Bloggers or the Top 100 Australian Marketing Pioneer Blogs.
Another approach is to locate the top blog authorities on a topic and look at their blogroll, the list of blogs that the author reads. These are often topic specific and a quick way to build a list of blogs for a topic area.
Once you have a list of relevant bloggers, the next question is how do you approach them successfully?
Generally bloggers are not journalists and do not often use media releases and wire services to source news. Instead they seek out information that is interesting to the blog writer, who then advocates it to their readers.
Therefore departments need to spend some time understanding the material in each blog and even consider becoming a contributor by commenting on posts to offer extra information, correct errors or make general observations.
Once you have this understanding, you can approach the blog owner in the appropriate way, seeking to build a relationship rather than become a 'news source'.
This requires greater time and effort than producing and distributing a media release, however you only need a few strong blog relationships. If the owners of these blogs are interested in posting about your program other blogs will pick up on the story and spread it further.
So, in summary, blogs are a legitimate communications tool with significant reach and diversity. However they need to be treated a little differently to legacy media, with an approach focused on knowledgeable relationships rather than on media releases and kits.
When used effectively blogs can be enormously powerful in marshaling word of mouth to spread the facts rather than the fictions. However they are also a tool to be used with caution as, like other media, they may not always pick the angle you want promoted on a story.
Monday, July 20, 2009
The different ways organisations allow their employees to participate in online media | Tweet |
When I thought of this topic I came up with four distinct groups that organisations fall into when considering how their staff may engage in online social media,
- Ignore
- Disallow
- Manage
- Allow
However whilst researching this post I found a fantastic article by Jeremiah Owyang in his Web Strategy blog, which did a far better job than I could of exploring these stages.
So rather than re-inventing the wheel, I recommend looking at this post, Breakdown: The Five Ways Companies Let Employees Participate in the Social Web.
Another post on the topic was made in the I'm not actually a Geek blog, Early: Companies Deputizing Their Employees as Brand Managers, who developed the image below.
My personal view is that organisations now need to move quickly towards the managed engagement approach to address the needs of customers. Ignoring or disallowing social media use is no longer a viable strategy.
How far an organisation moves from a carefully managed approach to a more general allowed approach is another matter. In my view it is closely reflective of the level of trust an organisation has in its staff and how well they guide and train them in the rights and wrongs of engagement.
Right now many organisations provide regular staff training on fraud prevention, financial management and similar types of processes and procedures. Perhaps in the future they will include training in social media engagement in this mix.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Citizen 2.0 - how would a government department address this marketing nightmare? | Tweet |
Over the last week US media has been buzzing with the story of Canadian musician Dave Carroll, whose US$3,500 Taylor guitar was broken on a flight on United Airlines.
Carroll reported that people on the plane had watched with horror as United baggage handlers had roughly handled and thrown his and other guitars while putting them onto the plane.
However, despite nine months of discussion with United, following all the instructions they gave him, the airline finally disavowed any responsibility and refused to pay the US$1,200 required to repair the guitar.
Carroll told the United airlines representative who finally said 'No' that he would write and produce three songs about his experience and publish them to Youtube.
On Monday 6 July the first of these songs was released, soaring to over 1.6 million views in under a week. The story has received coverage on CNN, across major daily papers and across regional and local TV and radio in the US and Canada.
Within a day of the song going live United was on the phone to Carroll, promising to 'make right' the situation. Carroll has directed United to give the money to a charity of their choice and will release the next two songs in the series aimed at United.
How would a government department react if a similar event occurred to them?
Citizens today have many avenues for raising public awareness of perceived mistakes or incompetence, bypassing the traditional government complaints and resolution processes.
All it takes is a single citizen to take their complaint in an engaging manner to an online channel such as YouTube and an issue can become very public very quickly.
Do government departments have a plan for handling these types of events?
Here's the video clip for those who have not yet seen it.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Social media now more popular than personal email - Neilsen | Tweet |
In their Global Faces and Networked Places report (PDF), Neilsen has found that social networks and blogs (Member Communities) are now the 4th most popular online category - ahead of personal email.
Neilsen said that the Social Media Communities area is growing at more than twice the rate of the other top 4 categories.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Do you plan your online strategy in the same way you plan your media strategy? | Tweet |
Typically government and commercial media teams spend time identifying publications and journalists that have the most appropriate audiences for an organisation's products and services.
They commit energy to building constructive relationships with those that have influence over the members of the public they are trying to engage, tailoring stories to suit their individual needs.
Why do media teams spend time building relationships with parts of the media? Because it works.
Good working relationships improve outcomes for all of the parties involved - the organisation, the media team, the journalist, media outlet and the ultimate audience.
So if this approach works for offline media, does it work online?
My answer is an unequivocal YES.
If organisations cultivate relationships with key bloggers and forums, tailor information for websites that attract appropriate audiences and commit to ongoing research to identify where they should concentrate their efforts, they will achieve better communications and engagement outcomes.
Conversely, few organisations would follow their current online strategy in offline media. This would involve the organisation producing their own departmental or company newspaper or radio station for the public, then refusing to engage with any other news media.
Unfortunately this is the thinking and approach many government and commercial organisations follow with their websites.
They invest large resources into developing a single 'owned' destination where they expect their customers to come for information and discussion.
They invest little into reaching out to other websites, forums, blogs and social networks - even where these 'media outlets' already attract the audience that the department or company wishes to reach.
This approach is unsustainable and impractical in the long run and will fail to meet organisational goals.
Monitoring audiences, build relationships and engaging with appropriate outlets works for online media at least as well as it does for offline.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Reaching fragmenting audiences and maximising online engagement | Tweet |
At about the time this post will appear on my blog I'll be speaking at the Hitwise/Australian Marketing Institute breakfast in Canberra on a topic related to Maximising engagement online whilst reducing costs.
My presentation will explore ways of identifying where audiences are going online to help organisations form appropriate strategies to target them with messages or for engagement.
This is an increasing issue for all communicators. Effectively media has fragmented, with tens of different media channels from traditional TV, newspapers and radio to a plethora of new channels such as Pay TV, console games, PC games, mobile devices and millions of websites.
Communicators have chosen several different paths to addressing this fragmentation challenge.
The first approach is the 'ostrich' - ignore all the new channels and focus on the 'traditional' mass media. This strategy continues to work - particularly for older demographics - although advertisers are paying more and more for smaller and smaller audiences.
The second is the 'spend more' approach - throw more dollars into communication in order to increase reach and frequency across different media channels. Unfortunately this also suffers from the cost curve - more money buys less media each year.
The third is the 'shout louder' approach - start spending on new media channels, but do so only to send out messages rather than encouraging conversations. Unfortunately this approach is often counter-productive. Just like shouting at someone who does not speak English, it neither improves message cut-through nor demonstrates respect for the medium or audience.
The final approach I'll discuss I call 'go with the flow'. It involves finding out where your key audiences choose to gather and then respectfully engaging them in appropriate ways. This approach requires more upfront planning and strategising than the other approaches (which may be why fewer organisations employ it), however it reaps much larger long-term benefits. Rather than simply serving as an advertising tactic it serves to create a communications and engagement platform through which organisations can interact with their key audiences on an ongoing basis.
There's no secret as to which approach I prefer as a communicator.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Do Australian governments agencies need to appoint Social Media / New Media Directors? | Tweet |
A rising trend in overseas governments is to appoint people specifically into a role such as New Media Director with a responsibility for developing guiding an agency or department's online participation initiatives.
In the US Federal Government this type of role is becoming so important that it is becoming a political appointment (as are the various Secretaries, CTO and CIO positions) rather than simply a bureaucratic hire.
To my knowledge there are few if any Online Media, New Media or Social Media Director or SES role across the Australian Public Service and a search of APSjobs resulted in zero results for all three terms.
I am interested in your views;
Do Australian government agencies need to begin formalising their commitment to new media channels by hiring appropriately qualified individuals as their New Media or Social Media Directors?
Is the talent pool in Australia deep enough to support this?
Should we keep the role buried in another area, such as the Online Services or Online Communications Team or within a Media or other Customer Communications group?
Should the Australian government engage with new media channels at all?
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Government and the social life of brands - how to benefit from interacting with customers through social media | Tweet |
Everyone knows what brands are, 'products' that have been strongly linked to a specific (brand) name, lifestyle, belief or emotional attachment in order to establish their relative value to consumers.
As defined by David Ogilvy, a brand is:
The intangible sum of a product's attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it's advertised.Brands can be established around tangible and intangible goods and services, organisations or people - think Aston Martin, Coca-cola, David Beckham and Kevin Rudd.
Kevin Rudd? Yes I believe that government also has brands. Organisations such as Centrelink, ATO and Medicare, products such as e-Tax and people such as the Prime Minister all exhibit the traits of brands and can be marketed and promoted in that manner.
This makes it relevant to consider the latest report on the social life of brands from Ogilvy International, Can brands have a social life? How brands in Asia can benefit from interacting with customers through social media (PDF).
This report, discussed through their Open Room blog, looks at how social media is being used across Asia to accelerate and reshape the dialogue between citizens and between citizens and brands (including government).
In each of the twelve countries featured (China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam) the experience is slightly different in flavour, however the overall them and trend is the same.
This theme reflects the same experience in western countries such as the US, UK and Australia.
To pull out a few important themes considered in the report,
- Consumer opinion counts more than ever
- Social media is a pivotal part of the consumer's digital ecosystem
- The Y-Generation live their lives in social media and if you’re not talking to them,
- someone else will
- Social media is all about managing 'influencers', creating a dialogue with the most important influencers and having them spread the word for you
- Letting go of the brand is a reality of social media and it’s critical that the brand’s senior management fully understand the implications, and are willing to take the risk as well as commit resource
- Social media success has to be embedded in honesty and trust by playing to the brand’s core values and ideals. No falsifications
- Brands that disclose conflicts of interest, are responsive to questions, and permit negative as well as positive discussion are most likely to get accepted.
- Brands need to be willing to contribute to be accepted in social media. Even to go as far as contributing unconditionally.
Truth, honesty, openness and collaboration are all values that are highly regarded but are often difficult for organisations to embody.
I think the real dilemma many organisations, particularly in the public sector, need to first address is how to reshape their own culture and values to allow them to fruitfully engage online.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
The reality of marketing and comms today | Tweet |
Marketing just isn't the same anymore - customers are harder to reach, they trust brands less and spend their time listening to each other rather than to media or to corporate or government marketers and communicators.
Yet many comms and marketing people are still stuck on the 'shout louder and longer' theory. If someone isn't listening, the theory goes, you keep shouting at them louder and louder until they MUST listen to you.
It's an interesting theory - one that I sometimes see English speakers use to attempt to reach those who speak other languages. The twin fallacies of the approach are that people can simply walk away (switch you off) or may not actually understand you in the first place. They may also find you obnoxious and rude and go tell all their friends that.
The other communications approach I see used a great deal is the 'love'em and leave'em' or 'big bang' approach. An organisation will go for saturation coverage, a big launch event and then - nothing. After launch they settle back to assess the numbers, maybe doing a mini-relaunch every now and then to attempt to regain interest. Big launches are good fun and I've participated in a number of them over the years, but they don't shape lasting impressions.
As most people have discovered, it is hard to build a long-term relationship with another person by leaping out of a box with a bunch of flowers while a plane skywrites their name in the sky and then ignoring them totally for the next year.
So what's another option?
How about starting with a conversation - simply talking to your customers without expectations or attempting to direct or control the conversation. Over time, as trust builds your relationship, you can inject ideas or build on suggestions and co-create a product, service, policy or program in collaboration with your audience.
Sounds crazy? It's been done - with everything from government policy (in New Zealand) to beer. In fact it even has a name - relationship marketing.
Even if you think this approach is too out there, or would take too long, it's clear that our audiences have changed their behaviours. Old marketing techniques are less effective and old marketers need to learn new tricks.
And if you believe that just because we're in government we're different in some way, sorry no. People are bombarded with advertising all the time. Putting an Australian crest into an ad doesn't mystically help it cut through the morass of messages. We have to do better than that.
Steve Collins from AcidLabs recently blogged about the video below in his post Engage them.
As a marketer I found this video tells a compelling story of how markets have changed.
The big question for me is - have government communicators?
Friday, January 30, 2009
Vision of the future - 35% of US Adults using online social networks - 75% of 18-24yr olds | Tweet |
Of course they still listen to, enjoy and buy other music, but at the end of the day the Beatles, BeeGees, ABBA, the Rolling Stones and other bands would not have the continuing strength of following they have today if those who were teens in the sixties and seventies didn't continue to love and pay for their music.
This imprinting also holds for internet usage. While people of all ages use the internet, commonly those over the age of 35 or 40 are termed 'digital immigrants', while younger people are termed 'digital natives'.
This reflects how the internet is placed in their world view. There's a simple way to check to see which of these groups you're likely to be,
When you need to find the phone number for a restauant do you first think of the yellow pages or Google?
When you are booking a holiday do you first think of a travel agent or an online booking site?
If the internet is central in your approach, you're likely a digital native (whatever your age).
This is very keenly visible in the ages of people using online social networks. PEW Research recently released a review of online Americans' use of social networks (PDF), which demonstrates the age differences discussed above.
Most importantly this provides Australian government with an early warning as to how it needs to change its engagement and communications to continue to be relevant.
So what is going on in the US?
PEW reports that,
Young people are much more likely than older adults to use social networks.
- 75% of online adults 18-24 have a profile on a social network site
- 57% of online adults 25-34 have a profile on a social network
- 30% of online adults 35-44 have one
- 19% of online 45 to 54 year olds have a profile
- 10% of online 55 to 64 year olds have a profile
- 7% of online adults 65 and older have a profile
Also very interesting was usage by income level. PEW reported that lower income earners were more likely to use these networks than higher income earners, as follows,
The percentage of Americans in each demographic category who have a profile on a social media network,
Earns less than $30,000 - 45%
Earns $30,000 - $49,999 - 38%
Earns $50,000 - $74,999 - 30%
Earns $75,000+ - 31%
Perhaps more telling for government is what people are using these networks to do. When PEW asked, Do you use your online profile for..., the below were the results for adults,
- Stay in touch with friends - 89%
- Make plans with friends - 57%
- Make new friends - 49%
- Organize with others for an event, issue or cause - 43%
- Make new business or professional contacts - 28%
- Promote yourself or your work - 28%
- Flirt - 20%
So what does this mean for Australian government?
My research over the last twelve years of watching online trends closely indicates that Australians are much like Americans in their internet usage, but 18-24 months behind. Therefore if your agency needs to target people under the age of 35 then within the next 18 months it is likely that 60% or more of your customers/audience/clients/younger staff will be using social networks.
This gives Australian government 12-18 months to become proficient in effectively using these networks to engage with any and all of these audiences - for communication, consultation or employment.
That's a nice window to have - but it will pass quickly.
We need to begin now to align our communications and service delivery management with the mindset and skills required to deliver messages and engage audiences successfully through these channels.
We also need more agency experiments with social networks to build our practical expertise and IT skills.
The ATO seems to recognise this, with their e-Tax Facebook group.
While e-Tax isn't the most riveting subject for most of us, it's a tool with the potential to save both government and citizens significant time and money.
Facebook is the obvious place to find people who would choose to use an e-Tax package, and is full of people prepared to give their frank and fearless views on the current product, helping the ATO understand the improvements necessary to continue to broaden its appeal.
Canberra University is also actively using Facebook to seek new employees - quite a smart approach in my view, although I don't know how successful it has been.
So how is your agency planning to address the need to understand and adapt its communication and marketing to a mostly online audience?
What is it doing to build internal expertise in social networks and position itself to use these channels to reach audiences?
If instead you're waiting on the sidelines, what are you waiting for?
Friday, January 02, 2009
Twitter successes - case studies for government use | Tweet |
As the government is generally a monopoly provider of services it can at times seem less important to monitor customer sentiment on an ongoing basis or address customer service deficits...until an MP writes a letter to a Minister, traditional media picks up an issue, or the next election comes around.
Personally I see enormous advantage in monitoring public sentiment towards specific agencies and departments - particularly online sentiment (where journalists often get their stories).
This allows departments greater early warning of issues, with the ability to address them more quickly. It also provides a baseline of public perceptions that senior public servants can use when a Minister receives details of a specific incident, which might be able to be correctly positioned a complaint as isolated or used to support the case for wider reforms that an agency has already identified as necessary.
I've posted previously about the range of US government agencies and elected officials using Twitter, the most popular web-based 'micro-blogging' service, in various initiatives ranging from disaster recovery, through traffic management, policy development, customer service and monitoring public sentiment. You'll find my post at Twitter catching on in the public sector and List of US government Twitter users.
An upcoming book by Shel Israel will be recounting stories of how organisations have used Twitter to navigate public relations issues and deliver positive customer service experiences. It will also contain some of the examples where organisations ignored online conversations and lost business and public reputation.
Shel has begun publishing notes about some of the case studies he'll be using in his book in his blog, Global Neighbours. These include,
- U-Haul - where a single bad experience has echoed to more than 10,000 people and taken up in broader media,
- Zappo - a US-based online retailer founded in 1999, now selling more than US$1 billion per year, which uses Twitter as a tool to carry the corporate culture beyond the organisation's walls to establish credibility with customers,
- HR Block - who uses Twitter to build bridges with Gen X and Y clients just entering the tax paying arena, in order to lock them in as customers for life, and
- Ford - who used Twitter to minimise a major reputation issue which could have created national media headlines - but only because they had built online credibility over time prior to the issue.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
What would occur if the STOP sign was invented today? | Tweet |
Public Sector Marketing 2.0 has published an online video looking at the process government would go through if it was first inventing a STOP sign for traffic intersections.
While cynical, perhaps there's a few grains of truth in the message that sometimes in government we focus on our own importance and processes to the expense of the customer and outcomes. What do you think?
What would happen if the STOP sign was invented in 2008?
Friday, December 19, 2008
A better name for Government 2.0 | Tweet |
I'm not a fan of terms such as Web 2.0, which seems to refer to any internet development since 2001. The web is an evolving medium, just like any other. We don't see the term 'Television 2.0' (or 5.0 considering all the generational changes) used to refer to reality TV.
I'm even less comfortable with the term 'Government 2.0' - which refers nebulously to government use of 'Web 2.0' technologies - a slogan on a slogan.
Government 2.0 isn't quite an entire rethink of how democratic government works. Government remains an elected institution designed to provide 'public goods', infrastructure and services more efficiently than would be provided by private concerns. It also has a critical role in regulating and balancing competing economic and social forces to ensure the needs of a community are met with minimal disadvantage to specific groups.
What government 2.0 involves, in my thinking, is significant changes to mindsets, business processes, infrastructure and funding models to adapt how government listens to and engages the public, customers, clients and other stakeholders.
These changes mirrors the social and economic changes already occurring in the community to exploit potential benefits derived through technological innovation.
(Feel free to tell me that my definition is wrong)
So if we need an alternative term to Government 2.0 what should it be?
Personally I favour terms such as 21st century government, modern government or connected government - which reflect that the goal is to reconnect government with its stakeholders using modern techniques and tecnologies.
Dr Mark Drapeau, from the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC., recently asked people for a few ideas and presented them in his blog at Mashable in the post, Rebranding Government 2.0.
DO you think any of these terms will catch on?
