Social Media success in Europe? I wanna know!

Categories: Europe, Global WebPosted on September 26th, 2007

I don’t want to be American-centric, but I need your help.

If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ll notice that I’ve spent some time in Asia (Singapore, HK, Japan) learning about web adoption and sophistication (Canada too). I really want to be the conduit for my many Silicon Valley readers to know more about what the rest of the world has done, Social Media, and the internet at large is truly a global tool.

I’d like to invite you to share with me some case studies of what other companies have done to use social media (from blogs, social networks, online media, etc) to reach and connect with customers. These stories can either be of success or even hard learnings, so please leave a comment below and let me know, of course, please provide links to the appropriate websites.

Shout out your success with social media in Europe! Tell me: 1) What was the company, 2) who were they trying to reach, 3) what was the problem, 4) what did they deploy, 5) how’d it go? 6) What suggestions would you give to the program, where’s it headed? and anything else you wanted to share!

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 26th, 2007 at 9:41 am and is filed under Europe, Global Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

i recommend primelabs, aftonbladet, stardoll all based in sweden

Posted by sriram on September 26th, 2007 at 11:02 am

and definitely recommend bjorn jeferry at good old trend (http://www.goodold.se/blog/trend/) if you’d like to know more.

Posted by sriram on September 26th, 2007 at 11:03 am

Have a look at Headshift and Lee Bryant’s work on the web. The vault is full. Steward Mader has met recently a lot of people in Europe. No doubts he has loads to tell.
disclaimer: I’m a Headshift member

Posted by olivier Amprimo on September 26th, 2007 at 11:25 am

You should check out http://www.wetryharder.co.uk from Avis car rentals in the UK which is being talked about quite a lot as a succesful use of social media.

Posted by Pete on September 26th, 2007 at 1:13 pm

You might want to check out blognation (http://www.blognation.com) which covers this kind of stuff fairly extensively.

Posted by Tristan Louis on September 26th, 2007 at 2:18 pm

An interesting blog you should check out is http://www.secretarialblog.co.uk. It has managed to create a community amongst PAs and secretaries and has done it in a fun way. Recently was mentioned on Seth Godin’s blog by a reader - http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/09/seven-tips-to-b.html

Posted by Ben S. on September 26th, 2007 at 2:41 pm

Jeremiah,

You may remember I contacted you a couple of weeks ago regarding social media for the financial sector (thanks again for your help).

During my research I came across an interesting social media application by Innocent, the green, ethical, progressive, healthy UK drinks company.

Last May, Innocent was trial testing some products in McDonald’s restaurants, a brand with a somewhat different image (albeit they are trying to change).

Long story short – the clever people in Innocent decided to take the bull by its horns, blog about their decision on their site and ask people to comment on whether Innocent should or should not be associated with McDonald’s.

The blog, found at http://innocentdrinks.typepad.com/innocent_drinks/2007/05/to_burger_or_no_1.html
, has generated a massive response.

By doing so, Innocent has enhanced its reputation as an attentive brand and at the same time get some great feedback from its customer base.

Michael

Posted by Michael Feiner on September 26th, 2007 at 4:25 pm

There are all excellent, I was hoping that folks would lay out some of the examples by using some of those points I gave above, this would really help aid the process and let others see the opportunities and success!

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on September 26th, 2007 at 6:19 pm

Someone suggested to look at Habbo hotel, i’ve been watching

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=15397

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on September 26th, 2007 at 7:56 pm

I also received messages that

“Netvibes is a Parisian company.”

and

“Also, you should talk to Stephane Distinguin. He does SM campaigns for all the major telcos, govt, big biz.”

“yes XING - the european linkedin”

“

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on September 26th, 2007 at 8:54 pm

Some of the things they’re doing over at Dagbladet.no, the online edition of Norway’s second biggest newspaper:

* They’ve started writing their news stories in a “blog-like” format with links to other pages/sites
* They’ve added tags to their posts
* Some stories have comments
* They’ve added “social media sharing” buttons to some stories so people easily can post a link to the story on sites like FaceBook
* Some of their journalists make video clips as well and the viewers can embed the videos on their blogs.
* Some journalists are using Google Maps in their news stories

Their main competitors (www.vg.no and http://www.aftenposten.no) are quickly adding similar features to their sites.

The national broadcasting company, NRK, is actively using sites like Youtube and Facebook. The people working in their social media lab/think-tank (NRKbeta.no) blog and twitter. I *think* I read somewhere that NRK is also developing a sim in Second Life.

Posted by Awais Sultan on September 26th, 2007 at 9:30 pm

Some of the stuff companies like Dagbladet are doing isn’t that new, but I like how they as a “traditional” media company are embracing “new media”. I especially like how they’re using google maps. I’ve noticed that not all of their journalists do this, but some of them do…not quite sure about their policy on that one.

http://www.dagbladet.no/nyheter/2007/09/25/513107.html

For instance, in the story above (the link is in Norwegian), they’ve used it to show the last place a missing man was seen before he disappeared.

Also, near the bottom of their front page, they’ve added a tag cloud with tags from today’s stories. This way you can see what issues are getting most coverage on their site right now.

Posted by Awais Sultan on September 26th, 2007 at 9:39 pm

http://www.hyves.nl
myspacetwitterfacebooklinkedinalikesite more than 4 million users (17 million inhabitants)

Posted by pixites on September 26th, 2007 at 11:46 pm

forgot to mention perhaps extension .nl is representing the netherlands (aka holland;)

Posted by pixites on September 27th, 2007 at 12:00 am

Awais, this is VERY helpful. I think that many North American media websites are responding in a similar fashion.

Pixites, Hyves looks like a Social Network.

I’ve received an email about this Sweedish Shareholders Association launching digg like community features, they had success with increased traffic and engagement I’m told.

http://www.aktiespararna.se/start

Sadly, I don’t read Swedish to confirm.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on September 27th, 2007 at 3:35 am

There is a case study on http://wetryharder.co.uk at http://www.marketsentinel.com/blog/2007/04/online-brand-building-a-case-study-from-avis-europe

The site is a collaboration between marketing and customer service and recently won an award for innovation in customer service

Posted by Pete on September 27th, 2007 at 4:00 am

Test . . .

Posted by Aaron on September 27th, 2007 at 7:37 am

Sorry for the test above, typed out a long, long post detailing my experiences of social media here in Denmark but it was lost to the internet ether.

Here’s the abbreviated version: I convinced my company (a small communications agency where I work as a copywriter) to start a blog and am now actively working to promote social media tools among our clients (large IT, pharmaceutical and industry firms). Here in Denmark, awareness of social media is on the rise but adoption is rare.

Here’s a few links:

Arla (big food company) . . .
http://www.arla.dk/C1256FA800483D00/O/F5D907ECB8D14CAAC1257018004B09C6

Berlingske (one of Denmark’s biggst newspapers) has just launched an impressive network of 10 blogs . . .
http://blogs.berlingske.dk/

The Copenhagen Project (my friend’s ambitious attempt to break down and classify the elements of new media . . .
http://www.thecopenhagenproject.org/

As for my experiences, it’s amazing how simple you have to keep things. One of the most valuable things I do is tell marketers about Google Reader!

A senior marketer at a major IT consultancy recently asked me what Facebook was.

Interest is growing though and Danes are pretty web savvy. There’s an amazing broadband network here and i’d say it’s just a matter of time before more companies are Twittering, Facebooking and blogging.

Posted by Aaron on September 27th, 2007 at 7:45 am

Aaron thanks, no worries about the test, I allow all comments to publish automatically, aksimet flags the spam.

Great job being an evangelist, these are good examples.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on September 27th, 2007 at 9:31 am

Too early to say how successful it will be but the UK’s Foreign Office (equivalent to the US state department) launched a number of social media tools just yesterday: a blogging platform, Youtube channel and flickr account, all integrated together off the corporate domain. Its designed to ‘engage in a dialogue with the public about international affairs’ and involves a number of people from across the department, from foreign secretary down. Be interesting to see how it fairs. Details here: http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=1007029391629&a=KArticle&aid=1188493989721

Posted by Jeremy Gould on September 27th, 2007 at 9:35 am

There’s one corporate blog many people relate to when they talk about social commerce in Germany.

It can be found here: http://www.frostablog.de/blog/

I’m afraid you guys don’t speak German so here is what they do in a nutshell:

They spread their USP, which is NOT using additives in the frozen food that they produce

They also show videos of company employees that cook meals and meanwhile tell something about these products.

Frosta also works together with an agency for viral marketing. They sent out vouchers for their products and asked to spread the word.
They also use a community for that.

Might not be that interesting for you as it’s all German, but I just felt it had to be said.

GREAT blog by the way.

Posted by Stefan on September 27th, 2007 at 12:45 pm

Stefan,you’ve done the right thing by sharing, thanks!

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on September 27th, 2007 at 2:20 pm

http://www.taloussanomat.fi is Finland’s second largest financial newspaper (owned by SanomaWSOY). They rewamped their newspaper so that the Web is #1, and the paper is mainly background. They a blogging platform called Omasana (http://www.omasana.fi), which translates to “Your own words”. Anyone can start a blog inside Omasana which is a key part of online newspaper.

Other than that the newspaper allows commenting for everything and uses a lot of navigation elements that are similar to many social networking sites. They even publish their own articles under CC-license. Talk about sharing

Also they are using Jaiku (www.jaiku.fi) to promote their stuff. Jaiku is a finnish competitor for Twitter.

Btw. Nokia has an interesting job opening that might interest readers of this blog (the position is located in Finland, but after reading the description you might consider moving…): E-Marketing Director for Nokia, http://www.mol.fi/paikat/Job.do?lang=fi&jobID=6775601&index=40&anchor=6775601

Posted by PerttuT on September 28th, 2007 at 5:01 am

We created the Players’ Republic last year for PlayStation France.
http://www.playersrepublic.fr

Objectives:
1. Create an ongoing relationship with consumers that is contributive
and consumer-centric. The consumer is the primary catalyst in the relationship.
2. Increase sales by fuelling word of mouth

Concept: Power to the players

Players Republic a gaming brand community powered by its fans.
A social network that turns over the controls to the users and facilitates connections between them.

It’s a web 2.0 platform with real-time qualification of users so as to address them in an individualized manner with the right offer and the right content at the right time.

PlayStation gives the power to its customers to create a more balanced relationship.

Community tools together with a personalized reward programme make this a permanent arena of exchange between the brand and its customers.

As well as between the customers themselves.

Users can express themselves (through a blog platform incorporated within the platform), get rewards, get info and be entertained.
They are also remunerated and rewarded according to their level of participation as well as the quality of this participation.

It’s a Meritocracy: the platform nourishes a database in real-time so that the most active members get the most rewards.

Would you need more info Jeremiah, contact me on Facebook, I am in your contact list.

Posted by Branislav Peric on September 28th, 2007 at 9:56 am

Branislav, thanks, this is a great example

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on September 28th, 2007 at 10:22 am

Social Networking - Europe in general:
http://mashable.com/2007/09/19/facebook-europe/

Social Networking Germany (where I live):
http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1737

As somone already pointed out, Xing is Linked-in for Europe.

Twitter equivalent (but much more): go look at Aka-Aki from company in Berlin (closed beta now, but if you ask, they’ll let you in.)

One very interesting fact about German market: Germans want their social networking (and, well, actually everything) sites in German - so don’t even think about entering the market with an “international” English version. Won’t work here.

Posted by Julie on September 30th, 2007 at 5:49 am

Two additions to the list of European social ventures:

1) Ezmo (www.ezmo.com), based in Norway, is a online music library service, that allows users to store their music online and share it with up to 10 trusted friends. It is still in beta and not really ready yet, but from what I understand it will also include a recommendation system which helps users to select songs music based on the tastes of the friends they are hanging out with at that moment. If it markets itself succesfully it could become quite sucessful I think.

2) Wakoopa (www.wakoopa), based in the Netherlands, tracks what software or games users are using and allows users to share their software usage and experiences with others. Based on the communities usage and experience users can get recommendations on new software and games. For the select communities of gamers and software engineers very interesting.

Posted by Ammy on October 1st, 2007 at 4:00 am

Argus car hire have a blog that offers agood example http://blog.arguscarhire.com/

Posted by Mike on March 31st, 2008 at 7:23 am

[...] parler d’un projet dont je me suis occupé et qui avait attiré son attention sur le blog de Jeremiah Owyang. Il voulait le citer comme exemple dans ce livre qu’il préparait à l’époque. [...]

Posted by Groundswell, winning in a world transformed by social technologies at Branislav Peric on April 7th, 2008 at 2:15 pm