7 Key Learnings you should know from the Web Community Forum
I just spent the last two days exploring nearly all aspects of Facebook with 100 brands, marketers, widget companies, and developers at Seattle’s Web Community Forum (with a focus on Facebook). Some have had success (some were strategic…others were in the right place at the right time), but many are trying to make sense of what to do.
But what does it all mean, what’s the big takeaway? A few high-level themes that I observed:
1. Hard to keep up: Facebook platform is constantly changing
Nearly every developer who presented mentioned that the Facebooks developer platform F8 is constantly changing, and sometimes without notice, it’s difficult to keep up. New features are released (such as the ability to read messages in external email) without warning, and major changes are made that can impact privacy (Newsfeed and Beacon) with little warning to the community. On the brand side, some expressed they were still trying to understand all the different features and tools. Facebook is like an evolving operating system.2. There are so many features or products –overwhelming for brands We had several sessions showing the many features of Facebook, the 80/20 rule of feature adoption probably holds true. Most of us just use a small portion of features for most of the time. I learned a few new things: I didn’t realize that applications could be put on top of Facebook pages (fan pages), there’s an interesting dynamic there, except for the fact that most applications won’t serve a large brand. With so many features and combinations, it’s difficult for brands to keep up.
3. Advertising effectiveness questioned, although hasn’t been fully explored A few times, the click through rates were challenged for ads, banners, and contextual or social ads. In only one case did I hear that one advertiser created a very focused ad campaign (towards college-bound high school students) received low click through rates, but once the users made it over to her site, the conversion was at 40%, that’s very high. With that said, I’ve yet to hear of a large brand use a balanced advertising campaign on Facebook, a combination of Facebook pages, ads, social ads, banner ads, and applications in an integrated way.
4. Despite privacy issues, majority of users will continue on
The majority of Facebook users (and internet users at large) are unaware or don’t care about how their information is being used online. Proof? I’ve lectured my kid-sisters in college on what’s appropriate, I’m not sure if she understood. Despite the major concerns for user privacy, a majority of users will continue to live life online as normal, they will only become concerned once it impacts them. I still think the majority of internet users are sheep, they follow the behind of the sheep in front of them.5. Many widget creators are planning for other networks
Some of the widget networks I’ve been talking to (I’m starting to get briefed by others) are looking NOT just at Facebook as the sole place to deploy, but on other networks. It makes sense, yet there are two major challenges: 1) Each community is different, so expecting widgets to work universally across all social networks is unwise. 2) APIs and platforms for each social network are radically different, so many applications have to be rebuilt.6. A mini eco-system has emerged
Building off the previous bullet, a new service industry has appeared. I made at least two introductions for my clients that were present (at their request) to widget developers for Facebook (which are very hard to find now a days). We should also expect a new service provider to emerge that will help widget developers quickly port applciations to many social networks –sort of a ‘widget/container integration specialist’. Lastly, the conference itself was a nod to this future industry, I mentioned to the press over a call that 12 months ago, no one had even expected that a conference on Facebook would emerge, yet there are at least 4 this year.7. The “Distributed Web Strategy” starts to take hold
In more than one presentation did the theme of “Fish where the fish are” resonate. Brands, companies, and marketers, need to stop focusing so hard on ‘driving traffic to my irrelevant corporate website (translated into 8 languages now)‘ and now start thinking about joining communities where they exist, where the trust is highest, and being part of the communities that are naturally forming online. This also means that any brand who is focused on a Facebook strategy alone is missing the picture, the scope should be to wherever online communities are forming in their marketplace.
My upcoming research reports are focused on Online Communities and Social Networks, I was able to formerly interview many of the community strategists or community managers that are living in the day to day, they’ve shared quite a bit with me. Many of those who I interviewed for my research I also did some mini-video interviews, you’ll see them published over the next few days.
For some research that is available from Bill Johnston check out this report Online Community ROI Best Practices Survey (PDF) from Forum One. On question 9 on budgets for online communities, is that monthly or yearly? Also, in the metrics that are reported back to management, how come ‘attention’ isn’t listed? (Update: Bill responded in the comments below, budget is annual, and attention wasn’t considered important) Great report overall, if you’re in the space, you should read that, and attend their events –I’ve been to a few, and will attend future ones.
Ok, now back to you, what other large themes and trends are you seeing? Care to dispute any of these observations?
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Woah, there. Regarding your 4th point, I’ll agree that privacy has a somewhat different meaning these days with the latest generation of Facebook users, but before you immediately follow the new media assumption that users are sheep when it comes to privacy you should really read this post by Fred Stutzman, an academic on identity who focuses quite a bit of time studying Facebook usage patterns, and co-founder of claimID. I think he makes some valid points about strange new media notion that all users are sheep.
Stongly agree:
- “It makes sense, yet there are two major challenges: 1) Each community is different, so expecting widgets to work universally across all social networks is unwise. 2) APIs and platforms for each social network are radically different, so many applications have to be rebuilt.” [#5]
- “Brands, companies, and marketers, need to stop focusing so hard on ‘driving traffic to my irrelevant corporate website (translated into 8 languages now)‘ and now start thinking about joining communities where they exist, where the trust is highest, and being part of the communities that are naturally forming online.” [#7]
(I feel “forming naturally” would be more accurate)
One thing that is apparently still being overlooked is how the greatest value lies in recommendations from friends, enthusiasts, experts, etc. — in other words: in the community of people who are topically focused (i.e., the topic is what localisation is all about).
That is another reason why “applications don’t matter” (http://twitter.com/nmw/statuses/473094552
— “it’s not the application, it’s the data!”
see also the wisdom of the language
[…] other observations, web-strategist Jeremiah Owyang observes an exciting account that I’ve been following, of how API developers are trying to […]
Interesting read sites not integrating ads and pages is remarkable but there is a lot of companies running before they walk forgetting basic planning principles and no doubt roi
Anyone following social media and the evolution of online communities (even in the last year) is now being fed the same repetitive information.
YES, we know corporate web sites are irrelevant and that they have to join the conversation online. If you want to learn facebook-stop analyzing it like a business. Join it as a USER and figure it out.
Jeremiah I’m sure most of your core user base knew most of this in 2005.
How about something new and innovative instead of continuing to prove the same over-stated points?
dmix
Yes, yes, you’re in the choir, got it, I suspect you’re FAR more advanced than most people I interface with so your patience is needed.
These were the findings from the conference, that’s what’s being discussed –repetitive or not.
But I gotta ask, how many brands who have corporate websites have actually done this? I’ve an internal wiki I share with Charlene and Josh and there’s only a few dozen names of companies that have done it well, despite the fact there are thousands of companies.
Hey Jeremiah -
RE your questions about the ROI report:
1. The budgets were annual
2. “Attention” wasn’t mentioned by the respondents as a meaningful dimension of value that was reported back.
We plan to do a follow up in early 2008, so if you (or anyone reading the blog) have specific questions about ROI they would like to explore, I’d be happy to discuss including them.
RE: The WCF. I agree, it was good. Solid content and great networking.
Thanks Bill, I’ll update the post.
I’m really surprised “attention” or” time on site” wasn’t measured (maybe it’s a definition issue). as when I was at Hitachi, our community had nearly an hour of usage while the corporate website had just a few minutes –HUGE difference.
Can you probe in the next report to see if that’s an important measurement this year?
Jeremiah maybe the first step is understanding how tools like facebook work. But most of these companies haven’t even figured out something simple like telephone customer service. Pretty much everyone dreds having to call a company where they can listen to a 5-min machine recording and being put on hold for 20 minutes.
They havent created an enviorment for these communities to create themselves and give customers something to talk about instead they continue to lower their bottom line. Plus most of these customers have accepted the low-quality service they’ve been getting so you won’t hear much about it by just listening to their conversations.
Most of these companies don’t have the credibility to be influential in these high-trust communities… I think that should be the first step.
Jeremiah…I agree with almost every point you make with respect to the trends, but I’ll add that the trends don’t always amount to good strategy.
In particular, privacy and trust issues must be evaluated in terms of risk (potential for a PR nightmare or real harm to a user), not revenue (users continuing to act like sheep).
Take points 1 & 4 combined for example. This is a liability landmine, and it only takes one Tylenol like scare to take Facebook’s value from billions back to millions. While, I think Facebook is an incredible breakthrough in social computing, it is also walking a thin very thin line with respect to it’s business model. Hopefully, the Beacon fiasco has given them a firm heads up..but I doubt it. At it’s core, the company’s current business model is predicated on users bartering their privacy for use of the application.
Dmix
Absolutely, dive in and get to know the tools IS the first step for marketers, thanks. (and sorry for being repetitive, there’s a theme I have to drive home)
Joel,
You’re right, trends are NOT a strategy. Strategies have to change depending on the environment. Yes, privacy was discussed frequently at the conference.
were there a lot of “Fan-sumers” at the conference?!
Yes, several people said they were brand fans. now back to you, do you have any clothes with logos on them?
Hi Jeremiah, Your blog posting is spot on.
Being successful is so hard in the social networking / facebook areana.
You need spot on analysis / a well structured campaign / fantastic content and a dash of luck too.
I personally have tried various widgets with mixed effects.
I think companies should actually consider if they have what it takes to do a successful application or launch a successful social networking campaign.
Firstly you have to make yourself heard amidst the noise out there. With over 6000 applications out there is hard to be noticed. Secondly you are right - Facebook is constantly changing and evolving. Thirdly are people who are socialising on facebook really interested in your brand? A good example of a recent British facebook application is the Office ASBO on facebook:
http://apps.facebook.com/officeasbo. The app is a really funny and engages with the user but hard to get viral effect when everyone has tons of application invitations.
Hi! I can’t post messagte here…
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Excellent post about community forums.