HEAD BLOG

When it comes to spreading the word about your brand, the received wisdom is that Facebook and Twitter are the slickest way to go. Often, however, they are viewed as one and the same as marketing managers boil their influence down to “spreading the word”. The two social media giants, however, are two very different beasts and require a very different approach.

Let’s try to separate the two and achieve a little clarity.

On the surface, the differences seem clear. Facebook has so many mechanisms which users can draw upon to interact with one another. Sending photos, emails, IM, status updates, videos, games, Facebook looks like it could be the one stop shop for social media. Drop a stone here, you might think, and count the ripples.

Even the status updates have changed to mimic the 140 character messages of Twitter.

That alone should dictate social media strategy: post games and movies on Facebook, keep Twitter for simple comments.

The truth, however, isn’t so straightforward. And to see why you have to look at how, and to whom, your message is being relayed through both networks.

With Facebook, the connections are all physical. At least to start with. Chances are that the first bunch of friends you added to your account were all real world friends or colleagues. Your network then grew to include past friends and then friends of friends but for the most part, the majority of regular users, all interact outside of Facebook too.

That is a huge difference to the way in which Twitter connections form.

When you signed up to Twitter, who did you add first? Perhaps it was the person who introduced you to it. Perhaps not.

Perhaps you tapped in Justin Bieber’s name. Or Simon Pegg. Or The Batman.

Your connections list, in other words, doesn’t place the emphasis on real life friends. You don’t burn with the need to hear what your school friend from thirty years ago is Tweeting about. That happens, of course it does. But it’s not the kicker. It doesn’t drive the connection process.

With Facebook it does.

One isn’t better than the other. They are just different. Because the way in which our connections form will dictate the way in which we relay information. And understanding the way in which this information is relayed via Facebook and Twitter is key to developing a social media strategy.

With Twitter the connections will be formed with very different motivators than for Facebook. People on Twitter might connect because of an interest or an ambition. Which means the sort of data they are willing to spread will be shaped by that.

The process is also shaped by the hullabaloo over privacy.

On Facebook, viral status is beginning to be throttled by the privacy settings demanded by users. When you post something, you don’t necessarily want that to go viral so you shape your permission settings to protect you. That covers you for all the photos of the night out but it can also serve to kettle messages that marketing managers might wish would pass through your “oh, this is cool” filter with a little more ease.

With Twitter, this doesn’t happen as sharply. Messages are just passed along with little concern for privacy. Add to that the fact that you can get, or attempt to get, the attention of any other Twitter user and the process of conveying messages becomes different again. Attracting the attention of Twitter’s super users, in the hope that they will take up your crusade, has become an aim for many users.

This isn’t to underplay the role of Facebook. Of course it isn’t. Facebook campaigns can be stickier, deeper and more rewarding than those conducted via Twitter.

And then there is why people use each service. Whilst there are no fixed rules, one clue is in the terms each site uses for your connections. Facebook has friends whereas Twitter has followers. Is this reflected in what sort of information people are likely to share? Not always but, given that many folk often use Facebook to share family photos then the atmosphere tends to be more personal. Contrast that to Twitter where the more public nature of the Tweets might make a user ask how any Tweet reflects back on them and you can see a way to position posts to both sites.

Understanding the differences between the two networks, however, is vital when it comes to having that discussion with your boss which begins “let’s push our brand into social media”.

Recently, @fatboyzim told me to “stop being so anal” and to not preach “like old media”. It was regarding a discussion concerning the changing of somebody else’s Tweet. The change altered the orginal meaning and the author (Mike Butcher of Tech Crunch) had an issue with it.

It led to a brief round table of opinions about clarity and it was resolved easily as you might expect.

But Simon (@fatboyzim) was right to ask that I not preach “like old media”.

Because when it comes to social media, I believe the standards should be even higher.

In print (or in “old media” in general), misrepresentation is easily caught and (relatively) easily rectified. Watchdogs such as the Press Complaints Commission or Advertising Standards Agency keep an eye on things and newspapers are held to account when they alter meaning. Nobody would defend the right of a company to change a film review from “This film is not great” to “This film is great”.

At least, I’d hope not.

So I had to have a think when the following tweet:

While LoveFilm mulls a sale, it signs another movie house for streaming service http://bit.ly/dPHRU3 by @mikebutcher

was changed to:

RT @TCEurope LoveFilm mulls a sale and still doesn’t make money? http://bit.ly/dPHRU3 by @mikebutcher

The change forced an opinion on the author that wasn’t in the story. In the fast moving world of Twitter where we don’t always follow links to get the full story, this can be a problem. At a glance it seems that the author (Mike) is judging LoveFilm. That could affect things for him and it certainly influences the reader.

As social media becomes ever quicker it becomes more shallow. It has a tendency to amplify the sound bite culture of old media in ways that are harder to regulate. Indeed, the beauty of Twitter is that it isn’t regulated but that doesn’t mean personal responsibility goes out of the window.

If we are taking on the role of citizen journalists then we have a duty to take that role seriously. Shaping the news is a wonderful thing, re-shaping the opinions of others is whole different thing.

The game layer can be dropped over anything we do in order to help customers engage with products, processes or people.

When Head First set up shop, it was on the strength of believing the approaches of each market specialty, from videogames to DIY, could and should engage in whole lot more mixing.

From the perspective of videogames it seemed advertising often took a back seat to illustration, as though the two disciplines were interchangeable, as though merely by saying that a picture was worth a thousand words actually made it so.

The sophisticated techniques, the considered messages, these were often missing from marketing strategies for the fast growing sector of videogames and Head First wanted to change that.

At the same time, however, we knew that videogames had a lot to give. Energy and engagement were just two things that the world of videogames had to offer every other brand. Sure, the big boys knew how to form a message but videogames… well, they could deliver it in ways that just clicked with audiences of all ages.

Videogames, we said (and still say) aren’t something you grow out of.

We understand the power of the industry and believe in it so strongly that we thought it was time to show just how engaging it can be.

Enter Super Twario and a whole new look at how Twitter can be accessed.

For a while now there have been claims to have created the first ever Twitter game but these claims are built around spamming rather than engaging and users often Tweet in anger as they feel cheated into allowing the service to broadcast messages on their behalf.

With Super Twario we didn’t want to engage with Twitter at all, we wanted our users to. By providing the platform (literally) for them to roam through their Feed in an exciting and, dare the word be uttered, an innovative way. Add to this a score system and you have engagement in a very real sense.

What Super Twario does is show how different products (such as Twitter) can be approached in very different ways.

Most of all though, we wanted people to see that Head First has some pretty great ideas.

There is a debate raging across the Twitternet. At stake is the future concept of the Follow list. Entire conversations hang in the balance.

After the first article, Dave Trott replied:

@headfirst_dom I didn’t quite understand why I should follow lots of people v selective perception, maybe you could flesh it out.

Damn. Trott and his insistence upon persuasive strategy.

Well OK, let’s take a shot at that.

I had argued that Twitter was Social Networking, not Social Friendship. My approach was to attack Dunbar’s number as applied to Twitter Follows. I was right to do so. Dave’s comment regarding selective perception is something else entirely.

It concerns the very start of the debate and the comment about Dave’s small number of followers.

Having lots of followers has clear advantages, foremost of which (for me) is that you get your message out to more people.

Working in advertising that’s important.

So what about the other way around?

There are two questions here: the first one of why should Dave follow more than 30 people and the second of why he should follow lots of people v selective perception.

The second question is easy.

He shouldn’t.

Selective perception is absolutely the way to go.

I don’t follow Stephen Fry. Nor do I follow Philip Scofield, Ashton Kutcher, John Cleese, Derren Brown… the list goes on.

To varying degrees I enjoy the work they do. It’s just on Twitter I have found that they don’t enrich my life. I don’t really care who is on GMTV and I don’t really care whether Stephen Fry is stuck in a lift. As for Demi Moore’s bottom… well, what’s the point?

I chose to switch them off. Selective perception wins out.

There are millions of Twitter users. Surely it is possible to be both selective and follow lots of people. Given the numbers and the demographics involved it is likely that of these many millions, an individual will find more than 30 people who could enrich their lives and provide stimulating insight and accounts of their daily lunch habits.

This isn’t Sodom and Gomorrah here. Finding more than 30 people to follow shouldn’t be hard.

Of course that means making a judgement call on why we follow people.

I know why I do.

I follow people who are active in my field in my community.

Because their views are often exciting and stimulate my own.

I follow writers who offer insights into the way they work.

Because their insights can help me in my work.

I follow damn funny people.

Because I’m learning to smile.

I follow followers of followers.

Because I’ve come to trust some followers and believe in recomendations on #followfriday

I follow competitors.

Because SOMEONE has to keep an eye on those pesky kids.

I follow Demi Moore.

No, I don’t.

I follow because I can find a few statements amongst the daily chatter that interest me or excite me or provoke me. I follow because I look for debate. I follow in the same way I read more than one newspaper each day, flick through more than one website a day and talk to more than one person a day.

Because ideas can be found in the most unusual, most unexpected of places.

And these unexpected places are everywhere on Twitter. So that must make them expected… OK, let’s move on.

Twitter gives us a chance to connect. To connect to people. To exciting, stimulating, surprising, inspiring, sweary people.

And it’s an ad-man’s dream to be able to connect, in some way, however briefly, however superficially, to these people.

Here’s an example courtesy of the man who started this:

Twitter is free, completely live, market research. Doing an ad for running shoes? Follow some runners. Put them into a group called “Runners” and watch what they talk about. Maybe dip in and reply, ask a question or two, prod and poke them (gently) for responses.

Of course you don’t have to Follow to get this sort of research. You could run searches and pick out the comments. But that’s not selective. And you have no hand in guiding the debate. You are passive, not active.

So, 30 people? Are they likely to provide (given that most people don’t Tweet on a regular basis) all the stimulation, all the insight, all the debate, all the surprise you could need?

Why should you follow more than 30?

Why not?

It may come as a shock to marketeers who believe the best way to convince a consumer to buy into a product is to hunt them down on Twitter and Facebook but AdAge is running a story about the power of customer feedback. Read more…

At just after 6:30 this morning I logged on to Twitter and saw a post by @JSCarroll recommending a story. I’ll flick through these sort of recommendations quickly and easily, slipping them between the pages of my journey to and from work but leaving them in the background, often not caring if they stay or get lost. This one, however, stuck. I started reading before I caught my train, I continued it during and then I re-read a couple of times afterwards. Have a read of it, you’ll see why it was recommended. Read more…