360DigitalInfluence

“It’s an English basement.”

That might not mean much to you, but it probably made you chuckle if you fall into one of the two groups:

1. Current or former D.C. residents
2. Viewers of Sh*t People In D.C. Say

Of course, this video is one of many variations of the Sh*t Girls Say series - which has a cumulative YouTube viewership of 20+ million and growing. You know the premise: Stereotypical expressions from people of a certain ilk, organized by gender, hobby, lifestyle, or geography. There are takes on skiers, hipsters, suburban moms, and even sh*t nobody says (a personal favorite) and the meme’s ’success’ reminds me of basic marketing program goals: generating word-of-mouth, stimulating co-creation, and targeting segmented audiences.

$1,400 for a converted sunroom? Not bad - better than an English basement.

First: Why do we care about sh*t other people say?

As a meme - both intentionally and by accident - these videos satisfy several of the 7 Drivers of Word of Mouth synthesized from Emmanuel Rosen’s work: there’s a good story, people can show their involvement, there is an implicit invitation to participate through their involvement, ’supporters’ can be creative, and, most crucially, there’s a clear value offering - comedy.

The power of these elements is not only clear in the 20+ million video views of the original - and millions more on the variations - but the number of amateur aueters who created their own. An absurdly unscientific calculation using YouTube shows 200+ videos using a basic search - let’s safely presume 50 are duplicates and 50 are spam. Even at 100 and with absolutely no prize, that’s higher participation than most branded video submission challenges get - save Survivor applications and Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl.

What’s the lesson?

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In a recent Washington Post article, Polarized News Market has Altered the Political Process in South Carolina Primary, we peak into the news consumption habits of a South Carolina voter. Two election cycles ago the South Carolina native would read newspaper for political news, now she “settles in at her desktop to fire up Facebook.”

“Selective Exposure”, described by researchers from UCLA and Stanford suggests to that consumers are “tucking themselves inside information silos” and that this is compounded by the speed and like-mindedness of social networking.

New research from Facebook suggests that - despite what many instinctively believe - social networks actually expose us to new, novel ideas and information rather than polarize us. While politics indeed may be more polarizing than ever, social networks like Facebook actually perform the opposite effect. According to a massive experiment, rather than polarize us, Facebook brings us together.

In the study, Facebook researchers modified EdgeRank such that two different groups were created focusing on how links are shared. First, a control in which the EdgeRank functioned as it usually does: sorting out all of your friend’s activity and serving up the links it thinks you’d like to read. And a second group that had a select number of links removed from their feed. From there, the researchers were able to track how information (in this case, links) spreads in social networks.

They found, as one might expect, you’re more likely to share links posted from your closest friends or strong ties. Not surprising. However, weak ties - the vast majority of our Facebook friends - were more likely to introduce us to a new or novel links - ones we wouldn’t have otherwise come across. Proving, as the authors suggest, that social networks actually introduce us to new sources of information, and not reinforcing the links, ideas and news we already consume.

Jury Still Out on Diversity in Networks

It’s an interesting study and certainly nothing comes close in terms of the total sample size (the experiment involved 250 million users). The message from Facebook is “[t]he research suggests that Facebook isn’t the echo chamber that some might expect – online social networks actually increase the spread of novel information and diverse viewpoints.”

The question remains, however, if weak ties represent diversity with respect to the level of exposure to new ideas, not just new links to the same point of view.

Real World Application

For marketers, it’s important to under how information spreads in networked communities online. We know head of tail influencer engagement programs don’t always scale up to the level that justifies the spend. Understanding the way word of mouth works - the art and science - is a critical step to reliability predicting the impact of a social media program.

A helpful question to ask in planning sessions is: do we expect our target audience to share with their close friends (e.g. social booking engines sharing your flight details) or more widely across weak ties (what you’re currently listening to on Spotify)? Building in a weak or strong tie designation into a brief helps to focus the program.

Resources

Facebook Data Team Blog

Blog from Facebook Researcher and Designer, Paul Adams.  His new book, Grouped - How small groups of friends are the key to influence on the social web is a deep dive into this topic and is excellent.

The Strength of Weak Ties. Mark S. Granovetter. American Journal of Sociology, Volume 78, Issue 6 (May, 1973).

Connected - The Surprising Power of our Social Networks.

(Photo credit: Flickr user dylan20)

We all survived the blackout, but how effective was it? The question may take some time to answer, but support for SOPA/PIPA appears to have weakened in its wake.

The biggest light shed this week may have been that on the rift between Hollywood and Silicon Valley. And why not? I mean, we have content creators and content access providers – and they both have their interests. But when Bills are drafted that seemingly only protect the rights of one, surely the other will see a few ruffled feathers.

We ‘Creatives’ are lucky. We get compensated for our ideas and the intellectual property that we create. In our industry, much of what we create isn’t tangible. But the creation and ownership of that product is just as real as the cake your local baker prepared. Art is art, content is content – though the form may take many shapes, it’s all creation – and the rights of those who create content should be protected. So, how can we have our cake and eat it too?

The answer lies in the way these Bills are written. We all agree that we must protect IP – this has been a challenge in our industry for a long time. America is a place of tremendous freedoms – and with the freedom to create also comes the right to protect. But, we also need to protect the rights of those who provide the access. After all, without an audience, who would consume the content?

By and large, the tech giants support the bills in theory – but take issue with it as drafted, stating that they expose law-abiding web and tech companies to uncertain liabilities, calling for monitoring of web sites. Thus, infringes on the rights of the content providers.

Rights should be protected, but censorship is not the answer. In order to draft a proper Bill that manages to protect the rights of content creators, but isn’t a gateway to censoring the web, one needs understand the architecture behind the internet. Backers of SOPA/PIPA do not appear to fully appreciate the unintended implications critics are citing. So, in addition to the great web blackout, the tech giants have thrown support behind the Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade (OPEN) Act in an open letter to Chairman Issa and Senator Wyden.

Could the OPEN Act be the solution we are all looking for?

We need both the creators and providers – and we need to protect the rights of each. So, we need to find a middle ground. The day the web went dark is only the beginning.

How did the blackout affect your January 18?

Yesterday’s battle royale over the future of the Internet has been characterized in many ways - technology companies vs. media conglomerates, content vs. distribution, and perhaps most convincingly by the Harvard Business Review as the Young Startups vs. the Old Guard.

And indeed, change was in the air (and over the servers) yesterday. In protest of a pair of laws now before Congress that address online piracy, some of the most highly-trafficked websites in the U.S. made their sites inactive, dark, or otherwise blocked access in some way. Sites like Wikipedia, Reddit, Boing Boing, and those crazy catz at Cheezburger all participated. Furthermore, companies like Twitter and Facebook joined in expressing their opposition to the proposed legislation and urged their users to reach out to Congress.

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I was certainly not surprised to read that Twitter is calling this the year of the Twitter election; former White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had said as much in a PRWeek interview last October that stated: “political campaigns, governments, and businesses face a “unique” environment with a completely new set of rules: no-one is immune to society’s doubts and everyone has to be accountable to their users, who are now the ones in control.”

Moreover, we see the impact of users’ voices on Twitter every day - whether occupying Wall Street or voting for The X Factor winners. As social media professionals, we advocate that one of the regular benefits of social media listening for any organization is the opportunity to take a pulse of the community, but in the upcoming election, that pulse can impact media coverage, debates, and candidates in real time.

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Recently, I’ve been involved in helping a client launch a new Twitter feed. This will be their sixth or seventh account on Twitter, all the previous of which are still active and serving specific functions. The process has sparked several discussions among the team — not for the first time — about a question we’ve all encountered: how many different Twitter feeds should a brand really have?
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If you are anything like me, your mailbox has been filling up with notifications of new followers on Pinterest as the still invite-only platform seems to be opening the flood gates to more users.  Thanks to a few savvy gals in the design world that I follow on Twitter, I have been a Pinterest member since late Summer and must say that I am thoroughly enjoying it.  Pinterest feels like the “aha” moment for social media; a repository for all of the visual stimuli that has gained popularity these past years.

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Something I’ve been mulling over for a while was solidified over the course of several recent conversations with my colleague, Alan Kercinik.

It has to do with the way brands traditionally launch a product/service versus a more optimal approach that can take better advantage of earned conversations.  At the heart of the discussion is what we call the Conversation Chasm.

And while not new thinking - I’ve seen people write about the topic and a Google search reveals several mentions of the term, including a rough version of a post on my personal blog about a month ago - I do think it’s worth revisiting the topic.

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With the new year upon us and 2011 in the rear view mirror, it’s time to pay attention to where social media will go this year. In December, the Ogilvy Digital Influence New York City team hosted its year end 2011 Social Trends Lab. The team predicted 12 trends we think will shape and influence 2012. Is there a prediction you don’t see on this list? Let us know!

And now without further ado, here is the Ogilvy Digital Influence crowdsourced Top 12 in ‘12 list of predictions in social media trends (in no particular order). continue reading

This week, we turned our weekly DI staff meeting into a digital show and tell. Our DC team of designers, developers, strategists, art directors and producers shared some of the videos, websites, digital experiences and apps outside of our own work that we think are cool, cutting-edge, inspiring or just fun to watch. So, take a break from online holiday shopping working and enjoy our Best of the Web picks.

Israeli rocker Yoni Bloch’s “choose-your-own-adventure” music video is a must-watch. Viewers can interact with the video, seamlessly changing the course of events as the song continues. Yoni’s  a rock star off the stage too. He’s the founder of Interlude, the interactive video technology company behind this video and may others.

For a little more music to your ears, Philips partnered with the Metropole Orchestra on an interactive campaign to showcase their audio products. Viewers can single out individual musicians, hearing each note in a track played by the entire orchestra.

Cute kids, pets, people that take awkward to a new level… We love a good montage of the year’s best viral videos.  79 all wrapped into one great restrospective.

If you’re in the mood for a more serious look back at 2011, watch this Google Zeitgeist year in review video. From natural disasters to political uprisings, see the events and people that shaped our year. (You might need a tissue. Just sayin…)

Indie band Arcade Fire wowed us last year with The Wilderness Downtown, a personalized music video experience that used HTML5 and Google Maps. This year, they have us dancing at our desks with Sprawl II. We enjoyed the sweet moves of one of our creative directors, as he demoed how the computer camera detects movement and incorporates it into the video.

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