FreshNetworks Blog

Whilst we may use different language and names, we know that the role of a Community Manager as a good  party host is critical to the success of any online community. It’s a growing and developing job role and with the increase in branded communities the number of people doing it is increasing all the time.

At FreshNetworks we know that community management is critical. We’ve worked with clients who have launched communities without them, and whilst they may be able to drive traffic to the site, they lack the kind of real engagement and direction you get from a community with that good party host in place. The more communities brand launch, the more important this kind of role becomes. We need to capture best practice and share ideas; debate and discuss terms and techniques; and work together to make sure we help promote and improve the quality of online communities.

We want to be involved in this and thought a good first step would be to get a few people who work in this area together for drinks. So we’ve partnered with e-mint, the Association of Online Community Professionals, to organise a meet-up in London this week. We’re sponsoring the location and will put some money behind the bar to pay for what should be a fair few drinks and snacks before the tab runs out.

It would be great to get as many people who are interested in community management as possible along. Come for the whole evening or just pop in to say hello.

If you can’t come but want to be kept up to date on other events we’re running as part of our efforts in promoting community management, let me know. Otherwise see you on Thursday:

Time: from 6.30/7pm

Location: The Square Pig, 30-32 Proctor Street, Holborn, London, WC1R 4QG (we’ll be downstairs) map

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Microsoft turns Windows Live into a social network

This week, Microsoft announced a slew of changes to its Windows Live site, adding a social layer to the existing communications services. As some commentators are claiming - they are turning the Windows Live site into a social network. Whilst stressing that this is not what they are doing, Microsoft are adding tools that for many define social networks, including central profiles and news and activity feeds.

The changes are part of an aim to give their existing services (Spaces, Windows Live Hotmail, and Windows Live Messenger) deeper ties with one another. As Brian Hall, the general manager for Windows Live, says:

The general thing people are trying to do in all of these services is keep in touch

As he goes on to explain, Microsoft are trying to increase the amount of time people spend on site (which already gets a reported 11% of internet minutes) and including news feeds from users other sites (such as Facebook or MySpace) will help to do this.

The other focus will be on photo sharing with Microsoft offering its own storage options as well as providing links to Flickr, Photobucket and the likes. Again, this will add a more social media element to the site, and bringing content from users’ other communities will help to increase stickiness.

So what can we learn from this?

Windows Live wants to increase the amount of time spent on site and to increase the connections between their communications tool. I’m not sure that what they are doing is building a social network, rather they are doing what we at FreshNetworks see as a major trend - they are adding a social layer to their existing content and tools.

Some of the examples we have seen of brands using social media have been of them setting up online communities, co-creation sites or social networks. I think that what Microsoft are doing is different; they are taking their existing site and making it more social. For many brands this can be a much more successful strategy. You can take elements of online communities (photo sharing maybe, profiles or forums) and integrate them into your existing site. It works really well where the existing site is well used and so is perfect for Windows Live. It also works well when you already provide useful tools to users.

When you are adding a social layer you are just augmenting the user experience or adding new and useful tools for them to do what they are already doing more efficiently or better. You make their user experience better by bringing other content to your site, letting them collaborate with other or just by creating central profiles that connect users. You are not setting up a completely separate online community, nor are you adding a community onto your existing site. Rather you are weaving community elements into your existing site.

What Microsoft are doing is capitalising both on the strengths of their existing site and the ability to weave social and online community elements into this to enhance the user experience. You don’t have to set up a separate online community to engage people online. You need to do it in the right way for you and for your users.

Read all our Social Media Diary entries

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Some more reading

• Windows Live tries to show its social side
• And Now, Windows Live Is a Social Network
• Microsoft gives Windows Live launch a Web 2.0 scrub-up
• Microsoft adds Facebook-like qualities to Windows Live
• Windows Live Service Gets More Social
• Microsoft starts to roll out Live Wave 3; reinvents Facebook

I came across a useful presentation from Nate Elliott at Forrester (and presented at the Web2.0 Expo in Berlin last month) on influencers and it had been required reading amongst the team here.

Elliott’s presentation provides a useful distinction between the ‘new influential’ (those active in social media), the ‘classic influentials’ (those who say they are a source of information for friends) and the ‘combination influentials’ (those who are a bit of both). These influentials are more likely to be male, and more likely to be early adopters of technologies. And the power of reaching out to these people is that consumers are most likely to trust a solicited piece of advice from a peer. Getting these influentials onside is key.

Whilst some in marketing (and especially in word of mouth marketing) think that we need to understand influencers so we can identify and target them, at FreshNetworks we are more interested in understanding how to create more influencers and advocates. If you know what the characteristics of your influentials are then you can start to spot the next generation - those you can nurture to become influential for you. This approach gives you a much broader base of potential advocates and can ultimately be better for your brand.

Of course, it isn’t simple. You need to spend time understanding your customers and who influences them and then to develop and appropriate strategy for engaging these different types. Great if you get it right.

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Some more reading

• Meebo Survey Proves Word-of-mouth Marketing Is Still Most Efficient for Internet Services
• PopularMedia, Getting Your Brand Word-of-Mouth Marketing
• Buzz and Word of Mouth Ryder Cup

Air France-KLM launch Bluenity, the ‘first’ social network for the airline industry

Today Air France-KLM launch what they claim is the ‘first’ social network for the airline industry: Buenity. Once signed-up, members will be able to share tips on hotels, restaurants and shopping at destinations across the globe. But the real USP of the site is that is allows members to make their travel plans public - showing their flight bookings made through KLM or Air France. They can then find other members on the same flight or in the same locations when they are.

There are some obvious benefits to this - people to meet in the lounge and to travel, people to share taxis with, people to meet for dinner or business or just a way for people to share ideas with others who are similar to them. As Patrick Roux, Senior Vice President Marketing at Air France-KLM, says:

This is a response to those customers who would like to be proactive on their trip, whether they are travelling for professional or leisure purposes. From 7 November onwards, travellers and especially the 75 million customers who choose our two airlines every year, will be able, by using Bluenity, to meet before, during and after their flight

So what can we learn from this?

Whilst I’m not sure that this is the ‘first’ airline social network (see the launch of BA’s MetroTwin), but the proposition certainly is an interesting one. When we are working with clients at FreshNetworks, building online communities for them, we spend quite some time identifying why an online community could work in this situation and what the connection between and motivation of members would be. In this case it is clear that the commonality between members is first that they are both customers (maybe regular travellers on) Air France and/or KLM, and second that they might both share a closer experience - the same destination or flight.

I would expect the team who built this site to have looked into this shared experience in quite some detail. Do people who fly want to interact in this way? How do they currently meet people and spend their time in the lounge and on the place? How much do they actually want to engage and how much of this do they want to do online.

With the launch last week of LinkedIn Applications it is now possible for your TripIt travel plans to be visible there so that people can see where you are going and so that you can find others going to the same place. It will be interesting to see if users are more likely to use this kind of service than they are to use a site like Bluenity. Airfrance-KLM do have the significant benefit of a direct link to their reservations engine which makes the whole process much simpler, but I expect this will be a good case study of whether people prefer a separate social network or a widget to help them in this goal.

Of course, at FreshNetworks we know that travel is a vibrant market for online communities and social networks. It’s a sector that a lot of our clients come from and a sector where engagement with your customers and guests is critical. It should be no surprise that Air France-KLM have entered the fray. I’d expect most of the big players in this sector to be doing the same in 2009.

Read all our Social Media Diary entries

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Some more reading

• Alitalia on brink of bankruptcy as Air France-KLM talks collapse
• Air France and KLM launch Bluenity
• Air France-KLM launches social networking site
• Air France and KLM launch social networking site for travelers
• Avec Air France et KLM et Bluenity, vous savez à l’avance avec qui vous vous envoyez en l’air
• Bluenity, le réseau social d’Air France-KLM lancé vendredi
• Bluenity
• Air France et KLM lancent un réseau social pour les voyageurs aériens

Amex to launch online community for travel managers

One of the best examples I know of a brand using information they have to add a social layer to their site is the Members Know site from American Express. On this site Amex use the data from spending using their cards to highlight restaurants and hotels in certain cities that are popular with their members. Once you’ve signed up you can share your thoughts on these establishments and exchange travel tips with other business traveller. Today, they are launching a new online community, and this time it isn’t aimed at the business travellers, but at the people who organise their travel for them.

Business Travel Connexion is aimed at corporate travel managers and will combine editorial from Amex and other suppliers with user-generated content. Amex hope to create a real-time resource for the members and also build a fairly homogeneous community of a group of people who would valuable to marketers. They will be able to share information and ideas with each other and also with Amex and other suppliers. The site includes a “Product Lab” area for feedback and co-creation.

So what can we learn from this?

Amex are a great example of how brands are adding social layers to their existing sites and products, delivering real value to people and making the most of the product and information they already have. With Members Know they took data that previously wasn’t used externally (data on spending in hotels and restaurants) and repackaged this in a  way that was both useful for members and encouraged them to interact and upload their own content. In the same way, Business Travel Connection, links a set of individual customers who are isolated (often working with no peers in their organisation) but who share a strong common bond (they all deal with the same problems). That they can be linked through the Amex brand is even more powerful.

When thinking about ‘going social’ - building online communities or using social media - too many firms build approaches that don’t always address their unique position in the market or capitalise upon what they may have to offer. Amex have done things the right way. They’ve thought about their strategy and about why people would engage in an online community that they manage; and about what they have to offer that’s different. These are important stages and ones that we at FreshNetworks spend a lot of time on with clients. Working out why people will engage and why they will engage on your site is a critical first step to any online community.

Read all our Social Media Diary entries

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Some more reading

• Online Business Communities - Who’s Winning? Who’s Losing
• Advice From Strangers

I’ve been away for a couple of weeks (on vacation in Japan - more about that in a post later) and things have been busy as ever back at FreshNetworks. One of the biggest announcements was the launch of K-Networks, a new joint-venture with independent creative agency Karmarama.

We’ve been working with the team at Karmarama for some time, and in addition to being a really great bunch of people there is also a real opportunity with them to build online communities as part of integrated communications campaigns for brands.

In our experience, online communities can work at their best when they integrate with brand and marketing activities. Whilst some of the communities we build and manage are online research communities, and others are more focused on amplifying word of mouth, they all share in common a connecting of the brand and the consumer. Bringing the creative and communications campaigns together with the online community work helps to maximise the benefit of this.

We have some exciting work in the pipeline with Karmarama and so you’ll probably hear much more about K-Networks soon…

Some coverage of the launch

• Brand  Republic: Karmarama joint venture aims to source social networks
• Marketing Week: Karmarama to launch social networks venture for brands
• Management Today: ‘35 under 35′ spawns its first business

Some more reading

• Reccomended Web Strategy Reading
• The 2 P’s and 4 C’s of Personal Branding
• Eight Considerations to Help Branded Communities Succeed

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Oxfam crowdsources new slogan

Oxfam is looking for a new slogan. They want a poster for their Be Humankind campaign and rather than commissioning an agency to do this, they’re asking us to do it for them.

The concept is simple - you can write a slogan directly onto a billboard on their site, and then submit this as an idea. The best 14 ideas will be displayed on digital billboards around London for a day each over a two week period from next Monday.

Letting people write your copy for you can be a difficult decision for brands. Most spend a lot of time and effort working on their branding, the tone of language they use and even testing slogans. But Oxfam are not worried about this. Speaking in a Guardian article earlier this week, Nick Fulcher, Brand Manager at Oxfam, says that:

We wouldn’t do it if we didn’t feel comfortable that we’d get some great stuff

Let’s just hope they do.

So what can we learn from this?

This is a great example of something we have written about a fair bit recently: co-creation. In fact, this is an example of what we call Community product design.

The interesting aspect of this campaign is that much of the discussion it has generated this week is about how difficult it can be to write slogans and there is much interest in what the content of the slogans will be and how this will fit with the brand. For me the real issue here is not about the slogans but about the process. In fact I don’t think this campaign is really about generating slogans at all, and the success of the words that actually make it onto the billboard next week will not be judged by the words themselves.

This is actually a great example of how to engage and involve people beyond their normal brand activities. The real purpose of this campaign is to find new ways of engaging new people in the  brand and, in Oxfam’s case, the issue. The use of social media in this way will generate a lot of word-of-mouth as people talk about it online and offline (an example of which being this post). People will be prompted to find out more about Oxfam and about the Be Humankind campaign long before the slogans appear on those billboards across London.

There is a real benefit to brands of innovating in this way and of using social media to co-create. We use innovation tools a lot in the online communities we build for brands at FreshNetworks, and the results can always be useful. The real engagement built, the word-of-mouth for the brand and of course the very ideas themselves. I’ll be looking out for the Oxfam slogans next week, but I suspect the success of this campaign is already known.

Read all our Social Media Diary entries

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Some more reading

• You can change the world with Oxfam

Earlier this year, we posted about research from Universal McCann looking at the impact of social media. Thanks to Simon at Curiously Persistent, I came across some new and equally interesting research from the team their. This time they look at the influence we have online, how we respond and react to other people, and how user-generated content informs our decision making.

This is a timely piece of research, as we posted last week, 25 million US adults base their purchasing decisions on social media. The Universal McCann research looks into this behaviour in more detail.

I won’t try to summarise the whole thing here, but it has become required reading at FreshNetworks. For us the research is particularly useful in highlighting how and why people are using social media and online communities to effect change across a range of domains, from politics to shopping. The data on which these conclusions are based are worth exploring in more detail but the message for brands is clear: we’re in a new world of transparency.

In this world, it is easier for people to have their voice heard and to hear the voices of others. Everybody matters and everybody can be part of an exchange with each other and with a brand. Brands need social media strategies to reach out to these people and to truly engage in these new transparent terms. Scary stuff at times, but there are some great examples of where this has worked (and if you want to see some jump to the end of the presentation below).

Some more reading

• Research and Markets: As the Number of Business Users of Social …
• The Consumer and Social Media
• Scientists Use Social Media
• If You’re Not Participating in Social Media
• More than Half of US Adults Text, Blog, Otherwise Use Social Media
• Social Media Rapidly Going Mainstream

Today we’re kicking off a regular post updating you every Friday on the latest news on how brands and businesses are using social media: our weekly brands and social media diary. We kick-off this week with British Airways.

British Airways launches online community

This week saw the pre-launch of a British Airways online community: Metrotwin. The site is invite-only at the moment, but you can add yourself to the list on the homepage and contact them through Twitter @Metrotwin.

The idea of the site is to take the concept of ‘town twinning’ to the very local level, providing recommendations on restaurants, events, shops, bars and other things in neighbourhoods across both cities. The benefit for BA is obvious, as Chris Davies, their Digital Marketing Manager states:

We fly more people between London and New York than anyone else. Creating a community website about the best of what’s on offer in the two cities we know best is a credible and useful tool.

From the press-releases and coverage so far the site is designed to help people navigate the range of recommendations and reviews on the web to help members of the community find the best things quickly. The site lets users review and rate recommendations, create their own profile and find ‘twins’. They can also follow other members’ recommendations. The features seem designed to foster a community that combines expert and user reviews and uses co-creation to source the best recommendations in both cities.

The benefits for BA are clear. In an increasingly challenging market, airlines need to retain their most profitable customers. And the business travel route between London and New York must be one of the most profitable routes out there. There is a clear gap in the market online for detailed peer-review sites specifically aimed at people making business trips to these cities. So if they get it right, I suspect this site will work.

So what can we learn from this?

The air industry is facing difficult times, the increasing price of oil and the Open Skies agreement are both hitting transatlantic carriers - increasing costs and increasing competition. What BA are doing here is something that all brands could learn from during difficult times. Their aim is to increase customer retention and their approach is to make their engagement with them sustainable. Rather than them being customers who buy individual experiences with BA (single flights), they want to create an ongoing experience.

At FreshNetworks we are working with a number of clients in the travel industry at the moment, and the aim in each of these is to create and provide a service that truly extends the experience beyond just individual trips. When designing and building online communities, it is important to work on what both the brand wants from the community, but also why a member would take part and what they want to do there. With Metrotwin, BA are providing a real service to their customers, and this should be central to any social media strategy a brand follows.

Read all our Social Media Diary entries

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Some more reading

• BA Metrotwin first impressions - inside the British Airways London-New York new social network

We’re back to work this week after the excitement of our parent, FreshMinds, being crowned London winners of the £35 Million Bank of Scotland Entrepreneur Corporate Challenge, a title which brings with it up to £5m in funding for FreshNetworks. There has been some coverage over the weekend of our win, including an article in the Sunday Times yesterday.

Nick Wheeler, founder and managing director of Charles Tyrwhitt shirts, was one of the judges and said some nice things about us:

When you read about the business it’s easy to think FreshNetworks is just another media business, but when they came in to tell us about it we knew they would be a huge success [...] It was clear they had spotted a great opportunity.

And James Farrar from Bank of Scotland, the people providing the funding, also gave us their backing:

Their passion immediately came across. Their belief that they will deliver gave us confidence in backing them.

If you want to see more coverage follow the links below (latest first):

• FreshMinds named London’s top start-up, Management Today
• Research: Funding of up to £5 million for this winner - FreshMinds, the Marketing Blog
• FreshNetworks wins £5m funding in Entrepreneur Challenge, e-consultancy
• Online venture FreshMinds wins £5m of funding for founders, Sunday Times
• FreshMinds Wins London Entrepreneurial Crown, Market Research News
• FreshMinds wins £5m investment prize, Research-Live
• Photos and a video of the awards, Bank of Scotland
• Capital talents in the spotlight: The London regional finalists, Sunday Times