KB's digital scrapbook

The socialisation of brands: An in-depth study into brand use of social media, by Universal McCann. Created with data from 53 markets and 37,600 respondents (as opposed to 38 markets and 23,200 respondents in Wave 4), Wave claims to be the “largest and longest running” social media analysis in the world.

They have developed a recommended “road map” which gives guidance on developing social media implementation - in just 4 easy steps. These detail: understand the why and how, map the landscape, identify the social needs of the consumer, identify the platforms. 

I’d argue that’s a little simplistic, and bringing everything back down to “platforms” means that you are only looking at what’s out there at any one time. Rather, I feel that social strategy should be integrated and the focus should be on conversation and content, looking at the long term. The platforms will evolve and change - and this shouldn’t mean that you’ll be throwing your strategy out the window, merely refreshing it.

There is some interesting work around “means and motivations” which gives good insight into the shift in internet use and some very clear statistics on consumer usage of the social web. They then layer the “social demand for brands” over these motivations and look the spread of  brand communities online.

via @wearesocial