This post was inspired by Oprah Winfrey’s (@oprah) lack of tweets on Twitter in the last few days. Oprah joined Twitter during the big race to million followers between Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) and CNN’s Breaking News (@cnnbrk). Oprah tweeted for few days and suddenly stopped. Perhaps she doesn’t need Twitter to stay in touch with millions of fans or is too busy to post updates. Those are just speculations. However, to expand on this thought I decided to compile a list of reasons why people leave a social network soon after joining.
Poor User Experience. When new members have unsatisfactory user experience upon joining a social network this reason alone can make anyone leave. Making it difficult to navigate the site, poor layout, sub-standard graphic design, tedious sign up process are some of the factors that contribute to poor experience.
Not Contacts. One of the main reasons why anyone joins a social network is to connect with people they know or want to get to know. But if there are not enough contacts that new members would like to connect with, they will leave.
No Value. Users expect to receive value from their social network. It will depend from user to user on what they value in a social network. It could be anything from connecting with childhood friends to using the network to find a job or generate business leads.
Existing Memberships. When new users are already members of other social networks they now have to divide their time. New social network would have to fight for new members’ share of activity and attention. If a new network cannot keep new users engaged and active, these members will revert to their existing memberships or devote less time to the new network.
Bait-and-Switch. One of the biggest turn offs is when a new network appears promising all kinds of things from a pipe dream; but when it attracts a big enough membership base it completely switches gears. The social network site operator may alter the terms of agreement, spam the users, push sales of unrelated items or services or sell your data, just to name a few.
Lack of Transparency. When a social network fails to disclose what it intends to do with user data and keeps everything else a mystery raises flags among users. Consequently, users acquisition and retention drops.
Lack of Privacy Controls. Lack of these controls also raises suspicions as much as lack of transperancy. Users want the ability to control who gets to see their profiles. Social networks that do not implement these are doomed to fail.
Hype is Over. Like Oprah, some users join a network due to hype on impulse. Then they disengage from the social network as soon as the hype is over. Social network needs to find a way to live up to the hype and find ways to retain members and their level of engagement.
Technical Difficulties. A nightmare for any social network operator, are the technical difficulties. When a social network is plagued with downtime and errors user will move onto something else. In a real world, if a product doesn’t work a customer will return it for a refund. In an online world, if a social network service doesn’t work, users will leave.
Lack of Engagement. A social network must provide the tools necessary to facilitate engagement among users. Building a site where users just list their bios and favorite movies for example can’t be called a social network. Give them tools to interact with one another such ability to share pictures, post notes, create groups, and so on.
With an upcoming release of the 4th installment of Terminator movie franchise, Terminator Salvation is stepping up its online viral campaign. Terminator Salvation infiltrates a number of online properties and deploys various web marketing tactics to spread the word, promote and generate buzz about the upcoming movie which lands in theatres starting May 22, 2009.
Official Warner Bros. Terminator Salvation Website has information about the film, latest trailers, desktop wallpapers, photo galleries and more. Tribute.ca has also created its own version of Warner Bros. site. Official Sony Pictures Terminator Salvation Website contains similar content and links as Warner Bros. site, except Sony site looks and feel much different. Terminator fans can also play Terminator Salvation Game online against other human fans. Choose a side (Resistence or Skynet) and eliminate your opponents.
Skynet Research is a viral marketing website. The ‘official’ website of fictional company that originally developed robotics technology to improve the lives of humans but in the future it becomes self-aware and wages war on humans with its army of Terminators. The goal of this site is to engage Terminator fans by way of user generated content. Fans can submit their robot designs and videos. Skynet Research also has a Facebook Fan page. Another component of the viral campaign is anti-skynet movement located at resistorbeterminated.com Fans can join the resistence here, engage in community forums and learn tactics.
Terminateyourself.com is another viral marketing website. On this site users can submit pictures (mug shots) of themselves; then images can be altered to look like damaged Terminators. Users can share the results with friends or use the picture as a profile image on social networks.
Terminator Salvation is also present on popular social networks. On Flickr, Skynet Research account showcases user generated robot designs submitted to Skynet. Youtube also showcases user generated videos submitted to Skynet Research. Show your love for the movie by becoming an official fan on Facebook Terminator Salvation page. And finally, fans can follow Terminator Salvation on Twitter.
While job hunting through the latter part of ‘08 and some of ‘09, I came across this article: Use Facebook Ads to Make Employers Hunt You Down. A good friend of mine and a fellow blogger Andrew Kinnear sent it to me via StumbleUpon. After reading it and studying each case I decided to launch my own experiment. In addition to using the Facebook ads as an avenue for employers to hunt me down, I also wanted to find networking opportunities.
Using the techniques and strategy described in the article I ran two Facebook ads. I hyperlinked the ads to a page on my site that clearly spelt out what I was trying to achieve with my Facebook ad experiment. In the copy I thanked the visitor for clicking on my ad, provided a very brief description of who I am and what type of work I was looking for. Also, I provided a link to my LinkedIn profile. As a call to action, I asked the visitor to provide me with a lead to a job opening or a simple networking opportunity with someone at their organization by filling out a contact form.
Facebook Ads allows you to specifically target a group of people that you intend your message to reach. I decided to target Facebook members that are employed by one of the companies that I always wanted to work for. Below are examples of ads I ran and the results. Each ad ran for a week.
As you can see, Ad01 produced better results (CTR%) than Ad02. My friend Andrew Kinnear hypothesized that audience was more drawn to my casual profile than a corporate look because they identified it as being more realistic and authentic; whereas the corporate look in Ad02 looks like a stock photo.
(Fill the black spaces with the company name of your choice.)
Also, when I ran a second Facebook Ads experiment targeting a number of organizations in the same industry with a generic message, the response and results were not impressive at all. As you can see below the CTR% was only .23, even with low impressions.
I was extremely surprised with the results (from Ad01 and Ad02). I received a handful of emails, some of which led to introductions to a recruiter, other people in the organization, and having my resume passed around within.
Some of the folks that helped me out I’ve connected with on LinkedIn and still stay in touch with them today. Although I did not find work with my target company, I was able to use this experiment as an interesting topic of conversation during my hiring interviews and networking meetings. I was even called into an interview because the hiring manager was extremely interested in hearing about my job hunt tactitcs. What made the experiment a success was (a) targeting the right demographic, (b) creating a targeted message, (c) genuine appeal for help, and (d) authenticity. At the end of the day I was able to find work at another great company that I admire for innovation, great business sense, and people centric culture.
My mom used to say, ‘if you don’t have anything positive to say, then don’t say anything.’ I bet your mom used to tell you same thing. Even if you were born and raised in a different country and culture, the proverb rings true across the globe. A social media equivalent is, ‘if you don’t have anything genuine to say, don’t participate.’ However, some marketers have forgotten mother’s wise words. In a span of just two weeks two companies have been caught running unethical marketing practices. The guilty parties are Belkin, a company rep got caught paying users to submit positive product reviews; and the other is Cummins Nitro and their fake Tourism Queensland video application for the best job in the world.
There was absolutely no point for Belkin to falsify customer testimonials because Belkin actually does make great products. What were they trying to achieve? It was actually to get higher ratings for one of their routers, Belkin F5U301. The right thing to do would have been to go to their customers, and find how to improve the product. With a power of social media this feat can be easily accomplished. Not only would they get support and trust, but also engage their customer base in a genuine conversation. As for the fake video for Tourism Queensland, the job offer was awesome enough to cut through the online media clutter. Although, an example video application is a great idea, but the PR firm and Tourism Queensland should have been more transparent. I don’t think that making a fake video actually boosted publicity for Tourism Queensland. The only thing that both firms gained was public mistrust and scrutiny.
Let this be a lesson to anyone who wishes to engage in social media conversations. You must be genuine and actually contribute to the conversation, if you cannot do that then do not participate.
Seems like everyone these days is a Social Media Guru, Maven, Ninja or [insert new age hipster type of descriptive term here]. I am not intending to single out anyone but I am sure many of you have come across someone who claimed to be a Social Networking or Social Marketing or a Social Media expert, but later to learn that they’re complete fakes. Just because someone joins every single social network under the sun does not make them an instant expert in the space. Experts understand their clients’ goals. Experts are able to execute the strategy. Experts deliver measurable results. Having a deep knowledge, enrolment and familiarity with various social networks only puts you at par with everyone else. It is how you use your knowledge and experience that will put you ahead of the pack.
It isn’t very hard to run a Google search or visit web strategy forums and be able to find some kind of discussion on why big businesses are not adopting social media as a part of their marketing and business strategy. It is easy and convenient for us social media rockstars, web 2.0 nerds, and new media marketers to blame the big business for being too slow on the draw and not taking leadership positions. We, who are connected to many through multiple social network platforms usually work alone or in very small teams with limited restrictions. We make decisions quickly to engage and respond because our objectives are clear, we’re on top of the latest trends, no red tape to cut through and no one to answer to (usually). However, we often make the mistake of thinking that big business is a person. We often refer to it as if it a real person with its own mind, personality, living tissues and organs that keep it alive. But it’s not a person. It is an organism. A very complex organism with a mechanical personality, with many layers of bureaucracy, decisions makers, budgets, strategies, and objectives. I am confident that big business will get it (eventually) and adopt social media as a part of their strategy, but we have to patient and lend a helping hand in the meantime.
