The anatomy of social networks

Over the last 18 months, social networking has entered mainstream consciousness, with many brands experiencing explosive growth and mass press coverage.Vogt and Knapman draw on a major research programme conducted by Microsoft to describe the key opportunities and pitfalls for marketers.

THE HUGE RECENT growth in ‘personal web spaces’, such as MySpace, Facebook and Windows Live Spaces is changing the very face of the internet. Media journalists are falling over themselves to write about the phenomenon, and researchers and marketers are thrilled and perplexed in equal measures by these vast networks of self-expression, sharing and connection.

The market is constantly evolving and is characterised by the frequent emergence of overnight sensations – from Bebo to Second Life. Furthermore, the market is defined in different ways by different people, depending on their personal web usage and their interpretation of the term ‘personal space’. As such, the market may be considered to include blogs, forums, chat rooms, photosharing sites such as Flickr, dating services, video-upload sites such as YouTube, or ‘contact’ sites such as Friends Reunited, as well as the dedicated ‘spaces’ providers such as MySpace, Orkut, Windows Live Spaces, Bebo, Hi5, Faceparty, Facebook and Friendster and Badoo.

Users often apply their own structure and parameters when considering the shape of the spaces market. For example, those interested in music may place MySpace at the centre of their spaces universe, while Facebook is now the place they connect with their friends. Windows Live Spaces, meanwhile is increasingly seen as a leader in digital memories (often communication centred around personal photos) and keeping in touch with closer networks.

For others, the market is defined by the market leader: Orkut dominates personal spaces usage in Brazil to the extent that it represents the benchmark against which all other providers are judged. MySpace dominated usage and collective consciousness a year ago in other markets such as UK, US and Canada, but the rise of Facebook has now overtaken it. This illustrates how unsettled this market remains, along with the power wielded by users themselves in shaping each brand’s success – if your friends move the conversation onto another network, you will move with them.

‘Open’ vs ‘closed’ networks

Most users agree, however, that a key distinction between personal spaces networks is the extent to which they are ‘open’ or ‘closed’.

Open networks are those that essentially allow anyone to connect with anyone else. These largely unconstrained networks, such as MySpace and Orkut, have become hugely addictive in the past two years due in no small part to the ability to cultivate huge personal networks of ‘friends’. Orkut, while still technically an exclusive club accessible by invitation only, is populated by an incredible 89% of 15–45-year-old web users in Brazil every week.

However, the major strength of such networks is increasingly being seen as a weakness too. While open spaces allow individuals to connect to others, they also allow others to connect to individuals – with all the attendant irritants and dangers. Spaces users are increasingly considering the wider external implications of content they may place in their personal space. Being photographed with a large joint of cannabis, for example, may gain the user some credibility among his immediate friends but a growing number of users believe this kind of image on a personal space may also lead to rejection from a prestigious college, loss of employment, or even prosecution by undercover agents lurking in the shadows of MySpace (The fears appear to be valid: a recent report from The Information Commissioner's Office in the UK found that 71% of 14 to 21- year-olds would be worried about colleges or employers doing a web search on them before they had removed some material).

Meanwhile, media coverage of personal spaces abuses has grown. ‘Open’ networks are increasingly being portrayed as hotbeds of fraudsters, paedophiles, identity thieves and the like. The use of personal spaces has been linked to several kidnappings in Brazil and even murders in the USA.

These combined concerns appear to be driving traffic (or at least certain types of traffic) away from shared open networks and towards more intimate networks of friends and acquaintances such as Windows Live Spaces or aSmallWorld (an exclusive invitation-only network frequented by prosperous professionals in the UK and the US).

Social networking brands are responding to this by increasing the privacy functionalities to enable users to set limits on who can see their profile page and the content within this. However, while the more sophisticated user is adept at this, some users are yet to fully control how they are presenting their personal information online.

People and behaviour – a true microcosm of society

It is important to note that personal spaces represent a true microcosm of society. The idea that personal spaces are generated and viewed almost exclusively by lonely teenagers in their bedrooms is inaccurate. During our research, we spoke to a truly eclectic mix of spaces users, from low-tech mothers maintaining personal spaces to share pictures of their children with friends and family, to business owners successfully harnessing the power of online social networks to sell their products. The personal spaces user-base is as varied as the population itself.

In the world of technology, new behavioural trends are predicted on an almost daily basis, but many predictions are essentially based upon new functionalities offered by emerging technology.

Developments such as mobile TV, video calling or interactive news bulletins have been largely technology driven.

By contrast, the rise and rise of personal spaces such as MySpace, Facebook and Windows Live Spaces has been about people and their needs, with technology acting as an enabler.

In some cases, new behaviours have grown in quirky or unexpected ways: in China a strong sense of etiquette has built up around personal spaces, with friends caught in a continuous cycle of reciprocal commenting on one another’s sites. In the UK, personal spaces addresses are becoming a new social currency, handed out like business cards in pubs and bars, enabling initial contact with the girl you have your eye on – without the dreaded phone call. In Brazil, personal spaces have become a playground for fantasy and flirtation – to the extent that marriages are starting to suffer.

Deep-seated human needs but cultural differences

The underlying behaviours seen in personal spaces may not be as new as many believe. Our research shows that these behaviours are essentially manifestations of a relatively small number of deep-seated human needs: for personal recognition and to express individuality or creativity; to belong; to form relationships.

While online social networking is a global phenomenon, behaviours can differ considerably from one country to the next, driven by key cultural differences (figure 1).

The challenge for marketers

The move towards social networking creates unprecedented marketing opportunities for advertisers to reach both consumers and their networks (a recent Jupiter survey suggested that one third of existing online advertisers will launch social networking profiles for their brands in the next 12 months). However, social networks are distinctive in that the users create and spread the content – their voice can be heard directly and immediately – and so advertisers are treading with caution into this space. Some of the main hesitations from advertisers are as follows:

• Relevance – is our brand relevant in this environment?

• Control – will our brand message be manipulated?

• Context – we can’t manage the context.

• Intrusion – will users perceive branded messages as intrusive?

There is an awareness that a community has power and can quickly generate support for a brand but also, more frighteningly, against one. So because individuals create the content, own the spaces, are connected to one another, and share ideas and content on a massive scale, many of the traditional marketing rules no longer apply.

Here are some of the important new guidelines following Microsoft’s research.

Understand consumers’ motivations to use specific networking

Perhaps the most obvious, but to successfully engage in social networks, marketers need to understand the mindsets and behaviours that are occurring within these individual networks, and think about both the author’s and viewer’s motivations – as discussed earlier.

Express yourself honestly

People are using social networks to express their individuality, and brands should too! Critically, our research illustrates an acceptance and interest by some (certainly not all, and largely this is skewed to the younger adult sample) of having branded content on their personal page to portray the ‘self’ they wish to express to their network.

To benefit in this environment, brands must be willing to have a voice, expression or character. You can use the network to express a side of your brand that people don’t normally see (beliefs, values and heritage) and encourage them to interact with it. But it is critical to remain authentic. Expression or characterisation that jars too heavily against the brand values are likely to either not register, or worse, create ridicule, which in a networked environment will spread quickly.

Join conversations, create conversations ... maintain good conversations

The critical development for advertisers is the shift from monologue to dialogue, and their opportunity to benefit from dialogue between themselves and users, or within communities.

First, stimulating conversation between social networkers. Two methods of connecting in this way are as follows.

• Be relevant to the conversation: By understanding the language, group dynamics and discussions, marketers can develop engaging tools that can add to the interactions.
• Associate with communities: for instance, Nike’s involvement with Brazilian football.

Second, join the conversation – again there are a number of ways to do this:

• Create a space: for example, Canon created a Windows Live Space to form a community where people interested in photography could gain recognition, showcase and comment on photos, while learning more about a new Canon product.
• Create branded properties for personal association, such as wallpapers, gadgets and images, as well as those that can be easily shared and added to conversation, such as video clips and gifts.
• Open up the brand for interaction, for instance, Coca-Cola has launched a site aimed at opening dialogue with consumers (http://www.letsgettogether.co.uk/home).

Empower participants

While not the case for all, some networkers actually welcome brand association as it furthers their expression of self to their chosen network, or even expresses their own individual interpretation of the brand – be it an amplification of the brand or a more subtle representation. For example, we had a respondent who wanted a virtual Adidas shoe on his network so that his friends could doodle on it. He then wanted to be able to send it back to Adidas to be produced as a customised shoe.

Behave like a good spaces member

A fundamental principle is that the best spaces advertisers will behave like the best spaces participants, by: being creative, being honest and courteous (ask permission and be authentic); being individual; being conscious of your audience, and updating regularly.

It is worth noting that some of these principles require a brand to lose some control which is an area of great concern for many brands. We have witnessed some examples of this backfiring, but we feel that by following these principles, and remaining true to the brand identity and values, there are great opportunities for brands to engage.

We also raise this as an important area for all brands to consider going forward. We are living in a world where user comments on brands can be distributed rapidly via video clips or written blogs, and can hold as much ‘truth’ as traditional messages from the brand owner.

Beyond Web 2.0: villages of networks

A clear insight from the research was the unsettled nature of many behaviours in this environment, and this was related to both product functionality as well as the relative newness of this phenomenon. There was a sense among users that certain sites or behaviours could be susceptible to fads, particularly as usage is so dominated by the recommendation and presence of friends in the network – once your friends leave, so will you.

An illustration of the unsettled nature of the environment is the press coverage of Second Life in autumn 2006 – it became the latest space for journalists and advertisers to discuss as an illustration of the changes on the web. However, Second Life now seems to have disappeared from the zeitgeist as quickly as it emerged.

This suggests we might be a little naïve in trying to predict the shape of the marketplace as sites will rise rapidly from seemingly nowhere, immediately being held up as the next big thing by media commentators.

Despite this, we believe that the importance of ‘open’ networks will be diminished, with participants preferring to network with friends or those with a shared connection. We feel that the future is more likely to be characterised by ‘villages of networks’, rather than homogeneous open networks. These networks will have greater personal relevance, allow for greater control, and will enable more relevant and deeper connectivity between those communities.

What it will mean for advertisers

Below are some of the key trends we expect to see emerging. Importantly, we believe these trends will impact on every kind of product or service – not just the cool and the edgy.

Who owns the brand?

Brands are essentially ideas. An idea, it is often said, is only as big as the number of people who believe it. Social networks propagate ideas. As social networking becomes the norm, ideas and beliefs will be shaped and shared in this arena. The connected consumer therefore assumes a certain amount of control of brands. As brand managers are forced to share control of their brands to consumer networks, a proportion of their work will be undertaken within these networks, in the battle for consumers’ advocacy and collaboration.

As consumers will effectively own the brand, they will do with it as they please. Brand properties, devices or marketing output will increasingly be edited, mashed up or remixed. And while this undoubtedly gives rise to humorous but unwelcome PR in many cases, the best brands will benefit, as their supporters and advocates create new content and ideas that strengthen or rejuvenate them.

While a number of forward-thinking organisations have already invested heavily in steering online word-of-mouth, even seeding new ideas, in the future this will become a key element of the marketing mix. It will become commonplace to recruit consumer advocates whose role is to seed ideas within their respective networks.

In essence, online communities will become new business partners and will be considered a crucial part of the mix – like ad agencies, researchers or media planners.

Conversational marketing

There will also need to be a shift towards ‘conversational marketing’, which we feel differs from ‘word of mouth’ marketing.

This notion of conversational marketing is taking the principles from the previous section and becoming part of the conversation within networks. This is a significant shift for marketers as consumers will increasingly be seen (and treated) as ‘friends of’ rather than ‘consumers of’ a brand; the primary role of the marketer therefore will be to win friends, become part of the network, listen and respond to the feedback as well provide an influential role. For both conversational and word-of-mouth marketing to succeed, authenticity is critical, as any backlash can be much more damaging. But the potential for an organisation to connect and engage will be valuable – not just from a marketing perspective, but also product development.

Things happen even more quickly

Vast social networks enable stories to spread more quickly than via traditional word of mouth. Just as social networks have given rise to countless overnight successes, they will also be increasingly responsible for the rapid deaths, of brands that do not deliver what they promise. In this environment, poor consumer experiences or negative corporate practices quickly become consumers’ truths, and even those corporations with the highest PR spend will find it impossible to shape the agenda.

Consumers shape the media plan

The growth of personal web spaces means that consumers will increasingly become not just participants in marketing activity, but also media owners in their own right. Our research showed that key authors can generate considerable visitor traffic. These key authors, by providing content that is consumed by others, effectively become millions of super-fragmented distribution outlets for media planners. Furthermore, as consumers become more confident and savvy, and spend a greater amount of time in personal spaces that they regard as their territory, they will increasingly become schedulers and editors of their marketing experiences.

When consumers are equipped with the tools to control what they consume, when they consume it and for how long, a degree of ad avoidance is inevitable.

However, a number of opportunities also arise. Essential’s 2006 research into PVR behaviour reveals that viewers with PVRs do not avoid advertising per se, rather they actively elect to watch ads they believe to be relevant, new or entertaining, deciding for themselves the optimum number of exposures to a particular execution.

Across all media, consumers will become accustomed to choosing when to receive marketing messages, enabling marketers to deliver highly relevant or time-specific content.

From research to debate

Consumer contact via social networks will not replace all traditional forms of market research. However, we predict that certain areas of research – particularly NPD, brand strategy or deliberative research – will move from a selective consultation towards unconstrained debate within social networks, where the initial ideas or agendas are ‘seeded’ but not controlled by researchers. This will represent a significant handover of power.

As consumers’ allegiances to their favoured brands will be of increasing importance, we believe that the best research incentives will often be a stake in the brand (emotional or actual) rather than £30 in an envelope or a voucher from Amazon.

Blurring ‘virtual’ and ‘real’

Finally, there is much debate about Web 2.0 and its impact for media owners and advertisers alike. Already its impact is being felt as content and applications are being developed to offer greater user control.

However, many of the discussions remain limited to the ‘web’, ‘PC’ and ‘virtual’ behaviour. Over time, we feel this delineation of the ‘virtual’ and ‘real’ will fall; along with the distinction between different media platforms.

Users talk about ‘chatting with friends’ rather than say they are using an online social network – they talk about the real, emotional need and behaviour in the same way as ‘real’ connectivity and expression. Equally, the internet will become increasingly pervasive and accessible anywhere, with web-based applications and browsers for everything. Ultimately, social networking will be life itself.

This paper is published in full by the MRS and is available online at www.warc.com.

[email protected] [email protected]

 

The idea that personal spaces are generated and viewed almost exclusively by lonely teenagers in their bedrooms is inaccurate ... the personal spaces user-base is as varied as the population itself.

 

We are living in a world where user comments on brands can be distributed rapidly via video clips or written blogs, and can hold as much ‘truth’ as traditional messages from the brand owner.