There are a number of factors that would lead you to expect that brands operating in Australia would be investing heavily in social video content and leveraging the large user communities in the top sites, such as YouTube.

These factors are:

1. The simple fact that Australians are demonstrating a huge appetite for online video.  Close to a billion, yes a billion, videos were consumed by Australians in the month of January 2010. A billion in one month, or 33.3 million per day, or 23,148 per minute.
2. Video and mobile. 42% of online Australians use a smartphone, according to Nielsen.  Everything is going mobile, therefore brands need to provide content that works well on mobile devices.  The answer is video.
3. Because the average online Australian spends more than 6.52  hours per month in social media (Nielsen).
4. Video content is three times more clickable than text – this is an anecdotal fact that I hear quoted regularly. I don’t have a source for it, I’m afraid.
5. YouTube is emerging as one of the leading search engines.
6. The media landscape is shrinking, presenting fewer opportunities for brands to engage with their target audience.  Therefore, brands have to seize the initiative and begin creating their own branded content.  That content could take many forms; educational and how to guides; infotainment; news; opinion; video based campaigns and so on.

The fact is that 65 per cent of the brands that we studied did not have an official brand presence in the top social video sharing sites. That figure is a little disappointing but not tragic – the bad news is that more than (just over) 50 per cent of the corporate channels were inactive, which we generously defined as having not been updated for more than 2 months.

Now, this inactive issue is one we have encountered before.  It points to the issue of brands engaging without the necesary resources or strategy or integration in place.  We’re not saying this stuff is easy but I strongly feel that no presence is preferable than an inactive / dormant account.

Here is the full presentation and a link to the press release on our local website:

One of the challenges when conducting this research is identifying a credible list of companies that can act as the sample for the research.  In this case, we used the Nielsen Top Advertisers Report for 2009.  We worked with Nielsen to make sure that they were comfortable with our methodology for the study.  It’s important to stress that the study does not assume any direct link between media spend and social media strategy or between advertising content and social media.

It’s possible that the methodology caused us to miss video content that is being produced by these brands because it is served via their own corporate website, or a third party channel provider (such as Viocorp) or Facebook.  That could be the case but it still represents a missed opportunity.  If you’re creating video content then you may as well make it available via the most popular online video service, even if your primary video channel is hosted elsewhere.

The research is far less rigourous and detailed than anything that Nielsen would do (for obvious reasons) .  Having said that, we do feel that the research produced some interesting findings.  It can act as a benchmark for brands in Australia that want to assess their social media engagement and presence against industry as a whole.

We’ve worked on quite a few of these now.  It follows our study into the use of social media (Facebook, Twitter, blogs) by twenty top Australian brands and an evaluation of online newsrooms.  For both of these studies we drew the sample companies from the Interbrands Best Brands report.

Take for example, the Telstra Social Review program, a competition whereby Australians with a social media presences could ‘compete’ (in loose terms) for the chance to be one of 25 social reviewers.  The final 25 were each given a HTC handset and asked to review it for 2 weeks.

There is nothing new about this initiative in some respects – it is essentially a blogger relations program – but the public nature of the Telstra ‘experiment’ represents a very different approach.  Good blogger relations practitioners will insist on full disclosure but its rare for an organisation to PR this kind of program in the way that Telstra did.

As a result, Telstra has telegraphed its respect for blogging (as well as other forms of social media) and I believe that other Australian corporations will sit up and take notice.

I believe that ‘commercial confidence’ in blogging is a requirement for blogging if it is to acheive genuine mainstream acceptance.  This ‘commerial confidence’ could take many forms including advertising and sponsorship investment, collaboration, access, insights or simply advocacy.

The blogging community is challenged however by a fundamental lack of transparency.

Readership data underpins the traditional media sector, it provides the business justification for advertising spend and PR programs. In a section of the media where the glossy finish of the product (or lack of it ) bares little or no relationship to its reach and influence, its essential that proprietors become more open about their traffic and engagement scores.

Commercial (business) decisions are based on an assessment of risk over opportunity.  The blogging community in Australia needs to help its potential partners understand the opportunity.

That might sound like a scary proposition for a young blog with low traffic scores today.  But remember this.  At some point, consumption of print media will be a small proportion of what is consumed online.  Transparency can help you build trusted relationships with potential commerical supporters today, for the future.

What do you think?  Do you agree?  If not, why not?

Is it wrong to assume that all blogs have a commercial imperative?

Should bloggers be open and transparent about their number of readers, time spent, uniques?

If so, what data should they share?

1. With meaningful follow through, crowdsourcing can deliver a specific business outcomes and audience engagement
2. Allow the community to determine success, ensure that you profile contributors and make it fun
3. Crowdsourcing not recommended as a first foray into social media

Telstra were on the bill today.  David Quilty, Managing Director, Group Communications at Telstra shared details of a Telstra crowdsourcing initiative called T [ideas], an internally focussed initiative designed to gather feedback from employees and partners.  Partners and employees can submit ideas to the company, which are then voted on by the community and ultimately implemented by Telstra.  Quilty provided examples of ideas that had been implemented including a contact centre customer callback service and new applications.   

This conjures up some amusing / disturbing images of breakfast at the hotel with patrons munching away and imbibing (via straws) at various stages in their recovery with a multitude of bits and pieces bandaged, stitched and stretched.

The over 55s: A sizeable and wealthy segment of the Australian population with an increasing penchant for all things Internet.

I am not planning on cosmetic surgery.

]]> http://justanother24hours.com/blogging/australian-medi-hotel-to-offer-cosmetic-procedures-and-rr/feed/ 0 http://justanother24hours.com/social-media/google-sidewiki-causes-a-pr-headache/ http://justanother24hours.com/social-media/google-sidewiki-causes-a-pr-headache/#comments Sat, 21 Nov 2009 05:59:51 +0000 Daniel Young http://justanother24hours.com/?p=978 Julian Lee at the Sydney Morning Herald interviewed me a week or so ago for a story on Google Sidewiki and the implications for PR advisers and businesses, more generally. The story also ran in the The Age, the Melbourne daily.

Julian posed the question: Is Google Sidewiki a threat or an opportunity? I think that it is both and made the point that active participation in conversation via Sidewiki provided another PR opportunity for organisations to communicate with their customers.

I also suggested that businesses develop a policy for Sidewiki and that they publish this so that customers know what to expect when using this form of feedback. Brian Giesen makes a great suggestion when he says that companies should ‘claim’ their Sidewiki by making the first comment (if possible).

A quick scan of major corporate websites highlights the fact that Sidewiki is yet to take off in a big way. Potential commenters need the latest version of the Google Toolbar and they also need to be aware of the service. The digerati set will be well aware of this but I am not convinced that Joe Bloggs has this on their radar. There is more activity around social media related news sites and social networks, check out Facebook as an example of a active Sidewiki.

Google Sidewiki is an extension of an existing service from Google; which is the ability to place comments on search results.  This didn’t take off or hasn’t taken off as yet (it continues to be available – check out the speech bubble icon below organic search results in Google).

Radian6 announced last week that it now offers the ability to monitor Sidewiki, an important development for businesses that need now to be aware of conversation in a wide range of digital tools.

I think Sidewiki represents a major PR opportunity for small businesses, who may not necessarily want to invest in discussion boards, recommendation and feedback mechanisms for their websites but are provided a free infrastructure for exactly that via Google Sidewiki.

Sidewiki causes a PR headache

ALREADY struggling with the mountain of blogs, forums and social networks, public relations consultants are weighing up whether a new Google tool that enables consumers to leave comments next to a brand’s website is a threat or a challenge.

Google Sidewiki gives a new and very transparent avenue for disgruntled customers to air their grievances against companies.

Travel websites already carry customer reviews of hotels and resorts.

Google says it is all about ”facilitating the conversation on the internet” between general users and experts but the PR industry is watching closely to see if Sidewiki will become as popular and as powerful a tool for opinionated internet users as Twitter and Facebook.

Gabriel McDowell, the managing director of Res Publica, said companies that failed to understand Sidewiki risked damage to their image and reputation. ”This is going to sort out the wheat from the chaff when it comes to managing corporate reputation,” Mr McDowell said.

Although Sidewiki presented ”yet another channel for them [corporations] to manage”, Daniel Young, the digital director of Burson-Marsteller, said it could be a useful tool. ”If one person has a complaint and you respond to it then, in a way you are answering others before the question has even been asked,” he says.

Brian Giesen, who heads the digital consultancy in the Asia-Pacific for Ogilvy PR, says Sidewiki could prove to be a handy way to spot potentially hot issues and the pressure groups pushing them.

”It just reinforces the need for brands to listen to such media. This is also a useful way for companies to find out who are the people who are making the comments and then to reach out to them,” said Mr Giesen, who recommends companies race to be the first to make a Sidewiki comment on a page, a privilege Google extends to website owners.

Mr McDowell said Sidewiki could also provide an avenue of redress by corporations that felt they misrepresented in the mainstream media. For example, a public relations consultant could post the entire statement given to a journalist, rather than the truncated version that might appear in an article. ”One of the major complaints about the media is the time it takes to get a correction up. This could go some way to rectifying that.”

But there are concerns that because Sidewiki is ”completely unregulated and uncontrollable”, as Mr Young put it, it will be harder for companies to sort out the legitimate complaints from the serial sledgers. Deciding on whether to answer was going to be key, he said.

Mr Giesen said Google ”needs to take greater responsibility for the comments that appear on Sidewiki”.

A spokeswoman for Google Australia said it had not received any concerns from Australian publishers. ”Website owners and publishers here and abroad have told us that they see this as another way to connect with their users, similar to conversations they’re already having on their blogs, YouTube channels, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages.”

We went live with a new website for Burson-Marsteller Australia. You can find it at www.bm.com/australia.

Its about time that we had a local web presence given the fact that we are advising many clients on digital PR and social media strategy. The site is a starting point, which we will add to and develop over time. The site is based on Microsoft Sharepoint, which I found to be an ‘OK but slightly frustrating’ content management tool.

We are currently working on a really exciting research project for Australia and working with clients on a number of digital projects and some cool new business projects. More on this later.

I am also judging a competition for the International Advertising Association and have a medium sized cardboard box of entries from teams of University students to read through over the weekend.

As a daily habit, I have started reading www.techmeme.com in the morning. I am finding that its a great way to keep up to date with what’s happening in digital and tech generally.

]]> http://justanother24hours.com/life/general-update-this-and-that/feed/ 0 http://justanother24hours.com/technology/options-still-on-the-table-to-support-the-future-of-quality-journalism/ http://justanother24hours.com/technology/options-still-on-the-table-to-support-the-future-of-quality-journalism/#comments Sun, 07 Jun 2009 00:59:30 +0000 Daniel Young http://justanother24hours.com/?p=703 Simon Sharwood, a freelance journalist in Australia, recently blogged two out of his three ideas for new business models in print journalism. Both ideas are based on the concept of industry funding.

In the first, funding would come from industry associations and industry groups. In the second, the PR industry funds print journalism via a licensing system, which grants the license holder access to those journalists – similar to the registration of lobbyists.

Both concepts seem to create dependencies that would undermine journalistic independence and integrity, although the risk of this occurring in the second model could be minimised: “…to be a registered PR, one would stump up a fee that goes into an independently administered fund that is then redistributed to publishers with oversight to ensure it goes on wages” (Simon – in comments).

Putting aside the practical challenges of this model, some of which are discussed in the post, I doubt that the model would be sustainable. Funding from the PR industry would be a diminishing return as media relations become a smaller part of what PR agencies do.

Here’s where I come up with my alternative solve all solution.

I might need to get back to you on that but here are some other funding alternatives:

• Newspapers earn not for profit status and the associated financial and tax breaks
• Introduction of a subscription/ micro-payment system that covers multiple competing publications. Check out ViewPass, which would process payments and collect data to drive targeted advertising or trade content for information about the reader’s preferences and interest.
• Newspapers regulate the re-use of content – in the same way that the music industry does.
• Philanthropy may sustain some publications.

The subject is such an emotive and complex issue. I am definitely in the ‘newspapers are a good thing’ camp – but at the end of the day if the model ceases to work then we have to let ‘nature’ take its course.  Consolidation is inevitable but I think that the concept of a newspaper-less society is somewhat alarmist.

By the way, newspapers are flourishing in the developing world. 

Ultimately, I see a small number of print publications containing analysis and opinion available internationally, nationally and in major cities. They’ll play a key role in holding institutions, business and Government to account and would be supported by the not-for-profit- funding model if advertising revenue alone was not sufficient.

I am positive that the pendulum will swing back from digital to traditional media and that things will balance themselves out.

Quality print journalism will survive even if the industry is vastly consolidated and readers will turn to the Web for breaking news, trade/niche content,  entertainment and video. I don’t personally have an issue with a micro-pay scheme – I’d be happy to pay a small amount for quality content from someone that ‘appreciated the technical nuances of the fields concerned’.

There continues to be considerable opportunity for the newspaper industry to reduce cost which makes this scenario seem feasible. Moody’s estimates that just 14% of newspaper operating costs are related to content creation. It’s not all doom and gloom – there are still workable options.

Two stories caught my eye in the last week which illustrate this point.

1. Kevin Rudd announced a 3 per cent increase in defence spending and directly references the military build up in China as the justification for the spend, which will be detailed in the upcoming Federal budget. Current annual defence funding is in excess of $20bn.

2. The Reserve Bank takes the decision not to cut interest rates and cites recovery in China and the firming up of commodity prices as a key driver for an upswing in the Australian economy.

So in a nutshell Australia is arming itself to defend itself against the threat posed by a major trading partner.

I fail to see why China would invade / attack Australia especially if China consumes more and more of Australia’s raw materials and commodities in the coming years, as the Reserve Bank predicts.

With all due respect, what would be the point?

In an official response, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhong Xu said that “China is a peaceful force that forms no threat to any other countries.”

I appreciate that Australia needs to be aware of what is going on in the region but surely there are more progressive approaches available to the Australian Government, especially from a leader who has capitolised on a strong and long personal relationship with China.

Huh? What’s the point of social media if no-ones listening?

Blogs, forums and other forms of social media provide Government with access to a large amount of public feedback and sentiment. Of course they should be monitored. They provide a litmus test of public opinion. The Government needs to invest in the ‘comprehensive digital monitoring service(s) for print and electronic media’ in order to do this.

One would like to think that advisors and Ministers are listening to online conversation as this enables them to shape legislation and details to respond to the needs of the community.

Or perhaps the Government wants to monitor in order to identify sources of opposition and stiffle dissent.

Social media is driving community, media and our institutions through a transition. Governments are more than happy to use social media during election campaigns to gain power.

The real question should be: What are the Government’s objectives for social media monitoring? One can’t help but be a little cynical in the context of the Federal Government’s Internet Filter.

K-Rudd’s online activity has declined signficantly since coming into power.

The future of social media will be bright as long as Governments and corporations recognise the value of online discussions and the insights they provide rather than seeking to control or place limits on what can and cannot be discussed online. The conversations are occuring (and have always occurred) – heavy handed Governments will drive the online discussion underground (in a digital sense) which is the worst possible outcome.

I see nothing wrong with monitoring per se. It’s essential.

There are numerous free and paid tools out there for managing and monitoring social media. We use Radian6, which is by the best tool that I’ve come across (and I’ve seen quite a few).

Do you think the Government’s Internet Filter will filter out dissenting and opposing voices in addition to the pornographic and illegal content (its stated aim)?

This post takes issue with the not very popular Senator Conroy’s seemingly contradictory statements on the issue of social media monitoring. Conroy and K-Rudd will be announcing the winner of the NBN tender next week.

Here’s a snapshot of social media discussions that may be of interest to Minister Minchin:

Opening the door to privatisation

The New South Wales Department of Corrective Services has threatened to sack a group of employees for comments that they made on Facebook, which it says are in contravention of the Public Services Employment and Management Act. The employees were discussing the issue of prison privatisation in the State.

So much for social media as a channel for individuals to express themselves! This issue raises the question: Should online activity be protected by the principle of Freedom Of Speech?

A follow up story by Crikey alledged that the Facebook activity was actually of a defematory and sexist nature but doesn’t refute the claim that prison officers are being threatened with discipline for voicing their anti-privatisation views.

Prison officers went on a 24 hour strike this week and held a rally outside Parliament house (with twelve rebel Labor MPs) in demonstration against the plans to privatise two prisons in NSW.

For a perspective on the moral and practical issues associated with prison privatisation check out this opinion piece by George Monbiot, which includes the following passage:

Only two groups want them built: ministers and the prison companies: they offer excellent opportunities to rack up profits. And the very nature of PFI, (private finance initaitive: a type of public/private partnership) which commits the government to paying for services for 25 or 30 years whether or not they are still required creates a major incentive to ensure that prison numbers don’t fall. The beast must be fed.