3 things that make social networks successful

I was once asked — what are 3 things that make each Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube successful?

Facebook

• Don’t just have a brand page or presence just for the heck of it – have a strategy around it. The point of having Facebook is to leverage the wide reach and network that it provides access to – have a strategy for developing fans and leveraging their networks.
• Keep the page fresh and updated regularly. Have a calendar and select days to update it so that fans can expect it to be updated on a certain date.
• Engage fans and listen to them. Give fans an incentive to interact with the brand and become fans. The incentive could be sweepstakes, exclusive promotions and offers, or you could restrict content and make all content available only to fans. Take fan feedback, channel it to the right group internally, and act on it.

YouTube

• Content is key. People come to YouTube to watch videos – give them what they want in terms of content.
• Promote your videos. There are millions of videos on YouTube – the best way to get attention is to promote the videos on YouTube. If you have good content and promote it, subscriptions will increase.
• Leverage the YouTube network and encourage engagement among fans. YouTube has made several changes in the past to allow users to connect with their friends, and Google is still trying to figure out how to monetize this channel. While YouTube is not “there yet”, it is still getting there in terms of building a network. Identify brand influencers and give them an incentive to vlog about the brand. There are several beauty videos on YouTube – people regularly teach how to apply makeup and share their favorite brands with followers – they have a strong fan following. Reach out to this set of influencers and get them to use your brand in videos.

Twitter

• Give an incentive to add followers quickly. There have been several instances where people have given incentives to the nth follower to increase the number of followers quickly.
• Keep Twitter fresh and updated regularly.
• People on Twitter are more interested in what they have to say than what others have to say. The best way to get their attention is to get into conversations with them about their posts, especially if you don’t know the followers. Follow people who are relevant and follow with the intention of conversing with them. Most of the people who follow me on Twitter do so only because they want me to follow them back. Once I realized that their following me had nothing to do with me or my content but was just a way to get me to follow them, I stopped checking out their Twitter accounts. I hardly ever visit Twitter.

Connect all accounts – Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Digg, blog, etc. so that updating one will update the rest automatically. For all, there is a 4-step process:

• Provide engaging content
• Promote content and increase fans
• Keep the pages updated to continue to engage fans
• Leverage fan networks to increase fans further

Which network is the most useful? It depends on your business.

For retailers, beauty companies, small businesses, etc., Facebook is the most relevant because people are passionate about and love to connect with brands they love on Facebook. On average each fan has 150 friends. So if you have 1,000 fans, you have access to a network for 150,000 people! Facebook is like an email database, only better, because you have access to a wide network.

YouTube is most relevant for the entertainment industry. Music executives have a far way to go — some videos on YouTube have no sound/music due to rights issues; however, if people listen to music on a video and like it, they will buy. Why not encourage monetization by allowing people to listen to music on YouTube, click through on the paid ads that show up most commonly for Amazon and iTunes, and make money from that? People can listen to music illegally and download it anyway, why not be smart about it and make money from this channel? It seems so silly to hold on to old ways of thinking when honestly, music executives have NO CHOICE but to accept that they have no control over the Internet.

IMO, Twitter in its current form is a fad – it really is. Its retention rate is 40%, which means that of every 100 people that sign up for Twitter, 40 stay while 60 do not return the following month. Some of them are like me, who have connected my blog with Twitter and do not visit Twitter at all. Not even for discounts for brands I am following. Here is an interesting article about how the 40% as reported by Nielsen is incorrect. According to the article, a number of people are on Twitter apps and do not need to visit the site, hence the 40% retention is misleading. Twitter is still trying to figure out how to make money off of the site. I wonder how much of the site’s traffic is from celeb gossip blogs quoting celebrities. It is a great way to make information viral, but I still think that Twitter is a fad and unless it finds a way to make money, it will lose importance. Mashable has a great write-up about what Twitter needs to do to improve.

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The social media craze

Today at work I presented interesting facts about social media craze. Social media is such a black hole, and marketers are still figuring it out. Does social media have the potential to drive sales? How does it help in branding? DVF’s fan page on Facebook is brilliant. A really good way to capitalize on free media. Their customers post photos in DVF clothes and they choose fan of the week. I would love to do that for my company. People could see complete outfits from us, get a better idea of how clothes would look on real people in different sizes, and buy them. Such a good way to give styling advice and build a community!

Check out some cool facts:

• Twitter is expected to double its user base from 6MM in 2008 to 12MM in 2009, ~4% of the US population; its retention rate is 40% on average. Growth is driven by 25-54 year olds. In fact, 45-54 year olds are more likely than average to visit Twitter. WOW!!! Who would have thought? I guess that is a good way to spend early retirement.
• 1 in 9 visits on the Internet are to social networks, down from the last 2 years. However, visits to Facebook, YouTube, and LinkedIn have increased, but declined for MySpace by 4%. MySpace is a crappy site, and they don’t even allow brands to have their own fan page. They have monetized everything. Who goes there anyway. The pages look crappy and juvenile, and are now relevant just for music. Although they are trying to find relevance and make money.
• Facebook averaged 1.4 BILLION visits in April 2009; unique visitors was 77MM, over 25% of the US population.
• On YouTube, 15 hours of video content is uploaded in one minute, equivalent to 8,600 full length Hollywood motion films per week.
• 28MM users update their blog at least once a month.
• 97MM users read a blog at least once a month; this number is expected to increase to 128MM in 2013, or 58% of US Internet users

Wow, just wow. With Facebook you have access to over 25% of the US population, which is really cool. Question is, how do you reach that user base? How do you enter that black hole and not get stuck? I visit Facebook 2-3 times a week, sometimes less frequently. I am on YouTube every single day. I don’t want TV anymore and watch all shows on YouTube or the Internet. I watch international shows on YouTube. I probably spend an average of 2-3 hours per day on YouTube on a weekday, and 4-6 on a weekend. There is so much to watch, discover, and learn on YouTube. And of course you can rewind Bush’s video of almost getting hit with shoes umpteen times.

I don’t frequent Twitter; there are too many updates to have the time and patience to read.

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