Social Media
for media brands
We are great apes – social animals

Social media reduces the friction of distance and time

Enormously influential - word of mouth on speed

Completely democratic – anyone can have influence

Completely meritocratic
What is social media?
The attention economy
People’s attention span is limited
In 20 years we’ve gone from dozens of channels to a 250m
You are in a war to win people’s attention – and you’re losing
People no longer revere traditional media
People pay attention to other people
What’s out there?
Tens of millions of active bloggers around the world
An interlocking web of opinion and community
Around 20,000 active blogs in SA
...with around 2 million readers
Open / public network (“opinion”)
If Facebook where a country it would be the 3rd largest in the world (500 million users)
3 million active South African users and counting
2nd most visited site by South Africans
Pure play social network 
Closed / private networking (“maintenance”)
A constant global conversation
The pulse of the real time internet
Over a billion messages (tweets) per month
Approx. 80,000 South Africans (and growing fast)
Open / public network (“conversation”)
6 golden rules of social media
Be responsive
Be useful
Be generous
Be transparent
Be respectful
Be human
Don’t automate everything 
No fire and forget
Take time to read 
Reply to people
Give people something they want
Not something you want
Concentrate on adding extra value
Link to other sites
Share the glory
Recommend others
If you’re wrong admit it
Don’t delete – amend
Never hide behind words
Don’t cheat or game the system
Thank people
Stay calm under abuse
Behave like a friend...
...not a sales clerk
No marketing speak
No robotics
Little editorial grooming
Make mistakes
Have some fun
Any medium in which the majority of the content is derived from the users
Blogs
Social 
networks
Twitter
Video
sharing
Social
bookmarking
Why should we bother?
Forums
Printing 
press 
invented
First
newspapers &
mags
Radio
TV
Satellite & 
Cable
The WWW
Questions?
Fish where the fish are
Reestablish yourself as a trusted friend
Maintain your voice
Learn, learn, learn
That means you need to...
Who should be in charge of social media?
You might assume marketing...
...but it’s really better suited to editorial
...since you’re effectively selling your content
...rather than merely your brand
In summary:
Ok, so how do I actually do this?
FIRST: Pick your platform(s)
SECOND: Start interacting / participating
Social media isn’t “free”
...at a minimum you need:
- A dedicated social media champion (role not job)
- A daily update schedule
- The right tools
- Clear goals
- Even clearer policies
You could go for the biggest: Facebook
Too many choices?
Or the buzziest: Twitter
Or something niche: Ning
Above all...
Your platform needs to mesh well with your strategy: 
Facebook is antithetical hard sell
Twitter is not good at visuals
Linked-in doesn’t suit lifestyle content
To really have impact you need to consider:
- Advertising
- Integrating (web and print / broadcast)
- Employing
- Developing (campaigns or applications)
THIRD: Measure
“The unexamined social media channel is not worth running”
(with apologies to Socrates)
What to measure:
- Reach
- Engagement
- Referrals
- Conversions
FOURTH: Rinse and repeat
Social media is - by definition - about interaction

If you don’t learn from that those interactions
...you won’t ever grow
Your social media strategy may need to change weekly
Get comfortable with that
Media brands are lucky...
- We do content - much of social media revolves around content
- We have “anchor” brands
- We don’t need to convert payers - just readers
Hang on...
what the hell do you know anyway?
your total number of connections
(fans, followers, friends etc)
How many of your connections interact with you 
(comments, likes, posts etc)
How many people follow links to your site
How many social media visitors sign up for services 
(eg newsletter, commenting)
We are institutions that filter on the universe for our communities
social media fits into that vision perfectly
Hello!