Tom Chapman

Twilight is a Vampire movie based on the bestseller novel of the same name and series by Stephenie Meyer.  The film makers ‘Summit Entertainment’ expected at the most for Twilight to be a cult movie, but based on the film’s opening night in London’s Leicester Square last night, which saw scores of fans camping out overnight just to see the cast, this movie it set to become a blockbuster.

What we have witnessed here is a great example of word of mouth marketing.  This film has experienced what Malcolm Gladwell would call ‘The Tipping Point’ whereby the consumers have created buzz far beyond any pre-designed marketing hype. 

The buzz surrounding the film has been helped through online user generated content such as YouTube videos, photos, etc… as well as the gap in the market left by Harry Potter. 
When a community such as the Twilight example, takes control and creates folklore around the brand it is magical and what social media buzz marketing is all about.

However, what Summit Entertainment need to do is engage more with this community immediately as to ignore this buzz would be a sin and one hell of a wasted opportunity.  
 

Engage with the community and continue the buzz marketing
Summit Entertainment should look to get involved with the community and its devoted fans, they need to engage in conversation with them, listen to what tools they want and play in the sandpit alongside their consumers, not only to support the momentum of the buzz but also to build trust and ultimately brand loyalty.

The film company could offer to include some of the best user generated videos and content to be included on the DVD release – how cool would that be!  Why not create a virtual world where consumers can create their own characters within the Vampire world and interact with one another including the brand.  Within this virtual world the film company could set up an online shop selling merchandise such as T-shirts that have been designed by members and chosen by the community via rankings, ratings or polls - think the Threadless model.

Looking to the future, Summit Entertainment is already planning a sequel so they will have an already engaged social graph yearning for more and there is great potential for the film company to generate social capital.  The community surrounding the brand should be invited by the film company to preview the sequel online and online mini films should be created to continue community engagement leading up to the new release.

There are hundreds of opportunities to support engagement and continue the buzz through social media with the ultimate payoff being brand loyalty.

Tagged as: Buzz Marketing, movie, SoCap&Brand, social media marketing, Tom Chapman, twilight, WOMMA, word of mouth

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For 60 hours on the 26-29 November, India experienced their deadliest terror attacks since 1993 which took the lives of 195 people.

The scale and unpredictability of the attacks which took place at different locations throughout Mumbai meant that professional journalists and traditional media were unable to document the terror at the exact time and location when it was happening.

Although the mainstream media did follow the attacks, the horrifying events were highlighted most through citizen journalists - ordinary members of the public on the ground witnessing the attacks unfold, who updated the global media leveraging social media tools such as blogs, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia.

This recent example of citizen journalism mirrors the 2005 London bombings coverage by ordinary civilians on the ground that is one of the most referenced case studies of citizen journalism.

Below is a list of social media used by citizen journalists to document the Mumbai attacks, if you know of any more please comment on this post with your updates:

• Twitter - users @puneet, @whizzkidd and @krazyfrog tagged their updates ‘mumbai’, ‘bombay’ and ‘#mumbai’.
• Flickr - photo page by Vinukumar Ranganathan. Ranganathan also used Twitter micro-blogging updates to inform friends what was happening.
• YouTube - videos footage of the attack uploaded from camera phones.
• Google Map – custom map shows all of the attack sites.
• Bloggers - posted first hand accounts of the attacks Sonia Faleiro, Arun Shanbhag, Mumbai Heros.
• Wiki’s - Wikipedia and Mahalo, as well as the citizen media aggregators NowPublic and GroundReport.

A further list at journalism.co.uk also documents social media used to report on the attack.

Tagged as: Citizen Journalism, citizen journalists, citizen media, Flickr, groundreport, journalism.co.uk, mumbai attack, nowpublic, Online PR, Social Media, Tom Chapman, Twitter, wikipedia, YouTube

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I have just finished reading: ‘Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom‘ by Matthew Fraser and Soumitra Dutta.  This book provides a fascinating chronicle of social media to date that is heavily influenced by history and social anthropology.

One chapter in particular fired my rockets which was all about social capital.

Social capital
From a marketer’s perspective social capital by definition is no different from economic capital that is invested in order to deliver a return.  This means that when brands use social media, they are essentially investing social time and effort with the overall aim of achieving a return on that investment.  The same applies to consumers use of social media too.

Brands increasing social capital via their social graph
When putting together a social media strategy, brands are looking to increase their social capital through increasing the number of friend/fans/followers on social network platforms.  

Brands also use blogging outreach programmes targeting key professional bloggers who have great influence over a brand’s target audience in hope of improving the quality of their social graph.

At the same time brands are also building social relationships with advocates and consumers via campaigns, communities, outreach programmes, widgets, wikis, social games, building in engagement marketing in hope of achieving trust and loyalty, again increasing the quality of the social graph.  

This social graph can then be leveraged by the brand through promotions, offers, market research, crowd sourcing and collaboration to hopefully deliver a return on the original social investment that adds value to a brand’s bottom line.

Individuals increasing social capital through building a quality social graph
For individuals looking to increase their social capital through social media, marketer Jim Connolly recently put together a fantastic post ‘How I attracted 8000 followers in 14 weeks! illustrating how to increase your own social capital through selectively following Twitter consumers who add value to your social graph.  Jim’s strategy in his post can also be applied to brands as well as other social media tools and platforms.

As with all strategies, campaigns and activities the more time and effort you put into something, the greater return on that investment you will achieve, but you must have a goal in mind: prestige, recognition, loyalty, value, information, influence etc… Savvy brands know that through engagement marketing and one-to-one communications they can increase their social capital but they must invest time, money and effort with long term goals in order to experience a significant return - it’s all out there!

Tagged as: IAM, Individual as Medium, marketing, SCVA, SoCap&Brand, Social Capital, Social Capital Value Add, Social Graph, strategy, throwing sheep in the boardroom, Tom Chapman, Twitter

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Mobile social networking is increasing in popularity.  This is due not only to the introduction of smart phones such as the iPhone, Nokia N96 and Google Android, but also because mobile broadband is now a popular bolt-on for mobile contracts.  Mobile broadband providers such as Vodafone for example offer free access to the Facebook mobile operators platform.

On-deck social networks
In the UK, mainstream social networks such as Facebook available on-deck are most popular due to the critical mass of their online platforms that have migrated to mobile.  I know from first hand experience how popular Facebook mobile is, from the amount of use by staff and friends and when logged into my Facebook account I can see the large number of profile updates made via phone.

Off-deck social networks
Other ‘off-deck’ social networks are available as a software download to phone that allow users to set up group networks once installed.  One popular example is German based mobile social network platform Aka-Aki.
Aka-Aki is a location based social network and was founded by the students at the University of Arts Berlin in 2006 and has since achieved great success in terms of member numbers throughout its backyard of Berlin city.

Location-based social networking offered by Aka-Aki allows its community members to share their location using bluetooth. Members can add comments about a restaurant, inform friends that they’re going to a gig in town or just find out if anyone they know using the network happens to be nearby so weak-tie relationships form.
Aka-Aki is looking to introduce its location based mobile social network to the UK in 2009 and in my opinion it will easily achieve brand recognition through their cool ‘elk‘ icon, but the network faces tough competition from already established social network platforms available on-deck.

Chinwag MoSo Rising event 
Two weeks ago I attended the Chinwag event MoSo Rising in London to get the skinny on mobile social networks going forward into 2009.

MoSo Rising’s focus was predominantly a technology and software based discussion – I personally wanted to learn how brands can successfully use mobile social networks to engage with consumers as opposed to the technology behind the user experience. 
My key takeout from the event is that the mobile itself should not be seen as the ‘web in your pocket’ but as an extension to online activities and to assist in continuing the engagement with consumers around mobile activities and communities.  This is an obvious point and one that is important because the behaviour of mobile and web use is totally different.  MoSo content should be adapted and targeted to mobile use and applications.  For example developers and content providers should be looking to target those consumers that cannot access the web from their workplace but who want to engage and stay connected with their group networks.  So we’re looking at taxi drivers, nurses, building contractors, basically anyone away from a fixed line connection that have a phone they can use to network with.  
There is a great deal of potential for MoSo as pretty much everyone has a mobile phone, although not everyone has a smart phone and mobile handsets in the UK have reached saturation point.  Still it will be interesting to see if 2009 will finally be the year for mobile marketing, social media and social networks in particular.

Tagged as: Aka-Aki, Chinwag, facebook, marketing blog, mobile social networking, mobile social networks, MoSo, Tom Chapman

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