The scary side of Social Networking

With the popularity of social networking sites continuing to grow at massive rates, adding thousands of new users every day, we must still tread with caution. Every week we see experts step forward to advise us that platforms like Twitter and Facebook can easily ruin our reputations.

One such recent report is by Zatz Publishing’s editor-in-chief David Gewirtz, which was reported by the Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog.

In the article Gewirtz says that when it comes to social networking, it’s not what you know, or even who you know, it’s who knows you. The report is aptly titled: “The Dark Side of Social Networking.”

Gerwitz adds: “social networks like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn are the increasingly popular community services that are designed to help people stay in touch.”

The Bulldog article cites research from Nielsen Company that “more than two-thirds of the world’s Internet population visit social networking sites at least once a month, and nearly 10% of all time spent online is devoted to social networking.”

Due to this popularity and growth, and an army of undisciplined users, Gewirtz adds that “social networks are attracting scammers and criminals. The bulk of social networkers are between the ages of 18 and 49 – prime employment years, and ages where a mistake today could haunt them for many years into the future.”

Gewirtz’s report explores the following issues:

• Employment: how social networking can lead to career suicide
• Reputation: how something you say now could haunt you for years into the future.
• Malware, phishing and identity scams: how using services like Facebook and Twitter without caution could cause you serious financial loss
• Physical security and stalking: how social networks give stalkers and other scary people an almost minute-by-minute update on your habits and haunts

As for physical risks, Gerwitz says “the potential for horror is enormous. If a criminal can easily find out where you are, what stores you frequent, what your daily habits are, who your friends are, and even what your personal food, entertainment, and beverage preferences are, you can be targeted with a level of ease never before possible. I worry that there is a deep and dangerous dark side to social networks and I worry about the potential victims.”

Yikes, scary stuff. You have been warned!

(Acknowledgement: Gerwitz’s quotes and observations sources from the Bulldog Reporter’s Daily Dog article)

The power of social media… chk-chk BOOM!

Thanks to the power of social media and viral campaigns anyone can become a celebrity overnight. You’ve no doubt seen via your email, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter accounts, how 19-year-old, Clare Werbeloff, has become an overnight celebrity for her colourful eyewitness report of a shooting in Kings Cross last Saturday night. She’s received so much media attention she’s hired a PR representative to manage her affairs.

This is a great example of the power of social and digital media campaigns, with rumours of Clare possibly bagging modelling, acting and entertainment reporting contracts from the coverage. Never mind her racist and inarticulate account of the shooting…

Questions have now been raised about this being a marketing stunt for the Toohey’s Extra Dry 6Beers campaign or The Projects marketing agency, as quoted on mUmBRELLA today. This is a highly doubtful scenario because no matter where you point a camera in Kings Cross there’ll be advertisements in the background. It would be a sad day if companies went to the extent of shooting someone for some publicity.

That aside, who knows where this might take Clare, so far she’s got quite the following – the news video was viewed more than 100,000 times this week and Clare now has nearly 900 followers on her Facebook fan page. People with ‘real’ talent can take years – even decades, if that at all – to get this kind of following. While no-one can underestimate the power of social media, it’s fair to say Clare’s no Jana Wendt and only real talent survives these explosive, short-lived bursts of fame (cue Corey Worthington nee Delaney).

I couldn’t help but think if social media (and Clare) were around in the 1980s, given the same situation, could this have even led to Clare becoming the star in John Farnham’s film clip ‘You’re The Voice’… try and understand it?!

The impact of the global recession on social media

I’m keen to understand how the global recession is impacting social media and particularly the North American powerhouse, Silicon Valley. I’m interested in the develpments occurring at Silicon Valley mostly because today we can consider it the backbone behind a lot of the big Web 2.0 companies.

Belts seem to be tightening in all industries across the board – banking, automotive, retail and so on – yet we’re still seeing big injections of capital in many of the Web 2.0 companies.

Take micro-blogging service Twitter for example. It was announced this week that Twitter has managed to raise $35 million in venture capital in spite of the challenging economic climate. This capital has come from Institutional Venture Partners and Benchmark Capital.

Are venture capitalists finally seeing the real value of Web 2.0 in helping deal with challenging times ahead?

I think that social media will come out on top in these tough times as people start using it as a means of cost-saving on entertainment. This is especially important at a time when people are becoming increasingly budget-conscious and are rather choosing to bunker indoors and save their pennies.

I’m a good example of this. I seem to find myself on fewer outings to the movies and instead I keep my cinema experience to my lounge room with my LCD TV, entertainment system and complete surround sound system. In fact, I can’t remember the last movie I saw at the cinemas but I could rattle off at least five DVDs that I have watched at home. I also spend less time travelling and more time talking to my friends overseas via Facebook and Twitter.

There are a plethora of online technologies and digital devices out there that provide consumers with their own portal to entertainment. Aside from big screen TVs that bring you a cinema at home, there are also notebook PCs to consider.

Notebooks are another means of cost-effective entertainment to online services such as online gaming, online video, video conferencing and instant connection to friends and family via IM, social networking sites, email or Skype with those embedded with broadband solutions.

Interestingly enough, consumer experts are also already tipping that many Australians will use the planned $950 Rudd Government cash handouts to splurge on games and gadgets, following record spending on electronics last year (as reported by the Courier Mail).

I’ll be watching these developments closely but please feel free to share any information specifically around how you think social media will fare in light of the global recession.

The media – trends for 2009

It became apparent, after reading Parker and Partners’ Trends for 2009 that all media, even the online species, are going to struggle in 2009.

In Trends 2009, Parker and Partners (P&P) note that 2008 was categorised by the decline of traditional media and the substantial growth of social media, yet even affordable online advertising will struggle in 2009. “Things are going to get much worse before they get any better,” said P&P.

“The print media will continue to face the dilemma of trying to maintain strong sales while putting content online for free,” asserted P&P. “Even online revenue cannot replace the revenue that was generated by print – particularly classifieds – and a major overhaul will be necessary to make the print media profitable.”

Interestingly, Parker and Partners also note that Australia’s current crop of ministers are generally far more tech-savvy than their predecessors, presenting some interesting opportunities to engage with both them and the broader community people through new channels like social media.

“It seems that everyone is reaping the benefits of social networking including Barak Obama,” Parker and Partners said. “He changed the course of political engagement forever, engaging voters through social media and raising over US$600 million through small online donations into the bargain.”

Overall, Parker and Partners believe that with the current economic situation, marketing and advertising through the social media will continue to grow as companies look for cheaper options to reach their audience:“2009 will be a watershed year for web 2.0”, so say the P&P brains trust.

To read more about Parker and Partners predications for 2009, please email pr@howorth.com.au for a full copy of the report.

A covert operation: Naked causes social media uproar

It was only last week that I was talking about the use of social media and viral videos in particular to promote a brand and cause.

I was specifically drawing a comparison between Tourism Queensland’s fake viral video that appeared on YouTube with a woman getting a tattoo of the ‘dream job’ advertisement on her arm and comparing it with the video of Heidi Clarke, the woman with a jacket to return to a mysterious man that she met in the Sydney CBD.

Early last week it hadn’t been confirmed whether this last video was a fake but now it has been revealed that it indeed is a spoof. It has also been revealed that this is the work of Australian strategy consultancy, Naked Communications.

This misleading viral campaign has caused major uproar in social media and has captured many negative comments. These comments are mostly around the idea of using social media to mislead consumers in order to promote a particular cause and also particularly negative comments about the agency itself.

Was it a clever video? Yes. Did it get people talking? Yes. So much so that this actually caused a stir in both online and offline world. Would it have caused as much of a stir in social media if Tourism QLD hadn’t recently admitted to its hoax video? I’m actually doubtful although I don’t necessarily agree with these sorts of covert marketing tactics.

Naked Communications has taken a beating because of its actions. This is a mistake that anyone could have made and one that a lot are probably guilty of but yet to be found out about just yet. Although I caveat this by saying that we are likely to see a domino effect here and I’m sure there are many more dominos that will start to fall now.

We can take a lesson from this. Many savvy marketers are talking about the use of covert marketing and tactics in order to raise brand awareness and eyebrows. Many people believe that this is clever marketing and gets consumer excited. We need to be aware that this is clearly not the case. This sort of behaviour on social media is simpe not acceptable.

Perhaps we need to go right back to social media 101 again. Do we need to retrain people on the core principles that underpin this very medium? It’s all about honesty, authenticity and transparency. And you’re most certainly damned if you don’t!

Just look at the flack that the likes of Vespa and Sony have attracted in this past year for using covert marketing as a means to promote a cause. Vespa – slammed! Sony Fake Tourist campaign – slammed!

I’m really interested to hear your thoughts on misleading viral campaigns. Do you have any other examples you can share. What other big companies are using covert marketing as a means of promotion?

The Best Job in the World: social media and destination marketing

We’ve all been hearing and reading a lot about “The Best Job in the World“, the destination marketing campaign by Tourism Queensland. In short, Tourism Queensland put out a worldwide call for candidates to apply for a Great Barrier Reef-based job paying $150,000. This has played out quite nicely in social media – in particular on video aggregator sites such as YouTube.

The winner will need to become friendly with the locals and explore the Great Barrier Reef and indulge in activities that make up the island experience – swimming, diving, snorkelling and hanging out on the beach. As part of the ‘dream’ job, the successful applicant will also need to post their adventures on a blog, regularly updating it with the latest photos and video footage.

In order to apply, the candidates have been asked to create and submit a 60-second video of themselves. Part of a $1.7 million global marketing strategy and, according to a report in The Australian, the campaign is expected to generate more than $70 million worth of publicity for Queensland.

This is a great feat given the current financial crisis and particularly now that the heat has turned up in Australia. It was announced yesterday that NSW is officially in recession and this is expected to spread throughout Australia, according to the Access Economics’ Business Outlook for December 2008 (although there are still mixed reports about this). This campaign is raising the profile of this holiday destination at a time where people are less inclined to travel. This campaign is putting Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef on the global map.

Although this campaign is attracting widespread attention both locally and across the globe, there has also been a recent flurry of backlash. Yesterday, Tourism Queensland admitted to seeding a fake video of a candidate applying for the ‘dream’ job. The video is of a girl getting an advertisement for the Great Barrier Reef tattooed on her arm. The spoof video was uncovered by YouTube frequenters who acknowledged the video as a fake as there was no red on her arm immediately after getting the tattoo.

It was reported in The Sydney Morning Herald that this video was intended as an”…example of the creativity Tourism Queensland expected from applicants, and to spur people to post their own videos”.

This comes at a time where there has been a fair bit of scepticism around the use of video sites such as YouTube to promote a cause. The most recent example of self-promotion is the video of Heidi Clarke, a girl who posted a YouTube video about a man that she briefly met and spoke to at a CBD cafe.

The apparent man had left his jacket behind and because she insists she felt a ‘connection’ with him, she wanted to use the video site to try and find him. Not only did we see widespread coverage of this on YouTube and online news sites but this extended to traditional news outlets including TV. We are still yet to uncover whether in fact the girl and her cause is genuine but it is widely believed that this, too, is a fake.

Despite the furore of using social media and covert marketing to promote a cause, this has still been a unique and innovative destination marketing campaign. We are still seeing other applicants upload their own 60-second videos to YouTube.

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