What makes us social and is social media a good thing?

Why do we do this?

Why do we feel the need to share, communicate, converse, promote ourselves with our fellow human beings to varying degrees?

How has the evolution in our methods of doing these said things affected our personalities and positions within the natural pecking order in comparison to forms of communication that have come before this on-line world?

What motivates us all to participate in these new forms of communication and how do we as an (digital) industry attempt to encourage further participation either by utilising existing platforms or by the creation of new interfaces.

Finally, from a moral stand point rather than from a commercial perspective, does encouraging further participation on these social interfaces actually serve a purpose that is beneficial to us all as a race?

We're all different, that much is apparent and is one the key results of our sentient abilities as a species.

For most our habits, that define us as the individuals I spoke of earlier, seem to take shape slowly as we find our feet in this new on-line community. We find more confidence to act "naturally" the longer we spend in the company of a particular interface and its associated community.

But also it takes a while to convey the full picture of our individual nature truly, rather than the snapshot that we can sometimes be judged on through a passing comment or an off the cuff remark.

This is no different to what we'd usually see in a physical meeting between strangers. There may be some that push right on in to a room, declaring who they are and why they are there, others who introduce themselves slowly and gradually disclose more over time. The sincerity of each of these approaches can only really be fathomed with time.

I was reading an interesting post on Adina Levin’s blog about the use of leader boards on web applications and how this affects our motivations and actions when using a particular application.

The post reviews a discussion on whether the presence of a scoring system affects peoples actions, perhaps making them deviate from what would be their normal reaction to a social process. Citing Twitter and the pursuit of new followers as an example of a scoring system of sorts; do you find yourself making decisions on Twitter in order to increase your following that might be contrary to your usual actions?

Twitter is a great people watching portal, following conversations and how people portray themselves, the roles they take within their communities, their follow habits and etiquette.

Self analysis, I'd hope, is inevitable. Taking the time to go back and read your Twitter stream on regular basis to see if what you're tweeting about is a good portrayal of what you are hoping to convey about you and your place in this complicated equation of thoughts, needs, messages and social position.

This assumption in itself though is an insight to my own requirement for self analysis and assessment, why should anyone else feel the need to do this?

Do we meet less face to face than we used to? In my mind I'm running through working and social circumstances as they were perhaps 50 years ago and comparing them to today. Perhaps more of us would have worked in large scale production environments, working in large teams rather than the smaller service industries that employ many now. When we wanted something done we'd have talk face to face rather than send e-mails, did this give us the opportunity to be more honest about our approach or vice versa?

Or does the temporary façade of anonymity of on-line services provide us with the self confidence to speak our minds more freely?

Here I am typing this post here in the comfort of my own home, listening to music I enjoy with a cup of tea at hand. I'm not sitting in front of you all, who are mostly strangers, discussing this rather philosophical subject.

Does what I'm writing now convey a more valid image of myself than perhaps I'd manage face to face?

Personally I believe the on-line social communities, like face to face, or written word communities of other media formats, or spoken word on the likes of radio that have come before the internet, all reveal the individual characteristics of each of us.

For some the internet will be a social revolution that takes their personal make-up and propels them to heights that wouldn't otherwise have been achieved with other interfaces. Others will harbour fears of social regression against the internet with its lack of physical contact.

We will we as a race suffer from the change in format for social exchange?

I don't believe we will, we'll likely just adapt and evolve.

Will this effect our personal lives and relationships we have with friends and family?

I am sure it will have an affect, but I doubt it will be a significantly detrimental effect and may well for many have a thoroughly positive affect. If detrimental, no more so than the arrival of stage coaches, post delivery, telegraphs and telephones that have preceded the internet.

I'd been interested to investigate the social exclusion aspect of the internet and whether the financial requirements needed to grant access to the internet has a had a detrimental effect on society. But I suspect that we could, as before, point back to similar developments within our evolution as a race that have had the same exclusivity of access.

Finally, how do we in the digital industry develop and design platforms and applications that facilitate social interaction naturally? This is such a vast subject that I'm not going to insult it by trying to cover it in the closing paragraphs of this post, I'll save some thought on it for another day.

However, it seems Twitter has managed to achieve this goal. By providing a simple set of rules and syntax that has encouraged first early adopters to partake and now the upsurge of use by the general public has allowed them to progress and perhaps now refocus the applications original function.

Twitter has managed to push itself through the early stages of uptake and entered a self propelling curve of adoption through its establishment as a trending technology within our new social landscape.

But this wasn't by chance. Without the right balance of parameters such as security, incentive of target driven goals (leader boards), spam reduction and a good bit of user interface development and an open API, I doubt Twitter would have seen the success it is now witnessing.

Social media, I believe, will continue where other mediums have gone before, growing in popularity before some other new communication order takes hold.

But it has seen the merging of two facilities of previous mediums of communication before it, the ability to address the mass semi-targeted audiences of newspapers and television, and the more personal and two-way communication of the telephone.

For some it will be an opportunity to self promote, for others to follow leaders in their wake, others to shout without listening, to others to engage and listen, and for some to ignore and to continue without interest or involvement.


Further reading:

Twitter - Use it as you see fit, but don't expect us all to like it! - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/09/twitter-use-it-as-you-see-fit-but-dont.html

Why bother with social media - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html

The power of the connected age - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/power-of-connected-age.html

Social divide, can digital bridge this? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/01/social-divide-can-digital-bridge-this.html

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Luxury brands - Are they taking digital and social media seriously?

To me, luxury brands seem perfectly suited to embrace social and digital media, using the platforms to extend their customer service engagement to a new level and improve their brand awareness by engaging with their audience.

Yet from previous searching for luxury brands using social media, I can see that this is still a market in its infancy.

I read a few months back of the Middlesbrough Player, Andrew Taylor, who has recently started a web based luxury suppliers directory in an attempt to reduce fraud among the football player community.

The Platinum Players site is now, I believe, live. I dropped them a note to see if they would give me a sneak peak into what they offer and how they've gone about doing it, but never received a response back from them. It must be very exclusive.

So instead I went hunting again, using Google and their very basic search syntax to see what I could dig up.


Dom Perignon

First up was the Dom Perignon site, not my personal choice of bubbled refreshment at the weekend, but still a very nice drink for those that like to partake in a little champers. A luxury for most, particularly under current economic circumstances.

First item that greets me on the Dom Perignon is an age verification request which, if honest, doesn't offend me or detract from my experience in the slightest. This is, after all, a product that can't be sold to individuals under the age of 18 in the UK so why not keep the content for over 18's?

The site behind the check is nice and has a luxurious feel about it, Eva Herzigova acting provocatively in luxurious surrounds. Low text content, high video content, lots of brand messages, I like it in the context of a luxury product.

I'm no big fan of Flash websites but this seems to suit the format, although the navigation fades too quickly, if you're using the right hand navigation items and then trying to access the sub-pages you have to use your wits.

But where's the social media I hear you cry!

Well, there isn't any. A quick search on Twitter for Dom Perignon returns no accounts except BroDomPerignon an odd comedic account following a few threads on Champagne in general; Dom Perignon itself belongs to a Japanese owner.

What I did find from visiting Brother Dom's account was a Twitter account for Veuve Clicquot.


Veuve Clicquot

What an entertaining account, seemingly enveloping the feeling of being involved in something exclusive and luxurious without the requirements for the feed to be subscription only.

Attending fashion parties and name dropping like there's no tomorrow the Veuve Clicquot account seems to be approaching Twitter in a way that wins my seal of approval.

With over 3000 followers, and a pretty much equal number of people they follow, they seem to have address my usual gripe of not allowing the account generate a community feel.

The Veuve Clicquot Twitter stream left me wanting to be a guest at all the parties they were visiting, surely this is what any social media engagement could aspire to.

Although I'd be crazy if I didn't realise it must be a whole lot easier to encourage this feeling of engagement when talking about champagne parties with the global fashionista than it might be for a commercial banking giant promoting its products and services.

That said, we must consider that it's about addressing the right audience, with the right tools, in the right manner. What that says about me I shudder to think . . .

Brava Veuve Clicquot!


American Express Centurion

American Express Centurion is the card to own if you're amongst the last of the big spenders.

Sadly I am not, so I was unable to go any further than the initial login screen. Although I was able to gain some information even from this visit that, I have got to say, disappointed me.

First up, the URL is hardly memorable, I would have thought American Express could have spent the time to make it a little more customised for their exclusive customers?

Equally, I'm not sure what the styling is like once you've logged in, but if you ask for help at the first screen you can forget about any continuity from the landing page with regards to design.

They don't seem to be using social media yet for their luxury arm of the business, although American Express have delved into social media for the parent company with a bespoke offering on their Open Forum. Open Forum utilises the likes of social media illuminati Guy Kawasaki to help with brand promotion and they seem to have the American Express Twitter URL reserved for some purpose yet to be revealed.

But they still don't seem to be addressing their luxury offering in social or digital media very well or, in fact, at all. They are obviously looking at ways to work the digital channel for them to pursue the Open Forum, perhaps they will turn their attention to the Centurion Card once they are more comfortable.


Burberry

While Burberry has achieved a rise in popularity due to its association with less than luxurious adoptions, I still see it as a luxury brand and I think the majority of their product prices and the quality of their products support this opinion.

Initial investigations found a nice site, not dissimilar to Dom Perignon's approach with a high level of visual content and also a Burberry Twitter account.

Looking at the content on the Twitter feed certainly doesn't lead me to think that this is anything other than an official brand feed. Although they could do with altering their style choice on Twitter, as you are unable to read details such as the website URL with the black font on the black background.

The feed seems relatively new, with only 15 tweets and a feed that was established only in July this year. To date I don't see much more than promotional posts about new products being released.

They have however in those few tweets tied in a few calls to other Twitter accounts and utilised hashtags which is promising to see.

I also followed one of the Twitter links which took me to a YouTube video of a recent Burberry fashion show. Clicking on the account link I found a Burberry YouTube account with 7 uploads and a completed profile that had been created in 2005 no less.

There seems to have been a recent burst of activity on the site, with new content and new followers. Is this the signs of a Burberry social media campaign in it's infancy?

There was however a comment on the site asking whether it was an official site, that had gone unanswered, but only for 2 days at the time of writing this. One issue with social media is that once you're out there, you need to manage all of these presences pro-actively, a factor that can put many off the adoption.

My investigation took me deeper into Burberry's on-line presence where I found Burberry's hub of social media operations, a Burberry Facebook account. With over 660,000 fans, this is a Facebook following to be proud of.

Listed on the site were the brand's Twitter and YouTube ID's, their videos were also uploaded from the YouTube account and they'd even got a Facebook campaign page developed in XFBML by the looks of it.

There still doesn't seem to be much of a conversation going on via the Facebook page, but it is allowing Burberry fans a good opportunity to view new products on the cat walk and for fans to provide feedback in the comments.

It almost seems that Burberry could justify having a Friendfeed account to allow all fans to access this aggregated content.

Equally it's disappointing not to see any reference to their social media activity on their web site or in fact vice versa, not many links from the Twitter feed back to the main website generating further traffic and interest.

Most of the activity didn't exploit much of the luxury feel that I gained from the Veuve Clicquot Twitter stream, but it's still early days for their Twitter feed.

All said, this is the first example I've found of a "luxury" brand really addressing the social and digital media market with any gusto and Burberry need to be congratulated for this.


Luxury Directory

The Luxury Directory Twitter feed seem to be a pre-dominance of content publication and not much customer engagement sadly.

To make matters worse a lot of the URL's in the feed were returning 404's. They seem to using a URL service called Eight7Teen which I had never encountered before, I checked the URL of Eight7Teen and all seemed to be okay.

I then tried to create a URL of my own via Eight7Teen, err err. I'm not sure what's going on with the service, but it certainly didn't seem to work for me. Luxury Directory need to investigate this and switch URL shortener if this is the issue it appears to be.

The Luxury Directory website also has a link to a Facebook profile, after visiting the profile it seems as though this is associated with the "La Dolce Vita" magazine. Which initially I couldn't seem to associate the ownership relationship between the two, until I noticed the e-mail address domain for the contact details.

"La Dolce Vita" is a travel magazine for individuals of high net worth looking for their next holiday location. A perfect domain for the luxury social media engagement that I'd spoken of in earlier posts, linking up with partners in locations and offering luxury services to readers upon arrival.

Sadly it doesn't seem as though "La Dolce Vita" are using this particular social media avenue, perhaps they can hook with Veuve Clicquot to offer champagne upon arrival?

It was good to see a luxury group using social media to address their audience, although I do think they could have got the brand family in tune a little better and also gained further value from their use of social media.


Other mentions

I tried finding any other specific luxury brands utilising social media, but my search wasn't very fruitful. I found a Twitter account for the Lamborghini Club of LA which seemed to be doing a good job of promoting the brand, but I am sure it will be from the Club's perspective and not an official brand perspective even if it does carry some form of official endorsement.

This club perspective was further enforced when I looked at the "Model" section on the Club's website expecting to see official Lamborghini car images (how naive of me).

While I didn't see many luxury brands utilising the social media channel or even the more traditional web channel (since when has the web become traditional!) I did see plenty of evidence of other aggregation of luxury content.

There is Luxse which offers a luxury lifestyle on-line guide and has a Twitter presence. Tweeting about new luxury products hitting the market that they've been featuring, but there didn't seem to be much of a conversation going on.

Luxury Suites International offers access to numerous luxury accommodations across North America, tying in with a web presence.

I also found Luxe Branding which initially seems to be the answer to all of my investigations, but at the moment is little more than a minimally used Twitter account to promote the release of a new book, which I haven't read.

Lux Guide is a male focussed luxury guide on Twitter, with seemingly no other presence on-line. This stream just seems to feed links to items that would be of interest to men of a high net worth.

I noticed a lot of the links were passing to Amazon so I am assuming the feed is simply using an affiliate account to generate revenue from the likes of Amazon.


I still feel the digital industry is crying out for a good implementation of a luxury brand web presence. Offering their exclusive customer base a portal or interface to access a level of customer service on-line that isn't available to mere mortals.

I think both the Veuve Clicquot and the Burberry work were heading in the right direction and hats off to both of them. I was particularly pleased with Veuve's use of Twitter, it would be great if they could back it up with perhaps a Flickr or Vimeo account.

I'd love to hear of any examples people have encountered on this subject; but judging from the number of searches hits that I receive on Digital Signals for luxury brands I guess everyone else is asking the same question.


Related reading:

American Express Open Forum - Compete http://blog.compete.com/2009/02/12/american-express-open-forum-twitter/

5 ways luxury brands can overcome the conundrum of social marketing - Web Strategist http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2009/09/03/five-ways-luxury-brands-can-overcome-the-conundrum-of-social-marketing/

Middlesbrough player launches Platinum Players - The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/aug/10/middlesbrough-player-launches-website

Tweet Cloud for Luxury Brands – Using Twitter for Exposure - TwiTip http://www.twitip.com/tweet-cloud-for-luxury-brands-using-twitter-for-exposure/


Further reading:

Social media and luxury brands - Perfect engagement platform? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/social-media-and-luxury-brands-perfect.html

Is Apple a luxury brand? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2008/12/is-apple-luxury-brand.html

Online Luxury Embrace Me . . . - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2008/10/luxury-brands-and-their-online-presence.html

Why bother with social media? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html

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The future of digital - So where do we go now?

I was having an "out there" thinking session on my commute back from work the other day, umming and arring about the next developments that are going revolutionise the way we use the internet.

We're all "socialed" up to the hilt now, with our social network accounts, communicating with each other from the moment we wake until the moment we go to sleep at night.

But, what's going to be the next big leap in the way we use technology?

Well I'm not going to pin my career on anything, but what I thought I might do is have a meander through a few areas that I think we'll see some big changes from in the future.

I'll likely return to some of these ideas in the future and explore them in some greater detail.


Search

I think the future of search is vast, way beyond the function that we we currently associate with search. I envisage a future where search is integral to everything we do.

Intelligent searching beyond what we have now. Integrated with other parts of our on-line lives.

The next developments in search will see a greater integration of the more research and intelligent search features which are currently synonymous with start-ups and technology early adopters/ground breakers.

Functionality such as the semantic web offers will grow as content becomes more tagged and meta data improves, offering far better intelligent searching in the future. Social media is helping with this, creating vast quantities of data that is being interrogated and tagged on a more regular basis, by you and I as we all become more tech savy, taking the grunt work away from developers.

Deep search will delve deeper into on-line content providing more access for those needing more complex and research based access to data. I think this will predominantly be driven by users, granting greater access into currently off-line domains as further data is uploaded on to the internet.

I see search integrating, as we are already experiencing, with other technologies such as geo-positioning to provide further functionality.

Household management systems that help you with your food shopping; searching and indexing current cupboard stocks via smart codes, connecting to your local supplier and providing them with a shopping list for delivery.

Search facilities to find objects and possessions around the household, if you're looking for a specific book (yes, I hope they will stand the test of time, there's an aesthetic value that will never be replaced by on-screen content) or your vehicle keys. Imagine searching for object such as these via your mobile device.

I think our current understanding of search is going to be blown out of the water, taking it to a whole new world of functionality. I'm looking forward to seeing the SEM tie in for searching for your car keys!

Search will be one of the most extensive areas of growth I believe outside of our current obsession of integrating advertising with search. Although don't expect advertising to miss out on this game, it's ideally suited to getting involved.


Interface

Interface is an area I think we'll see some massive growth in over the next decade or two. It's already begun to happen with the popularity of mobile devices that have become "smart" allowing users to browse and interact with their social communities on the go.

There's plenty of talk about the growth of Augmented Reality at the moment and whether it will be the hot topic for 2010. Augmented Reality is an odd one really in the context of this post, as it's less to do with our interface with technology and more to do with technology's interface with our world.

I'm sure it will be very popular, but what about beyond that, where are we heading further into the future?

I was interested to read about the development, or developing technology, of visual interfaces on contact lens and this is more along the lines of what I was expecting for future development.

Retinal Scanning Displays are another take on the same idea, using projectors inside an eye piece or helmets to project data on to the pupil, or something else similar are the Virtual Retinal Displays being developed at The University of Washington with funding from MicroVision.

But I don't think we'll see interface changes being restricted to visual interface alone though. Alterations to the way we interact with devices using our hands. The further integration of technology into clothing will be development I think we'll see growing, with power cells being integrated into clothes and interfaces to activate communication devices.

Perhaps further developments on gesture tracking as an interface, with technologies that interpret movements into commands.

Envisage a man who's lost his car keys at home, standing in his kitchen gesticulating oddly with one of his eyeballs rotating as he searches for his car keys via the device embedded in his sleeve, what a future!

Either way I am sure that, like search, interface will be something that will evolve dramatically over the next decade.


Interaction

Not our interaction with the internet or computers, as I think that's covered in the interface section, but instead the internet or computers interaction with our world.

I've touched on this already in the search section, but I see far greater integration with our currently off-line world in the future. With automated tasks that are fired from computer applications either by ourselves remotely or via scheduled tasks.

Suggestive processing that is already part of many on-line social applications, "if you liked this, perhaps you'd also like this" entering into our screen viewing habits and perhaps even other things such as food and recipe suggestions.

As the internet gains a pseudo intelligence I see it entering this realm on more regular basis, trying to assist us with our hectic lives.

Some will see this as intrusive and resist this interaction, others will embrace it, inevitably it will affect us all eventually.


Connectivity

We are all demanding higher speeds and unrestricted access from our Internet Service Providers today, this demand will only continue to grow as we move more content into the on-line environment.

Our current street-to-home connectivity is provided by the ageing copper infrastructure that was installed by the then national telephone network, British Telecom.

Copper, contrary to popular belief is still a very reliable and fast method of transferring data. The Digital Britain report pointed towards the tax payer helping replace this ageing infrastructure with optic fibre cabling.

Personally I believe that while we might initially see the taxpayer starting the process it will be the service industries that will finish the process as they start to realise the commercial benefit to improving data services to their customers.

Changes to wired infrastructure will only be the start of changes to our access to on-line services. With there already being a growing number of people accessing their content via mobile devices, this trend is expected to continue.

Improvements in GSM and local area protocols will see mobile devices being able to handle faster data rates and store more content locally, changing how we see internet connectivity forever.

Access, and quality of access will continue to improve, enabling us to utilise on-line services in a greater number of locations with greater reliability. The key to this equation will be ensuring that the technology improvements move faster than our growing demand for data.


Energy

I don't think I could talk about this many advances in technology without considering how all of these developments are likely to be powered.

The big talk about energy sources of the future has to be hydrogen, the developments in hydrogen cell technology has got to be seen as exciting.

But for me, it's not necessarily where we are going to get our energy from, as so much how we are going to use it. I see energy efficiency as the key to our future energy sourcing, getting far greater value out of the energy that's already available.

Cloud computing should start to reduce the need for as many local data centre requirements, replacing them with larger geo-irrelevant solutions. It's therefore essential that the business owners of these enterprises consider the real costs of on-line services when developing these offerings.

Ensuring what ever happens with technology in the future that it doesn't end up costing the earth.

Powering micro devices is something that will need to be developed further, allowing us to get power to devices that might too small to hold conventional power sources.


What else?

As an aside to these technology changes, there will be other changes such as the social and economic impact that will occur due to these advances. Will we benefit from these changes as a race or will it leave us without that necessary physical community presence?

Whatever happens in the future, it is inevitable that technology is going to be an integral part of our development as a race.

Technology is growing at a faster rate than we've probably experienced before with other revolutions.

Working within a technology focussed industry this all presents an exciting challenge to me. I just hope it just doesn't come at the expense of important human interactions and instead compliments them.


Further reading:

Semantic Searching - Evri - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/05/semantic-searching-evri.html

What is the cost of social media - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/what-is-cost-of-social-media.html

Universal translation- The global communication mashup - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/universal-translation-global.html

Diving deeper in to deep web searching - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/03/diving-deeper-in-to-deep-web-searching.html

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Twitter - Use it as you see fit, but don't expect us all to like it!

This post started as one idea and has evolved into another.

I was going to rant and rave about how to use Twitter and how I see it as a communication platform, taking on everyone's opinions as equal and adding them to my understanding of the world.

Then I paused . . . and then thought who the hell am I to dictate how anyone else should use the Twitter platform?

Surely it's a democratic platform, with the exception of banning a few spam accounts people are pretty much free to say what they wish and we are free to follow or not follow them as we wish.

Sure, in an ideal world, I'd have you all doing what I'd like and that's not just in Twitter! But hey, this is the real world!

Anyway, so in this fictional world of "Ed", I'd have everyone follow everyone back as long as the account had some value, i.e. conversation rather than just irrelevant link publishing or "make $1000 in 5 mins" tweets.

I always saw Twitter working as a method of finding out more about your specific industry or interests with others who share those passions or common grounds. Sharing your own ideas and personal form of engagement back with that community.

This community should consist of those just starting out, finding their feet, industry leaders and everyone else in-between. We all have something interesting, insightful and valuable to say on our good days and who are am I to say others have got nothing to add to my knowledge . . . I'm nobody.

You work at your content, mixing up interesting on-line content you find with conversation between your community. Developing trust and building relationships with other people within your network.

You use the multitude of tools that are out there to filter and group your following stream to ensure you find what you need when you need it; if I was to pick a favourite mine would still be TweetDeck although to do keep meaning to spend some more time with HootSuite.

Find more people that might add to your community by reading other interesting users feeds to see who else they are talking to.

Isn't this how it's supposed to work?

While I wouldn't wish to push my ideals on individuals use of Twitter, I'll quite happily have a go at brands on Twitter.

While doing the research for my 10 brands on Twitter post I followed many global or national brands to see how they were using Twitter. I would say of those I followed only 20% of them followed me back.

This shocked me.

Okay, so they may not think I have anything interesting to say, but do they need to make this so apparent by not following me back? Because that's what it feels like when they don't.

But don't worry, I don't take it personally . . .

I feel brands should follow everyone back that isn't an autobot or spam account. Then using one of the numerous applications on the market filter their interest stream down to the conversations they want to listen to.

But, hey it's a democracy, I'll leave you to define how I perceive your on-line brand.

Anyway, that's about it. Everyone should be free to use Twitter as they wish, but don't expect everyone else to agree with your use of the platform.

If you're unsure of how to go about using it personally or for a brand, then get some advice from someone who claims to know more . . . and then get a second opinion.

But remember we've all got more to learn on just about everything, and if you're choosing not to listen to anyone but a select few you might just miss that gem that revolutionises your thinking.


Related reading:

Brands on Friendfeed - A different proposition to Twitter - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/brands-on-friendfeed-different.html

Why bother with social media - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/why-bother-with-social-media.html

TweetDeck - The benefits a groups - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/tweetdeck-benefits-of-groups.html

In support of Twitter - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/01/in-support-of-twitter.html

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A digital evolution for all media agencies

Media is evolving, well it's always been evolving, as everything does on this planet we inhabit.

I'm specifically talking about Digital Media here though, the industry that pays my rent and bills.

Digital Media has been around a lot longer than most credit it for, although in those days it may have been called Interactive Media.

But the growth in commercial interest in digital media, specifically from the advertising and marketing world has evolved the demand on digital agencies from a simple application and website build resource into a more expansive offering.

Agencies dealing in more traditional media formats are getting a greater number of digital demands these days from their existing clients and are currently finding themselves turning to digital agencies to fulfil these requirements.

To a degree, this period will only last for a finite amount of time, in my opinion, as they find their feet. Then either their parent companies will provide them with digital partners or, if they are one of the few independents left, they will employ their own staff.

Meanwhile the digital agencies will need to evolve their game in order to compete with this change. Some are already well on there way, others are still playing catch up.

It's no longer going to be a process of just developing and delivering websites. In order to compete with more mature media agencies, digital agencies will need to offer a true campaign solution to their clients.

This solution will need to offer clients advice and expertise on how to attain the most from their digital channel. Moving digital media production from a nice to have, to essential marketing and income generation channel for nearly all businesses.

Creating a dynamic and retainer based approach to digital media that reviews traffic and visitor journeys on a regular basis, evolving the site as required. Also looking at new possible sources for traffic in-roads such as social media campaigns and SEO/SEM is going to have to be something that all agencies offer by default rather just the larger, more marketing focussed, agencies.

The appearance of more Account Manager roles at Digital Agencies is indicative of this transformation already taking hold. The evolution is changing not only how the industry operates as a whole but also how individuals roles play out within the agency environment.

My role for example, I sit somewhere between a Project Manager, an Account Manager and a Production Manager. Liaising with the development and design teams about production progress, but also defining the project from the off and then communicating with the client throughout.

We are responsible for advising clients about how they can further utilise the digital channel and raise awareness of their digital presence. While this role has always had a requirement for an understanding of the technical requirements of the project and also a strong involvement in the creative process of a project; it now also has an additional requirement to be aware of all the peripheral actions that may be needed to take a digital project from the shadows into the spotlight.

What is essential during this evolution for all agencies, from whichever background they may originate, is that they don't lose sight on where their core skills sets lie.

While we digital agencies should evolve our understanding of Marketing and PR, we shouldn't, for the time being, sell ourselves as experts in the field. Instead we should still focus on our core skills of technology and creative delivery. Likewise traditional Marketing agencies, while they may acquire digital skills in-house, should, for the time being, continue to focus on their core expertise in the marketing field.

There are hybrids out there already, Digital Marketing agencies, but would you turn to them for a complex on-line web application, with extensive back-end requirements involving work flow modelling? Equally, would you turn to them for an extensive marketing campaign that involved multiple on-line and off-line requirements?

A digital media evolution has and is continuing to occur; we all need to adapt our game and understanding a little in order to stay in the mix.

What we need to be wary of is losing our focus on our key skills sets in the pursuit of this evolution. We need to ensure our evolution is complimentary to the industry’s natural progression and every growing maturity.

There is enough space for all agencies to co-exist in this digital future without stepping on each others toes.

Here's to a digital future for all . . .


Further reading:

Hyperlocal audience engagement - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/hyperlocal-audience-engagement.html

Is social media the perfect tonic to pre-recession greed? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/08/is-social-media-perfect-tonic-to-pre.html

Digital brand guidelines - More than an after thought - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/06/digital-brand-guidelines-more-than.html

Launch day - How do you promote it? - Digital Signals http://www.digital-constructions.com/blog/2009/04/launch-day-how-do-you-promote-it.html

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