I’ve been asked to speak in Melbourne on April 15th (evening) about the impact of social media, online communities, social networks and call centres. As you probably know, I believe that while marketing and PR want social networks to be about them and their needs, the customer usually has a specific question they want answered, best suited to Customer Service engaging on support and FAQ issues. And yes, the exception is when you want to play with the network and offer them competitions and campaigns. But mostly, the customer is about wanting answers, not fluffy “please call our hotline with your details” tweets and responses. From ATA website:

ATA VIC Forum: Social Media & Your Centre — 15 Apr 2010

5.00 for 5.30 – 7.30pm
TressCox Lawyers: Level 9, 469 Latrobe Street, Melbourne
Social Media & Your Centre: What’s new and what’s legal?

Social Media is revolutionising the way we do business. Many progressive companies are opening up new communication channels and using tools such as Twitter for engagement with their customer base. How are successful centres now taking advantage?

With 54% of companies banning social media usage we also further investigate the pathway for this trend. What are the legal ramifications for companies and what are some of the considerations for your staff? Is your Social Media Policy relevant?

ATA invites you to join Laurel Papworth and Nick Duggal as they lead us on an entertaining journey on what’s happening, what’s possible, and what’s legal!

Guest speakers:
Laurel Papworth is Australia’s leading social media strategist and has been working with online communities, virtual worlds and forums for 20 years.

Nick Duggal specialises in industrial relations matters, including compliance with privacy legislation. Nick has extensive experience in providing advice and policy materials to employers on the use of social networking technologies.

Canapes, beer, wine & soft drink provided.

Attached File >> VIC Forum 150410 WEB.pdf
Attached File >> 2010eventregistrationform(9).pdf

Price
Members: $45.00 (GST Inclusive)
Non-Members: $90.00 (GST Inclusive)

Contact
Phone: 02 9906 6163
Fax: 02 9906 2155
Email: events@ata.asn.au
Book Online >>

Wanna come along?

Event: Customer Service Call Centres and Social Media is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: ATA, Australia, csr, customer service, laurel papworth, Melbourne, Online Communities, social media, social networks

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Twitter just announced @anywhere platform – notice who is missing? Google! Dunno why, Bing is there, but there must be a war forming  between Twits vs Googlers. Anyway here’s my thoughts, right after the Twitter blog/press release:

Monday, March 15, 2010

When we designed Twitter, we took a different approach—we didn’t require a relationship model like that of a social network. Keeping things open meant you could browse our site to read tweets from friends, celebrities, companies, media outlets, fictional characters, and more. You could follow any account and be followed by any account. As a result, companies started interacting with customers, celebrities connected with fans, governments became more transparent, and people started discovering and sharing information in a new, participatory manner.

We’ve developed a new set of frameworks for adding this Twitter experience anywhere on the web. Soon, sites many of us visit every day will be able to recreate these open, engaging interactions providing a new layer of value for visitors without sending them to Twitter.com. Our open technology platform is well known and Twitter APIs are already widely implemented but this is a different approach because we’ve created something incredibly simple. Rather than implementing APIs, site owners need only drop in a few lines of javascript. This new set of frameworks is called @anywhere.

Twitter will be part of our favorite sites!

When we’re ready to launch, initial participating sites will include Amazon, AdAge, Bing, Citysearch, Digg, eBay, The Huffington Post, Meebo, MSNBC.com, The New York Times, Salesforce.com, Yahoo!, and YouTube. Imagine being able to follow a New York Times journalist directly from her byline, tweet about a video without leaving YouTube, and discover new Twitter accounts while visiting the Yahoo! home page—and that’s just the beginning. Twitter has proven to be compelling in a variety of ways. With @anywhere, web site owners and operators will be able to offer visitors more value with less heavy lifting.

I’m not a hundred percent sure what @anywhere offers that current widgets don’t already offer – a Twitter created widget rather than a 3rd party developer widget created from the Twitter API. For bloggers, copying and pasting a few lines of code from one source looks pretty much like the line of code from another.

For example click on Get Widget below

and you’ll see code (once you choose your platform like Wordpress) similar to

[code] <script type="text/javascript" src="http://cdn.widgetserver.com/syndication/subscriber/InsertWidget.js"></script><script>if (WIDGETBOX) WIDGETBOX.renderWidget('51997582-ea6c-423d-94c4-42f6280c8475');</script><noscript>Get the <a href="http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/twidget">Twitter Widget</a> widget and many other <a href="http://www.widgetbox.com/">great free widgets</a> at <a href="http://www.widgetbox.com">Widgetbox</a>! Not seeing a widget? (<a href="http://docs.widgetbox.com/using-widgets/installing-widgets/why-cant-i-see-my-widget/">More info</a>)</noscript> [/code]

Get widget doesn’t work in this case because personalisation means you usually want to change the name and colours, so you have to go back to the Widgetbox page. I think the @anywhere offers an overlay perhaps onto YouTube? But there are already plugins that let you tweet alongside content so I’m not sure how that will work differently. I’m assuming it

• builds in the short link bit.ly to the video,
• aggregates the tweets about that video together on YouTube
• publishes them on Twitter with a hashtag #video or #nameofvid

Anyway, you know what they say about “assuming”… it makes an ass out of u and ming.

Hmmm has possibilities for conferences – the tweets about the conference aggregate on the page, on Twitter automagically around the #hashtag. Still the widgets do this already don’t they?

Another overlay that would be interesting is a “Follow Me” one – the one below is on Twitter itself but imagine if it popped up all over the ‘net? Identity issues would be reduced for one…

Perhaps you hover over the journalist’s name on The Sydney Morning Herald or New York Times and get that popup – though I’ve seen similar with not only Twitter but LinkedIn, Facebook, all of em in the overlay.

Web 3.0 – Little bits everywhere. @anywhere.

Wot’s your take on @anywhere then? Just 3rd party API developers widgets taken away from 3rd party? Or something more?

Twitter: @Anywhere announcement is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: @anywhere, API, overlay, Twitter, web 3.0

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Scott Pape @ScottPape of Barefoot.com.au accidentally blocked a bunch of followers and was trying to work out who he had blocked. “It appears that one of my guys has accidently blocked most of my followers by using a 3rd party app. I’m a technophobe – can anyone help?” Now I’ve blocked thousands of spammers and around 5 trolls so I thought it would be cool to find a list somewhere.

Which is where I ran into trouble.

Twitblock.org has a list – you click on “blocking 1234″ and it should give you a list. Doesn’t work for me – possibly because I have 20k+ of followers or am blocking so many spammers? Let me know if it works for you.

UnTweeps came back “0 found” which was less than helpful. Again it could be the numbers my account connects to, so your mileage may vary.

I also tried http://www.topify.com/whoiblock/ but it looked a bit dodgy. I changed my password when it looked  like it wouldn’t work. Ditto http://twitterunblock.net84.net/  YMMV.

So, all in all very unsatisfactory.  Do YOU have a better block list tool? Who is blocking you/you are blocking? Surely the API is still working – does anyone have news that it has been turned off?

Twitter: Block list and Who I block on Twitter is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: block, block list, list, Twitter, who blocks me, you block

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The Oscars are currently on TV. I’m not watching it – sorry Channel Nine – but I am flicking between the streaming webpage, tweets and other bits an bobs of sites.

When I speak and write on the COI of Social Media – the Cost of Inaction – one cost is cultural relevancy. If you are no longer relevant to a whole generation or two, what will happen?

Televising the Oscars

I mean imagine if the Academy had refused to allow the Oscars to be televised? Betcha there was a fight about putting the night of nights on the box way back when.

The 1st Academy Awards ceremony was held Thursday, May 16, 1929, at the Hotel Roosevelt in Hollywood to honor outstanding film achievements of 1927 and 1928. It was hosted by actor Douglas Fairbanks and director William C. deMille. The 82nd Academy Awards, honoring the best in film for 2009, was held on Sunday, March 7, 2010, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, with actors Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin hosting the ceremony.^[2]

Not only would they have become increasingly irrelevant, what about all the $$$ they would’ve missed out on?

The television network: ABC makes millions by selling advertising during the show for $10 thousand per second. Expensive stars, who would never otherwise appear on television, will work for free. The show itself is relatively cheap to produce compared to a movie or mini-series.

So what’s the problem? That money, that cultural history is under threat:

The Oscars and Ageing Demographic

Given the ancient demographic that runs, nominates, votes and otherwise controls the Academy Awards, it’s always a bit of a shock when someone under 40 gets a nomination:

One of the frequent criticisms of the Academy Awards is that its aging membership does not reflect popular demographic trends. In fact, there is a full generation gap between the ages of average members of AMPAS and the ages of active filmmakers. There are two or more generations between the ages of average members and average filmgoers. Some voting members are octogenarians who haven’t been to a theater in years.

At least two major stars (Henry Fonda and James Garner) admitted publicly that they let their wives fill out their ballots for them, prompting AMPAS to tighten up its voting procedures. (from Media Awareness Network, California)

Uh Oh.

The Academy Awards (now The Oscars) expanded the number of Best Picture nominees from 5 to 10 this year in hopes of reviving the show’s declining TV ratings. That still may have an effect in future years, but I’d attribute any increase in this year’s ratings to the force of nature that has been Avatar.

The Academy Awards is still one of the biggest ratings events in television, and its ratings held up far better than most long running events until the turn of the 21st century. But a variety of changes in the last 10 years seem to have taken their toll, including shifting the broadcast from Monday at 9pm to Sunday at 8:30pm in 1999. 2008’s show during the TV writers strike, at just over 32 million viewers, was the least viewed ever. Viewership did pick up a bit last year, but was still very low on an historical basis.

Considering the Academy Awards viewership peak was the last time James Cameron made a movie (Titanic, also the top grossing of all time, at the time), I’d be stunned if we didn’t see an increase in the ratings this year. Forty million average viewers would not surprise me at all, but above 45 million would. (from TVByTheNumbers)

Sounds to me, that if Avatar doesn’t win, a whole generation or two will turn off the Oscars. Figuratively and literally. And the Academy can be a bit snobbish about blockbusters winning the big awards. That could be fatal…

The Oscars and social meda

So if The Oscars can turn television into a paying global concern with millions of viewers around the world, can they do the same with social media?

The Oscars tweets on Twitter were hopelessly out of date when I checked. The first time, it locked up my Mac (which is normally a good, stable, sweet little machine), second time the tweets seemed to be from weeks ago. The Oscar Tweeters are:

The Oscar Insiders
Adam Shankman (adammshankman)
-Adam Shankman is a producer of the 82nd Academy Awards and an inveterate tweeter.

Ben Lyons (iambenlyons)
-Ben Lyons is the Official Oscar Backstage Twitter Correspondent.

Wolfgang Puck (WolfgangBuzz)
-Acclaimed chef Wolfgang Puck will be preparing the food for the Governors Ball after the ceremony.

Lorrin Millette (lorrinmillette)
-Lorrin works in marketing for the Academy and is in charge of the Red Carpet bleachers at the Oscars.

When I looked, the tweets weren’t even still on their page of tweets, and some looked days old. ie. guess who is presenting the supporting actors category. Surely that’s old news now?

Anyway, apparently you can tweet in questions for the stars. I didn’t notice a lot of that. The buzz seemed to be more like people in a pub chatting about the Oscars rather than lining up to ask official questions. More social than organisational.

The Oscars and Twitter

Of course the other side of social media is what other people say. Not using Twitter as a broadcast medium for the Academy but one for viewers and non viewers alike to talk.

richmeyer @brandingexpert You do realize that they spend over $400K for a buffet for celebrities at Oscars not to mention free goodies bag #oscars

@LesleyMag: Im hoping that the “stars” remember #Haiti tonight… so much suffering in the world right now – not up to watching Oscars

@eddiepepitone: So far the Oscars suck balls. So self-consciously unfunny it is unbelievable! We should do a benefit for these people,never mind Haiti!

@ktab note to cablevision users in new york/jersey, abc and cablevision have reached an agreement and the oscars are now showing on abc. #Oscars

The last tweet was important – the hundreds if not thousands of tweets expressing in strong terms disapproval with Cablevision and ABC refusing to come to an agreement on transmitting The Oscars were unprintable. If Twitter is good for one thing, it’s to call to account greedy and obstructive service providers. I don’t really care if it’s ABC or Cablevision that’s at fault. They can both go to their rooms. The days of leaving an audience in silent agony while companies play out manipulative board games are long gone.

Did you notice that Twitter users are also viewers of The Academy Awards? It’s the most highly rated trending topic even if a bunch of people are tweeting that they are NOT watching it and why not.

Perhaps in a world of fragmentation, the last tweet is the most relevant:

sydneyowen Okay so I’m not watching the oscars but I’m googling SJPs dress. Can anyone link me to what she’s wearing? Idk if Google is right?

jwendz @SydneyOwen Yellow Chanel Dress

So, here it is

because we’d miss the fashion, right? Riiight!

Sometimes the best thing to do with social media, is just do your thing. And let others decide how they will consume, filter, forward, create and converse about it. Trying to push discussions into organisational lines – tweet us your questions! – might just get lost in the social buzz. And than can be a good thing…!

EDIT: Kathryn Bigelow won Best Director for Hurt Locker which won Best Picture. Her ex-husband, James Cameron directed Avatar. BOX OFFICE Hurt Locker took $14,700,000 in the US, 6 million internationally, 20 million all together. Avatar took $720,000,000 in the US,  1 billion, 800 million internationally, 2. 5 billion all together

Academy Awards: Oscars Social Media is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: academy awards, online, social media, the oscars, Twitter

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An Australia mother confronts a teacher who belittles her pre-school son – with the help of her blog community.

PottyMouthMama had a challenging experience with her young son’s pre-school teacher the other day. I would’ve growled at the teacher, gnashing teeth until she backed into a corner crying, but that is a learned skill, I wasn’t born with it. Though fighting with my little sister helped! From PottyMouthMama:

Yesterday when I dropped the Doctor off to pre-school I got chatting with the teachers. One of them started telling me about how the previous day the Doctor was telling another child how to do something. I listened to her thinking, yep that is standard four year old behaviour – they like to talk, they like to help, and they like to feel useful.

She then continued to tell me how she told him to ’stop being a know-it-all’. And then she decided that that was a perfectly apt name for him. ‘Know-it-all Noah’. And that that was her new name for him.

I stood there not really knowing what to say. I am not good at confrontation. And I had mixed feelings.

Here was someone who I had entrusted to look after my child. To care for him. To boost him. To support him.

And here was that same person verbally bullying him.

She got 46 comments from people. All of them urging her to contact the school. From Kirsty (coincidentally from around Willunga, where I’m from!)

Oh PMM.

That is just horrible.

My advice (coming from somebody who’s bestie is a teacher) is to tell her that you don’t think it is appropriate that she say things like that to your son or about him and that you are going to speak to her boss about it.

It’s important that you do this because she could be bullying some of the other kids as well.

Words hurt. Sometimes more than actions. I know so don’t leave it. Our Smalls can’t stand up for themselves so it’s important that we do it for them.

Good luck.

She is doing confronting the school, despite being terrified. Community support is changing her behaviour. Supporting a big ol’ wuss turning into a roaring mother lion protecting her brood.

We often are told that blogs and social media don’t change the world. That it’s just people wasting time on the ‘net. But what if the grand revolution is one blog post, one comment, one mother changing her behaviour at a time? And if there were enough people changing a small part of their actions due to social media, would that ripple into a huge wave of change?

I know that I said articles (blog posts) with comments is not community. And in the main it’s not. The leaders are not badged, the community can only respond, not initiate. Newspapers make the same mistake. A series of articles with comments turned on is not community. But sometimes it is.

Mothers blogging: Changing the world one blog post at a time is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Australia, blog, pottymouthmama, school, social media

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What happens when online communities create “hate sites” particularly on testimonial sites of those who have passed on?  Does saying “I wanna kill him” mean anything online? What happens when we are shocked by someone else displaying other value systems than we have ourselves? Should Facebook become a global policeman or are they just Australia Post?

I’ve been asked to do a number of press interviews – actually quite a lot – about the anti Allyn John Slater pages on Facebook and other online communities. I don’t want to get into the alleged crimes – involving the murder of a very young girl – but rather the community reactions on Facebook, and other social media sites. Oh and my interview on ABC radio AM program is here

Pixel Threats in social networks

I guess the first point is that calls for the death penalty and the “I want to kill him” statements are “pixel threats”. By that I mean, if you were to get a gun, put it in the person’s hand, you’d find out it was all bravado. Except in a few instances where there are real nutcases out there. And there are – the internet collects together into communities those on the fringes, including the unbalanced.But in the main, it’s like yelling at the TV or chatting at the pub – “if I could just get my hands on him, I’d show him what-for!”. We normally say it where we are safe – or after a few beers. Facebook in the main makes us feel safe. We see other people that mirror back (echo back) our values so we just come out and say it.

To think it and not say it, is inauthentic. But it is politically correct. In other words, part of the ritual and rules of community living, online or off.

We collect people who share our value systems in social networks

There ain’t no way, no how, that the people on ComplaintsBoard are going to act the same way as when they are on EssentialBaby or even LinkedIn. But it’s worth reflecting on the fact that large social networks such as Facebook (400million active monthly users, 8 million of ‘em are Australian), often swarm down into small groups that share our values. The Page below is currently 6,000 members. Even if it grows to 100,000+, it still only reflects the same sort of % of Australians that yell at the TV “bring back the death penalty!”.

This site had 5,000 members an hour ago, now 7300 at 8:44pm Wednesday 24th Feb

Remember – while you are educated and aware that everything you say online affects your reputation, there’s a huge % of people that won’t understand what you mean when you ask them “are you sure you want to post that up there”. They are not dumb, they just don’t equate writing on a Facebook wall with “publishing”. They are chucking out their opinion, getting some argybargy arguments going on, and then move onto something else.

Warning sites become hate sites

It’s still beggars belief but you have to explain to some people that posting up evil stuff can incite others to do it. Titillating. And incite others to be outraged at them for posting it up. Here’s the response from an admin who posted up a video of a woman killing a kitten and then took it down again:

Telling people I will ban them if they post up warnings again gets them very grumpy at me. They just don’t equate their actions as being similar (but on the other page) from the perpertrators they are trying to “protect” the community from. And warning “threads” or articles incite unbalanced wars.

I’m even second guessing myself while I write this blog post – will it incite someone to be disruptive on another Testimonial page out there? Cos this is very common, not limited to just this case. And not just to a case in the press. I’ve seen testimonial pages in online communities where in the end the wife and the girlfriend have gone to town on each other, making all sorts of threats. God only knows what the funeral was like…

Move along, nothing to see here

When email first came out, the fear of kids getting evil spam was pretty high. What if they got hardcore porn sites? Well they did and we use junk mail filters and we move on. The same will happen here. Don’t join, don’t even go looking for groups outside your value system. Cos if you want to find a redneck survivalist right wing faction online, you will. They exist in real life too,  you just don’t normally work with them or have dinner with ‘em. If you don’t want to join the drug culture and find out how to have a hit, don’t join those pages. Cos those groups exist in real life too, you just don’t go partying with them. Do you? DO YOU?

Facebook as Australia Post

Facebook didn’t create those pages – and every time they take one down, there will be ten more. Think of Australia Post deliving a poison pen lettter. Are they responsible for the contents? no. Telstra deliver SMS – are they responsible for negative SMS messages? No of course not. Facebook is in the same boat. And there’s no point yelling that Facebook is “public” and Australia Post is “private”. Cos that’s a whole different argument.The only reason we separate now the public defamation vs private opinion cases is because one is enforceable and the other is not. If you defame someone at the pub, it’s ignored by the law.

Yes Facebook should work with law enforcement (not just ignore situations) but…

Facebook as Global Policeman

Facebook is like life – not just the bits you see, but the other bits too. A tapestry of life including some icky brown spots. But do you want Facebook to be your Police? Your Nanny? Your Censor? For me, the answer is “no”. And Google is trying to do just that (ignore Chinese requests to hand over people’s details but give them to the Brits instead).

I thought long and hard about writing this post  – I’d turned down interviews because the journalist seemed to be looking at the “social media is bad” angle. I had some interesting chats with AM program and Australian. If I publish the post – I usually don’t if I am doing traditional media – will I preempt their publications? Is that fair – get a quote from Laurel only to then see it published on her own site. I guess I finally realised…it is what it is. My voice can exist in more than one place. I have a different audience. It’s my experience and opinion to display where I want. And I can do it first!

Facebook- Allyn John Slater and social media hate sites is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: allyn slater, Australia, Facebook, hate sites, laurel papworth, Online Communities, social media, social networks, testimonials

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Where ever people congregate together, yes even in social networks and online communities, there will be scammers and unethical marketers. Here’s one – join the Facebook Fanpage and be given an iPad to test. I guess there are a number of differences today.

• One is that when we are fools, taken in by the scam, a journogger (journalist that raids social media for linkbait stories) or some other party could go through the 335,000 fans and name and shame anyone he or she recognises – social media experts, politicians, other journalists. We no longer learn our lesson in private but very publicly. But this could be a good thing because…
• … scams don’t last long. Have a read of those 679 comments. Anyone who takes two seconds will know not to become a Fan. By the time Facebook deletes the page, the community will have warned each other. Open communication triumphs private shame.

It’s actually a really good idea if you are looking to boost a page with a campaign competition. Short head of activity, big takeup, quick drop off. I’d join anything for an iPad

more than the 100k of members they were looking for.

So I guess it’s a bit harder to scam the community when they are communicating amongst themselves. People are better protected when they are together, even when others are using those same tools to rort them. Amusing that social media sites are used to scam – and then to warn each other of the scam. Another case here. Irony, much?

iPad scam on Facebook is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Online Communities, online community, protection, scam, social media, social networks

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Facebook has seen a surge of 513% of Senior Citizens and over 55’s joining in the USA.   Australia too has a massive increase in seniors in Facebook and social networks generally  in the last year or two.  I want to offer some links for the statistics I quoted for an article in The Age and another one in the Sydney Morning Herald on the phenomenon:

Computer users aged 55 and over are the fastest growing group to sign up to sites such as Facebook and MySpace, often using them to keep up to date with the lives of family and friends, especially grandchildren interstate and overseas – assuming they aren’t among the growing number of younger users abandoning the social networking sites.

Figures show that the number of older users of Facebook increased nearly tenfold in America last year, while university-age users declined by 55 per cent.

Australian figures show that about one in five over the age of 55 is connecting through Facebook, with 550,000 logging in. Facebook claims to have more than 7 million users.

Social network strategist Laurel Papworth said Australia’s take-up rate was generally about 2 to 3 per cent higher than the US for computer use.

(The SMH article has similar stuff but different people e.g. Council of Aging). Warning – collection of statistics and graphs and maths coming up!

Australian Seniors on Facebook February 2010

Australian Census info – 2 million 877 thousand Aussies are over 65, 383,000 over 85. A whopping 3,700 are over 100. Which has brightened my day – how about you?

How many Australian over 55’s are on Facebook today, February 14th 2010?

532,800 seniors on Facebook out of a current 8 million Australians over 18. That’s what? 6 or 7%? Your maths is better than mine – I love statistics but can’t add up. Whatever.

Someone who can use maths is Ash Nallawalla from Net Magellan:

click for large size

His spreadsheet is built from data on Facebook ads, the same as mine.

CheckFacebook has also archived some Australian Facebook Demographic data, from November 2009:

I left the mouse on PINK – 55 to 64 year olds (307,940). Over 65 is 124,340.

The break down of over 55’s on Facebook in Australia: 240,000 seniors in July 2009, 432,280 in November 2009,  532,000 in Feb 2010. Not quite the same growth as the US but still substantial. Anyone other network would love to double it seniors growth every six months no?  I would love to see Jan 2009 compared to the July figure – there was a massive jump all round during that six month period, but alas I don’t currently have any data. Do you?

By the way, Facebook measures ACTIVE monthly users, not inactive members.

NOTE from Twitter:  Alex Avery pointed out that Hitwise have some generic social network  figures for seniors:

The 25-34, 35-44 and 45-54 age groups all represent a similar percentage of the Social Networking and Forums share of visits and each are over represented against the online population.

Only the 55 years and over age group are under represented in comparison to the online. However, when compared to the start of 2009 they have grown in line with the overall industry maintaining their share of visits.

You can read Alan Long’s blog at Hitwise site

American Seniors on Facebook 513% Growth

Inside Facebook has calculated that the fastest growing demographic on Facebook is women over 55.

This is what I have is from six months ago from iStrategy in the USA – the journalist contacted Peter Corbett but I don’t know the outcome of that discussion:

2009 Facebook Demographics and Statistics Report: 513% Growth in 55+ Year Old Users. College & High School Drop 20%

By Peter Corbett
Below is our fourth granular examination of Facebook’s demographics and statistics directly from their Social Ads platform.  There has been a staggering increase in the number of 55+ users – with total growth of 513.7% in in the last six month alone. The spreadsheet used to create the graphic below is here.

.Additional top insights:

• 70.8% increase in total US users over the last six months (71,901,400 total)
• 54.6% of users are female
• 142.4% increase in the number of users from Atlanta – the fastest growing metro

The most troubling statistics we’ve seen are that there are 16.5% less high school users, and 21.7% less college users. There have been rumors that these younger user groups are being aliented by their parents joining the service, and this data seems to prove it.

I also looked at Mashable for general social network usage growth by over 55’s.

The more interesting data comes from the top 10 online destinations table. While Google Search was an obvious winner, Windows Media Player is a bit of a surprise until you realize just how many Web sites embed the thing. However, the rise of Facebook to number three on this list, when a year ago it was the number 45 most visited Web site by seniors, is a huge sign of just how mainstream social networking has become. YouTube at number four is another confirmation of this trend.

Australians creating content in social media spaces increasing

Australia is about 3% higher than the USA in creating content – The Australia ladder is below, the USA ladder is here showing 2010 data and that Australia still beats US in content creation.

Compare this to 2006

Forrester Ladder 2006

We started off passive and then learnt to create. This number of Australians creating content will eventually reach the same sort of penetration that email and mobile phones have today.

Stephen Noble of Forrester also had this to say in a PDF on my hard drive that I can’ t link to:

To persuade Boomers, create meaningful content. Older adults do not create as much content as the members of Gen X (29- to 42-year-olds) and Gen Y (18- to 28-year-olds), but they still consume social content (see Figure 4). In particular, 48% of Younger Boomers (43- to 52-yearolds) are Spectators, as are 46% of Older Boomers and Seniors (53 years of age and older). Telstra mobilized “mum and dad” investors with content about how industry regulation in Australia was affecting the value of their shares.14 As a result, more than 14,000 became Telstra Active Supporters, campaigning to put regulatory issues on the national agenda.

You have to buy the full report Australian Adult Social Technographics Revealed Jan 2009 from them. Nyeh Nyeh Nyeh NYEH….

Anyway, that’s my piece on Australian senior citizens getting more and more involved in Facebook, a comparison with US over 55’s and some general stats on how we as a nation are growing. There is a discrepancy – American seniors use internet more, yet Australians across the board create more content – but there is still a massive growth in the retired demographic getting social here in Australia.

Got any case studies or stories of grandpa or grandma on Facebook?

Australia: Senior Citizens on Facebook over 55’s is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Ash Nallawalla, Australia, checkfacebook, demographics, Facebook, laurel papworth, mobile, net magellan, over 55's, senior citizens, seniors, social media, social networks

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I get asked all the time “if you blog, tweet, slideshare, podcast, can’t someone just TAKE your intellectual property?” My response – you are SAFER if you are open with your content than locking it down.

A few years ago,I called for an “unIndustry” association to protect user generated content (the little guy) from being ripped off by agencies and big content providers. I think we are crowdsourcing this unIndustry association in an adhoc movement of anti-marketing anti-PR communities.

My Plagiarism story

I presented at WebDirections. It was either 2005 or 2006.  I did a LOT of research and narrowed down from thousands of potential videos, just three, and built a story arc around those three. I did some background research, which was time consuming and indepth then presented the vidoes and research and my original analysis of what I thought was happening. A few months later, I was sitting at a conference (in the audience) and the creative director of a well known Sydney agency presented my presentation. The same 3 or 4 videos, the same outcomes, the same mistakes even. Someone had taken good notes at the conference.

I was going to ignore it – he clearly didn’t believe or understand what he was talking about – then decided I was curious to see what he would say. My email started with:

Loved your presentation a few days ago – particularly as I gave it a couple of months ago…

His response? Waffle about “this is the way this industry works” and “who are YOU anyway” (I think he knows now ) -  only a minor acknowledgment that the whole thing was holus bolus mine and definitely no apology.

In a way he was right. I was pretty unread back then, not much of a profile. It kinda made me determined to be a voice amongst the big boys. I’m not an agency – I come from the community perspective, not the agency point of view – and it’s pretty hard for a sole player, a user generated content maker, to be heard.

Things change.

BeamDotMy vs Problogger

Yesterday, Twitterers noted that Darren Rowse, otherwise known as Australia’s most popular media and marketing blogger Problogger, had had his logo ripped off by BeamDotMy

When I checked on Buzz, there were hundreds of comments – followers had even taken beamdotmy logo, flipped it in photoshop and were able to prove without a shadow of a doubt that it was ripped from Problogger.

So a little plagiarist went up against a big blogger and lost.

PaperChase vs HiddenEloise

Paperchase ripped off artist HiddenEloise. When she complained about it, they ignored her and continued to sell on Amazon and elsewhere. So she took it to Twitter.

Realising that contacting the lawyers would result in astronomically high legal fees that she simply couldn’t afford ($40,000 for court expenses), HiddenEloise instead took to her blog, accusing Paperchase of plagiarism, and asking readers to contact the stationery firm directly.

This blog post was subsequently tweeted by the English science fiction author, Neil Gaiman. With his approximately 1.5 million followers, it’s unsurprising that the story was quickly gathered momentum on Twitter and was subsequently retweeted thousands of of times. It is now one of Twitter’s top 10 trending topics, which spells trouble for Paperchase.

You can read the whole tacky story at eConsultancy.

Paperchase (now on Twitter, now responding on a blog):

Gather No Moss, the Agency we bought the artwork from, have asked us to post the following statement:

“We are the small design company that represents the independent artist who created the Paperchase design. We have contacted Hidden Eloise by email and are hoping to talk with her soon. We carry the work of designers who like Hidden Eloise are all trying hard to make a living through their art. We would never knowingly sell a design that infringes the copyright of a fellow artist. We have worked with Paperchase for many years and found them a great supporter of independent artists.”

Paperchase’s position regarding the allegations of ‘copying’ made against the Company today is as follows:

Above all, we would like to apologise to any customers upset or angered by this allegation against us. Paperchase takes all

reasonable precautions to check that designs we source or buy from individual designers or agencies are from reputable sources. In this case, we would like to confirm that Paperchase bought the artwork in question, in good faith, in October 2008, from a well-known central London Design Studio along with a number of other designs. The illustrator who is making the allegation made us aware of her concerns in November 2009 and we duly responded to her in early December, since when we had heard nothing….until today. Back in November 2009, we spoke at length to the Design Studio in question and they categorically denied any plagiarism.

It is worrying that such an allegation can create such reaction and again, Paperchase apologises for any ill-feeling caused.

If you would like to contact us please click here

They can take our stuff, use it for presentations, for inspiration, for furthering their arguments, their business, their cause. But don’t just rip it off, claiming it as their own. They must as a minimum attribute and abide by creative commons copyright. Or they will be named and shamed. Have YOU got a social media copyright story?

Nothing will stop lazy plagiarists from ripping my content – the best thing for me is to have it public, in the cloud, dated and signed. Someone invariably leaves a note on the plagiarists site or during a presentation “that looks a lot like the work done by SilkCharm a year ago…?”

Copyright – Social Media SAVES your IP from plagiarists is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: beamdotmy, copyright, econsultancy, hiddeneloise, paperchase, Problogger, social media, user generated content

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As more trained journalists move into the amateur blogging space, what are the fundamental differences in the blogging style between the two? While some journalists adapt to the new writing style well, understanding the media shifts and blogging well as part of the blogosphere, other journalists that blog – let’s call them journoggers – stand apart from the blogosphere, raiding it for content, and disturbing equilibrium. Please note: that might well be a good thing to do or it might cause the journogger to eventually be rejected.

As the BBC tells it’s journos to start using social media as a primary source – or leave journalism – what are the repercussions in social spaces?

I can spot a blogger that is a trained journalist a mile off – especially when they first start blogging. I’m not sure if I can articulate how I sniff out journoggers, but I thought I’d give it a go. If you know of clues or tips for identifying journalists in social networks, let me know. I am going to include journitters (twitterers) here as well.

Some generalisations

Journalists write for a salary, uphold impartial truth over personal relationships which in turn allows them to put hard questions to sources. That is changing but this is generalisations   Bloggers blog for money, fame or passion, uphold truth within the political niceties of their ecosystem/social network/echo chamber and refer/link to other blog articles rather than pick up the phone and ask the hard question. Though that is changing too…

Blogger/journalist Josh Marshall at Talkingpointsmemo won a Polk Award for investigative journalism, helping piece together the U.S. attorney-firing scandal, which led to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigning (mediashift)

I know of 3 other bloggers that have won traditional media awards for their work. I’m not talking about those bloggers. And when it comes to journoggers, I am not talking about Mia Freedman (mammamia) or Renai LeMay who are immersed in the community, not scurrying around the edges looking for “linkbait” (stories that get a lot of discussion because of their controversial nature). I mean a few that use social networks as their own personal hunting ground.

Linking to amateur bloggers and crappy yet funny videos

Bloggers who don’t have an audience and don’t know how to get one, quickly learn to get attention by linking and responding on other people’s blogs. They leave comments on similar blogs, they link to other bloggers in their articles/posts, they stay on topic and tend to be careful/grateful of their audience.  On Twitter they link to lots of other stuff besides their own.

Journoggers tend not to link to anybody else but their own articles, traditional media articles or a small group of other journos. Actually some bloggers are like this too, but it’s harder to build an audience. On Twitter, journoggers don’t link to funny or waste of time stuff, only weighty important news.

Participating in the online community… or raiding it?

Bloggers use a “negative” story as a jumping off point for them to give advice, of varying expertise/passion/usefulness, to demonstrate their skill and knowledge in a particular subject.  Journoggers simply maximise the distress of the situation. So if you see a post referring to someone being an idiot on Twitter, by tweeting that they hate their client or something, a blogger will usually give “advice” on why social media guidelines are useful, or why transparency is positive or how Gen Z think it’s a fair tweet. Journalists will hold them up for ridicule, expecting comments that are inflammatory (then faking shock when they have nastiness on their site). Set the tone and topic as toxic then shake their head at the great unwashed.

When a journalist Caroline Overington tweeted…

EXCLUSIVE PIX OF TODDLER PRINCE WILLIAM FROM HIS FACEBOOK PAGE: http://tinyurl.com/ycdorgh #princewilliam

… and the photo linked to was a joke photo, I responded

It absolutely would not be the first time that journalists had preyed on other journalists as grist for the media mill. I’ve blocked a number of journalists that blog any trashy old tweet that they can spin. I suggest you do the same.

Journalists that blog will escalate the outrage with no education around it. If it bleeds it leads versus what can we learn from this.

Burning Bridges versus Building Relationships

Following on from the above, journoggers will use any tweet, blog post, email, rumour, video, conversation, comment or IP address to name and shame, and escalate a story.  The only time I see bloggers using private comment info to “out” commenters is either on a mainstream media site with comments or a journogger with Wordpress. Most bloggers know that revealing a commenters IP address or where they work or other logins of that commenter breaks trust, and makes it less likely that others will comment anything risky. Journoggers seem to be oblivious to the fact that when someone leaves a comment and the journogger immediately names them as working for a company or some other snippet of info from the Dashboard, breaking the implied “off the record” rule of comments (only what is manually put up, is permissible), that a “us and them” shift takes place. The journogger is continually placed in a position of burning bridges with commenters.

Bloggers do name/shame commenters if they comment anonymously yet their IP address reveals the fact that they work for an “interested party” i.e. a company mentioned in the preceding blog post. However it’s done after much soul searching – ask a blogger how many times they hold up a commenter for ridicule. Now ask a journogger.

Opinion piece versus having an opinion

Journoggers are manipulative with how they express their opinion (usually putting the words in other people’s mouths) whereas bloggers are rant-y. Two extremes. Journoggers will publish a press release with a quick snide comment – yes you know which media blogger I’m talking about – whereas you can’t stop a blogger from putting in their 2 cents worth. Short short articles low on passion versus pieces that could do with a good editor.

There must be a bunch of other differences between journalists that blog and bloggers?

PS Again, for those of you who forget things from the first paragraph by the time you’ve made it to the last, many journalists jump to the dark side and become members of communities, not just preying on them for linkbait articles. But for those that are dragging their feet – We. Know. Who. You. Are.

Journoggers – Journalists that blog is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: journalists, journoggers, Media, Online Communities, social networks

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BBC tells journalists to use social media as a primary source. Or Leave. This article is well worth reading in it’s entirety – and one wonders how far behind News Australia and Fairfax are in making similar statements. Quite far off, I imagine.

BBC journalists must keep up with technological change – or leave, the director of BBC Global News Peter Horrocks says

Peter Horrocks: backing Facebook and Twitter. Photograph: Martin Godwin

BBC news journalists have been told to use social media as a primary source of information by Peter Horrocks, the new director of BBC Global News who took over last week. He said it was important for editorial staff to make better use of social media and become more collaborative in producing stories.

“This isn’t just a kind of fad from someone who’s an enthusiast of technology. I’m afraid you’re not doing your job if you can’t do those things. It’s not discretionary”, he is quoted as saying in the BBC in-house weekly Ariel. (The Guardian)

Mercedes Bunz of The Guardian reporting on the BBC – the comments are awesome and wide ranging e.g.

Does he realise he’s making a case for a much, much reduced BBC News? If we are getting our news form social media, we can virtually do it for ourselves. (from Awkward Question)

Awkward question indeed…

hat tip @DDSD and @GaryPHayes

BBC says Use Social Media – or Leave is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Australia, BBC, fairfax, mercedes bunz, news australia, the guardian

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I love the bit about having to be where the students are and using modern tools . Not just education should be saying that!

A Singapore-based university lecturer believes educators should harness the potential of social media as it is not only practical, this is in the interest of students who will go into the workforce as “efficient knowledge workers”.

Toward this end, he encourages tweeting in class.

While some balk at the idea of introducing Twitter into classrooms, Michael Netzley, assistant professor of Corporate Communication Practice at Singapore Management University, told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail interview that educators can help students and prepare them for life outside the university.

With students using channels such as Twitter or discussion forums in their normal life, it “only makes sense” for educators to speak to them through channels they are familiar with and proficient at using, said Netzley.

“Sometimes, as educators, we make the assumption that ideas must come first from us, the faculty member. We dislike anything that draws attention away from us as we deliver what we think students need to know,” he said. “Frankly, I feel we sometimes over-elevate the importance of faculty in the complex process of student learning.”

“Learning happens everywhere,” he said. He added that the use of Twitter or discussion forums such as FriendFeed in the class opens up opportunities for students to participate and play an active role in their learning. (Read More on ZdNet Asia)

I think a couple of Australian Unis are doing the same, also,  mostly in media studies and communications degrees.

Singapore: University + Twitter = Twuniversity is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Netzley, Online Communities, Singapore, Social, Twitter, university

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Farmville is better than sex. Don’t just take my word for it:

From FMyLife website:

Today, my husband and I were in bed, and just as I was about to finish he screamed, “Oh shit! It’s 4:15, my strawberries are gonna whither!!!!” and then jumped off me and went to check on his farm on FarmVille. An imaginary farm, on Facebook. FML

Love the 258 comments

What would you do if this guy was yours?

1. Leave him?
2. Build a better farm?
3. Build a better farm and then leave him?

I vote number 3. Are our lives changing? It’s interesting to me that a few years ago, he’d be like, “gotta go now, the footy is on the telly”. People don’t change. Just their pathetic excuses do Or is social gaming somehow a different beast? Have we time shifted our television viewing just to be sucked into the false urgency of reaping crops? Ummm, you answer that, I’ve gotta go milk the cows and harvest the pineapples.

My farm is pretty sexy, no?

Facebook: Farmville is better than Sex is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

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Well, the number of Australians on Facebook has shot through the roof. After sitting on 6 million for a while, we have 7,900,000 monthly active users, 6,900,000 over 18 years old. That’s quite a jump. Or maybe it’s been longer than I thought since I last checked. If you hunt through this blog, you’ll notice that I’ve been tracking Facebook users in Australia since May 2007 (around 200,000 members I think) to today and 1/3 of Australian population.

It just keeps increasing. Here’s the description of a Monthly Active User according to Facebook, as well as the August figures for Australians on Facebook. If you want to track the Australians on Facebook yourself, pretend to create an ad, fill in the fields and you’ll see similar to above screen.

Australia: Number of Australians on Facebook 2010 is a post from: Laurel Papworth- Social Network Strategy

Technorati Tags: Australia, Australians, Facebook, Online Communities, social media, social networks, statistics

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