kullin – Page 41 – Media Culpa

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is not on Twitter

As the Swedish football striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic this weekend declared that he is leaving FC Barcelona for AC Milan, my blog posts about the fake “Ibra” on Twitter” has gotten tons of traffic. I guess it’s a natural reaction nowadays – a player is discussed frequently in the media and fans want to know if he is on Twitter so that they can follow his updates directly.

However, the first result in a Google search is a Twitter account: “@zlatans_official”, but is not the real “Ibra”. Now that doesn’t stop 9,000 people from following the fake account on Twitter. The prankster got almost 600 new followers yesterday and has gained more than 1,500 new followers in the last two months. And the account is not even active. I think that demonstrates the strong demand among consumers for direct communication from celebrities. That, and the fact that we’re all very easy to fool. (Ping AP!)

Stats from Twittercounter.com. I’m @kullin on Twitter by the way. I might not be spectacular, but I’m real.

BlogSweden 5 – the fifth annual Swedish blog survey

Here is a summary of the fifth annual Swedish blog survey – BlogSweden 5. It is probably the longest running annual blog survey in the world and this year a total of 2,251 blog readers answered the survey in April 2010. Of the respondents, 94% had at least one blog.

Graphs that are free to use (with CC-license) can also be found in this Flickr set.

BlogSweden 5

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BlogSweden 4 from 2009 can be found on SlideShare.

Why we follow brands on Facebook and Twitter

In April this year, I conducted the fifth annual survey of Swedish bloggers and blog readers. The survey called BlogSweden 5, included a total of 2,251 respondents, out of which 94% had at least one blog. One of the new questions this year was about why people choose to follow brands on Twitter and become a fan, or like, brands on Facebook.

Last year Razorfish surveyed 1,000 “connected consumers” about, among other things, why they “friended” brands or followed them on Twitter. The responses indicated that the primary reason was to get exclusive deals or offerings. The respondents in my survey also included internet users under the age of 18 and over 55, which the Razorfish study did not.

The most common response to why people become friends with or follow a brand on Twitter or Facebook is “To show other people that I like the brand”. I had expected that more tangible benefits such as getting exclusive information or promotions, would be the most common responses. Then again, we use brands to create or strenghten our identity and showing our support for a brand on Facebook might just play the same role as wearing it on a T-shirt. It tells others about who we are. Remember what Jack Trout wrote:

“People want to express themselves through brands – brands express a person’s personality and the people they like to be with.“

But we also follow brands on Twitter or Facebook to get deals or information before other people. Although the feeling of exclusivity might get lost if you are one of a million fans of the same brand, it still is a very good sign for marketers. The responses suggest that people who follow your brand on social media are already loyal customers or are interested in becoming customers.

Consumers are telling brands that they wamt to buy from you and they want to get more information about your company and products. So marketers should take note and start using social media as channels for building engagement among key audiences.

A third (32.2%) of the respondents in the survey had not become a fan of or followed a brand on Twitter or Facebook.

Why do I still blog?

In July 2004, I was part of Global PR Blog Week 1.0, an online event featuring PR bloggers from around the world, who discussed blogging and communications. Back then, I was fairly new to blogging and found it incredibly fun and valuable to be able to get together with likeminded from other countries and share thoughts and ideas about how new media would influence public relations. I can’t believe it’s been six years since Constantin Basturea brought the group together to create this week of blogging.

Anyway, John Cass who was one of the participants, blogged last week about fact that most of the PR bloggers from 2004 were still blogging.

“I’d like to ask the PR Blog Week Alumni from 2004 why they still blog, and what keeps them motivated? These old timers in blogging have been around a long time. Is blogs a thing of the past, or are we seeing a return to the glory days?”

I think for most people, blogging serves as a channel for self-expression. It’s a great tool for sharing your thoughts about just about anything, and to be able to actually get some kind of response. For the last five years I have asked Swedish bloggers about why they blog, or more specifically, why they started blogging. The series of surveys is probably the longest running annual blog survey in the world and the latest version called BlogSweden 5 (soon translated to English) revealed that the main reason why people begin to blog remains the same. People blog because they like to write, to express opinions and share what’s on their minds. But also for the social aspects. They network, get feedback and keep in touch with friends and family.

Table: from BlogSweden 5, a survey of 2,251 Swedish blog readers, out of which 94% had a blog.

In the report from my BlogSweden 3 survey in 2008, I tried to illustrate the answers from respondents (1,000 Swedish blog readers, of which 806 were bloggers) about what motivates them to use social media. This is not by any means a statistically proven model, but more my view of what drives people to blog, read blogs and participate in social networks. As you see in the image below, many factors motivate users, but some are more related to specific activities.

For me personally, blogging has always been a combination of things. First of all, it is a way to push myself to think deeper about a subject and to learn more. When you are forced to articulate your own opinion about a topic, you do more research and it seems to stick better in your memory. Then there is the social aspect. By writing a blog, I engage in a conversation with smart people and that is always a lot of fun. It is also a great way to build a good network. But perhaps most of all, my blogging has always been fuelled by the reactions from other people, who link to or comment about my content. The more (positive) reactions you get, the more fun it is to blog. And that’s where I have a real problem to motivate myself to blog these days. It seems that many people don’t have as much time to blog today as they used to, before Facebook and Twitter grew popular.

Below is a comparison between how much time Swedish bloggers spent reading blogs in 2009 vs 2010. Data is from my surveys BlogSweden 4 and BlogSweden 5. As you see below, it seems that the time spent reading blogs has decreased. Other data from the surveys suggest that bloggers still update their blogs as often as they used to, but updates are possibly not as time consuming as they used to be. For example, many bloggers now auto-update their blogs with shared links from Google Reader or Delicious, instead of writing their own original content.

I have also noticed that previously you could get several bloggers that linked to your content, while today that happens more seldom. Instead, people are keen on retweeting your blog links on Twitter, so traffic to the blog from other sources is still good, but maybe Twitter has increased in importance. If your post doesn’t get traction on Twitter, you don’t get a lot of readers.

So I don’t think that we are seeing a return to the glory days of blogging. Instead, maybe we are seeing a divided blogosphere between the bloggers that find value in creating original content and the bloggers that don’t want to spend as much time blogging but instead just share links with a short comment.

If you have been blogging for several years, what’s your motivation for still maintaining your blog?

The travel industry turns to social media

The travel industry is turning to social media in order to build relations with customers and to promote its services. During the eruption of the Icelandic volcano in April, airlines, airports and travel agencies successfully used social media to communicate with travellers. Twitter was one of the channels that many used to update customers about delays and cancelled flights. Companies that tweeted actively quickly gained a large number of new followers, as seen in the presentation below, which would indicate that customers find it useful to follow companies on Twitter.

Hockey stick growth in Twitter followers for airlines & airports

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Another great social media case from the travel industry is the Twitter application by Lufthansa, called MySkyStatus. The site lets users automatically share flight information via Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn, while in the air. The site is now open for travellers on all major airlines and everytime someone uses MySkyStatus they are greeted by the message “Powered by Lufthansa”. It’s a great way to add value to travellers and at the same time expose the brand to thousands of potential customers. To date, the site has distributed more than 400,000 status updates (81,000 on Facebook and 21,000 on Twitter).

Yet another example, soon to launch, is Topguest.com, a site that rewards travellers that frequently check in on hotels and other places using location based services such as Foursquare or Gowalla. According to USA Today and CNET, Topguest has launched a preview version that includes a co-operation with hotel chain Standard. Guests that check in using Topguest get a discount:

Social-media addicts who check into each of Standard’s four hotels in New York, Miami and Los Angeles in the span of one week will earn a free week at any one of the hotels.
You could also check in to Standard establishments – whether restaurants, bars, shops or the hotel spa – 10 times and receive 25% off your reservation.

The Swedish travel agencies Ving and Fritidsresor are actively answering questions from customers on their Facebook pages and they use Twitter to distribute promotions. There are many other good cases from the travel industry, which seems to be one of the industries that are most actively embracing social media. Other companies take note.