Chapter 8. Social Networking: A Revolution Has Begun

Social Networking begins with blogging. What you refer to as the "the blogosphere" continues to grow daily. Suddenly, it's a crowded Web 2.0 world full of bloggers. Hundreds of thousands of bloggers—who refer to themselves as "citizen" journalists, each with the ability to opine—write and share information with other "tuned in" members of Web communities. No doubt you already know that 21st Century reporting and news distribution is no longer an exclusive function of the print, broadcast, or online media outlets.

The Start of the Revolution

With respect to these significantly different changes, PRWeb (www.prweb.com), founded in 1997 by David McInnis, answered a simple question that was on the minds of many companies: "Where did my press release go."^[1] It's evident that social media has changed the nature of the news-release template and its functions. But, what happens when an announcement reaches different audiences in a Web 2.0 world? PRWeb answered this question for its subscribers by providing access to the most enhanced search engine-optimized distribution available for a news release. They offered distribution that gives brands the increased visibility they need. In essence, what PRWeb did was to begin its own quiet revolution to modify how PR professionals think about direct-to-consumer communication. The revolution has only just begun.

PRWeb realized early on that you're able to go further than the media in a Web 2.0 world. Of course, the company distributes its customers' news releases so that media professionals receive important brand messages and announcements. However, PRWeb does not rely solely on distribution to journalists. It has a direct-to-consumer newswire platform that focuses on "media bypass." PRWeb specializes in getting a brand's message directly to consumers, finding them where they "live" on the Internet. You could say that direct-to-consumer distribution, as PRWeb calls it, "brings the 'public' back into public relations." Today, socially networked consumers decide what is newsworthy and relevant to them. They can decide what they want to talk about in their social communities. For companies to accommodate today's socially networked consumer, they need to change the way they market to them.

Reaching Audiences Through Social Networking

According to Mark Brooks, Founder of Online Personals Watch (www.onlinepersonalswatch.com) and a social networking consultant, brands must be able to better connect with consumers and push out to more people through those connections. When Brooks consults with his clients he tells them that Friendster, MySpace, and other social networking sites are giving 'people' visibility for the first time—more reach than ever before, and that reach extends to their friends' networks as well. "People are more conscious of the connections they make these days, and it's an entirely new psyche or discipline. It's quite exciting from both a social and marketing perspective," commented Brooks.

"Dr. Neil Clark Warren, of eHarmony.com, branded his company on himself, and people have connected with him and his persona, and brand, and that is the underlying principle of eHarmony's success. People are connecting with each other online at a faster rate. They're seeing each other's profiles more and more. Now, with blogs you can go one step beyond the profile. A blog is the best way to say, 'Here's who I am and here's what I have to say.'" Today, people want to connect—not just to the companies they purchase their products/services from, but also connect to the people behind those companies.

Brooks discussed how brands should speak out, and blogs are a great way to take a stance. "You ARE your company these days," he says. "A company's owners and spokespeople and 'brilliant people' need to be given the chance to connect with customers. You can't hide behind a brand anymore." Brooks consults with companies that still think they can stay quiet on issues. However, he disagrees. As a matter of fact, he advises his clients to take a stand or, as he puts it, "They don't stand for anything." Brooks thinks there is still some risk and most companies are taking the safe approach. However, the safe approach really isn't that "safe" for them to take anymore. If a brand doesn't connect with its audiences, if the executives behind the brand are not blogging, they're losing an opportunity, especially if they want people to talk. It stems back to the problem with advertising. Advertising is less and less efficient these days because people are tired of advertisements thrusted upon them and are better than ever at tuning them out. PR and word of mouth are becoming more and more important.

"So, how do you get people to talk? You don't do it by standing behind a company moniker. Social networks are a very important medium for getting people to talk about the people behind the companies," commented Brooks. If someone trusts the executives of a company, they're probably going to trust the brand. Brooks helps companies decide what they stand for, and then teaches them how to put up a blog. Their blogs should take a stance, which will impact the brand's PR and word of mouth marketing as social media enables audiences to share more information. The next step for Brooks' clients is video blogging. He realizes that blogging is still all text, and that people want to connect with you by more than just words. "Words are very safe and one-dimensional. Video is extremely important and I think we'll see more of it in the future. It ties in very well with social networking as it goes well beyond the profile and the blog to really let an audience know who you are in both words and in a visually dynamic medium." After all, two of the biggest questions a brand has to answer in a crowded marketplace are "What do you stand for?" and "Can I trust you?" Video blogging helps to answer these questions.

To Brooks, the social network comes down to the individual. That person has a social network and he/she wants to try to organize friends essentially because communication is so much easier and quicker these days. People have more and more contacts they associate with. Brooks thinks many socially networked individuals are spending less time with a core group of important people. Brooks believes there is a trend toward "collecting friends." He explains that it's a much younger generation that travels through this phase of social networking. They're just trying to collect a thousand friends. The integrity of the connections, in this case, does not mean much, and they're losing the meaning behind the social network. Jonathan Abrams of Friendster modeled the real world and encouraged people to connect with their real friends. He kicked "Fakesters," those with obviously bogus profiles, off the site wherever possible. Facebook followed suit by initially allowing only students who had valid university addresses onto the site. Then up popped Tom on MySpace. He changed everything. If you sign up for MySpace, Tom Anderson, the cofounder, automatically shows up as your first friend, even though he's a stranger to you. That sets the tone for MySpace. Any friend will do, even if you haven't met them. Online associations and loose connections are okay on MySpace. People use different social networks in different ways. WAYN (Where Are You Now) is for knowing where your friends are. LinkedIn is used for business connections. MySpace is popular for connecting with a favorite band, or brand. These days MySpace is trading its musical heritage for a more commercial agenda and enabling brands to establish themselves and have users connect with the brands, as people.

Brooks' clients are just beginning to embrace social media, and the main focus for him right now is to get them to put up their blogs and increase their presence online. He's encouraging people to start blogging, which is a core component of many social networks now. If they're not blogging, then they are losing a big opportunity. The key concept here is "people buy from people." Brooks recently picked up several Sony voice recorders and is sending them out to his clients so that they don't have to write their blogs. Instead, they can just talk during the day when they come across topics they find intriguing. Brooks' clients speak into the voice recorder and send the file to him for transcription and then posting on their individual blogs. The next step is to get them to connect with social networks, and it's important to point out that being connected starts with blogging. And, as the blogosphere continues to expand, blogging certainly is not restricted to consumers. Brooks' clients and many other professionals, from all different industries, are realizing that blogging is an excellent way to gain exposure for their brands.

The Leaders of Blogging

Tim Bray, Director of Web Technologies for Sun Microsystems (www.sun.com), joined his company in March 2004. At that time, there were already a few blogs, both on Sun's java.net property and also run individually by employees. At a meeting in April of 2004, Sun achieved an agreement that it would unleash all its employees to blog at will, and provide some infrastructure for them to use. Now, years later, several thousand of the organization's employees are involved in blogging. According to Bray, it was Sun and Microsoft that both cranked up the blogging culture at about the same time in 2004. The two companies were clearly the leaders in "blessing" their employees to blog under the corporate banner.

When asked to discuss the executives who have a blog at Sun, Bray stated, "It depends on how you define 'executive.' Visible executive bloggers include CEO Jonathan Schwartz, CTO Greg Papadopoulos, and General Counsel Mike Dillon. On the other hand, some individual engineers combining thought leadership with personality and good writing have as much reach as the executives." However, as blogs were unleashed at Sun, its Communications Department did not monitor these channels formally. The Communications Department at Sun was never reluctant to set up blogs, only the company's legal department. For the legal staff, the main source of worry was liability for what employee bloggers might choose to write. "Fortunately, to date none of the potential problems they foresaw have actually occurred. Marketing and Communications have not only been supportive, but also creative in figuring out a way to combine the efforts of Sun's bloggers and the more traditional marketing exercises to support product releases and other newsworthy events."

Bray sees blogs as an important communications tool and does not believe that blogs will ever replace forums or user groups. He feels the various social media tools serve entirely different purposes. For Bray, mailing lists, forums, wikis, and blogs all have a different role to play in business discourse, going forward. As for the future of blogs, Bray is unsure of this himself. He said, "Nobody knows. However, the large and growing numbers of people who not only have blogs, but also contribute to them on a regular basis suggests that the medium is here to stay. Some blogs will become increasingly multimedia-centric, with use of audio ("podcasts") and video; but there is no reason to think that old-fashioned writing, which is more searchable, linkable, and can be consumed faster, will go away any time soon."

How Does Social Networking Change Your Brand?

When asked, "How has social networking changed the way companies market to their customers," Stephen Johnston, Senior Manager in Nokia's Corporate Strategy Group answered, "To my mind, the Cluetrain Manifesto^[2] was well ahead of its time. Its implications are only now being played out. In short, there is a shift of power from the companies to the individuals—people have always wanted, but can now get things on their terms." Johnston joined Nokia in 2003, and has since worked on Internet strategy, global macro and consumer trends, emerging business models, new collaboration tools, and corporate innovation. Since 2006, he has been leading a cross-company Internet innovation program that is aiming to facilitate Nokia's move into Internet consumer services.

Johnston discussed how social networking is very significant from a marketer's point because of the way in which it levels the playing field between brands and their customers by aggregating individuals and empowering them. He stressed how social networks connect with other people who share the same interests, however niche—so markets that were previously inaccessible can now make sense. Johnston used the example of groups on MySpace.com and how they can form around obscure subjects—for example, Canadian folk artists—or they can form around a brand—either coming together in support of it, or uniting in complaints. It's usually a bit of both. Johnston feels that social networks give individuals a voice—it empowers them to publish whatever they want to say, whether it's by posting their videos, pictures, or blog posts.

"These niches can be pretty vocal! The result of this is that individuals and brands are all just as important as each other. A 14-year old in Kansas can have more friends than a major multibillion dollar brand in any one social networking site," explained Johnston. For him, the implications are profound—companies can't possibly go around spotting "which are the latest up-and-coming social networking sites" and then waging a campaign to be the most popular. Instead, Johnston believes they need to focus on having the best products and, in particular, customer services so that their fans will be the ones creating the sites and evangelizing about their products. According to Johnston, taking the usual top-down campaign approach, to what is essentially a customer-owned phenomenon, will not work.

Identifying Trends in Social Networking

Johnston discussed the three biggest trends he sees: the shift in power from brands to individuals, the move from advertising to services, and the integration of the real and virtual worlds. As he outlined previously, brands lose their ability to control what is said about them within online communities. They need to focus more on delighting their existing customers to make sure they are evangelizing, not griping. As a result, there will be a new focus on helping companies engage in information-rich, two-way conversations with their customers, not glossy marketing messages pushed on increasingly savvy and aware individuals. Johnston pointed out that nowadays, few products are without services wrapped around them, and these are increasingly taking the form of social networking services. For instance, rowing machines now have the capability to interact with other rowing machines in the neighborhood, enabling the user to keep track of their scores and race other people who they've never even meet.

"These kinds of services add value to the product, and we at Nokia are introducing and enabling seamless integration of many services in multiple areas that add to the overall experience of our products, such as music and imaging services. The third trend—integrating real with virtual worlds—is one of my real passionate areas of interest," stated Johnston. He says Nokia is seeing the integration of real world data, such as location, direction, even traffic conditions, form an increasingly important part of the services' make up. Nokia's new N95 multimedia computer comes with built-in GPS and free navigation software that uses the Web to help customers improve their lives. "We'll be seeing many more examples of today's 'two dimensional' Internet services being supplemented by real world data to improve users' lives, which occur inevitably in 'three dimensions.'" Johnston knows that the net result will be less of a technology divide than we've seen today, in which people have to choose between playing on the computer or playing outside.

With respect to tracking and monitoring blogs, Johnston offers some advice. He recommends MyBloglog, which he explained is "a neat online service whereby you can see who's actually been reading your Web sites—it makes the Web seem a much more human and accessible place." He also mentioned in a similar vein, but even more relevant to this vision, a start-up company that demonstrates the real-world, virtual world overlap. It is a social network that you sign up for online, but also works with your Bluetooth-enabled mobile device. "You can be in a bar and your telephone will inform you there's someone there who recently visited your blog, or vice versa—you're browsing the Web, and the service lets you know if you come across a Web site of someone who you've recently been in close proximity to," explains Johnston. He's also looking forward to seeing a new breed of "mashups" that take the best of the Internet services and make them relevant for mobiles. "Things like being notified the minute the flat you're looking for is on the market, or you are walking past one of your friends' favorite shops and 'he wants you to visit it' will emerge. Time will tell which services are the ones people love and have viable business models."

Social Networks Go Far Beyond Friendships

Social networks are becoming increasingly popular by varied groups of Internet users. Many companies, groups, organizations, and consumers are just getting started with social networking. According to Wikipedia, the first social networking Web site, Classmates.com, launched in 1995. Classmates.com is best known for connecting people throughout the U.S. and Canada and has played a leading role in social networking.

The founder of Classmates.com, Randal Conrads, a Boeing engineer who was once a "military brat," created the company because like most, he had difficulty keeping in touch with friends.^[3] As a result, Classmates.com began in his basement with an idea that served the purpose of helping people who move around, change jobs, get married, and change their names, stay connected. Today, if you just Google someone, it's impossible to search through thousands of entries to find that one person. Classmates.com satisfies an unmet need in society. Because high schools and colleges don't keep accurate records, technology certainly makes it easier to connect. For a free basic membership you can list your affiliations, post photos, and a biography. But, Classmates.com is for more than just finding people in high school, and if you're a member it goes well beyond friendships. The site is designed to make special connections between its users.

Classmates.com is different from other social networks. The Web site offers real names and not just screen names. These are real names and real people, with all the content being member generated. There's no need to purchase lists or obtain other types of data from services; the data comes right from the horse's mouth—the Classmates.com member. The common thread that makes Classmates.com so successful is there's power in the relationships. Although there's a lot of buzz going on with regard to social media, with Classmates.com you connect with people you've known well over time, or you've been acquainted with years ago. Connecting with people you recognize from your past is much easier than connecting with people you are not just meeting for the first time.

How to Measure Social Networks—An Expert's Point of View

Although it's reported that Classmates.com was the first social network site launched in 1995, concepts about social networks and how information flows through them have been around for many years. Perhaps the best example of this is social network analysis, a scientific field that has been evolving continually since the 1930s. Social network analysis is a quantitative science that, among other things, is used to measure properties in social networks, such as influence, trust, centrality, and network density. In the digital era, with billions of people communicating digitally, it's becoming increasingly useful as a way to understand how people are connected and influence one another.

FAS.research (www.fas-research.com), founded in 1997, is an independent consultancy that has been doing just that. They are pioneers in applying the sciences of social network analysis and complexity to the design of viral sales, marketing, and political campaigns. FAS' proprietary analytical techniques, social network visualization technologies, and data mining algorithms help clients see their markets as systems where people and institutions are connected and influence one another. This enables FAS to help clients harness the potential for change latent in the underlying social structure of markets, win new customers from existing ones, and systematically find a path to the tipping point for their ideas, products, or people.

Neal Gorenflo is Vice President of FAS.research and an expert on the use of social network analysis in business and the impact of technology on culture. Gorenflo's research on 3G, Internet, wireless consumers, and distance learning has been published in a variety of trade and academic journals. He discussed how FAS.research is pioneering the application of social network analysis in business and how the understanding and use of social networks, whether online or offline, is changing the way companies do business.

Q: How is social networking changing the way companies do business?

A: It's changing the way companies do business in a fundamental way, but we're still in the early stages of what I think will be a fairly comprehensive restructuring of our society brought on by social media and the culture of participation that it's fostering. So it's not just business that will be changed, it's everything. My perspective is that communications systems are foundational, that when a society shifts from one communication model to another, all institutions in society get reinvented according to the logic of the new medium.

This is happening as we shift from the broadcast paradigm epitomized by TV to a network model of communication epitomized by social networking. Identity, law, politics, culture, and business models are actively being reinvented as we speak. And while I believe we are early in this transformation, it's obvious that businesses take social networking seriously. We already see social networking and social media applications supporting businesses in a wide range of functional areas, including sales, public relations, customer service, product development, human resources, and knowledge management.

I think the key thing to focus on here is how social networking shifts power, and in the business context that means shifting power from producer to consumer. The flattening of organizations and the decentralization of power brought about by earlier forms of network communication technologies like e-mail is being radically extended by Web 2.0 technologies like social networking and blogs, to the point that the distinctions between producer and consumer are dissolving and consumer power is being radically enhanced. Technologies like LANs, e-mail, and intranets enabled companies to push power to the edges of the organization; but with the advent of Web 2.0, it is being pushed beyond the formal boundaries of the organization to consumers. The organizational pyramid is being turned upside down.

And this will be hugely beneficial for business. I think the power shift will result in better and, even more importantly, more relevant products. For instance, businesses are adopting the practice of engaging customers in deep and meaningful ways in every stage of the product lifecycle. This is borrowed from the software development community. And social media robustly enables the process.

The Firefox Web browser is a radical example of this model. It was an open-source software community that created Firefox, a volunteer effort with support from the Mozilla Foundation. Like all open-source projects, building Firefox relied on social media to coordinate volunteer efforts. Naturally, it was promoted in a way consistent with open-source production methods—the promotional work was distributed to volunteers using social media, and each doing their little bit added up to a whole lot of promotion. The Spread Firefox campaign was a hugely successful, volunteer-powered marketing campaign that helped catapult Firefox to roughly a 15 percent market share, second only to Microsoft's Explorer browser. This was like David taking on Goliath, except the battle is not finished. In any case, Firefox shows how using social media and engaging customers in a meaningful way in the whole product lifecycle can create serious competitive advantages in product quality, cost, and marketing efficiency.

In this environment, companies that employ authentic leaders—leaders who foster a culture of participation and earn their authority by their skill in facilitating many diverse stakeholders in creating value—will have a big advantage over companies that employ autocrats.

Q: How does FAS.research help its clients to understand social networks?

A: We help leaders understand social networking from a social science perspective using metrics and visualizations. I think leaders appreciate the value of social networks now more than ever, but they don't know how to quantify the value or how to best leverage them. From our perspective, social networking is all too often a curiosity rather than a real business tool. Our value to clients, on a high level, is two-fold. First, we give clients a way of seeing and quantifying the value of networks based on science, yet relevant to their business goals. Second, we give them tools and models that translate this unique insight into action plans that get results.

I can't emphasize enough the value of the mindset change we catalyze with leaders. Once a client begins to see his market as a system where people and institutions are connected and influence one another, it's like turning on the lights.

By making the system visible to leaders, we give them an increased measure of control. We put spotlights on the levers and gauges. And when they see how things actually work in their markets, they change what they do and how they structure their organization to take advantage of this more accurate view of reality.

Q: Are you able to graphically represent how groups are connected and how information flows?

A: Absolutely. There are two ways to look at what we do. Most of the time we help clients understand and leverage networks that already exist in their market. This includes graphically representing them. Visualization helps clients understand the structure of networks in their market, which means how individuals are connected within their communities and how communities are connected. By understanding the structure, we can design strategies to efficiently move messages, products, or ideas through the network. Visualizations help uncover the blockages and make visible the bridges from one community to another, and on a macro scale, the path from the periphery into the mainstream.

We also help clients design social networks. This is typical of the work we do in organizational development. Visualizing networks is also important here. The key idea in this context is that the ideal structure of a social network within an organization depends on the goal of and the type of work done by the organization. An ideal innovation network looks different from an ideal production network. We help organizations find their ideal form depending on what they do and what they want to accomplish.

The starting place is to first understand the existing network and how information and influence flow through it. Then you can design interventions that help you get closer to the ideal structure from the existing structure—and importantly, not lose the productive relationships in the redesign.

Q: When is the best time for a company to analyze its social network?

A: If we are talking about the social networks within a company, a good time is often before dramatic organizational change, such as a merger. Mergers are risky. It's well known that mergers frequently fail to deliver the expected benefits. One common mistake is that companies focus on the formal structure and ignore the informal social relations that are so important to innovation, problem solving, and just getting work done. These informal ties cross management levels and functional areas and are critical to an organization's health. Social network analysis can make these networks visible and quantify their value so that they can be considered in the new organizational design.

If we are talking about social networks in the customer base, there is a constant need because these networks are dynamic. New opportunities and threats emerge constantly. The sooner you get started, the sooner you can innovate a new sales and marketing model to obsolete your competitors' model. And if you read the advertising trades, the pain marketers feel in trying to extend direct marketing models is palpable. These magazines sometimes read like a long complaint about declining returns.

The source of the pain is no mystery. Direct channels are flooded and customers don't trust corporate messages. Time is ripe for change. Systematically scaling and measuring authentic word-of-mouth is part of the new paradigm. Unlike direct channels, the word-of-mouth channel is open, trusted, and more effective.

This channel is not without its challenges, however. For instance, the most popular word-of-mouth model does not scale. It's limited by the size of proprietary agent networks—groups of people recruited by service providers or companies to voluntarily buzz about products.

Our approach, on the other hand, does scale. Like direct marketing, the only limit is the size of your customer base or list. And despite what Malcolm Gladwell would have you believe, our research shows that everyone is a maven to some degree.^[4] Our approach does not rely on recruiting uber-mavens; it's more granular than that. Everyone talks about products, but when and how much depends on the person and the product.

Using science, we help companies find where and when high concentrations of brand conversations are likely to happen and design marketing strategies to leverage this knowledge.

Q: How do you analyze social networks and how are you monitoring communication?

A: There are two ways to find the critical parts of a network: construct a mechanical model or use profiling.

To construct a mechanical model or network visualization, we need data that shows how people are connected. Online social networks, blogs, mobile phone call records, e-mail servers, patent databases, and co-publishing databases are typical data sources that have information about how people are connected. We take this data and apply proprietary algorithms to create social network maps and indices. Maps make visible the structure of the network. This helps with the macro-strategy—how to move messages from community to community. Indices quantify the value of each person's ability to spread messages and influence social connections. This helps with the micro-strategy—how to address each individual or discrete clusters in the network.

The profiling technique we use is similar to how the FBI finds serial killers. The FBI analyzes the commonalities of serial killers to construct a profile. This helps them know what to look for, not only in terms of the psychological profile but also where they are likely to live. We do a similar thing to identify people who play the key roles in spreading messages in a network—the hubs, connectors, and spreaders. We've found that each class is composed of people who share similar characteristics. Connectors, no matter where they come from, share some key values with other connectors. It's rarely a 100 percent match, but there are markers for each role that enable us to assign a probability that someone is a hub, connector, or spreader. This is incredibly valuable for direct marketing. It helps marketers design viral messages tailored to each role and target those that will most likely spread the message.

Q: Do you believe this approach is more effective?

A: Yes, and often dramatically more effective. Our approach is a true paradigm shift. Traditional direct marketing and communication strategy is based largely on segmentation. You break your target audience into groups comprised of individuals with common attributes, and you design specific messages for each segment.

While segmentation has been effective, this approach does not accurately reflect reality. It ignores the obvious fact that people are connected and influence each other. In our case, this fact is the core of our approach. We make visible and leverage the underlying social structure of a market. This is the difference between rowing a boat across the ocean and sailing using trade winds. Like sailors, we put nature to work for our clients. The end result is better returns.

Segmentation analyzes attributes of individuals while FAS' approach analyzes attributes of links and how people are connected is another way of understanding the difference. Instead of placing a statistical value on the sex, age, income, and behavior of an individual like segmentation does, FAS places a statistical value on the role an individual plays in spreading messages in their social network. Instead of looking for soccer moms, we look for connectors (the links between communities), hubs (the center of communities), and spreaders (individuals with enormous reach). Instead of paying attention to pockets of response, we pay attention to social patterns that have a high probability of being viral.

That being said, our approach doesn't replace segmentation or traditional market research, it overlays it. You still need to know the values held by individuals and groups in your target audience. Knowing how these individuals and groups are connected helps you move your message through the network systematically and tune it as it moves from community to community.

Q: Are many companies using social analytics?

A: It's definitely not mainstream, but it is a rapidly developing field. Up to just a few years ago, social network analysis was only feasible for large companies or governments. Cheap computing power and free, open source network analysis software has made the field more accessible. We've seen a number of competitors pop up in just the last two years.

The barrier now is in application. These days just about anybody can create a network visualization. The problem is that there are very few people who can tell you what the data means and what to do with it to create value. This is a challenge of interpretation, imagination, and experience, something that computers and software can't help with. This is where FAS is ahead. We've been solving business problems with social network analysis for nearly 10 years.

To give you an idea of what is possible now with enough computing power and experience, a European mobile phone carrier recently hired us to analyze three years of call data for more than three million subscribers (anonymized for privacy). For the macro strategy, we were able to break the subscribers up into distinct communities based on their calling patterns and identify the most viral communities, based on sociometrics which quantify mathematically certain properties of networks, including the strength and direction of influence. For the micro strategy, we created viral indices that were uploaded in the carrier's CRM. This enabled our client to make special offers to customers who have a high probability of influencing an acquisition or stabilizing other subscribers around them.

Q: Is the research you provide a lengthy process?

A: Most projects take four to eight weeks with just a couple workshop days with clients. It depends on the scope of the project, the availability of the data, and the amount of data to be analyzed. It also depends on whether our strategies are going to be applied incrementally or holistically.

Let's start with data. If data about how clients and prospects are connected is readily available, that speeds up the process, though the time also depends on the amount of data that needs to be analyzed. If we need to gather data for the analysis for instance, through surveying, co-occurrence search algorithms, or another method—that obviously adds to the time.

In terms of scope, this is an approach that screams out to be applied holistically. It benefits from integration between functional areas in a business, especially between sales and marketing because what we do can be thought of as a viral form of microtargeting. When you have an entirely new and more accurate way of seeing your customer base, it has significant implications for a client's organizational structure. When our clients see how their customers are connected, they immediately see the necessity to market and sell in an entirely new way and organize themselves in an entirely new way. When we have a client who can approach a challenge holistically, that can be a larger project because we could be involved in designing a new process or organization.

It helps to give an example. Let's go back to the cell phone carrier client I mentioned. This carrier is a new market entrant in Europe. It was successful in getting traction in immigrant communities early. The problem was how to bridge from the Early Adopter immigrant community and break into the mainstream. The carrier made subscriber call data available to us in anonymized form for privacy. This sped up the process, but it was a lot of data.

Despite the vast amount of data, we were able to literally map how all callers and communities were connected using the call data. This enabled us to identify the best opportunities to win new clients from existing clients based on which social patterns had the highest statistical probability to influence a conversion. We also identified the best bridges—actual social links shown in calling patterns—into new demographic communities. The whole project took six weeks. And the analysis and action plan we provided helped synchronize their sales, marketing, and customer service efforts focusing more resources on the hubs, connectors, and spreaders in their customer base.

Q: Where do you see your research efforts going in the next five or ten years? And what do you think is next in social networking?

A: In general, we want to deepen our understanding of how social networks operate and how to apply what we learn to important problems. While we've focused mainly, but not exclusively, on solving business problems, we hope to find our moment to make a big positive difference to how people lead their day-to-day lives.

Not surprisingly then, we are doing more thinking about applying social network analysis to the design of social networking platforms. It's clear to us that the usefulness of seeing them from a technology or mass media perspective has almost run its course. As the technology becomes commoditized—and that is happening fast with the emergence of private label solutions—people are realizing it's the social architecture of these systems and how you manage the community that deliver the most value, not the technology.

And we are not interested in them as another diversion, as entertainment, as simply media. We are interested in designing social networking systems that help people create value in their day-to-day life online and off. We see social networking as a great coordinating technology that can help people organize themselves into geographically based mutual aid communities where all types of resources are shared, where the value and pleasure of social interactions is radically increased, where a culture of democracy and civic engagement can thrive, where people can better enjoy and enhance the natural and human splendor of their local communities, and where the social architecture of sustainability can show itself.

We think social networking has come at the right time. When combined with a shift in values that place a premium on authentic, self-organized experiences, social networking can facilitate the social changes necessary, at the scale and speed that is required, to promote true human fulfillment, resulting in social justice and environmental sustainability.

We are at a juncture where we, as a global society, have the power to either destroy ourselves or create an unprecedented global renaissance, an explosion of creativity in every field from every corner of the world the likes of which the world has never seen. The first chapters of both scenarios have already been written. We think social networking is one of the tools, if used wisely, that can help us ensure that our future is a bold tale about global renaissance, a continuing exploration of humanity's role in this universe.

Moving Forward with Social Networking

Social networking empowers the 21st Century consumer to choose what is newsworthy and relevant to them. Consumers are leading a 2.0 revolution in their social networking communities. They pass more and more information back and forth through connections, relying on an extended network of family, friends, business associates, and acquaintances. The movement toward social media enables easy information sharing. You should keep the following in mind as you advise your brand(s) about the importance of social networking:

• 21st Century reporting and the news distribution is no longer an exclusive function of the media outlets.
• There are direct-to-consumer newswire services, including PRWeb, that focus on "media bypass."
• Blogs go one step beyond the profile. A blog is the best way to say, "Here's who I am and here's what I have to say."
• Today, people want to connect, not just to the companies they purchase their products/services from, but also connect to the people behind those companies.
• If the executives behind a brand are not blogging, they're losing an opportunity, especially if they want people to talk.
• A social network connects with other people who share the same interests, however niche—so previously inaccessible markets now can make sense.
• Socially networked individuals are spending less time with a core group of important people. If they're just trying to collect friends, they are losing the whole point of the social network. It's that real world connection, which needs to be made for the networks to have high integrity.
• The concept of the social network and analysis of communication patterns has been around for many years. Social network analysis has been a scientific discipline since the 1930s.
• Social networks allow companies to cross boundaries and go outside the organization by involving customers in all sorts of brand communication. You will often see this placed back into the entire product development cycle.
• By using social network analysis, you can analyze the attributes of how people are linked. By data mining, not only can you find the connectors and the hubs, but also see specific communication patterns for better direct-to-consumer communication.

Endnotes

1. "About Us." PR Web.com. May 2007. www.prweb.com.

2. According to Wikipedia, the Cluetrain Manifesto is a set of 95 theses organized as a Manifesto, or call to action, that focused on the Internet as a connected marketplace where people would find new ways to share information.

3. Research obtained from John Uppendahl, VP of PR at Classmates.com.

4. Malcolm Gladwell discusses the role of mavens in his book, The Tipping Point. Mavens are information specialists who acquire knowledge and know how to then share that knowledge with other people.