Under Strict Embargo

Would you pay £2000 to join an online social network? Well the FT is hoping so with the announcement today that its will be launching the first of what it’s calling Members Forums aimed at leading figures in digital, new media, mobile and telecoms. The £2000 includes an access pass to its conferences, which might be the real motive for setting up these groups. It will be interesting to see how the tools and services put in place by the FT compare to those freely or far more cheaply available from the likes of LinkedIn and others.

The idea of focusing on elite executives and bringing them together online is an in interesting one and I can see the logic of the FT helping to do this where sector-specific networks don’t currently exist. The Property and Luxury Goods sector are apparently the next on the FT’s list to be targeted.

Whether members will continue to pay the premiums once larger and far cheaper alternatives become established is another question.

I perhaps shouldn’t have been surprised as I was at the volume of press coverage triggered by figures from Nielsen yesterday, claiming the first ever monthly fall in Facebook users in the UK. According to the research firm only 8.5 million unique users in Britain spent time on Facebook in January 2008, compared to 8.9 million in December - a 5% fall.

Speaking to Forbes yesterday I was keen to stress that we shouldn’t jump to conclusions based on a single set of figures, but at the same time we shouldn’t expect the growth of social networks to continue at such a phenomenal rate. Despite this hiccup Facebook fans have been keen to point out that the audience is a remarkable 712% higher than in January 2007 and 9% larger than at the end of October 2007. This contrasts with an apparent 9% fall for MySpace over the course of last year.

What these figures have done is moved the focus onto the next stage of social networking development. A number of commentators have suggested that the future of social networking sites lies in them becoming more niche. The million dollar question is which niche?

The sub-25s may be more relaxed about privacy and advertising but arguably more promiscuous over which ‘cool’ site to spend their time on. Older professionals may be more stable and attractive to brands but generationally far more sensitive to how advertisers take advantage of their personal data.

In any case there’s no need to perform the last rites over social networking quite yet.

UPDATE: Henry over at Tamar has some interesting analysis predicting that next month should see the Facebook numbers recover…

The leading lights of the digital industry gathered in Soho last night for a Chinwag Live event tackling the contentious issue of Measuring Social Media. The expert panel included Alex Burmaster from Nielsen Online, Robin Grant of 1000heads, Ankur Shah Co-founder of Techlightenment, Will McInnes of Nixon McInnes with Jim Sterne from the Web Analytics Association in the chair. While the debate generated a little heat there was a disappointing if not unsurprising, lack of light. The discussion covered four key strands:

1. Can Social Media be measured?

2. If it can, what’s the best way to do it?

3. Do we need an industry standard set of metrics?

4. Would such metrics actually be of interest/any use to the CEO?

The debate resisted the urge to begin by defining Social Media, but many of the difficulties around measurement are rooted in its disparate nature. Counting hits on YouTube, the number of friends on MySpace or downloads of a Facebook application are at the ‘relatively straightforward’ end of the measurement spectrum with blog conversations, product reviews on forums, negative search results etc, at the other. We are all used to measuring clicks but conversations are another matter.

Will made the point early on that there is something counter-intuitive about measuring “conversations” and questioned whether automated monitoring services from the Nielsen’s of this world can attempt to do that effectively. When it comes to analysis of human interactions people are slow and computers are dumb he added. I have to agree, from personal experience in producing social media audits for FTSE 100 companies, the value of those reports are not contained in the statistics but in the commentary and analysis of the data and trends.

Numbers need to be put into context by professionals who understand the company, its products and customers and the industry it is operating in. Apparently we are going to have to wait until 2029 for machines to become as intelligent as man, so until then slow humans and dumb computers are going to need to work better together to generate meaningful insight into Social Media impact. There are no short-cuts or quick fixes, which for those wishing to sell their Social Media expertise is surely a good thing?

Whether the evaluation process would be helped by developing an industry agreed set of metrics was the next question. Some on the panel strongly advocated the sector working together to develop open standards for measurement and effectiveness. Some in the audience shared their own proprietary and largely fluffy approaches, while others argued that it would be an impossible task.

This part of the discussion for me showed the digital industry at its parochial and navel gazing worst. Given the pace at which the landscape is developing, by the point a set of metrics had been agreed (conservatively c.2011) they would have limited relevance to the current reality. My frustration was shared by others in the audience and highlighted by a questioner who hit the nail on the head in arguing that it’s the outcomes rather than the outputs of Social Media which really matter the most to organisations.

In my mind Social Media techniques need to be employed to address specific marketing and business challenges and to reach out to specific audiences. The objectives and desired outcomes of a campaign whether it’s to directly drive sales, mitigate a crisis, reshape a reputation or whatever are going to be so particular to the client concerned that developing a one-size-fits-all set of metrics really misses the point.

Ultimately, with Social Media as with so much else, it’s not measuring it that counts but what you do with it!

Further reviews of the night from Wendy McAuliffe, Stuart Bruce and Seb Mysko.

Check-out this link next week to hear the podcast of the event.

Neil McCormick at the Telegraph has written a great piece looking at the phenomenon of Will.i.am’s Yes, We Can video on YouTube in support of Barack Obama. The video has already attracted 13 million views with that number growing at a rate of 1 million hits a day.

However, Seth Finkelstein at the Guardian has a word of caution arguing that great online campaigns do not always translate into political success and it’s all too easy to conveniently forget Internet campaigns that haven’t worked. Having set the standard, Will.i.am is already spawning imitators like the No, You Can’t video below attacking John McCain.

It will be fascinating to watch whether the Republicans have the creativity and Internet-savvy to effectively retaliate.

Does the PR industry have a sufficient set of guidelines on the use of Social Media? That’s the argument which has been triggered by Edelman’s Simon Collister and Colin Farrington, DG of the CIPR. Last week Simon called on the CIPR to provide clear guidance on the ethical use of Social Media in a letter to PR Week, which elicited a response from Colin pointing out that the CIPR published its Social Media Guidelines in January 2007 and that Simon had in fact been involved in their development.

Simon has responded on his blog, remembering the guidelines do exist but pointing out that his recommendations were apparently largely ignored. Having read Simon’s detailed submission I’m a little confused. One of the main thrusts of his argument is that social media practice is little different from traditional media relations, and that the guidelines make too much of a distinction. While I would agree that there are many shared principles, I don’t see how that fits with his original plea for the CIPR to produce a clear (and presuambly discrete) set of guidelines on the use of Social Media.

There is also criticism that the Guidelines lack detail. Putting to one side that it would be an impossible task, I don’t think it’s the role of the CIPR to develop a bible on how to use Social Media with tactic-by-tactic step-by-step instructions. That ongoing and constantly evolving process is one which individual agencies and consultants need to tackle in their own way.

I think that there are two key points which need to be considered. Firstly the guidelines should be just that – guidelines which communicate the core principles which should govern the implementation of Social Media PR. Secondly, the guidelines need to be designed to be used by the entire PR industry not the relatively tiny clique of PR practitioners who have been living and breathing Social Media for years.

I regularly help to organise and attend CIPR events and I’m no longer surprised to meet PR directors for some of the UK’s largest brands who are still in the dark about the ‘rules’ of engaging with Social Media. I remember there was a rather parochial debate back in 2006 about whether a separate set of guidelines was in fact necessary for Social Media. In my experience for 90% of ordinary practitioners in 2008 it is still seen as new and discrete and they want specific guidance.

Keeping these points in mind I think the CIPR’s Social Media Guidelines are a good starting point. They don’t preach to the converted and they emphasise the importance of transparency and integrity and the unacceptability of unethical tactics such as astro-turfing and spamming.

One year on since their first publication there have been a number of significant developments which need to be considered for inclusion in the next update of the Guidelines, not least SEO. I agree completely with Simon that they really need to be formally reviewed on a six monthly basis in order to remain relevant. You can call me a radical but perhaps that development and consultation process could even be conducted via a dedicated blog where everyone with a genuine interest can easily contribute, debate and shape the outcome?

I would be the first to admit that the CIPR has been historically slow to embrace social media and there have been some serious missteps along the way, but we are by no means starting from scratch. Going back to Simon’s original point we do need a set of Social Media Guidelines which remain robust and relevant and it would benefit the PR industry for as many practitioners as possible to be involved in their ongoing development.