Other things we like: Flowtown’s recently released social media infographic - The 2010 Social Networking Map (and other internet points of interest).

This updated version of XKCD’s 2007 Map of Online Communities and Related Points of Interest draws the world’s top social networks as country like shapes according to the size of their user base.

Understanding the trends and keeping up to date with the, ahem, social-mediascape, isn’t the easiest of tasks however this visual representation of current social networking communities engagingly illustrates developments such as Facebook surpassing Myspace as the preeminent online community.

Highlights include the Land Of Defunct Social Networks, the Stumbleupon Sea, the Triangle Of YouTube Viral Videos and my favourite, The Thin Line Straight that runs between the respectable dating Islands and the treacherous land of Adult Friendfinder.

By Hector Matthews, Account Executive

Last week we wrote about Wieden + Kennedy (Portland)’s social media campaign for Old Spice – the phenomenal viral videos that had millions tuning in to see and receive personalised messages from “spokesperson” Isaiah Mustafa through social media channels YouTube and Twitter.

The cheeky campaign propelled Old Spice to the top of the Viral Video Chart, collecting over 90,000 Twitter followers, 700,000+ Facebook fans and smashing records to become the all-time most viewed sponsored YouTube channel, with a total of 35.7 million individual video views. Of the top 11 most popular YouTube videos on July 16, Old Spice had eight of them.

There is no doubt of the social media success of Old Spice, starring the “Most Interesting Man in the World 2.0”, but is Mustafa’s popularity translating into sales?

Warc figures show that sales of the Old Spice product Red Zone After Hours Body Wash, which is being promoted by the campaign, have fallen by 7% in the 52 weeks ending June 13, despite Mustafa’s beloved pecs appearing on TV screens since February.

However the campaign didn’t reach its social peak until 13-14 July, so it remains to be seen if Mustafa’s videos are driving people to the stores to buy Red Zone.

We know that high social exposure does not necessarily generate demand, as seen when Gatorade this year launched its Replay social campaign (also a Cannes winner), which tracked down members of two American high schools’ rival football teams – 15 years after their senior year – for a rematch.

The campaign generated a strong online following – with webisodes and Facebook pages about the players – and the 15,000 tickets to the rematch sold out in 90 minutes. However Gatorade’s sales for the year declined by 8.5% nationwide.

And while it remains impossible to prove any fluctuations in demand are caused by a social presence, what Old Spice has achieved is what it set out to – awareness and visibility. Mentions of Old Spice on Twitter exploded last week, with many celebrities such as Alyssa Milano, Ellen DeGeneres and Perez Hilton getting involved and spreading the word.

In the sense of raising awareness and bringing the brand to the top of our minds, Old Spice has certainly been a social success.

Written by Lauren Rayner, Account Executive

With facebook having recently changed its fan pages to ‘like’ pages - part of an ongoing process to make interactions across the network consistent but also part of their strategy to extend social connections across the www - the more cynical of us (not me guv), might also wonder about another underlying motivation.

Most brands don’t have that many fans and the fans they have are often hard won, acquired through in-site advertising. Not many brands are loved, that’s not to do them a disservice, because you don’t need to love all things, but you equally need many things as part of daily life.

Facebook exists to make money, they’re a business with a dominance gameplan, but they also want to increase their worth as an advertising platform. As such it’s much more likely for a customer to say they like a product, service or thing than to say they are a fan. That helps the bottom-line for a brand wishing to invest campaign money there. Like is a broader, more inclusive, but also a more superficial, ephemeral expression of sentinment. Clicking ‘like’ might just mean your customers are never going to look at your brand’s page ever again.

I still think being a ‘fan’ of something has value. It’s not right for everything, but it suggests deeper engagement with a product, a cause or a topic. As such, ‘like’ just feels like a flattening of positive customer response to the lowest common denominator.

I’ve been reading loads of blogs about the election, all scrutinizing the marketing campaigns of the leading parties (most of which has been pretty unoriginal and unexciting I hasten to add). The big debate so far: is this a new media or old media election? See here for a recent example.

After the 2008 U.S. election people predicted that this one would be led from the bottom up, online and over social networks. But then when they announced that we would be getting the leaders debates on TV, the emphasis shifted to the power of television and how historically this has been an indication of the winning party.

The truth is this is the same old hackneyed debate that has been going on for some years but applied in new context. To discuss which is the most effective is entirely missing the point. Where people attribute the rise of the Lib Dems in the opinion polls to the TV debate, they are blinded by the fact that this was a TV first and missing what was going on online at the same time. Let’s not forget that this was also a first for Twitter which recorded a record number of tweets.

Moreover, people weren’t just tweeting from their phone or PC away from the television, they were watching the debate at the same time. Following the excitement of the event and over the course of the next couple of days, thousands of people joined the group “We got Rage Against the Machine to #1, we can get the Lib Dems into office!” on Facebook, fuelling the poll rise even further. It seems completely clear to me that the two are not working in parallel universes of old and new media. Where TV works to raise the profile and awareness of a cause, online is effective at generating discussion, intensifying buzz and cementing opinions.

A great editorial article from Brand Republic in response to Mckinsey’s recent “A new way to measure word-of-mouth marketing” piece. If nothing else, proof that it is possible to pick apart any WoM measurement methodology.

Measurement based on such disparate discussions is a necessity of our marketing world, but it will never be perfect. It’s an approach that tries to add control to the uncontrollable. I mean, we’ve been OK with the fuzzy logic of brand tracking and TV ads for decades, and yet marketers now have to be held accountable for tracking sentiment? They might as well say “measure society” and look at the mess governments make of that!

So, instead of continuing to approach word-of-mouth with some kind of control as our raison d’etre, which leads trying to measure and quantify impacts, do we acknowledge that in an open setting, meaningful participation is our raison d’etre? After all, that’s what customers ultimately appreciate.

I’ll be watching the groundswell series of articles “How to unleash empowered workers without creating chaos: The HERO Compact” with interest. It deals specifically with the conundrum of getting employees closer to customers for large companies. A minefield of considerations, risks and interdependencies for big B2C operations, nevertheless, engaging customer issues directly can be entirely advantageous, done right.

It strikes me that the right people are essentially Product or Brand Managers, that is, anyone who acts as a hub for key information about a product or service within an organisation. They need to know about what they are selling down to the minutiae. However, these employees would also need the customer-savvy outlook of a PR person or perhaps Customer Services. PR people can mean too much spin, at least from a customer’s perspective, whilst a Product Manager can be too ‘honest’ or blunt. With training, and a solid set of operational guidelines, select employees could be allowed into the wilds of the Internet. They would be backed-up by a cross-functional ‘rapid-response team’, including PR, CS and tech people, to allow decisive and useful answers to customer input.

Too often issues circulating the web pertaining to an unprepared brand result in a knee-jerk response amongst top brass, who then push for action across the business, rather than from the right people - the results often proving counterproductive to ongoing efforts at dialogue in the space. Conversely, an organisation might put its metaphorical fingers in its ears and keep schtum. The Eurostar ‘wrong snow’ debacle should be a lesson to the follies of that approach.

It will be interesting to see how groundswell shows how to gear up teams and build an operational manual for social media engagement.

And for something completely different…what’s the moment when something that was cool became uncool? Can it be pinpointed? Take the humble tattoo for example. Formerly the preserve of rogues and the misunderstood and now the subject of a 6-minute R/GA video exposé.