In EConsultancy and Big Mouth Media’s most recent “Social Media and Online PR Report,” 50% of companies surveyed said that they had directly contacted those within social media that had given their brand a bashing. Interestingly the survey showed that after this solution, the second most popular way to keep their brand seen in a positive light was ultimately to improve products and services, demonstrating just how powerful the collective voice is online to shaping consumer experience.

The research also showed that one area that was lacking was for brands to create their own content to offset negative consumer opinions, with only 12% of companies engaging in this solution. With brands having so much to talk about, surely this is an easy win for companies?

The research highlighted that Twitter was used to monitor brand sentiment, however Tweets from brands were used more widely as a tool for publicising new content e.g. product, service e.t.c.
A quarter of brands surveyed said that they used the micro blogging service to gather information and for customer service, an area that I feel has a huge amount of potential, especially when recruiting for and announcing winners of brand led competitions.

What is a concern is that more than 20% of the companies surveyed said that the risk of negative brand sentiment was a major influence in not creating more effective social media engagement. Surely the rewards from engaging with social media heavily well outweigh not? With benefits including; creating positive brand sentiment, SEO efficiency, audience segmentation, sentiment segmentation to name just a few, engaging with social media offers a brand so many more rewards and even if a brand isn’t engaging heavily negative views can still be aired, with the power of the collective voice as mentioned in paragraph one if you can’t beat them then you might as well join them.

Created by Ji-Lee, this diagram shows the levels of communication that we reserve for our closest friends. It highlights how the digital age has provided us with a number of communication tools to constantly stay connected, with Facebook and Twitter existing as their own channels – rather than being classed as just social media.

- MySpace leads all social media sites in unique video viewers, with 12.9 million (excl Youtube)

- MySpace Music, from 4.2 million to 12.1 million unique visitors year on year

- Facebook (Facebook) is quickly growing its video reach – from 2.4 million unique viewers in June ’08 to 12 million in June ’09.

- Twitter (Twitter) users spent an average of 31 minutes, 17 seconds on the site in June

Hitwise launched analysis of Twitter this week, revealing some interesting points including one out of every 350 website visits in the U.K. comes from Twitter, that barely 5% of Twitter users go to online retail service websites from Twitter and that 93% of Twitter’s growth has been achieved over the last 6 months.

This low e-commerce referral activity, I would presume is due to the fact that most profiles linking to ecommerce sites would be the brands looking to be purchased. The only independent feedback would have to be from followers of the profile, which would mean that most independent Tweets would be positive. With the expectation of so much positive sentiment about the brand, it’s no wonder that users aren’t inspired to purchase from Twitter, but would more than likely use at some point during research.

Dell recently posted on their blog how to build a business plan for small businesses, a really nice use of social media as they’re providing something of real use to their target audience and demonstrating their credentials in this sphere, something a potential customer wants to know when investing in a product.

There are far too many brands using social media to push their products rather than harnessing this conversational medium, adding to the user experience and showcasing their knowledge e.g. Nike offering hourly advice on nutrition when training for a long distance run through Twitter. This could extend to a full hourly training schedule for the user, bolstered with the inclusion of followers tweeting with their recommendations. A community that offers real value, is essential to the individual in training and the opportunity for Nike to promote products in a less cynical environment e.g. Today’s weather in London is wet check out Nike’s microfibre running suite to keep dry

Nike’s knowledge of athletics is undisputed, so maybe this isn’t a great example, but this social media strategy identifies the brand as having an unrivalled knowledge of long distance running and therefore becoming a credible choice when the user is deciding to invest in a new pair of running shoes.

Maybe a better example would be for a high ticket item, something like a Bianchi road bike, which priced at £700+ is a much more consider purchase. By offering advice on training and bike maintenance the customer’s confidence in the brand is increased, as Bianchi demonstrate their wealth of knowledge. Creating a relationship and dialogue with potential and existing customers, as mentioned earlier, also offers the opportunity to up sell, as the user becomes more dependent on the brand to achieve their goal e.g. the Bianchi medium distance training schedule offers kit for the maintenance of bikes that are regularly being put through their paces at these distances.

And obviously this strategy offers brand loyalty, as the user feels that they have been well looked after and have become dependent on the brands social media offering to complete the task that they have bought the product to achieve.

Apple have just published their results for application downloads for the iPhone since launch and the figure is ….. 1 billion!

Other recent milestones:

Facebook 200 million members.

Twitter has had 1.6 billion tweats.

YouTube now reaches 100 million viewers in the US every month, 40% market share of video watched online.