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Benn will be at WOM UK’s next Espresso Briefing on Wednesday 30th July from 8.30am until 10.00am. This session will look at how to use social networks and online communities to amplify Word of Mouth, and will be held at One Alfred Place, London, WC1E 7EB.

As a member of WOM UK, Neoco client’s can get in for free with us, and our friends can get discounted rates - so make sure you let Benn know if you would like to come along by posting a comment or emailing him directly.

The briefing will look at one of the hottest issues in marketing at the moment - how brands take part in social networks and online communities. Using examples from the US and Europe, the session will help to identify when it’s right to join in social networks and when a brand should build its own community. The briefing will show the benefits different organisations have had from engaging through social networks and online communities, how they can help engage customers and, critically, who they build advocacy and amplify word of mouth.

The top 5 social networks in the UK (Facebook, Bebo, MySpace, Flickr and Hi5) had a combined total of 38.84 million monthly unique users in April, according to research firm comScore. Yet they have struggled to turn their user popularity into pounds, and recent research by eMarketer has revealed that advertisers will only spend £115m on social networks this year - which is a tiny figure when compared to the overall ad spend online.

However, although they are not reaching their full potential, there has been a healthy 77% growth in ad spend on social networks in the UK since last year, which saw it reach £65m. Advertisers forecast that the growth in ad spend will remain high over the next couple of years at around 52%, but they estimate that this growth rate will slow to 28.6% in 2010, 15.6% in 2011 and 9.6% by 2012.

The main reason suggested for the low ad spend numbers is due to the companies behind the social networks being so young that they have not had time to work out a business model to monetise users.  Looks like they better get a move on…

For more info on the research, visit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/05/advertising.digitalmedia

New research by the Press Complaints Commission has revealed that nine out of ten people in the UK think there should be tighter regulation of information on social networking sites.

The vast majority of participants said they would like sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace to follow specific rules and regulations to help prevent the abuse of personal information such as private photos, instead of them each having their own set of t’s & c’s.

For many, the potential for abuse of private information is an increasing concern, not just because of the threat of criminal activity, but also because information is increasingly being used by the media. Many media companies were criticised last year for the “digital doorstepping” of victims of the Virginia Tech shooting spree.

Of course, the other side to this argument is that people shouldn’t really be uploading any personal information or photos that they wouldn’t want others to have access to in the first place. As Charlie Beckett, the Director of Polis (a journalism thinktank at the London School of Economics) says “If you take pictures and put them on Facebook, you’ve deliberately surrendered your privacy.”

Sir Christopher Meyer, the chairman of the PCC, said that there is an “unprecedented scale” of information being put on to social networks, and suggested that “there is a need for public awareness about what can happen to information once it is voluntarily put into the public domain.”

For more info on this research, visit http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jun/05/privacy.socialnetworking

A new press release from Gartner has advised retailers not to ignore the increased consumer traffic that social networks are generating.

“Until recently, retailers considered social networks relevant only for the youth market, meaning that many have largely ignored them,” said Hung LeHong, research vice president at Gartner. “However, as social networks expand to embrace ever-wider demographic groups, retailers need to ensure that they have a position on them.”

Gartner has created a list of the top 10 things retailers should know about social networks and what action to take. Key points that I think are particularly important for retailers are:

• Social networks can be a huge source of consumer data - as with store loyalty cards, consumers are often willing to give up a little privacy in exchange for a valued service or discount.
• Retailers should focus their social network activity on content produced by members - if a social network provides corporations too many capabilities in interacting with members, there is a risk that members will leave the network. The aim should be to create a forum or application that will create value for other members while promoting the organisation’s brand.
• Social networks are coming to mobile - the ability to access social networks from mobile phones is being promoted by the wireless carriers. This could be used in really innovative ways, and the article gives the example of  offering a limited time, in-store-only promotion that could be broadcast to friends to drive more traffic to the physical store.

The article, ‘Gartner Says Social Networks Are Attracting Too Much Traffic for Retailers to Ignore: Analysts Highlight 10 Things Retailers Should Know About Social Networks, and What to Do’ can be viewed at http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=660409

A new survey carried out by Ofcom has revealed that more than a quarter of eight to eleven year olds who are online in the UK have a social networking profile - despite sites such as MySpace, Bebo and Facebook having older age limitations. Ofcom says that parents need to keep an eye on what their children do online.

The research also shows that 19% of all UK youngsters have a presence on an online social network, with James Thickett, director of marketing research at Ofcom stating that “social networks are clearly a very important part of people’s lives and are having an impact on how people live their lives”.

The Home Office has been working with social networking sites, and is expected to publish a set of guidelines this Friday around best practice, security and privacy. The report is expected to recommend that profiles created by children are set to private by default, or are only viewable by friends nominated by the user. It also suggests that social sites maintain a distinct contact page listing contact numbers, such as 999, children can use to get help.

The Ofcom report looks into the impact of social networks on people’s lives in the UK as part of a wider media literacy campaign and surveyed 5,000 adults and more than 3,000 children. For the full research, visit BBC News:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7325019.stm

26 year-old IT engineer Fouad Mourtada, has been arrested in Morocco for making a fake Facebook profile. According to FaceReviews, he made a profile page for Prince Moulay Rachid, the younger brother of King Mohammed VI. Although ths profile was only done in jest, like most countries with monarchies, Morocco didn’t like him poking fun at the Prince.

So, Mourtada is now in jail facing up to 5 years in prison, as the authorities consider such a joke to be classified as identity theft. The sad thing is though, how much you can be punished for making a stupid fake profile on an intangible, web-based social network. I mean, how many times have you come across a fake profile for Paris Hilton, or Rupert Murdoch? Thank goodness Forbes didn’t take Daniel Lyons, the man behind the Fake Steve Jobs blog, too seriously.

Anyway, we don’t think that the fake Facebook profile was worth it somehow! So if you are someone that’s into making fake Facebook profiles and are the least bit worried about being arrested and prosecuted, just make a Facebook group or a wiki instead. At the most, you’ll get all of Facebook shut down for your entire country.

It looks like all those acquisitions in the past year paid off. European professional social network Xing is reporting 5 million registered members worldwide, and significant growth in paid subscribers. The strongest growth, in fact, over the entire history of the company. With revenues reaching $28.74 million for the 2007 fiscal year, Xing is skipping all the way to the bank.

So what are these grand numbers being attributed to? Aside from snatching up business-oriented social networks across Europe, Xing has also spent a good portion of 2007 expanding its eCommerce and Advertising segments, which have enabled Xing to layer in two additional streams of revenue. As networks like News Corp. begin to launch their own centralized advertising networks, it’s clear that having a comprehensive ad network of one’s own is an option that is being readily explored in hopes of retaining as much of that profit as possible.

eCommerce is another segment that makes sense for the demographic that Xing reaches out to, and layers in nicely with the other action-oriented aspects of the network that Xing has been improving in the past year as well. Providing more tools for the self-promotion of oneself has seemingly been central to Xing’s improvement to-do list, so incorporating more ways in which to have a farther reach is evident in such changes mandated by Xing, including the network’s participation in Open Social.

Everyone loves a good bit of juicy gossip. Students love gossip more than anyone else. With a timetable that consists of watching Jeremy Kyle, re-using yesterday’s cereal bowl and waiting for Countdown in the afternoon, students have more time to spread the word than most other demographics.

Previously, the future generations of CEOs and McD’s cookers could only be restrained by the fact that some the crazy rumours might be traced back to them, but that is all about to change…

Juicy Campus is an online network that lets students (at campuses in the US) say whatever they want, anonymously. Hmm. Mix 1 part Facebook, 1 part Twitter feed and 3 parts diminished responsibility and I think we have a recipe for a disaster - or some serious cyber-bullying.
While JuicyCampus doesn’t actually allow search engines to index its content, there is already concern that the site could create a lot of issues. More concerning is the fact that news of the site has spread as fast as, well as fast as juicy gossip… as the site is frequently being pulled down due to traffic heavier than the servers can handle! Good thing too, because apparently the site had become such an addiction that its downtime made it all the more popular.

Personally, it just takes me back to the days of F*ckedCompany.

Should also mention BoredAt - same thing but for college people and those with real jobs