Wikipedia defines it as ..." Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It's a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal, political and business use. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM)."
Not a lot of emerging market telco CxOs though understand how it works and appreciate the power it can wield for them if leveraged well. There are a few operators in SEA region which are progressive enough to have started some shapes and forms of social media in engaging their customers. But exemplary success apart from what has been seen with CyWorld, which was bought by SK Telecom later, has been rare.
Over the years, the likes of Singtel with its Moblog (www.moblog.com.sg)and Maxis with its MBlog (www.mblog.com.my)were among the first in the region to venture into mobile social networking. However, from the looks of how they have managed and supported these communities, it seemed like they are completely amiss on its potential and how it could have given them enough equity among netizen subscribers in the last 4-5 years since they introduced these mobile social networking communities.
It's sad that Singtel and Maxis have wasted years of potential lead in this space in that they have simply allowed their communities of subscribers to wilt away. Singtel has recently announced in its MoBlog site that it is closing down the service on July 22. MBlog continues to be the same boring site to date when i start profiling the site some 3 years back.
These operator-led mobile social networks used to be the shining examples of progressiveness in the social media space or what some call as user generated content (UGC) space. Funny that while every other operator in the region are scrambling for resources and expertise on how to launch their own social media sites, these 2 operators seem to be abandoning what they pioneered, years ahead of their competition.
I know of operators in the regions right now which are seriously studying or even close to launching their own social media efforts. In Thailand, I know of an operator who recently launched their own UGC trading community about a year back. Though the community has not prospered yet, I do believe that with proper focus on execution and alignment to the overall business strategy and the support it requires to build the community, it should be on its way of getting a critical mass of participants.
Telcos have to understand that a foray into the social media will not give short term ROI like any tactical marketing program. Building communities don't happen overnight. Stars like Facebook and Linkedin did not become popular overnight. It takes years to build the community, but if you succeed, you don't need much of an ATL budget to spend. You will have millions of ambassadors doing the marketing for you.
So how can operators leverage the social media trend?
Operators need to understand that the consumer should be at the center of things in providing social media environment. In social media, content is from consumers not from operators. Consumers are the new creators, opinion makers, networkers, and distributors of this new space.
Hence, operators cannot rely anymore from their own marketing messages and product brochures to keep the community members engaged. They have to depend on activist community members and early adopters to market the community and encourage content contribution from other members.
What this means is that the community has to be open.
1) Open means no restrictions on how to join or log in
2) Open means providing various access like mobile internet, mobile SMS short codes, in addition to fixed internet
3) Open means being able to create, upload, share and trade any content from any terminal PC or mobile
4) Open means anyone can join and access the communities, not only my subscribers but also other operators' subscribers.
Walled garden and restricted access approaches that place limitations on consumers will no longer work if you want your social media community to prosper.
At the heart of all social media efforts, operators will need a separate social media strategy to be able to fully leverage the power of the communities it can bring in.
This strategy has to take into account these five (5) important social media ideas.
1) Offer environments for consumers to create, store, and manage their digital identities at various levels ensuring wherever the consumers go, they still rely and route through the environment.
2) Revise marketing strategy to leverage ‘Viral Marketing’ and ‘Tryvertising’
3) Harness social networking by building own networks around localized motivations and embedding these into larger global social networks (e.g. Facebook, MySpace etc.)
4) Enable user generated content (UGC) via tools and platforms with rewarding mechanisms to drive quality to ward off reliance on content provision agencies.
5) Revise portal strategy – ‘Me’ portal that enables consumers to project outwards embedded onto ‘My’ portal that assimilates what the consumer is interested in.
Operators need to play the social media game today to ensure they are still in business tomorrow. The social media technologies are readily available and easily implementable. The issues are not implementation but conceptualization.
The revenue potential of social media will depend on the monetization model based on :
1) Scale of consumer traffic
2) Level of (potential) addictiveness (to service)
3) Offerings on personalization, UGC, social network and other add on services for utilities and entertainment purpose.
The speed of realization will depend on :
1) Level of mobile, internet, and Web 2.0 familiarity (such as usage of blog, social network, media sharing)
2) Identification of a strong early adopter group that can help hasten take up
Putting the consumers at the center however, may put the operator on the periphery. Why not? Part of leveraging the social media trend is letting go. Specifically with respect to communities, operators will need to contend with :
1) Lack of control over the evolution of networks and applications that communities initiate
2) Users who will wield more influence over communities, individuals, and transactions than operators can
3) Outside applications that will find their way in via consumers
Operators will also need to develop an understanding of local context outside their business – communities and activities will be centered around interests, needs, and affiliations, not the operator. Most importantly, operators will need to be agile and aware enough to follow trends in the community to revise their offering and possibly brand positioning.
You can download a whitepaper around this topic co-written by this author with Chintan Rastogi at www.redpillsolutions.com.
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