Digital Review by Patrick Zinga

Digital Review Social media impact

Read a culture

Issue #1

Patrick Zinga/ George McCann/Anna Wasko/ Haiyi Tang

Cover Stories

contents Issue

January

2011

Introduction Dell Hell Turning UGC’S to USP’S One ‘Blog’ Every Minute No Space For MySpace Face to Facebook Reference Report Summary

Dell Case study: The effects of UGC felt by PC giant Dell

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Welcome to the wonderful world of social media Introduction Social Media and Usergenerated content – Establishing the implications and effects on the relationship between brands and consumers.

‘Society can only exist on the basis that there is some amount of polished lying and that no one says exactly what he thinks.’ - Lin Yutang Socializing through e-mail, chat rooms, blogs and social network sites is the killer application in B2C Markets. Billions of e-mails are sent everyday and sms messages are catching up. Leveraging the strong desire to socialize should not be underestimated. Where consumers are, brands follow. There is a steady movement that shows a vast amount of people using cash less and opting for online transactions. Technology is improving and the world is all heading online so naturally, brands have to follow.

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Offline marketing is slowly getting defeated as more and more people are getting access to the internet, we need to ask the question – How can brands utilise user generated content effectively. This report will explore and bring to lightsome Issues revolving the exploration of the internet market and how people are using their time on the net. Also how can brands manipulate consumer behaviour through this growing medium in this new digital age? • Is the wrath of an upset consumer important enough for us to fear it? • What opportunities does user generated content provide? • How can brands use it effectively? • What is the future in online consumer content?

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WxÄÄ [xÄÄ g{x xyyxvà Éy háxÜ ZxÇxÜtàxw VÉÇàxÇà The general view of the public is that customer service has become worse but this isn’t the case customer service has become harder. This is because of technology social media has made customer service harder web 2.0 has given the general public a platform to explode about their issues and we are now sitting on a customer service time bomb. To place the pervious statement in a business environment Dell experienced the power of web 2.0 In July 2005. Jeff Jarvis bought a Lemon off Dell he paid for a premium four year warranty deal for the PC. Shortly after he started to experience problems with his computer after repeat request to fix the lemon and dell refusing to come to his house Jarvis finally exploded and started to write a series of blogs (the buzzmachine), this then sparked a war against Dell. There were daily visits of more than 10,000 to the blog, giving a platform for angered customers to complain and create there own blog stories and the wave of User Generated Content (UGC) spread like wildfire. These social media platforms are dangerous to business’s and should not be underestimated from this one incident Jarvis managed to hurt Dells stock prices making the power of User Generated Content very real. To combat the Fiasco, Dell invested $150 million dollars into their customer service sector.

To tap into social online communities brands need to plan for more open conversations with consumers, listening and responding carefully emarketing excellence (2009). This should be high on any media planners list in understanding customers needs listening responding, setting up your own social media platform or putting your brand on a third party independent community rather than setting up their own critical mass site. This is a great way to gather customer insight, manage and respond to the comments in environment you have some control over to help prevent damaging consciences. Even though Dell have gone to major lengths to tackle this problem, freedom of speech on the web cannot be bottled and even with the right management procedures in place you can only try to prevent a similar situation. At the end of the day if your brand slips, up social media will punish you, how you handle that is up to you. Articles, blogs, online discussions take place and can be damaging click the link, see the bottom of this web page for an example of Dell Hell sparking bad UGC: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/au g2005/tc20050825_2021.htm

Dell realised that the power of social media and decided to use this power to their advantage by creating Studio Dell and Ideastorm – A social media platform were people can promote positivity and complain about their problems. This meant that all aspects of the business can be addressed and improved quickly so the problem doesn’t escalate. Understanding key management challenges when dealing with social media is the vital to prevent negative UGC effecting sales growth on and offline. Dells chief blogger Lionel Menchaca says “ I agree with what Jarivis has to say: Instead of trying to control information that was made public, we should have simply corrected anything that was made inaccurate we didn’t do that and now were paying for it. Slideshare (2010). Preventing your customers from exploding you must fight fire with fire utilising web 2.0 and social media should be explored since customers have a desire to participate in social involvement it’s the key to understanding consumers. Bill Gates (left) Bono (middle) Michael Dell (Right)

Turning UGC’s to USP’s

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Are you loyal to a brand, why what makes you loyal to that brand? Ask yourself this question you may begin to understand, a rhyme I made up to get you thinking, sad but effective none the less. You also might be asking the question, what relevance does this have to social media? But this is a key element in encouraging internet users to produce good UGC for your business. By building strong bonds and relationships with consumers they will become advocates for the brand, in some sense brand disciples spreading the good message across social media platforms. The report so far express’s and gives evidence of the importance of social media impact on business’s but the key to utilising the effectiveness of customer opinions is to create brand advocates. This all boils down to knowing your target market well enough so your customers can form relationships with your brand (wanting people to become friends with your brand). To some people you might be thinking the obvious is being stated, but people wont shout about your brand over social media unless you turn your average customer from liking your brand, into actually being friends. Because we all no the social need to gossip about your friends to other people, this works the same with brands.

By giving them something to talk about this in turn creates a knock on affect leading people to advertise your brand. This is done via praising your brand online through comments on social media platforms, review sites and even to the extent of making viral ads for your company (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= hKoB0MHVBvM) This video currently boasts 13,036,278 views, so people have consciously chosen to engage. Engagement being the key word there. Dell report that’s estimate that the average customer is worth $210 (five year, net present value) whereas a detractor costs the company $57and a promoter generates $328emarketing excellence (2009). This shows the importance of people forming strong relationships with your brand in order to produce profit. The key to them promoting your brand is word of mouth, weather this be done whilst having coffee with a friend or by someone showcasing admiration for your brand on The Herald Blog. Word of mouth referrals are a powerful tool and key to creating a buzz around your business; social media sites provide that service with abundance. At the cutting edge of creating buzz for your brand is the viral campaign; ‘much of an advertiser’s work is done for them when their prospective customers forward it to their contacts quickly building up an audience of millions’, timesonline (2007).

Although this is not initially created by users they do your work in moving the ad across different platforms from YouTube to Facebook, from Facebook to a mobile phone, from a mobile phone to a purchase decision or at least creating discussions about your brand. Some of the most famous campaigns to receive recognition, are Tipex’s own You tube interactive video which increased Tipex sales by 30%, a goal that TV ad’s rarely Achieve. Please see hyperlinks for further information: http://www.buzzman.fr/casestudi es.php and (http://www.youtube.com/watch ?v=4ba1BqJ4S2M) . This ad engages consumers in interaction and quickly built up an audience of millions at costs that will surprise every marketing budget planner.

12 These types of innovative online viral ads could potentially drive the revenue out of traditional media as we know it. To understand the effectiveness of vials, you need really to compare them with traditional methods of advertising for instance TV ads. Long gone are the times when people trusted TV advertising. In the eyes of the consumer TV ads can seem biased, pushy and unconvincing. This is the great thing about vials, they aren’t deemed as threat to customers, letting customers choose when they want to engage with the brand; empowering them to manage the relationship, building trusts and emotion towards the brand.

Internet users are active they enjoy their power to speak their mind online, unlike the couch potato watching TV who is unimaginative. TV can be looked at as a lazy form of personal past time, internet users want to engage and be switched on.

The social media (UGC) creates buzz and discussion, if you see something on TV and have no one to discuss with at the time it can become irrelevant and a lost cause, but online through social media your thoughts can be heard immediately creating talk about a brand. Overall, social media (viral ads) adds some sort of value to the consumer, weather it is laughter, shock or just creating something to By giving the power to socialise with friends over consumer they choose when they networking platforms. By adding want to view the brand which gives value, this makes it appealing to the brand their full engagement the consumer which therefore which essentially the objective Ad builds a stronger relationship with agencies are looking to achieve. In that brand, even encouraging fact, in some ways, the battle for purchasing decisions, this is why 'share of time/attention' is even viral videos are so effective. more important than the battle for share of purse, because ‘if you don't win the first battle for attention - or 'engagement' – your chances of winning the second battle, for money, are greatly Reduced’, brand republic (2011).

Something that will be left open to discussion is the future of viral video’s. Will they become annoying to consumers, lose their magic that demands consumers engagement or will they continue to remain relevant and spread across different technologies like an unstoppable virus’s? No one can say at this point but one thing is clear, they are effective at present and should be utilised by businesses while the opportunity is available.

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One Blog every minute Digital Review

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One Born Every Minute

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Chief Editor: Patrick Zinga Chief Editor at Left Click Technology Solutions and esteemed author of One Blog Every Minute.

Blogs are vastly becoming the new homepages of the 21st Century. They are simple to produce and maintain, free and easy. Defined as ‘an online diary regularly updated by an individual or group with topical news and views’, Chaffey & Smith 2008 pg 485. They are created so the people can communicate with others that share the same interests and problems based on either personal experiences or knowledge. Just another way the consumers can communicate to each other online. ‘Brands need to think about the different new ways that consumers communicate’, Chaffey & Smith 2008 pg 114.

The web 2.0 concept has increased the prominence amongst website owners and developers also encouraging the creation of user generated content such as blogs Blog creation, in the beginning required a significant amount of technical know how, but the base of those creating and reading blogs, and the number of topics blogs cover, has expanded as the technology has become more accessible. ‘Blogs are gaining popularity in all spheres where traditional print media plays, including sports, politics and entertainment’ Innoblog [2007]. Reports are said there to be over ‘14.2m blogs based in the UK up from 7.8m in March, (BBC News 2005), giving consumers ‘global voices’ and allowing for the instant publication of ideas and interactive conversations, through comments, with friends or strangers. There is a vast range of blogs, but this section of the report specifically looks at how this form of communication of online consumer blog reviews can have effects on businesses and brands. Looking closely at the correlation between bad reviews and bad sales, weather the blogger is a force to be reckoned with or just another form of manipulation that the brand can utilise to feed information and promotions to attract and maintain customers.

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Why blog? Blogging gives the consumer ‘a global voice’, BBC News 2005, which in turn satisfies the need for self actualisation on Maslow’s hierarchy. It allows the consumer to promote their own power to reach a wider audience aside from friends and family duplicating the amount and effect of word of mouth, now seen as ‘word of web’, Forrester 1991. It seems that word of web is progressive as ‘55% of all new bloggers are still posting three months after they started’ but this also means that there are a big percentage of out of date blogs where people have started but feign interest after a period, making their opinions and information out of date or dismissive. There is an obvious relationship with ‘digital’ countries with good web access and the third world countries that have a large population but not that much people with web access (India consists of only 100,000 bloggers which is relatively low in comparison with their population stats), Riley 2005. The graph above shows how in the most technological advanced countries and the ones with higher population there is a high usage of bloggers. With this much people online, talking and passing information, the limits are endless, using this form of medium is sufficient enough to gather information based on facts and opinions from various sources. The problem with this is searching and finding the information that is relevant and specific to you, the person or business. Also there is a trust issue involved spoken of further in this report.

There is an obvious relationship with ‘digital’ countries with good web access and the third world countries that have a large population but not that much people with web access (India consists of only 100,000 bloggers which is relatively low in comparison with their population stats), Riley 2005.

The graph above shows how in the most technological advanced countries and the ones with higher population there is a high usage of bloggers. With this much people online, talking and passing information, the limits are endless, using this form of medium is sufficient enough to gather information based on facts and opinions from various sources. The problem with this is searching and finding the information that is relevant and specific to you, the person or business. Also there is a trust issue involved spoken, of further in this report.

“ You don’t write because you want to say something; you write because you’ve got something to say”- F. Scott Fitzgerald

PEOPLE VS BUSINESSES There are major differences in personal blog reviews compared to those on a business site reviews. Blogger and other similar site are looked on as real people writing real depictions of their personal experiences so there is a certain level of trust bestowed onto the bloggers, giving them more power than a review site. Review sites especially on brand sites such as Dell can be deleted, altered or the company can make there on reviews to balance out the negativity. The problem with this is authenticating where the review actually came from, be it a concerning consumer or a paid advertiser trying to manipulate peoples opinions. After all, anyone that has access to the web can create a blog be it a fan of a product or a person that detests a brand. These are the people brands have to be aware of, the die hard bad reviewers who believe they have more power entrusted upon them by the almighty blog.

Once again the effect of the ‘global voice’ has upsetting resolutions as people can abuse this power how they please. There are many blogging sites but the question is do people respect those seen as ‘professional’ bloggers or give more authority to the thoughts and opinions of random strangers Please check out the video below: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =N4ebLhBlQZs This video demonstrates the extent of the importance of blogging and consistent updating. A blog has to provide for continuity. Just like a normal website if a blog is not up to date then the hits of the blog decline, popularity of readership depends on the topics and relevance, making blogs vastly becoming mainstream media entities.

People vs Businesses

The Blogger - TheConsumer - The Business The Blogger Forester, 1991 pg 29 actually assed how the internet was soon going to be a social standing as the technology became cheaper and easier available, ‘the preceding century gave mankind the opportunity to bring about a new and better social system’. Forester continues to say that commercialism over the web was inevitable and by this the effects of prompting good service ‘is essential to extend good promotion online but predominantly offline’, (pg 30) reinforcing the fact that experience offline has an effect on people’s perception and what they go on to write about online – if a service in a store is appalling, it leads to the conclusion that the review will showcase the faults. This has become more important for businesses to assess bad reviews they get from these sites since they give clear and precise reasons and opinions on real peoples perception of the brand. It can prove to be damaging depending on the popularity of the blog since the web has given consumer experience the opportunity to reach more than the just the friends and families of the blogger. In the argument presented in Forester 1991 pg 131 ‘microworlds vs. the real world’ the concept of humankind living online is scrutinised. It begs the question if we engage more to our computer screens than people themselves, then computer acts as the middleman passing on the message.

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The idea that we speak more to friends and family over the internet is becoming truer each day as even the telephone is being overtaken by the web (for an individual this is cheaper than having broadband), ‘this paints the picture of the web as a substitute for a bar or club!’, Chaffey & Smith 2008 pg 115. This is due to the advances in technology as the latest phones have sufficient coverage enough for the person to carry the web with them. Bt already has WIFI open zone areas where it is free for consumers to get onto the web and with the UK government planning to make the UK completely switch to digital, the extent of Internet access availability will be overwhelming and this once again could be negative to a brand, if a consumer is unhappy it will probably take them only a few minutes to write a damning report and post in on their personal blog. ‘It can help elect presidents and take down attorney generals while simultaneously celebrating the minutiae of our everyday obsessions’, Wiseman 2008.

The Consumer: The main question about blogging is ‘is it really that important and does it have a sufficient voice or authority to change the attitudes of consumers?’, Wiseman (2008). There are many reasons why we blog and it predominantly depends on the individual weather or not they look to provide information about consumer experience offline, online

As there is a sufficient increase in the rise of people actually using user generated content such as blogging and social sites to voice their opinions, it is crucial that a brand can adapt and assess this new ‘social web’ trend. ‘The numbers, as shown (appropriately) on any blog show that growth is strong’, Innoblog (2007). Webs 2.0 has progressed and this report goes on to evaluate such technological advances in social media sites, we see that there is only room for improvement.

Access to the web is vastly growing and a brand or organisation has to ‘exploit the unique characteristics of digital media’, Chaffey & Smith (2008) pg 3. Technorati which is an online database that lets brands look up what is being blogged about them also allows consumers to look at the same information, making the searching of relevant information easier. The current trend shows expansion, but at the end of the day it all revolves around the consumer, so control of information provided is inexistent for brands, making life just that extra bit difficult. Usability is also major in maintain a consumers interest on a blog, ‘If adequate functionality has been chosen, reliability is ensured’, Forrester (1991) pg 170. If the system is easy to use, (not just to create but also to navigate) which most blog sites are then the traffic increases significantly, making the site more popular.

All factors in human goals, if correctly implemented can boost trafficking on a bloggers site, they are crucial to keep users less frustrated when navigating on any web page not just a blog. Blogs are easy to use; this is one of the reasons linked to its success. The real task it to deter consumers off hate blogs and make them come onto the brand blogs which a brand has more control of when it comes to content, making the brand more influential.

Blogs are consumer lead, ‘the same marketing principles apply weather online or offline’, Chaffey & Smith (2005) pg 17: •Get close to customers •Involve them •Serve them •Add value •Find the best ones •Nurture them and replicate them •Test measure and improve The Business Do blogs affect sales? It is hard to determine a relationship between seeing as this is still relatively new. Is all publicity good publicity? Google analytics can only determine weather people have your brand in their minds and show popularity by analysis of search words, which once again comes up with the problem in advertising - measuring on an opportunity level. Is the information you receive from these reports sufficient enough to alter company objectives or product and brand development? Once again we also have to look at its effect on SEO (search engine optimisation) ‘a structured approach used to increase the relative ranking position of a company or it’s products in search engines’, Chaffey & Smith (2008). ‘It relies on people tagging - giving keywords to - their blogs or blog posts so that its search engine can find them,’ BBC News (2005). With the use of search bots, it is established how much you are sought out and the more you are spoken about, through key phrases, the better it is for consumers to reach you, when needed. This can also be used to establish KPI (key performance indicators).

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‘Google and other similar businesses tend to score blogs quite highly, giving them added authority as new content tends to be regularly uploaded’ . (2010). This increases Donker the likelihood that the brand will be placed more highly on search results. As well as proving popular in keyword searches , blogs are also an informal way of providing information and entertainment to potential customers. There are easy ways to evaluate what is going on in the blogging world, with surveys such and sites such as Technorati, ‘a search engine that keeps track of what is happening in the blogosphere’, BBC News 2005. A brand can utilise this tool to assess their popularity on blogs. Brand blogs can give you an insight into consumer engagement, just as well as email or subscriptions can, valuable databases can also be formed. It’s all about having the correct employers and strategy when it comes to addressing and gathering the information, separating the importance of what is being said and crisis management to counteract the negative reviews etc. These blogs can also have rich internet applications ‘interactive applications which provide such as product selectors or games’, this can also help keep people interested in creating trafficking.

SWOTANALYSIS BRANDS AND BUSINESS BLOGS

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Brief Summary As to every online, consumption of the information is the most important factor, how the consumer gets there information and how easily they can access it. Of course it needs to be constantly kept up to date, If not updated it depreciates in value of content. Advertising online has increased ad spend as brands now what to measure engagement, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Digital marketing has meant that ad spend online is likely to increase to more than 40 Billionâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Shields, R (2010). Giving the ideal platform on which to promote offers and provide backlinks to the main portal. These in links can be appear personalised as they are directed to the specific consumer and topic discussed in the blog, (similar to affiliate marketing) bringing the potential customers to the products and services on offer. In this case, blogs can be used to provide a good, relevant internal linking structure to many pages within a brand website.

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The capabilities of behavioural target on blogs is extended as consumers can be assessed judging on their response to certain discussions, which leads on to customer profiling. brands can connect with their consumer and find out the answers who buys their products and why. This can be linked to social media site pages. Experimental marketing can also be utilised, items in production or even development ideas can be put forward in blog discussion and the company can judge on consumer response on how effective the item can be if massed produced.

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Blog Recommendations

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User generated content usually interlinks; if one person is blogging then they are probably on Facebook or twitter or have a YouTube account. To be effective you have to establish all of these and become good at them. The blog page above shows that every blog written by an individual has links to other user generated content, the need of validation is essential for consumers, so brands have to utilise this effectively. The list below shows obvious but influential recommendations: •Keep the blog up to date. •Keep it easy to read easy to take information from. •Test products through affiliate marketing and experimental marketing. Coupons and news updates on the brand •Make B2B strategy more effective, link everything together effectively. Trends alter differently in this sector of the internet market and to market to your target market more productively, a brand needs to know what they want the blog site or consumer review site to show them. How are they going to use the information provided? What impact will reviews have on the brand image? And how can they plan for any negative PR. If they can answer these questions and prepare for the worst, than they will become more effective, but more time need to be spent online to become online consumer behaviour gurus.

Brands should focus on obtaining more knowledge in this market, which can be extremely beneficial and help generate user brand blogs and brand advocates (people who advertise your brand without even realising it or getting paid) increasing customer loyalty. These are only a few things that make blogging and business a perfect match. There are a million other reasons as to why it is imperative to link blogs with business but ‘the best way to find out more about them is by using them’, Maghirang (2010). Mobile technology is doing really well and smart phones such as the Blackberry touch also allow you to blog, this opens so much opportunity for marketing potential, most free apps have advertising banners. It is easy to motivate and manipulate consumers but brands should never underestimate the power of the consumer blogger

‘’It's official acknowledgement on the part of MySpace that Facebook has indeed become top dog in the social networking space, and its better to be with them than against them at this point.“ Adam Ostrow

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Background

The history of Myspace began as a for-profit venture by eUniverse in 2003, bolstered by generous start-up money. MySpace was intended to compete with similar services such as Friendster to help people network with one another in an easy to use and enjoyable manner. The domain name was once used for a virtual data storage site, but it was re-purposed for what would come to be a far more lucrative business.

After Friendster was released in 2002, some eUniverse employees came together and decided to copy the more popular features of the website. The first version of MySpace was ready for launch ten days after they decided to do this. The MySpace start-up team had everything under control when they first launched. The MySpace project was overseen by Brad Greenspan, who was eUniverseâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s founder and CEO. He managed Chris De Wolfe, who was MySpaceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s managing CEO, Josh Berman, Tom Anderson, who was president, and a team of programmers provided by eUniverse.

The first users of MySpace were eUniverse employees. The company started a contest for the employees to see who could sign up the most users. After eUniverse had reached 20 million users on MySpace, they used them to put life into the network and make it number one. Toan Nguyen was a key architect and technology expert who helped MySpace to become what it is today. MySpace.com was a brand associate with YourZ.com. By 2004 MySpace.com made the transition from a storage site to a social-networking site. After the site had launched, Chris De Wolfe wanted to start charging a fee for the MySpace service. Brad Greenspan disagreed; he believed that keeping the site free was what would make it large and successful.

28 EUniverse was purchased in July of 2005 for $580 million. Rupert Murdochâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s News Corporation, who is the owner of Fox Broadcasting and other media enterprises, was the buyer. Of the $580 million, $327 million dollars was added to the current value of MySpace. One of MySpaceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s goals is to release versions of the network for multiple countries. They have already launched 28 international versions. Most of the users of the site are in their teens and early 20s, making it a very attractive market for advertisers. The nature of the site as a social networking but marketers have an access to vast amounts of data about the people who visit it. Early on the site's development, a decision was made to ensure that all of its features remain free to use. That has turned out to be a very profitable choice, as the rapid growth in the user base of the site as provided substantial revenue for the site. One interesting aspect of Myspace's development is the role that it has come to play for the music industry. Many popular bands use Myspace to provide free samples of their music and post news along with concert dates to promote themselves.

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It's become indispensable for established artists and new ones alike. MySpace shares an office building with its owner, Fox Interactive Media, in Beverly Hills, California. Fox Interactive Media is owned by News Corporation whose headquarters are in New York City. In 2006 MySpace was the most popular social networking website in the U.S.A. MySpace was overtaken in 2008 by its competitor Facebook. The 100 millionth account on MySpace was created in August 2006 .

Usability One of the reasons that Myspace has stood out from some of its competition is the ability for users to customize the HTML mark-up of their profile pages, making it far more customizable than that of their major competitor, Facebook. This also has the negative side-effect of subjecting many hundreds of thousands of people to some of the worst web design imaginable. The site also offers free blogs to all users along with some in-depth profiles that they can fill out to their heart's content. Throughout the course of 2007 and 2008, MySpace made many changes in the layout and function of the site. The userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home page was the first function that was redesigned. They added new features such as applications, status updates, and subscriptions. Facebook had many different and better functions then MySpace, so MySpace had to catch up

In 2008 the MySpace home page was designed into simpler layout that was more appealing to the eye. MySpace music was also recreated in the fall of 2008. â&#x20AC;˘

“Myspace is a platform for people to be whatever they want, so we’ve decided to give them the space to do it.” - Mike Macadaan

In October 2010, Myspace introduced new page layout to the audience. According to the article in Guardian The MySpace redesign: Voice of a generation - or dressed up to sell? They have dumped a lot of old features, including the logo and 'a place for friends' strap line. The main focus of the new site is music, as you might expect, and it's all about personalisation.

Right now it has everything you would expect in a music focused site, down to the rounded corners of the graphics. Their new look is more retro, design is cleaned up, tabs moved to the page top, and also contains news feeds of activity; musicians have new tools to design their pages; accounts can synchronise with Facebook and Twitter and there are loyalty badges for users.

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Here are some of the features of a personal profile on MySpace: • Moods a person picks an icon to display which type of mood they are in. • Blurbs, • Blogs - has standard fields for content, emotion, and media. • Multimedia: There are two blurbs, “Who I’d like to meet” and "About Me." In addition, profiles contain an "Interests" section and "Details" section. • "Status" • Zodiac Sign" • Photo gallery • Chat window • One of the images can be chosen to be the "default image”. • Playlist • Friends lists • Comments

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Control The change is part of MySpace’s new public commitment to privacy. The once-dominant social network’s stated goal is to simplify privacy settings, is to simplify settings and let users more clearly post updates publicly, to friends only, or publicly to anyone 18 or over. MySpace’s privacy strategy appears to be the exact opposite of Facebook’s current strategy, as late last year we saw the company dramatically alte privacy settings for members to encourage public updates. That move caught the company some flack, but controversy around Facebook’s “Like” button and Instant Personalization features dominate headlines now. Perhaps it is the perfect time for MySpace to strike. In a blog post on MySpace, Co-President Mike Jones doesn’t specifically call out Facebook, but writes that, “We respect our users’ desires to balance sharing and privacy, and never push our users to an uncomfortable privacy position.”

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Advertising The true value of social networks is just becoming clear to marketers. MySpace earned $820 million in ad revenue in 2008 the amount spent on advertising itself in the UK is tiny by comparison. This is more marked by the fact that social networks that have a greater market share in the UK are in fact lower spenders than MySpace.

Source: Mintel

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37 (...) One example of a social network directly advertising itself is MySpace, which launched a banner campaign in May 2009 featuring stop-motion animated toys acting out scenarios of using the social network’s new products and services. This isn’t necessarily money down the drain: Mintel’s research shows that the more advanced functions are still not well used within sites, such as playing games (used by 20% of respondents) and watching videos or listening to music (10%). These are activities that social networks need to encourage because they are revenue generators. In the case of gaming, especially virtual worlds, networks have the chance to profit from the sale of virtual goods (such as via game FarmVille which sells virtual farm equipment to allow users to advance). Greater use of video could also attract more advertisers to pay for in-video adverts as well as invest more into paid-for search. On 11th of January, the media published an information that MySpace releases more than 550 employees , currently numbering about 1100 people of the international staff. The message appeared, among Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph, and All Things D. The majority of employees in the service are U.S. citizens. Reductions also will include staff offices in China and Britain, which will be reduced to an absolute minimum. Exemptions are not so unexpected. At the end of 2010 newspapers reported about this possibility, and even in 2009, MySpace greatly diminished its staff. The workforce reduction is a result of the difficult situation the service, which leads to loss of its owner, News Corp.

B2B

When all the dust settles does anyone think this “partnership” between Facebook and MySpace will do anything to save MySpace? Last summer MySpace found a way to get MySpace status updates into Facebook. And last November at a special press event that everyone was invited they announced more integrations.

10% of MySpace traffic left the social network to search on Google anyway, so the formal relationship with Google makes sense from a customer retention and revenue generating standpoint.

Facebook Connect integration so that users can associate their MySpace accounts with their Facebook accounts and then log in to MySpace via Connect. Part of that is already live. MySpace will suck in as much profile information as possible and use it to help with advertising and the interest graph (bands, musicians etc). They have also announced that Facebook users will now be able to push all their Facebook status updates to MySpace. So Facebook stream will appear on MySpace profile. Now all MySpace has to do is figure out how to get at least some of those users to hang out at MySpace occasionally, not just at Facebook. In a few months, everybody will know if it worked and if there is any long term business for MySpace.

MySpace has also partnerships with SpringWidgets Beta, People Choice Awards, Windows Live Messenger and Hotmail, Ad.ly, an in-stream advertising platform and many more.

Google ‘Myspace and Google, Inc. today announced a multi-year agreement to renew and expand their long-standing search and advertising relationship. Under the terms of the new agreement, Google will continue to power Myspace search and search advertising and will also provide additional display advertising services to enhance the rich entertainment content experience inherent on Myspace. This agreement brings together Google’s expertise in search and advertising with Myspace’s strength in social entertainment.’ (MySpace.com) Of course, it is a great deal for News Corp because they have collaborated with the number one search engine provider and a company that has proven it can monetize traffic. It's been estimated by HitWise that www.facebook.com/leftclick

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B2C A music discovery tool

41 MySpace helps people express themselves and allows brands to try to relate to those expressions. Influence of marketing is an essential part of online marketing. DJs are still around, but they are not the only ones introducing people to new music. It’s about tapping into social capital and how people share the music they have discovered with other people. Myspace invites its users to be in that conversation and it depends on making people part of the experience.

’MySpace is still around — and it's still one of the most popular sites for musicians and bands to promote themselves.’

Users of the site can create profiles and post the recorded tracks in relevant section. Everyone can also find their favourite kind of music, listen to the new, fresh tracks. For many artists, internet users are the first listeners. Others, though already have a debut behind them, still put new music to promote their new albums. From the beginning MySpace was the forge of the young talents; it allows composers to exist, and to deal with the reaction of a virtual audience. Artists like: Lily Allen, Katie Nash, One Republic, Arctic Monkeys or Sean Kingston were discovered thanks to Myspace.

Almost every band has a MySpace page, which is a free and easy way to let people hear your music. But it's not necessarily a way to get discovered — there are more than 5 million artists registered on MySpace. www.facebook.com/leftclick

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Conclusions MySpace has become a niche service focusing mainly on musician, fans and bands. The announced changes may improve the current situation of the service, they also sound really appealing, but may not be enough. More importantly Myspace doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do a good job selling itself, it has a lot to do with spam, malware, hacks that seemed to overrun the site. MySpace has to realize that it is unable to compete with Facebook, which is consuming more markets (most recently defeated Zuckerberg site Orkut in India, a traditional bastion of Google's site.) The only way to survive is to find a new idea for themselves - and to offer their users something new, and fresh. Something, what they will not able to find on Facebook. For now, MySpace had set a specific goal: to become profitable till the end of the financial year (June 2011) . If it fails, (like analysts predict) within two years, service will be sold - for less than $ 300 million.

History In February 2004 Mr Zuckerberg launched "The Facebook", as it was originally known; the name taken from the sheets of paper distributed to freshmen, profiling students and staff. 1,200 Harvard students had signed up Within 24 hours, and after one month, over half of the undergraduate population had a profile on Facebook. It became Facebook.com in August 2005 after the address was purchased for $200,000. US high schools could sign up from September 2005, and then it began to spread worldwide, reaching UK universities the following month. Until September 2006, the network was extensive beyond educational institutions to everyone with a registered email address.

The site's features have kept developing during 2007. Facebook users could post free classified advertisements, give gifts to friends and even develop their own applications. As of Sep 2009, the company made that clear by announcing that they now have more that 300 million users, making it the largest social-networking site with an education focus. Recently, Facebook is the largest and fastest-growing online social networking site in the world. Besides its large audience, Facebook also has some of the most accomplished advertising tools. Advertisers can use this function attaches great importance to the consumer targeting movement and feed a specific audience segment in order to promote word of mouth marketing.

The site continues free to join, and makes a profit through advertising revenue. Yahoo and Google are among companies which have indicated interest in a buy-out.

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Why Facebook? Many of early social networking sites were short-lived because a lot of users lost interest. Three early decisions and innovations helped Facebook keep fresh in market share: Trusted identity combined with clearly defined networks: Most freshmen arrive on campus, they don’ t know anyone, and so rapid networking is critical. Confirming online identity, Facebook has become an obvious extension to the offline world. Everyone can join common interest groups in a Facebook network. In contrast, user s of many earlier social networking sites, the reason why they lost interest is when the quality of their networks became diluted with strangers. Without trusted identity and a clear formula for when to accept or reject friend requests, friend networks degraded to strangers, spam, and junk. Facebook’s decision to begin with limiting the number of schools on the service, and only gradually grow as it was able to get new

servers online had the added benefit of creating certain reputation of exclusiveness. Although Facebook is now open for anyone to join, its early positioning as an exclusive service helped make it seem more desirable and drive an essential mass of users. Early on, it was only possible to search, browse, and view profiles within one’s own network, which further helped to intensify the sense of trust on the site. In the meantime, Orkut and Myspace members were getting bombarded by message spam and connection requests from random strangers. Providing continual engagement: How to keep members engaged on a continual basis is one of the reasons why Facebook grew substantially. Facebook provides incentives for people to come back to the site – ‘wall posts, photos, new friends connections, videos tagged of the individual, and event RSVP people can broadcast updates about friends’ are just a few developed recent activities. A summary of updates across all of one’s

friends, called New Feeds, when people log in, is shown on the Facebook home page, and a summary of activity updates specific to each Facebook user appears on that individual‘s profile page wall. Paradoxically, the News Feed feature, which has proven so helpful to Facebook’s permanence, was initially a big source of argument. Feeds are now one of he top reasons why members keep returning to Facebook. Facebook has transformed from novel thrill to repeat destination, because of the continual sense of decency about the information. The concept of activity feeds has ever become a best practice copied by other Internet sites to sustain site traffic. If all of your friends are on facebook to share everything, you will also want to join in, and be a part of them, and interact with your friend group. People are less likely to join or change a different social network where you know fewer people. Facebook has over 110 MILLION users from all interest and business groups, it will be easy to find lots of people in the place market. The fastgrowing 25+ demographic to university students are building the social marketing promise-land. If people devote an hour a day to social marketing on Facebook, over time they can: Increase traffic numbers to website by the thousands • Get lots of relevant inbound links • Target the advertising • Advertise the business for free • Improve SEO with news feeds • Get the word out about yourself and your products

SWOT Strengths • The clean layout and the simplifying of the profile page All your personal information is in one place and all your applications are on one tab now called boxes. • Integration of Wall and Minifeed Makes Sharing Even Easier with one dedicated tab and a host of new features to play around with. • New Features • Facebook Notes can import their posts automatically and then tag Weaknesses • Initial Teething Problems • Harder To Customise • Harder To Judge by First impressions • No shortcuts on the Profile page • Viral Potential Restricted • Application Developers • Designed for Advertising • The Money Spot • Flash Distractions

Opportunities • A Great Place To Network to promote yourself, your business, your product or any services you offer . • Facebook Pages With the obvious refocus on advertising those who learn how to use facebook social adds will have a great opportunity to get very targeted advertising. • Marketing Tools polls and surveys which a range of powerful marketing tools • Integration With Other • Services allows users to link all their social media activities together sites like Digg. • Power structures will Change Threats • Facebook Is Now In Control what people see when they land on your page. • Spamming Wall spam has now become a much bigger issue with the merging of the mini feed and wall. • Allow More Choice to allow users to decide • Self Expression to be able to pick exactly what page is displayed to new visitors uld also be a good option to add. • Tagging directly into their profile page

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The Effects of Social Marketing

People can increase traffic to website by taking advantage of Facebook applications: Social marketing with Facebook Notes: If people want to set up a Facebook page that will pull people back over and over, then Notes great. Once install it people will see it on the applications list found on profile. If click on “mynotes” people will see a spot where they can add the RSS feed which will look something like this:[http://blog.YourSite.com/index.xml]. Facebook tends to have a morning rush hour — people come in to work and check Facebook. So think of the network’s time zone and try to have something new in the feed by around 7:30 – 8:00 am. Social marketing with Flog Blog: Another great application is Flog Blog which lets people add RSS items to Facebook profile, displaying the headline and lead sentence, lead paragraph, or a set number of characters. Posts displayed in Facebook profile can either link to blog or to the Flog Blog application’s “canvas page,” within Facebook. It will net more friends as well. In Facebook, people are watching what their friends are looking at. On top of that, people get to link back to their own website.

Social marketing with My Box +: people can add any HTML to Facebook page with this great little app. So start with an opt-in offer to email list. And take the opt-in code from people’s website, install My Box, and paste in the code. Then people can collect email addresses right from Facebook. On social implications: Reaching new audience Online social networking encourage entrepreneurial networks by offering casual interaction modes and the ability to support a greater number of weak ties. This is good news for marketers. Entrepreneurial networks can help brands build bridges from existing audience to new one. Social shopping and recommendations The future of shopping will be social. Social network members are already starting to engage with specific products and services through virtual gifts, friend recommendations, and e-commerce. Social network communities Online social networking sites provide an ideal medium for engaging with existing customers and building loyalty. Social network communities, such as Myspace group, Hi5 group,

49 The Activity Feed plug-in On engagement: Companies around the world are using Facebook to make the Web a more social place, and how to engage through social and personalized features. Users are creating word-of-mouth for events. Word-ofmouth has always been one of the most powerful tools of marketing. According to a survey conducted online by Nielsen in 2009 of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries, 90 percent of its consumers surveyed trust recommendations from people they know. The power of content sharing through mediums such as Facebook’s social plug-in can help leverage your brand and create word-of mouth. Your sites can become more social and engaging and have the potential to reach a vast network of users. It’s a service that’s worth trying and it’s easy to implement.

Displays the most interesting recent activity taking place on the site. Since the content is hosted by Facebook, the plug-in can display personalized content whether or not the user has logged into the site. The activity feed displays stories both when users like content on the site and when users share content from the site back to Facebook. The Recommendations plug-in shows personalized recommendations. Like Box The Like Box is a social plug-in that enables Facebook Page owners to attract and gain Likes from their own website. Login Button The shows profile pictures of the user's friends who have already signed up for your site in addition to a login button.

Social plugins: Like Button The Like button lets a user share your content with friends on Facebook. When the user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the user's friends' News Feed with a link back to your website.

Facepile The Facepile plugin displays the Facebook profile pictures of users who have liked your page or have signed up for your site. Live Stream The Live Stream plug in lets users visiting your sitand comments in real time.

Comments e or application share activity The Comments Box easily enables users to comment on your site's content — whether it's for a web page, article, photo, or other piece of content. Then the user can share the comment on Facebook on their Wall and in their friends' streams.

23% of Twitter followers follow businesses to find special promotions or sales, 25% of Customers connect with brands on Facebook to receive discounts. More than 50% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter users are more likely to make a purchase from the brands they follow. Facebook and Twitter visitors spend 1.5X more online that other Internet user. People can use Facebook Credits to buy digital goods in more than 150 social games and applications on Facebook. Facebook already collects 30% on purchases of virtual goods. Now estimated to be worth $5bn annually. But now itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s possible for brands with fan pages to display and sell products via Facebook. There are a numbers of 3rd platforms arriving on the market which allow anyone to build a Facebook ecommerce storefront meaning that consumers can purchase products without leaving the Facebook environment. Brands can sell through status updates and tab stores, ecommerce functionality stays with the post wherever it goes. Please access the video link belowďź&#x161; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jTZiNZVtQE In the US Facebook credits are not only available to buy online, but can also be picked up in local supermarkets, and started selling the gift cards in the lead up to Christmas. Now people can also buy Facebook credits in UK

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B2B Facebook will be releasing a feature that allows administrators of Facebook pages to publish their Facebook updates to their Twitter accounts automatically. This will only link Facebook Pages to Twitter, not the individual profile. If people want to manage a Facebook Page, now will be able to decide whether to share updates with their Twitter followers, and also will be able to control what type of updates to share: status updates, links, photos, notes, events or all of them. If people have multiple Pages, they will have the option to link each of those Pages to different Twitter accounts. This new feature will be soon be available at http://www.facebook.com/twitter.

51 A number of celebrities and organizations on Facebook are already using this feature to publish the content on their Facebook Page to Twitter and reach a wider audience. Twitter was a natural next step to link with Facebook Pages because it is a powerful tool for broadcasting short messages widely.

Facebook & SEO Microsoft and Facebook have announced a new partnership that brings “Like” data and profile search to Bing. The deal marks a big leap forward in social search and also represents a new advantage for Bing . Bing users now get an experience that’s customized using Facebook Instant Personalization. Yahoo had already been trialling the approach, using Google IDs. Facebook and Google IDs will work across all Yahoo services, apart from Yahoo email and instant messenger.

The future of social business The online social graph allows relationships and business goals, rather than technology limitations, to drive business strategies and decisions. In fact, in the best online social graph disappeared, fully integrated into the online and offline tasks, transactions, and interactions confirmed.

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Case study Victoria’s Secret PINK & Facebook Victoria’s Secret, a well-know U.S. retailer of sleepwear and lingerie, has a successful facebook page for its PINK line targeting high school and college students. Less than a year after establishing its official community on facebook, PINK has nearly on million fans who have collectively posted tens of thousands of wall posts, videos, photos, and discussion forum message. Any facebook member can become a fan of the PINK page. Members can post photos, access event, and participate in the discussion forum and wall. PINK then appears under the “page” section in the user’s profile, and as an ad(if had have been purchased) or social story in the News Feed when friends log in. Victoria’s Secret advertisers PINK through Myspace and Facebook, as well as partnership with MTV and youth-oriented blogs. According to those who follow the industry, the PINK brand seems to be the fastest-growing line launched in the history of the company.But Victoria’s Secret brand presence and influence doesn’t end there.

Besides the officially sanctioned PINK page, there are also over 500 usercreated groups dedicated to Victoria’s Secret, including over 300 dedicate to the PINK line. There are group such as “ obsessed with PINK*by Victoria’s Secret” “i’m addicted to Victoria’s Secret PINK, but damit make some bigger bra’s!” and “Victoria’s Secret PINK-at USC!!” they groups range from having a few members to tens of thousands of members, and play an important role in influencing how people engage with the Victoria’s Secret brand on facebook. In fact, a few dozen of these groups were started in response to an official contest announced on the PINK page challenging college women to nominate their school to be part of the PINK collegiate collection, special-edition styles branded with school colours and logos

The Future of social media

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The Future of Social Media

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Good marketers no the market upside down and inside out the importance of knowing what’s round the corner is vital to avoiding the dangers that may lie ahead. Is the future of social media Facebook that’s the question on everyone’s mind when it comes to advertiser’s digital spending budget.

Seemingly on paper this seems to be an excellent for Facebook and brands a like it will increase brand awareness, Facebook will become a more powerful tool being able to analyse peoples spending habits in relation to their profiles, it will encourage spending helping the growth of Facebook and the brands as it will become a powerful Big brands are looking to move to add purchasing tool. The likely hood of this being ecommerce to their sites with more than 500 a failing endeavour is up to debate as it million active users logging on to Facebook any hasn’t been fully tested yet but the theory given day its no wonder brands have taken upon behind the logic seems conclusive meaning themselves to try and increase their sales the implications to Facebook could make opportunities by using this vast social media Facebook one of the most powerful e platform Easy Jet look to be the first to introduce commerce tools on the net which only adds a fully functional e commerce page onto facebook to their already heavyweight champion Katie Stitson, UK marketing manager for Easy Jet, status. said, “The group holiday planner lets you coordinate dates and availability and invite your Facebook’s current competitors are looking friends via Facebook and email. We’re looking to for a route slip past the social media giants develop this further by adding booking but the door gets slammed shut every time. functionality.” nma (2010). New media trends Myspace once the Facebook of the web tried states that: 64% of respondents in a global study to regain market share by, looking to return by Sheraton Hotels & Resorts said they use social to growth and compete more effectively with media to make their travel plans. This provides Facebook. The main issue here is that the added evidence that this could be a successful loyal Myspace followers are mainly using tool for Easy jet to utilize but the question will Myspace as tool to share their passion of remain is Facebook appropriate for all types of music, chasing Facebook would seemingly be brands e commerce endeavours and how many a lost cause they now fall into niche category brands will take the same steps as Easy Jet of social networking and should focus on . what they do best music rather than trying to Another brand that has seemingly embraced this get back their market share of being social idea is online retail fashion brand ASOS. networking site for friends a clear brand Asos’sFacebook app will have the same status needs to be put out so people functionality as the Asos website, including addunderstand were exactly Myspace are to-basket, edit cart contents, check out and positioning themselves in the market or order-tracking features. It will also have increased Myspace could be looking at further looses. social media capabilities including the ability to "like" and share items and purchases with friends. Mintel (2009) states with the launch of new Items that are listed by users will also appear in tools, such as MySpace Music in December their friends' newsfeeds, with the capability to 2009 these strategies look to be the way click through to the Facebook store brandrepublic forward for Myspace in the current market. (2011). In relation to the power of UGC discussed in this report this is a great way to generate buzz around the brand.

Facebook does encounter some challenges mainly from their biggest rivals on the internet Google. Google are looking to launch Google me there has been speculation that this is just rumours but with many indicators suggest otherwise itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard to ignore this possibility. Whether or not they will be able to challenge Facebook in the social media game is yet to be convincing with clear examples from Google's previous social networking endeavours, Google Buzz and Orkut garnered lack-luster responses and low consumer retention - especially when compared to Facebook's 400 million active user base independent (2010). If they do manage to provide a successful social media site it will be healthy for the market as it will challenge Facebook to push themselves to excel at the moment their in a comfortable position and new threats will make the market work harder to develop Web 2.0 to fight against new competition. Facebookâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s growth and rapid innovation means that Google now has its first credible competitor â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but this is partly because the search engine has been a victim of its own success. In order to advertise on Google, brands bid on key search terms. However, as the search engine became recognised as the one type of online activity all brands had to get involved with, this had an inflationary effect (making it more expensive). This proved opportune for Facebook, which was able to offer lower prices, as well as greater marketing accountability (ie a wider range of tools to target users and measure the results of campaign mintel (2010).This could be the inspiration for Google big push to compete with Facebook in the social network market as they feel their advertising revenue is being threatened.

To Smart For Your Own Good Clear continuous growth in the mobile phone market as location services grow in sophisticated smart phones become key to retail strategies. Here brands will be able to differentiate themselves by offering useful tools that blend location (such as the nearest pub) with views of friends or others in the community (for example, whether or not it serves good food) Mintel (2010). The broadening of the app model will play a role, and marketers must find a way to deliver ads across a variety of devices this will be a key challenge as well as to create the kinds of content their targets want to consume magnetic pull will be key with advertising through mobile social media being welcome instead of annoying or interruptive. Social networking on smartphones will continue to grow as well as handsets designed to accommodate social networking will continue to encourage wider usage on the move. At the same time, marketing activity is also likely to be increasingly focused on mobile social networking, which will be compelling. Growing penetration of smartphones, as well as handsets to accommodate social networking, will continue to encourage wider usage on the move. This will be reinforced by increasing innovation from social networks to produce more compelling mobile applications that simplify that simplify and speed up the process of connecting with friends on the smaller screen Mintel (2010). Mintelâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s research shows that social networks are the second most popular internet mobile activity, accessed by 16% of internet users.

Future of Social Media

The two tables above show the clear indication of belief that advertisers in the US and the UK have in online digital advertising and the effectiveness of advertising on social media. UK social network ad spending will reach an estimated £275 million ($430 million) in 2012, more than double the £130 million ($203 million) spent in 2010. 2010 was a breakthrough year for social media in the UK emarketer (2010). The growth in advertising across social media is clear cut and shows a sustainable growth to continue in years to come with more people migrating to use digital social media platforms in their everyday life. emarketer estimates that 21.8 million people used social networks—almost half of the online population. By 2014, about 60% of all UK web users will be social networkers. One thing we can be sure on is that the growth in social media will remain strong and how high marketers value the effectiveness of advertising through social media.

With Facebook continuing to grow rapidly leaving rivals beneath their wings and with their CEO’s only dreaming of success’s of Facebook not to mention Facebook obviously got web giants Google fearing their grip over the internet. It seems to be there is continuing pressure for other social media concepts to compete with the big players sometimes if you can’t beat them your only option is to join them something Twitter seemed to realise yet some stubborn brands are unable to recognise the business opportunities. The main message is social media will play a massive role in our futures so embrace it now or be left in the past, just remember to be careful as with technological advances as were always only one step away from finding the next breakthrough in today’s technology driven world.

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End Report Summary Main Conclusion: Moore’s law states that the power of the chip duplicates every two years so the technology today will be far faster, better and easier to manage as years go on. User generated content is just at the beginning stages, it is so broad and vast right now which makes its success harder to determine. Despite this fact there are obvious signs that with technological advances, the drive of consumer illustrated articles, reviews, blogs or social sites will just continue to be as influential and essential as they are now. Recent trends show that this is a world of opinions and the want for these opinions to be shared has increased. As more people get more comfortable with the technology of web 2.0 and its advances, the need to ‘tell the world’ will increase significantly. Brands just have to learn to ride the wave but be consistently on top or otherwise risk drowning in bad publicity. Main Recommendations: Growth is foreseen and expansion of this market is unstoppable. The problem with this particular market is that control of user generated content is simply unattainable. This does not mean that control management should not be incorporated; instead it should be at the forefront of any brand development strategies, by interlinking the main corporate strategies with how they influence the consumer online, the brand produces less risk. Offline attitudes affect how people behave online. There will always be an unhappy consumer somewhere out there in the world, bad publicity is unavoidable no matter how good the brand is, to be successful in maintain a good overall public image the brand has drown out the voices of negativity and replace them with the positive, so much so that it easily counteracts the negative PR. Planning is the most important thing. Who knows where the road of consumer generated content research may take us, the incorporation of good management and the structure of the brand online is what will help drive sales. The market value of Facebook is extensive and has continuous growth, brands have to utilise this effectively through e- commerce. Retail strategy will be affected by broadband. What Next: E – Businesses will be most effective with user generated content, in the sense that evaluation will be simplified. B2C selling could prove to be more important and take over B2B as brands will be able to contact and reach customers directly. The world is soon becoming digital and our curiosity of different cultures and attitudes will drive us online. We purchase more online, we socialise more online, we are the new digital age and not only brands but also advertisers will have to follow this movement to be more effective is B2C selling

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Contact us: Left Click Research Agency Site: http://digitalmarketingnetwork.ni ng.com/group/leftclick Email: Insight@LeftClick.Com http://www.facebook.com/leftclic k http://www.twitter.com/leftclick .

Magazine Design Editor: George McCann Articles: Pages 8-13, 56-60 Magazine Writer/Editor: Patrick Zinga Articles: Pages 7, 14 â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 25, 61 Magazine Writer/Editor: Anna Wasko Articles: Pages 26-42 Magazine Writer: Haiya Tang Articles: Pages 43-55

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