Look no further than Yelp and Urban Spoon.com to see the immediate impact of Social Media Peer Groups (SMPGs) on business; in this case it’s the peer group that eats out, almost all of us. Last weekend I got an urge for Pizza, and after hearing a sports commentator talk all baseball season about how fantastic Amici’s East Coast Pizzeria was, my friend and I called in an order. I will spare you the details, but this is a great example of how social media can have direct impact on a startup restaurant business. There are many East coast transplants here in California, and sometimes we long for the taste of home -- and Pizza is one food that connects us. You can read my review on Yelp. If you are in the restaurant business, you need to be closely monitoring these sites.

SNCR 2009 Research Continued: INC. 500s Adoption of Social Media Growing

Last week I presented some key findings from SNCR’s The New Symbiosis of Professional Social Networks, so let’s take a look at more SNCR research. According to research presented by Nora Barnes of UMASS at SNCR, there has been a huge jump in the use of social media, blogging, and video since 2007-2009 by fast-growing small businesses in the US. But companies are still measuring success through hits and page views. Does this make sense? Here are my top ten takeaways from her excellent presentation, and I will elaborate on some actions for small business and startups.

1. Company websites are losing value.
2. Social networks are increasing in usage.
3. Social sites are now the primary tools of journalists.
4. Journalists are monitoring sentiment and voice in Twitter and in social network networks especially in blogs.
5. Twitter’s ranking increased significantly over last year.
6. Only 16% of the Fortune 500 has a corporate blog.
7.  Charities, nonprofits and higher education are way ahead of the Fortune 500.
8. Video is the fastest growing in 2008 & 2009.
9. Social networking growing faster on LinkedIn and also MySpace.
10. 51% of INC 500 have Twitter accounts

Actions

Takeaway 1: The fact that company websites are losing value represents a major behavioral shift for the Internet and signifies the coming of Web 2.0. This is very significant overall as many companies large and small think that the customer is going to come to them and they don’t realize this. Company websites are generally not easy to use, not globally or culturally fit for most users, and are fraught with antiquated assemblages of content.

Action: You must go where the customers are; don’t expect them to come to you!

Takeaways 2-4 are simply stating the obvious.

Action: Keep a close eye on what is being said about your company. Journalists are always digging for dirt and the negative, and now it is easier for them than ever.

Takeaway 5 is again stating the obvious, although some recent reports indicate that Twitter membership may be slowing, but that doesn’t account for interaction levels.

Action: Monitor some customers on Twitter and set up your account and tweet.

Takeaway 6 demonstrates that most of the Fortune 500 doesn’t understand social media or the importance of Web 2.0 technologies. When they feel the pain, they will react accordingly.

Action: Use the Web 2.0 platform and social media to gain competitive advantage over your larger competitors.

Takeaway 7: Charities, nonprofits and higher education are all community-oriented organizations and are leveraging social media to great advantage.

Action: Learn from their experiences and participate in their communities.

Takeaways 8-9 are again stating the obvious.

Action: We are a visual society. Leverage YouTube and other rich media platforms within SMPGs to build brand and understand customer needs.

Takeway 10 is somewhat curious in that 50% of the fastest-growing small businesses have Twitter accounts. But who in the company has the account?

Action: Look closely at your customers on Twitter and more closely at whom they are following; that is your influencer base.

Social networking is changing the face of human interaction and communications globally, and there is a strong link between social networking and global anthropology, particularly how this is changing the interactions and interrelationships between cultures. This is certainly an area that needs to be researched now and in the future. What will the impact of social media be on cultures and behaviors in the millennium? What do you think?

The Personality of Fish: Shipboard Life and Evil Phil’s Road to Nausea

Evil Phil was someone I spent many days at sea with. We worked side by side preserving specimens, mending plankton equipment, and retrieving buoys. Phil, who especially liked killing fish and sharks, studied myctophids, often called lantern fish. (We learned about their life history in an earlier blog this year.) Myctophids live in the deep ocean and have unusual personalities in that they use bioluminescence to communicate with each other during their nightly migrations up and down the water column. In the world of submariners they are part of what is referred to as a scattering layer. Scattering layers are very important to submarine commanders because when they are thick with organisms you can hide a nuclear submarine under them. Large pods of jellyfish at 300 meters, for example, are excellent sonar deflecting blankets that render sonar and hydro acoustics useless. On some of our cruises we would radio scattering layer coordinates at sea to Navy communications for distribution to the fleet.

Phil was an intense person with a great love for the ocean, but he was tough on people, especially wannabe scientists, new comers and summer interns. He loved to make people sea sick, and was very tough on everyone he supervised; you didn’t slack off on Phil, especially when he was the watch chief. Phil had a special sandwich he made only when he wanted to take a green horn over the edge. Seasick scientists would often gather in the Officers and Scientist’s galley during their first night at sea, and Phil would be waiting there to make his special peanut butter, lettuce and sardine sandwich. Phil would usually wait until two or three green people would gather in the galley and then make the sandwich slowly by putting two pieces of white bread down on the plate, and then he would smear a deep layer of peanut butter on each piece of the bread. Using a spoon, Phil would carve out a little depression in the peanut butter and fill it with sardine oil. Next would come a piece of lettuce for each side and then the sandwich would be assembled.

Making sure that the green scientists were watching, Phil would pick up the sandwich and squeeze it together and take a bite. The sight of oil dripping out of the bottom of the sandwich and combination of ingredients would quickly send the green horns into the head and over the edge into full blown seasickness. The peanut butter sardine lettuce sandwich actually tasted good, but Phil really delighted in other people’s misery especially at sea.  

Don’t let the Evil Phil’s in social media groups make your business life miserable, and don’t let them damage your business and/or brand. Monitor the SMPGs, identify and neutralize them where possible—because as I said in the last post, information in the SMPGs will travel at business velocities never seen before. Until next time great selling and marketing in the millennium.