Media Week

Random House the giant book publishers is actively engaging with social media networks and having some success.

I heard Ross (can't remember her surname - sorry) talking about their social media initiatives at today's e-consultancy social media event.

Random House has run campaigns with You Tube, Bebo, Second Life and Facebook. Sometimes helping to organise author pages with special discount offers on books and through more innovative competitions.

Louis Walsh of X Factor Fame has a book coming out and Random House is promoting it on You Tube by inviting people to send in videos of themselves singing. The winner will see theirs turned into a professional pop video.

Ross had some valuable tips on what the Random House social media marketing team had learned from engaging with the likes of Facebook etc:

One size does not fit all (ie all social media networks are different and you have to respect and understand the different environments)

Sometimes you can muck up (this is a new medium and we are in an experimental phase). If you put your commercial goods out there you cannot control how they will be received.

Be transparent and authentic (say who you are and what you are doing) in order to gain credibility

 Plan resources and responses (it takes time to monitor social media campaigns and update them)

Go with the flow! Don't try and impose pre-conceived plans on social media network campaigns. They could always take a particular turn which you were not expecting which could turn to your advantage.

Think about the possible negative aspects of social media engagement and what you will allow.

It was really encouraging to see senior management at Random House are enabling the marketing team to experiment with all the different niche areas in social media. 

Just went to a very interesting social media event today run by the e-consultancy. Will McInnes (www.nixonmcinnes.co.uk), who I know, gave an interesting talk about the need for organisations to not see themselves as online destinations.Will argued that companies must now see themselves as platforms. Rather than the Eiffel Tower (destination), companies should see their online presence as more akin to a railway platform where people can come and go. Sites no longer function as stones at Stone Hedge but more like a coral reef. Sites are now part of a wider ecosystem, Will argued, and in order to become part of the new web companies need to give something away. They need to share. They need to think what can we offer which would be useful. Just broadcasting out messages will not work and organisations need to learn to give up control which is hard for traditional marketeers.

Just bought Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams which is a fascinating overview of the changes in society being driven by the new Web.

'We're all participating in the rise of a global, ubiquitous platform for computation and collaboration that is reshaping every aspect of human affairs,' write the authors. The book, which I haven't finished, urges firms to engage and cocreate in a dynamic fashion with everyone - partners, competitors, educators, government and most of all customers. The authors are urging companies to open their doors and pretty much share everything including key data and software to grow and innovate for the future. There are some great passages on the death of the old web (the 'read only web') and also the coming impact of the net generation on business and culture.

Anyone else read any inspiring books in this space?

David Burden has written an interesting piece in the FT today about social networking tools and how businesses cannot ignore them.

There are still many communications people out there who think web 2.0 is just a bubble which is going to burst. But it isn't. They fail to grasp that everyone now has a voice, using the latest web tools, as David Burden clearly points out.

He says the most dangerous thing businesses can do is to ignore the social netowrking phenomenon. He adds, 'It is not going to go away.' That should be signposted on the doors of marketing directors and press offices up and down the land.

What's also refreshing about Burden's piece is that he is prepared to talk about the positives of social networking. So much of the time people are fearful about a comment on a blog or what people might say if they join a conversation or introduce themselves on a social media network. And of course you have to be smart and heed the rules of the blogosphere: be honest, respectful, personal and not cold and corporate. Still the benefits for businesses are immense by joining conversations they can influence them. Let's hope the FT article starts to change the culture.