Tagged with 'myspace'

What? IBM hasn't called back?

We’ve heard the anecdotal stories about colleges and employers checking out FaceBook and MySpace pages to vet potential applicants, but I’ve often wondered just how true those stories are. Being human, our defense mechanisms tend to kick in when faced with disappointment, and this always sounded like one to me. Did you really miss out on that job with PepsiCo because your FaceBook page said something disparaging about FunYuns?   But apparently a recently released study says it’s true.

The study, conducted by UMass Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research and led by Eric Mattson and  Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D.,  is the  first longitudinal study of social media in US college admissions offices. Just as last year’s study revealed, not only are schools using social media to engage students, a number of schools are also using it to research students. Twenty-three percent use search engines and seventeen percent use social networks. The admissions offices interviewed admitted to using Google, Yahoo, MySpace, and FaceBook to research students and verify information about them, typically when they were candidates for scholarships and high-demand spots in programs with limited space.

“In all these cases the intent was to protect the school from potential embarrassment. No school wants to announce the winner of a prestigious scholarship only to have compromising pictures be discovered on the Internet the next day. There were no reports of checking every applicant to an institution, no matter how small the school. Online research appears to be more of a precaution at this point or a source of additional information for critical decision making.”

That’s good news.  Schools will still be using tradition determining factors for admission, too, so don’t cancel payment on SAT prep class yet.

But the study was really about much more than checking up on students. It revisits college admissions offices one year after the group’s first study to compare current use of social media by college admissions offices in areas familiarity, usage, and importance of social media.  College admissions offices still lead Fortune and Inc. 500 companies in blogging, with 39% of colleges using them compared to 13% (Fortune 500) and 39% (Inc. 500).

Colleges still leading companies in social media use

It’s not surprising that colleges who are trying to reach the wired generation are still leading Fortune 500 and Inc 500 companies at adopting social media, but the increase in the adoption rate in one year is pretty amazing. Usage of at least one form of social media in college admissions offices is up from 61% to 84% with social networking being the top tool, though all tools studied saw an increase in usage. Videoblogging and blogging were numbers two and three. However, when looking at effectiveness of using these tools, the study has this to say:

“There is evidence of enthusiasm and eagerness to embrace these new communications tools but there is also evidence that these powerful tools are not being utilized to their potential. Schools using social media must learn the “rules of engagement” in the online world in order to maximize their effectiveness.”

We’ve mentioned in the past the ongoing debate about conversing with customers (in this case students) versus talking at them.  This study seems to support the notion that successful blogging is more about engaging in conversation than search engine referrals.

“The mantra of the blogosphere is “conversation.” Blogs that are unattended lose their audience. In the 2007 study 37% of those schools with blogs did not accept comments. By any measure, this is a problem if the goal is to connect with prospective students through ongoing conversation with the school. In 2008 that figure dropped to 22%.

“For students and their parents looking to have a conversation online about particular aspects of university life, this increased interaction through comments can be significant. With more and more schools moving into multiple channels of social media, schools that don’t allow for conversation will quickly be passed by. Schools are clearly learning to use social media more effectively. “

There’s much more about this in the free executive summary you can download. But another interesting observation reveals that schools are also monitoring the internet for chatter about their institutions. About half the US schools used a simple Google search to keep up with the buzz.  The ones that did monitor the buzz tended to be smaller, private schools with higher tuition, (i.e., the ones you need more free money to attend), the same schools that were also using social media to research potential students and scholarship applicants. Bummer.

MCATs 8am sharp

So before you (or your kid) post that picture of yourself half-naked and drunk on your dorm room floor, ask yourself how bad you want that medical school scholarship and keep in mind what us old people learned about sexual harassment in the ‘90s. If you wouldn’t say it, do it, or show it, in front of your mother, your sister, or your wife (or in his case, your college admissions director), don’t say it, do it, or post it on your MySpace page—assuming certain dysfunctional family situations don’t apply.

The South By Southwest Interactive panel picker has done its duty and about 60 panels were announced last week, but one still caught my eye that did not get selected: Social Media for Luxury Brands and Brands With Issues. It looks like a very interesting discussion. One line from their abstract states what I would consider to be the crux of the issue of involvement in social media for luxury brands – “Some high-end brands fear getting their hands dirty by mixing with the masses.”

That’s no longer true for Cartier who overcame any supposed fear and got their hands dirty on MySpace last summer. I for one was surprised that Cartier has a MySpace presence. See and hear http://www.myspace.com/lovebycartier for the actual page and to view their 4048 friends.

The world’s most desirable luxury brands according to Forbes magazine include Gucci, Chanel, Calvin Klein, Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior. These are the brands that respondents to the survey would buy if money were no object. If you haven’t seen the site Brand Tags yet, check out the tags for Louis Vuitton (here’s a hint: expensive luxury bags are the top three tags).

One of Cartier’s stated goals with a MySpace campaign was to market to a younger crowd, but Cartier is not just after the teenyboppers instant messaging with their friends about their latest crush. MySpace says that fully 85% of their U.S.-based users are over 18 so Cartier’s definition of young may be 20-somethings.

According to the Forbes article, though, United Arab Emirates and Hong Kong are the world leaders in luxury goods consumption. So perhaps there’s a mismatch in the MySpace “walled garden” eyeball/audience tendency and the most likely luxury brand consumer.

No matter the analysis of effectiveness of reaching their target, the reality is that all brands are seeking the viral nature and virtual word-of-mouth marketing that social media offers. What brands do you wish were more “hip” online for you to share with others? Which brands have you tuned out on your favorite social media sites?

I’ve been harping on the importance of fully integrating social media tactics with your company’s marketing strategy and business goals for awhile now. This week, I came across two examples that illustrate my point.

Apparently, Cartier is the first luxury brand to market itself on a mainstream social network – MySpace. My first reaction was: why MySpace?! It’s interesting that out of all the social networks to choose from, Cartier had to choose the one that had a reputation for being: creepy, sketchy, sleazy, and full of perverts, pedophiles, predators and porn. The article talks about how Cartier had to police the people who were friending the brand in order to “respect the brand’s objectives” (if you have pictures of yourself drinking beer at a party, sorry, you can’t be a friend of Cartier). Again, why MySpace?

Taking a step back – why market on a social network in the first place? How does that fit with Cartier’s business goals or branding strategy? It’s true that the current recession has hit luxury brands hard, with people cutting down on spending across the board. Even Louis Vuitton advertised on television for the first time. But is having an official presence on a social network to reach a younger audience worth the risk of diluting the brand? (Unofficial fan pages created by users are a different story for another post.)

At the other end of the spectrum, there is Threadless, a company that grew organically from an online community and is built on a social network. Users submit their T-shirt designs, vote for their favorites, and those favorites are produced and sold. Unlike most retailers, Threadless doesn’t have an inventory problem – and why should they? The T-shirts that are produced are the ones the community has already indicated a desire for. It is the pipedream of every retailer – to be able to know beforehand exactly what consumers want.

In the case of Threadless, the social network and community aspects are so fully integrated into the company that “the Threadless brand is not the shirts but the community experience,” writes Max Chafkin. Jeff Lieberman, quoted in Chafkin’s article, goes so far as to claim that “to say it’s just a T-shirt company is absurd. I look at it as a community company that happens to use T-shirts as a canvas.”

Not every company will be able to achieve the level of integration of social media that Threadless has. In fact, most probably won’t. The point is that social media tactics need to be part of something bigger – part of the business strategy and goals, and part of the company’s culture, from top to bottom.