Social Media Aggregation & Syndication

Keith GerrAMA Oregon Professional Development

What we’ll cover:

• Defining social media aggregation & syndication (SMAS)

• Navigating the landscape

• Tools/Techniques

• Where is SMAS headed?

Social Media Aggregation/Syndication - consolidation of inbound/outbound web-based feeds into a dashboard view for the purpose of creating efficiencies in:

• Monitoring

• Dialoguing

• Sharing

• Collaborating

• Measuring

• Filtering

• To-be-determined purposes

much more than simultaneously

updating your “status”

Current State

• SMAS market is rapidly growing and evolving with a mix of highly interoperable platforms

- Mix of free and paid services allows for low-cost trial/error

Current State

• SMAS market fractured by feature-set and platform support

- Need to consider time/skill-sets to tie things together

Current State

• No single robust tool exists yet that provides a holistic feature set

- Opportunity for enterprise data-application providers (SCRM, BI, E2.0) search engines and major social-nets to bring a full-featured solution to market

- Jive’s “Social Business Acceleration” suite is a close example

Segment Macro Micro Specialized Transformative

Definition

Supports large amount of social

streams

Messaging/dialogue focused

Supports limited number of social

streams

Messaging/dialogue focused

Focused on a specific function like monitoring or format delivery like

video and url shortening

Strong business focus

Includes listening platforms, SCRM, BI

SM management tools and enterprise 2.0

application providers

Example

SMAS segments we’ll dive into

Given the fast-evolving SMAS space, it’s important to determine selection criteria:

• Purpose - business, personal, both?

• Functionality - dialogue, monitor, syndicate, measurement etc. ?

• Scale - api, mobile, workflow, storage etc.?

• Interface - easy to use, customizable etc.?

Macro: FriendFeed

• Supports many social-feeds

• Individual/Group subscription and contribution

• Accessible from email, phone and IM

• API support

• Acquired by Facebook

Macro: Netvibes

• Supports many social-feeds

• Extremely widget friendly

• “Follower” and “Friend” support

• No analytics yet (they suggest using Google Analytics)

• Premium Dashboard service available (i.e. branded start pages)

Macro: Flock

• Social -browser (based on Mozilla Firefox architecture)

• Drag and drop functionality

• Supports many social feeds

• Blog editor and photo-upload tool built-in

• Me.dium feature allows for real-time co-surfing/interaction

Micro: TweetDeck

• Supports Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn

• Dialogue-friendly/customizable interface

• Geolocation enabled

• Analytics can be accessed if use Bit.ly url shortening

• Built-in video recording and watching (via 12seconds and Qik)

Micro: LinkedIn

• Robust personal/group/company networking

• Application integrations w/ Slideshare, Wordpress, Company Buzz, Twitter, iPhone etc.

• Poll syndication widget

• Premium subscription provides stats on visitors

Specialized: Socialmention

• Free keyword-based monitoring

• Can search by blogs, microblogs, comments, events, image, video etc.

• Real-time “buzz” widget

• Data export feature

Specialized: TubeMogul

• Multi-site video uploader

• Free and premium versions available

• Cross-platform analysis

• Multi-user and multi-campaign functionality

Specialized: bit.ly

• Url shortening service

• Allows for real-time link tracking

• Growing API integration includes Twitter, Google Reader and TypePad

• Pro account allows for branded urls (i.e. onion.com or tcrn.ch)

Specialized: Digg

• Crowd-sourced content curation and rating

• Facebook Connect integration

• Community comment threads

• Promote interests/follow others

Transformative: Radian6

• Listening and dialogue platform

• Provides workflow features

• Pulls from wide range of social data (blogs, forums, social-nets etc.)

• Growing API integration with enterprise systems like CRM and analytic platforms (i.e. Salesforce.com integration for prospect/lead management)

Transformative: Buddy Media Platform

• SM production/management system

• Facebook and Twitter client integrated

• Listening capabilities

• Real-time SM campaign analytics

Transformative: Jive Market Engagement

• Jive acquired Filtrbox and are developing integrated solutions

• Social media monitoring and engagement

• Create “Observations Walls” for internal learning/commentary

• Robust analytics

Where is SMAS headed?

• Increasing market demand for a “one-stop”, hosted SMAS solution will drive rapid innovation and consolidation

- Likely to see horizontal and vertical product segmentation: personal productivity, SMB, enterprise, industry, trade

eCairn - focused on “influencer” management

Cision - focused on Public Relations

Where is SMAS headed?

• Custom builds by agencies, social business consultancies other web integrators

- Similar to custom CMS/email solutions, “productization” of social media management tools/dashboards will be looked at as a revenue growth area

Ogilvy PR and Tribal DDB partner with Netvibes

Where is SMAS headed?

• Consolidation among macro, micro and specialized players

- Acquisition/mergers will increase as aggregators are forced to integrate growing social media properties/platforms/features to retain/expand audience

Brightcove partners with TubeMogul

Where is SMAS headed?

• Transformative players will continue to load-on BI and contact-center capabilities

- As SM listening/monitoring services become commoditized, transformative players will need advanced customer intelligence and engagement features to “grow” with paid client-base

Filtrbox acquired by Jive

Where is SMAS headed?

• Social Customer Relationship Management (SCRM)

- Existing and new CRM entrants are introducing cloud-based platforms that provide flexible integration with social media and other enterprise systems (SFA, CMS etc.) that leverages/enables peer:peer/peer:pro dialogue

Salesforce.com integrates with Radian6

Where is SMAS headed?

• Google/Facebook

- Both have the audience scale and technical resources to become a defacto aggregation hub (i.e.Google Wave/Analytics/Social Search and Facebook Connect)

Facebook acquires FriendFeed

Continuing down the SMAS path

• Prioritize current/future needs

• Evaluate tools from a business and technical administration perspective

• Don’t overlook aggregation/syndication features within existing social-nets

• Product reviews, social bookmarks, survey responses - they’re all part of the mix

Thank You

keith@krgmarketing.com 503.957.0264 twitter.com/keithgerr