This article was written in 2017. Still felt relevant, might delete later.
Logging on to Facebook this morning I was served a cute video acknowledging it's 10 years since I joined Facebook - 26th July 2007. I remember this clearly. At the time I was running marketing for C4 – a music television channel targeting 15-24 year olds - and a younger / cooler brand manager had recently suggested that we should "do twitter".
The whole C4 office joined Facebook about the same time and we all went on befriending rampages - or what we now know as a 'period of acquisition'. We gave someone in the office the job of "doing twitter" (a title that has now evolved to Social Media Director or similar), and that person has gone on to have a highly successful career in digital marketing and social media.
Given Facebook was only opened to all in 2006, starting C4's presence in 2007 did make us a relatively early adopter. With that came the opportunity to build a large community, being active in the space ahead of others. There were challenges no doubt, not least was starting every status update with the word "IS" (thankfully that didn't last for long!). The true potential of Facebook as an enabler of live viewer discussion wasn't immediately harnessed – we were still taking comments through mobile text – thinking we were very flash moderating these then putting on screen. Still, being amongst first movers, C4 was able to build a really large community (nearly 100,000* from memory by 2009). Luckily for C4 – the shows were largely live (albeit cheap) local formats, an advantage when it came to social media. We realised we could engage in live discussion – linking social media to onscreen – game changer! Not so for those channels more reliant on big international formats. It soon became apparent there was a major issue with social media and international shows (at that time screening in NZ long after international airing). That issue was spoilers - and lots of them. Social media communities for international shows (which made up the majority of programming schedules at that point) were talking about events that – shock horror – hadn't aired on NZ screens as yet! Quite the conundrum. This along with other advances and loop holes made it soon apparent that screening shows long after international air dates was not sustainable. Chasing distributors around reminding them to geo-block content was not entirely efficient or effective. I was always taken by the politeness of some viewers online - "Letting you know if you don't screen this at the same time as it screens internationally I will stream it." Very fair.
Enter a short era where channels made songs and dances about taglines such as "Express from the US" - campaigns celebrating shortened time frames between international and local screening dates. A massive injection of local shows over the years meant we were able to build social media communities who engaged in real time and relevant conversation – not only with each other but also the programme (I had moved on from C4 at this point to a more mainstream channel). NZ viewers were watching it together, in an absolute sickening display of togetherness engaging online as they watched. This was pretty interesting. We did a lot of presentations about this. "They're talking online whilst they watch the show!" Cue ‘multi platform viewing experiences' and such terms.
For a period of time, MediaWorks was way ahead here. Huge communities were built. The great thing about them? With these formats (such as The Block) community size can be built on season by season - despite it being less about size anymore but about engagement (the % of those actively engaging with the content).
One of my most interesting social media observations over the years was when Twitter (and Facebook) reached a particular frenzy one night – an episode now known as NataliaKillsgate (or, when X Factor NZ broke the internet). Looking at minute by minute ratings the next day, a gigantic spike in online talk had driven a ratings lift. This was the first measurable direct correlation I had seen between ratings and social velocity – interesting for obvious reasons which I always meant to go back and analyze further. But alas, it was a busy few days.
After media, I moved into tourism – and a whole new world of UGC and social influencers, literally driving industry. Since the day we decided to "do twitter", a level of sophistication has developed at rapid pace as we've all worked out how to use which platforms in which way (to – reach the right people with the right message at the right time), we've (all of us, you included) developed best practises (that will no doubt have changed drastically in another 10 years time) and spawned seriously clever and complex content marketing strategies and experts – "social media advisors" - who have taken the time and energy to really get their head around all of this and keep us informed (aka Cate Owen – thank you!) - all the while spending many hours trying to prove social media ROI to powers that be.
Anyway, the point of this stream of consciousness and walk down memory lane was simply to acknowledge – 10 years of my using Facebook today! Inspired by a suggestion to "do twitter" from an up-with-the play brand manager. Thanks for the acknowledgement Facebook, it's been fun. To celebrate, I'll write about it on LinkedIn. And not mention Myspace.
Social Media – making my life even more interesting and connected - since 26th July 2007.
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