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This weekend the makers and marketers of Motrin saw the power of Social Media…but not in a positive way.  The whole mishap began when Motrin released a new commercial aimed at mothers who carry their babies in slings and harnesses.

The commercial, which was attempting to be light-hearted, ended up offending mothers by insinuating that, among other things, they’re doing it because it’s fashionable.  It’s easy to see why some would be offended, it is a poorly crafted message that seems condescending.  And, as Jeremiah Owyang states, it is hard to imagine that Motrin tested this message before pushing this ad out.

But by Saturday it was the most Tweeted subject on Twitter. By Sunday there was a video up on YouTube highlighting the angry Tweets along with photos of mothers and their babies.  And by Monday the issue had made it to the New York Times blog.  Around that same time an apology had been issued by Motrin along with a promise to pull the offensive ad.

Now, many top marketers and social media thinkers have spoken on the things Motrin did wrong.  Jeremiah Owyang’s “Lessons” are well put:

Lessons Learned

• Always test your campaign with a small segment first

• Always have staff on hand to be prepared to respond during the weekend

• Don’t launch a campaign right before the weekend unless you’re prepared to respond

• The participants have the power, so participate

• For better or for worse, more influencers are talking about Motrin than ever before

All is Not Lost

There are a couple of winners in this scenario.  The biggest is Social Media.  You can bet that if companies didn’t consider Social Media in their campaigns before, many will now.  And ultimately Motrin wins something for the added bump in brand awareness, regardless of the negative nature.  That’s one small step for Motrin and one giant leap for Social Media.  Thanks Motrin!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

We are proud to announce that the Next2Friends Social Suite is now available for the iPhone.  That’s right, owners of one of the most talked about phones in the world can now utilize the Next2Friends bundle of mobile tools to snap and upload photos in two clicks, easily interact with one another from their phones, create opinion polls on the move and meet others based on their real time proximity.

It’s been great getting to know all of our new members. There have been hundreds of new photos streaming to the site from all those iPhones through Next2Friends SnapUp.  Here’s one:

We want to extend a warm welcome to all our new members!  Thanks for making Next2Friends an even better place to be, and by all means, drop by and say hello!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

A very interesting study was commissioned by AT&T and conducted by Dynamic Markets that found that Social Networking facilitates higher efficiency and creativity in the workplace.

“The study, conducted by Dynamic Markets on behalf of AT&T, reveals:

• 65% of employees surveyed say that social networking sites have made them and/or their colleagues more efficient
• 63% say they have enabled them and their colleagues to achieve things that would not otherwise have been possible
• 46% say they have sparked ideas and creativity for them personally

The Top 5 social networking tools being used as part of everyday working life are:

1. Companies’ own collaboration sites on intranets (39%)
2. Internal forums within the company (20%)
3. Company-produced video material shared on intranets (16%)
4. Online social networks, such as LinkedIn and Facebook (15%)
5. External collaboration sites on the web and internal blogging sites (both 11%)

The study and corresponding White Paper look at many aspects of Social Networking in the workplace.  Perhaps the most telling were the predictions.  They read like Social Media commandments:

1. Corporations Will Change the Way They Communicate
2. Corporations Will Change Their Vision
3. Corporations Will Change Their Organization
4. Collective Intelligence and Customer Experience Will Lead Innovation
5. Networking Will Be Key to Employee Excellence
6. Employee Mobility Will Increase
7. Corporations Will Adapt Their Motivation and Career Path Systems
8. IT/Telecoms Applications Will Mutate
9. Corporate Adoption Will Happen at Different Speeds
10. Social Networking May Allow Increased Revenue

You can read the corresponding explanations in the White Paper but the titles are sufficient to get an idea how sweeping the changes brought about by Social Networks and Social Media will be on the corporations of the future.  Changes that we have believed in from the beginning at Next2Friends.  Even if half these predictions come true we’re still looking at a revolution in the way people communicate, collaborate and get their work done!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

We were trolling videos this week and came across something that exemplifies the power of Next2Friends.  When we began about a year ago we had some very cute and delightful videos submitted to us was by Hash of his daughter Aimen. One was a hilarious situation Aimen got in with her crib. Have a look (don’t worry, he assures us she was ok):

Another was Aimen learning to make kissing noises:

But what got our attention was a video shot this week of Aimen rolling out roti.  Like all kids she is growing up fast, but because of Next2Friends we have gotten to watch it all take place from the other side of the world!  Truly amazing!  And such a great example of the way that mobile tools can truly bring us closer.  Keep the videos coming Hash, and because of Next2Friends, we look forward to watching your beautiful daughter grow even more!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

There is no doubt that technology can greatly influence society and thereby politics.  Consider how greatly the printing press came to effected Europe’s Reformation, the Renaissance, the Scientific Revolution, or the American Revolution and Civil War. Then fast forward to the effect of the telegraph or the first televised presidential debates. With the use of the internet and particularly Social Media  we are seeing yet another sea change in the way people gather information and are influenced by technology.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project conducted research in June that outline this shift.  In 2008, nearly half of Americans (46%) used the internet, email or a text messaging to get news about the presidential campaign, share their views, or mobilize others. Further, the most common online activities were watching online videos, social networking and making campaign donations.  In many cases use of these technologies have doubled or tripled since just 2004.

• 35% of Americans say they have watched online political videos - nearly triple the level of the 2004 race.
• 10% say they have used social-networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace to gather information or become involved. Two-thirds of internet users under the age of 30 have a social-networking profile, and half of these use social networking sites to get or share information about politics or the campaigns.
• 6% of Americans have made political contributions online, compared with 2% who did during the entire 2004 campaign.

Jeremiah Owyang did some quick election day social networking number crunching as well.  He found that in nearly all instances Barack Obama has far outpaced John McCain in the use of Social Media.  Barack Obama has 380% more Facebook and Myspace friends, almost a 1000% more Youtube views and 240 times the number of Twitter followers.  Will this mean that he will be the next President of the United States?  Not necessarily, but you can be sure that future elections will have a growing Social Media component. Good luck to both candidates and regardless of who wins, it will be interesting to see how our new leader deals with the difficult times ahead.

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

Forrester Research, which publishes surveys and data around social media usage, has come out with their 2008 Technographics Data.  Don’t let the name scare you.  Technographics is Forrester’s method of analyzing consumer behavior.  Here is a nice visual of how they categorize people “technographically”:

As you can see they’ve devided people up into 6 different categories based on their level of involvment with social media.  So to find the information Forrester compiled data from tens of thousands of people in North America, Canada, Europe and Asia. Their results were very telling.

All categories have seen an increase besides “inactives”.  The number of “spectators” increased by a whopping 21 percentage points.  That means more people are on the sidelines watching the action even if they aren’t participating by being “joiners” or “critics”.  But “joiners”, “collectors”, “critics” and “creators” all saw an increase over the past year.  But let’s return to those “inactives” a minute, they’ve nearly halved over the year!  That’s right, that means the number of people untouched by technology is shrinking.

As Josh Bernoff puts it on the Forrester blog, “If you think social technology is about to become a universal phenomenon, we just handed you a nice little bundle of evidence.”  Indeed you did!

Use of social media has seen it’s greatest growth among people 33-45 years old, with 45-54 year olds also posting modest gains as well.  Josh puts it best again,

“It will soon be no more remarkable that your grandmother reads a blog than that she reads email. Social content is going mainstream. Social content ranks high on search engines because it changes so frequently and gets linked to more often, so more and more online adults are becoming exposed to it, accepting it, and embracing it.”

Not sure we’re ready for that one, grandma, are you reading this!?!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!

We’ve been hard at work lately developing all sorts of new features and improvements.  The biggest of which was our development of Next2Friends Live for RIM’s BlackBerry Curve and Pearl.  But something slipped by virtually unnoticed lately (except by our members) and that is the launch of the Next2Friends Live embeddable widget.

Essentially it is a widget that displays your live videos.  You can embed it into anywhere that will let you use HTML code, like Myspace or a personal website.  It’s quite simple to use, just copy the embed code from the landing page of your (or anyone’s) Next2Friends Profile, paste it and away you go:

Already members are jumping on this new tool.  Have a look at how new member and active blogger dotlizard has utilized the widget on her website.  It’s also great for musicians, lifecasters, and anyone with something to promote.  It’s pretty clear that fans of virtually anything appreciate the intimacy of live broadcasts from artists and personalities.  But that is not to count out how families and friends are using it to offer a window into their life’s little happenings for one another.  All great stuff, we’re quite pleased with the response so far and ask that you stay tuned for even more features in the coming weeks!

Next2Friends - It’s NOW!