Go on, ask us anything about social media
Fast Forward, a social media agency, is currently finalising the questions it will ask for an extensive social media survey that aims to show how – and how many – New Zealand marketers are using the tools on offer, how much they’re spending, what works, what doesn’t, the challenges, the benefits and everything inbetween. Of course, social media is all about sharing, so StopPress wants some input from the readers: if you’ve got a burning question about social media and marketing, either add it to the comment wall or email editor@stoppress.co.nz and the five best questions will be included in the survey.
And, rest assured, when the survey is sent out into the wild, StopPress readers will be given the opportunity to fill it in online.
iChild
May 4, 2010
And in the spirit of Social Media and sharing, are StopPress readers going to see the results of this survey?
Batman
May 4, 2010
looking at their website, i would guess that these people are time travelers.
they have gone back in time to 1992 and hired a teenager to design their site. the payment for this was a cookie. not a real cookie, a web cookie. haHA! fooled! the kid thought he was getting a real cookie!
putting the UGLY website aside for a moment (i know, it's hard), is this 'survey' an attempt at getting published so that 'fast forward' can point to themselves being quoted and reinforce their 'expert' (read: 'guru') status?
courtney lambert @cjlambert
May 4, 2010
Is it for-profit? Most people pay for media research. This aint the supercity colouring in competition, :P …I mean really?
Minnie
May 4, 2010
Batman has said everything I wanted to say and then all the things I didn't even think of yet.
Minnie
May 4, 2010
Oh, wait. I see this website is sponsored by TVNZ and NZHerald, the grandmothers. They never get this stuff. Makes sense, yeah.
NZDigital
May 4, 2010
Guru's?… show me the case studies I say. Everyone's a guru nowadays where is the work to prove it?
courtney lambert @cjlambert
May 4, 2010
I would also like readers to turn up to my work, do my job for me, and I get paid. In the spirit of sharing, I'll tell you how I spent the money. Top five people 'doing my job for me" get to do my job for me!
Anthony
May 4, 2010
I hope the results of this survey help FF to develop a nice, handy to repurpose formula for social media campaigns.
A + (B x Facebook) – Bebo + Leverage = ROI win.
That would be ultra handy.
Batman
May 4, 2010
sorry anthony your formula is missing something. i am an expert on these things you see (i said so therefore i am).
the correct formula is:
A + (B x Facebook) – Bebo + Leverage x Repurposing = ROI win.
On another note, I have taken the time to improve the fast forward site:
http://wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/content.php?theme=2&music=8&url=ffwd.net.nz/
In the spirit of sharing, you can have this for free.
NS
May 4, 2010
Love the spelling on this lovely Word chart… http://ffwd.net.nz/processes
Analize?? I'm sure even the Americans (with their Zs) would at least use a y… analyze. Also Campaign Implimentation. Noice!
Batman
May 4, 2010
i would not like to get between goals and strategy with fast forward.
I only do that stuff with Robin.
Gerry Kookmeyer
May 4, 2010
Batman actually sounds quite funny in a cynical kind of way. Ben, maybe you can offer him a gig as a columnist?
But back to the main issue: Stoppress is an obvious vehicle to elicit response to marketing related surveys but I can't believe a company that claims to be an expert in social media is actually asking us to come up with the questions. Is this a case of stupidity or laziness?
Dave
May 4, 2010
@NZDigital – completely agree. Unless you can show us REAL case studies of your own work – please don't call yourselves experts.
We've all had enough of the direct marketers, copywriters, media planners and journos who setup a Twitter and become a 'guru'.
Sorry, it's simply not a case of 'I think therefore I am'.
Lance Wiggs
May 4, 2010
Dangerous stuff this social media. Is Fast Forward is learning more from this process than they would from the survey?
Batman I have found a new favourite tonic.
NS – I see they are using the UGLIEST framework.
Jenene
May 4, 2010
You know, I thought you were all being a bunch of nasty bastards…..
And then I checked out their website. Oh dear, there's some good spelling in there. Even the acronym (UGAST) has been spelt wrong!!
Hmmmm….
iChild
May 4, 2010
We're never nasty bastards without really good cause Jenene – especially those of us brave enough to put our names against our comments.
Just a thought – is FF a fake company? Can't find any solid information on any of the people listed and they're certainly not on Twitter (well, that I can find during the whole 5 minutes I dedicated to it). Would explain the heinous site and the shocking spelling…
Jenene
May 4, 2010
Try a companies office search….
iChild
May 4, 2010
That's upstairs for thinking Jenene!
Unfortunately lots of companies called Fast Forward, nothing obvious though.
So, when in doubt, Google the phone number, which returns in:
Cuddly Hedgehog (website design)
Cheap Web Hosting
Hot Frog (internet hosting <- their term not mine)
Colour me confused.
Lance Wiggs
May 4, 2010
Natasha Popovich owns shares in Web Academy (2006) and Pop Media (2003), as does Borislav Misic. Borislav also owns 50% of Nippon Cars Limited.
Dave
May 4, 2010
Thanks Lance
As you will see on the bio page-
Natasha is a true interpreneur and a co-founder of Pop Media Ltd, a successfull New Zealand ISP (Internet Service Provider). She's also pretty spot on with 'Google analitics'.
Jenene
May 4, 2010
Monica, the company is owned by Natasha Popovich – under Pop Media (the domain name is registered to her).
Yes, I'm a true geek.
Anthony
May 4, 2010
Also, you can see some other finger filled pies here: http://www.salestrainingnz.com/
and here: http://kiwianci.blogspot.com/2009/02/sheakspire-regional-park.html
The other two are missing as of yet. This was a 10 minute search. If I find anything else, I will post…
M Freitas
May 5, 2010
As Lance said, needs a bit of an update… If the best they can come up with on microblogging is "For example, non forprofit organizations are using microblogs to draw attention to articles online that are specifically about the issues they cover such as the World Wildlife Foundation using Twitter to reference current news about endangered animals." then I am stunned. No mention of the latest earthquakes, Iranian elections, oil spills, or any other worldwide event that if not first reported, at least spread like wildfire, through Twitter.
Facebook, the 4th most visited domain in the world, 400 million users gets a weak mention in "gaming".
And what's that with a "WEB 2.0" watermake in ugly font splashed on top of the over-used chart with logos of now (many of them) companies in the deadpool?
I work with a U.S.-based company that does this really well – http://www.ivyworldwide.com. Check their site. You will notice the difference in approach.
Ben Fahy
May 5, 2010
Just to clarify a few things, I've met with Marco and Natasha to discuss their survey, which I have an almost completed version of in front of me. It's being conducted by QLBS, it's four pages long and it's quite comprehensive, with sections focusing on tactics and applications, benchmarking, cost, value, time and money spent using SM etc. So I don't think asking for additional questions is a case of laziness. Or stupidity. Perceptive also ask its audience to add questions to surveys, and it usually charges for the privilege. And with plenty of chatter in the social media realm about co-creation, generosity and 'learning as you go', we thought it would be interesting to ask the people who are immersed in this world if they had anything else to add. If not, fine. If so, it might be an opportunity to find out how social media is being used in New Zealand as a marketing tool. As Gerry says, StopPress can be a good vehicle to elicit more responses and therefore make the research more representative. And if the results turn out to be of editorial value, fantastic.
Speaking of results, you will have to pay to get the full report, but those who respond to the survey will get access to something of a 'highlights' package.
Anthony
May 5, 2010
Perhaps setting the current questionnaire up as a wiki, or posting it in full on a blog, would have been helpful. It is hard to volunteer questions without knowing anything about the survey other than it is about social media. What questions are already in it?
Also, asking people to help prepare the survey should probably include a carrot – I am thinking access to the full report, not just the highlights which are available to all respondents.
courtney lambert @cjlambert
May 5, 2010
If people want to support Nigerian direct marketing experts on their blogging sites that's fine. I personally like to see such rubbish removed from the industry. Waiting from a response from the team on online expirrrtz …dum..dee..doo.. coffee anyone?
Marco
May 5, 2010
Hi guys,
Please allow me to clear up a couple of things.
1, yes the site is a temporary expedient to assist in kicking off this survey and it will become prettier. Promise.
2, We recently conducted a focus group with some fairly high level Auckland marketing execs and CEOs on commercial SMM usage and the number one concern was that no one, not even their advertising and PR people, has got a particularly good grip on SMM.
So we have decided to conduct what will be probably the most comprehensive survey ever run in NZ to date.
It will invite primarily marketing people to comment on such things as how they use SMM, ROI stuff, knowledge gaps and lots more, both quant and qualitative.
The payback for the respondents will be a free industry comparative report, which would cost them big bucks if they were to commission it themselves, that they can use to understand what others in their classification are doing and give them a starting point and some guidance.
The heavy stuff will be available, for a small fee, to industry professionals who need an in depth understanding of commercial SMM usage.
This is not “survey monkey” stuff. The back end is a very grunty diagnostic platform and the outputs from this survey will be considerably more useful than anything we’ve seen from these types of surveys in NZ so far.
The point of this request was not to have the survey written for us, we’ve done that, but to invite people to submit a question that they might like included. If it’s an inspired, forward thinking question we might just put it in. And yes, if we use your question you can have a complete report, for free.
That’s it, the whole point of this request. Hope that helps.
courtney lambert @cjlambert
May 6, 2010
I think the comments speak for themselves how that all went for you. Have a wee think :)
facepalm
May 6, 2010
You guys obviously have no clue. The spelling errors are deliberate for SEO purposes… or did you not see Boris's bio on being the leading SEO expert in NZ?
Re the survey. No one cares how comprehensive a survey is if the organisation behind it has not market cred at all… If you can't even get website basics or spelling right, then how do we know that your 'diagnostic grunt' isn't just a calculator?
Anyway… I'm skeptical to anyone who claims themselves to be "social media experts"… heck, even Facebook isn't making a profit themselves yet…
For everything else, I prefer the collective wisdom of the Razorfish blokes; http://scattergather.razorfish.com
IMHO, they're the closest you'd get to social media "experts" now
Jen Corbett
May 7, 2010
This is a joke, right?
Peter
May 7, 2010
I have six qustions (note strategic and intentional spelling mistake). They are the best one, so don't bother ask anybody else. I have solved you problem.
The qustions r so good you want to use them all (just want to point out that england is my first language and I am not writing this for my Indian based SEO service).
1. Do you know what a conversation is?
2. Do you know what the internet is?
3. Have you ever had a conversation using the internet?
4. What did you have for breakfast?
5. Should the words"Social Media" "Expert" and "Guru" be banned from being used in the same sentence together?
6. Are you hot? if so send me a pic please.
So now I have solved all the problems I am going to add a link for SEO purposes. After all, why would I bother commenting if I wasn't going to try to milk some link love from this great thread of comments.
http://failwhale.com/
Wish I had come across this article earlier. Then I might have made it into the first 3 comments and would have saved you all the stress of this argument. But, then it dosen't matter, cause I am awesome and know everything there is to know about Social Media.
p.s. is anyone else still waiting for their lottery winnings from Nigeria? I sent my payment to them, but the money still hasn't arrived.
NOT A GEEK OR GURU!
May 7, 2010
I was thinking the same thing Jen.
Marv
May 7, 2010
Great advise Peter. You sound like a geek who is a guru and an expert which is awesome! Question: I'm targeting a very niche market – Transvestites who wear size 6 shoes. What sort of questions will help me identify my market? My existing clients have really big feet but I have a surplus stock of petite shoes to get rid of. Any advise?
Natasha
May 7, 2010
wow, some people here really do have more free time than is advisable by the WHO.