Notes from 56th International STC Conference
Atlanta, Georgia, May 2-5, 2009

Designing for the Conversation — Social Media and User Experience Design

Eric Grandeo, Roundarch

Session Description: This session covered the user experience design consideration when planning for a social media implementation. It reviewed social behavioral analysis and profiles, common goals, tools, and techniques. The presentation provided a thorough understanding of the social media space and how it integrates with user experience design

• What are social media?
   
• Practices and technologies which allow people to share opinions, insights, experiences, and perspectives. Conversation in a variety of forms.
• Social media are community: Facebook, Myspace, Linked in, Twitter, and others
• Social media are also sharing: Flickr, YouTube, Delicious, etc.
• Social meeting is blogging: personal web site that is your online diary
• Twitter: What are you doing now? Has evolved greatly into social media tool.
• Social media is knowledge management. It is the wiki of social media marketing. Examples. http://wiki.beingpeterkim.com/
• Why are social media important?
   
• They’re about people.
• They’re about technology ... easy to use; free
• They’re about marketing ... social media have wrestled control of brand and product away from corporations and into the hands of the people
• What do social media change?
   
• It’s a fundamental change to marketing. One-way marketing messages are giving way to conversations that form and disseminate opinion.
• The focus for social media is building relationships, not marketing campaigns.
• Example: buying a computer
   
• Google to review of the product, amazon.com
• Go to forums and blogs for product discussion
• Examples of social media
   
• DellHell.net ... a blog for gripes against Dell. Dell responded by setting up a direct-to-Dell blog ... also tracked down those with gripes and helped them.
• Del.icio.us ... access to all members’ bookmarks
• Stumbleupon ... similar
• YouTube ... product demos
• Twitter ... I’m shopping for a laptop … any ideas?
• Example: getting tech support
   
• Mac support forum, not hosted by Mac
• Cnet has its own site for Dell support
• Search ... popular social reviews, friends (WoM), grand/transaction ... post-review, support
• Social media are growing at an exponential rate.
• Users trust each others’ opinion more than the companies. Thus, companies cannot afford to ignore them.
• This leads to a new way of customer-centric thinking.
• Tara Hunt: The WHUFFIE Factor ... companies’ social capital
   
• Encourage customers to go to other sites
• Measure how many people refer their friends to you as successes
• Let people feed their content from other sites easily
• Who are we designing for?
• People’s social behavior drives their purchases. Parallels usability’s use of personas.
• Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies. Author: Charlene Li.
• Six levels of participation
   
• 44% inactive
• 48% spectators
• 25% joiners
• 12% collectors
• 25% critics
• 18% creators
• Motivators for contributing
   
• Reciprocity
• Reputation
• Increased sense of efficacy
• Attachment to, need for affiliation and politics.
• Make connections
• Make your mark
• Make your affinity known
• Questions pertaining to new media initiatives. Some program managers are coming around to this; others are still resistant.
• How do we include social media in UX design?
• Post methodology: people, objectives, strategy, technology
• Social media design process: discover, define, design, develop, deploy
   
• Discover: user research and development: emphasis shifts from demographics to social interaction ... listen to your customers!
• Design approach: you’re not selling products, you’re helping solve problems
• What media are your customers using? In what way ... social or business?
• Discover: What is the current chatter about your organization. Do you have fans? Are there other groups talking bad about you? How to you monitor what is being said about your brand? Google Reader Google Alerts Google Blog Search. Technorati. Many others.
• Paid tools can not only measure online discussion but also measure attitude toward your product (uses sophisticated algorithms). Detect problems early; build on momentum on successful branding.
• Discover: The Social Media Map: social networks, blogs, microblogs, social bookmarking, discussion, boards/forums, news. Who are we designing for?
• Social demographics: Gen Y are the most vocal critics; seniors are most inactive.
• What are the market conditions? SWOT = Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats
• Find out what is working well and what isn’t.
• Key concept: you have to accept positive and negative; therein lies your credibility (e.g., Ford gave 100 people a free Fiesta for 6 months and uncensored commentary in various social media)
• MyBlogSpark ... General Mills ... 900 bloggers, 80% moms
   
• Shake the Salt:
• GM offers an option to a negative post (not mandatory) ... go to GM for help
• Motrin ran an ad “attacking” moms wearing their babies in front. Triggered an explosion on YouTube, the Twittersphere, etc.
• Opportunities
   
• What are the growth trends in the industry?
• Effect of recession
• Where are social media gaps closing between gens?
• What social media tools offer the best potential for opportunity?
• Define: develop your social media goals, figure out where you want to talk with customers.
   
• Research ... listening. Determine your brand reputation. Accept unsolicited feedback. Understand the buzz about your brand.
• Marketing ... talking. Solicit feedback, improve brand awareness and perception, form relationships
• Sales ... Energizing. Motivating the base, recruiting influential customers
• Support ... Supporting. Connect customers to each other, reduce support costs, answer questions
• Development ... embrace. Innovation, support existing social networks, crowdsourcing problems
• Develop your social media message: Example: Happy group of people. Salesman butts in, focused only on the sale, annoying and doesn’t fit in. New paradigm: marketer is quiet at first, listens a lot, slowly becomes engaged, talks about interesting stuff, he’s genuine and transparent, everyone starts to notice him, then he starts planting his messaging
• Keys to messaging
   
• Be authentic
• Be transparent ... solve problems in public forum
• Be interesting
• Maintain dialogue
• Answer questions
• UX design process … iterate from concept to a detailed design. For social media, selection of tools is critical. Your goals and social behaviors of your customers dictate the tools.
• Optimize goals, tools, and media.
   
• Goal is to listen ... need monitoring tool, watch ratings and reviews
• Goal is talking ... need forum or blog of Facebook
• Goal is energizing ... viral video (has to be very creative and interesting) ... (see wherethehellismatt.com), hosted community
• Goal is support ... use forum, wiki
• Engagement response plan ... U.S. Air Force Web Posting Response Assessment V.2: trolls, ragers, misguided, unhappy customers
• Deploying: monitoring and optimizing: what do you measure?
   
• Engagement ... time spent, density of commentary, reach, spread
• Awareness ... number of mentions, conversations
• Influence ... identify evangelists, identify detractors, measure their reach
• All social endeavors should be supported by search and analytic programs
• You cannot relate measurements to ROI ... but have to find some kind of metric your business community respects, or you will not get them to invest in social media
• Social media give you multiple conversations and iterations rather than a one-shot campaign; you can modify your brand/strategy in response to real-time feedback rather than committing to a 6-month campaign that winds up missing the mark.