At the international Quadriga Conference on Internal Communication I will have the honor to deliver the first presentation at the conference on September 30 in Berlin. It’s entitled “The Renaissance of Direct Communication” and will provide views on how new publics shape opinion and trust in a disintermediated way on the Internet much like they did at the birth of European culture 2,500 years ago. And how coporations can benefit from this rebirth, in particular in internal communication.

Hope to meet some of you there!

Georg Kolb

The first is relying on technology, the second is more relying on humans, and the third is combining both. The technology approach is focused on the improvement of search technologies. Next generation search engines such as Wolfram Alpha promise to pull up more relevant search results based on more intelligent search mechanisms. Information portals such as Alltop leverage human content curators to make sure the content they present or recommend is valuable, so that users come to their place when looking for relevant content.

Both of these approaches help to some extent when it comes to extracting meaning from content that already exists, but they don’t help with the challenge of participation inequality. How do we know that the content we find on the web is representing the opinions or beliefs of more than a random selection of users? I don’t believe that – for the foreseeable future –a purely technology based or a mainly human based approach will suffice to crack this. A smart combination of man and machine looks more promising to me.

straightto, a German software firm,  does exactly that to create what they call  many-to-one communication. Leveraging both technology and the intelligence of users, straightto communication platforms enable any large number of people to have an organised dialogue with one addressee, e.g. citizens with a politician or employees with their CEO. So, many-to-one means that a multitude of participants can get straight through to someone they otherwise would hardly have access to. But there is more to it. Many-to-one also means that  opinions, questions or requests of participants are being bundled and ranked. As a result, the addressee can see what’s most important to people and focus on those issues. Equally important, this approach opens a solution to the problem of participation inequality: you just need few people actually expressing their opinion. The only thing others have to do is to vote on these opinions. Since this is a much lower barrier for participation, it is a powerful way to activate the silent majority. And it works! German Chancellor Angela Merkel and a whole bunch of other politicians are using it to find out what citizens are interested in, and CEOs of large enterprises use it to find out what’s important to their employees. Pretty compelling, don’t you think? Surely compelling enough for me. I recently joined the company.

Georg Kolb

Source: Jakob Nielsen on participation inequality

Social media is often equalized with consumer-generated media or user-generated content (UGC), as if everyone using social media would also create content. However, while indeed any user could create content, only very few do. Social scientists have observed this phenomenon since the early nineties. They call it participation inequality.

Jakob Nielsen pointed out that it existed in every online community and multi-user service that has ever been studied. According to Nielsen, user participation often more or less follows a 90-9-1 rule (see also diagram):

• 90% of users are lurkers (i.e., read or observe, but don’t contribute).
• 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time.
• 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions: it can seem as if they don’t have lives because they often post just minutes after whatever event they’re commenting on occurs.

Participation inequality is social media’s biggest challenge, because it undermines the idea of social opinion mining or crowdsourcing. If only 1+9 % of participants are contributing, it’s unlikely that their opinions will be representative of the majority. As a result, it can be dangerous to rely on their contributions only. Just think of product reviews you might base your buying decision on, or think of customer feedback you might use to improve your products.

As far as I can see, there are two tasks for corporate communicators following from this situation. We need to find and understand the 1+9 % of contributors, because they are the influencers of the online opinion market. And we need to find ways to activate the silent majority of lurkers. More on how this can be done in my next post.

Georg Kolb

“Statistics are like a drunk with a lampost: used more for support than illumination.” Sir Winston Churchill

Working through publicly available statistics for my series on social media in Germany, I ran into some significant methodological issues.  While I’m really grateful for the data we have, all the reports I have seen raised questions.

One issue is that the data base being used is always limited to a few social media platforms that are getting mainstream media attention such as blogs or social networks, but other platforms with high user volume are completely neglected. If social media is about people using the internet to create and share their thoughts, you can’t stop at video sharing sites, blogs and social networks. How about opinion portals such as Ciao or Qype? You could also put Amazon or Expedia in that category given all the product reviews you can find there. How about knowledge sharing portals such as Yahoo! Answers? And why wouldn’t you include platforms where people not only exchange thoughts and content but also goods? So, why not include Craigslist and eBay? They all live off the idea that users are empowered to connect directly between themselves based on shared interests rather than through a gatekeeper.

Another issue is that there is a lack of distinction between categories used. For instance, does the category “blogging” include micro-blogging platforms such as Twitter? Or is Twitter considered a social network? And since users increasingly tend to aggregate all their activities such as blogging or video sharing on their social network, how can you sensibly compare numbers between these categories?

Finally, most of the reports I have seen suffer from not differentiating between private and professional use of social media. I believe there is a real danger that the wrong conclusions are being drawn from data without knowing if the time was spent on private or professional purposes. While we all know that the high growth of social media was and is mainly driven by consumer’s private interests, I also believe that the professional use of social media is underestimated. At least we need to know more. Just think of the tremendous growth of professional networks such as LinkedIn or Xing.

There are surely more reasons why we need better research on social media, but these are the fundamental ones I encountered in publicly available reports.

Georg Kolb

When reading “the rise of the silver surfer” people outside Europe might first think of the Fantastic Four movie sequel of the same name. For Europeans and Germans in particular it sounds a bit different, since the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA) has published a report on 55+ year old internet users entitled “Silver Surfers” back in 2007. Germany has an aging population, so the silver surfers in that latter sense are indeed on the rise.

In their annual online study for 2009, TV networks ARD and ZDF found that 96 % of German 14-19 years olds are online, whereas only 27.1 % aged over 60 are using the internet. However, you need to check out the absolute numbers to get the full picture: there are 5.0 m teenagers online and 5.3 m generation 60 plus which means the silver surfers already outnumber the teens, and their growth potential is huge whereas the teens have almost reached their limit. Today, there are 19.4 m Germans over 60 years old, and this number will increase over the next couple of decades.

Of course, being online is not the same as using social media, and it is still true that younger people are more active on social media, but it certainly isn’t just their domain anymore. E.g. 62 % of German internet users in their forties have used Wikipedia, at least 27 % in their fifties have used video portals such as YouTube, and still 19 % of them used photo sharing sites such as flickr (see exhibit for more information). It is likely that these percentages will increase over the next decade as the digital natives of today will grow older, but even if that wouldn’t be the case, the older users will still soon dominate the social media space in absolute numbers.

See also related posts:

• Only China and the US have more active internet users than Germany (series on Germany, post #1)
• Germans were late to social media but caught up in 2007/2008 (series on Germany, post #2)
• Number of Germans actively managing a social network profile ranked 6 worldwide (series on Germany, post #3)
• Germans were the earliest and busiest non-English Wikipedians, (series on Germany, post #4)

Exhibit: Social media use in Germany by age and gender - Source: ARD ZDF online study 2009 - Translated by Georg Kolb

While Germans have been laggards with many social media platforms, they adopted Wikipedia very early on. As many will know, Wikipedia was founded in 2001 and has since then become the 6th most popular website worldwide. Despite organizational issues and a flattening number of editors, Wikipedia is still one of the most impressive success stories on the (social) web.

In March 2001, the German Wikipedia was founded as the first non-English version of this crowdsourced encyclopedia. Since then it has seen steady and steep growth (see exhibit). Today, with just under 1 m articles, it is the largest non-English version of Wikipedia worldwide, its quality is considered high compared to other country versions.

See also related posts:

• Only China and the US have more active internet users than Germany (series on Germany, post #1)
• Germans were late to social media but caught up in 2007/2008 (series on Germany, post #2)
• Number of Germans actively managing a social network profile ranked 6 worldwide (series on Germany, post #3)

Exhibit: German Wikipedia, number of articles. Source: Wikipedia Germany

Social networks have become a better indicator for social media activities than any other particular tool, since users increasingly tend to aggregate many of their activities such as blogging or video sharing on their social network. That’s one of the more important insights in Universal McCann’s latest report.

According to their latest Social Media Tracker, the number of German active internet users managing a social network profile is at 11.5 m.  That’s rank 6 worldwide, three ranks lower than Germany’s total number of active users, but still pretty high:

1. China: 111 m
2. US: 57.8 m
3. Brazil: 15.6 m
4. UK: 12.1 m
5. Korea: 11.9 m
6. Germany: 11.5 m
7. France and Japan: 10.2 m
8. India: 9.6 m

Importance of local networks

It is worth noting, that local networks play a big role in Germany. When Facebook entered the market, local players had a pretty significant head start. In particular “Wer-kennt-wen” (translated “Who-knows-whom”), a network for the mainstream audience now owned by TV network RTL, and studiVZ, a student network now owned by publisher Holtzbrinck, had attracted millions of users. It probably didn’t help that Facebook sued studiVZ in a US court alleging it was just a local clone of Facebook. It probably did help, though, that Facebook was faster with innovation and new functionalities for users. Holger Schmidt reported how Facebook managed to grow its reach by 50 % in an impressive run-up between March and July 2009 and finally take the lead in the German market (see exhibit 1).

The situation is different when it comes to professional networks. With a unique audience of 3.56 m, local leader Xing is eight times bigger than global leader LinkedIn, and Xing is still growing whereas LinkedIn stays flat (see exhibit 2). Twitter doesn’t have a local competitor in Germany. While it’s still on a low level compared to the US, it enjoyed significant growth in 2009. Nielsen found that its reach increased from nearly 1.2 m to just under 2 m between March and July 2009 (see exhibit 3). Of course, there is a difference between reach and active users. Thomas Pfeiffer calculated that Twitter had approx. 28.000 active German users back in March, 145.000 in July. That is rapid growth, albeit on a low level.

See also related posts:

• Only China and the US have more active internet users than Germany (series on Germany, post #1)
• Germans were late to social media but caught up in 2007/2008 (series on Germany, post #2)

Exhibit 1: Social networks in Germany. Sources: Nielsen: Usage at work and home. Graphics: F.A.Z. Graphics Kaiser. Translated by Georg Kolb

Exhibit 2: Professional networks in Germany. Sources: Nielsen: Usage at work and at home. Graphics: F.A.Z. Graphics Kaiser. Translated by Georg Kolb

Exhibit 3: Twitter in Germany. Sources: Nielsen: Usage at work and at home. Graphics: F.A.Z. Graphics Kaiser. Translated by Georg Kolb

Die Stiftung wings of hope hilft traumatisierten Kriegskindern in Bosnien-Herzegowina, Irak und Palästina/Israel. Kinder sind die beste Quelle der Hoffnung auf notwendige Veränderungen, gerade dort, wo die Fronten am verhärtetsten sind. Genau an dieser Stelle setzt wings of hope an, aber deren großartige Arbeit muss bekannter werden.

Deshalb werde ich für jeden der ersten einhundert Tweets zu diesem Thema 5 Euro an wings of hope spenden.  Das kann ein einfacher Retweet meines Tweets sein oder eine eigene Nachricht. Im letzteren Fall dann bitte einfach das Hashtag #tweetsforhope in den Tweet einbauen, damit ich diese Tweets auch finden kann.

Wer nichts von Twitter weiß oder wissen will, kann natürlich auch einfach auf die Webseite von wings of hope gehen und am besten direkt spenden.

Vielen Dank im Voraus an alle, die mitmachen!

Update 17.12.: Bisher 30 tweets for hope mit insgesamt 21.093 Followern! Gut die Hälfte dieser Follower gehen auf die Konten von PR-Blogger Klaus Eck und Coach Roland Kopp-Wichmann. Dank an alle!

Update 18.12.: Nun schon 47 tweets for hope mit insgesamt  36.679 Followern! Die meisten Follower unter den Neuzugängen verdanken wir diesmal dem Innovator Monty Metzger und dem Karriere-Experten Jochen Mai (Karrierebibel). Aber der Dank geht natürlich wie immer an alle!

Update 20.12.: Jetzt 80 tweets for hope mit insgesamt 60.763 Followern! Dank an alle, besonders aber an den Sevenload-Gründer und Buchautor Ibrahim Evsan und den Blogger Robert Basic, auch wenn er gerade seinen Twitter-Account zum Verkauf angeboten hat (wie schon vor neun Monaten sein Blog).

Update 2 vom 20.12.: Das ging jetzt aber flott! 105 tweets for hope mit insgesamt 66.211 Followern! Dabei hat vor allem Gossip-Twitterer Michael Kneissler den Ausschlag gegeben. Danke! Ich habe auch gleich meine Spende für die ersten hundert Tweets überwiesen.  Gibt es vielleicht jemanden, der die nächsten 100 Tweets sponsern möchte?

English summary: wings of hope is a charitable foundation in Germany helping traumatized children of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Iraq and Palestine/Israel. Children are the best source of hope where change is desparately needed. That’s where wings of hope put the focus of their great work, but they need to be better known. That’s why I will donate 5 Euros for each of the first one hundred tweets on their work using the hashtag #tweetsforhope. Unfortunately, their web site is only in German, so there is no point in spreading this in English language. However, if you still want to be part of it and make a donation – e.g. for the English translation of their site – , let me know, and I will help you.

Exhibit 1: Germany in Universal McCann's latest Social Media Tracker, Wave 4, July 2009. Wave 3 was in Mar 08, Wave 2 in Jun 07, Wave 1 in Sep 06

Series on Germany, post #2

When it comes to social media, adoption rates on almost any platform in Germany have long been much lower than in other countries. That suddenly changed between 2007 and 2008.

Universal McCann’s Social Media Tracker reported that between June 2007 and March 2008 the percentage of active internet users in Germany reading blogs more than tripled from 15 % to 55 %, also those writing blogs jumped from 8 % to 28 % and those creating a social network profile more than doubled from 19 % to 41 %  (see exhibit 1).

This rapid increase was also confirmed by Nielsen’s Global Faces and Networked Places in March 2009. Nielsen found that within their global study Germany had seen the greatest increase in online reach of social networks between December 2007 and December 2008 (see exhibit 2).

Of course, growth rates don’t tell the whole story. Looking at the absolute numbers, Germany is still somewhat behind, but not as far as some people think. In the next post we will compare social network activities in absolute numbers by country.

See also related posts:

• Only China and the US have more active internet users than Germany (series on Germany, post #1)

Exhibit 2: Nielsen: Global Faces and Networked Places, March 2009. Increase in member communities (social networks and blogs)

This is the first in a series of posts on the use of the internet and social media in Germany. There is currently a lot of talk on social media in Germany, but it is rarely validated by facts. So, I pulled together publicly available data from various sources. I can tell you that I found myself surprised a couple of times, for instance when looking at the data of today’s post. How about you?

Germany has the largest internet population in Europe. Internet World Statistics counted 54.2 m German internet users in August 2009, the penetration rate is at 65.9 %. According to Universal McCann’s latest Social Media Tracker in July 2009 (cf. page 12), 23 m Germans are active users which means they are using the internet every or every other day. That makes Germany the 3rd largest population of active internet users worldwide, behind China (159.6 m) and the US (96.3 m), ahead of Brazil (21.9 m), Japan (21.8 m) and France (19.7 m).

The active internet universe: 625 m people worldwide using the internet every or every other day. Source: Universal McCann, Social Media Tracker, Wave 4, July 2009