Seth Sternberg is CEO of Meebo. Founded in 2005, Meebo enables real-time social interactions with instant messaging and group chat at meebo.com, on mobile, and on partner sites across the Web. Meebo is the Global Headline Sponsor of Social Media Week 2010.
[Social Media Week]: How did Meebo decide to get involved in Social Media Week? What are you looking forward to most?
[Seth Sternberg]: We’re thrilled with this year’s event and see 2010 as yet another big year for the social media industry. We’re excited to be a part of Social Media Week’s global effort to bring people together around the social media trends that are shaping our industry and expect some great connections to be made during the week, as well as some interesting conversations with folks who are as passionate as we are about the impact and potential of social media applications across the Web.
[SMW]: How is the social web changing the way people interact? Why is this significant?
[SS]: Social media has made a significant impact on how people interact, and how business is done on the Web. We see the examples of this everywhere. You can reduce the impact to two core elements of how social media has changed the web:
- From the user perspective it has never been easier to share the content, photos, experiences, videos you love with your friends than it is today. Conversely, of course, this means it’s easier to receive this content. This means that people are more connected around the content they care about.
- From the publisher or website perspective, this means that publishers can expect to capture sizable traffic gains through social media. Sharing represents a new business opportunity and incredibly important alternative to Search, which used to be the way publishers looked to increase traffic. Now they see a new mechanism to get more users and visitors to their site – and this represents huge growth opportunities for sites that get their social strategy right.
[SMW]: In your opinion, what is the biggest misconception about social media?
[SS]: There are two big misconceptions about social media: firstly that it is a fad, and secondly that it has no business value. These perceptions couldn’t be more incorrect, and I’ll explain why. At a basic level, people want to know what their friends are doing – it’s fundamental to human nature. Technology has gotten to a point where it can support this desire in a frictionless way. People can now keep up with their network with very little effort, and this is of course part and parcel to what Meebo has done: we have made it easier than ever for people to share and congregate around the content they love, no matter where they are on the Web.
As for the second misconception, that there is no business value – this is of course being proven incorrect time and time again by the metric that we all measure ourselves against: traffic growth. Publishers making the most of their social potential see real revenue gains in the sheer size of their audience growth – and, no one wants to miss the opportunity to increase their audience.
[SMW]: What’s the biggest challenge presented by social media? What are some ways this can be overcome?
[SS]: The biggest challenge with social media is of course control, or the lack there of. By its very nature, social media presents brands who want to protect their image and content several obstacles, however, no one wants to ignore the upside of the social medium, so as with any new effort brands must understand that with risk comes reward. The Web is already filled with case studies of success and failure when it comes to brands’ social media strategies, but there is no simple rule of engagement. For brands who want to engage in a social way, they first must understand that social media isn’t something you can simply control through an advertising budget. Brands need to understand the social medium at a fundamental way and spend time defining and cultivating the engagement strategy that works for them. Brands who see social media as a long term, strategic and active engagement will succeed.
Of course, there are important ways that brands can balance control in the social realm, and one critical strategy is to take advantage of sharing at ‘home,’ or on their own sites. Meebo has paid close attention to this need. The Meebo Bar allows sites to not only enable sharing amongst their users, but more importantly, track and learn from their audience in terms of what content resonates, and what ideas and concepts are shared. Metrics and measurement will be a key area to watch in the social media realm, and we’re already seeing clear benefits to this type of data in informing brands on what their users respond to.
[SMW]: A big change for you has been evolving from a destination site to a distributed platform. What led to that decision, and how do you see this fitting in with how social media is evolving?
[SS]: From the moment Meebo.com launched in 2005, people began to ask us for Meebo on their websites, to let their users talk to each other and connect to their friends on networks across the Web. They knew we had the know how to do it, and of course, this is what led us to integrate Meebo across the Web.
Our own business strategy evolution is connected to the overall evolution of the social media landscape, where consumers have come to expect a frictionless experience when it comes to sharing content. This has been our vision for quite some time, and we’re pleased to see it becoming reality.
[SMW]: For marketers working with Meebo, are they more excited about the reach and audience demographics, or about the deeper ways to engage with them? Do certain kinds of marketers fall into either camp?
[SS]: I think it is both. While reach may be less difficult for marketers to find these days, what they have had is a big challenge finding an online ad platform that actually helps build brands versus driving clicks to some transaction as traditional online ad formats are stale and constrictive with limited user interactivity. In essence they haven’t been able to make a deep connection with consumers like they can in more traditional media like TV.
Meebo can now bring incredible reach (over 100 million people/monthly) together with an ad model that doesn’t get in users’ way, but has a huge and measurable impact. The proof is in our metrics: we have a 1% engagement rate to a branded experience on the Meebo Bar, and with those brand engagements, our audience spends an average of 40 seconds with the content – a massive increase in both visibility and engagement for brands advertising with us. And, of course, sites that use Meebo see a doubling of the amount of sharing by users on their sites. With this combination, marketers are seeing big benefits – and we’re really excited about our upcoming innovations and growth this year. There’s much more ahead.
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