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New Zealand: Social Media - Channels
SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES
http://www.facebook.com/
Originally called thefacebook, Facebook was founded by former Harvard student, Mark Zuckerberg, who ran it as one of his hobby projects. Within months of its introduction, Facebook and its core idea had spread across the dorm rooms of Harvard where it was well-received. It soon spread to other universities like Stanford and Yale.
Soon, Mark was joined by fellow Harvard students - Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. Months later, when it was a national student network phenomenon, Zuckerberg and Moskovitz dropped out of Harvard to run the social networking business full time. In August 2005, thefacebook was officially called Facebook and the domain Facebook.com was purchased for a reported $200,000.
Currently, Facebook is operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. Since September 2006, anyone over the age of 13 with a valid e-mail address can become a Facebook user. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users can join networks organized by workplace, school, or college. Users can create profiles with photos, lists of personal interests, contact information and other personal information. Communicating with friends and other users can be done through private or public messages on a chat feature. Users can also create and join interest and fan groups, some of which are maintained by organizations as a means of advertising. To combat privacy concerns, Facebook enables users to choose their own privacy settings and choose who can see what parts of their profile.
Facebook in New Zealand
As of 2009, New Zealand had more female than male Facebook users, and more than half are aged between 18 and 34. The average age was slightly lower than a typical Facebook user located in the United States but older than that of Australia. The female-male ratio was also smaller than that of Facebook users in the United States.The following are some of New Zealand's most popular Facebook pages - 100% Pure New Zealand, Save Radio New Zealand, and Free Food New Zealand.
100% Pure New Zealand
http://www.facebook.com/NewZealand#!/NewZealand?v=info
With more than 100,000 fans on its Facebook fanpage, 100% Pure New Zealand Facebook page was launched primarily to promote tourism in New Zealand by providing traveling tips and showing fans a glimpse of what is ‘100% Pure New Zealand’. Its Facebook page shows the many things a tourist can experience in New Zealand. For example, there are descriptions of the season in New Zealand, the advertisements made to promote New Zealand, a tourist’s own backpacking experience, famous celebrities that have visited the country etc.
Save Radio New Zealand
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Save-Radio-NewZealand/312651831782?ref=mf#!/pages/Save-Radio-NewZealand/312651831782?v=info&ref=mf
This fan page was created on 17 February 2010 by a group of New Zealanders who are concerned about the government’s plans for radio in New Zealand. It was created the same day the country’s Broadcasting Minister had announced that Radio New Zealand’s funding would be frozen ‘for the foreseeable future’ and he had asked the Chair of the Board ‘to come back to me with a plan on how Radio New Zealand is going to sustain its services.” In response to the Minister's statement, Chair of the Board, Ms Grice, replied that the board is considering a rage of options to save money.
The site was primarily created to ‘raise awareness of the threat Radio NZ faces from the National Government. The fan page boasts people's reactions to this issue, updates on the issue by members of the fan group, and discussions on what can be done by members of the fan group. The Facebook group provides a link to its website, http://www.saveradionz.co.nz/, where details of the issue can be found, as well as recommended action that can be taken by the viewer to "save radio New Zealand".
Free Food New Zealand
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=103551612890
The group was created as a venue for people to find and share information on free publicly available fruit trees and the likes in New Zealand. It is also to encourage the idea of both organized and guerrilla style of planting of fruit trees in public spaces.
Bebo
http://www.bebo.com/
Bebo, is an acronym for "Blog early, blog often" and is a social networking site that was founded in January 2005 by husband and wife team of Michael and Xochi Birch. It was soon bought by AOL on March 13, 2008.
Bebo was founded as an online community where users could post pictures, write blogs and send messages to one another via their user profile. Members can view the recent changes friends have made to their homepage from the 'Home' menu. These changes can include uploaded photos, updated flashboxes and newly added videos and friends. A friend's updates to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and other services can also be viewed, if those friends have linked those accounts to their Bebo profile. A map feature enables members to see who has being viewing their profile.
The site now boasts tailored content targeted at UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, US English and US Latino, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands and India, with the site being available in English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch and Polish.
With its wide range of methods for self-expression as well as its unique Open Media experience Bebo allows its users to harness the power of community to discover, experience and share video, music, books and other forms of entertainment.
New Zealand Kiwis World Champions
www.bebo.com/NZRugbyLeague
The purpose of this group is to celebrate the victory that the New Zealand Rugby team had after winning against Australia in the RLWC final. Even though Australia were the clear favorites to win take the cup, the New Zealand team grinded out a well-deserved victory. It will be remembered as one of the greatest days in New Zealand Rugby League’s victory.
New Zealand Flag Debate
www.bebo.com/Kiwi-flag
This page was created in 2007 for people to share their views on what should be done with the national flag. The debate about changing the national flag of New Zealand was rekindled by Former Prime Minister Helen Clark. She suggested that if the people of New Zealand wanted to “New Zealand-ise their flag” they should take out the Union Jack, leaving it as a “rather attractive Southern Cross”.
Within the group’s photo stream are different photos of flags designed and in the running as the new national flag. Polls were created to allow users to vote about whether they would like to see a new national flag, and if yes, the flag they liked best.
New Zealanders Page
www.bebo.com/Aotearoa-on-Bebo
This group was set up for all the people on Bebo that either live or consider New Zealand/Aotearoa as their hometown. Under its forum section, the group discusses everything related to New Zealand and New Zealanders, including offering a chatroom where New Zealanders can chat amongst themselves, http://www.kiwipulse.co.nz/chat, and a social networking site specially created for New Zealanders, http://enzed-live.com.
MySpace
http://www.myspace.com/
MySpace is a social networking site with its headquarters located in Beverly Hills, California, United States. Founded in 2003, its owner, News Corporation based its revenue model solely on advertisements as it entitles its end-users with free subscription to the web services and features on MySpace. Going beyond its marketing slogan, “A Place for Friends”, MySpace not only reaches out to friends who want to communicate online and people who are in search for their long lost friends, but also families who want to keep in touch and business people and co-workers who are interested in networking.
MySpace is also known to be the pioneer in creating an open and social web model which encourages the discovery of artists and music, and enables distribution of music and content worlwide. The key highlight about MySpace as compared to the other social networking sites would be its vast room for creativity as the users are empowered to customize their personal profiles with themed wallpapers, embedded music tracks and even videos. MySpace has a wide array of interactive entertainment and communication features and they include Bulletins, Groups, MySpaceIM, MySpaceTV, MySpaceNews, MySpace Classifieds and MySpace Mobile.
MySpace New Zealand
http://www.myspace.com/kiwihub
With an overwhelming number of more than 500,000 Kiwi users on MySpace back in 2007, MySpace New Zealand’s official profile “Kiwi Hub” was then launched to link these users to one another and the latest news, celebrity updates, exclusive interviews, previews and competitions mainly relating to New Zealand’s music, fashion, comics and film industry.
In February 2009, MySpace.com revealed the nation's most popular cyber celebrities and the top list includes Michael Freeman, James Jeffrey and Caleb Smith. These veritable cyber celebrities boast almost a quarter of a million friends between them and offer a unique insight into cyber culture and New Zealand life.
Caleb Smith
http://www.myspace.com/brushedbyblack
Caleb Smith runs the New Zealand’s second most popular MySpace profile. He uses the profile as a marketing platform for his online jewellery shop, ‘Hello Jewellery’. The vast popularity on his MySpace profile has been credited to his passionate and genuine connection with customers and the constant interactive updates on his profile. “People are attracted to sites that they can connect with and get to know you through. So we make sure we talk to people and make an effort to get to know them,” he explained.
James Jeffrey
http://www.myspace.com/playthemdrums
James Jeffery is an English musician/writer/producer from Auckland and the New Zealand’s third most popular MySpace personality. James is also an exchange scholar who adopts MySpace with initial aims to keep in contact with his family and friends back home and to use it as a sharing platform for his musical pieces. Given the great popularity of MySpace with the people in the music industry, James got to discover other musicians to write, record and play music with, including the members of his first band, Harlequin Arcade through MySpace.
Michael Freeman
http://www.myspace.com/epxt
Michael Freeman is a 51-year-old avid photographer from Auckland. He is also New Zealand’s fifth most popular MySpace personality. As a director of his own Graphic and Product Design Consultancy Designz Limited, he adopts MySpace to exhibit his photography and solicit for feedback. Additionally, he uses MySpace to introduce his quality eCard site which features over 14,000 of his photographs.
BLOGS
There are many blogs in New Zealand that spans across various categories, for example political blogs, sports blogs, technology blogs, personal blogs, entertainment blogs, etc. For a list of blogs in New Zealand, please click here.
NPSC Blog
http://www.psnetwork.org.nz/blog/
The NPSC Blog is a blog by the Network of Public Sector Comunicators. It focuses on public affairs, communications and broader external relations issues, particularly where they impact upon the New Zealand public sector. The editor of the blog is Jason Ryan, who is the Manager for Communications and Records Management under the State Services Commission.
Sports After Dark
http://sportsafterdark.net/
Sports After Darks writes about the sporting arena in New Zealand, including several interesting posts like an interview with a referee. The blog contains reviews, previews, views and analysis on the major sports of New Zealand.
The Techsploder
http://www.geekzone.co.nz/juha
The Techsploder is a technology blog by Juha Saarinen. The blog contains several widgets, including one that syncs his Twitter onto the blog, and also a "Top Ten Techsplodings", which is a list of his most viewed posts. The Techsploder writes about current issues in the technology world, such as the introduction of iPad.
The Cat House
http://the-cat-house.blogspot.com/
A blog set up by an ex trucky who gave up his job and "arranged his life" to spend quality time with his wife, who has Progressive Motor Neuron disease. It is a personal blog, which details his day-to-day life and comments on certain events.
Aucklandista
http://aucklandista.com/
Aucklandista is a blog dedicated to the entertainment industry of New Zealand, specifically, in Auckland. It was started in 2008 by Jo Hubris, who was working on Wellingtonista. The site promotes the various aspects of Auckland, including places to drink, things to see and do, and events to participate in.
James Samuel
http://www.jamessamuel.co.nz/blog/
James Samuel's website is focused on global conservation issues, and his blog is one of the platforms for him to facilitate honest dialogues. His blog touches on many global issues, which inevitable affects New Zealand in a big way, touches on categories like energy, food and sustainability.
New Zealand Travel Blog
http://www.newzealandtravelblog.co.nz
A group of people manages this blog which comprises of native New Zealanders and people who moved to New Zealand. They provide information and talks about travelling in New Zealand, with topics like adventure, performing arts, attractions, and culture. The authors include Emily Davis, Jane Dennis and Michelle Berridge.
MICROBLOGS
http://www.twitter.com
Twitter is a social networking and microblogging site that allows users to type a status message of no longer than 140 words. Such status messages are called "tweets", and they are sent to the accounts of other Twitter users who are "following" the sender.
This microblogging service, originally named "Twittr", was founded by Jack Dorsey, Evan Williams and Biz Stone and it was launched in 2006. Since then, Twitter has been one of the fastest growing websites on Internet, with traffic increasing by 1000% in a year. Up till February 2010, there are already just over 20 million unique visitors on Twitter, and those are not inclusive of the number of users using applications such as TweetDeck or Seismic.
Source: http://www.firstrate.co.nz/blog/social-media-marketing-campaigns-for-brands/
Interestingly, a report by Sysomos showed that 5% of Twitter users accounted for about 75% of all activity, with the top five global users who send the most tweets being @foxnews, @mooris, @alohaarleen, @waynemansfield, and @davemalby.
Below is a table that shows the country ranking of the percentage of Twitter users to the total population.
Twitter in New Zealand
Twitter started taking off in New Zealand in 2009. In an interview with Simon Young by the Wiki New Zealand team, he said that part of the sudden interest in Twitter was attributed to the advent of the Twitchhiker, who created much media attention in New Zealand when he used only Twitter to make his way from the UK to Sewart Island in New Zealand's South Island in 30 days. Since then, Simon said, many businesses started to use Twitter as a tool to communicate with their customers.
In all, New Zealand has the sixth highest number of Twitter users on a per capita basis in the world, behind USA, Singapore, Canada, Ireland, and UK.
Below are two tables that summarise the top 10 Twitter personal users and business users in New Zealand.
Source: http://www.firstrate.co.nz/blog/social-media-marketing-the-top-10-new-zealand-twitter-accounts/
Simon Young
http://twitter.com/AudaciousGloop
@audaciousgloop
Simon Young is the director of #SY Social Media Consultancy together with his wife, Marie Young. They live in Auckland, New Zealand. Simon is listed by Ben Young as one of the top 20 New Zealand Twitter accounts based on the number of followers. He has 6,174 followers, and has clocked 23,697 tweets so far. Simon uses his Twitter account to connect with friends as well as with stakeholders of his company.
Michael Koziarski
http://twitter.com/nzkoz
@nakoz
Michael Koziarski is a software consultant specialising in Ruby on Rails, which is an open-sourced web framework. He also specialises in database architecture, web businesses and object oriented design. He is rated to be the top twitter accounts by First Rate, with 291,113 followers. Michael is also a contributor to The Rails Way, where he talks about technology. He lives in Wellington, New Zealand.
Air New Zealand
http://twitter.com/flyAirNZ
@flyairnz
Air New Zealand is one of the best case studies of businesses in New Zealand using Twitter to communicate with their stakeholders. On their Twitter page with 12,197 followers, they update their followers on news on flight conditions and also gather feedback and comments. They also launched a promotion called Grab a Seat, which allows people to "grab seats" for a promotional price, and Twitter is one of the channels that Air New Zealand uses to update their special deals.
FORUMS
New Zealand Boards
http://www.nzboards.com/forum/
New Zealand Boards is a forum at which a wide range of topics are discussed. These include entertainment, food, news, and travel. Among the many discussion rooms hosted at the forum is one that is devoted to ‘controversial’ topics – Nihs Nasty Board; one where an Aunt Agony answers questions about how to deal with problems in life – Ask Aunt Sparklechick; and one where people who want to sell and/or buy things can ‘meet’ each other – Classifieds. As of March 2010, posts number in the thousands.
ENZ
http://www.emigratenz.org/forum/
At the forum ENZ, people looking to emigrate to New Zealand and people who have emigrated to New Zealand discuss issues related to immigration. Some of the more popular issues being discussed are the immigration process; real estate; jobs; taxes; healthcare; and education. As of March 2010, posts number in the tens of thousands.
NZMusic
http://www.nzmusic.com/forum
New Zealanders interested in local music congregate at NZMusic, where they share information on where they latest gigs will be held, talk about local artistes, and share music sheets and tabs. As of March 2010, the forum has been posted to approximately 25,000 times.
References
.
#Sy. (2010). Social media consultancy, training and engagement. Retrieved on February 20, 2010, from http://www.sy-engage.
Air New Zealand. (2010). Grab a Seat. Retrieved on March 24, 2010, from http://flightbookings.airnewzealand.co.nz/vgrabview/en_NZ/
Ben Young. (2009). New Zealand's Top 20 Internet People by Twitter followers. Retrieved on March 22, 2010, from http://snagsta.com/people/ben-young/lists/new-zealands-top-50-internet-people-by-twitter-followers5285
Dave. (2009). Social Media Marketing: The Top 10 New Zealand Twitter accounts. Retrieved on March 19, 2010, from http://www.firstrate.co.nz/blog/social-media-marketing-the-top-10-new-zealand-twitter-accounts/
Dawson, R. (2010). Top Twitter nations: USA, Singapore, Canada, Ireland, UK, New Zealand, Australia. Retrieved March 24, 2010, from http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2010/01/top_twitter_nat.html
Hendery, S. (2009). Twitter Marketing tool of the future. Retrieved on March 19, 2010, from http://www.firstrate.co.nz/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/091112-Twitter-Marketing-New-Zealand-Herald.pdf
Mashable. The Social Media Guide. (2007). MySpace New Zealand Launches on Friday. Retrieved on March 09, 2010, from http://mashable.com/2007/02/20/myspace-new-zealand/
Michael Koziarski. (2010). Michael Koziarski. Retrieved on March 24, 2010, from http://www.koziarski.com/
Paul, T. (2009). Should Brands Undertake Social Media Marketing Campaigns..?. Retrieved on March 19, 2010, from http://www.firstrate.co.nz/blog/social-media-marketing-campaigns-for-brands/
Ross Dawson. (2010). Top Twitter nations: USA, Singapore, Canada, Ireland, UK, New Zealand, Australia. Retrieved on March 23, 2010, from http://rossdawsonblog.com/weblog/archives/2010/01/top_twitter_nat.html#tb
Ruby on Rails. (2010). Web development that doesn't hurt. Retrieved on March 24, 2010, from http://rubyonrails.org/
Scoop Independent News. (2009). New Zealand’s Top Five Cyber Celebrities. Retrieved on March 19, 2010, from http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0902/S00042.htm
Simon. (2009). New Zealand Facebook Data, PPC Facebook Advertising & Statistics. Retrieved March 24, 2010, from http://www.firstrate.co.nz/blog/new-zealand-facebook-data-ppc-facebook-advertising-statistics/
Sysomos Inc.. (2010). Exploring the Use of Twitter Around the World. Retrieved on March 23, 2010, from http://www.sysomos.com/insidetwitter/geography
Wikipedia. (N.A.). Twitter. Retrieved on March 24, 2010, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter
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