Social media in this extreme situation appeared to be much faster than traditional media. But despite the activity and efficiency, it also became a source of panic and misinformation as well.

This post discusses the positive and negative aspects of social media’s role in the attack response.

40 Tweets per second

The tragedy in Moscow metro has become an example of how news now moves much faster than traditional media often allows: “40 Tweets per second on the terrorist attacks in the Moscow metro vs. only 4 TV newscasts in the morning” via@krassnova. People were very active in sharing the information from the places where the tragedy took place. While the Twitter user base in Russia is not very large at only 183 thousand users, everyone including TV channels and the Russian government saw Twitter’s value.

Check what you RT

As good as Twitter was at facilitating quick transmission and response, it also spread rumors and unverified facts. The information sometimes appeared to be incorrect or without links to sources. Twitter was full of rumors such as ”I’ve heard that another explosion occurred at another metro station“ or ”Officials don’t speak about the new explosions, why?!“. Thousands of retweets of unchecked information created significant panic among users.

Hashtag: Real Help – Real Spam

People used Twitter to lend a helping hand by encouraging blood donations or appealing to car owners to drive people from the metro and bring them to their destinations for free (as opposed to using taxi drivers who raised the prices for their services). To make these efforts easier to follow and coordinate, Twitter members used hashtags like #metro29 and #moscow. At the same time, however, some unethical marketers used these hashtags for spam and advertising, taking advantage of the high levels of interest.

Lack of Control

Videos and photos that people gathered and placed on their blogs inspired passionate debates about the ethical aspects of posting the pictures of victims without the permission of their relatives. Moreover, such content was posted and distributed uncut among unprepared users. The lack of editorial control shocked people.

Mr. President on Twitter

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is going to launch his official microblog on Twitter in the near future. In related news, the Presidential Administration sent an official notification to the administration of Twitter with request to remove the fake Medvedev account, which was very active during the Moscow metro terrorist attack.

Original from Friday Five via Olga Rasulova as author of Edelman Digital blog

Recently in Moscow there was very heavy traffic because of unexpected snow. And almost all city stopped in cars on the roads. Many of clerks had been stucked in traffic for more than 3-5 hours. And what did the do?

With yandex.traffic service which helps to identify the situation on the roads and to mark (put a tag) the place with, for instance, car accident, people began to change with each other not only information but with their thoughts and expressions: “Hey, I’m staying here for 3 hours. Just want to leave my car and go to the pub, follow me!”

So you can see the map of moscow roads with driver’s conversation.

Besides, there is an opportunity for the company to participate in the project on a partnership basis. That’s what we did. Now our HR expert represents Edelman Imageland as an employer on blog.ventra.ru, telling our users about Edelman appraisal system, Edelman Global University and other interesting programms for Russian candidates. Very interesting notice, when expert really understands his/her goal and all benefits which are results from blogging – it takes just short period of time to teach him/her to blog. And I have to admit, that our HR director – Anna Govorina - is very natural in this new way of communication.

• interchange of experience between the leading market players;
• customer and industry advocating through developing Social Media Code of Ethics;
• promoting new approaches to PR and marketing;
• social media trainings;
• professional community building;
• developing industry standards.

“Social media market is growing in Russia,” said Anna Rokina, NetMind research director. “And we really need some quality standards and guidelines to be developed for those working here. We also need some measurement standards for evaluating the effectiveness of advertising and promotional campaigns being implemented in social media”. 

The Social Media Association has its steering committee with:
Edelman Imageland Russia (Olga Rasulova), Netmind. Social Media (Anna Rokina), SK Content Group (Sergey Kuznetsov), Redkaya Marka interactive marketing company (Anton Popov), Comunica agency (Mikhail Umarov), IPSOS, Affect agency, BigIdea and ArtStyle MEDIA advertising & communication agency.

The Association will join Russian companies communicating with their customers through social media and blogosphere, agencies offering promotion in social media and doing it effectively, experts and freelancers working with social media and industry analysts and researchers.

There are some pretty powerful insights in the findings most relevant to engagement in Health 2.0:

• 70% of adults demand engagement especially for personal health issues that matter most to them

• Top three mandatories for health engagement: trust, authenticity and satisfaction 

• 22% of the population are Health Info-entials – people who are informed, involved with their health and actively engaged in the health conversation

• Most frequently accessed channels of health information:
- Conversations with friends/family (69%) 
- Conversations with “my doctor” or healthcare provider (65%).

• Social media is more credible when coupled with health expertise: 
- Top social medium: Health expert blogs (86%)
- Other most credible media include personal blogs, social networking sites, video-sharing sites, and Wikipedia.

And in Runet it’s more than true not only in health sphere because over 70% users trust experts and authority resources, 47% trust doctors and medicine specialists when 28% trust “people like you” (Edelman Trust Barometer).

The deck is available on the blog.

Potential growth rate of online market in Runet is extremely high – particularly in boom of new media and social networks – for example the audience of the most popular Russian social network Odnoklassniki.ru welcomed more than 20 mln people just for two years! Vkontakte.ru – 17 mln people, My.Mail.ru – 15 mln people.

But most popular Russian social networks used for personal communication or instant messaging. They are effective for contacts not for engaging campaigns.

At the same time average Russian blogger and opinion leader (internet-savvy, highly educated middle class consumer) is generally more critical and suspicious of any information, than its average western user, as well as able to obtain information by himself. Expert opinions usually placed on Internet forums, discussion boards and blogs (over 6 mln). Most preferable blog hosting platform for this blogger – is LiveJournal.Com.

Internet campaigns in general are more effective in Russia as a part of offline complex marketing campaigns.

More popular and long live communities in Runet are those which have continuation in real life (offline regular meetings on Auto.ru etc.)

Microblogging in Runet is not as popular as in global Internet due to poor ability in expression – 140 characters are available for Latin symbols and only 70 – for Cyrillics. Russians need more space to express their thoughts!)

The more localization of internet-campaigning – the better. Global Google looses to its competitor Yandex due to localization – services that appeal to particular Russian consumers interest (for instance Yandex-guru consumer advisory feature or Moscow traffic online navigation feature etc.).

So, if you are going to come to Russian online market, or are already present here – try to use at least several independent information source and communication tools, to know more how you could be more local and effective here providing your global company’s strategy.

Before holidays I visited presentation of the project “Snob” – a multimedia social network for millionaires. There was a late breakfast on the territory of the factory Arma (future office of the company), dedicated to the official launch of media group “ЖV!” (translated from Russian into English as a verb to Live).

The group positions itself as media of a new type, for which Internet space (where text, sound and video are used simultaneously) is a priority. It is based on co-creation of content both by users (participants of the project) and editors. Media group plans to launch 4 projects.

“Snob” number 1. “3 in 1” project – site, magazine, TV  channel – starts in July. Snob’s target audience are insiders. Quoting Andrey Shmarov – CEO of the project, the number of such people is around 5 000, they are rich, influential and they have what to say. Now they will have a place where to say. Exactly they will become hero-members of a “social net for millionaires” – club Snob.ru. It necessary to mention that it will be possible to enter the club only with a special invitation. Other users will have an access to an open part of the site Snob, where they will be able to enjoy posts of influential people and also video and audio content. At the same time for common users it will be possible to watch but impossible to write. In such a way creators of the project plan to protect snobs from “Internet chaos”.

It is not clear how will open and closed part of the club communicate. And what will motivate and attract common users (CEO of media group “ЖV!” Juriy Katsman plans to have 45 000 visitors per day)? It’s obviously that users won’t be satisfied just with news of “bloggers”. And if a user can’t have an influence on what’s going on and doesn’t have possibility to communicate in interactive online space (for example, he or she has no opportunity to comment the post of smb he reads) he will finally go somewhere, where this possibility exists.

At the same time Vladimir Yakovlev – founder of publishing house “Kommersant”, and nowadays chairman of board of directors of media group “ЖV!”, announced at the presentation that possibilities of blogs several times outnumber traditional journalism, and Mikhail Prohorov – the main investor of the project even suggested the journalists who were on this presentation to say good bye to their profession because of its’ coming death. 

Answering the question “How will your project differ from Livejournal.Com and how will you attract famous bloggers” Andrey Shmarov said that “Snob” is not an alternative to Livejournal and this project is not a “blog project”.

“Yes-yes, we understood that the project is multimedia and multi format. If it is impossible to transmit smth online, magazine or TV format will be chosen. But still how will you attract famous bloggers?”- questions continued to come from the hall.
- To copy their blogs and to agree with famous bloggers to come,” – continued Shmarov.
- And why should they come to you?
- Because.
- ???
- They will feel better at our space, all conditions will be created for them.
- Will you invite Dima Bilan? (Famous Russian pop star)
- Who’s that?
- How will you promote the project?
- With the help of acquaintances, – joined Katsman, – and with the help of all other familiar ways.
- How will you earn?
- Two sources of income: advertising on the site and in the magazine and paid services, subscription.

It is necessary to say that it will be invested near 150 mln $ in 4 projects of the new media group before 2010. Each project will have around 30 mln $. At the same time it is planned to earn on the site Snob.ru not less than 3,5 mln $ per year.

3 in 1:

Magazine – a traditional monthly printed edition. Without informational occasions and rubricators – not to fill sections with rubbish.

TV-channel – all the best for insiders. It is planned to attract 20 000 of subscribers who (paying around 65$ monthly) will enjoy only interesting programs.

Internet-portal – site is divided into 2 parts. The 1st: club of highly successful people. 2nd: open for everybody. Not highly successful. Yet.

My photos from presentation

Netmind presentation. Anna Rokina is telling about the importance of monitoring and researches in blogosphere:

Konstantin Maksimuk from Beeline (one of the popular national mobile brand) presenting the case of Beeline work in russian blogosphere:

Rick Murray is inviting russian audience to the Future but warning against inefficient ways of blogging:

Rick Murray presents Rexona case (this PR-campaign succeeded in US, but failed in Russia because of different approaches!)

Anton Nossik, a popular blogger and the head of blogs department in SUP (LiveJounal in Russia), says that russian online market can be a little behind from US, but the benefit is the learning of western mistakes in digital practice.

More pictures from this press-event are available on Flickr

Video of Rick Murray’s presentation “Welcome to the Future” on the round table in Moscow:

Every interesting moment will be recorded on video and placed here as a podcast (may be Rucast).

See you soon!