Google CEO Eric Schmidt speaks with breathtaking candour on the topic of online privacy.  He recently said, in a totally matter-of-fact way: “We know where you are.  We know where you’ve been.  We more or less know what you’re thinking about”.  In an even more Orwellian moment he quipped “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place”.  In light of Google’s recent scrapes with the Australian Privacy Commissioner, we all have reason to reflect carefully upon Schmidt’s warnings.

So just how seriously are Australians taking the issue of online privacy and how carefully are we rationing the information that we share with others online?  These questions have been tackled in Principals’ latest Digital Pulse study, a quarterly review of online attitudes and behaviors, based upon a nationally representative sample of internet users.  This quarter the study explores the extent to which Australians feel comfortable sharing different kinds of information over the internet, from their personal interests and opinions, to photographs, name and address details, telephone and credit card numbers.

Six in ten Australians polled feel comfortable sharing their personal interests and attributed opinions with others online.  It will surprise no one to learn that eight in ten young web users, less than 25 years of age, feel comfortable to share such personal opinions freely.  While youth lead the way, a clear majority of Australians, regardless of age or gender, now embrace the idea that sharing their ideas and experiences online helps companies to deliver better products and services, more in tune with their needs.

But when it comes to sharing seriously personal data, Australians are considerably more circumspect.  Just 48% feel comfortable sharing their name and address details, 38% their credit card or telephone numbers and just 13% their passport or drivers licence numbers online.  Australians are astutely distinguishing between low risk ‘public me’ data and high risk ‘private me’ data shared online.  And this distinction is most clearly recognised by the young.

The stereotype of the young online user is of someone recklessly sharing personal information, oblivious to the risks.  Yet the reality is their online behaviour is highly evolved.  On the one hand they do relentlessly share their personal opinions, lifestyle activities and photos with peers online, yet on the other hand they are wary about sharing data that allows their identification out in the real world.  The very real risks of identity theft, cyber bullying and stalking are clearly well understood by online youth, given their cautious sharing of unique personal identifiers and their surprisingly active use of privacy settings on social sites.

The online journal First Monday recently published research amongst first-year university students in the US, noting just how engaged they have become with their privacy settings on Facebook.  Between 2009 and 2010 the percentage of students who changed their privacy settings four or more times doubled from 24% to 51%.  And just 2% of students had never reviewed their privacy settings at all.

It’s the sharing of photos online that most divides the generations.  While nearly two thirds of young web users feel comfortable to post photos online, just one third of 55 pluses are at all comfortable with the idea.  The middle generation, 26-55 are at present perfectly divided on the topic, so represent an enticing new tipping point target for the likes of Flickr and Facebook.
For boomers, photos look likely to forever remain in the province of ‘private me’.  Yet for young Australians, online photos epitomise the whole idea of living online, despite the reputational risks.  As Schmidt, the king of the internet cache reminds social networkers “when you post something, the computers remember forever”.  Just as young people have learned to become selective about their sharing of unique data identifiers, they may grow to recognise there’s too high a price to pay for liberally posting personal photos and videos.  That these too represent a unique personal identifier online.
An interesting counter-trend in the study is the relatively high levels of comfort that older Australians have with sharing personal identifiers like name and address details, phone numbers and credit card details online.  This may in part be driven by the lesser risks of cyberstalking to this generation, but also flags their belief that the internet is primarily a transactional tool.  It’s amongst older Australians 45 plus that the e-commerce opportunity is most pronounced.  It’s time for brands to take the silver surfers’ wallets a good deal more seriously.

1 Learn to listen

Everyday, people are talking about brands online. Everything from latest offers, the service they received, to things they wish for most.

Be it positive or negative, the value of tapping into the stream of conversation across online platforms can provide clear insights for your business.

These platforms range from dedicated online forums and groups to popular social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

TRY THIS

Use some of these free methods in scanning the social sphere to see what people are saying about your brand

Visit: http://www.socialmention.com
Do a Twitter search: http://search.twitter.com/
Search Google or Yahoo! Groups:
http://groups.google.com;
http://groups.yahoo.com

Orange, the European phone company, knew people were talking about their services online, and that it needed to listen. Orange identified and listened to the key forums in which its products are discussed and the ‘super-contributors’ who talk most about the company – and then, put what it heard to use, below are two examples of this:

1. Orange has been able to identify and solve numerous “collective problems”. Recently, for example, 40,000 clients who signed up for a specific package complained of not receiving the amount of memory they had signed up for; the problem was quickly fixed.

2. Orange have been able to spot offers from their competitors that their customers want in their own plans. Family calling, for example, is now part of the Orange Open calling plan.

2 Say less, engage more

New products provide an excellent opportunity to engage both a brand’s existing fans and prospective buyers online.
Smart companies are using the web to engage consumers in new brand concepts, to harness their insights and build pre-launch buzz.

A social platform can become never-ending well of customer insights that can be tapped into again and again. Here brands can connect their audience together in a community, answer questions and concerns and get them to learn more about the brand and new products.

SO ASK YOURSELF

How do you feature new products online to drive reappraisal of our brand?

Is there an opportunity to seed new ideas online to gauge consumer response and tap into the creativity of the crowd to make the ideas even better?

Audi posted images of its new A1 model across the social web, then aggregated mentions from across social platforms and reposted them on a microsite. The microsite didn’t just report what people were saying, it also allowed users to customize their own Audi A1 and then encouraged them to share it with friends. Almost 40,000 people created customised versions of the new model. In total 5.5 million people visited the microsite 119 million times, generating the largest number of car pre-orders in its history.

3. Give and keep on giving

When private information is sought of individuals, brands need to offer something in return of value. This may be in the form of a competition, useful content or exclusive invitations to underground events.

Today opt-in or Permission Marketing is the most effective weapon in a marketer’s arsenal. According to Seth Godin, “Permission marketing turns strangers into friends and friends into loyal customers,” he says. “It’s not just about entertainment – it’s about education.”
Getting them in is the first step, keeping them is the challenge. If what you offer is once-off or flakey then they will simply opt-out.

DON’T BE A SORE LOSER

If you lose them, make it easy to optout. Don’t ruin any chances you have  by keeping them against their will.

H&R Block introduced a new service called Premium Tax targeted at higher-income customers. However, it was a service that needed to be explained before customers could grasp its value.

Their internet banner which said “H&R Block: We’ll pay your taxes sweepstakes” had more than 50,000 responses from people who paid taxes and knew what H&R Block was. In order to gain a chance to have their taxes paid by H&R, the consumers gave the company permission to tell them more about Premium Tax. In this case, permission marketing worked effectively in getting the attention of their target group and elicited enough interest to gain their permission to further promote the service.

 

4 convince, respect and protect

Instilling trust in users to provide their particulars requires ease of input, professional design, clarity of privacy policies and, ideally, the endorsement of trusted third parties.

Keep their trust by ensuring the information collected is safe and secure, as misuse can damage the relationship beyond repair.

FIGHT TEMPTATION…

…of sharing client information with others, particularly affiliate partners without their permission. Nothing irks a client more then when they provide personal information and then get spammed. Make it clear and simple for clients to select affiliate offers, and always make the default unselected. A well worded and designed privacy statement and form will instill trust and put customers minds at ease.

Follow this link to find a template for a good privacy statement.

Read the full Quarter 2 Summer 2010 Report on Slideshare: