Foursquare. Report: Social Media Marketing Up During Recession. I’m sitting across the street from the SXSW convention center, yesterday the organizer Hugh Forrest told me that attendees to the Interactive portion (a great deal with a focus on social) was up aprox 20% (just an approximation). I’ve seen many social media strategists (see list) here at the conference that are here to network with the influencers, get educated at the sessions, and to soak in what community really means. During a recession, marketers are often forced to reduce budgets, in fact, it’s often one of the first buckets to get trimmed. In our latest research: Social Media Playtime is Over, we found that 53% of marketers are determined to increase their social media budget during a recession, and 42% will keep it the same, a total of 95% of marketers bullish on social media marketing.
Why? The reasons are obvious to some, it’s inexpensive and the opportunity to benefit from cost-effective word-of-mouth, are promising. Key Takeaway? Related Voices. When Brands Get Punk’d: Social Media Remediation. Do you know any brands that are hated or are getting social media wrong? They may need “Social Media Remediation” I had drinks with Paul and Brooke from, Cohn and Wolfe a digital PR agency that told me they focus on clients that have some brand challenges, that’s putting it nicely, he wants to help the brands that have been punk’d. They expressed to me something pretty interesting: when brands get social media wrong and mess it up, they often need experts to help correct the situation.
If you’ve seen Pulp Fiction, you’ll remember the character “Mr Fox” “The Wolf” (thanks Darshan) who was the clean up expert driving the flashy sports car. I don’t know what kind of car that Paul and Brooke drive but they shared some of the brands they are helping, and they are certainly brands under fire, one case study they told me about was one of their premiere clients, Dell. I briefly spoke with Lionel at Dell, who told me they’ve been with them since the “Hell” fire. So what does Paul and Brooke do? How To Use Social Proof For Social Content Promotion. You’ve heard it before, “Content is king”, but is it really? When it comes to promoting content in social media, content is not what’s solely going to drive popularity to your campaign.
Content is still a very important factor, especially if you are using a resource hook to drive traffic and links. I’ll wait for future posts to dive into all the factors that drive popularity to your content through social media promotion but today I am going to cover an important element, social proof. Wikipedia defines social proof as: “Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon that occurs in ambiguous social situations when people are unable to determine the appropriate mode of behavior.”
Naturally, humans look for external cues or indicators of influence when they are making decisions regarding consumption, time, attention, and engagement. Another element of social proof is any traffic or engagement indicators on the actual content itself. Search and Social Media Marketing Consulting | Stuntdubl SEO Con. Linkbaiting is all about the bait. In the same way that you can’t catch a giant tuna with a bag of doritos – you’re not going to get the attention of important bloggers, journalists, or other folks with some garbage content or news. Do YOU really like reading press releases anymore? Wouldn’t you rather spend that time reading something fun, entertaining, insightful, interesting, or informational? Let’s take a look at the different hooks available to linkbaiters (or viral marketer’s if you prefer that school of thought), and hope that you can find an angle to approach link acquisition for YOUR business.
In the original post that coined the term linkbaiting, Nick Wilson mentions 5 linkbaiting “hooks”: News hookContrary HookAttack HookResource HookHumour Hook I’d like to add a few new hooks to Mr. Introduction – A note on titles, target audience, and school of thought. The importance of good titles cannot be underestimated. Linkbaiting IS NOT Viral Marketing Ideas for this hook: Go niche.
Netpop | Connect: Media Shifts to Social 2009 Preview. Boyd :: Publications. Multi Platform Social Media - diagram-by-diagram | PERSONALIZE M. Over the years I have been creating lots of confusing, busy yet at the same time, meaningful and insightful emergent media diagrams. These attempt to help the uninitiated heritage media folk, get to grips with a multiplatform, shifting-social-media-sands, transmogodified entertainment landscape…breathe.
So I have been uploading a bunch of these diagrams onto my flickr account over the past weeks, partly to make them more accessible to me too (oh the joys of the cloud) but with the creative commons tag, for all and sundry to use (attributed of course – the only way to power & fame nowadays – cackles!). Here is a short selection of the 25 or so already up, with brief descriptions – the main bunch is in a set called ‘Emergent Media’ here. The above diagram is intended to help storytellers simply understand a range of key places to distribute their story fragments or triggers online. The above is one of my favourite diagrams from way back in early 2006. Gary Hayes Emerging Media Diagrams. Social Networking’s New Global Footprint. Social Network Software by Telligent | Enterprise Online Communi.
50 Essential Strategies For Creating A Successful Web 2.0 Produc. UberVU - Track conversations wherever they go on the Web and rep. Social Media for Business: The Dos. Sarah Evans is the director of communications at Elgin Community College (ECC) in Elgin, Illinois. She also authors a PR and social media blog and is the founder of #journchat. It doesn’t matter if you’re on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr; your online personality is not only part of your overall brand, it becomes an interactive experience for you and your business. So, who is the face or voice of your brand and what do they share? It's a very important decision in and of itself. Just as you create branding guidelines and key messaging guides, so too should you dedicate time to creating your social media personality.
Be transparent and authentic. Don’t want the worst day of your life to be played over and over again like Groundhog Day? Think in terms of “bad driver just cut me off” instead of “just got served papers for a lawsuit.” A great example of "what not to do" is posted on Peter Shankman's blog, How an "accomplished communicator" communicates. Who is doing it well? Facebook. SocNets Grow 93% Since 2006. The report, “Social Networkers US: Who they are and what they mean for next generation advertising,” draws from a projectable sample of 4,384 broadband users to pinpoint the specific demographics, online behaviors, preferences and “passions” of online contributors and social networkers.
Netpop finds that 76% of US broadband users (105 million) are active contributors to the web via social media (including uploading photos, blogging, rating products and other Web 2.0 activities). Moreover, approximately 29%, or 40 million broadband users are regular contributors to the web specifically through social networking sites and are spending increasing amounts of their online time communicating with each other, both one-to-one and one-to-many. This, Netpop said, is signaling a shift in the content people consume and how they are entertained and is turning everyday users into natural connectors, promoters and influencers. Key findings about US social networkers: Social Networkers in China.
IAB UK : News and comment : Engage for Social Media. Is it possible to hold a social media conference without someone mentioning Barack Obama? Of course not. Unsurprisingly the poster boy of social networking was a feature of most of the presentations at today’s IAB Engage for Social Media conference held at the Imagination Gallery. Thankfully Obama’s journey to office was not the only topic of discussion however as speakers shared their thoughts on how marketers can look to use social networks to communicate effectively with customers. The four Rs First up, the IAB’s marketing director Kieron Matthews explained that one of the key issues for modern marketers to deal with is the fact that “a lot of what we do online hasn’t been set up for advertising. For Matthews there are four principles that brands hoping to use social networking successfully should follow: brands should ‘respect’ their audience; ‘respond’ to their customers; keep their communications ‘real’; and always strive to be ‘relevant’.
New world order The web is social. F | Social Media (p. 1) Advertising - Tropicana Discovers Some Buyers Are Passionate Abo. Logic Emotion: The Collective Is The Focus Group. Plugging in to Social Networkers’ Behavior. In the social media arena, marketers know that traffic is high and increasing, but social networks have yet to find a solid revenue stream. The disparity between usage and advertising is striking. In 2009, more than 44% of Internet users will visit a social network at least once per month, according to eMarketer. But social network advertising represents just 5% of overall online ad dollars. It’s no wonder that traditional online ad formats, such as display, are not terribly successful. Social networkers are preoccupied. A November 2008 JPMorgan survey showed that 78% of online social networkers were there to keep in touch with friends. One-half of respondents said they wanted to connect with old friends.
Marketers will get more leverage with consumers by providing widgets and other applications to help people chat and create and share content, as Ian Schafer, CEO and founder of ad agency Deep Focus, told eMarketer. But there are a number of methods for marketers to tap into these sites. Why Big Brands Struggle With Social Media. Tom Smith is the founder of Trendstream, a research consultancy that specialises in providing research and consultancy on social media, web and mobile. He formerly worked as Head of Consumer Futures at Universal McCann. Social media continues to grow globally in terms of adoption, usage, interest and impact in a massive way. It’s undeniably changing the way that content and information work particularly in terms of the publishing of consumer opinion. This has transformed the way that consumers relate to brands and the way that brands should operate, driving direct interaction, transparency and a more consultative approach.
However, we still operate in a system defined by the old media world and consequently big brand involvement is still in the main tentative and sporadic. From my experience of trying to get big brands to embrace the social revolution, there are a number of reasons why they have yet to embrace the real opportunities that involvement can deliver: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. How to Reach Baby Boomers with Social Media - ReadWriteWeb. A new report from Forrester Research revealed some surprising information: apparently Baby Boomers aren't exactly the technology Luddites that people think they are.
In fact, more than 60 percent of those in this generational group actively consume socially created content like blogs, videos, podcasts, and forums. What's more, the percentage of those participating is on the rise. In 2007, the percentage of Boomers consuming social media was 46% for younger Boomers (ages 43 to 52) and 39% for older Boomers (ages 53 to 63). By 2008, those number increased to 67% and 62%, respectively. The number of Boomers responding to content posted online, as opposed to just passively consuming it, is also going up. For example, the proportion of older Boomers responding to content doubled from 15% in 2007 to 34% in 2008.
Joining social networks is also becoming a widely popular among the younger Boomers. Image credit: flickr user unclebumpy. Facebook Launches Commenting Widget - ReadWriteWeb. Facebook launched its first social widget for use outside of Facebook's own site today: the Comments Box. The Comments Box is a comments widget that was built on top of Facebook Connect, and that will allow bloggers and publishers to easily implement a Facebook Connect enabled commenting system on their sites.
A number of sites already used Facebook Connect to make it easier for their users to sign in to their services and leave comments, but this is the first time that Facebook itself ventures into this business. Competition Google, of course, already offers a similar service with Google Friend Connect, though this offers far more features than just the ability to leave comments. Google also allows users to sign in with an OpenID account, as well as with accounts from other vendors, including Yahoo and AOL.
In the announcement, Facebook stresses that this is just the first of a number of social widgets based on Facebook Connect that the company is planning to release in the near future. The Vitrue 100 - Top Social Brands of 2008 « Vitrue Blog - we ma. Yes, LinkedIn is a very different social network with very different users and a very different purpose than the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. But, that doesn’t mean it’s not a platform that’s always experimenting, evolving and changing like the others.
In the past few months alone, LinkedIn has made alterations that you, especially if you’re B2B, must be aware of in case they affect current strategy or serve as inspiration for new LinkedIn tactics for your brand. Congratulations! You’re a Publisher! Did you ever see a post from one of those LinkedIn Influencers and think to yourself, “Hey, that should be me”? Now it can be. But just to give you an idea of how impressed people need to be with your content, the average Influencer post gets over 31,000 views, over 250 likes and around 80 comments. Hmm, That Didn’t Work, Part 1 In what LinkedIn described as a decision to focus on a few big bets, they shut down LinkedIn Intro.
Hmm, That Didn’t Work, Part 2 How’s Your Content Doing? A Top 25 List of Social Media, Web 2.0. User-Generated Content Draws Fans. The number of people who consume user-generated content exceeds the number of creators. This is true in any content loop—more people are always spectators than active participants. But because user-generated content is affordable, accessible and amenable to mass participation, the delta between creators and consumers is smaller than in traditional media. Maybe that’s why this type of content continues to grow in usage, though not in revenues. So which types of user-generated content drew the most fans in 2008?
Blogs had the highest rate of engagement, with 54% of the US Internet user base consuming this content. Social network users made up 41.2% of the US Internet population in 2008, while user-generated video viewers represented 36% of users. By 2013, all four categories will grow, resulting in 152.6 million blog readers, 114.6 million users of social networks, 108.8 million viewers of user-generated video and 97.1 million consumers of wikis.
Web and Social Networking Use in Latin America. The number of Internet users in Latin America and Puerto Rico is growing quickly, because of affordable computers, more broadband availability and interest in applications such as social networking. Those are the main findings of a study conducted by Pyramid Research for Google and cited in The Miami Herald. Pyramid projected the regional residential base of Internet users would reach 160 million in five years, up from 100 million in 2009. Although e-mail and Web surfing are popular with Latin American Web users, as they are in other regions, social networking is especially prevalent. “A lot of people in Latin America use the Internet just to be part of a social network,” said Alexandre Hohagen, Google’s managing director for Latin America, in a statement.
A separate study conducted in September 2008 by comScore World Metrix confirmed the Pyramid/Google findings. Social Network User Demographics. SOCIAL NETWORKING GOD: 350 Social Networking Sites. The Top 10 Social Networks for Generation-Y. Tony-b Machine. Sapient Vending Machine: First Look Reviews. A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2009. NpTech Summary: Best (free) Sources To Get Social Media Audience. Focused Social Networks Build Community. Blogs Can Ease Customer Communication. Think Social Influence Marketing in 2008. Academia meets Social Marketing. Portable Social Graphs - Imagining their Potential - SlideShare. Bank On It: Facebook Will Pass MySpace in US Popularity. The Secrets of Marketing in a Web 2.0 World. Social Networks and 40-Something Women. 130 Social Media Marketing Examples From Major Brands | SocialCo.
All about Google - SlideShare.