The Power of Influence

Facebook and Twitter Making a Major Impact on Purchase Decisions [STATS]

A new study shows that those who are fans or followers of a brand on Facebook or Twitter, respectively, are significantly more likely to buy products and services or recommend the brand to a friend.

Specifically, the study by Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies found that consumers are 67% more likely to buy from the brands they follow on Twitter, and 51% more likely to buy from a brand they follow on Facebook. Moreover, they’re 79% more likely to recommend their Twitter follows to a friend, and 60% more likely to do the same on Facebook:

Of course, those findings might be a bit overstated — many people actively seek out the brands they’re already fans of and follow or fan them on Twitter and Facebook. But there’s still much to be said for the mindshare that engaging those existing brand enthusiasts on social media sites creates, in turn keeping them active. Plus, the study also found that many consumers across a wide variety of demographics have negative perceptions of brands that aren’t using social media.

Overall, the study is another sign that social media is becoming a competitive advantage for those that are participating, and an increasingly major weakness for those that aren’t.

[via Mashable]

Facebook directs more online users than Google

A big part of the Facebook experience is how friends and family share Web links to interesting news stories, photos, videos and Internet sites.

This "friend-casting" of information has helped propel Facebook into a major force in directing traffic around the Web.

According to Web measurement firm Compete Inc., Facebook has passed search-engine giant Google to become the top source for traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN, and is among the leaders for other types of sites.

This trend is shifting the way Web site operators approach online marketing, even as Google takes steps to move into the social-media world.

Some experts say social media could become the Internet's next search engine.

"People are spending less time navigating the Internet on their own and are now navigating the Internet based on their friends' recommendations or their friends' activities," said Dave Yovanno, chief executive of Gigya Inc., a Palo Alto firm that offers social-media services. "That's one of the big trends we started picking up on probably four or five months ago."

For years, Web content creators had to worry whether they had the proper level of search-engine optimization to make sure search engines listed them among the top results. Now, they have to consider what companies like Gigya offer - social-media optimization.

"Marketers must focus on social marketing in addition to traditional search, as customers have a multi-pronged way of finding information," said Jeremiah Owyang, a Web strategist for the Altimeter Group, a San Mateo consulting firm with clients like Gigya. "The clear-cut channels of yesteryear are now an intricate set of connections."

Using a snapshot of Web traffic from December, Compete's director of online media and search, Jessica Ong, found that 15 percent of traffic to major Web portals like Yahoo, MSN and AOL came from Facebook and MySpace. The lion's share of that traffic, 13 percent came from Facebook.

Google, which has profited handsomely from directing Web surfers to their destinations during the past decade, was third with 7 percent, just behind e-commerce site eBay, which had 7.61 percent. MySpace was fourth with just under 2 percent.

Surprise gain

The numbers proved eye-opening because Google used to dominate most Web-referral categories. "I was surprised to see Facebook has become No. 1," Ong said.

In other categories, Compete's data showed Mountain View's Google still on top, but Palo Alto's Facebook was not far behind. For example, Google accounted for 21.3 percent of referrals to sites catering to movie fans, but Facebook was second with 12.4 percent. And in a video category, Google - which owns YouTube - was first with 22.9 percent, but Facebook was next at 12.7 percent.

Facebook's meteoric growth as a Web destination was a factor. Facebook says it has 400 million active members, including about 225 million added in just the past 12 months. Its size now rivals that of major Web portals and its demographics mirror those of the Internet in general, Ong said.

"Putting all this information together, we can say that Facebook has become an integral part of the consumer Web experience, similar to how portals like Yahoo and MSN are part of most consumers' online sessions," Ong said. "So the message for the advertising industry is that more serious attention needs to be paid to social-networking sites like Facebook, and advertisers need to figure out how to leverage this traffic."

TurboTax gamble

One of Gigya's clients is financial software maker Intuit Inc. Seth Greenberg, Intuit's director of national media and digital marketing, said the company is betting on social media to draw customers to its TurboTax Web site this year. The tax preparation program generates about $1 billion in revenue in the 10 t0 15 weeks leading to April 15.

Half of TurboTax's 20 million users are on Facebook and each has an average of 150 friends. Intuit is using social media to generate more buzz about the program through the sharing of product reviews and answers to tax preparation questions.

Greenberg coined the phrase "friend-casting" to describe how Intuit is using social media.

"We actually want our customers to be our best sales force, not us," Greenberg said. "Enabling our 20 million-customer base to be a word-of-mouth army for us is much more interesting."

Strong influence

Although methods such as paid search, Web display ads and TV commercials still reach a larger audience, the "influence" tapped in social media "is a heck of a lot stronger than it is with traditional advertising," he said.

David Berkowitz, director of emerging media and client strategy for the digital marketing firm 360i of New York, said the importance of search engines isn't going away.

"But there's always been one downside to search," he said. "Consumers only spend about 5 percent of their time online searching and the other 95 percent of the time at the destination. Social media is quickly accounting for a large percentage of that 95 percent. Google's biggest acquisitions, DoubleClick and YouTube, have been all about playing a big role in the rest of consumers' Web usage."

He noted that last week Google purchased San Francisco's Aardvark, a social-media search engine for questions and answers, and then unveiled Google Buzz, which allows Gmail users to post updates, videos, photos and links, Facebook-style.

"Mobile will be another new source for search, and some of that will be incremental rather than cannibalistic," he said.

"But social media's just finding its feet and the business models are just starting to emerge. And they're evolving quickly."

[via SFGate]

Social Networking Rises, Especially Among Younger Set

Social networking has risen among all age groups in the past few years, particularly among teens and younger adults, according to research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Pew research indicates that in 2009, 73% of online teens used social networking sites in 2009, compared to 47% of online adults. Breaking down online adults into older and younger demographics, 72% of adults 18-29 use social networking sites, compared to 40% of their counterparts 30 and older.

Facebook is Tops with All Adults

Social networking adults in all age brackets favor Facebook by a wide margin, with older adults preferring it slightly more. Seventy-three percent of all adults 18 and older who use social networking sites have a Facebook account. Broken down by age demographic, this includes 71% of adults 18-29 and 75% of adults 30 and older.

In contrast, 48% of all adult social network site users have a MySpace account. The younger generation is much more apt to use MySpace, with 66% of social networking adults 18-29 having a MySpace account, but only 36% of the 30 and older bracket. Usage rates for the professional networking site LinkedIn are the reverse of MySpace. Fourteen percent of all adult social networking site users have a LinkedIn account, which breaks down to 7% of adults 18-29 and 19% of adults 30 and older.

Younger Adults More Apt to Tweet

Tiwtter and other status-updating sites are more popular with younger adults than older adults. Thirty-seven percent of online adults 18-29 use Twitter or another status-updating site, compared to 9% of 50- to 64-year-olds and only 4% of online adults 65 and older. The overall Twitter/status-updating site usage rate among all adults is 19%.

 

Older Adults Blog More
Blogging is becoming more popular with older adults and less popular with younger adults.
While blogging among adults as a whole has remained steady, the prevalence of blogging within specific age groups has changed dramatically in recent years. Specifically, a sharp decline in blogging by young adults has been tempered by a corresponding increase in blogging among older adults.

• In December 2007, 24% of online 18-29-year-olds reported blogging, compared with 7% of those ages 30 and older.
• By 2009, just 15% of internet users ages 18-29 maintained a blog, a nine-percentage-point drop in two years. However, 11% of internet users ages 30 and older maintained a personal blog.

Almost Everyone Under 30 is Online

Seventy-four percent of all adults 18 and older go online. This percentage climbs to 93% for both 12-to-17-year olds and 18-to-29-year-olds. Even among adults 65 and older, the least likely age demographic to use the internet, 38% of the population is online.

Other Findings

• Eighty-one percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 29 are wireless internet users. By comparison, 63% of 30-49-year-olds and 34% of those ages 50 and older access the internet wirelessly.
• Roughly half of 18-29 year-olds have accessed the internet wirelessly on a laptop (55%) or on a cell phone (55%), and about one quarter of 18-29 year-olds (28%) have accessed the internet wirelessly on another device such as an e-book reader or gaming device.
• Three-quarters (75%) of teens, 93% of adults ages 18-29, and 58% of 12-year-olds now have a cell phone.
• Eight percent of internet users ages 12-17 use Twitter. This makes Twitter far less common than sending or receiving text messages — as 66% of teens do — or going online for news and political information, done by 62% of online teens.

Global Time Spent Social Networking Rises
In December 2008, global consumers spent an average of three hours, three minutes and 54 seconds on social networking sites, according to The Nielsen Company. That amount of time increased to five hours, 35 minutes and five seconds one year later. In addition, unique audience increased 27%, from 242 million in December 2008 to 307.4 million in December 2009.

The same Nielsen study revealed that Facebook dramatically increased its dominance of the US online social networking market between December 2008 and December 2009. In December 2009, Facebook recorded about 110 million unique visitors, a 100% increase from 55 million unique visitors in December 2008. MySpace, which remained the second-most popular US online social network, saw its number of unique visitors drop about 17%, from roughly 60 million in December 2008 to roughly 50 million in December 2009. While Twitter only recorded 18.1 million unique visitors in December 2009, this represented 579% growth from 2.7 million unique visitors a year earlier.

About the Study: This research is part of a Pew Research Center series of reports exploring the behaviors, values and opinions of the teens and twenty-somethings that make up the Millennial Generation.

[via Marketing Charts]

5 Social Media Secrets for 2010

Social media took a wild ride in 2009. The mainstream press fell in love with Twitter, Facebook grew aggressively and a new wave of companies starting taking social media seriously as a business tool. Below are 5 secrets to staying on top of it all in 2010

1. Pay Attention to the Metrics
You can't manage what you can't measure. Chief Marketing Officers are going to pay more attention to metrics and tie in social media more directly to overall business goals, not just web-related goals. When starting up new project agree on what the metrics should be and what goals are appropriate.

2. Scale Good Habits
As you grow, make sure you match your structure, policy and guidelines to your organization size. What works with 2 people won't work with 20 people. All in all your structure should encourage good habits. Your entire team should be motivated to respond quickly, post consistently and talk like a human. Speaking of policies and rules...

3. Have Rules, But Trust People
As your social media strategy matures, you'll add in more rules and guidelines. However, you can't have a rule for every situation. You need to trust your team. Lead by example, don't manage with rulebook.

4. Creativity & Personality Trump Big Budget
Social media is definitely one of those areas in life where more money doesn't always win. Two of the most powerful ingredients in social media are creativity and personality. They are the key to having a viral message and to being a trusted resource. They are also essential to discovering useful strategies and tactics. You can't be afraid to try something new or go against the grain.

5. Listen Listen Listen
Don't focus so much on you and your message. Put that farther down on your To Do List. Focus first on your customers. Hear what they are saying, see what they're up to. Once you've been able to connect, and figure them out, then see how you can help.

Hat Tip to the SlideShare Team

Me being interviewed on ADOI TV

A little while ago I spoke at the MMC09 - here is an interview done by the team just after the conference.

In the interview I cover the relationship between WoM and Social Media and how my company (Vocanic) approaches the planning of a campaign with its Groundswell(tm) methodology.

Internet overtakes TV in the UK to be the biggest advertising medium

UK INTERNET AD SPEND GREW 4.6% TO £1.75 BILLION IN H1 2009 Online advertising expenditure overtakes TV for the first time IAB figures show ad expenditure online up £82m to record market share of 23.5% www.iabuk.net

In the first half of 2009 internet advertising weathered the recession and grew by 4.6% to £1,752.1m, despite the entire advertising sector contracting by 16.6% during the same period.

According to the bi-annual online advertising expenditure study from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) - the trade body for digital marketing - in partnership with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and the World Advertising Research Centre (WARC) - , the internet has now overtaken TV advertising to become the UK's biggest advertising medium.

The UK remains the world leader in terms of market share for online, with the medium accounting for 23.5% in the first half of 2009. The results signal a significant restructure of marketing budgets as advertisers follow their audiences online and look to the internet for even more measureable and accountable methods.

Technology, telecoms and finance leading the way

 The study breaks down the online display market by industry category, to identify the top spenders and how investment is increasing or decreasing across sectors.  The results show that Technology is the biggest spender, accounting for 19.1% of the market, followed by Telecoms (13.3% rising from 9.7% the previous year) and Finance (13.2% up from 11.9).  Entertainment and Media was fourth with 11.8%, while Consumer Goods saw significant growth up from 6.2% in H1 2008 to 8.1% in 2009 as FMCG marketers steadily increased digital budgets.

StarHub FaceBook Campaign

Lipstick on a Pig (aka Social Media Makeover)

Tom Fishburne absolutly nails it again - sign up for your weekly smile at http://www.tomfishburne.com/

Disclaimer: I have no relationship with BrandCamp at all - other than admiration!

Malcolm Gladwell Speaks in HK: Online reach does not equal influence...

Influential author Malcolm Gladwell has questioned whether popularity on social media platforms translates into real influence that brands can use.

Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers, was speaking in Hong Kong in his first seminar in the SAR. In his talk, based around some of his findings in The Tipping Point, he described people called ‘connectors’, who have far bigger social circles than other people. These people wield huge influence in social circles and are key to word-of-mouth campaigns.

However, when asked about how this theory translated into the world of social media, he argued that popularity online did not necessarily mean social power.

“I have some doubts about the power and influence of some of the internet-based social platforms,” he said. “I’m not sure online is the best space for developing relationships. It’s good for initiating them, but not developing them.”

He added that the key to social power was the intimacy of relationships, but that adding friends to Facebook or similar platforms isn’t a reflection of intimacy. “A true connector is more impressive than a Facebook glutton.”

Marketers, wean yourself off the addiction to Celeb endorsements .. it is damaging your brand

Those of you who have heard me present will remember my position on the effectiveness of celebrity endorsements.  A waste of time and worse, money.  Lazy markeing.

“Make your brand the hero, don’t buy someone’s reputation and put your product next to it hoping some of it will rub off” is my sometimes seen as controversial line. Which often gets a reaction as Celeb endorsements are such stock in trade for so many brands and agencies.

“Take the money you would be wasting on the Celeb and invest it in doing something remarkable for your customers” I propose instead.

Well here is some research to back up my position When asked “When you see a Celebrity in a product advertisement does it make you? ”  78% say no effect and 12% say less likely ie 90% of people say it either has NO effect or actually makes the LESS likely to buy the product.

Lest for one moment ignore the total waste of budget and effort on a campaign that has no effect and just look at the people that it does effect.

If 12% say LESS likely and 8% say MORE likely – the net effect of the campaign is a market 4% LESS likely to buy the product. 

You would be better off going to beach / golfing and giving the money to charity than running the campaign.

So – STOP IT already. 
 
Though the media feeds consumers a constant stream of minutiae about celebrities’ private lives, and celebs who Tweet seem to have legions of avid followers, a new study of LinkedIn users by AdWeekMedia finds that most US consumers say they are not at all swayed by celebrity endorsements of products.

When respondents in the survey were asked whether the presence of a celebrity in an ad makes them more likely, less likely or neither more or less likely to buy the product, nearly 8 in 10 (78%) said it doesn’t sway them one way or the other. In fact, only 8% said the presence of a celebrity spokesperson makes them more likely to buy a product. This compares with a  significant 12% who actually say it makes them less likely to buy a product.

Additional findings by demographic group:

• Older respondents are especially likely to reject celebrities as spokespeople. Nearly one-quarter (24%) of those ages 55+ say seeing a celeb in an ad makes them less likely to buy a product, vs. just 4% saying it makes them more likely to buy.

• Men (15%) are slightly more likely than women (11) to say a celeb deters them from buying a product.

• 20% of business owners vs. 11% of people with jobs in the “management” category say the presence celebrities in ads make them less likely to buy.

• While 19% of survey participants in “creative” roles said a celeb in an ad makes them less likely to buy. This compares with 8% saying it makes them more likely.

A recent survey by Harris Interactive found that Americans do not consider the occupations of actor, entertainer and athlete to have a great deal of prestige.

About the survey: The survey was conducted online in July among a sample of 4,778 LinkedIn users.