A video "Social Media Revolution: Is social media a fad?" by Socialnomics details out social media facts and figures that are hard to ignore. Socialnomics believes that social media isn't a fad, it's a fundamental; shift in the way we communicate.
Some of the findings featured in the presentation/video include:
- By 2010, GenY will outnumber Baby Boomers. 96% of them have joined a social network.
- Years to reach 50 million users: Radio (38 years); TV (13 years); Internet (4 years); iPod (3 years). Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months. iPod Application downloads hit 1 billion in 9 months.
- If Facebook were a country it would be the world's 4th largest.
(Social Media Revolution video, July 2009)
Less than 1 in 5 marketers worldwide measured their social media ROI in 2009, according to a survey by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education.
Professionals worldwide who measure the ROI of their social media programs, August 2009 (% of respondents):
- Measure ROI: 16%
- Do not measure ROI: 84%
Marketers believe that measuring true ROI for social media is difficult, according to eMarketer. There are so many metrics available that it is difficult to choose which ones are the most important. In addition, marketers do not start with clear objectives for using social media.
There is a widespread tendency for social media marketers to focus on Website traffic as their default measurement tool. In several independent surveys and studies, Website traffic was deemed the most popular way of measuring social media marketing efforts.
But there is much more to measurement than simply watching Website visits. Marketers ready to go beyond the toe-dipping stage should define their marketing goals and connect them to social media objectives. Marketers should consider soft metrics as well as hard ones and try to tie a dollar value to them, if possible. And they should not overlook other sources of ROI, such as market research and the customer service value of brand monitoring.
Importantly, marketers should strive to systematically monitor social media interactions and use this valuable ‘listening/learning' data to inform their online and offline media and creative messages, according to eMarketer. (eMarketer, February 2010)
One in five (20%) tweets posted on Twitter includes an inquiry or information about a specific brand-related product or service, according to research at Penn State University. The study focused on micro-communicating and the value of this word-of-mouth medium. It included observation of more than half a million tweets that used brand names, and found out that brand-tweeters are tweeting to connect with products.
Businesses use micro-communication for brand awareness, brand knowledge, and customer relationship, according to the research. Personal use is all over the board. It may be right up there with e-mail in terms of its communication impact.
The study revealed that this passionate cohort of brand-related tweeters is providing companies (increasingly using Twitter for brand-building, brand awareness, and CRM) robust and rich source information regarding their products. Tweets are about as close as one can get to the customer point of purchase for products and services. (brandchannel, February 2010)
Social media is no longer a trend for marketers; it is a reality. Social network ad spending will reach $2.5 billion worldwide in 2010 and $1.3 billion in the US, according to eMarketer. About 64% of US internet users will interact with user-generated content in 2010 and 26 million US adults will use Twitter at least monthly. Mobile social networks will reach 223 million people around the world.
Online social network advertising spending worldwide, 2008-2011:
- 2008: US$1,985 million
- 2009: US$2,220 million
- 2010: US$2,540 million
- 2011: US$2,880 million
Already, more than half of marketers are engaging in some social media activity, according to survey data from a number of researchers.
With so much intense interest and activity, the big question is - are marketers doing it right?, according to eMarketer. Since social media marketing has the potential to affect so many areas of an organization, the enormity of this opportunity leads many marketers to chase after every technique, tactic and metric that passes them by. Instead, marketers should focus on fewer but better-defined objectives and remember that listening, establishing trust, adding value and projecting authenticity are among the best practices that are critical to their success with social media.
Listening is a core competency that all marketers must master. Without good listening skills, marketers will not be able to effectively use social media to reach their customers. (eMarketer, February 2010)
Buzz is Google's new social network and it's already created a stir. There have been concerns over privacy but all in all, the reaction has been very largely positive. Buzz is Google's answer to Twitter and Facebook, remarkably similar to another service (that Facebook acquired and still exists) called Friendfeed.
Buzz is a way for you to share status updates, video, audio and images with friends. Buzz also lets you import your activity from other sites including Picasa, Flickr, Twitter, your blog and others are bound to come.
A little like Facebook, but Google does dramatically improve on the stream based UI that Facebook has become synonymous with. Buzz is fast, imports more services, adds location features and it automatically ‘follows' recommends people you communicate with frequently. (HOTELMARKETING.COM, February 2010)
By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20% of business users, according to Gartner.
Greater availability of social networking services both inside and outside the firewall, coupled with changing demographics and work styles will lead 20% of users to make a social network the hub of their business communications. During the next several years, most companies will be building out internal social networks and/or allowing business use of personal social network accounts. Social networking will prove to be more effective than e-mail for certain business activities such as status updates and expertise location.
Gartner believes that the rigid distinction between e-mail and social networks will erode. E-mail will take on many social attributes, such as contact brokering while social networks will develop richer e-mail capabilities. (HOTELMARKETING.COM, February 2010)
Users of virtual world Second Life spent $567 million on user-to-user transactions in 2009, up from $344 million in 2008.
Second Life user-to-user transaction value, 2007-2009:
- 2007: $333 million
- 2008: $344 million
- 2009: $567 million
Second Life's worldwide user base increased by 15% to 769 million, while the amount of time spent in the virtual world climbed even faster, by more than 21%, indicating increased engagement.
Number of unique Second Life users worldwide, 2007-2009:
- 2007: 536, 000
- 2008: 668,000
- 2009: 769,000
In 2009, Piper Jaffray predicted more than $2.2 billion in virtual goods revenues worldwide, including $621 million in the US. By 2013, more than $6 billion will be spent worldwide on virtual items. The research firm also predicted that virtual worlds such as Second Life would fall behind in the virtual-goods economy while social network players like Facebook become more involved in the space.
Cary Rosenzweig, CEO of IMVU, another virtual world with extensive user-to-user virtual item offerings, described that service as more like "an e-commerce company ... in the sense that we get our money from the purchase of these virtual credits that people use to buy virtual items". Virtual goods have value to people, according to Mr. Rosenzweig. People buy virtual goods usually for one of three reasons: to express themselves (so they're buying virtual goods to make their avatar look terrific) or to build relationships with other people in the form of gifts. And the third reason, especially in gaming environments, is that virtual goods enhance your power to effect change, to win, to do what you would like to do in that area. (eMarketer, January 2010)
Senior marketers worldwide reported that social networks and applications were their biggest priority for 2010, followed closely by digital infrastructure, according to research from the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA). While social media marketing looks set to stay top of mind, a majority of respondents considered a range of digital activities at least "important," with only games failing to inspire widespread interest.
Top priorities in 2010 according to senior marketers worldwide (% of respondents):
- Social networks/applications: 45.4%
- Digital infrastructure: 44.5%
- Search optimization: 27.0%
- Mobile: 26.8%
- Blogger outreach: 18.4%
- Viral campaigns: 18.3%
- Digital advertising: 15.9%
- Email marketing: 14.1%
- Games: 8.8%
Marketers are looking closely at measures of engagement. Respondents considered time spent on a site to be the most important performance metric, followed by unique page views.
Advertising performance metrics in which senior marketers worldwide are most interested, 2nd half 2009 (% of respondents):
- Time on site: 27.9%
- Unique page views: 23.7%
- Click-through rate: 16.0%
- Page views: 11.9%
- CPM: 8.0%
- Other (cost per click conversation, ROI, etc.): 9.4%
(eMarketer, January 2010)
After a peak in growth rates in early 2009, uptake of Twitter slowed dramatically toward the end of the year, according to data from HubSpot. Based on a study of user profiles on the microblogging site, HubSpot found worldwide growth was highest in March 2009, at 13%, and dropped to just 3.5% by October.
Decreased growth rates may have a positive effect, however. The user base has matured and, on average, Twitter users have been members of the site for longer, making them more engaged. Users are following more feeds, for example, and being followed more in turn. In January 2010:
- Users followed 170 profiles, on average, compared with about 45 in July 2009.
- Users had an average of 300 followers, versus about 70 in July 2009.
- The average user had made 420 Twitter updates, compared with 120 in July 2009.
Twitter users were also including more complete information in their profiles, such as location, bio and Web address. Still, 82% of Twitter users have fewer than 100 followers, and 81% are following fewer than 100 people.
Twitter users worldwide who added information to their profile, January 2010 (% of total):
- Location: 65% (up from 31% in July 2009)
- Bio: 53% (up from 24%)
- Web address: 41% (up from 20%)
As Twitter matures, it is becoming more international. Less than 51% of Twitter users were from the US in December 2009, down from 62.1% in June 2009, according to Sysomos. Brazil saw the greatest user growth, rising from 2% of the total in June to 8.8% in December.
Leading countries, ranked by Twitter users, December 2009 (% of total):
- US: 50.88%
- Brazil: 8.79%
- UK: 7.20%
- Canada: 4.35%
- Germany: 2.49%
- Indonesia: 2.41%
- Australia: 2.39%
- Netherlands: 1.32%
- India: 1.27%
- Japan: 1.22%
- Mexico: 1.11%
- Philippines: 1.08%
- France: 0.98%
- Spain: 0.78%
- Singapore: 0.69%
- Italy: 0.65%
- Ireland: 0.52%
- Chile: 0.51%
- Sweden: 0.50%
- New Zealand: 0.47%
US users accounted for nearly 57% of tweets, however, showing they are more active than users in other countries, which can be easily explained by the fact that more experienced Twitter users are more engaged. Broken down by city, London had the most Twitter users, followed by Los Angeles, Sysomos found. But New Yorkers were the most active tweeters, accounting for some 2.4% of all posts. (eMarketer, January 2010)
Facebook plans to add a conversion tracking tool to its suite of advertising products based on demand from the marketplace. The platform will allow marketers to track clicks through conversion. The conversion tracking tool being tested by a "handful" of Facebook advertisers doesn't have a launch date, but Boland believes it should become available sometime before the end of March 2010. A JavaScript snippet will go into the Web page. Marketers will have an option to set up multiple tags to track numerous conversions.
Reports will provide a list of tracked conversions and the impressions and the clicks that led to each. The feature will help marketers build out messages as the campaign expands into a variety of pieces.
Conversion tracking aims to complement Facebook Connect, a tool that allows advertisers to target fans of brands, as well as friends of the connected fans. The Facebook Connect tool reports back on everything from demographics to interests listed in Facebook profiles. Ads connecting to Facebook Connect tie in social context, such as the person's name. (HOTELMARKETING.COM, January 2010)
If Twitter is all about answering that seemingly simplest of questions, "What are you doing now?" then the newest location-based services are all about answering the more intriguing question, "What are you doing next?" Not to be confused with basic GPS-enabled location tracking services, the new location-based check-in services encourage people to share what they like, dislike, and generally think others might find interesting about the place they're at right now in the context of the decision they're about to make. As a marketer, these new check-in services, powered by social Web technology, are worth taking the time to understand. (HOTELMARKETING.COM, January 2010)
Australian internet users spend the most time engaging with social networking sites and blogs, according to data from Nielsen. The firm estimates the average Australian user spent almost 7 hours on such sites during December 2009, followed by the US and the UK which both averaged around 6 hours and 9 minutes per user.
In terms of reach, the US continues to dominate, with 142.1 million unique users of social media during the month. Japan followed with 46.6 million users, followed by Brazil with 31 million. In Australia, social media attracted just shy of 10 million users.
Unique users of social media by country, December 2009:
1. US: 142,052,000
2. Japan: 46,558,000
3. Brazil: 31,345,000
4. UK: 29,129,000
5. Germany: 28,057,000
6. France: 26,786,000
7. Spain: 19,456,000
8. Italy: 18,256,000
9. Australia: 9,895,000
10. Switzerland: 2,451,000
(ClickZ, January 2010)
As Facebook reached 350 million users worldwide, its largest single source of growth was still the US. The US gain of more than 4.5 million monthly active Facebook users was the highest number of any country, according to Inside Facebook. Because of the large installed base of US Facebook users, it represented a 5% gain, compared with 10% growth in countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.
Top 10 countries, ranked by gain in Facebook users between December 2009 & January 2010:
1. US: +4,576,220 (+5% compared to December 2009)
2. Indonesia: +1,431,160 (+10%)
3. Philippines: +780,880 (+10%)
4. Turkey: +633,260 (+4%)
5. Italy: +507,180 (+4%)
6. India: +483,880 (+9%)
7. Mexico: +459,940 (+7%)
8. Spain: +425,560 (+6%)
9. Malaysia: +399,040 (+10%)
10. Argentina: +339,560 (+5%)
For its size, India added relatively few new users in December 2009. Its high 9% growth rate was from a very small base, and Facebook still reaches only 0.5% of the population of the country.
The substantial increase in US users put Facebook's domestic monthly active user audience over the 100 million mark. And at the same time as the most overall growth came from the home market, the biggest increases in the US came among younger adults, Facebook's core audience. The largest gain came from males ages 18 to 25, followed by women 26 to 34. Despite the already-large base of users under 35, those groups also posted the highest rates of growth. Increases in usage among older users, which was relatively stronger earlier in 2009, had slowed.
The rise of Facebook among older users led to worries that the younger demographic would be turned off by a social site that now included profiles of their parents. But Facebook has remained popular among young adults and especially college students.
According to Inside Facebook, 4 in 10 active US Facebook users are under 25 as of January 2010, and another 23% are between 26 and 34. (eMarketer, January 2010)
The accelerated growth of the Social Networks over the past 12 months now make it imperative to understand different nuances of consumer behaviour, and the new marketing etiquette required to respond to these changes, according to Experian Hitwise.
Top-level findings from this research include:
- Over the past 12 months the US has experienced the largest usage growth of 52.4% (the week ending 17 October 2009 compared to the week ending 18 October 2008), followed by Hong Kong growing at 38.6%, Singapore 30.5%, Australia 27.8%, UK 20.0% and New Zealand with an increase of 14.3%.
- In Hong Kong Social Networks and Forums are a dominant force with almost 1 in every 4 visits (23.9% share in the week ending 17 October 2009) and continuing to grow while the share of visits growth by Search Engines have been minimal.
- Social Networks and Forums hold 14.1% of the visits from Singapore internet users compared to Search Engines' 10.1% for the week ending 17 October 2009, with a growth trend favouring Social Networks and Forums.
- Based on share of visits for the week ending 17 October 2009, Facebook is currently the number two website in other Experian Hitwise monitored markets - US, UK and New Zealand and is the leading website in Canada (since the week ending 15 August 2009), Singapore (since the week ending 22 August 2009) and Hong Kong (since the week ending 13 December 2007).
(Hitwise Singapore Newsletter - November 2009, November 2009)
Worldwide data from Trendstream and Lightspeed Research sheds light on the user-generated content activities of internet users around the world.
In the US, a mature internet market, managing a social network profile was the top online user-generated content activity, participated in by 44.2% of Web users. This was followed closely by uploading photos (42.6%). Uploading video (15.3%), blogging (12.8%) and microblogging (7.0%) were significantly less popular.
Users in the UK and Canada had similar rates of social network use and photo-sharing, and also tapered off dramatically when it came to more advanced user-generated content activities.
Japan, another mature internet market, has markedly different participation in user-generated content activities. Much lower percentages of Web users manage social network profiles or upload photos, for example. The "Global Web Index" report notes that this is actually a sign of advanced behaviour: The survey measured only activities conducted on a PC, and in Japan, many such activities are now mobile-based. For example, 34% of users accessed social networks only via mobile during the month of the study.
Online user-generated content activities of internet users in Japan, June 2009:
- Written their own blog: 24.5%
- Uploaded photos online: 19.5%
- Managed a social network profile: 14.9%
- Used a microblogging service: 8.0%
- Uploaded a video online: 5.7%
Meanwhile, participation was generally high in China, where overall internet penetration is only 29.6% according to eMarketer estimates. A majority of users uploaded photos (60.3%), and nearly half had a blog (46.0%). More than one-fifth used a microblogging service, far ahead of the more advanced economies.
Trendstream and Lightspeed noted that microblogging usage was fairly low across the board, despite the hype surrounding services such as Twitter. The 7% of US users participating in microblogging was somewhat lower than eMarketer's estimate of 11.1% Twitter penetration this year. (eMarketer, December 2009)
While social media users may not find social sites quite as trustworthy as traditional sources of news, according to research from Crowd Science they do see it as an important communications medium. Users want to be heard. Overall, 45% reported liking when others notice them, leading some to stretch the truth or reveal too much personal information. Young people were especially vulnerable to activities that might haunt them later.
But 36% believed others are simply interested in what they have to say. That shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to marketers, who know many users will tell all their contacts about good (and bad) experiences with products and services.
Females lived up to their reputation as prime targets of marketers seeking the benefits of earned media. Among users over age 30, women were significantly more likely than men to think others wanted to hear what they thought. In addition, women overall were more than three times as likely as men to say online social media was their favourite leisure activity.
Though not everything appearing on social media is trustworthy, nearly half of users responding to the survey claimed they could "easily" tell whether information they got from social media was true. Less than a quarter disagreed. These savvy users believe they can spot the difference between the real deal and insincere efforts.
While face-to-face contact with friends was generally preferred, about a third of users said they would rather communicate by social media than by telephone. (eMarketer, December 2009)
Twitter has worked on a mobile site for its social networking and microblogging service. Leland Rechis, who leads the user experience on the @twittermobile team, said the mobile team have built a brand new mobile web client from scratch using only Twitter APIs. Although no launch date has been given it is expected to be rolled out soon. (EyeForTravel, December 2009)
The marketing tactics most often used on social sites are not necessarily the best ones, according to a September 2009 MarketingProfs survey of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers.
The most common marketing tactic used on Facebook was attempting to drive traffic to corporate materials through status updates, followed by friending customers.
But the most effective tactic for consumer-oriented companies was creating a Facebook application, which was done by less than a quarter of total respondents. Both B2B and B2C companies also reported surveys of their fans as effective; fan surveys were the third-most-common tactic attempted. Unsurprisingly, buying ads (even targeted ones) was the least effective type of social media marketing overall.
Like those on Facebook, marketers using Twitter were also most interested in increasing traffic. Driving traffic by linking to marketing Webpages was the most common activity on the microblogging site, followed by driving sales by linking to promotional pages. But again, the most effective tactics were different.
B2C marketers had the most success with monitoring Twitter for PR problems (done by half of all respondents) and contacting users who posted negative comments about their brand (done by only 22.4% of total respondents). B2B companies also succeeded with brand monitoring, as well as with using Twitter invites for in-person events (the least common tactic of all).
Though some firms, such as Dell, have reported success in the area, the study found that driving sales was the least effective marketing tactic attempted by companies using Twitter. (eMarketer, January 2010)
Facebook recently announced a series of changes to its platform, and the roadmap has a substantial impact on how brands approach building a Facebook presence.
1. Email is now a supported channel: Facebook has long hidden user emails, but soon Facebook will provide developers access to a user's verified email address. For brands that are serious about engaging in an ongoing dialogue with their fans, email becomes a powerful communication method. Email will allow brands to better reconnect with users who have interacted with them on Facebook. This becomes important given that...
2. Status updates are no longer guaranteed: Previously users' streams included everything their friends and pages (including brand pages) published. Now the news feed has returned to a default view showing select highlights that Facebook's algorithm thinks are most relevant to the user, which may or may not contain your brand's message. There's still a live feed view, but it's no longer default, so only brand posts that fans interact with will appear in most users' streams.
3. Other communication channels are consolidating: Many brands rely on application-to-user and user-to-user notifications to reconnect with users, and this communication channel is disappearing. That means in order to remarket to users to let them know about new product launches, sales, events, or promotions, you'll need to acquire users' email addresses or send popular posts (per above).
4. Application canvas pages gain more control: The Facebook header is being removed from application canvas pages, giving brands that engage users via applications more real estate on the page and a more customized and branded look and feel. Users will still have the option of returning to Facebook near the top of the page, but for brands that were hesitant to build on Facebook until more branding was possible, now is the time to reconsider.
5. Profile boxes are disappearing: It's been a long time since profile boxes provided much value to brands, as most users don't spend very much time on that part of friends' pages. But that hasn't stopped many brands from creating applications to establish a presence on users' profiles. Within a few months, tabs will be the only way to integrate into the profile, so brands should be thinking now about creating an engaging communication strategy that best leverages email and status updates.
6. Enhanced Facebook share: For many brands and publishers, the value in marketing through Facebook is leveraging word of mouth. In fact, Facebook users share 2 billion pieces of content every week. The new Facebook share button includes a counter displaying the number of times that piece of content has been shared and is a valuable tool for any brand with a large existing audience on its site. This is a relief for content owners who struggle with replicating a presence inside of Facebook; instead, expect Facebook to offer more ways for your site to become more social.
7. Every webpage becomes a fan page: Facebook has long been about connecting people with each other, and it's expanding the graph from people to objects in what it's calling the Open Graph. Soon users will be able to fan not only your brand but a specific page, product, celebrity, movie, or SKU. These pages will also show up in users' profiles and in search results, and that page will be able to publish stories to the stream of its fans. This shifts social brand interactions from Facebook tabs to brand websites in a powerful way for brands and publishers. While currently farthest out in Facebook's announcement roadmap, the Open Graph has the greatest implications and opportunities for brands and publishers.
Expect 2010 to be a real breakout year for social marketing. For two-and-a-half years we've seen brands build strong followings inside of Facebook, but with these changes rolling out early next year, expect smart brands to better engage their best customers through their own channels by leveraging the power of personal relationships via Facebook's platform, according to Kevin Barenblat, co-founder and CEO of Context Optional. (TourismExchange company, December 2009)
Twitter is planning to launch paid-for commercial accounts, which would provide corporate users with additional services to those that are freely available on the microblogging service. In an interview with the BBC, Biz Stone said Twitter will begin offering the commercial services in 2009.
Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter, said the company was close to launching corporate accounts that would help the the popular microblogging site begin to generate revenues.
One of the first things Twitter is going to do is providing commercial accounts and that provide a special layer of access. Twitter will always be free to everyone whether it is commercial or personal, but you'll be able to pay for an additional layer of access to learn more about your Twitter account to get some freed back to get some analytics to help you become a better Twitter.
Stone also talked about possible syndication and said that Twitter was also interested in partnerships with media companies. (EyeForTravel, November 2009)
Most worldwide bloggers are men, ages 18 to 44, affluent and well-educated, according to a Technorati survey of bloggers worldwide. About a quarter work for a traditional media outlet in addition to blogging, and most still don't make any money from their self-publishing activities.
But there are other ways to create value. 70% of bloggers polled by Technorati said they talked about products or brands on their blog. The most common activity was to post about brands they loved or hated, as well as to write reviews or post about experiences with stores or customer service.
Bloggers who post about products and services may get some attention from brands in the form of free items and other perks but the visibility they gain through publishing their thoughts also helps them in less-tangible ways. Nearly 6 in 10 of all the bloggers surveyed said they were better known in their industry because of their blog, and a quarter had used their blog as a resume or sent it to potential employers.
Further, bloggers who post for a business reported even higher levels of success: 71% had increased visibility for their company, 63% had converted prospects into purchasers through their blog, and 56% have seen their blog bring their company recognition as a thought leader in the industry.
Negative personal consequences, such as losing focus on work or getting in trouble on the job, were far less common than gaining visibility or even changing professions entirely based on blogging activity. (eMarketer, November 2009)
The number of mobile users accessing social networks from their mobile devices will reach 607.5 million worldwide by 2013, representing 43% of global mobile internet users, according to eMarketer. In the US, mobile social networkers will total 56.2 million by 2013, accounting for 45% of the mobile internet user population.
Mobile social network users worldwide, 2008-2014:
- 2008: 76.0 million (1.9% of mobile phone subscribers / 19.0% of mobile internet users)
- 2009: 141.4 million (3.1% / 28.0%)
- 2010: 223.4 million (4.6% / 34.0%)
- 2011: 318.3 million (6.1% / 37.0%)
- 2012: 454.0 million (8.4% / 40.0%)
- 2013: 607.5 million (10.8% / 43.0%)
- 2014: 760.1 million (13.3% / 45.0%)
Social networking is one of the fastest-growing activities among mobile users around the world. And as one of the primary ways mobile users communicate with one another, it is proving a significant driver of internet usage on mobile devices.
Location-based networks such as Loopt and foursquare have not yet reached critical mass, but are worth keeping an eye on as they work to link people, places and interests. In addition, location-based services can also be used in other contexts to help marketers target social network users with relevant information and offers.
Location-aware branded applications and utilities that include a social component provide an avenue for marketers to engage their audience directly, according to eMarketer. But the combination of two emerging channels means that estimating the market for mobile social advertising and marketing is premature, despite the promising user base. Marketers are talking a lot about social and mobile and, on a slightly smaller scale, preparing to incorporate both environments into their marketing mix. But since both channels are still evolving, combining mobile and social together puts many marketers into a gray area from both a budgetary and oversight perspective, and programs remain small and experimental. (eMarketer, November 2009)
Although still beta testing, Google Wave, the new form of communication and collaboration online, is expected to be the next big thing on the internet after Twitter. Google Wave is due to incorporate email, instant messaging and social networking. This means consumers will not need to log in separately to individual social media networks.
Google Wave homepage is likely to be the first point of contact when users browse the internet in future and could become the strongest social platform on the web, according to The Longhaul Insight Report, released at the World Travel Market by UK travel PR and representation company BGB. The report points out social networks have received more traffic than any other category of website, with online reviews being seen as largely trustworthy. While Hitwise estimates that social networking websites are now the second biggest traffic drivers to websites after search engines.
The report predicts that after the Twitter growth in 2009, the next major disruptive technology for 2010, which tourist boards will need to be considering, is Google Wave. (Travelmole, November 2009)
The use of micro blogging site Twitter is gaining rapid penetration within the travel industry, according to a survey of 90 Twitter users who tweet on travel matters conducted by Andy Jarosz, writer and owner of travel blog 501 Places.
The survey revealed that:
- More than half of users (52%) tweeted between four and 10 times a day, with over a quarter sending more than 10 Twitter updates daily.
- Managing directors, commercial directors, hotel owners and government officials are actively using the social media tool to forge connections with their customers and stakeholders.
- The majority of users surveyed had started using Twitter within the last six months.
Jarosz said that this is no surprise given the exponential growth of the site in 2009, and it does indicate that it is not too late for those who are still considering whether they should get to grips with using Twitter as a way of communicating with the online travel community.
The survey responders included business owners and directors from both overseas suppliers and UK tour operators, with more than half of the sample group working in paid roles within the travel industry.
Of particular interest is the amount of travelling done by the sample (62% travelling internationally three or more times a year) and the fact that more than 60% used Twitter to connect with local suppliers, hoteliers or transport companies before they travelled, with 28.8% reporting that they made a reservation following an initial contact on Twitter. This suggests that travellers are starting to move beyond merely looking for information on destinations and services, and are actually making buying decisions based on their Twitter conversations. (Travelmole, November 2009)
Social sites Facebook and Digg are more likely to send returning traffic your way than search engines such as Yahoo!, Google and Bing, according to research by ad network Chitika. More than 1/5 of users referred to a site by Facebook visited at least four times in the course of a week. Less than 12% of Google-referred visitors were as loyal.
Search engines and social networks that are the leading sources of loyal* website visitors, September 2009:
- Facebook: 20.7%
- Digg: 16.1%
- Yahoo!: 15.9%
- Google: 11.8%
- Bing: 11.7%
- Twitter: 11.1%
* Loyal visitors meaning they came back to the sites 4+times over the course of a week.
Visitors coming from Twitter were the least likely to return among the sites studied.
Still, social media sites are only sending a tiny fraction of traffic. An earlier Chitika Study concluded that the overwhelming dominance of search engines is facing little, if any, threat from social networks. The company looked at the top sites sending traffic to the publishers in its network and found that Google alone accounted for 76.13% of referrals. Taken together, search engines made almost 98% of all referrals, while social networking sites made up just 0.55%.
Twitter in particular (despite the hype) was low on referrals, and falling. In July 2009, Twitter was No. 24 on Chitika's list of top referrers, with 0.05%. By September 2009, it had moved down to 44th place, with just a 0.02% share. (eMarketer, October 2009)
A list of 101 travel and adventure twitterers have been compiled by Abroadening.com . This is sought to be a great way to experience first-hand how travellers and the travel industry are using Twitter.
The list has been compiled in no particular order and is available at http://abroadening.com/161 (HOTELMARKETING.COM, October 2009)
A survey of prominent travel industry experts conducted by Travel Insights 100 reveals key insights into how they feel about and utilize Twitter, and their thoughts on emerging social media trends in the industry.
The results come after kicking off the first Travel Insights 100 program, an ongoing platform for 100 leaders within the travel industry to discuss ideas and worldwide travel issues all via an Internet-based forum. Members will be surveyed on a regular basis to glean their opinions on travel-industry related subjects covering social media, topical news stories and trends and will serve as a bellwether for the industry. Travel Insights 100 is a partnership between UpTake, Tips from the T-List and BootsnAll Travel Network.
The first survey of Travel Insights members asked for predictions, recommendations and thoughts on the effectiveness of Twitter. Following are some of the results:
- The popularity of Twitter in the travel industry is unquestionable. However it is a recent phenomenon, with the majority of respondents just started using the tool in the past twelve months (52%).
- There is a nearly equal split between Twitter addicts (31% use Twitter ten or more times a day) and those who use it less frequently (33% use Twitter less than four times a day).
- Surprisingly, the majority of respondents (91%) recommend using Twitter to find travel information such as deals and tips.
- Pet peeves include tweets that are too promotional, too mundane or too corporate.
Participants were asked to give predictions for the future of Twitter. Responses ranged from predicting a rocky road ahead for Twitter, to suggesting micro blogging is the future of communications, to forecasting a takeover of Twitter by marketers and a migration away from it to the next big thing in social media. (TravelDailyNews, September 2009) has decided not to play favourites, and instead go for market share, signing real-time search deals with rivals Microsoft and Google on the same day. The two firms will be given access to Twitter's data for search. The financial terms of the deals weren't disclosed.
For Google, the agreement means results from Twitter will soon be surfaced in search listings, giving users access to real-time information from the social networking site.
For Microsoft's Bing search engine, the real-time Twitter results are already being shown on a special search page with tag clouds. At the moment, it's still a beta and only available on the US version of the site.
Microsoft was also expected to announced that it would be including data from Facebook in Bing, but details on that service were scarce. (ITPro, October 2009)
Marketers monitoring Twitter for mentions of their brand may have noticed that microbloggers are more likely to give or seek information than to sound off about a product, good or bad. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University studied nearly 150,000 tweets that named brands and found that nearly half of them were simply "comments" (posts that mentioned a brand, but where the primary focus was something else). A further 18.1% were information-providing and 11.1% were information-seeking.
Tweets that mention brands, by category, April-July 2009 (% of total):
- Comments: 48.5%
- Sentiment: 22.3%
- Information providing: 18.1%
- Information seeking: 11.1%
That left just 22.3% of tweets about brands that expressed an opinion one way or another. One-third of all tweets that expressed brand-related sentiment were "great," and nearly one-fifth were "swell," according to the labelling scheme used by the researchers. 14.2% were "so-so", 15.9% were "bad" and 17.6% were "wretched". (eMarketer, October 2009)
No one knows how the microblogging site and similar online social networks will make money, but investors see a new Web revolution. Real-time Web is the term coined to describe the exploding number of live social activities online, from tweets to status updates on Facebook to the sharing of news, Web links, and videos on myriad other sites.
It's also a whole new field of dreams for entrepreneurs and investors. Amid the downsized remains of Web 2.0, with online advertising and e-commerce in a drought, they're viewing the real-time Web as the Internet's Next Big Thing-maybe even the source of the next Google. The emerging sector is so new, and its boundaries so fuzzy, that it's difficult to know how much money has been sunk into how many firms. But many dozens of startups are staking claims and drawing interest from investors. (HOTELMARKETING.COM, August 2009)
Ideahatching.com provides some advice on how do you build your credibility on Twitter. The first step is knowing that you need to build your Twitter credibility. Twitter is a medium like any other, its only the facilitator of the conversation - not the message.
The first tip - don't just dive in and start tweeting - that would be like joining a group mid conversation without knowing who they were and what they were talking about. So once you have opened your Twitter account you should start to look around and get comfortable.
1. You should "follow" the tweeters you know (either personally or through networks etc.). Get the lay of the land and check out what they are chatting about and with whom. Continue to build your network of Tweeple the honest way, one follow at a time, based on good content that is interesting to you. DON'T follow people because you think you need followers to fit in. You don't need followers to fit in. If you have interesting things to say and you are believable - tweeters will follow.
2. Once you have a good base of people to follow and you start feeling comfortable with the whole 140 Character thing - post a tweet. Try reaching out to one of the people you follow using the @ symbol plus their twitter name.
3. If you are going to self promote, just make sure that you acknowledge that you are doing so.
4. Use your manners. If you get a Re-Tweet (RT) (i.e. another tweeter posts your tweet giving you kudo's for your good content) make sure you send a thank you, and make sure you RT other content that you find valuable, interesting or funny.
5. Now...get comfortable, read and enjoy other conversations, join them, pass along good content that you think your network would enjoy.
And most of all - don't get stressed out because you think everyone is looking at you because you are a newbie. We were all newbie's once!
One more thing - don't tweet about what you are "doing now" even if that is what Twitter tells you to do. (that's just not cool). (ideahatching.com, September 2009)
To help you determine how to best measure social media, Gary Stein examined in an article in ClickZ five ways people go wrong when measuring social media.
- MISTAKE NO. 1: ASSUMING YOUR FANS/FOLLOWERS WILL SEE A POST: the biggest mistake in social media is assuming that your number of subscribed fans (i.e., to a Facebook page) or followers (i.e., to a Twitter stream) is your audience, and every time you post something, you get to count each one of them as an impression. That just simply isn't the way that people use social media. Someone you count as a follower may only log on once a month. Or, she may be a fan to 175 other pages and your post may get washed away in a deluge of other posts. Don't count your number of followers as your number of impressions. TIP: Watch the growth of your followers and pay attention to the deeper analytics provided by Facebook Pages. That will give you greater insight into the engagement you're generating from your page.
- MISTAKE NO. 2: FAILING TO ACCOUNT FOR OVERLAP ACROSS NETWORKS: Another big mistake is double counting people. Don't take the number of people who follow your brand on Twitter and the number of people who are subscribed to your YouTube channel and then add them together. There's a high possibility that many are the same people. Adding everyone up gives you a good, high number, but there's a good chance you're over-counting. TIP: Put out a short survey on one (just one) of your pages and ask people if they're connected to you on multiple sites. This should give you a good percentage of people and then you can reduce your overall count by a reasonable amount and have a more accurate count.
- MISTAKE NO. 3: FAILING TO COUNT CLICKS: A growing number of e-commerce sites are using sites like Twitter and Flickr to drive traffic. Most sites doing this say it works extremely well. Or, rather, they believe it works extremely well. They don't actually know because they aren't actually counting the number of clicks that their social media efforts are generating. They're simply dropping URLs into tweets (and things) and that's it. They have no idea if the post actually generated any real value. TIP: Use a URL shortener like bit.ly to keep track of the clicks you generate. This may be the easiest and most effective tip in this entire column.
- BIG MISTAKE NO. 4: DISREGARDING SEARCH: Increasingly, social media and search have converged. It's remarkable. Last month, the number-one thing you did on Twitter's home page was log in. Today, the number-one thing you do on the Twitter home page is search. You actually have to click to get to the log in. To measure the value you're generating from social media, therefore, think about how your brand shows up in search. You never know when a consumer will pop your brand name into a social search engine and make a decision based on what comes up. If you only pay attention to what people are saying right now, you're missing a long tail of value. TIP: Use tools like SocialSeek that enable you to get a very complete picture of everywhere your brand is being mentioned and capture that data.
- BIG MISTAKE NO. 5: FOCUSING ON FOLLOWERS: Whenever we measure online activity, we tend to focus on the number that is easiest to get. In social media, that number is fans or followers. The problem with that number is that it, like many other raw numbers, is deceptive. Why? It doesn't take into account the medium's characteristics. Click a button to follow or become a face is very easy and very low-impact for the consumer, so they do a lot of it. It's difficult, if not impossible, to determine if someone has become a fan because she wants to hear from you and interact with you, or if it was just some passing whim. You may see your fan numbers go up, but that doesn't necessarily mean you've created lots of value. TIP: Pay very close attention (and make a note of) the people who respond to the things you post up: the people who comment, retweet, or engage in discussions. Those people are the most valuable subset.
The bottom line with social media measurement: we're in some really early stages and there are plenty of bright lights to distract us. The biggest mistake of all, of course, is not to measure. With the effort you're putting into social media, it's like that famous bumper sticker: "If you're not concerned, you're not paying attention." (HOTELMARKETING.COM, August 2009)
When using social media to the advantage of your brand, there are basic do's and don'ts. An article by Jack Aaronson on Clickz considers a few of them. There are three simple ideas that every company should use when interacting via a social networking site, be it Twitter, Facebook, or something else.
- Actively participate: If you are simply there to promote your brand, but aren't actively communicating with your fans and participating in interactive dialogues, then you are not taking advantage of social media.
- Create content: Instead of just pushing a sales or brand message, you must create relevant content, news, or information, tailored specifically for that site and target audience. If it's not updated frequently, it gets boring fast.
- Tone of voice: If it sounds like a sales message being pushed from corporate headquarters, then that's how it will be perceived. Be aware that there is a fine line between your message and "spam." Sometimes, your message may feel off course from your corporate message, but your brand building will pay off in the long term.
(HOTELMARKETING.COM, August 2009)
A new Twitter application, Twihotels.com, that helps users to tweet their hotel requirements, has been launched. According to hotelsmag.com, users input their request parameters on TwiHotels.com, and the site then tweets the room requests from @twihotels. Several hoteliers are already monitoring the twihotels feed and would theoretically respond to the requesting person with relevant offers. It added the site is in beta mode right now.
Twihotels also includes a search feature on the site, according to a report filed by Inventorspot. To discover relevant hotel queries, one can do a specific keyword search or can also opt for advanced search that provides drop down results based on country and city names.
Twihotels.com is an incubation of MapXL, a division of Compare Infobase Limited.
The company mentioned that Twihotels is an OAuth based application. (It added that Twitter and other social networking sites such as Facebook recommend OAuth, which requires no registration. It does not involve sharing username details). OAuth is described as an open protocol to allow secure API authorisation in a simple and standard method from desktop and web applications. (EyeForTravel, August 2009)
Russia and Brazil had by far the most engaged social networking audiences in the world in May 2009, followed by Canada and Puerto Rico, according to comScore. The UK and the US achieved only seventh and ninth place, respectively, based on average time per user spent on social networking sites during May 2009.
According to the data, the average Russian spent over 6.6 hours in May using online social networks, and viewed over 1,300 pages. The typical Brazilian networker dedicated slightly less time at 6.3 hours and viewed 1,220 pages. The global average came in at 3.7 hours per person, per month, with almost two thirds (65%) of users worldwide visiting at least one social networking site during the month of May.
Traffic within Russia itself was dominated by local services such as Vkontakte.ru, with 14.3 million visitors, Odnoklassniki.ru with 7.8 million visitors, and Mail.ru with 6.3 million visitors. UK and US favourite Facebook attracted just 616,000 Russian visitors; however, this figure is 277% higher than it was during the same period last year.
Worldwide top 10 highest-engaged social networking audiences by average hours per visitors, May 2009:
WORLDWIDE: 3.7 hours (average hours per visitor) / 525 pages (average pages per visitor)
1. Russia: 6.6 hours / 1,307 pages
2. Brazil: 6.3 hours / 1,220 pages
3. Canada: 5.6 hours / 649 pages
4. Puerto Rico: 5.3 hours / 587 pages
5. Spain: 5.3 hours / 587 pages
6. Finland: 4.7 hours / 919 pages
7. UK: 4.6 hours / 487 pages
8. Germany: 4.5 hours / 793 pages
9. US: 4.2 hours / 477 pages
10. Colombia: 4.1 hours / 473 pages
Data was collected from ComScore's panel of users 15 and over, who accessed the internet from a home or work location. (ClickZ, July 2009)
Almost a third of brands on Twitter are completely ignored, according to the social media and online PR specialist Immediate Future. How does it know this? Because you can tell if your Twitter followers are engaging with your tweets by how much they forward them on to their own network of Twitter users, or "retweet" as it is called.
Immediate Future looked at the Twitter behaviour of 140 global and UK brands and analysed how they used the channel to communicate with "fans" or followers. A third of those brands' tweets received no tweets at all, meaning their tweets were as probably totally ignored.
When marketers talk about Twitter, the focus is too often simply on the number of followers. This doesn't give you a realistic picture of how well the organisation is engaging with its audience, since it can be quite easy to drum up a large number of followers, even if most of them aren't that interested in what the brand has to say, according to Immediate Future. But by examining how often its posts are retweeted we can get a much better idea of how interested people are in engaging with a brand. In effect, the more a brand is retweeted, the more it has the attention of its audience.
The research indicated that many brands are following quite high numbers of Twitter users compared to the number of users who are actually following them back. This is seen as spammy behaviour. Immediate Future believes that the problem is that many brands view Twitter as a broadcast channel and they measure their success on the size of their audience, rather than the level of engagement they have with their followers. The best brands attract followers by having something interesting to say and engaging their audience in a genuine conversation. Organisations which think it's good enough to build up a large number of Twitter followers and broadcast the same old tired corporate messaging at them are not only missing the point, but also the opportunity." (Travelmole, July 2009)
Over the past few months, Twitter has experienced explosive growth. Social media analytics companies Sysomos conducted an extensive study on 11.5 million Twitters accounts to document Twitter's growth and how people are using it and found that:
- 72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009.
- 85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
- 21% of users have never posted a Tweet
- 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people.
- 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
- New York has the most Twitters users, followed by Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco and Boston; while Detroit was the fast-growing city over the first five months of 2009
- More than 50% of all updates are published using tools, mobile and Web-based, other than Twitter.com. TweetDeck is the most popular non-Twitter.com tool with 19.7% market share.
- There are more women on Twitter (53%) than men (47%)
- Of the people who identify themselves as marketers, 15% follow more than 2,000 people. This compares with 0.29% of overall Twitter users who follow more than 2,000 people.
(HOTELMARKETING.COM, July 2009)
Growth in social network advertising spending worldwide will take a hit in 2009, but not as severely as in the US. eMarketer projects 9% growth in worldwide spending in 2009, to $2.2 billion. That is down from the 17% growth eMarketer forecast in March 2009.
Online social network advertising spending worldwide, 2008-2011:
- 2008: $1,995 million (+46%)
- 2009: $2,180 million (+9%)
- 2010: $2,565 million (+18%)
- 2011: $2,885 million (+12%)
The good news is that worldwide social network spending is expected to shoot up again in 2010, rising an estimated 18% to $2.6 billion. 2011 will see an additional 12% increase, to $2.9 billion.
Changes in the US market are the primary reason for the forecast revision. eMarketer now estimates that US social network spending will slide 3% this year, as marketers continue to cut back on ad spending during the recession and MySpace, once the leading social network in the US, loses traction.
In fact, non-US social network advertising spending is forecast to grow 27% in 2009. The US has led the way in the development of social networks, but entrants in Europe and Asia are ramping up. In addition, US-based social networks will see an increasing portion of their revenues from international operations.
Strong social networks outside the US include mixi in Japan, Cyworld in South Korea, VKontakte in Russia and QQ in China. (eMarketer, July 2009)
Of the 1.1 billion people age 15 and older worldwide who accessed the internet from a home or work location in May 2009, 734.2 million visited at least one social networking site during the month, representing 65% of the worldwide internet audience, according to a comScore study.
The Russian social networking audience had the highest engagement among the 40 individual countries reported by comScore, with an average of 6.6 hours and 1,307 pages consumed per visitor. Brazil ranked close behind at 6.3 hours, followed by Canada (5.6 hours), Puerto Rico (5.3 hours) and Spain (5.3 hours).
Top 20 highest engagement social networking country audiences, ranked by average hours per visitors*, May 2009:
Worldwide: 3.7 average hours per visitor / 525 average pages per visitor
1. Russia: 6.6 hours / 1,307 pages
2. Brazil: 6.3 / 1,220
3. Canada: 5.6 / 649
4. Puerto Rico: 5.3 / 587
5. Spain: 5.3 / 968
6. Finland: 4.7 / 919
7. UK: 4.6 / 487
8. Germany: 4.5 / 793
9. US: 4.2 / 477
10. Colombia: 4.1 / 473
11. Mexico: 4.0 / 488
12. Chile: 4.0 / 418
13. Ireland: 3.8 / 462
14. Turkey: 3.7 / 427
15. Venezuela: 3.7 / 454
16. France: 3.6 / 526
17. Australia: 3.4 / 374
18. New Zealand: 3.4 / 386
19. Switzerland: 3.2 / 430
20. Italy: 3.2 / 399
*Excludes traffic from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.
(comScore, June 2009)
A Couple of Chicks e-Marketing's blog provides suggestions for Tweeting for business. Their Twitter Tips are as follows:
1. Your Website: Before you start tweeting, make sure your company's website is up to date, optimized for search engines and has a call to action to close the sale. You will also need to install a web monitoring program like Google Analytics; a free program that monitors traffic on your website. This way you will be able to benchmark your success once you have started tweeting. (You can look for Twitter as one of your traffic referrals once it is up and running and you want to determine if Tweeting is worth your time).
2. Put a name on it: When creating a twitter page for your company or brand, make sure you are using a real name in the bio for transparency. Your twitter page should feel like a conversation and followers need to feel as if they are talking to a real person. Using first person in your tweets or the collective ‘we' also makes your company seem more credible and engaging to potential customers. Ex: "We're dropping prices tomorrow!"
3. Follow, follow: Following is one of the most important aspects of twitter. A fast and easy way to find potential customers is to visit a competitor's twitter page and follow their followers. You should also search your company's name in a "twitter search" to see who's talking about you and then add them. Other people you should follow include: other employees, people in related companies and industries, related brands, journalists and competitors. Following people related to your company helps get the best followers for your twitter page - and gives you some relevant content to read!
4. Tweet Content: Make sure your tweets are not entirely sales or company related. If you are constantly talking about a sale or a new product that just arrived, people will not see the value in following your company. Talk about things happening in the media, post links to interesting stories related to your industry and upload twitpics. This way, when you talk about the odd sale or new product and post links to your site, your followers will actually be interested.
The points above are the very basic elements to consider when looking at Twitter as a marketing vehicle. I would suggest that more than a marketing vehicle, Twitter is an excellent PR/Communications tool and many successful brand Tweeters are using it as a means to have a "conversation" with their customers. (Ideahatching.com, June 2009)
Just 10% of Twitter users generate more than 90% of the content, according to a Harvard study of 300,000 users. Estimates suggest it now has more than 10 million users and is growing faster than any other social network. However, the Harvard team found that more than half of all people using Twitter updated their page less than once every 74 days. And most people only ever "tweet" once during their lifetime, the researchers found.
Based on the numbers, Twitter is certainly not a service where everyone who has seen it has instantly loved it, according to Bill Heil from Harvard Business School who carried out the work. On a typical online social network, he said, the top 10% of users accounted for 30% of all production. (HOTELMARKETING.COM, June 2009)
MarketingProfs.com listed some of the top tools for listening to and monitoring the online chatter about your brand.
1. Google Alerts: Google Alerts is the steady rock in the sometimes white-water world of monitoring. You can easily target keywords that are important to your brand and receive streaming or batched reports-choose your own adventure.
2. Technorati : Billing itself as "the leading blog search engine," Technorati has been helping bloggers and those with their fingers on the blog pulse stay informed for years.
3. Jodange: Tracking your brand or a product is one thing, but turning that tracking into a measure of consumer sentiment about your brand or product is something completely different. For that, Jodange has TOM (Top of Mind), which tracks consumer sentiment about your brand or product across the Web.
4. Trendrr: Want to know how your brand or product is trending compared with others? Trendrr uses comparison graphing to show relationships and discover trends in real time. Use the free account, or bump it up to the Enterprise level for more functionality.
5. Lexicon: What are people talking about on Facebook? Lexicon searches Facebook walls for keywords and provides a snapshot of the chatter volume around those terms.
6. Monitter: Everyone is talking about Twitter, but what are people talking about on Twitter? Beyond the integrated search of Twitter apps like Twhirl and TweetDeck, Monitter provides real-time monitoring of the Twittersphere.
7. Tweetburner: In the world of Twitter, URL shortening is the Obi-Wan (it's your only hope) for effectively connecting with the public. Tweetburner also lets you track the clicks on those magically shortened links, giving you some hard numbers.
8. Twendz: Public relations shop Waggener Edstrom recently launched its Twitter-monitoring tool, Twendz. The tool piggybacks off Twitter Search to monitor and provide user sentiment for the real-time Twitterstream - 70 tweets at a time. Paid Apps
9. TruCast: TruCast by Visible Technologies provides in-depth, keyword-based monitoring of the social Web with an emphasis on blogs and forums. Its dashboard applications provide visual representations of sentiment and trends for your brands online.
10. and 11. Radian6 and Cision: Radian6 pulls information from the social Web, and analyzes and provides consumer sentiment ratings for your brand. When paired with CisionPoint from Cision, the evolved Bacon's of today, Radian6's dashboard can provide a wealth of information.
12. Techrigy: Techrigy's SM2 is a social-media monitoring and analysis solution for PR and marketing folks. With a focus on complete analysis and comparison, the SM2 experience draws information from all major social-media channels.
13. Collective Intellect: Collective Intellect (CI) is a real-time intelligence platform, based on advanced artificial intelligence. Its solution provides automatic categorization of conversations based on CI's proprietary filtering technology. According to CI, its technologies provide credible groupings and reduce the "noise" seen in other keyword-based searches.
(HOTELMARKETING.COM, June 2009)
The fact that Twitter is now the subject of attention from the mass media has many in online media pronouncing its death and busily scratching out obituaries.
- "Twitter's fame and glory is not going to last," wrote Jason Clark in an iMedia Connection article entitled "Why Twitter Will Soon Become Obsolete." "I predict Twitter will find its social media and marketing niche, but I cannot see it being nearly as important as some marketers are making it out to be."
- In "Twitter at the Vanishing Point," InformationWeek listed the site's many technical flaws and noted, "Twitter isn't exactly catching fire with Generation Y."
The latter criticism appears to be true. A survey by the Participatory Marketing Network (PMN) found that only 22% of Gen Yers used Twitter, a surprisingly low percentage since the survey found that 99% claimed to have an active profile on at least one social networking site.
But, criticism notwithstanding, Twitter is showing little sign of a slowdown in growth. In May 2009, Compete estimated that Twitter had 19.7 million unique visitors, far short of MySpace (56.9 million) and Facebook (113.0 million). But it is growing much faster than the more-established social networking sites - more than 1,000% over the previous year, compared to +253.7% for Facebook and -5.6% for MySpace. (eMarketer, June 2009)
An overwhelming majority (88%) of marketers say they are using some form of social media to market their business, though 72% of those using it say they have only been at it a few months or less, according to a social media study by Michael Stelzner, sponsored by the Social Media Success Summit 2009. The study found that Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook - in that order - are the top four social media tools used by marketers.
The benefits of social media marketing:
- Generated exposure for my business: 81%
- Increased my traffic/subscribers/opt-in list: 61%
- Resulted in new business partnerships: 56%
- Helped us rise in the search rankings: 52%
- Generated qualified leads: 48%
- Reduced my overall marketing expenses: 45%
- Helped me close business: 35%
Respondents report that the #1 benefit of social media marketing is gaining attention for the business, and 81% say their social media efforts have generated exposure for their businesses. Improving traffic and growing marketing lists is the second major benefit (61%), followed by building new partnerships (56%). At least two in three participants found that increased traffic occurred with as little as 6 hours a week invested, while those who have been doing this for years reported better results. Owners of small businesses (2 - 100 employees) are more likely than others to report benefits. (TourismExchange, May 2009)
Priceline.comis experimenting with Twitter as a marketing channel, and has attracted a surge of Twitter users by running an unusual promotion. Priceline began sending Twitter messages in mid-February 2009 under the name TheNegotiator, with a thumbnail photo of celebrity spokesman William Shatner.
The online travel agency was attracting followers with "tweets" containing deals and humorous promotional messages. Then, TheNegotiator on April 23 tweeted that it would give a $50 hotel coupon to all followers if Priceline reached 3,000 followers by May 1. Before the promotion started, TheNegotiator had around 1,470 followers and was adding about 134 followers per week. By April 28, when Priceline ended the coupon promotion, TheNegotiator's legion of followers had climbed more than 400%, to around 7,400.
To put it in context, JetBlue, a Twitter heavyweight in the travel industry, has been participating on Twitter since May 2007 and grows its following at around 1% per week. JetBlue has about 437,000 followers on Twitter. A lot of travel companies offer promotion codes via Twitter, but Priceline's stands out because it tied the coupon to signing up followers.
Priceline said that gaining these followers gives them the tools to communicate and establish relationships with a new set of customers. The next step is to do a lot of talking and listening on Twitter and to see what its followers are saying. (Travel Weekly, April 2009)
MySpace is teaming up with Citysearch to let users of the social-networking service share reviews of local restaurants and bars. The new site, called MySpace Local, merges Citysearch's database of local business listings with MySpace's vast community of users. That will let MySpace users rate their neighbourhood eateries and nightlife and share what they think with their friends.
MySpace expects to make money from online ads and sponsored links, and has negotiated a revenue-sharing deal with Citysearch. (EyeForTravel, April 2009)
Now visited by over two-thirds (67%) of the global online population, "Member Communities," which includes both social networks and blogs, has become the fourth most popular online category - ahead of personal email. It is growing twice as fast as any of the other four largest sectors (search, portals, PC software and email), according to Nielsen Online.
Facebook, the world's most popular social network, is visited monthly by 3 in every 10 people online across the nine markets in which Nielsen tracks social networking use. Orkut in Brazil has the largest domestic online reach (70%) of any social network in these markets.
Other key findings include:
- One in every 11 minutes online globally is accounted for by social network and blogging sites.
- The social network and blogging audience is becoming more diverse in terms of age: the biggest increase in visitors during 2008 to "Member Community" Web sites globally came from the 35-49 year old age group (+11.3 million).
- Mobile is playing an increasingly important role in social networking. Nielsen found UK mobile Web users have the greatest propensity to visit a social network through their handset, with 23% (2 million people) doing so, compared to 19% in the US (10.6 million people). These numbers are a big increase over last year - up 249% in the UK and 156% in the US.
Among the markets Nielsen measured, penetration of visits to social networks and blogs was highest in Brazil, where 80% of the online audience visits such sites. The share of overall internet time for which social networks and blogs account is also highest in Brazil, where nearly one in four (23%) of minutes spent online is spent on these sites. Germany saw the greatest increase in penetration of social networks and blogs across 2008, from 39% of the online audience in December 2007 to 51% in December 2008 - a relative growth of 39%.
The increasing reach of "Member Community" Web sites across 2008:
- Global: 67% of the global online population compared to 61% in December 2007
- Brazil: 80%, up from 78%
- Spain: 75%, up from 65%
- Italy: 73%, up from 63%
- Japan: 70%, up from 67%
- UK: 69%, up from 59%
- USA: 67%, up from 64%
- France: 67%, up from 64%
- Australia: 59%, up from 55%
- Germany: 51%, up from 39%
- Switzerland: 51%, up from 41%
(Nielsen Online, March 2009)
Over 175 million people have joined Facebook since its founding in 2005 and the users themselves contribute millions of pieces of content daily. The February 2009 Facebook numbers are striking. Each day during the month, Facebook users averaged over 3 billion minutes on the site. They updated their status 15 million times and became "fans" of a particular company, brand, product or person 3.5 million times daily.
In addition, Compete found that that US residents spent more time on Facebook than any other Website, beating out previous leader Yahoo!. However, Nielsen Online still ranks the site third behind AOL and Yahoo!.
But Facebook's rapid user growth has not translated into advertising revenues. The habits of social network users are one obstacle. In 2008, IDC found that 43% of social network users never clicked on ads, a dramatic difference from the 80% of other Internet users who did so at least once a year. Further, 23% of nonusers who clicked on an ad then made a purchase; only 11% of social network users who clicked on ads did the same.
When marketing professionals were surveyed by TNS Media Intelligence on what objectives had the most social media potential, most said brand-building initiatives such as gaining consumer insights, building brand awareness and increasing customer loyalty.
Marketing objectives for which social media offer the greatest potential according to marketing professionals in selected countries worldwide, 2007 (as a % of respondents):
- Gaining consumer insights: 36.6%
- Building brand awareness: 21.1%
- Increasing customer loyalty: 18.3%
- Enhancing corporate reputation: 14.1%
- Launching a new product: 7.0%
- Increasing purchase intent: 0.0%
- Don't know: 2.8
(eMarketer, March 2009)
63% of companies (defined as best-in-class) planned to increase their social media marketing budgets in 2009, according to a survey by the Aberdeen Group, sponsored by Visible Technologies.
Social network advertising alone will rise over 17% in 2009 to $2.35 billion, up from $2 billion in 2008, according to eMarketer (http://www.emarketer.com).
Online social network advertising spending worldwide, 2008-2013:
- 2008: $2.00 billion (46.4% change)
- 2009: $2.35 billion (17.3%)
- 2010: $2.60 billion (10.9%)
- 2011: $2.87 billion (10.4%)
- 2012: $3.18 billion (10.8%)
- 2013: $3.49 billion (9.6%)
But simply because companies are increasing their spending on social media doesn't mean all the drawbacks have disappeared. Measurement, in particular, is a sticking point. The Aberdeen research showed that 39% of companies found it somewhat difficult to measure social media, and 20% said it was very difficult. (eMarketer, March 2009)
More people in the US and other leading digital countries worldwide are using social networks and blogs than e-mail, according to Nielsen Online.
Top 5 online sectors worldwide, ranked by active reach, December 2008:
1. Search: 85.9%
2. General interest-portals & communities: 85.2%
3. Software manufacturers: 73.4%
4. Member communities (e.g. social networks and blogs): 66.8%
5. Email: 65.1%
While search and destination sites remain the most popular online activities, social network and blog use exceeded that of e-mail, increasing their reach by 5.4% points since December 2007. In addition, time spent on social networks and blogging sites is growing at over three times the rate of overall Internet growth.
Regardless, marketers should use caution before abandoning simpler media such as e-mail or search for social network advertising. A 2008 study performed by IDC found that 43% of social network users never clicked on ads, and only 11% of those who did actually purchased anything. Compare that to nonusers, 80% of whom clicked on ads at least once per year; 23% of those who did click bought something.
Online retailers surveyed in an Econsultancy and R.O.EYE study found e-mail marketing to be very cost-effective (51%) in terms of customer acquisition, with affiliate marketing (46%) and paid search (40%) not far behind. They were followed by mobile marketing (7%) and online display advertising (7%).(eMarketer, March 2009)
Enterprise microblogging would be a standard feature of 80% of social software platforms by 2011, according to Gartner . The most popular would be Twitter, but other apps could also include Plurk and Jaiku.
Gartner offers four ways to use Twitter:
- Direct: Twitter can be used as a marketing or public relations channel, much like corporate blogs. At a minimum, companies should register their major brand names.
- Indirect: Company employees are using Twitter to enhance their personal and company reputations. It can raise profiles of individuals and the organisations they work for.
- Internal: Employees are using Twitter to communicate what they are doing and what ideas occur to them. That said, Gartner warned there was no guarantee of security.
- Inbound signalling: Twitter streams and search tools can provide information about what customers and competitors are saying about the company.
However, while the top ten technology companies in the US are using Twitter, only two of the ten companies on the FTSE techMARK 100 in the UK - both Thomson Reuters and BAE Systems have employees on the platform. (ITPRO, March 2009)
Twitter use is on the rise and on the road, according to a report from Pew Internet & American Life Project. Micro-bloggers using Twitter and similar platforms to update their status are likely to use wireless.
The study shows that in December 2008, 11% of online American adults shared updates on Twitter or similar services, up from 9% in November 2008 and 6% in May 2008.
The Twitter audience stays connected through Wi-Fi networks and mobile phones. The study finds 76% of Twitter users access the internet using a laptop, PDA, cell phone, or other mobile device. In contrast, 57% of those people online, but not on Twitter, have wireless internet access.
Micro-bloggers are just as likely to consume other media as the average internet user, but more likely to read or view it through a mobile format. For instance, 60% of non-Twitter users and 76% of Twitter users are likely to read a newspaper online. Meanwhile, 6% of non-Twitter users and 14% of Twitter users read news articles on a cell phone.
The Pew study also provides this demographic portrait of a Twitter user:
- The median age of a Twitter user is 31. That compares to a median age of 27 for MySpace users, 26 for Facebook users, and 40 for LinkedIn users.
- Twitter users are slightly more racially and ethnically diverse than the US population. Most likely because they are younger; and younger Americans are a more ethnically and racially diverse group than is the full population.
- 35% of Twitter users live in urban areas compared to 29% of all internet users. Meanwhile 9% of Twitter users and those who update their status live in rural areas, compared to 17% of Internet users.
Pew's study is based on a survey of 2,253 adults, 18 and older, including 502 phone interviews. (ClickZ, February 2009)
Two new investors agree with Twitter's co-founder that the micro-blogging site has money-making potential by giving it new funding. Although Twitter hasn't yet found a way to make money, it's still receiving financial support, winning a reported $35 million (£24.6 million) from two US venture capitalists. Silicon Valley investors Benchmark Capital and Institutional Venture Partners gave Twitter the cash boost, with Benchmark's general partner Peter Fenton joining the board.
Co-founder Biz Stone claimed on the Twitter blog that the microblogging site wasn't actively seeking more funding, as it still had money left from a partnership with Bijan Sabet and Spark Capital in 2008. However, thanks to Twitter's massive explosion in popularity, it had attracted more interest and a financial offer which the micro-blogging site accepted.
Biz Stone said that they are now positioned extremely well to support the accelerating growth of their service, further enable the robust ecosystem sprouting up around Twitter, and to begin building revenue generating products. (ITPRO, February 2009)
It is imperative for travel companies to assess how frequently they need to update official web content so that when consumers re-check the suppliers' sites they get authentic information. This is gaining importance especially when the industry is using social media monitoring solutions to track and analyse all forms of social media, including blog sites, top video-sharing sites and opinion review forums.
Scott McNeely, director of consumer & affiliate web, Viator Inc., recommends that travel suppliers should constantly update content. Not just for the benefit of travel consumers - because even the most loyal travel customers are not logging on expecting daily or even weekly updates in most cases. Instead, it's for the search engines. If you want to rank for important keywords, you need to invest in fresh relevant content. This is an expensive undertaking. Which is why user-generated content (UGC) and social media play critical roles. Travel suppliers will have a hard time finding lower-cost or more relevant content channels than UGC and social media. I think most travel suppliers have been slow to embrace this thinking.
On the best way to approach social search marketing: Travel suppliers typically have a massive, yet untapped asset in their existing customers. So they should start by focusing on developing a relationship with email, user reviews, user photos, video. If they don't show current and future customers that they're serious about being a social travel hub, it will be difficult to expand their new customer acquisition.
Success must be measured by whatever metrics already drive your business - e-comm sites should increase sales, media sites should increase page views, etc. Too often people assume 'success' in travel social media means something other than supporting your core business. It doesn't.
On travel companies not reviewing Web 2.0/Social Media as part of a comprehensive Internet marketing and distribution strategy, together with website re-designs and optimisations, search marketing, email marketing, strategic linking, online sponsorships and display advertising: Many travel companies don't have the resources or confidence to think holistically. All too often they jump from one bolt-on quick-fix to the next. A successful social strategy needs to be built into the DNA of the business. This is hard to do, which is why many travel companies fail.
It's no longer a question of "if" you go down this path, but a question of "what" and "how quickly". Google has said that 2 of every 10 searches are for images, and that number is growing. Images have always been a fantastic tool for selling travel - that isn't changing, in fact it's becoming even more important to have a scalable image strategy for your website. It's a similar story with video. (EyeForTravel, February 2009)
Social media is not the exclusive domain of the young. EyeforTravel research shows when it comes to user-generated content, age isn't a boundary. Roughly as many customer reviews are read by young and old alike with 54% of 18-34 year olds having read customer reviews in the last 30 days, compared with 58% of 35-49 year olds and 57% of 50-64 year olds.
In contrast, when it comes to social networking sites, like Facebook and MySpace, there is a definite discrepancy in the age of regular users. EyeforTravel found that 70% of the 18-34 age group have used social networking sites in the last 30 days, compared to only with 35% of 35-49 year olds and 12% of 50-64 year olds.
So why do the over 35's feel more comfortable reading user reviews over participating in social networks?
- Firstly, travel-specific user-generated content sites, like TripAdvisor, are easy to use and very accessible. The search functions are clear and quickly give people access to vast amounts of specific, relevant content. This is not the case for social networks.
- Secondly, travel-specific UGC sites rarely require people to log-on or leave personal details, something which older people may see as an obstacle. Reading user-generated content is more passive and less personally intrusive compared to actively participating in online social networks.
- Lastly, compared to social networks, the benefits of UGC sites are obvious. For the over 35 age group, who are reading online hotel reviews, they can immediately see the opportunity to save money, avoid making bad decisions and get demographically suitable advice. The benefits of social networking sites on the other hand, are not so clear. The over 35 year age group tends to have more money to spend so it makes sense for them read customer feedback before making large purchases, such as travel.
On the other hand, there is a distinct portion of over 35's who are perfectly poised to take advantage of the social networking phenomena; The Business Traveller. This group tends to have greater connectivity and has access to state-of-art handsets and laptops. Plus, they tend to spend more of their time online. They are also more likely to accept impartial advice from fellow business travellers with the same requirements.
There is great potential for the business traveller to use social media to increase efficiency, access business-specific information, such as suitable restaurants for clients, and get updates on delays and adverse weather conditions. Social networking sites TripIt and LinkedIn have recently made moves to exploit this opportunity. The TripIt application on LinkedIn allows users to notify potential clients of upcoming trips.
TripIt was selected by LinkedIn as their travel application precisely because an older more professional audience is using social networking tools like LinkedIn and TripIt. The focus of these second-generation tools is on providing social utility and mobile convenience that provide information when and where people need it, according to TripIt. (EyeForTravel, February 2009)
The role of user-generated reviews is exploding. TripAdvisor attracts nearly 30 million monthly visitors and 88% of these visitors are influenced by content they read. Word-of-mouth adds a layer of credibility and is more effective than other more formal forms of promotion.
Why is this important? Because with an increasing number of user-generated reviews and people reading and acting on them, the impact of guest satisfaction and dissatisfaction is multiplied and has a quicker economic impact. It used to be said that an unhappy customer would tell 3 others about their poor experience; now they tell 3 million (with less effort). The guest experience has never mattered more.
Market Metrix research has demonstrated that beyond the additional revenue that repeat customers provide, their word-of-mouth communications translate into significant profits for the hotel. In one example the positive word-of-mouth from a happy customer was worth $1,559 in profit for an upscale hotel. This additional revenue highlights the growing value of customers both while they are on property, and after they check out (HOTELMARKETING.COM, February 2009)
Today, resorts are seeing the value of engaging prospective or recurrent guests online through social networks, blogs and review and photo sharing sites. More than 35 resorts participate in HSMAI's Resort Marketing Special Interest Group "Best Practices Initiative"; the most recent study from this group, Online Marketing and Social Media, was conducted earlier this year to analyze online marketing approaches today. Comparisons were drawn to a similar study completed in 2005.
While the current economic woes and bailouts point to an even greater use of online marketing, the research conducted in Spring/Summer 2008 still reveals interesting benchmark trends for this important sector of the hospitality industry. The "Best Practices Study" found that:
- 2008 online marketing budgets were much more effective in comparison to 2005. In 2008, revenue generated for every $1 spent was $23, compared to $18 in 2005. Resorts increased spending online from an average of 10 % of the marketing budgets in 2005 to 25 % in 2008.
- One-third of the resorts surveyed received revenue in direct proportion to their spending or better. So, if they spent 20 % of their marketing budget on online activities, they earned 20 % or better of their total room revenue through electronic channels.
- The results back up other findings in the travel industry as well. According to J.D. Power and Associates 2008 Independent Travel Web Site Satisfaction Study, the % age of travellers making online airline, rental car and hotel reservations has increased 15 % age points during the past year.
- Many resorts have gained tremendous momentum with limited marketing budgets when experimenting with social media. Steamboat Ski Company, a member of the HSMAI Resort Best Practices Initiative, launched a social network and forum for its consumers as they opened their 2008-09 season.
(Travel Daily News, January 2009)
YouTube's audience jumped in September to nearly 82 million unique viewers watching more than 5.3 billion streams, according to the latest figures from Nielsen Online. This is an increase from August, when the site's 77 million unique visitors watched more than 4.7 billion streams. Seasonal fluctuations are likely the cause for the big jump; many internet sites get a boost when students return to school and employees return from August vacations.
Yahoo drew nearly 30 million unique visitors in September watching 264 million streams, up from about 20 million unique visitors viewing 169 million streams. Fox Interactive Media, led by MySpace, saw a burst in unique viewers, but they watched fewer videos: 19 million unique visitors watched 242 million streams in September, compared with 16 million unique visitors viewing 278 million streams in August. (HOTELMARKETING, October 2008)
Despite the huge growth in new applications such as internet video and social networking, most consumers indicate the main reason for accessing the internet is to use e-mail and gather information, according to a survey by Gartner Inc. The survey of 4,770 consumer internet users in the fourth quarter of 2007 (which encompassed 18 countries, three regions, three educational levels and three income levels) found that the third internet interest worldwide was online banking, with emerging markets being the only major exception.
Sharing photos, videos and files came in fourth, with all respondents worldwide ranking geographic navigation services (for example Google Earth) and shopping online as No 5 and No. 6 in importance, respectively.
However, Gartner found that there is one demographic group that is bucking the trend, with 13- to 18-year-olds enjoying the most divergent internet interests, ranging from downloading music and playing games online to blogging and social networks. (Gartner, April 2008)
Blogging has become so pervasive and influential that the lines between blogging and the mainstream media have disappeared, according to the main finding of a Technorati sponsored survey of bloggers conducted in July and August 2008 by Decipher.
comScore Media Metrix found that blogs had 77 million unique visitors in the US in August 2008, compared with 75.1 million unique visitors to MySpace and 41 million to Facebook. In July 2008, comScore's ranking of the top 10 entertainment Websites included four blogs. Two of those, OMG and TMZ, were rated Nos. 1 and 2, respectively.
Among the Technorati survey's own findings, one of the more surprising ones was a 2-to-1 male/female ratio among bloggers worldwide.
A closer look at the gender breakdown by geography shows that bloggers in Europe and Asia skewed even more heavily male (73% each), while US bloggers showed a less drastic gender split, with 57% males and 43% females. (eMarketer, October 2008)
While the growth in new users to social networking sites in North America is beginning to level off, it is burgeoning in other regions around the world, according to a study of worldwide usage of social networking sites by comScore. During the past year, the total North American audience of social networkers has grown 9% compared to a much larger 25% growth for the world at large. The Middle East-Africa region (+66%), Europe (+35%) and Latin America (+33%) have each grown at well-above average rates.
Social networking growth by worldwide region, June 2008 (total worldwide audience, age 15+ - home and work locations):
- Worldwide: 580,510,000 unique visitors (+25% compared to June 2007)
- Asia Pacific: 200,555,000 (+23%)
- Europe: 165,256,000 (+35%)
- North America: 131,255,000 (+9%)
- Latin America: 53,248,000 (+33%)
- Middle East - Africa: 30,197,000 (+66%)
While the social networking trend first took off in North America, it is beginning to reach a point of maturity in the region, according to comScore. However, the phenomenon is still growing rapidly in other regions around the world, especially as the established American brands turn their focus to developing markets.
During the past year, many of the top social networking sites have demonstrated rapid growth in their global user bases. Facebook.com, which took over the global lead among social networking sites in April 2008, has made a concerted effort to become more culturally relevant in markets outside the US. Its introduction of natural language interfaces in several markets has helped propel the site to 153% growth during the past year. Meanwhile, the emphasis Hi5.com has put on its full-scale localization strategy has helped the site double its visitor base to more than 56 million. Other social networking sites, including Friendster.com (+50%), Orkut (+41%) and Bebo.com (+32%) have demonstrated particularly strong growth on a global basis.
Worldwide growth among selected social networking sites, June 2008 (total worldwide audience, age 15+ - home and work locations:
- TOTAL INTERNET/TOTAL AUDIENCE: 860,514,000 unique visitors (+11% compared to June 2007)
- SOCIAL NETWORKING: 580,510,000 (+25%)
- Facebook.com: 132,105,000 (+153%)
- Myspace.com: 117,582,000 (+3%)
- Hi5.com: 56,367,000 (+100%)
- Friendster.com: 37,080,000 (+50%)
- Orkut: 34,028,000 (+41%)
- Bebo.com: 24,017,000 (+32%)
- Skyrock Network: 21,041,000 (+19%)
Facebook's recent ascension to become the top global social networking site has been spurred by its substantial growth across worldwide regions. Though its largest visitor base is still in North America (49 million), Facebook's growth in the region is a relatively modest 38%. In every other worldwide region, Facebook's audience has more than quadrupled. Europe is quickly catching up with North America as Facebook's largest visitor base with 35 million visitors in June, a 303% increase and a net addition of nearly 27 million monthly visitors versus year ago. Other worldwide regions have seen even more dramatic growth on a percentage basis: + 1,055% in Latin America, +458% in Asia Pacific and +403% in Middle East - Africa.
Facebook has done an exceptional job of leveraging its brand internationally during the past year, according to comScore. By increasing the site's relevance to local markets through local language interface translation, the site is now competing strongly or even capturing the lead in several markets where it had a relatively minor presence just a year ago. (comScore, August 2008)
More than half of adults (58%) surveyed in 17 countries do not know what social networking is, according to Synovate. The company said that in June 2008 it asked over 13,000 consumers in Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, South Africa, Taiwan, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the US if they were familiar with social networking.
Although such aggregate findings are useful in a directional sense (many consumers worldwide have yet to hear about social networking), Synovate noted differences in individual countries and among demographic segments. For instance, awareness was higher among younger users.
As for membership, 26% of respondents belonged to social networking sites. Membership was highest in the Netherlands (49%); UAE (46%); Canada (44%) and the US (40%).
Synovate also asked adult consumers if they were losing interest in online social networking. Overall, 36% of social network users said yes, led by those in Japan (55%), Slovakia (48%), Canada (47%), Poland and the US (45% each). Social networkers in Indonesia and France were the least likely to be losing interest, at only 18% and 21%, respectively.
An April 2008, Universal McCann study also found social networking to be a minority activity. As in the other survey, the Dutch had the highest percentage of social networkers. Based on the survey, more than a third (36.4%) of the total population of the Netherlands said they used social networks at least every other day, compared with 23.4% of the total US population.
Social networking users in selected countries worldwide, 2008:
- Australia: 2.6 million users (21.1% of the population)
- Austria: 0.6 million (11.5%)
- Brazil: 11.4 million (9.6%)
- Canada: 4.2 million (21.7%)
- China: 39.0 million (4.5%)
- Czech Republic: 0.8 million (12.7%)
- Denmark: 0.6 million (21.9%)
- France: 4.2 million (11.4%)
- Germany: 8.2 million (15.6%)
- Greece: 0.5 million (7.8%)
- Hong Kong: 1.0 million (21.4%)
- Hungary: 1.0 million (18.6%)
- India: 11.8 million (1.8%)
- Italy: 4.0 million (12.0%)
- Japan: 12.4 million (12.2%)
- Mexico: 5.1 million (8.1%)
- Netherlands: 3.7 million (36.4%)
- Pakistan: 1.8 million (2.2%)
- Philippines: 3.0 million (6.0%)
- Poland: 2.7 million (11.2%)
- Romania: 1.4 million (10.0%)
- Russia: 6.1 million (7.1%)
- South Korea: 9.4 million (23.7%)
- Spain: 4.7 million (19.7%)
- Switzerland: 0.8 million (17.6%)
- Taiwan: 4.0 million (25.8%)
- Turkey: 3.3 million (7.8%)
- UK: 10.6 million (29.1%)
- US: 43.0 million (23.4%)
eMarketer predicts that 44.3% of internet users in the US will belong to social networks by the end of 2008. (eMarketer, September 2008)
Many companies are thinking about how they can take advantage of social-networking technology, but analysts at Gartner are warning against getting caught up in the hype.
Businesses are advised to consider certain issues before investing in or developing internal social-networking tools. These include protecting personal intellectual property, as well as people's preference for using existing nonprofessional, external networks such as Bebo, Facebook and MySpace.com.
With Facebook saying it will license its developer platform to other organizations, it also could become even easier for companies to develop their own social networks.
But the Gartner report says the hype around social networking doesn't necessarily mean it's a mature enough technology to make it a critical business requirement. (HOTELMARKETING.COM, December 2007)
Technology investors and entrepreneurs, long obsessed with connecting to teenagers and 20-somethings, are starting a host of new social networking sites aimed at baby boomers and greying computer users. The sites have names like Eons, Rezoom, Multiply, Maya's Mom, Boomj, and Boomertown. And they are seeking to capitalize on what investors say may be a profitable characteristic of older internet users: they are less likely than youngsters to flit from one trendy site to the next. (HOTELMARKETING.COM, September 2007)
A study by the UK Office of Communications with Synovate covered social networking use among broadband users in China and Japan, and European and US markets. Among adult Chinese broadband users, 80% had discussed hobbies or interests online via a social network, and 78% had used a social network to meet new people. Less than half of users in most other markets surveyed said they had used a social network for either of those purposes. (eMarketer, July 2007)
Some 70% of internet content will be created by individuals as opposed to publishers and brands within three years, according to Spannerworks business development manager Madeleine Wood as she urged travel companies to get involved in and be talked about on social networking sites.
Wood said search engines like Google have evolved into reputation management systems because of online social networks. (TravelMole, September 2007)
Google is joining forces with some of the world's largest online social networks to battle against their younger rival, Facebook. Google has signed up MySpace and Bebo to its new OpenSocial system that aims to link together some of the internet's most popular web sites. It has also recruited Linkedin, the business networking site, Friendster, one of Asia's most popular social networks and Orkut, the market leader in Brazil. The OpenSocial network will allow games and video player developers access to a standard software kit that will enable their applications to work across multiple web sites.
Google recently lost out on a chance to take a stake in Facebook, when Microsoft secured a 1.6% shareholding in a deal that valued the three-year old company at $15 billion. Facebook offers over 7,000 tools, built mostly by independent developers and companies, that users can add to their profile pages free of charge. MySpace is currently the largest social networking site with over 200 million users. Bebo has an estimated 10.9 million monthly British users. (IMRG, November 2007)
Perhaps even more impressive than the trending witnessed in digital video behaviours globally, is the growing phenomenon that social networking is becoming across the world. Today, about 1 in 5 adults have ever visited a social networking website, and an equal percentage (20%) of regular internet users have visited these types of websites in the past 30 days. Leading all other markets in its love affair with social networking is South Korea, as half (49%) of all adults in this country have visited at least one of these websites in the past, while over half of all online adults have visited a social networking website in the past 30 days. The popularity of social networking in South Korea is largely attributed to Cyworld, one of the oldest and most successful social networking sites in the world. According to Cyworld, approximately 18 million people in South Korea have accounts with their service - representing roughly 30% of the country's entire population. In comparison, about one in five American adults (24%) have ever visited a social networking website.
The online audience that social networking sites attract are significant, particularly when one considers the various ways for users to interact with others using these sites, such as online chat, text messaging, e-mail, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups, and so on. Social-networking sites clearly solicit a strong relationship with users - beyond the simple transactional nature many sites have with their audience. What's also notable about social networking sites is the captive audience they are generating online. In most global markets, at least 2/3 of all internet users that have visited these sites have done so in the past 30 days. The frequency of visitation to social networking websites globally implies that many internet users are no longer simply 'trying out' these sites, but rather adopting social-networking as a significant part in their evolving digital lifestyle. (Ipsos Insight, July 2007)
About 44% of US consumers will use social networking at least once a month in 2008, according to eMarketer. Although MySpace and Facebook will continue to dominate the market, changes are afoot that will extend social networking activities beyond a single destination site and into many other facets of the consumer internet experience.
Profiles will eventually become portable, meaning consumers need only create one profile and be able to use it in many places on the Web. Small applications or "widgets" that today work with only one social networking destination site will be designed on an open platform, extending their reach. Activities such as online shopping, searching and even sending e-mail will be enhanced with social networking features.
Social networking will remain a key online activity regardless of the individual performance of MySpace or Facebook.
US ad spending on social networks will climb to nearly $1.6 billion in 2008, from $920 million in 2007. Although targeted advertising is getting the lion's share of attention and will continue to be important in 2008, other forms of social network marketing, such as search advertising, widgets and ecommerce, will draw increased marketer interest. Additionally, self-serve advertising systems will create a new market for local and small businesses to promote themselves via social networks. (eMarketer, December 2007)
Social media applications will attract over one billion broadband users within five years, according to Strategy Analytics' "The People's Revolution: Implications of Web 2.0 and Social Media Applications" report.
By the end of 2007, 38% of all US internet users aged 3 and older, or 72 million people, will have used social networking at least once a month, according to eMarketer. By 2011, one-half of all internet users, nearly 105 million people, will use social networking regularly, and that's just in the US.
US online social network users, 2006-2011:
- 2006: 60.3 million (33.2% of total internet users)
- 2007: 72.0 million (38.3%)
- 2008: 85.9 million (44.3%)
- 2009: 94.4 million (47.2%)
- 2010: 100.2 million (48.6%)
- 2011: 104.7 million (49.6%)
(eMarketer, December 2007)
TripIt's My Travel application has been officially launched on LinkedIn. According to TripIt, the new application on LinkedIn is directly connected to users' TripIt account. The application lets users see where and when their LinkedIn network is travelling. It generates closeness alerts for a user's LinkedIn colleagues, so that a user can connect with them while on the road, while colleagues are on the road, or when a user is attending the same industry event. My Travel also displays a user's current location, upcoming trips and travel stats on LinkedIn profile. (EyeforTravel, October 2008)
User-generated content (UGC) on the Web is set to rapidly shift from a budding consumer trend to a serious business over the next five years, according to eMarketer. Despite the ongoing challenges facing UGC sites to find a business model that works, and despite continued hesitancy among some major brands to even go near the explosive space, eMarketer predicts that category leaders such as YouTube, MySpace, Facebook and Photobucket will lead the charge in terms of legitimizing the medium over the next five years.
The nearly tenfold increase in UGC advertising spending in the US reflects optimism in the ability of companies like YouTube, MySpace and Facebook to continue to build and retain vast audiences. Plus, users have shown no indication that creating their own Web content for others to consume is a passing fad, found eMarketer. By 2011, the researcher estimates there will be 95 million Web users creating content online, up from 64 million in 2006.
Among the various segments that have exhibited hefty growth over the last several years, eMarketer believes that social networking sites will command the biggest slice of the UGC ad pie - perhaps due to how much further ahead sites like News Corp.'s MySpace as well as Facebook are at monetizing their content than Google's YouTube. Spending on social networking sites should balloon to $3.6 million in 2011, up from the mere $445 million spent last year. By 2011, ad spending on these sites should account for nearly 7% of online advertising. (HOTELMARKETING.COM, August 2007)
Several major social networking sites have experienced dramatic growth during the past year, according to the results of a comScore study on the expansion of social networking across the globe.
MySpace.com attracted more than 114 million global visitors age 15 and older in June 2007, representing a 72% increase versus year ago. Facebook.com experienced even stronger growth during that same time frame, jumping 270% to 52.2 million visitors. Bebo.com (up 172% to 18.2 million visitors) and Tagged.com (up 774% to 13.2 million visitors) also increased by orders of magnitude.
During the past year, social networking has really taken off globally, according to comScore with literally hundreds of millions of people around the world visiting social networking sites each month and many doing so on a daily basis. It would appear that social networking is not a fad but rather an activity that is being woven into the very fabric of the global internet. (HOTELMARKETING.COM, August 2007)
The evolution of internet users' digital media and online habits appears to be transitioning to the digital video age, according to findings from The Face of the Web, Ipsos Insight's annual study of internet and Technology trends.
Over the past few years, the growth of digital music behaviours - particularly downloading music files online and burning CD-Rs - introduced millions of internet users globally to the virtues of the digital medium, blazing a path for other entertainment media to follow. At the end of 2006, it appears that online video activities seemingly have taken over the torch as the driving force in the next stage of digital media's growth, having a profound impact on the way consumers access and view video content around the world. Indeed, participation in online video activities is climbing quickly in many developed markets of the world. Growth in these behaviours was most prevalent within the US, where today well over 1/3 of recent internet users (36%) have watched a TV show or other video stream online, compared to 28% at the end of 2005, while ¾ of these adults have done so in the past 30 days.
Perhaps even more impressive than the trending witnessed in digital video behaviours globally, is the growing phenomenon that social networking is becoming across the world. Today, about 1 in 5 adults have ever visited a social networking website, and an equal percentage (20%) of regular internet users have visited these types of websites in the past 30 days. Leading all other markets in its love affair with social networking is South Korea, as half (49%) of all adults in this country have visited at least one of these websites in the past, while over half of all online adults have visited a social networking website in the past 30 days. The popularity of social networking in South Korea is largely attributed to Cyworld, one of the oldest and most successful social networking sites in the world. According to Cyworld, approximately 18 million people in South Korea have accounts with their service - representing roughly 30% of the country's entire population. In comparison, about 1 in 5 American adults (24%) have ever visited a social networking website.
The online audience that social networking sites attract are significant, particularly when one considers the various ways for users to interact with others using these sites, such as online chat, text messaging, e-mail, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussion groups, and so on. Social-networking sites clearly solicit a strong relationship with users - beyond the simple transactional nature many sites have with their audience. What's also notable about social networking sites is the captive audience they are generating online. In most global markets, at least 2/3 of all internet users that have visited these sites have done so in the past 30 days.
Frequency of visitation of social networking sites in various markets worldwide:
- South Korea: 66%
- Brazil: 47%
- China: 42%
- Mexico: 36%
- USA: 32%
- UK: 28%
- Canada: 25%
- India: 24%
- Germany: 19%
- France: 18%
- Japan: 22%
- Russia: 3%
The Face of the Web 2006 study was conducted in November and December 2006 among a random sample of 6,553 adults in urban Brazil, Canada, urban China, France, Germany, urban India, Japan, urban Mexico, urban Russia, South Korea, the UK, and the US. (Ipsos Insight, August 2007)
MySpace users are chronically unfaithful, according to Parks Associates' "Web 2.0 & the New Net," a report that focuses on the social networking market. Nearly 40% of MySpace users keep profiles on other social networking sites such as Friendster and Facebook. Loyalty among the smaller social networking sites is even lower, with more than 50% of all users actively maintaining multiple profiles.
These trends highlight a peculiar aspect of the market for social networking services. Nearly ½ of all social networkers regularly use more than one site; 1 in 6 use three or more. The result is an increasingly interlinked environment tied together by links, widgets, and the users themselves. MySpace is a growing ecosystem and one that ironically now extends beyond MySpace itself, according to Parks Associates. (Parks Associates, June 2007)
On a worldwide basis, user-generated content ad revenues will rise from $1.6 billion in 2007 to $8.2 billion in 2011.
Worldwide user-generated content advertising revenues, 2006-2011:
- 2006: $630 million
- 2007: $1,562 million
- 2008: $2,796 million
- 2009: $4,210 million
- 2010: $5,925 million
- 2011: $8,175 million
Currently, the US dominates the space, but other geographies are expected to contribute increasing amounts of user-generated content over the next several years, with 238 million user-generated content creators worldwide in 2011, up from 118 million in 2006. (eMarketer, June 2007)
A global survey of internal and corporate communications professionals found that more than half use blogs (55%), online video (63%) and RSS (51%), or plan to do so in the next 12 months. The Melcrum study of communications at large firms also found more than 40% are using podcasts (43%) and social networks (41%), or say they are planning to do so.
Other data suggest that while a lot of firms say they plan to start blogging, that remains a matter of intent, not reality. Moreover, few companies have public blogs. Those that do appear to blog mainly for internal communications.
Social media are well-suited to internal communications, with communications professionals believing they help with employee engagement and internal collaboration. (eMarketer, May 2007)
There were 26.6 million online blogs recorded in January 2006 worldwide, according to the "State of the Blogosphere" report Technorati. This compares with 1.6 million recorded in January 2004 and 6.6 million in January 2005.
Latest data from Technorati shows that as per April 2006, there are now 35.3 million blogs. Technorati claims over 75,000 new weblogs are created every day, which means that on average, a new weblog is created every second of every day.
According to the latest report, 19.4 million bloggers (55%) are still updating their sites three months after their blogs were created. That's an increase in both absolute and relative terms over January 2006, when only 50.5% or 13.7 million blogs were 'active'. In addition, about 3.9 million bloggers currently update their blogs at least weekly. (eMarketer, April 2006)
Few consumers in the US are satisfied with the videos they download from the internet, according to a survey entitled "Global Digital Living" by Parks Associates. Just 16% say the selection of videos available online is good, and only 13% say video downloads are sold at a reasonable price. Most tellingly, fewer than 1 in 5 consumers downloading video say they plan to download videos again in the future.
Consumers generally download video from one of two sources: peer-to-peer networks that offer unauthorized copies of TV programs and films, or licensed online services like iTunes. Low satisfaction levels might be expected for consumers using unlicensed sources because their quality and reliability are generally low - a consequence of being an unlicensed service. Yet even consumers who exclusively use legitimate services are unhappy with the experience.
The Global Digital Living is a 13-country survey of international technology trends that included more than 13,000 respondents. (Parks Associates, August 2007)
Last Updated on Wednesday, 24 February 2010 13:47
