Nielsen 2011 Social Media Report

Nielsen has recently published its “State of Media: The Social Media Report – Q3 2011” with some very, very interesting findings on how consumers are using social media and how their behavior is affected by their social media interaction when it comes to purchasing decisions. The  report focuses overall on “the current social media landscape and audiences in the US and other major markets“. Even though this report focuses mainly on the US, it gives us a very good idea of what’s to follow in the next few years in the rest of the world in terms of social media use and influence. Here are some key findings:

Overall social media interaction:

• Americans spend more time on facebook than they do on any other U.S. website.
• In the US, social networks and blogs reach nearly 80% of active US internet users and represent the majority of Americans’ time online.
• Tumblr is an emerging player in social media, nearly tripling its audience from a year ago.
• Social networks and blogs are by far the top destination of internet users at 22.5%, with online games following at nearly 10% and e-mail being 3rd at 7.6%
• Although a larger number of women view online video on social networks and blogs, men are the heaviest online video users overall streaming more videos and watching them longer.
• Men are more likely to visit LinkedIn and Wikia.
• Females 18-34 years old are the most active social networkers.

Brands, products & services interaction:

• 70% of active online adult social networkers shop online, 12% more likely than the average adult internet user.
• 47% of  active adult social networkers when compared to the average adult internet user, are more likely to be heavy spenders on clothing, shoes and accessories.
• 60% of people who use 3 or more digital means of research for a product purchase, learned about a specific brand or retailer from a social networking site. 48% of these consumers responded to a retailer’s offer posted on facebook or twitter.
• 53% of active adult social networkers follow a brand, while 32% follow a celebrity.
• 60% of social media users create reviews of products and services. Consumer-created content is the preferred source for information about product/service value, price and product quality.

Mobile:

• Close to 40% of social media users access social media content from their mobile phone.
• Mobile social media use is on the rise, with 2 in 5 users accessing social media via their mobile phones.
• Social networking apps are the 3rd most-used among U.S. smartphone owners.
• Internet users over the age of 55 are driving the growth of social networking through the Mobile Internet.
• Over twice as many people aged 55+ visit social networking sites on their mobile phone than last year.

Internationally:

• In a sample across 10 major global markets, social networks and blogs are the top destination in each country.
• Across a snapshot of 10 major global markets, social networks and blogs reach over 3/4 of active internet users.

 

 

So for brands that are still refusing to enter the social media world, thinking that they are not to be taken seriously, do you still think that this is just a fad?

To view or download the full report, click here.

Facebook: Still the Most Popular Social Media in Cyprus

Not surprisingly, facebook is still by far the most popular social media in Cyprus, hugely gaining in popularity all the time. Due to this fact, we are finally seeing a good number of Cyprus brands taking facebook seriously as a way to reach their audiences. The problem at the moment though is that although brands are creating a facebook fan page, launching contests to get people to ‘like’ their page, they do almost nothing afterwards with the community they’ve built around their brand. Unfortunately a majority of Cyprus brands practicing this (or the agencies advising them) are not thinking of their facebook fan page as a means to build a two-way communication with their audience, just like God (or in this case, Mark Zuckerberg) intended it. Here is facebook’s demographics by numbers in Cyprus for August 2011:

• Total registered members living in Cyprus: 500,060 (approximately 57% of Cyprus’ total population in 2010)

• Men: 274,580, Women: 212,420, Unknown: 13,060

• Cyprus Members Ages 12-17: 87,980
• Cyprus Members Ages 18-24: 154,740
• Cyprus Members Ages 25-34: 151,320
• Cyprus Members Ages 35-44: 61,780
• Cyprus Members Ages 45-54: 26,660
• Cyprus Members Ages 55-64: 9,140
• Cyprus Members Ages 65+: 8,440

Digital Era of Awesomeness

I randomly came across this (free) ebook the other day worth sharing ‘Oh My God What Happened and What Should I Do?’ which is “for everyone who wants to move into the Digital Era of awesomeness”.

It claims to aim marketing professionals; however a lot of the examples, facts and figures are on the advertising industry. That does not mean that this wouldn’t be a useful read for PR and marketing pros, as the lines of where social media and digital fall under are grey.

Event thought 172 pages might seem daunting at first, it’s quite an easy and fast read with lots of break pages to help not get you overloaded with too much information all at once. The book starts with a brief evolution history of the digital world from 1969 until 2009, with useful facts and figures you can pull out during both business meetings and cocktail parties at which you want to casually show off your internet knowledge… or if you that person who likes to be perceived as a cocky know-it-all. Drawn from the authors’ personal experiences they tend to write more on the practical knowledge side of social media instead of abstract theory, a plus in my books and something which a lot of other ebooks don’t cover. Another plus is that you can share specific pages with ‘friends’.

You can download Oh My God What Happened and What Should I Do? by clicking here or the image below and pay with a tweet or a facebook update instead of $14.76 on Amazon.

Facebook Places – A Location Based Check In Function

As it appeared in AdAge yesterday.

Will this be a blessing or a curse (for businesses, PR peeps/marketeers and users alike)? …you decide.

Facebook Introduces ‘Places,’ Lets Users Check in From Venues

No Ad Offerings Yet, but Plenty a Business Owner Can Do

by Irina Slutsky
Published: August 18, 2010

PALO ALTO, Calif. (AdAge.com) — In front about 100 reporters from almost every news outlet in the Bay Area and beyond, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this evening his social network’s long-awaited geo-location product called Places.

The mobile product will focus on three major features, he said: It will allow users to share where they are with their friends; allow them to see who is near them; and allow them to discover new places around them. And company executives were quick to push Places’ privacy controls in an effort to stave off criticism that has plagued Facebook during the past year.

Places is a mobile product for “advanced mobile browsers” and can be accessed through Facebook’s most recent iPhone app or via touch.facebook.com.

Several of the major players in the local-mobile digital space, including Gowalla, Yelp, Booyah and Foursquare, were on hand at the press conference and some showed off ways they’ll be integrated into Places. While many pundits suggested Facebook’s impending launch of location would be the death of Foursquare and its location-based ilk, the companies — at least publicly — appeared eager to work with Facebook and tap its 500 million worldwide users. (Yelp, for example, boasts 2.5 million users of its mobile app, a fraction of Facebook’s user base.) Mr. Zuckerberg said this first version of Places will only roll out in the U.S.

While Facebook didn’t introduce monetization plans for Places, it suggested that was coming. “You can imagine a whole world can develop around this,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “But we’ll check in on the monetization at a later time.”

Still, there are opportunities for any marketer with a physical location to benefit from Places by taking some basic steps.

“[Business owners] can claim their business’s Places page, and every time anyone checks in from that location, that’s a huge deal,” said Chris Cox, VP-product. “We wanted to make sure that feature was available before we launched.” About 1.5 million business pages exist on Facebook, and each one can merge that page with their Places page by “claiming” it, or letting Facebook know that business belongs to them. Facebook will verify it, Mr. Cox said, but he said he’s not sure if it’ll be giving away stickers for owners to put on the door like Yelp does.

Places is, in some ways, a reach extension for marketers — when people check in from a venue, they essentially broadcast their presence at that spot to their Facebook network — as well as way to attract new visitors through the discovery feature. “It’s an additional venue where you can communicate with the customer as they’re walking by and provide them with something of value,” said Lisa Bradner, president of Chicago agency GeoMomentum.

And, eventually, it could be a place they can offer discounts and marketing messages to people within a particular proximity — whenever Facebook introduces such a feature.

Tom Bedecarre, CEO of AKQA, suggested that while Foursquare popularized the gaming aspect of checking in from physical venues, with Places the prize could be not just a “mayorship” of a venue, but a coupon or other type of award. “It creates another level of engagement with the consumer. If you check into the Gap, let’s make a special offer for you,” Mr. Bedecarre said. “If you check in at 3 p.m. near a Starbucks, it’s ‘Hey, do you want a special on this latte?’ We see your favorite movies on Facebook, and the movie theater nearby can say, ‘Hey, this movie is playing here, come in now and we’ll give you a free popcorn.’

“I can see advertisers connect the dots as quickly as Facebook allows them to,” he added. “It gives them a chance to put an offer in front of someone when they’re in a position that allows for an immediate transaction.”

Old Spice – A Successful Social Media Campaign

Here is an example of how a brand considered relatively outdated can turn things around by launching a successful (and hilarious) social media campaign.

Actor Isaac Mustafa posed as the shirtless ‘Old Spice Guy’, originally for this ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ commercial (which scored close to 19 million views across all video viewing platforms). Wieden + Kennedy then took this campaign a step further into the online world, by making personalized short videos for Twitter and blog fans (sometimes celebrities) as a response to tweets and questions addressed to the Old Spice Guy. The results were pure magic, mostly because of the real time posting of the response videos, the excellent engagement achieved with Old Spice Guy fans and a great sense of humor.

In terms of numbers, 180+ short videos featuring the Old Spice Guy scored 5.9 million views, 22,500 comments, with practically all online impressions being positive and that’s just for the period of  13-16 July (source: Mashable). The campaign has (sadly) now ended but it still enjoys the worldwide ripple effect of its escalating popularity.

My personal favorite is this response to George Stephanopoulos with some tips for Obama to gain more female popularity.

As a by-product of this campaign, an Old Spice Guy voicemail generator was created by Nelson Abalos Jr, for Old Spice Guy fans to create a personalized voicemail message, worth checking out.

Additional Resources:

You can view all of the Old Spice Guy videos at the Old Spice YouTube Channel.

For the Top 10 funniest Old Spice Guy response videos, click here.

How To Reach Out To Bloggers

I have to say, I’ve been following Chris Brogan’s blog for a while now, always finding interesting posts, but after reading his How To Reach Out To Bloggers blog post, he is definitely on my favorite bloggers list. I strongly advise anyone who is in PR and wanting to start reaching out to bloggers to read this one first, it’ll save you from doing some rooky mistakes, but more importantly it’ll help you understand how bloggers relationships should be viewed. After all, this is what PR is essentially all about, creating relationships first and foremost. Moreover, drawing from my sales, marketing and PR experience, creating good and honest relationships on a more personal level with people you interact in your professional life is what will have them be open to hear you out  with their defenses down on what you’re pitching before reaching a decision instead of flat out turning you down before even giving you a chance. People want to talk with people they feel they can trust and who are being honest with them.

I would also definitely read the comments section as there are some good points and additions on there. I’d surely stop to read the comments of jaybaer, Jim “Genuine” Turner‘s response comment, michelledamico, tallulah, Tyler M and postrank among others.

Here is an excerpt of the post which sums up well the initial steps to be considering when trying for a ‘bloggers outreach program’:

Be There Before the Sale

This is something Julien and I wrote about in Trust Agents, and it’s the first part of making your blogging outreach more successful. If you want people to write about you, they should probably know about you first. Quick ways to get that started:

• Follow them on Twitter.
• Comment on their blog posts.
• Set up Google Alerts and comment on related articles.

Is this more work than just blanketing someone with email and hoping a few write about it? Yes. Is it worth it? Yes.

The trick is not to talk about your stuff. You should have started this outreach weeks and weeks before ever needing anything, and it should be genuine. Be interested in the people you hope will take an interest in you.

Here is the link for the post once more How To Reach Out To Bloggers. Happy reading!

tallulah