First National Womens Chamber Launches on International Womens Day

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The Socialization of Brands - Global Trends in Social Networks RT @askdebra & @UMWWtweets

Amazing & Comprehensive Data, Check out the Full Report

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Global Trends in Social Networks: The Socialization of Brands

Posted by: Debra Askanase In: Twitter|demographics|social networks

I’m always on the  lookout for good international data about the use of social media and social networks. Each year, I eagerly await the results of Universal McCann’s “Wave” study on social media. Since 2006, Universal McCann has been surveying active internet users worldwide about their use of the internet yearly. This year, 37,600 respondents from 53 countries told UM how they use the internet. The results, highlighting trends and changes from years past, show the domination and rise of both social networks and branded online social communities. So much so that this year’s report is entitled “Wave 5 – The Socialization of Brands.” The report, issued in October 2010, summarizes the latest Wave 5 survey data gathered in July 2010.

Here are some facts from the report that all organizations should take note of:

1. The Rise of the Social Network

According to the study, social network usage has risen from 52% to 70% by 25-34 year-olds worldwide. Three-quarters of active internet users worldwide have managed a social network profile. When asked the number of activities people use social networks for, that number has risen from 6.4 to eight activities since Wave 4 in 2009.

Wave 5 illustrates that social networks have broadened in the past several years to have effectively become the chosen online home of all your social media activities.

Looking at Figure 4 from the study, people prefer using a social network for almost every type of online experience. The one exception is that Message Boards top social networks when someone wants to “seek other people’s opinions.” This should serve to remind us of the power of a well-moderated, well-used message board, too!

All types of sharing are universally migrating to social networks. Looking more closely, uploading photos and videos to online sharing sites has leveled off but uploading photos and videos to social networking sits has grown over 200% in two years, as noted in Figure 11 from the study:

Additionally, while blogging has stabilized (or declined, in the case of reading personal blogs), writing a blog on a social network is the only form of blogging that has increased.

2. Twitter is not dead (at least not worldwide)

Ok, not actually a surprise. Though Twitter adoption has slowed in North America, it has jumped worldwide from 15% usage in July 2009 to almost 33% in July 2010. If you want to reach an international audience, use Twitter to reach new audiences and move people to care, and act.

3. Develop your branded online community

There is a BIG decline in the number of people who are visiting official brand websites. Contrary to that, Wave 5 notes the BIG rise in the number of people worldwide who have become an online fan of a brand. This would include a nonprofit organization’s Facebook Page, private online community, YouTube channel, etc. See Figure 21 from the Wave 5 study, below:

This study was not prepared with the nonprofit sector in mind, and was generalized across all segments of the population. That noted, over 50% of the respondents said that they affiliated with a branded online community in order to support a cause. I also found intriguing the other reasons listed for affiliating: to associate with something that is cool, to learn more about it, to get advance news on a product, and more. Think about these takeaways: If you run a youth-oriented nonprofit, how can you make it cool? If you offer nonprofit software, can you offer advance news about upcoming features and releases? Cross-apply Figure 24 with your organization’s audience to help focus your branded community.

4. When people join a brand community online, they feel more positive and loyal toward the brand

I’ve read this before, but it’s great to see it validated worldwide.

Clearly, online community supporters ARE your more loyal fans, they WILL visit the website from an online social network community, and they are a strong source for finding new online supporters. Treat them with respect, and grow your loyal fans into the online evangelists that they could become.

So much great data from Wave 5. What are your takeaways? Read more at www.communityorganizer20.com

 

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When Eyeballs and Dollars Don’t Match Up @eMarketer

Again, Quality over Quantity

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When Eyeballs and Dollars Don’t Match Up

Paul Verna, Senior Analyst

No one can be faulted for thinking that the size of someone’s Facebook friends list is a proxy for that person’s level of influence. After all, people who are influential are often also popular, and in a Facebook and Twitter world popularity is measured in friends and followers.

No one can be faulted for thinking that the size of someone’s Facebook friends list is a proxy for that person’s level of influence. After all, people who are influential are often also popular, and in a Facebook and Twitter world popularity is measured in friends and followers. But a new report from Vocus and FutureWorks principal Brian Solis throws a healthy dose of skepticism on the supposed correlation between popularity and influence. The report—provocatively titled “Influencer Grudge Match: Lady Gaga versus Bono”—surveyed 739 marketing and communications professionals who work with influencers to gauge their perceptions of what makes an influencer. A surprising 90% of respondents answered “yes” when asked whether there’s a big difference between popularity and influence. Nearly the same percentage, 84%, believed that there was a correlation between an influencer’s reach and his or her ability to drive action. This indicates that respondents made a clear distinction between popularity and reach, and regarded the latter as the key that determines a person’s influence. The survey did not define any of these terms, so it was up to the respondents to interpret them. From the results, it’s apparent that respondents regarded popularity as the sheer number of contacts on a social network and reach as the ability to actually communicate meaningfully with some number of those contacts. As one respondent put it, “A person can have only a few contacts and greatly influence just those few.” Asked which type of social network participant would have the most measurable effect on an outcome, 57% picked someone who has “a handful of fans/friends/followers that are tightly connected,” versus 8% who picked someone with “millions of fans/friends/followers with little or no connection.” Quality over quantity. Despite this data, many marketers are on a seemingly relentless quest to beef up their own social network profiles and reach users with lots of friends and followers. In the Vocus-Solis study, 57% of respondents said they’d be willing to pay for an influencer to help them “drive actions or outcomes.” Further, Twitter recently unveiled its Promoted Accounts platform, which allows marketers to essentially pay for access to users based on the sizes of those users’ networks. Quantity over quality. And an eROI study of social metrics tracked by US marketers found that two-thirds tracked changes in the numbers of friends, followers and fans. More qualitative measures such as reach of messaging were much lower on the scale. Again, quantity over quality. For more on the correlation, or lack thereof, between the size of a person’s social network contact list and that person’s level of influence, stay tuned for the upcoming eMarketer report “Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Leveraging Trust Online and Offline.”

But a new report from Vocus and FutureWorks principal Brian Solis throws a healthy dose of skepticism on the supposed correlation between popularity and influence. The report—provocatively titled “Influencer Grudge Match: Lady Gaga versus Bono”—surveyed 739 marketing and communications professionals who work with influencers to gauge their perceptions of what makes an influencer.

A surprising 90% of respondents answered “yes” when asked whether there’s a big difference between popularity and influence.

Nearly the same percentage, 84%, believed that there was a correlation between an influencer’s reach and his or her ability to drive action. This indicates that respondents made a clear distinction between popularity and reach, and regarded the latter as the key that determines a person’s influence.

The survey did not define any of these terms, so it was up to the respondents to interpret them. From the results, it’s apparent that respondents regarded popularity as the sheer number of contacts on a social network and reach as the ability to actually communicate meaningfully with some number of those contacts. As one respondent put it, “A person can have only a few contacts and greatly influence just those few.” Asked which type of social network participant would have the most measurable effect on an outcome, 57% picked someone who has “a handful of fans/friends/followers that are tightly connected,” versus 8% who picked someone with “millions of fans/friends/followers with little or no connection.” Quality over quantity.

Despite this data, many marketers are on a seemingly relentless quest to beef up their own social network profiles and reach users with lots of friends and followers. In the Vocus-Solis study, 57% of respondents said they’d be willing to pay for an influencer to help them “drive actions or outcomes.”

Further, Twitter recently unveiled its Promoted Accounts platform, which allows marketers to essentially pay for access to users based on the sizes of those users’ networks. Quantity over quality.

And an eROI study of social metrics tracked by US marketers found that two-thirds tracked changes in the numbers of friends, followers and fans. More qualitative measures such as reach of messaging were much lower on the scale. Again, quantity over quality.

See more at www.emarketer.com

 

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Numbers Don’t Lie: Why You Need to Use Social Media Marketing' @Growsmartbiz

The opportunities available using the Internet and Social Media to grow your Brand and become more visible to your target market, enabling you to reach more people interested in your products and services faster, more effectively without the huge marketing budget that traditional media requires.

Social Media + Lead Generation Opportunities = New Clients

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Numbers Don’t Lie: Why You Need to Use Social Media Marketing

The good folks over at HubSpot put together a great presentation on social media stats and sound bites that should convince you, once and for all, that you can’t afford to ignore social media marketing anymore.

Global Internet Users

The number of global internet users worldwide is, in a word, huge, making your potential audience very big no matter what industry you operate in, who your target market is, or whether you sell a product, service, or combination of both.

North America: 252,908,000

Latin American/Caribbean: 179,031,479

Europe: 418,029,796

Africa: 67,371,700

Asia: 738,257,230

Australian/Oceania: 20,970,490

Social Media Users

The volume of information being shared online is staggering.  In 2009, 90 trillion emails were sent.  The biggest, most popular social media platforms are not only generating a tremendous amount of information as well, but they’re also being used by tons of people.  Again, this translates into a lot of potential customers.

There are 550 million Facebook users and counting.

Blogs on the Internet number 126 million.

Since 2006, over 10 billion tweets have been distributed on Twitter.

Every day, 2 billion videos are streamed on YouTube.  Every. Day.

Even though I have the tendency to sound off on the fact that so much is written about social media at the expense of marketing in general, I happily acknowledge that social media is the future of marketing and advertising.  Not only is it where the people are, it’s an easy way to share information about your company to a targeted audience and track the return on your marketing investment in the form of new clients.

Social Media + Lead Generation Opportunities = New Clients Read more at growsmartbusiness.com

 

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smarter conversations: “how do i want to change the way i talk to people?” RT @gapingvoid

"Start today. It’s never too late to begin a Smarter Conversation."

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smarter conversations: “how do i want to change the way i talk to people?”

[The "Life Is Too Short" print...]

I first started playing with the idea of “Smarter-Conversations” way back in 2004, the same year gapingvoid really started getting traction in the blogopsphere.

Though not something I talk about day-in-day-out, it’s always been there somewhere in the background, informing everything I work on. Here are some notes:

1. In the seminal book, “The Cluetrain Manifesto”, the great Doc Searls famously declared, “Markets are conversations”. If you buy that premise (and I do, wholeheartedly), then quod erat demonstratum, if you want your marketing to be smarter (i.e. more effective), you need to be having a “Smarter Conversation”.

2. “Conversation” is a metaphor. Making your product sleek, elegant and graceful while all your other competitors make their product look cheap, plastic and clunky is a smarter conversation. Not all conversations need words.

3. It’s not just what you say, its how you say it. Calling it the “iPod” is a smarter conversation than say, the “MZT-2300-B Electronic Portable MP3 Digital Hand Device”.

4. Smarter Conversations scale. That’s what I really like about it. Anyone can have a smarter conversation- from a mom n’ pop pizza joint to a Fortune 500 company. It can happen in a Superbowl ad or on printed on the back of a paper napkin. You can start one on a blog today, for free. Or on Twitter or Facebook. The tools don’t necessarily have to change, the way you talk to people has to change.

5. Deciding to have a smarter conversation isn’t a business decision, it’s a moral decision. Like I said in the last point, the barriers to entry are zero. While your competition treats their customers like idiots, you treat your customers like intelligent human beings. You don’t do that because your accountant told you to, you do that because that’s who you are.

6. The Smarter Conversation’s value comes from, I believe, not by yet more increased business efficiencies, but by its humanity. For example, take two well-known airlines. They both perform a useful service. They both deliver value. They both cost about the same to fly to New York or Hong Kong. Both have nice Boeings and Airbuses. Both serve peanuts and drinks. Both serve “airline food”. Both use the same airports. But one airline has friendly people working for them, the other airline has surly people working for them. One airline has a sense of fun and adventure about it, one has a tired, jaded business-commuter vibe about it. Guess which one takes the human dimension of their business more seriously than the other? Guess which one still will be around in twenty years? Guess which one will lose billions of dollars worth of shareholder value over the next twenty years? What parallels do you see in your own industry? In your own company?

6. If Smarter Conversations work, it’s because they help humanize the company. I wrote about this years ago in an article I called “The Porous Membrane”. To paraphrase: Ideally, you want the conversation between customers [the external market] to be as identical as the conversation between yourselves [the internal market]. The things that your customer is passionate about, you should also be passionate about. This we call “alignment”. A good example would be Apple. The people at Apple think the iPod is cool, and so do their customers. They are aligned. When you are no longer aligned with your customers is when the company starts getting into trouble. When you start saying your gizmo is great and your customers are telling everybody it sucks, then you have serious misalignment. So how do you keep misalignment from happening? The answer lies the cultural membrane that separates you from them. The more porous the membrane, the easier it is for conversations between you and them, the internal and external, to happen. The easier for the conversations on both sides to adjust to the other, to become like the other. And nothing pokes holes in the membrane better than blogging.

7. Social Media is not about reaching a mass audience. Social Media is not about creating yet another sales channel. Social Media is about allowing the Smarter Conversation to happen. That’s all. Why do some companies lose, while other companies win? Because the latter has a smarter “conversation” with its customers. Zappos had a smarter conversation about the power of customer service and the power of company culture. Peet’s Coffee came along 20 years ago and began a smarter conversation about coffee with millions of people within a very short space of time. Target’s recent massive success started from a smarter conversation about good design. Savile Row tailor, Thomas Mahon came along and, with his blog, had a smarter conversation about $4000 English bespoke suits. Lucky’s Juice Joint had a smarter conversation about fresh-squeezed. Big companies, medium companies and tiny companies, whatever- it was never about size, it was never about the choice of media (social or otherwise), it was all about language.

8. Social Media allows you to cheaply and quickly begin a smarter conversation. And once you get it going, that conversation starts bleeding out into all other areas of your business- including advertising, PR and corporate communications.

9. Ask not what tools you want to use, ask how you want to change how you talk to people. All evolutions in marketing are evolutions in language. Those who can raise the level of conversation in any market, win.

10. Start today. It’s never too late to begin a Smarter Conversation. Like I said, money or time is not the issue. Making the decision is the issue, and only you can do that. Read more at gapingvoid.com

 

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Untitled

The Use of Social Marketing Tactics @MarketingSherpa http://amplify.com/u/8sk6

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