Social Media Week is upon us! The Affinitive team will be in and out of the New York and San Francisco offices all of next week attending presentations hosted by leaders in emerging social and mobile media.

While we are all excited about the number of “can’t miss” events, especially The Interplay of Sports, Business, and Social Media featuring our Founder & CEO Bob Troia on the panel, we don’t have the time to see them all! So if you find yourself in a similar situation, and want a look at some of our favorites coming up, we’ve got a list for you. With that in mind, we bring to you Affinitive’s can’t miss events for Social Media Week 2012. Hope to see you there!

Rob Marscher’s Recommendation (NYC):
How to Embrace the Metagame to Produce Long-Term Social Engagement
As a word of mouth marketing agency, we’re always looking for ways to extend online engagement to offline engagement and word of mouth.  Gamification has been a hot topic among branded social apps.  I’m interested to discuss how “Metagaming” can be applied to social apps.

Bob Troia’s Recommendation (NYC):
J.C. Herz on Unpacking the Quantified Self followed by Panel: The Sensor Continuum
“Quantified Self” is cresting as a theme in the media, with buzz about all sorts of devices and apps logging everything from heartbeat and mile-times to sleep patterns and indoor air quality.

Margot Wood’s Recommendation (NYC):
@HAHAHAHA: How to be funny in 140 characters or less
Why do I want to go to this one? Honestly, who wouldn’t?

Christina Ku’s Recommendation (NYC):
Using Social Media to Change the Way We Do Government
Because love it or hate it, your government affects you and the way you live. It’s only logical that the next step in transparency and communicating with your representatives is through social media. What I REALLY want to go to though, is #kittencamp – memes, cats, and beer? Wish I was there!

Warren Ackerman’s Recommendation (SF):
Leveraging Gamification to Drive Engagement
Eager to hear about innovative B2C examples and how they match up against our own work for MLS, Jeep, Contiki and BlueCross BlueShield.

Erica Hall’s Recommendation (NYC):
Social Commerce Is Here, Is Your Brand Ready?
Social commerce is the future, wondering what insights these folks will have on best practices and adoption rates.

Patrick Courtney’s Recommendation (NYC):
Big Data and Bigger Conversations: Measuring Your Brand’s Social Performance
Measurement measurement measurement! I eat it up.

Andrew Fox’s Recommendation (NYC):
Consumer Engagement and Online Community in Social Media
As someone who spends his day creating and consuming branded content, and as sharable content becomes even more vital in engaging consumers and increasing reach, I’m hoping this event with Causes.com VP James Windon will provide some interesting insights and spark a few furiously scribbled down moments of inspiration.

Jon Heinrich’s Recommendation (NYC):
The Insidious Plot to Socialize the Enterprise
I will listen to anything that the Global Managing Director at Ogilvy has to say about social media.  As one of the leading ad agencies in the world, they have been around from the beginning, with David Ogilvy himself being known as “The father of Advertising”.  They are leaders in interactive marketing and known as industry innovators.  Listening to global brands like Nestle, Ford, and American Express talk about how the integrate social into their corporate environment sounds like a great way to start off Social Media Week!

Adam Kossoff’s Recommendation (NYC):
To Change Faster, We Must Decide Better
It’s a topic that can have a profound impact on anyone’s life. We make millions of decisions over our lifetime, but we rarely stop to think why we do certain things. I want to better understand the decision process, why certain decisions are made, and how I can learn to make better decisions.

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]]> http://www.socialmediaplayground.com/social-media/the-science-of-word-of-mouth-infographic/2010/05/14/feed/ 424 http://www.socialmediaplayground.com/social-media/the-social-marketing-land-grab/2009/08/11/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-social-marketing-land-grab http://www.socialmediaplayground.com/social-media/the-social-marketing-land-grab/2009/08/11/#comments Tue, 11 Aug 2009 12:51:42 +0000 Affinitive http://www.socialmediaplayground.com/?p=545 “Social Media” are the two hottest buzz words on the block in the big, wide world of marketing.  Diving into the various social marketing platforms – such as Facebook, Flickr, Tumblr (or another blogging platform although I have all my pesos on Tumblr reigning supreme), and the hottest little platform on the list, Twitter, is becoming the norm rather than the exception as it has been in years past.

Less than 10 months ago, I remember creating massive PowerPoint presentations explaining exactly who, what, and WHY platforms like Twitter were going to become key social platforms for brands to engage with consumers – especially when loyalty and retention are part of the brand’s goals and objectives. Now we are getting requests for Twitter and Facebook strategic proposals on a daily basis. The tide has definitely turned.

According to a recent study by Burson-Marsteller, Twitter is the top Social Media platform for Fortune 100 companies. Not a huge shocker if you work (live! breathe! all of the above!) the space, but nice to hear tools that you believe, as a marketer, to be viable if properly adopted to begin to emerge as frequent parts of  brands’ strategies.

What is even more interesting is when you drill the reported Fortune 100 numbers down:

• 54 percent of the Fortune 100 have a Twitter presence (Anyone have that list? Mashable? Couldn’t find it on their Mega Lists)
• 32 percent have a blog
• 29 percent have an active Facebook Page.
• only 17 percent use all three (blog, Facebook, Twitter)
• 94% of companies who use Twitter use it for news/announcements, 67% for consumer service and 57 per cent for deals and promotions
• average Twitter account has 5,234 followers,  median is 674 followers.

At companies using only one of these tools, 76 percent of them use Twitter as the tool of choice. Whew. In some ways this makes me want to dance around in circles and sing “I told you so” like a 4th grader…but mostly this just makes me want to work harder to ensure that all of our current, future, past, potential clients step into the space with purpose AND best practices.

As the best practices for the space continue to get defined and redefined by the people who actively engage in them (as users,  brand leaders, marketers…), the ownership over social marketing as a strategy and the social mediums that fall underneath it’s umbrella enters into a huge gray area.

As the popularity has ensued, the land grab for control over social marketing has hit full swing.

In what can perhaps best be analogized as a social marketing gold rush,  marketers and agencies across the board are racing to own that space within their existing (and future) brand relationships. Simultaneously brands are racing to get started in social marketing (for the most part) and aren’t sure which direction to go.

Who best owns Social Marketing? PR? Digital? A boutique agency? Internal brand managers and team members?

While there is clearly no universal answer – despite what we’d all love to think – there are a few key items on the list that seem to be basic rules of thumb that most brands simply can’t ignore.

So without further ado, let me present my list of Social Marketing tidbits for thought, the growing/morphing changing stream of practices, ideas, and 411s that go into most of my brainstorms:

1. People are talking about you on Twitter… and likely on Facebook, and definitely out there in the big, bad blogosphere. And will talk about you. They are asking for you to join the conversation.
2. The person (or persons) communicating on behalf of your brand have to really know your brand.
3. But they also have to really know the medium…and the medium’s user base.
4. There are rules to engagement in all platforms – you cannot go into this blindly as a brand. You have a lot more at stake than Joe Schmo’s anonymous testing of the waters.
5. There is a true strategy to using social mediums properly. Frequency of content, types of content, ways to advertise (if you should advertise?), metrics and measurements for success, best type of communication, even the lingo is often strategic.
6. The worst thing you can do is feed all your blog posts into your Twitter, all your Twitter posts into your Facebook, and all your Facebook status updates back into your Twitter.  Sure you want to cross-link and have an integrated strategy, but each audience deserves to be communicated with directly.
7. Transparency. (Always, always, always).
8. There is a major debate with regards to the ethics of paying bloggers, tweeters, etc. Be sure to know where/how your social marketing team approaches this (and know the backstory).
9. Just because [insert cool brand name here] and Oprah are on Twitter doesn’t necessarily mean that you should be. Enter all mediums with a plan and with purpose.
10. Chances are your legal department is going to need a full-fledged tutorial on whichever platforms you choose.
11. Don’t give up if you’re facing some legal challenges. You can work through them. We have navigated through (and prevailed!)  highly regulated industries and it is worth it.
12. The number of “fans” and “followers” and “friends” your brand has only matters if you are actively engaging them with content that makes sense, that they want to consume, in ways that they want to consume it, and in ways it best fits in with your overall marketing mix.
13. Debating social strategy internally? Starting with Forrester’s P.O.S.T. analysis really is a good way to get the ball rolling.
14. The blessing (and curse!) of online is how fluid and flexible it is. Make sure you are, too.
15. If the people doing your strategy aren’t active personal users of the platforms – mega red flag. Find their accounts, verify they actually are practicing the buzz worthy mantra they are preaching.

I’m sure I’m missing many on the list. So, marketers, tweeters, bloggers, strategists, tumblrers, Facebookers, social media enthusiasts, what do YOU think?

While I have no evidence to argue against this other than the myriad personal anecdotes from teens in the comments of the media coverage (I tweet therefore we tweet!) and the content in the stream of the popular trending  “Teens Don’t Tweet” topic on Twitter, I do have a question about the stats Nielsen provided.

As Nielsen puts it, “…only 16 percent of Twitter.com website users were under the age of 25. Bear in mind persons under 25 make up nearly one quarter of the active US Internet universe, which means that Twitter.com effectively under-indexes on the youth market by 36 percent.”

Fine, but check out the age breakdown in the graph.  You’ve got 55+ (avg US life expectancy is about 75, so we’ll go with that), 25-54, and 2-25.  That gives us ranges of 21 years, 29 years, and 23 years, respectively.

However, you have to be 13 to join Twitter, so that cuts the youngest demographic in half, making those ranges 21 years, 29 years, and 13 years.

This seems heavily skewed in favor of the older demographics and of course a demo segment would under index when half the audience are literally not legally allowed to use the service, right?  But I welcome more savvy statistics people to show me the light.

Regardless, it wasn’t the teens under indexing bit that caught me off guard the most.  No, what gets me is that 20% of the Twitter audience is 55+.  Tweetup at The Villages, tonight!

Total spending on WoM marketing is expected to increase 10.2% to $1.70 billion in 2009 and grow at a CAGR of 14.5% during the 2008-2013 period, reaching $3.04 billion as more brands include WoM in their media mix and ROI metrics improve.

Other Key Highlights:

• “Spending on U.S. word-of-mouth (WoM) marketing increased 14.2% to $1.54 billion in 2008, as brands recognized the need to get involved in consumer and business conversations and allocate resources to WoM. Spending increased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.6% from 2003 to 2008. “

• “Spending on WoM content and services increased 13.0% to $1.26 billion in 2008, as major marketers integrated WoM into the media mix and shifted to specialized WoM firms that help drive long-term campaigns. Spending rose at a 37.3% CAGR of 37.3% from 2003 to 2008. “

• “Spending on WoM ancillary products increased 19.7% to $286 million in 2008, due to growing demand for return-on-investment (ROI) data and the impact of WoM campaigns on consumer purchasing behavior. Growth can also be attributed to the increasing sophistication of WoM tools that are being used to monitor online and offline conversations. Spending grew at a CAGR of 39.1% from 2003 to 2008. “

Who’s Investing in WOM?

According to the study, consumer product goods (CPGs) companies are the major adopters of WoM, accounting for 17.4% of spending in 2008. Other top categories include food & drink, finance & business-to-business services, electronics & telecommunications, and retail (they note that auto & transportation would have been in the top five if not for their industry’s recent financial woes and cuts in spending).

Shift in Consumer Behavior

Not really a surprise here, but the study notes/validates that consumers are abandoning traditional and ad-supported media, migrating to digital and consumer-supported media.

For more information (or to purchase the report), click here.

The ANA (Association of National Advertisers) recently released a study showing the future shifts in different marketing initiatives with reduction in:

• Media budgets (56 percent)
• Production budgets (50 percent)
• Sponsorship/events activities (41 percent)

The activities most likely to be maintained throughout the recession include:

• Research and development (47 percent)
• Public relations (42 percent)
• Innovation/test/learn budgets (33 percent)
• Promotion activities (33 percent)

The activities most likely to be increased in the current economic environment are:

• Pricing deals (47 percent)
• Social networking and word of mouth activities (26 percent)
• Public relations efforts (23 percent)

These increased activities reflect the real need and understanding from marketers that brand equity comes from emphasis on consumer relationship building. Of course the actual product is the main item for brand equity (89 percent) but customer service (86 percent) and employee advocacy (81 percent) are just as critical. Customer service is where consumers turn to get straight away answers and know that there is always a tangible representative available on hand when questions and problems arise. Give them the assurance that they will get a response, coupled with strong employee advocacy, and will have a brand that will last even through the rough times.

With this realization, customer-related metrics is also being deemed more important with increased attention on:

• Customer conversion/repeat rates (78 percent, as compared to 70 percent in February 2007)
• The percentage of customers who rate a brand as “excellent” (77 percent, as compared to 68 percent in February 2007)
• Net Promoter Scores (73 percent as compared to 67 percent in February 2007)

Sure, this recession has got us thinking of happier times but there’s a light at the end of the tunnel and it’s looking good for us word of mouth marketers. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments or tweet me about happy thoughts @Su_Lee.

Marketing channels, such as Word of Mouth Marketing and Online Marketing, are expected to grow to an astounding 27% of overall marketing expenditures by 2012, up from 7% in 2002, according to a new research study recently released by IBM Institute for Business Value titled “Beyond Advertising: Choosing a Strategic Path to the Digital Consumer”.

The findings prove the changed landscape of the advertising marketplace and the necessity for companies to adapt in order to compete. The report reveals that companies are shifting spending away from traditional advertising in favor of more interactive and measurable ways of reaching consumers.

The study cites the four major trends that are emerging:

• Influence of the Digital Savvy Consumer – Today’s consumer is more more digitally savvy and wants to be engaged online. This year, 76 percent indicated they had already watched video on their computers (up 27 percent). Thirty-two percent indicated they had viewed video on a portable device or mobile phone (up 45 percent). And interest in mobile video content has more than doubled in a year, to 55 percent.
• A shift in advertiser spending – Advertisers are responding to this new breed of digital savvy consumer. Results show that Sixty-three percent of global CMO’s expect to increase online/interactive marketing spends while 65 percent expect to decrease traditional advertising.
• Digital migration of platforms – The emergence of digital forums such as social media and online video are blurring the lines between advertising and marketing in a move to what the study calls “brands-actional” advertising.
• Emergence of new capabilities –“Moves, by both new entrants and existing players, are driving new types of industry innovation, and accelerating the pace of change.”

“To succeed – especially in the current economic environment – media companies will need to develop a new set of capabilities to support the industry’s evolving demands, which include micro targeting, real-time ROI measurement and cross-platform integration,” says Saul Berman, IBM Global Leader for Strategy and Change Consulting Services and co-author of the study.

I definitely don’t underestimate the older demographics. I’m getting used to commenting on my cousin’s status on Facebook, then seeing my uncle’s comment under mine a few hours later. I’m getting used to seeing my best friend and her mom’s conversation on my homepage. I’m getting to the shrug-off point.

I know and I certainly see the older demographics not only adopting and adjusting, but integrating all this technology and weaving it into their daily lives… so what does surprise me is a recently released study conducted by The Barna Group that explored how technology is shaping different experiences and expectations among generations. Although the study does point out that “many of the bloggers, music downloaders and users of social networking websites are from the Boomer and Buster cohorts” because “Boomers and Busters represent about two-thirds of the adult population”, the study seems to undermine their technical savvy. AdAge.com also recently pointed out this generation’s dominance on the big two, “As of January, more than 50% of Facebook users and 44% of MySpace users in the U.S. were over 35 years old, according to ComScore estimates.”

The study breaks users down into four generations – Mosaics (18 – 24), Busters (25 – 43), Boomers (44 – 62) and Elders (63+) then categorizes each generation’s use of technology into Mainstream (technologies used by at least one out of every two computers users (50%+)), Emerging (Those used by at least one out of five but less than hald computer users (20%-49%)) and Limited (Technologies used by fewer than one-fifth of computer users (19% or less)).
So, what sticks out from this chart that doesn’t fit right with my personal observations as well as other recently released research surveys? These are the points that I question:

• Busters, Boomers and Elders fall into the “Limited” category for both having “posted a comment on another blog” and “maintain personal blog”.
• Busters are only in the “Emerging” category for “watched a video online”.

These are surprising to me because Forrester Research just released a report that show more than 60% of those in the Baby Boomers generational group actively consume socially created content like blogs, videos, podcasts and forums. It’s true that they might not be heavily involved with content creation but as far as commenting and watching videos go, Baby Boomers are there and on the rise, “In 2007, the percentage of Boomers consuming social media was 46% for younger Boomers (ages 43 to 52) and 39% for older Boomers (ages 53 to 63). By 2008, those number increased to 67% and 62%, respectively.”
In short, there is no doubt that the 35+ demographics makes up for many of the profiles and accounts created on social media sites but credit must be also given to them on their ability and usage of the functionalities of the sites.

Adults joining Facebook has become an increasingly popular and mildly disturbing trend. According to this 2009 Facebook Demographics Report, the 35-54 age group is currently the fastest growing demographic on Facebook, experiencing a 276.4% growth rate over the past 6 months.

How did a social networking site for college students suddenly become fair game for everyone and their mother to join – literally?

In 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg launched the social networking site Facebook, originally called “thefacebook”,  from his Harvard dorm room, it was only available to Harvard students. Soon, it expanded to include other Ivy League Schools and eventually, college students all over the country were addicted. Facebook was exclusively for college students, requiring one to provide a valid .edu email address in order to join.

But then Facebook decided to change the game. In September 2006 Facebook announced plans to open its doors, allowing anyone with an email address to become a member. Facebook’s exclusive college feel had gone out the window and suddenly anyone could join. The flood gates opened and it seems everyone from your 13 year old sister to your 55 year old aunt took notice.

Facebook had opened a Pandora’s Box of sorts. But what would this mean for the millions of existing college students who had made up the Facebook community? When friend requests started pouring in from previous employers, teachers, older relatives, and other non-college students, it quickly became apparent that the private forum Facebook had once provided for college students to freely express their college social experience was a thing of the past.

The Facebook community, feeling their privacy threatened and foreseeing the possible ramifications that could occur, responded with a backlash of complaints; serving Zuckerberg with a petition titled Don’t Let My Parents onto Facebook! and creating several anti-parent Facebook Groups, including my personal favorite, For the love of god — don’t let parents join Facebook which by the way, currently has 7,820 members.

So many would say why would Facebook do this? If Facebook’s lure was its exclusivity, then why take that away? The better question that I think should be asked here would be why not?

Mark Zuckerberg had a vision and it was clear he was thinking big. His goal was to build a site that helped people, “understand the world around them”—be they in college, high school or the working world”.

He knew that in order for Facebook to remain relevant, they would have to grow with their current audience and reform to attract a new one. College students would soon go on to graduate and get real jobs, and in order for Facebook to stay a part of their lives, it would have to graduate as well.

In addition, by only focusing on college students, Facebook would be limiting its own growth potential, missing out on the opportunity to reach out to new demographics and in particular capitalize on the baby boomer trend that appeared to be taking over the social networking world. The percentage of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8% in 2005 to 35% now.

Zuckerberg’s decision for open registration proved to be fruitful for Facebook. From May 2006 to May 2007, Facebook saw an 89% increase in visitation, reaching a staggering 26.6 million visitors.

While I appreciate the benefits of opening Facebook up to everyone from a business standpoint, it doesn’t make it any less awkward to see my 50 year old aunt writing on my wall or my fourth grade teacher friend requesting me. In addition, I don’t want to age discriminate but when it comes to Social Networking Sites, I believe there should be some sort of Separate But Equal clause imposed, allowing for Parents to have a site where they can catch up with old friends, and network amongst people their own age, without cramping their kid’s style.

Until that site comes along, it appears we are going to have to co-exist with mom and dad.

In an effort to appease the widened range of demographics currently cohabiting on the site, Facebook has come up with some unique privacy solutions depending on whom or how much you want someone to see of your profile. This way, you can still tag your friends in pictures from last weekend without worrying that your employer, mom, or your boyfriend’s mothers best friend might get their hands on them.

So what do you do if you find yourself in the hopeless situation of getting a friend request from your parents? You could always sign your parents up for Stanford’s new course “Facebook for Parents” and if that doesn’t make you feel better checkout the new Tumbler blog Oh Crap. My Parents Joined Facebook and commiserate with others who are also finding themselves in your same predicament.

The keyfindings are as follows:

• Most people would recommend businesses use Twitter over any other social media site: 40% to just 15% for Facebook.
• But – they’d pay for Facebook over any other site for their own personal use. I’d pick tumblr, but tumblr is still a bit under the radar. Maybe by this time next year.
• LinkedIn came in second in both categories, beating Facebook for business use and Twitter for personal use. That surprised me a LOT. Is this skewed because of who was surveyed? Clearly. But still surprising.
• MySpace = DEAD. Only 1.5% of those surveyed said they would pay for MySpace. Does this surprise you at all? Not me. I guess MySpace is still good for music, does anyone use it for anything else?
• Company using social media the best? Zappos came first, followed by Obama (not really a company, but one heck of a brand) and then CNN, also NY Times, NPR, Dell, Jetblue, Comcast — all who have active presences on Twitter. My favorite usage of Twitter from the aforementioned crew of brands is Comcast. That guy is on top if it. He answers consumer questions left and right and takes customer service to a whole new level. If only Comcast was available in NYC   In all fairness, it should be noted that these brands were given to survey recipients in a list and they were asked to rank them. They weren’t brands called out by the recipients.
• Social Media site most likely to die? ImInLikeWithYou.com Again, not surprising, although I am doubtful that if it wouldn’t have been on a list for them to choose from if many of them would have even known what it is. What started as some kind of quirky dating site where you challenged suitors to some type of lame game with the best answer having the opportunity to ask the challenger on a date has now become a haven for online Tetris-like game play that involves blocks, drawing, and hamsters. Note: I know Charles personally, love him, and wish his site all the best.

None of these findings are major breakthroughs – but the trends and shifts within the space from the perspective of the social media marketer are interesting. Most notable to me is the shift towards Twitter having legitimacy as a target audience representative of more than one “type” of consumer/marketer. A year ago, Twitter was thought to be a land dominated by the social media elite – a space where there was no room for brands to speak to consumers more representative of their actual audience. The fact that the social media elite are now saying they see it as a viable home for brands and tactic for brands to reach consumers is a big shift.

The other item of note for me is how popular the concept of “Freemium” is and how this is universally (45.5% of those surveyed) believed to be the best monetization for social media. Freemium is the idea of the free basic model followed by a fee for advanced options, a la Flickr (and coming soon for Tumblr).  Social media players have been quick to slap banner ads, sponsored gifts, and targeted advertisements within the confines of their site, but few have gone the “freemium” route as a monetization strategy.

It will be interesting to see if the tide shifts in that direction and how brands can be incorporated into the fold of premium features. It doesn’t seem like it would be enough for a premium feature to be “brought to you” by a brand, the brand would have to be further ingrained in the feature’s functionality and viability within the space for that to work.

Some great survey participant anectdotal comments:

“While Twitter is very hot right now for brands, Facebook has a much wider audience.”

“People on Twitter are thought-leaders who often spread the information around their personal spheres. Best investment.”

“Twitter: Instantaneous feedback from and interaction with customers.”

“Digg is great but can’t competewith other aggregators that are more nimble?”

“MySpace strikes me as the public restroom of social meda. Just…ew”

“ComastCares. Still hated universally, but they have the right attitude to using Twitter [sic] and haven’t given up yet.”

What do YOU think? Read the entire survey here and share your thoughts below. [Or tweet me your thoughts: @sarahashley]