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.

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.

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.

1. Category – Best Viral Promotion, Games & Gaming Category (Silver W3): Ubisoft’s ‘1191AD: Brotherhood of Assassins’ Campaign for Assassin’s Creed
2. Category – Best Site, Social Networking Category (Silver W3): Hey! Nielsen for The Nielsen Company
3. Category – Best Site, Branding Category (Silver W3): Hey! Nielsen for the Nielsen Company
   
4. Category – Best Site, Entertainment Category (Silver W3): Hey! Nielsen for the Nielsen Company
   

The 2008 W3 Awards received over 3,000 entries from around the globe this year, we’re honored to be on their list of excellent work.

Some highlights from a recent study released by Keller Fay Group:

• Today’s pregnant women and new moms engage in one-third more word of mouth conversations per day than the total public or women.
• Almost two-thirds of these conversations include brand recommendations. This group has an average of 109 word of mouth conversations per week about products, services and brands, most of which are positive and considered highly credible by other moms.
• 60 percent of conversations among this group carry with them a recommendation to buy, try or consider the brands under discussion and positive brand sentiment outweighs negative by a 10:1 margin.
• The Internet is the #1 driver of word of mouth, beating out all other forms of media, including TV, magazines and outdoor.

Another study by The Intelligence Group found:

• The Internet ranked as the highest technology product moms would not want to live without. In large, moms are turning to the web for advice and education.
• Savvy moms rely on word-of-mouth (friends), well respected mommy blogs and websites for much of their decision making information.
• Moms are also looking for online communities to forge relationships and trade tips with other moms.

Related links:
New Word of Mouth Research Finds Moms Buzzing About Brands
How “Word of Moms” Affects Your Brand

For the past 9 months we have been working with The Nielsen Company to develop an innovative social media platform that allows consumers to become a collective voice of change and, in turn, influence the decision makers in the entertainment industry, while also helping Nielsen reinvent the ways it conducts audience measurement in our DVR time-shifted, ipod using, web2.0 world. Today we’re happy to announce the “public beta” launch of Hey! Nielsen.

Part “opinion engine”, part social network, and part buzz tracker, it’s been a true labor of love for our team (including many late nights and weekends), and has given us the opportunity to work with a group of extremely talented folks acrosss all of Nielsen’s divisions (including Nielsen Media Research, Nielsen Entertainment, AC Nielsen, Nielsen Buzzmetrics, Nielsen NetRatings, Billboard, Nielsen Trend, and Nielsen Wireless & Interactive).

We’ll definitely be posting a more in-depth case study in the near future, but why not check it out for yourself? In the meantime, we’re going to go catch up on some sleep but you can check out some of the latest buzz here:

- Hey! Nielsen: Influence the Ratings through Social Networking (via Mashable)
- Nielsen Rates Social Network Site a Must See (via CNBC)
- Hey! Nielsen screencast demo (via Demogirl)
- Hey! Nielsen Beta (via Being Peter Kim)
- Exlcusive Look: Hey! Nielsen Private Beta (via Muhammad Saleem)
- Reviewing Hey! Nielsen (via Pulse 2.0)