In an effort to help companies, marketeers and communications professionals everywhere make better use of facebook for their needs, while respecting individual users by not being invasive, facebook created a Best Practice Guide for Marketing on Facebook. If you are new in using facebook as a communications/marketing/advertising tool for your campaigns, it is highly advisable to read this Guide. Actually, it is highly advisable even for more seasoned professionals in using facebook as part of their marketing mix to go ahead and read this. There’s always something new to learn. Click on the image below to read the Best Practice Guide.
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?
As Mashable published yesterday, Twitter released a new web analytics tool. What that means is that website owners will be able to get a better understanding of the traffic coming from Twitter to their website. This will help brands to better target and optimize the content posted on Twitter, as this tool will give more data on the effectiveness of their Twitter integrations.
As per BackType (the platform powering the new analytics tools) founder Christopher Golda, Twitter Web Analytics “…will help publishers and website owners understand three key things: How much of their content is being shared on Twitter, how much traffic Twitter is sending their way and how well Tweet Buttons are performing.”
Twitter will be making it available to a small group of partners this week, and will roll it out to all website owners in a few weeks. An API will also be released for developers. The tool is free and currently in beta.
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:
Even though this social media real time counter by Personalize Media‘s Gary P Hayes has been around for a while, it never seizes to amaze me how many new social media content is being shared and created by the second. It’s good to see that Google + has been added there as well. Click on the mobile, games or heritage tabs to see some other interesting numbers.
Μπορεί τα μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης να υποτιμούνται από πολλούς σαν απλά μέσα ψυχαγωγίας ή κάτι το «μη πραγματικό», όμως έρχονται να αποδείξουν την δύναμή τους και το πως μπορούν να επηρεάσουν την εξέλιξη της ιστορίας του σήμερα.
Από μια σελίδα που ξεκίνησε στο facebook με το όνομα «Αγανακτισμένοι στο Σύνταγμα», παρακινώντας Έλληνες να μαζεύονται κάθε μέρα από τις 25 Μαϊου στις 18:00 στο Σύνταγμα για να διαμαρτυρηθούν κατά των μέτρων λιτότητας και ανεργίας, βρέθηκε να γεμίζει η πλατεία για έξι συνεχόμενες ημέρες με ειρηνικούς διαδηλωτές. Τη Δευτέρα 30 Μαΐου ο αριθμός των «Αγανακτισμένων» στην πλατεία Συντάγματος ξεπέρασε – όπως λέγεται – τους 100.000, ενώ χιλιάδες άλλοι βρέθηκαν να διαδηλώνουν σε πλατείες άλλων ελληνικών πόλεων.
Η «Επανάσταση» αυτή είναι αποτέλεσμα επικοινωνίας απλών πολιτών με μόνα συνδετικά τους στοιχεία η αγανάκτηση που νιώθουν για την κατάσταση της χώρας και η χρήση των μέσων κοινωνικής δικτύωσης. Η σελίδα στο facebook «Αγανακτισμένοι στο Σύνταγμα» έχει φτάσει τους 110.435 fans, με εκατοντάδες άτομα να κάνουν like τη σελίδα καθημερινώς και με ακόμη εκατοντάδες σχόλια και αναρτήσεις. Στο twitter χρησιμοποιούνται τα hashtags #m25gr, #25mgr, #greekrevolution, #Syntagma και #rbnews, για να συγκεντρώνουν τα χιλιάδες tweets καθημερινά που αναφέρονται στις διαδηλώσεις. Το αφιερωμένο blog των Αγανακτισμένων, aganaktismenoigr.blogspot.com, έχει φτάσει τις 62.330 επισκέψεις.
Ως αναπόφευκτο αποτέλεσμα, η συγκέντρωση των Αγανακτισμένων βρέθηκε να καλύπτεται από όλα τα ΜΜΕ, όπως Σκάϊ, ΕΡΤ, MEGA, Το Βήμα, ALTER κλτ. Ζωντανές αναμεταδόσεις των καθημερινών συγκεντρώσεων γίνονται επίσης σε ιστοσελίδες Ελληνικών ΜΜΕ.
Αυτό το κίνημα εμπνεύστηκε από ανάλογες «επαναστάσεις» σε όλη την Ευρώπη – με απαρχή την Ισπανία – και οι οποίες επίσης ξεκίνησαν μέσω facebook. Είναι η πρώτη φορά ιστορικώς όπου τα μέσα κοινωνικής δικτύωσης χρησιμοποιούνται για να ξεκινήσουν ταυτόχρονα πολλαπλές ειρηνικές επαναστάσεις σε διάφορες χώρες και για τον ίδιο λόγο.
Ο κύριος Πάγκαλος χαρακτήρισε «μόδα των τεχνολογιών» το κίνημα των «Αγανακτισμένων» και έκανε λόγο για «ανώδυνη εκτόνωση, που δεν ενδιαφέρει καν την πολιτική… Η διαμόρφωση ενός πολιτικού κινήματος όσο και αν αυτό δυσαρεστεί ορισμένους, που ακολουθούν τη μόδα των τεχνολογιών δεν εξαρτάται από τα like και τα unlike του Facebook.» (Πηγή)
Βαρύτητα στο κοινωνικό κίνημα που δημιουργήθηκε έχουν αρχίσει να δίνουν και γνωστοί καλλιτέχνες. Ο Γιάννης Κότσιρας έστειλε ανοικτή επιστολή μέσω διαδικτύου σχετικά με τις συγκεντρώσεις λέγοντας: «Η πρωτοβουλία που αναλήφθηκε για αυτή τη μορφή διαμαρτυρίας είναι ιστορική… Από σήμερα καλώ όλους τους φίλους μου αλλά και όλους τους συναδέλφους μου να κατεβαίνουν στις 6 στο Σύνταγμα ή σε όποια άλλη πλατεία βρίσκεται κοντά τους. Όσοι συνάδελφοι έχουν τηλεοπτικό βήμα ή έστω οποιασδήποτε μορφής δημόσιο λόγο να αναφέρονται σε αυτή την διαμαρτυρία και να μην επιτρέπουμε την αποσιώπηση αυτού που συμβαίνει.»
CNN Money recently published an article on the top 9 Brands on Twitter based on number of followers (Article: Top Tweeterers: Social Media Champs). Now even though the number of followers itself does not show the quality or influence of their followers, it still shows that these brands are doing something right to get such a strong following. The 2 most important factors being engagement and humanizing the brand.
Here are the Top 9 most followed brands on Twitter (click on each brand name for the details on how they are achieving such a strong Twitter following):
Foursquare, one of the hottest social media at the moment is now available in Cyprus. Foursquare listened to its fans’ requests and changed its location model to allow check-ins from anywhere worldwide. The fast growing, location-based social networking site, which combines real life activities with the online world, has made its way to Cypriot early adapters’ smartphones.
What is foursquare?In a nutshell, foursquare is a location-based social networking site/game where users “check-in” to the online representation of the real life venue they are visiting (a shop, bar etc). That pings their friends, letting them know the user’s whereabouts, lets the user know where his/her friendsare and shows other users in the vicinity and recommendations for the venue currently visited, from past visitors (e.g. “Try the strawberry cheesecake here, simply heaven!”).
What makes users keep visiting foursquare is the fact that they collect points for checking-in, keeping tracks of who’s got the lead, awards special badges and proclaims the most frequent visitor of a certain venue the Mayor, for which the business that runs that place (provided that it is participating in foursquare too) might award the user for their loyalty with special discounts, gifts, coupons etc. For more details you can read this previous blog post, which goes over the foursquare basics.
Why will foursquare see a fast growing popularity in Cyprus?
We will be seeing foursquare skyrocketing in popularity in another 2-3 months in Cyprus and dethroning facebook in offline real life conversations, as the ‘new shiny object’. The good news for facebook though is that foursquare won’t be posing as a threat for the No. 1 spot online, since foursquare does not directly compete with facebook but rather complements it (you can even link your facebook account to it). Here’s why I see foursquare doing well in Cyprus, taking into consideration Cypriot culture:
Cypriots are very social and keen on including their friends in their activities – this is exactly what makes facebook extremely popular in Cyprus, the sense of sharing and interacting with your friends at all times.
There has always been an underlying popularity contest going on in Cyprus where people go out to see and to be seen, something which a tool such as foursquare helps feed that.
Cypriots love to go out and about… a lot! Coffee in the afternoon, then the gym, then another coffee with friends, then drinks and then maybe even a club or two – that would be a typical Wednesday… weekends? Multiply x5
3G and wi-fi enabled smartphones such as the iPhone and BlackBerry are seeing an ever-increasing rise in sales, which automatically lays the groundwork for using foursquare where a smartphone is essential to check in on the move.
It’s the new, cool, shiny thing – eh who are we kidding, that always reels people in from all backgrounds and cultures.
Foursquare lets users discover the newest, hottest places or at least additional going-out options, along with friends recommendations of the listed venues. Something I hear Cypriots frequently complain about is the lack of options in places to go out, a need which foursquare can help cover.
On the downside, other foursquare users will know where you are at any given time, increasing the risk of burglars knowing when you’re not home; not to mention saying goodbye to excuses of why you can’t attend a specific function or night out with buddies you don’t really feel like seeing, or getting annoying pings all the time of over-zealous enthusiasts who miss the point and check-in anywhere including their houses, their neighbors’ houses, their cars, their dog’s houses etc.
As with all social media (and most things in life), foursquare is even better when shared with friends, even more so as it promotes a good-ol’ friendly competition among foursquare buddies with features such as a leaderboard list for the most points scored every week and mayorship of your most visited venues. The good thing is that you don’t need a lot of friends using it to get obsessed. Just one close friend with a healthy competitive spirit is enough to have you going crazy on checking in wherever you go and on adding new venues for extra points (yes Mario hon, that is you I am referring to).
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.”
A grand example of how the online world and social media can cause changes in the real world and bring an international focus to an issue; even if it is little Cyprus trying to convince a huge international start like Jennifer Lopez to go against a signed 3 million contract for a concert in the illegally Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus.
On June 30th the Cyprus Action Network of America (CANA) started with an online plea towards Jennifer Lopez not to go through with a concert agreement celebrating the inauguration of a new luxury hotel built on the illegally Turkish-occupied part of Cyprus, indirectly commemorating the 36th anniversary of the 1st Turkish invasion to the island, intending to also celebrate her birthday there with her whole family which would violate a UN embargo.
The result was Jennifer Lopez and her team announcing on July 8th, approximately 1 week after this online grassroots campaign started, the decision not to go forward with the concert, with the following statement released on her official website:
“Jennifer Lopez would never knowingly support any state, country, institution or regime that was associated with any form of human rights abuse. After a full review of the relevant circumstances in Cyprus, it was the decision of her advisors to withdraw from the appearance. This was a team decision that reflects our sensitivity to the political realities of the region.”
This is the first successful social media campaign taking place in Cyprus. Should this incident had happened BF (before the facebook era), without a virtual, globally accessible place allowing people to voice their disagreement of what such an action symbolizes, it would have gone unnoticed by the global community. This just goes to show what a huge impact social media can have in our day and age.
Note: Sadly, this incident did spark an unnecessary friction among Greek and Turkish-Cypriots, resurfacing the propaganda taught in schools since 1963, forgetting in the process how people from both sides were victimized by Turkey’s actions and having people forget that this issue here is on a political and NOT a personal level and should not had been taken as such.
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