Posts Tagged ‘Myspace’
Access to Facebook via mobile browser grew 112% in the past year, while mobile Twitter access experienced a 347% jump, according to a new study from comScore.
Mobile Users Favor Facebook and Twitter over MySpace
In January 2010, 25.1 million mobile users accessed Facebook via their mobile browser, up 112% from 11.8 million mobile users in January 2009. While only 4.7 million mobile users accessed Twitter from their mobile browser in January 2010, this represented 347% growth from 1.05 million mobile users in January 2009.
- Growth in mobile usage of social networks
Meanwhile, mobile usage of MySpace dropped in the past year. In January 2010, 11.4 million mobile users accessed MySpace, a 7% decline from 12.3 million mobile users in January 2009.
Facebook’s mobile browser audience surpassed MySpace in February 2009, three months earlier than the Facebook audience exceeded that of MySpace on the PC-based internet in May 2009. These figures do not include access of the social networking services by the nearly 6 million mobile phone owners who do so exclusively through mobile applications.
Mobile Social Networking Grows
In general, the popularity of mobile social networking is increasing. In January 2010, 11.1% of all mobile phone users accessed a social networking site via mobile browser, an increase of 4.6 percentage points from the previous year. Much of this growth has been driven by smartphone owners, 30.8% of whom accessed social networking sites on their mobile browsers, up more than eight percentage points on the year. By comparison, just 6.8% of feature phone users accessed social networking sites on their mobile phones.
- Mobile usage of Social Networks
Women, Middle-aged Do Most Social Networking
Women and people between 35 and 54 are most apt to perform social networking activities via mobile device, according to data from The Nielsen Company. A clear gender gap exists in social networking activity on mobile devices. In December 2009, Nielsen research indicates that women were responsible for 55% of mobile social networking activity, compared to 45% performed by men.
Kids Don’t Lead Mobile Social Networking Usage
Despite the stereotype of teens spending every waking moment on a mobile device, Nielsen data suggests their parents actually spend more time performing mobile web surfing. Only 7% of mobile social networking activity was represented by 13-to-17-year-olds and only 16% by 18-to-24-year-olds in December 2009.
The leaders in mobile social networking activity are 35-to-54-year-olds, who accounted for 36% of mobile social network usage in December 2009. Close behind them were 25-to-34-year-olds, who performed 34% of the month’s mobile social networking activity. Users ages 55 and up combined for the remaining 7%.
Facebook and Social Media
Eight in ten (77%) parents with children between the ages of 12 and 17, inclusive, are concerned that their child could encounter sexual predators online, with a majority (51%) indicating that they are “very concerned” and a quarter (26%) saying they are “somewhat concerned,” according to an Ipsos Reid poll of Canadian parents.
According to the results of the Ipsos survey:
- Parents are also concerned with their child potentially encountering pornographic websites (74%), fraudulent scams (70%), inappropriate language (68%), and cyber-bullying (60%).
- In an attempt to monitor the content of websites that their children are visiting, almost two thirds (62%) of Canadian parents say that they have visited the websites that their child has visited.
- Similarly, two thirds (65%) use their internet browser’s history function on an ongoing basis to see what sites their child has been visiting.
- Furthermore, two thirds (66%) of parents monitor the online activities of their child while on the computer at home.
- Women (65%) are more likely than men (56%) to say they have visited the websites that their children visit in order to monitor content. Women (67%) are also more likely than men (61%) to use their browser’s history function for this purpose.
- Most Canadian parents (92%) have discussed the possible dangers of the internet with their children.
- Three quarters (74%) have sat down and clearly communicated what are acceptable and not acceptable online activities.
- Equally, 74% have instructed their child on what to do if they are contacted by a stranger online.
- A similar proportion asks children about who they are chatting to online (77%), and explicitly asks their children about which websites they are visiting (74%).
- However, only half (49%) of Canadian parents with children aged 12-17 are familiar with their child’s online aliases.
- Also, when asked about their familiarity with some common online products that their children might be using, many Canadians claimed that they were not familiar with some of these products:
- Just 11% were unfamiliar with instant-messaging products.
- One quarter (26%) of parents were unfamiliar with YouTube, despite its increased coverage in the media.
- One third of parents with at least one child aged 12-17 were unfamiliar with blogs (31%) and MySpace (32%).
- Despite its popularity among young people, four in ten (41%) Canadian parents were unfamiliar with Facebook
- If their child were a victim of any sort of negative experience online, only half (53%) of Canadian parents say they know whom to contact.
- Also, only six in ten (58%) know where to download parental control software, and just 54% know where do find materials to help them or their children become informed about internet safety.
- One quarter (22%) of Canadian parents do not know where to find any of these materials.
- Just over one third (36%) of parents are initiating parental controls on their internet browser; even fewer (31%) are posting rules for their children to follow by the computer.
Every day I can guarantee that you will be impacted in some way by social media, there will be experts telling you, you need a profile on social networks like Facebook, and that Twitter is the best thing since sliced bread was invented, so you create a profile and you start to tell everyone and anyone who will listen about your latest product or service, but is that really the way to approach social media, doing the same thing you do every day on more traditional mediums?
Taking this approach to your social media strategy will do nothing more than waste your precious time, time that could be spent prospecting for new business opportunities and working with your clients face to face.
I know some younger business owners who think that social media and the Internet will replace face to face contact, the reality is it won’t, however the very same principles you use face to face, apply to social media, the only difference being the method of delivery.
I know of some major companies who have launched their social strategy with profiles on this site and that network, yet their sites are full of their staff members or franchises congratulating themselves on such forward progress, but where is the consumer?, where is the engagement factor?, where is the interaction with the people that count the most, your customers.
This should be the reason you create your social media strategy in the first place, to create the local expert, the trusted advisor role, create and engage your community and to provide information and advice for the long term.
One question to ask yourself is, why do people interact within social network sites in the first place? Is it to get your latest product or service? No, No, No, they are there to connect, to engage and interact with other like minded people, to share experiences, to share activities and create a sense of community and to stay in touch with family and friends.
You as a business person need to understand this motivation and work with it to really maximise the return on your investment of time in creating a social media strategy for you and your business. So what is the best way to approach a social media strategy, firstly you need to work out why you want to have a presence on social networks, is it because everyone else is doing it? Is it because your competitor down the road is doing it so you should as well right? Well wrong actually, do it because it gives you another advertising medium to capture the attention of prospective customers, do it because it is a huge billboard of opportunity to take your message to the masses, do it for you and the exposure it can bring you and your brand, do it because you are an expert in your field and do it because people are looking for an expert to advise, coach and motivate them.
Start by doing a business and digital media strategy and look at ways in which you’ll start to build an audience, do you start a blog first, do you jump on Facebook and MySpace or do you start using Twitter and on what network sites do you create a profile.
How do you declare your brand identity? Remember, you should be focused on how you and your team help other people, being the business to call when requiring a service or product and raising the profile of you and your business on the web.
The first step, is create accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and YouTube. Check in and see where you fit in to the community, upload or add all of your contacts into Facebook and start a routine of regularly adding “friends” to your page, the goal is to get your personal contacts engaged and to start to follow and engaging with other local businesses, build a schedule so that you can allocate time each week to this, otherwise you will find yourself becoming overwhelmed with trying to keep up with all the conversations that happen.
As you become more familiar with the sites you learn that Linkedin or Twitter may not be for you, that’s fine, at least you are now more informed than you where when you started.
You are learning, next you can start to build your blog, your blog web site is your central hub with all roads leading to it, and everything you do should be designed to get people to your blog and interacting with you on your territory.
It’s great to have a Facebook page but even better when you have both working for you; you are in a win win situation.
Remember, with your blog comes responsibility, you’ll need to add content to it regularly and this takes time, so you should allocate at least 2+ hours a week.
Use the same strategy for all the social network sites you use, allocate time each week in your plan to update your sites and remember it’s about engaging your community not only about promoting your latest product.
We can help you save time and money in building your social media business plan and setting up your pages and blog, we provide weekly coaching clinics that provide information and advice on content and tactics for social media. If you’d like to find out more about our social media integration plans and coaching clinics contact me at Mike Andrew Consulting and we’ll design and set up a coaching plan for you.
Cybercriminals are turning their attention to users of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, according to a new report [pdf] from IT security and data protection firm Sophos.
Spam, Malware Attacks on the Rise
Sophos’ Security Threat Report: 2010 indicates criminals have increasingly focused attacks on social networking users in the past 12 months, with a dramatic rise in the use of spam and malware. Fifty-seven percent of social networking users reported being spammed in December 2009, a 70.6% jump from 33.4% reporting spam attacks in April 2009. Similarly, 36% reported social network-based malware attacks in December 2009, a 69.8% rise from 21.2% in April 2009.
Facebook is Most Feared
When asked what social network poses the biggest security risk, 60% of respondents said Facebook. Another 18% said MySpace, 17% said Twitter, and 4% said LinkedIn. Facebook is the largest social networking site, with an estimated 350 million users.
Despite Facebook’s perceived high risk, 49% of US firms allow employees unfettered access to Facebook at work. In addition, despite the low percentage of respondents saying LinkedIn poses the biggest security risk, Sophos advised that by publicly posting information on corporate structure, companies using LinkedIn can make it easier for criminals to launch targeted attacks on a corporate directory.
Enterprises Unprepared for SocNet Threat
Unchecked social network use poses a threat to enterprise organizations, according to research by Cisco. A recent Cisco global study indicates only one in seven of the companies that participated in the research notes a formal process associated with adopting consumer-based social networking tools for business purposes. In addition, one in five participants identified any policies in place concerning the use of consumer-based social networking technologies in the enterprise, and only one in ten respondents noted direct IT involvement in externally facing social networking initiatives.
Global consumers increased the amount of time they spent on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter by 82% in December 2009 compared to December 2008, according to The Nielsen Company.
Time, Unique Audience Increases for Social Networking Sites
In December 2008, global consumers spent an average of three hours, three minutes and 54 seconds on social networking sites. That amount of time increased to five hours, 35 minutes and five seconds one year later. In addition, unique audience increased 27%, from 242 million in December 2008 to 307.4 million in December 2009.
Facebook Increases US Dominance
Facebook dramatically increased its dominance of the US online social networking market between December 2008 and December 2009. In December 2009, Facebook recorded about 110 million unique visitors, a 100% increase from 55 million unique visitors in December 2008. Myspace, which remained the second-most popular US online social network, saw its number of unique visitors drop about 17%, from roughly 60 million in December 2008 to roughly 50 million in December 2009. While Twitter only recorded 18.1 million unique visitors in December 2009, this represented 579% growth from 2.7 million unique visitors a year earlier.
Aussies Love Spending Time on Social Networks
Australians’ reputation for sociability transcends into the virtual world. Although Australia only ranked number nine on the list of countries with total social network unique audience for December 2009 (9.9 million), on average Australians spent the most time on social networks for the month (six hours, 52 minutes, 28 seconds). The US by far led in unique audience during December 2009 (142 million) but came in second in terms of time spent on social networks (six hours, nine minutes, 13 seconds). Japan had the second-highest unique audience monthly total (46.5 million) but came in 10th for time spent per person (two hours, 50 minutes, 21 seconds).
Facebook Beats Text, Email
In one sign that it is truly becoming a dominant means of communication, a recent survey by Prompt Communications indicates that among a pool of 300 consumers in Boston, 96% of them use Facebook to communicate with friends and family on a regular basis. While Facebook trailed the phone at 99%, it beat text messaging at 93% and email at 91%.
Socialo Media is about buzz and excitement or is it
Brand marketers want consumers to follow them to build buzz and engagement, but social media users often desire something in return. What they’ve come to expect is a good deal, but many consumers—including the most active users of social sites—are also interested in deeper engagement.
A December 2009 MarketingSherpa survey indicated that learning about specials and sales was the top motivation of those who friended or followed a brand online, supporting the results of earlier surveys. But looking for savings was followed closely by learning about new products, features or services.
Reasons for Friending on Social Sites
Users described as “max connectors”—those with at least 500 social connections—were less interested than average in getting deals. Instead, they cared about new products and company culture, demonstrating the deeper engagement expected by social media power users.
An earlier study, by Razorfish, also found that exclusive deals and offers were the primary motivation of US Internet users following brands on Twitter.
Reasons US Internet Users Follow a Brand
Respondents who friended a brand on Facebook or MySpace responded similarly, though they were more likely to become a fan because they were a current customer (32.9%) than were users of Twitter.
Sharing interesting content that users care about, along with the deals and discounts they have come to expect, will both keep them engaged and spur them to pass along marketing messages.
A majority of US women use social networking sites, and half of them say social networking sites influence their shopping habits, according to a recent study on online social networking among women from social media platform SheSpeaks.
According to the SheSpeaks Second Annual Media Study (pdf), 86% of US women now have a profile on at least one social networking site, a 48% increase from 58% who had a profile in 2008. Since 2008, the percentage of women reporting they log into their social networking sites at least once a day grew 36%, from 53% to 72%.
Women heavy users of social media networks
Of particular interest to retailers, 50% of female social media users say they have purchased products because of information on social networking sites, and 40% report they have used coupon codes found on social network.
Facebook Most Popular
Facebook is the most popular social networking site among women. Some 95% of respondents who have a social networking profile say they use Facebook, a 46% increase from 65% last year. MySpace dropped 33% in popularity, with 42% of female social networking participants reporting they have a MySpace account, compared with 63% in 2008.
Twitter, which was included in the study for the first time this year, has a 38% participation rate, SheSpeaks said.
“Although Facebook is currently more popular than Twitter among women, they each share a purpose in women’s lives,” said Aliza Freud, founder and CEO of SheSpeaks. “Facebook serves women’s need to interact with friends and share photos, while Twitter has become a tool that is primarily used for professional networking and learning about up-to-the-minute news, promotions and deals.”
Hearing what friends are doing, having fun and expressing themselves top the list of reasons why women say they use Facebook and Twitter, though more women visit Facebook to express themselves and have fun. However, a higher percentage useTwitter to learn new things, promote themselves/their work and follow celebrities.
Reasons for using social network sites
Online Video Grows in Popularity
The study also found online video has grown in popularity over the last year. Almost 40% of the women in the study report that they frequently watch video and TV content online, and 85% say they watch it frequently or sometimes.
A separate poll of SheSpeaks members found that clips from news and TV programming were the most commonly watched type of online video in the prior week (68%), followed by videos that are forwarded (49%), full news and TV programs (40%), and videos posted by friends (40%). Entertaining advertisements were the least popular type of video, but were still watched by one-third of women within the last week.
The study paints a more optimistic picture of social networking’s growth in popularity among US adults than other studies released earlier this year, reports Retailer Daily. According to the most recent Consumer Internet Barometer report from The Conference Board, released in June 2009, growth is occurring but not as rapidly as indicated by SheSpeaks study. The Consumer Internet Barometer indicates 43% of internet users participate in social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. This is a 16-percentage-point jump from the 27% of users participating in social networking sites a year ago.
Online social networking participation has especially grown among users ages 55 and up, the study found. Last year, only 6% of internet users in this age group participated in online social networking, compared with 19% this year.
About the study: The Second Annual Media Study is based on responses 1,500 adult women who are members of the SheSpeaks social networking community gave to an annual survey.
More than three in 10 (32%) small-business advertisers plan to include social media in their marketing mix in the next 12 months by using a page on a social networking site such as Facebook, Linkedin or MySpace, according to the latest wave of BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor study.
The study also explored other forms of Web 2.0 marketing and found that 39% of SMBs plan to include customer ratings or reviews on their websites, 23% plan to incorporate video on their websites, and 31% plan to include links or ads placed on social sites or blogs.
Small business increase use of social media
Current Use Remains Low
Despite the significant number reporting plans to use social media, far fewer SMBs appear to be putting it into practice today. For example, only 9% of SMBs report using Twitter to market their business in the past 12 months. Similarly, only 23% have used social sites in the past 12 months, only 16% have incorporated video into their website and 29% have included customer ratings and reviews.
Fewer Established SMBs Tweet
The study also revealed that the adoption of social media – including Twitter – by SMBs is more prevalent among younger businesses. While 16% of businesses that are three years old or younger say they use Twitter, only 2% of those in business 11+ years report doing so:
Small business and social media
The same phenomenon is true for plans to use pages on social sites. While 44% of businesses that are three years old or younger say they plan to market this way, only 22% of those in business 11+ years say they will.
Small business usage of social media
BIA/Kelsey’s research is the latest in a string of unaffiliated surveys with different methodologies that have attempted to gauge social media use among SMBs. Recent research from Citibank about how small businesses market themselves seems to support BIA/Kelsey’s findings that many SMBs are not currently using social media. However, another survey by Internet2Go and MerchantCircle discovered a growing segment of online small-business owners who are aggressively promoting their businesses with social media, especially on Facebook and Twitter.
About the study: Study results come from the latest wave of BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor, the firm’s annual tracking survey of small and medium-sized businesses, conducted with research partner ConStat since 1999. The survey measures where SMBs are spending their advertising and promotional budgets and how their media usage and spending habits are evolving. Local Commerce Monitor draws its sample of business respondents from a mix of nationally scoped MSAs, which include first- and second-tier markets. Local Commerce Monitor Wave XIII was conducted in August 2009 via an online survey of 1,092 SMBs, comprising a core sample of 302 SMBs, plus SMBs from three ’super vertical’ categories: home/trade services, professional services and financial services.
Research conducted by Robert Half Technology in the US has found that out of 1400 US company CIO’s, 54% have banned the use of social networks sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter whilst employees are at work.
CIOs were asked in the survey: Which of the following most closely describes your company’s policy on visiting social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, while at work?” Here is how they responded:
Prohibited completely – 54%
Permitted for business purposes only – 19%
Permitted for limited personal use – 16%
Permitted for any type of personal use – 10%
Don’t know/no answer – 1%
“Using social networking sites may divert employees’ attention away from more pressing priorities, so it’s understandable that some companies limit access,” said Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology. “For some professions, however, these sites can be leveraged as effective business tools, which may be why about one in five companies allows their use for work-related purposes.”
Employees potentially damaging a company’s reputation (not to mention their own) is still a big concern. “Professionals should let common sense prevail when using Facebook and similar sites — even outside of business hours,” said Willmer. “Regrettable posts can be a career liability.”
It’s obvious that corporations are concerned about both security and work ethic when it comes to social networks and the same applies to small business owners who fear losing control of their brand and staff who spend more time on the networks than actually working.
This is where a well planned social media strategy is vitally important today for business, so that everyone involved knows the ground rules, putting those employees to work building the company’s profile on sites such as Facebook is a good start.
The percentage of businesses who prohibit social network use completely is likely to decrease in the near future. There may be an increase in those who only allow it for business use, but as more companies find ways to measure ROI with social media, they’re going to want to get employees involved.
Interesting scenario with business and social networks in Australia, a substantial number of companies not only ban Facebook but also ban staff from accessing the social network site whilst at work. With Neilsen releasing new statistics this month on the continual love affair that consumers are having with Facebook, and the fact that another 2 million people signed up for the site last month, you’d think there would be a massive re think of that strategy.
Time for small business to get on board with social networking before it gets left behind.
It seems Facebook just can’t be stopped, the social media site just keeps on going from strength to strength with its major competitor MySpace losing ground with social networkers, Hitwise has just released new research on the trends within the social sites.
Hitwise puts the social network’s market share of U.S. Internet visits up on a month-over-month basis, way up on a year-over-year basis, and it made significant gains in the “time spent” category, too.
Let’s take a more in depth look at the market share data. Hitwise created a custom category of social networking sites, and within it, Facebook’s market share was 58.59 percent in September of this year. That puts it up by a fair amount over its standing of 55.15 percent in August.
Then, moving further back in time, the 19.94 percent share it controlled in September of 2008 is just tiny by comparison. Indeed, Facebook pulled off a 194 percent year-over-year increase.
As for the number of minutes Facebook users are spending on the site, Hitwise found that it increased by an impressive 23 percent since the same time last year.
Flavour of the year micro blogging site Twitter, and MySpace weren’t nearly so lucky. Twitters market share has skyrocketed by 1,170 percent year-over-year, but the time spent figure has decreased by a whopping 56 percent. And MySpace lost ground in both categories, by 55 percent and 12 percent, respectively.
This all comes on top of another interesting piece of research, over 1400 CIO’s within US companies or 54% don’t allow employees to visit social network sites for any reason whist they are at work.
More on that story in the next post.
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