Posts Tagged ‘social media’
Baby Boomers slowly adopting mobile web
Baby boomers are on the verge of adopting smartphones and the mobile Internet, and in the vanguard of this movement are younger boomers. But boomers’ mobile Internet adoption rates will be similar to their social media uptake—that is, slow. They must see the benefits before they sign on.
Back in 1995, boomers were the pioneers of mobile phone usage, exceeding or equaling other age groups’ uptake of the devices, according to the Pew Research Center. Ownership rates have now grown to more than 85% among boomers, the majority using feature phones. But only 55% consider their mobile phone a necessity.
US Baby Boomers who have a mobile phone
“Internet use will be the driving force behind boomers’ adoption of smartphones and the mobile Internet,” said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Boomers and Mobile Usage.” “They are avid Web users but no longer such early adopters.”
Boomers made up 30.6% of all mobile phone users in August 2009, according to comScore’s age breakout. However, they made up only 19.6% of all touch-screen users and 21.1% of smartphone users. Younger boomers (ages 45 to 54) were more likely than older boomers to use touch-screens, smartphones and any mobile phone.
Total US smart phone users
“Boomers are underrepresented among smartphone users but are becoming more interested in the devices,” said Ms. Phillips. “Smartphones are now well established in the marketplace, which should help to convince the portions of the boomer cohort that are not early adopters.
“The business aspect of smartphones should appeal to the many boomers who say they plan to continue working after retirement age,” Ms. Phillips said.
But price is a factor for many. As carriers reduce prices for phones as well as monthly data plans, more boomers will come on board.
Moms are empowered consumers who head to the Web to meet their many product needs. With mothers controlling an estimated 80% of household spending, or $1.7 trillion a year, retailers must understand how women’s shopping behavior changes when they have children.
“Moms want to do business with retailers that are respectful and responsive to their needs and concerns,” said Jeffrey Grau, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “How Moms and Retailers Interact Online.”
About 85% of online moms said having a baby changed their purchasing habits, according to “21st Century Mom,” a 2009 study published by BabyCenter, an online community for expectant and new moms. The report also found widespread changes in media usage among moms—many of whom used both mom-centric and mainstream social media sites more than before.
Change in media usage
“Moms band together on social networks to share coupon codes and information about special product deals,” said Mr. Grau. “And a disgruntled mom can exploit the viral effects of the Internet to pressure a business to fix a problem.”
Retailers that want to reach moms can take many steps to appeal to this time-crunched demographic concerned with the health and well-being of their families. Moms appreciate brands that use Twitter to put on a human face to respond to their complaints. They also like easy-to-use Websites with helpful features such as live chat, visualization tools, product reviews, easy returns and curbside pickup.
Research on social media lead generation
Social media, blogs and search engine optimization more cost-effective for lead gen
Pull marketing tactics such as search, blog and social media generate cheaper leads than more traditional outbound efforts, according to data from inbound online marketing platform HubSpot.
The “2010 State of Inbound Marketing” report indicates that spending on lead generation is 60% less among companies that devote at least one-half of their budget to inbound marketing, compared with companies spending at least one-half of lead generation dollars on outbound tactics.
The average cost per lead from inbound marketing was also significantly less.
Average Cost Per Lead
In both 2009 and 2010, companies in North America tended to rate all the inbound tactics studied as below average in cost per lead. Respondents rated direct mail most cost-effective among outbound strategies. Still, only 37% said it generated leads for less than average.
Cost per Lead rating
The gap in cost-effectiveness is leading to a gap in spending, the report said. Inbound tactics are seeing a slight increase in share of lead generation budgets, while outbound tactics are decreasing. Usage of mixed tactics such as e-mail—which can be used for both push and pull marketing—is also on the rise. And businesses rated every inbound channel more important than any outbound channel for their lead generation efforts.
HubSpot also noted that more than two-fifths of companies using various social media marketing channels had acquired a customer from those channels.
Companies in the US who have aquired a customer through Social Media
Unsurprisingly, for business-to-business firms, LinkedIn was most effective for customer acquisition. Business-to-consumer companies did better on each of the other sites, with the best results coming from Facebook, where nearly seven in 10 had found a new customer.
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.
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.
Fingers now walking on social media sites
Social media is playing an increasingly important role in the home repair and maintenance industry in the US, and it won’t be long before it starts to have an impact in Australia and that is why I am a very strong advocate of small business having a profile on social media sites. Research from the US has found that nearly 30% of higher-income consumers say social media influenced their choice of home maintenance or repair services, a markedly higher percentage than other income groups. This group also had notably high reports of recent maintenance services performed.
Across all demographics, positive and negative comments were the most influential types of social media, Ad-ology found.
For other online media types, ratings websites were the most influential, followed by contractors’ websites. The top-three influential traditional media types were newspapers, Yellow Pages, and direct mail.
“Some companies may be quick to dismiss social media as something that’s only used by young people, and not worth their effort,” said C. Lee Smith, president and CEO of Ad-ology Research. “In reality, social media usage is growing across all demographics and can clearly be a way to reach some very lucrative audiences.”
Other survey findings:
- Licensing/bonding was the most important factor in the choice of a service provider in the Northeast.
- Nearly 7% of respondents had home maintenance done because of the need for emergency repair.
- Of traditional media types, Yellow Pages had the most influence on consumers ages 65-74.
So maybe the saying of “I’m Not Happy Jan” could now be applied to social media.
Join Social Media College on Facebook
Social Media College now has our own dedicated Facebook fan page and we’d love for you to befriend os on oiur Facebook site. You’ll find lots of valuable information on social media as well as updates and advice for small business owners wanting to set up a social media strategy for their business.
To become a fan on Facebook please click the link, Social Media College Fan Page
Facebook Social Network Site
Here’s a story as featured on ninemsn.com.au today and I thought you would find it interesting:
Notions of privacy have radically shifted due to the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook, according to its founder Mark Zuckerberg.
The 25 year-old Facebook CEO, who was speaking at an awards ceremony in San Francisco, said that privacy was “no longer a social norm” and that “people have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people”.
According to a report in the Guardian newspaper, Zuckerberg’s comments are “not surprising” considering massive changes in Facebook’s privacy settings that affected many of the site’s 350 million users.
Zuckerberg said that when he started the site in 2004 for fellow Ivy League students, notions of privacy were vastly different.
He said people were less likely to want to share personal information with strangers on the web, but in the last “five or six” years the explosion of personal websites and blogs had redefined our privacy boundaries.
But the question remains whether notions of privacy have changed due to Facebook pushing users to be more open, with initiatives such as the introduction of the ‘news feed’ in 2006 — or whether the rise of other tools such as blogging has led to internet users becoming more relaxed with sharing information.
Marshall Kirkpatrick, of the technology industry blog ReadWriteWeb was quoted in the Guardian as saying that Facebook has been “complicit in ….changing the way people think about online privacy.”
Technology expert Om Malik had previously described changes in Facebook’s privacy settings as creating an equivalent of a “quasi-White Pages of the Web.”
Trends in Retailing for 2010
Companies seeking to reach out to consumers this year need to prove they are good corporate citizens and also need to tailor their products, services and messaging to an audience that is constantly online, according to consumer insights firm trendwatching.com.
Trendwatching.com’s top 10 consumer trends for 2010:
1. Business as unusual: Companies must move “with the culture,” meaning they need to be transparent and honest about their efforts to conduct environmentally sustainable business practices and genuinely collaborate with their customers rather than try to dictate to them. Trendwatching.com cites Google, Amazon, Zappos and Virgin as four companies that are successfully conducting “business as unusual.”
2. Urbany: As of 2008, more than half of the world’s population resides in cities. This means increasingly sophisticated consumers want daring goods, services, experiences, campaigns and conversations.
3. Real-time Reviews: Consumers are constantly online with immediate access to reviews of products and services by fellow consumers. Companies must either offer products and services which are so good they are beyond criticism or involve customers in product design from day one to minimize the chance of a bad reaction.
4. (F)luxury: Consumers want luxury, but there is no longer a clear definition of “luxury.” To create a sense of luxury, companies should produce products and services that are scarce or radically different from what is on the marketplace.
5. Mass Mingling: Consumers who interact online through social networks increasingly are taking those virtual relationships into the “real world.” Companies should help facilitate real-world meetups from social networks in a way that promotes their brand.
6. Eco-Easy: Time-strapped consumers want to be ecologically conscious but don’t want to expend time or effort in doing so, creating a market for products and services that make it easy to be “green.”
7. Tracking & Alerting: Using online technology, consumers want to instantly track and be alerted of events and information they find interesting or important.
8. Embedded Generosity: Consumers will continue to respond well to products and services which have a charitable component, such as apparel items which have a portion of their profits donated to a worthy cause.
9. Profile Myning: Consumers are increasingly protective of their online privacy and are receptive to products and services which offer security for online social networking activities.
10. Maturalism: Short for “mature materialism,” this trend revolves around consumers’ increasing receptiveness to products, services and advertising campaigns which are edgy, controversial and push social boundaries.
A recent study on the social networking habits of US women by social media platform SheSpeaks supports trendwatcher’s predictions for the domination of the consumer marketplace by online social networks. The study found that 86% of US women now have a profile on at least one social networking site, with 50% of female social media users saying they have purchased products because of information on social networking sites, and 40% reporting they have used coupon codes found on social networks.
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