This morning when I got to work, I wanted to update my status but to my surprise and huge disappointment, Facebook was down. I checked several times with no luck. Facebook was still down.Frustrating! Then I remembered a post from Social Media Examiner regarding addiction to social media. Hmm. Time for social media detox?
Retrevo recently conducted the study “Is Social Media a New Addiction?”. The study asked social media users questions such as when, where and how much time they spend on sites and services like Facebook and Twitter. And it seems a lot of people show real signs of addiction. Just take a look at this chart.
According to this Retrevo Gadgetologystudy, social media is a threat to the morning news shows as 16% of social media users say that this is the way they get their morning news. The fact that iPhone users stand out in this study, shows that easy access also contributes to the addiction, which is shown in the chart below.
So, is a social media detox needed? What do you think? Are you one of those tweeting from the bathroom?
OK, got to go. Need to see if Facebook is up and running again.
/ylva.
I know, I know. Another post on how great social media is… but I can’t help it. Why? Well, because studies show that consumers prefer to work with businesses that have a strong social media presence. And here are some facts, from the Social Media Summit site to show you just that:
Social media use on the rise: More than 71% of businesses plan on increasing their use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogs in 2010, according to the 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report.
Mass consumer adoption of social media: With more than 400 million people on Facebook and more than 1.2 billion Twitter updates in January 2010 alone, these are numbers you just cannot ignore.
Small businesses are dominant players: Small businesses are cashing in quickly on social media. Surprisingly, half of small businesses using social media say lead generation is its top benefit (Small Business Marketing Forecast 2010).
Social media drives search engine optimization: The top three benefits of social media marketing are (1) generating more exposure for the business, (2) increasing traffic to websites and (3) improving search engine rankings, according to 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report.
Watch this video with Michael Stelzner from Social Media Examinerwhen he explains why social media works in a down economy and invites you to the Social Media Summit:
What do you think? Is this just a hype, or is it really the revolution everyone talks about? Turning perspectives upside down and really making the customer king…?
In September 2008, Stena Line began building the next generation of Super ferries that will be the world’s largest ferries in route traffic; Stena Brittanica and Stena Hollandica. The first super ferry will be ready this spring and will be running the Hoek van Holland and Harwich route.
Not only will these vessels increase the number of passengers, vehicle and freight units, they will also be built with an environmentally friendly focus. Being on the forefront is important to Stena Line, which also reflects how they chose to communicate this on the web.
“We build vessels that are pioneering in a number of fields and that are the world’s largest of its kind. That’s why we want a site that shows the vessels and the construction of them in a new creative and interesting way. I think that TheSuperFerries.com has accomplished that.” Says Dag Thyselius, responsible for PR at Stena Line.
Before creating the campaign site, the Cordovan project team identified a number of personas corresponding to the different target groups that would be interested in following the construction of these Super Ferries. The different interest areas emphasized on the site are:
- Building big (technical aspect)
- Smart construction and power thinking (environmental aspect)
- Enabling better service and comfort.
To illustrate “Building big “, we shot a film at the ship yard. We used Tilt shift technique to further underline the huge size of these vessels.
The choice of social media platforms was also based on the target groups’ different interests. This generated the idea of a social media engine, to keep track of “the Captain’s blog”, as well as information from Twitter, Flickr and YouTube (SuperFerry TV). This way, the user can follow the construction via real time updates from the different social platforms, all presented in a cool new graphical way.
Visit the site, explore the boat, interact! And please, let us know what you think.
/ylva.
I recently wrote that one of the trends in social media for 2010 was to be games and entertainment. The fact is that there are now at least 8 Facebook games with over 18 million players. In comparison, the game that’s ranked as the biggest online game in the world, World of Warcraft, has only 11 million players.
According to the Swedish news magazine, Fokus, here are the most popular Facebook games:
- 1. Name: Farmville.
What do you do: Grow plants on your farm.
Number of active players: 73,7 million.
- 2: Name: Cafe World.
What do you do: Run your own café.
Number of active players: 30,1 million.
- 3: Name: Happy Aquarium.
What do you do: Take care of and decorate an aquarium.
Number of active players: 28,4 million.
- 4: Name: Fishville.
What do you do: Basically the same thing as Happy Aquarium.
Number of active players: 24,6 million.
- 5: Name: Texas Hold’em.
What do you do: Play poker.
Number of active players: 23,7 million.
- 6: Name: Mafia Wars.
What do you do: Build a strong mafia family together with Facebook friends.
Number of active players: 22,7 million.
- 7: Name: Pet Society.
What do you do: Get a pet to play with.
Number of active players: 20,6 million.
- 8: Name: Petville.
What do you do: Basically the same thing as Pet Society.
Number of active players: 18,2 million.
Most of the popular social games listed above have a caring and nurturing dimension (taking care of plants, fish, pets and a family). The fact that the Facebook audience differs from the regular online players have made game developers adapt their games to fit this new target group. These social games are made very simple to get started with as a lot of players on Facebook have no or little experience from TV or computer games. They need to be rich in awards and news in order to become popular.
This flexibility and constant flow of new stuff is probably the explanation to the quick success of these games. For instance, only a couple of days after the earthquake in Haiti, a special white oat was made available for purchase. The profit the game developing company behind Farmville, Zynga, made from selling this oat was sent to the earthquake victims.
The possibilities of engaging users on Facebook are huge. This is also relevant for companies who have Facebook Pages, i.e. relevant, interesting or plain fun applications make the users come back. If you haven’t already, also reed: Why should companies be present on Facebook?
Ad-ology’s study of 1100 small business owners, Small Business Marketing Forecast, shows that 50 % of small businesses think that lead generation is the biggest benefit of social networking.
Percentage of how useful the most popular benefits were perceived:
50 %: Generating leads
45 %: Keeping up with the industry
44 %: Monitoring online conversation
38 %: Finding vendors/suppliers
Even though 67 % stated that social media is a good way to increase business, 39 % of those surveyed said they did not plan to use social networking in their marketing plan in 2010. Why? Well, I guess it’s quite common to think that our customers aren’t computer savvy, not online and have no clue when it comes to social media. But is it really so? I think it’s time to stop thinking that our target groups are on a caveman level. It’s neither fair nor true.
Not only is social media a great way to create a better relation with your customers, it can also be a powerful sales tool. Here’s a perfect example:
Stena Line’s Christmas campaign for cosmetics and perfume 2009 included a Facebook application in the form of a quiz, called “The Christmas gift quiz”. After having taken the quiz, the user was matched to a specific profile. Each profile was linked to a list of matching Christmas gifts.
6000 people took the quiz. Through social ads (“Person X has taken the Stena Line Christmas Quiz – he’s a Gentleman | Comment | Like | Take the Quiz”) the quiz was also visible to all their friends. A Facebook user has in average 120 friends. This means that 6,000×120=720,000 users were exposed to the Stena Line brand. This, in turn, means a cost of approximately 1 Euro per person in brand acknowledgement
This was an integrated campaign combining both print, e-newsletter and PR 2.0, i.e. reach out to shopping and make up bloggers with an offer to run competitions on their own blogs with Stena Line products as prizes.
Stena Line used Google Analytics to follow up the statistics regarding the campaign. Here are the results:
13% sales increase in cosmetics and perfumes.
100% increase in visitors to the Stena Line shopping pages.
Why was this campaign so successful?
1. It was a relevant – timed with Christmas shopping
2. The element of game/entertainment was included
3. Background research was made regarding which bloggers to talk to, to help spread the message
4. It was an integrated campaign, on-line/off-line combined
As you might have noticed, I love social media whether it sells or not, but it is so much easier to motivate to other people with this type of statistics!
The Red Cross has raised $5 million dollars through $10 dollar donation via text messages for the Haitian earthquake victims. Google has made a $1 million dollar donation.
The blog Mashable has put together a list of companies and sites donating and/or creating services to donate money:
Zynga: The social gaming company has added virtual goods to its games — including Farmville — that go toward Haiti relief. So far, the effort has raised $1.2 million according to Social Times.
Skype: The VoIP service has sent $2 vouchers to all of its customers in Haiti, allowing them to make up to one hour’s worth of calls to U.S.
Salesforce: The CRM software provider has set up a donation matching program: i.e. for every $1 you donate to Red Cross or World Vision, Salesforce will also give $1, up to $200,000 total.
T-Mobile: According to CNET, the carrier has dropped all charges for calls and texts to Haiti through the end of the month. Other carriers are waving charges for the donation text message that has been so successful for the Red Cross.
MyYearbook: The social network is allowing members to donate their virtual currency to the Haiti Relief Fund. So far, members have pledged $3.5 billion in “LunchMoney.” We’ve followed up with the company to see how much real world money that equals.
GoDaddy: The domain registrar has donated $500,000 to relief efforts.
Facebook: The company is leveraging its “Disaster Relief on Facebook” Page to spotlight ways that members can get involved. Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg blogged about the effort earlier today.
Most people I know have new year resolutions like; ”start working out”, “lose weight”, “stop smoking”, “spend more time with the kids”. The HubSpot season’s greetings card, however, can inspire to another type of new years’ resolution:
Or, if you’re more into eBuniessthan social media, this greeting is for you:
David Armano, Dachis Group, recently wrote a post on the Harvard blog, Conversation Starter predicting the social media trends for 2010. In short, according to Armano, social media in 2010 will get even more popular, more mobile, and more exclusive. And this is why:
1. Social media begins to look less social
Armano writes; “With groups, lists and niche networks becoming more popular, networks could begin to feel more “exclusive.”
This is the social media natural selection. With the existing overload of information, people start looking for specific content in specific channels such as branch communities.
“The bottom line is that users are willing to pay for social network content as long as sites cater to specific market niches as opposed to broader, mainstream audiences,” according to eMarketer.
2. Corporations look to scale
Armano predicts corporations will begin to incorporate social media initiatives on a larger scale, moving beyond their one-off marketing experiments and general communication activity.
When companies realize that social media can help them get more efficient when it comes to brand building activities, customer relations, information searching and news monitoring and customer support, there will be an attitude change and instead of limiting access to different social media channels, they will encourage it instead.
According to the Social Media examiner, research supports this prediction. For example, 94% of companies sponsoring online communities plan to increase their social networking support as well as engage with other social media tools, according to the 2009 Tribalization of Business Study by Deloitte.
3. Social business becomes serious play
Armano predicts companies will use entertainment, especially in the form of games, in their social media activities in order to incentivize the users. Just look at how popular FarmVille on Facebook has grown – not to say the least here at our office
Here is more proof from Social Media Examiner to support the prediction:
Games rank #1 in top-performing mobile applications, followed by social networking apps, according to a recent report by Distimo. Games and networking are often closely related in many social media environments.
A great example of this emerging trend: Volkswagen recently went 100% mobile for their GTI launch and created a virtual game via the Apple App Store. It includes a chance to compete to win one of six limited-edition 2010 GTIs. This is a great example of social media “game” marketing—and relates to trend #5.
4. Your company will have a social media policy (and it might actually be enforced)
Armano writes “ If the company you work for doesn’t already have a social media policy in place with specific rules of engagement across multiple networks, it just might in the next year. From how to conduct yourself as an employee to what’s considered competition, it’s likely that you’ll see something formalized about how the company views social media and your participation in it.”
Hopefully, your company’s social media policy will be inspirational rather than a bunch of restrictions.
5. Mobile becomes a social media lifeline Armano predicts “With approximately 70 percent of organizations banning social networks and, simultaneously, sales of smartphones on the rise, it’s likely that employees will seek to feed their social media addictions on their mobile devices.”
Using the mobile to post tweets during seminars and events is perfect as well as taking notes for blog posts while on the run and following up your news feed on Facebook. A computer isn’t always the primary Internet access device anymore. This is even more true in the developing countries where the number one Internet access device is a mobile phone.
6. Sharing no longer means e-mail
Armano predicts that users will choose to share information on their social networks rather than via e-mail. For instance, he mentions that The New York Times iPhone application recently added sharing functionality which allows a user to easily broadcast an article across networks such as Facebook and Twitter. And Netoptions’ e-newsletter tool, BizWizard offers the possibility to share content in an e-newsletter via different social networks.
The use of social intranets to share information will also help limiting the number of “all”-e-mails in our inboxes.
I think David Armano is definitely on the right track. However, now that companies have become aware of both the possibilities and limitations of social media, they will become more careful and reflective before engaging in social media activities. Therefore, my personal bet is on using social media as tools for information searching and news monitoring. I also think that the benefits of using social media as customer service are easy to measure and understand and will therefore be very popular.
The good thing about trend predictions is that most people only read them when the future is yet to come, and do not go back to them to see if the forecasts were correct. With 2010 not being that far away, I hope you will only remember the predictions that actually came true. If not, I’ll blame Armano and his crystal ball.
/ylva.
So, should we talk about ROI (trad), ROI (Risk of Ignorance) or ROE (Return on Engagement)? And how should we actually measure the effects? Well, first of all, we need to know what to measure, and for that we need a strategy and a clear vision of what we want to accomplish. We also need an understanding of how and where our target group is active. Then, we need to understand the dynamics of social media: What’s more valuable? A high number of followers or the level of interaction?
We recently conducted a study for a power company that I wrote about in my last post and the study showed that companies use their social channels to push information, not to create a dialogue or relationships with their users or customers. Many companies start groups on Facebook or LinkedIn, but aren’t very active after that, when, in fact, it’s at this point that it’s all the more important to listen and interact.
And even though I personally think we should talk ROE rather than ROI (trad), for all of you who want us to show you the money, well, here they are: Socialnomics
/ylva.
