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Social Media: More Than Meets the Eye?

cgseo — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 16:15:58 +0000

Social media is gaining greater acceptance across all levels of business from the SMB to the multi-national enterprise. No surprise there. What is beginning to play out though is the fact that the space is new and evolving. As a result, some of the techniques or tactics that seem to be the ‘norm’ are now being seen a bit differently. Why? Because there may be other things that just work better. That’s where the evolving part comes in. eMarketer reports on a Marketing Profs survey (this link is for a synopsis of survey that is for sale and we are not in any way associated with that sale) from earlier in September 2009 that shows what is usually done on some social media outlets isn’t what is driving results. The most common marketing tactic used on Facebook was attempting to drive traffic to corporate materials through status updates, followed by friending customers. But the most effective tactic for consumer-oriented companies was creating a Facebook application, which was done by less than one-quarter of total respondents. The chart below tells the rest of the story: Now that’s for Facebook. Apparently the same rules apply for Twitter. Like those on Facebook, marketers using Twitter were also most interested in increasing traffic. Driving traffic by linking to marketing Webpages was the most common activity on the microblogging site, followed by driving sales by linking to promotional pages. But again, the most effective tactics were different. So what was Twitter most effective at for companies? Online reputation monitoring and management. Sure you can drive traffic to your site but there is always the question of the quality of the traffic you drive. As for responding to a negative comment or seeing your brand get trashed? That’s easy and obvious to spot and there is no real wiggle room. It is what it is. As a result companies need to respond and there is a ‘measurable’ result. Here is how the rest of the uses panned out. So where are you on this one? Do you use social media in ways that may not be talked about in the mainstream but have yielded success for you? Remember, it’s OK to share because it’s about social media. No secrets here .

The CMO Club Lets You In On Their Social Media Thinking

admin — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 18:40:13 +0000

It is often pointed out that the disconnect from those in the social media trenches to those in the C-level corner offices is significant and often damaging to the marketing efforts of many companies. While it can be fun to generalize and then make those at the top of the marketing food chain the culprits in the “Great Social Media Under-utilization Caper” it is starting to become much less accurate. One way to see that CMO’s are taking a real interest in social media and user generated media as part of their overall marketing efforts is to see the results of a recent study done by the CMO Club. That’s right. CMO’s hang out in a club while you slave away at your community building efforts. It’s all cigars and mahogany furniture around the fireplace for the CMO set. Just kidding. In fact, The CMO Club and Bazaarvoice surveyed 133 active CMO’s to get their real world take on social media. Here’s how the respondents were broken out Of these, 42% focus on business-to-consumer marketing, 41% focus on business-to-business marketing, and 17% market to both consumers and businesses. Leading participating industries include software/hardware (17%), finance/insurance (9%), travel/hospitality (9%), media/publishing (9%), consumer goods (8%), and retail (7.5%), among others. Annual revenues ranged from $6 to $50 million (25%), $51 to $999 million (42%), and over $1 billion (23%). So what did they find? This chart is pretty telling as they attack the three letters that keep most CMO’s up at night: ROI. ROI is certainly the Holy Grail of the C-suite with regard to every facet of marketing. What makes it difficult for social media is that there are not real clearly defined measurements or metrics that create a line to what is termed social commerce. Whether you are a C-level marketer or a day-to-day social media practitioner what are your thoughts on measurement in the social media space? What do you use for tools where are you having success and where are you having trouble? Feel free to download a white paper synopsis of some of the findings of the survey. Maybe the more that C-level marketers and the ‘rank and file’ of marketing work together there can be more advancement in this emerging field. Is that a reality at your work or is that just a fantasy?

Customer Engagement Survey Shows Twitter is King of ROI

cgseo — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:23:45 +0000

I’ve been a contributing analyst for the eConsultancy/ cScape Customer Engagement Survey over the past few years. The 2010 edition has just landed and I thought I would share with you the data that jumped out at me. Email Newsletters Fading? The 2nd Customer Engagement Survey saw businesses focusing their efforts on using email newsletters to improve customer engagement. An incredible 69% of companies stated that they had measured a tangible improvement through their e-newsletter campaigns so it was not a surprise that 59% planned to invest heavily in email marketing by the time we came to the third survey. By contrast, investment in social networks – such as Facebook – was down on the list of priorities with only 36% of companies planning to increase their investment in that area. Social Networks See Huge Investment So, what happened now we are on survey four and looking at 2010? Those that took a chance and invested in social networks saw a big return on investment. For companies, email newsletters still rated as the tactic offering the highest tangible improvement (67%) but a whopping 44% – almost double the percentage from 2009 – have discovered that social networks helped increase their online customer engagement. That return on investment has clearly caught the attention of both companies and their agencies. In 2010, the survey predicts that 61% of company executives will be increasing their focus on social networks , while agencies are even more bullish, expecting their clients to spend more on social networking (66%) than even email newsletters (41%). Twitter’s King of Engagement Perhaps the most stunning statistic is the percentage of companies that plan to invest in Twitter as a channel for customer engagement. In last year’s report, Twitter barely registered with survey participants with just 7% of companies realizing improved customer engagement from Twitter, hence only 13% planned to invest in Twitter in 2009. What a difference a year makes! Twitter has seen massive growth and companies are scrambling to make the micro-blogging channel a key part of their customer engagement efforts. In fact, with 35% of companies seeing an improvement in their customer engagement from Twitter in 2009, almost 44% of companies plan to increase their investment in Twitter in 2010. That’s a three-fold improvement over last year! Engagement = Conversations What conclusions can we draw from this? Well, it’s apparent that companies are realizing that customers expect engagement to be a two-way dialogue. Email newsletters are a great way to keep customers updated but they don’t really engage them. Instead, companies are seeing measurable benefits of actually having a conversation with their customers be it via Facebook, Twitter or whatever, making them willing to invest more of their marketing/PR budgets to reap the fruits of that engagement. Want to get your hands on all the data? Get your copy of the cScape/Econsultancy report!

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Customer Engagement Survey Shows Twitter is King of ROI

Why People Love Google

admin — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:04:16 +0000

In a word: branding. As a brand, both through their own efforts and through sheer luck, Google has been able to position itself as the #1 online brand in the US according to Forrester Research . Others among the top ten, including Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft, have generated some of the same emotional responses from their fans. The top ten brands (note that respondents selected two from a list): Since 2007, MySpace suffered a precipitous fall in brand favoritism. Yahoo and eBay also suffered. Amazon saw sufficient growth to move from distant third to nearly tied for second; Google grew significantly in its #1 spot. Facebook and YouTube (and what the crap, Sony?) joined the list. Interestingly, both Microsoft and Apple saw small growth over that time. So what qualities made these online brands stand out in respondents’ minds? Forrester points out that we might expect attributes like prestige, popularity, speed and “the social.” And we’d be wrong. Interestingly, some of the same characteristics that associate well with offline brands: trustworthiness, helpfulness and relevance to the consumer were the top-named attributes of these brands. (In case you’re wondering, Amazon was voted most trustworthy, Google most helpful and Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook, eBay and Microsoft most relevant.) There is one point that the report makes that I don’t know if I buy: Yahoo! gets it right with “Y!ou” re-positioning. Yahoo!’s brand revitalization strategy is right on target, taking rivals on directly and clarifying its fuzzy image. Its core focus is on “relevance,” a top-tier attribute that currently doesn’t have a clear online leader. Yahoo! rivals Facebook and Microsoft show some traction here, but relevance is a relative weakness for Google. Yahoo!’s new $100-million advertising effort also highlights “fun,” another critical attribute where Google comes up short. To drive its global revitalization, Yahoo!’s new CMO brought in Landor Associates and Goodby, Silverstein & Partners to work with its main agency, Ogilvy & Mather. It launched its campaign with big TV and outdoor buys to “root the brand position.” It is following this with multichannel messaging — including explainers on its own site — around product proof points. I agree that Yahoo’s image had grown fuzzy and that taking on its rivals directly would be helpful, but are we thinking about the same campaign? Has there been more to the campaign than that one cringe-worthy commercial? (Because seriously, I wince every time I come across it on a Yahoo property.) It didn’t say “fun” to me (well, I guess it did, just not that “fun” had anything to do with online) and it definitely didn’t clarify their brand image. (How is emphasizing that “we’re as diverse as every single human on the earth—I mean, we’re just like you!” clarifying anything?) I guess we’ll have to see the “explainers” and “product proof points” to see if the rest of the campaign is effective. But so far, I’m not buying it—especially not when Yahoo’s brand has taken a hit in not only this survey, but others that correlate directly with the campaign timeline . What do you think? How have these brands acquired these attributes? Is Yahoo repositioning itself to take on more favorable attributes?

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Why People Love Google

Consumers Willing to Pay (Pennies) for News

admin — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 18:39:45 +0000

It seems like every month another news organization toys with the idea of charging for their content. But, we always rejoin, you’ll ultimately sacrifice your audience if you charge for news content. However, the Boston Consulting Group says that may not always be the case—in fact, even Americans are willing to pay for online news . Well, sort of. The average amount an American was willing to pay for news was $3—and not $3 a day, but $3 a month . Not exactly the profits Rupert Murdoch dreams of, is it? The survey also found that people were more willing to pay for news that was: Unique, such as local news (67 percent overall are interested; 72 percent of U.S. respondents) or specialized coverage (63 percent overall are interested; 73 percent of U.S. respondents) Timely, such as a continual news alert service (54 percent overall are interested; 61 percent of U.S. respondents) Conveniently accessible on a device of choice And good news for newspapers: “consumers are more likely to pay for online news provided by newspapers than by other media, such as television stations, Web sites, or online portals,” especially since these other media have so much free competition. Interestingly, while Americans were more likely to pay for sites that offered access to multiple papers, only national and local—not major metropolitan-based papers—have that level of appeal. (I’m not sure which category The New York Times and Washington Post fall into here.) Marc Vos, a Milan-based partner and leader of BCG’s media sector in Europe, tells newspapers that they “should be experimenting with paid online content. It will take trial and error to find what works.” The prospects aren’t so bleak everywhere. In addition to 1000 US respondents, the survey also looked at results in Germany, Australia, France, the UK, Spain, Italy, Norway, Finland. While Australians also wanted to pay only $3 (USD?) for their news, other countries saw higher rates. The New York Times said that this may be because Western Europe has more consolidated news offerings, where news in the US is a very fragmented industry. However, before Western European news sites get all excited, note that the highest amount on the survey, in Italy, was $7 a month. What do you think? What would you be willing to pay for news? Pilgrim’s Partners: SponsoredReviews.com – Bloggers earn cash, Advertisers build buzz!

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Consumers Willing to Pay (Pennies) for News

Most Bloggers Discuss Products/Brands

cgseo — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:06:45 +0000

According to Technorati’s 2009 State of the Blogosphere report , 70% of bloggers talk about products or brands on their blogs, eMarketer reports . And obviously some of these mentions would be prompted by free sample products, etc.—a practice popular enough to draw the notice of the FTC, which now requires disclosure on such review products. Interestingly, corporate bloggers were least likely to blog about brands and products (lawsuit anyone?), and hobbyist bloggers were second least likely. Technorati defined hobbyist bloggers as those that blog for fun. They don’t make money (and only some of them want to, which I think is awesome). Instead of brands and products, they mostly share “personal musings” (53% of hobbyists), and 76% blog to speak their minds. 72% of bloggers fell into this category. “Part-timers” were most likely to mention brands and products. They blog to supplement their main income. 15% of respondents, most part-timers blog to share their expertise or attract new clients. “Self-employed” bloggers, 9% of the survey respondents, blog full time for their own company or organization. (Corporate bloggers, 4%, blog for someone else’s company/organization—including their employer.) Despite the focus on products and brands, bloggers felt that the free goodies weren’t the most important benefits from their blogs—gaining visibility (individually or for their business) and bringing in new business were the top two benefits cited by bloggers surveyed. What do you think? Do you blog about brands? What benefits have you seen from blogging? Which group do you fall into?

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Most Bloggers Discuss Products/Brands

Twitter Responsible for British Economic Woes?

cgseo — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:15:59 +0000

Headline seem like it’s over the top? Maybe a little but a report has been released making the claim that Twitter costs the British economy 1.38 billion pounds on an annual basis. That’s a boat load of pounds! (We miss you Carol. Please say something outrageous soon, please!). Regular readers will know how I tend to be a skeptic first on any surveys / research / reports that claim anything because let’s face it, most things are hard to quantify and even harder to draw definitive conclusions from. This one, which was reported in the Telegraph , set off the ‘Research Report Red Light’ quickly but it sounded just silly enough to look into further. The report says More than half of office workers use sites like Twitter and Facebook for personal use during the working day, and admit wasting an average of 40 minutes a week each. One in three of the 1,460 office workers surveyed also said they had seen sensitive company information posted on social networking sites, leading to fears about how workers use the internet. I have to admit that when I saw the headline I immediately assumed (Never assume because it does something to us, right? Go to the 4:40 mark on this one for a classic laugh ) that this was about employees and time wasting. While that is a component of it the loss or theft of proprietary company information is a genuine threat. I never think about it because it seems as ridiculous and classless as you can get but there are folks that would do such things. Why I am so surprised is kind of silly in and of itself but I digress. Now the survey was funded by an IT company that likely helps companies combat this kind of thing so there may be ulterior motives (really?!). Philip Wicks, consultant at Morse, the IT services and technology company who commissioned the survey, said the true cost to the economy could be substantially higher than the £1.38bn estimate. I think the real laughable part of this kind of study is trying to put actual monetary values to the lost time and data. That is not something that is a reliable measure. What is important though is the fact that it does happen and that companies everywhere need to be more on top of the social media activities of the employees. It looks like those surveyed, however, don’t work for companies that are paying attention. Three quarters of the office workers surveyed said their employer had not given them any specific guidelines on how to use Twitter, but 84 per cent believed it should be up to them what they post online. So how much time to you waste spend online at the office that may not be directly related to your work? C’mon, tell the truth. We won’t let anyone know unless they stop by on their ‘free time’ and see your comments. We here at marketing Pilgrim consider that as the best use of your work time we could imagine!

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Twitter Responsible for British Economic Woes?