Feb 9 2010

Trust Me

February 9, 2010 – 7:00 am

 By Mike Mulvihill

 2667337875_0af24ec979_mPhoto: Exercise in Mistrust from Black wolf

Okay, so the last 18 months have been near cataclysmic for many Americans.  We lost our money in the stock market, our jobs and even our homes. We’re mired in a two-front war. We loaned money to save the very institutions that created the financial collapse of the Great Recession, only to have them thumb their noses at us by loaning little of our money to help small business and average American’s while they continue to pay out big bonuses.

 No, I’m not disillusioned (well, maybe a little).  But now the 2009 edition of the highly respected Edelman Trust Barometer reveals that we have lost trust in virtually every form of communications, most industries and all but a few people. To this, I feel I must quote Homer Simpson, “D’oh!”

I trust my dog and my mom less this year than I did in early 2008.  (I pick them not only to make a sardonic point but because neither has a computer or cell phone where they read this betrayal.)  As Richard Edelman said about the study, “The events of the last 18 months have scared people.” Damn straight it did.  And fear is the antibody of trust.

 Michael Bush’s article Monday (Feb. 8) in Ad Age about the Trust Barometer purports that the survey shows that social media waned in 2009.  The evidence?  The number of people who view their friends and peers as credible sources of information about a company dropped by almost half, from 45 percent in 2008 to 25 percent.  Not surprising given the general sentiment and how many more people are using – or, perhaps more accurately, misusing – social media over this same time period.

 Several blogs, among them Going Social Now, disagree.  They even go into great detail about what makes certain individuals more credible than others and that individuals are more credible sources of information about products than they are on companies.  I mostly agree with these points.

 But Edelman staffer Steve Rubel does a good job of putting things in perspective – “…for social media the Trust data shows that we’re desperately seeking out experts.  It means that we’ll have to work harder to build credibility through online thought leadership.”

Who is credible?  The sources we trust more this year than we did in 2008 include CEO’s (26 percent), government officials (27 percent), NGO representatives (44 percent), financial/industry analyst (52 percent) and academic experts (64 percent).  While increased trust in CEOs and government officials is, at least to me, surprising, their numbers are still relatively anemic. (And to put this in perspective, the study says I trust my friends as credible sources about a company on a par with the CEO?   I don’t think that’s saying much about the CEO.) Meanwhile, perceived independent experts – like analysts and academicians – carry some considerable credibility.

There’s a lot of noise in social media and a lot of companies using social media as part of their marketing mix.  Like any medium, perhaps those with the most knowledge and expertise in a specific topic will carry the most weight – and create the most trusted messages in the social media space.  There’s nothing new there.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Blogging, Branding, Internet Marketing, Social Networks, communications, market research, social media | Comments (3)
Jan 6 2010

Holiday Resolutions For Social Media

January 6, 2010 – 1:56 pm

As I gathered with family and friends over the holidays this year I did something amazing: I didn’t check Facebook or Twitter!

Rate your social media participation over the 2009 holidays (12/23/2009 – 01/04/2010)?

 1 – Declined a lot
[ 45% (14 votes) ]
2
[ 13% (4 votes) ]
3 – Stayed about the same
[ 32% (10 votes) ]
4
[ 3% (1 votes) ]
5 – Increased substantially
[ 6% (2 votes) ]
Other





We all heard about how social media was influential for increasing e-sales by “efficient, low-cost way for retailers to communicate directly”. So we know retail is listening to the power of social media.

How well did it personally connect people with people during the holidays? Personally I found it hard to engage users online when I had so much going on IRL (in real life). To communicate I reverted back to the old way of communication – email and phone. So much for new technology/networks when parts of the family are still figuring out dial-up.

So what does this activity mean for engaging this year on a personal or brand level? Taking a thought from Dan Zarrella’ post about predictions social media marketing evolution. The user base of most online networks are demanding a more targeted and personalized experience. This stems from the fact that ultimately the user wants more than a face to a profile – there needs to be in real life connection. It’s been proven model for business – so there should be no difference for personal connections. TrendsSpotting’s 2010 trend pre­dic­tions in 140 characters – emphasizes the fact that personal connection will take social media to the next level this year.

In conclusion this year I hope to find the right balance between real life and social media relationship. What is your resolution or personal goal for social media engagement?

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Wyatt Wood | Posted in Internet Marketing, Social Networks, market research, social media | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)
Jan 5 2010

New Year – Same Old Aught Decade Hang Ups

January 5, 2010 – 2:13 am

 

By Mike Mulvihill

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Photo: Courtesy Optical Illusion 

First the good news – business loves social media.  A January 3 update to the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research annual survey on the adoption and practice of social media by the Inc. 500, a list of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S., found that more businesses are experimenting and engaging with social media.  Among the survey respondents, 91 percent of companies report they incorporated at least one social media service or tool in 2009. Literacy and awareness was also on the rise with roughly 75 percent stating that they were now “very familiar” with social networking. Conversely, there was an impressive drop in Inc 500 companies that did not use social media at all, which plunged from 43 percent in 2007 to 9 percent in 2009.

Among smaller business, the trend lags. A November 2009 survey  produced for area Chambers of Commerce in North Dakota and Minnesota asked about their use of popular social media platforms for maintaining either Personal and Business connections.  For business leaders in four Midwestern markets, Facebook is the social media platform of choice. Facebook is the platform most frequently mentioned as the site used by respondents (70 percent personal use; 43 percent business use). LinkedIn was the platform next most frequently mentioned as the site used by respondents (23 percent personal use; 41 percent business use). Twitter (17 percent personal use; 19 percent business use) was about even with Blogs (15 percent personal use; 20% business use) as the third most frequently mentioned platform used by respondents  Three others in the survey lagged significantly in use by respondents – My Space, MSN Live Space and Wikis.

As Larry Weintraub covers in his Smart Marketing blog, these businesses have likely zeroed in on the four reasons to use Social Media for your business – Marketing, PR, Market Research and Customer Service.

Now, here’s the bad news.  Control is still a major issue, especially at larger companies. According to a nationwide survey conducted by Robert Half Technology, 54 percent of 1,400 companies surveyed completely restrict employees from visiting social networking sites. Another 19 percent restrict use for business purposes only.

Businesses are increasingly using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter for marketing purposes, but those same companies don’t want employees logging on during work hours.

The Robert Half spokesperson said employers find social networking a waste of time. “It takes away from primary responsibility. When socializing on sites such as Facebook, we lose track of time.”

A secondary concern companies mentioned is the potential for employees leaking confidential information or sharing thoughts that may reflect badly on the company.  The spokesperson said that many of these companies are still trying to set boundaries.

 So while business increasing embraces the desire to “push out” info using social media, they still have not gotten over the fact that they have engage communities by trusting people to have conversations with customers, suppliers and their many other stakeholders.

 I’d love to see a survey of how many of the 91 percent of companies using social media are failing miserably because they still just don’t get the fact that every employee is an ambassador, whether at the supermarket, a cocktail party, the kids soccer match or when active on a social media site. They trust their salesmen to represent the company unsupervised, but can’t trust their employees to use social media responsibly. Seems like there’s still a lot of growing up to be done in 2010.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Blogging, Case Study, Internet Marketing, PR, Social Networks, communications, market research, social media | Tagged , , , , , | Comments (3)
Dec 1 2009

5 Whys Jog Actionable Listening

December 1, 2009 – 12:03 am

I can pay to listen. I can listen for free. I can “monitor,” even. I can pay others to listen for me. I can lurk. I can engage.

There have been some great posts on the tools for listening. The list for both paid tools and free tools is ever-expanding, it seems. If I want to latch onto the latest and greatest, I only have to visit Alltop or check Twitter. Recently, for instance, Crazy Egg caught my eye. How sociable? is also really interesting in that I can view my brand as “mentions” across the web. But with all the focus on listening, is there enough focus on doing something about what you are hearing?

Looking for Answers (www.freedigitalphotos.net)

Looking for Answers (www.freedigitalphotos.net)

Jason Falls took on the subject of listening, posting on “The Five Ws of Social Media Listening” in August, where he also noted a favorite of mine from Michael Brito about active listening on the social web being overrated.

It all reminds me of an old riddle I’ve loved since I first read it in a book called “Five Frogs on a Log: A CEO’s Field Guide to Accelerating the Transition in Mergers, Acquisitions And Gut Wrenching Change” by Mark Feldman and Michael Spratt from Pricewaterhouse Coopers. Five frogs are sitting on a log. Four decide to jump off.  How many are left?

If you answered “1,” you aren’t listening deep enough, perhaps. The answer is “5,” since there’s a big difference between deciding and doing. I still smile almost every time I think of this little riddle because it was a particulary apt way of stating the challenges of a merger or an acquisition. There is often so much attention paid to the decision and the “doing” of the deal that the doing of the integration, etc. often goes wanting.

It’s the same with listening, whether you call it active or not. Maybe we should embrace another way to look at ”why.”

It’s called 5 Whys.  It is a great process to move listening from just listening to doing something about what we hear. It’s been practiced by Jeff Bezos at Amazon, and it is a good tool for us to use in our social media listening (thanks, Pete Abilla for the Amazon example).  Credited to Sakichi Toyoda, founder of Toyota, the 5 Whys are most often seen in the context of industrial processes, but the same persistent asking of “why?” could go a long way to getting beyond the surface in social media measurement.

For example – “The car won’t start,” my (son/daughter/wife/husband) says (Wikipedia example): Why? – The battery is dead. (first why) Why? – The alternator is not functioning. (second why) Why? – The alternator belt has broken. (third why) Why? – The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and has never been replaced. (fourth why) Why? – I have not been maintaining my car according to the recommended service schedule. (fifth why, probably the ”root” cause)

Remind you of conversations you have had with clients or bosses? Can you think of some 5 Whys from your work in social media? Could the 5 Whys be a useful tool in getting deeper into your listening and monitoring? Would a shift to “actionable” listening be a possible outcome from using this discipline in your work? And, if we couple the Actionable with the other two “As of Metrics” that are talked about in the measurement world, we’ll make our measures Accessible and Auditable.

Some very progressive organizations might even open up the three As to the outside world, pushing ROI and transparency even farther down the path we’re on. Wouldn’t that be interesting?

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Michael Whitlow | Posted in Blogging, Branding, Buzz Meter, Internet Marketing, Social Networks, market research, social media | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)
Nov 30 2009

Can Marketers Serve the Female Economy?

November 30, 2009 – 8:02 am

by Geoff Livingston

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Joan of Arc by D.B. King

Since the holiday shopping crush has begun in earnest, perhaps we can acknowledge one of the great undercurrents of our time, the rise of the female economy. To quote Harvard Business Review, “Women now drive the world economy.” This reality will become even more obvious as we pull out of the recession, but can marketers adapt?

Traditionally, when faced with a predominantly female stakeholder, marketers created the same product in pink, purple, and pastels, rather than design their products to actually meet the needs of modern women. Wrong approach. Dell learned this with its pink laptop controversy earlier this year.  The same thing can be said for some well discussed communications programs (hello, Motrin!).

With women driving a vast majority of purchasing decisions – yes, even those big screen TVs – marketers must adapt.  The days of pink TV sets won’t work anymore (though some will try).

Consider how brands like Banana Republic have evolved. From end to end, they have come to understand their female customer. The in-store experience matches their research, but so does their product marketing.

A Banana Republic size 6 is really a size 6, and will always be that.  Different style lines match women’s actual body shapes, from petite to tall, from slender to full figure. The result? Women don’t have to go through agonizing hours to see if the 6 is really a 6. That means online sales, ladies and gentlemen, lots of them.  Why? Because women really don’t want to go shopping, they want more time! They want to live, have a career and a family, and yes, maybe even go to the gym (source: the aforementioned HBR article).

Of course, that brings up another very savvy female marketing organization, Curves. Focusing on efficient 30-minute workouts designed for women, Curves has built phenomenal word of mouth marketing, revolutionizing the fitness industry. BTW, Curves is a male owned company. CEO Gary Heavin understands that marketing to women means understanding their fitness needs, not forcing preconceived gym notions into the market. Heavin has succeeded garnering a significant portion of the female exercise market in spite of his pro-life views.

So communicators face the great challenge of adapting or failing (as if social media wasn’t enough). It comes down to this: Because it has been a male dominated world marketing has catered to the presumed buying power. Now that buying power belongs to women, marketers must change theirfocus to what their “new” customer wants.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Internet Marketing, PR, communications, market research | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (10)
Nov 17 2009

Social Media: How Much Is A Good Thing?

November 17, 2009 – 1:06 pm

by Mike Mulvihill

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Photo: yospyn.com

A survey from the CMO Club bemoans that four out of five CMOs allocate less that 10 percent of their budgets to “experimenting” through social media and non-traditional communications channels.  This is juxtaposed against the rising use of social media – more than 35 percent of adult Internet users have profiles on social media networks up just eight percent in 2005.  Just to add to add more fuel to the fire, Oxford Dictionary just named “unfriend” as the 2009 Word of the Year.

 As a marketer, I just shake my head wondering why we keep measuring social media in old ways – like expenditures.  And using social media like other marketing tools to “push out” our messages. How often do we need to be reminded that social media is about engaging customers and potential customers in a meaning way. Is $5 million of a $100 million budget too much or too little?  Well, social media isn’t all that expensive in the hierarchy of marketing expenditures.  The best money you can spend is on people to staff your social media effort – just look at Southwest Airlines as a great example. (With Southwest, it doesn’t hurt that the social media effort totally supports a brand persona born through years of traditional customer engagement.)

 If the social media effort is old school, then the $5 million is way too much and it’s probably alienating more people than it is engaging (thereby decreasing the effectiveness of the rest of the marketing mix).  If it is well done, then perhaps one less $1 million TV spot is better spent on more, equally effective social media.

 Lots of people have lots of pet peeves about how social media is used in a disingenuous manner. Many organizations and corporations still don’t really know what to do with social media.  Some I know have taken more than a year struggling to create social media guidelines that “stop the productivity drain” while allowing social media to be used for customer support and marketing .

 On the marketing side, a year is an eternity, especially when it’s about half the average CMO’s shelf life of 23.2 months. Like many of my clients and prospects, CMOs are bombarded with requests from non-marketing types, emboldened by all they see and hear about social media, asking why the organization is not doing this or that social media tactic. The result can be launching any social media effort in support of other marketing efforts (i.e., push out strategies) rather than the right social media engagement strategies. Let’s just hope that the crossroads between the need to keep up appearances (increasing social media expenditures) and the real value of the social media programs funded doesn’t end up being the ruin of a good thing.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Mike Mulvihill | Posted in Blogging, Branding, Internet Marketing, PR, communications, market research | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (9)
Jul 20 2009

Location, Location, Location!

July 20, 2009 – 9:05 am

A recent study from Gartner (see Mashable and eMarketer coverage) has highlighted the burgeoning location marketplace within smartphones. We’re nearing 100 million phones w/GPS chips on them.

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What does this mean for the marketer/communicator? Increasingly people can volunteer their GPS location when they are talking or using the Internet. Rather than get into the technology, it just means that you can factor in one of the most important human experience elements into anyone’s mobile Internet experience: Where they are.

Location, often the rallying cry of franchised organizations from restaurants and big box stores, is finally available to the Internet communicator. No longer does this solely rely on census data and direct mail guesses by zip code, or opt-in snail mail lists. Instead, location can be used for much more, from mobile social networking applications to offers to drop in at local venues and stores.

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The mobile social networking aspect is particularly dynamic. Mashable’s coverage focused almost completely on this. Another marketing firm, U.K. based V.G. Telecom, recently issued a report, “Mobile Social Networking and User Generated Content 2009-2014″ which highlighted this dynamic trend:

The scale of mobile social networking, the number of unique visitors to the Facebook mobile site increased fivefold from 5 million per month in January 2008 to 25 million in February 2009. The latter figure represents 18 percent of Facebook’s 120 million-strong user community in February 2009.

I really wish I could tell you how to use this stuff for your communications effort. But the truth of the matter is that location-based communications has long been dreamed about and experimented with from a communications standpoint. It has never become a foundation for mass market application.

CRT/tanaka has made recommendations to create location applications to map user preferred vendors of products in their specific communities. This is an increasingly used tactic (See Absolut Vodka’s effort). From a nonprofit standpoint, there are obvious meet-up and organizational benefits. Now that location and really mobile Internet usage is finally coming to fruition, the book is open on possibilities.

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Internet Marketing, communications, market research | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (9)
Jun 30 2009

The Herculean Effort to Stop Ignoring Customers

June 30, 2009 – 7:59 am

3658269481_f5fc101e5f.jpgIf social is but a channel, then the real issue for companies lies in embracing feedback from their most important stakeholders: Their customers.
That was the focus of the Forrester Customer Experience Forum last week in New York City (photos here).

Organizations struggle with corporate barriers to moving towards their customers. Controlling the experience has long been the domain of various departments from product marketing to customer service. Giving stakeholders a voice in that process — via phones, email, mail, participation and yes, social media — has been the antithesis of many corporate cultures for decades. Yet according to Forrester, by failing to embrace their customers and bulwarking their experience, companies are denying themselves serious benefits:

  • 14.4% of customers would purchase more
  • 15.8% of customers would be less likely to switch brands
  • 16.6% of customers would refer the brand more often
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Yet in spite of these beneficial numbers, progress seems daunting. During the Chief Customer Officer panel (yes, this is apparently a title), two panelists indicated they were making progress, meeting with company executives as often as once a month or more… Once a month? That’s it?

But for every ten companies haltingly talking to and listening to their customers, there is a Virgin America. The entire company seems to be built around creating the ultimate, enjoyable (gulp) airline experience. As CEO David Cush went through his session, you couldn’t help but smile and admire the audacious brilliance of Richard Branson as he turns the American airline industry on its ear. This is how companies should be built.

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Barriers to Adoption

We’ve discussed this before here on the Buzz Bin. There are serious cultural barriers to adopting social media, and in general, customer feedback (find a link to a white paper here). Siloed corporate structures prevent companies from listening to and embracing their customers.

Forrester outlined a five stage process that organizations need to go through to foster the evolutionary change towards a customer-centric organization:

1) Interest – Discuss that there may be a problem with customer interaction and that the company may need to research its stakeholders

2) Invest – Upon realizing that there is a lack of understanding about customer needs, get the company to invest in a “voice of the customer” program

3) Commit – This is where getting C-Suite buy-in is absolutely necessary for success. The company must commit to responding to customer feedback.

4) Engage – Take the feedback from customers, and apply it across the line. Change the experience.

5) Embed – Make the customer experience feedback loop and product innovation part of the actual cultural lifeblood of the organization.

According to Forrester, most American companies are either in stage one or two of the five stages. I think part of the failure to adapt has to do with the tendency to use old ways to affect change. Consider the siloesque idea of a customer department or initiative, rather than realizing customer centric behavior affects a company across the line.

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Consider how David Armano and the team at Dachis are starting to address the challenges of cultural barriers to customer interaction (pictured above). They see multiple nodes touching hubs throughout an organization. Similarly, Charlene Li’s latest research is focusing on how companies embrace their customers to become socialprises.

The challenge to becoming a customer-centric organization is not as easy as simply listening. It involves reinventing many an organization’s actual structure and workflow. Cultural barriers to success cannot be underestimated.

The Social Backlash

Throughout the conference there was a very clear and present resistance to social media hype. Every single discussion around our new media certainly recognized its value as a great way to converse with customers. Every successful company featured at the Forum had some kind of social component, even if it was just listening to feedback.

But more and more, you heard executives rejecting social media as a panacea for customer ills and feedback. In fact, there were discussions about the viability of Twitter in the long term as a scaleable tool, and whether it really could supplant news organizations for information.

While companies recognize social media for its value as a toolset, they don’t see it as the cure all for an actual experience, and don’t see it as the alpha and omega for customer contact points. Instead it is one of several ways customers discuss their experiences from calls, web site chats, email, etc. There was a huge emphasis on multichannel integration of customer voices throughout the conference.

This backlash seems to me be a result of overhype. A smart communicator can see this. Customers don’t touch a company in one, singular channel. They have many touches from ads, news, web sites (standard and mobile) and packaging all the way through to the actual product experience. To think that social media is it for a company is a horrific error. And the implication of the current hype cycle would only have companies communicating in 140 character sound bytes. Thus the very natural backlash.

Related Buzz Bin Posts

 
AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Branding, communications, market research, social media | Comments (45)
Mar 14 2009

#sxsw – The Future of the Internet

March 14, 2009 – 1:14 pm
Mini 9 from Dell

Mini 9 from Dell

Well, I finally made it to sxsw. In addition
to phenomenal discussions and socializing (me thinks the real purpose of sxsw), I came to Austin to garner knowledge on the Future of the Internet.

Why? Because social media is maturing, and staying on the edge is critical. To help, I moved to new mobile platforms for sxsw, the Dell Mini 9 Netbook (see WIRED article on the widespread proliferation of netbooks) and the reborn Palm Centro (awesome phone).

These two devices, iPhones, and other portable devices capture the mobile heartbeat of the Internet, and the way most folks access content online. Emersion helps me understand what’s next, how people can use these media forms to communicate. In fact, I blogged this post using the Mini 9!

Jonathan Zittrain from Harvard Law School led a session on the Future of the Internet. He gave a great round up of the Internet (which took me back to the days of Prodigy). Then launched the discussion of civil technologies, and how the Internet needs to evolve.

Zittrain cited the number of new resources to engage the internet; mobile, small, dumber, Internet access devices. Examples cited included Kindle, iPhones, Blackberries, etc. These devices sre dumber and takes control away from the user. Internet access and applications are controlled, and vetted before users can access them. Example: iPhone application approval processes.

Zittrain felt the future is this new model of controlling applications on dumber devices. This environment features the cloud (apps hosted on the Internet as opposed to the PC), and the locus of coding new applications in controlled environments (Facebook is another custodian environment), and smaller, portable dumber devices.

This session was the perfect segway to the Emerging Mobile Technologies and Trends panel. Fortunately the history session was only a couple of minutes. Rob Gonda – Sapient, and Juan-Carlos Morales – Sapient Interactive, and uh, a Mr. Stuart were the panelists.

Stuart said in Japan, the iPhone model (mobile as a primary Internet access device) was in place years ago. Japanese see the iPhone as un-innovative because they’ve had this kind of access for a long period of time. In Africa mobile Internet access is the only way to access.

Trends to watch in mobile:

  • The rise of Android versus the iPhone as the right Internet access device of choice (debated)
  • Adobe Flash lite bringing a full web experience to a wide variety of phones (which the iPhone demonstratred was possible). 7-10 million Flash phones in market this year, starting in Japan
  • Problem with the iPhone is it is locked for apps. Application development must include all platforms. iPhones only have 1% penetration.
  • iPhone is closed platform for app acquisition. Nearfield technology allows for open trust and acquisition of apps. Will probably allow for wider application development.
  • Augmented reality is the ability to interact with reality and adding texture via mobile devices. Fricking cool stuff, folks.
  • The Grid is becoming a real hot, gps-based, mobile social network rivaling Loopt.
  • The use of QR and bar codes for mobile product information can even let you buy on the fly.


    • All in all, mobile Internet life is happening now on small devices everywhere thanks to broadband capable, small computing devices and phones. Applications are being developed en masse. The future is here.

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in Internet Marketing, communications, market research | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)
    Feb 4 2009

    Market Research Makes the World Go Round

    February 4, 2009 – 9:45 am

    Our last round-up of Market Research reports was well read and from private comments, I guess it was deemed useful by folks. Since other marketers seem to love research, I figure we can make this a non-scheduled serial. So, below find summaries of the latest market research reports I am digesting…

    The 10th Annual Edelman Trust Barometer 2009 was just issued. And as one can image, the economy has had a terrible impact on corporate trust, creating widespread demand for government regulation. The one area where trust is not declining? “Outside experts remain the most trusted purveyors of information about a company, with 59% of 35-to-64-year-olds saying an academic or expert on a company’s industry or issues would be extremely or very credible.” I can see bloggers around the world smiling.

    According to Razorfish data, consumers who spend 5+ minutes with a widget spend significantly more time, view more page views, and spend more money on a publisher’s web site. Check out these nifty charts:

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    In a very popular report, the Pew Internet & American Life Project says the share of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8% in 2005 to 35% now. Before anyone gets too excited, read the whole report. Social networks are still used predominantly for personal use. Good for B2C marcom, but not so good for B2B. One caveat: I think certain industries like IT have high social network usage.

    Speaking of B2B marketing, there was a very telling analysis of B2B trends on the Marketing Profs blog. Dana Vanden Heuvelbroke down the Economist Intelligence Unit’s “10 Megatrends in B2B Marketing 2008” report. Perhaps most interesting is the neck and neck race between email and social media tools as effective outreach mechanisms (35-30%).

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    Retail and video seems to be a match with a 40% increase in consumers viewing retail videos. One of eMarketer’s latest reports, this piece shows that online retail videos are now viewed in 23% of U.S. homes. Why bother with buying ad time? Shades of Joseph Jaffe and the death of the 30 second spot.

    Finally, local Reston, VA player IIG’s Robin Broitman provided a superlist of posts and sources for metrics, ROI and stats. Check it out.

     
    AddThis Social Bookmark Button By Geoff Livingston | Posted in market research | Comments (5)