Weekly Social Media Round-Up
POSTED BY Stacy DeBroff AT 9:23 AM
Insight and Studies
Seeking Safety in Clouds from The Wall Street Journal
“Basic security tasks that often don't get done at a small enterprise—updating antivirus programs or applying patches to software—are usually part of the plain-vanilla package in the cloud. The more you pay, the more you get: firewalls around your data, high-end encryption, "private clouds" that let you isolate critical information and still access extra processing muscle when you need it, hacker-attack notification and mitigation, and 24-hour tech support.
5 Ways To Know Your Marketing Metrics Don't Suck from MediaPost: Marketing Daily
Just as Billy Beane changed baseball from a game of hunches to a business of stat-driven decision making, leading marketers are also upping their game by increasing emphasis on metrics that matter. Here are five ways to know you're using the right approach.
Make Room for Daddy from MediaPost: Engage Moms
While moms, without question, remain the major decision makers when it comes to household purchases, dads are becoming more involved in the process than in the past. A 2010 Yahoo survey of 2,400 U.S. men ages 18 to 64 found that more than half identified themselves as their household’s primary grocery shopper. According to these dads: One-third clean and cook, 83% bring up brands in conversations with friends and Two in three chat about brands on social sites.
Social Media
Debate: Does Social Media Deliver Results for Small Businesses from The Wall Street Journal
“I should start by stating: I am a believer in social media and the potential power it yields with both client and customer development. Unfortunately, my believing comes from seeing the success of others. My own success with social media makes me think twice of whether it is all worth the time…Now in our sixth year of business, nearly 50% of our sales at Survival Straps stem from our social media efforts. Social media has helped us to take what was a home-based business in 2007, and turn it into a thriving company in Jacksonville, Fla., with more than 50 employees by 2011.”
Seven Steps to Social Media Marketing Success from Social Media Today
Where social media is concerned the seven magic little ingredients at the heart of every successful social media marketing campaign are the following.
Snapple Bows Diet Half 'n Half Lemonade Iced Tea from MediaPost: Social Media & Marketing Daily
Snapple is running a social media sweeps, as well as a new TV spot, to launch its Diet Half 'n Half Lemonade Iced Tea.The spot features office workers battling over whether lemonade or tea is the "best half" of the beverage. The video's content includes people shown holding up signs with Twitter hashtags -- one for lemonade and one for tea (#Lemonade@Snapple and #Tea@Snapple). Those hashtags were created so that fans can tweet-vote for lemonade or tea. They can also vote via the brand's Facebook page.
Social Media Metrics Flourish, but ROI Is Still Up for Grabs from Media Post
Social commerce startup Moontoast announced an update to its Social Analytics Suite platform, which aims to bridge the gap between social media marketing and ROI. …The SAS is centered on Moontoast’s proprietary “Return on Fan” model, which aims to measure the quantitative and qualitative impact that a fan has on a brand in the social Web. This includes tracking “engagement transactions,” both monetary and non-monetary; in the Moontoast model, social messages lead to impressions, which lead to interaction, which lead to transactions and, finally, long-term endorsements. Moontoast provides unique insight into fan relationships.
Pinterest Will Let Web Publishers Opt Out With Code from Readwriteweb.com
Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann said users who try to pin from sites using the code will see a message telling them "This site doesn't allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!" This is to prevent copyright issues.
6 Tips for Tapping Pinterest’s Surging Popularity from The Wall Street Journal
“Many start-up founders and owners of existing small businesses wonder what their companies could possibly gain from yet another new form of social media. Finding adequate time to properly manage business profiles that already exist on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is enough of a challenge. But the newcomer Pinterest could offer advantages for some small businesses, particularly those specializing in e-commerce.”
The CMO's Guide To Pinterest from MediaPost: Marketing Daily
Any marketing executive who cares about creating close customer relationships and driving sales needs to take a close look at Pinterest. According to The CMO's Guide to Pinterest, brands using the new social network are realizing substantial increases in referral traffic.
Brands Pinning It On Pinterest from Adweek.com
This month, per comScore, Pinterest hit 11.7 million unique visitors in the U.S., most of them women. After noting an uptick in Pinterest users pinning its outfits last fall, The Gap began creating themed pinboards of its own, including “Denim Icons” and “Everybody in Gap,” Tipograph said. While e-commerce brands may see more tangible benefits, Pinterest can be a powerful tool for any brand since marketing materials constitute its content…
Google+
Google Under Fire For Tracking Safari Users from Online Media Daily Newsletter
Google could well face Federal Trade Commission sanctions for dropping tracking cookies on Safari users after explicitly telling them that Safari blocked cookies, legal experts predict. Google confirmed on Friday that it developed a workaround that enabled it to track Safari users. Google says the workaround was only intended to allow users to post that they liked an ad via the +1 button. Once the workaround was in place, however, Google was able to track Safari users as they surfed the Web.
How Google+ Is Encircling Your Brand from Online Media Daily Newsletter
In the last month alone, Google+ fans -- i.e., the number of users in “circles” -- of the world’s top 100 brands grew from 222,000 to 3,100,000. Leading the way, fashion giant H&M now holds the No. 1 slot with 462,000 followers, while Coca-Cola leaped from 1,800 to 336,000 -- a 187x increase -- over the past month. Coke’s direct competitor Pepsi, however, remains narrowly ahead with 350,000 followers.
How Google’s +1 Button Affects SEO from Mashable
When a Google+ user +1’s a piece of content, he gives it his “stamp of approval.” Then, say one of his connections from Google+ searches for the same or related topic. Because of Search plus Your World, his friend is more likely to click on the same link the original user +1’d (when a signed-in user searches, his Google results may include snippets annotated with the names of connections who have +1′d the content). This is because content recommended by friends and acquaintances is often more relevant than content from strangers, according to Google.
Twitter Offers SMBs Self-Serve Ads With Help From American Express from MediaPost: Social Media & Marketing Daily
Twitter will roll out its self-service ad platform to small and mid-size businesses in March through a partnership with American Express. Cardmembers and merchants can register to use the platform and receive $100 in advertising credit to put toward bidding on promoted tweets and promoted accounts. The service follows a business model that made Google one of the most successful Internet companies through AdSense and AdWords. Twitter said it will allow more merchants to buy ads with American Express in groups of 10,000, at least for the immediate future.
Twitter Is Testing Auto-Translate Feature from Mashable
Twitter is experimenting with a new feature that automatically translates tweets into various languages with the help of Bing Translator.
As Movies Debut On Facebook, The Era Of Social Cinema Begins from Readwriteweb.com Newsletter
Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie will debut on Facebook, a full two weeks before it arrives in theaters. For $10, fans will be able watch the movie and chat with its stars in real time. The model represents a new sort of social cinema that, while not widespread, appears poised to become a potentially major trend.
Why We Speak Freely on Social Networks from Readwriteweb.com
Social networking sites give us portals into another person's (user's) mind, so far as that person (user) makes public their thoughts, ideas, feelings and desires. At times, we are perhaps more honest online, and especially on social networks, than we are in real life. Recent studies suggest that we are exactly the same on Facebook as we are in real life, but that might not be true. We might actually be even more of who we are online than in real life. In his article in the journal CyberPsychology and Behavior, Rider University's John Suler coins the "disinhibition effect," which suggests that people on social networking sites feel free to share very personal things about themselves - secret emotions, fears, wishes.
Facebook Woos Investors with an Eye for Start-Ups from The Wall Street Journal
“Facebook Inc., with an eye toward future business relationships, wants to be friends with more social-media start-ups.
So it is going after those start-ups' investors.
Facebook's new fbStart program is open to early-stage business investment groups, also known as "seed funds" and business "accelerators," that have social-media developers in their portfolios. Developers at companies supported by the fbStart partner firms will get an advanced look at new tools and features Facebook is creating for its site. In return, Facebook hopes that some of those start-ups could eventually build a business around its platform.”
As Facebook Timeline Comes to Brands, Will You be Prepared? From Social Media Today
How will this affect current Facebook Pages for brands? And what should you do to ensure that you are taking advantage of this Timeline update?
‘Facebook Parenting’ YouTube Video Is More Viral Than ‘Friday’ from Mashable
“Facebook Parenting: For the troubled teen,” uploaded exactly two weeks ago, has already amassed more than 28 million views on YouTube. That’s some 5 million more than the most recent re-uploaded version of “Friday,” which came back to YouTube in official form in September…According to a YouTube Trends blog post, Jordan’s video reached its viral peak with a whopping 11 million views the day after it was uploaded…Of the more than 350,000 people who have clicked “like” or “dislike,” on Jordan’s video, the results are 91% positive.
Why Are Retailers Shutting Their Facebook Stores? From Mashable
“We just didn’t get the return on investment we needed from the Facebook market, so we shut it down pretty quickly,” Ashley Sheetz, VP of marketing and strategy at GameStop, told Bloomberg. “For us, it’s been a way we communicate with customers on deals, not a place to sell.” Still, none of this proves that social networks don’t have potential as sales channels. It may be that retailers simply haven’t harnessed the power of these platforms in the right way.
Tumblr
The Hunger Blogs - Huffington Post
Another disturbing online trend, ‘thinspo’ (short for thin-spiration), has young girl using Tumblr as a vehicle to lose extreme and unhealthy amounts of weight:
…Like most thinspo devotees, Kate broadcasts her starting weight ("SW: 151.2"), current weight ("CW: 127"), and ultimate goal weight ("UGW: 115") at the top of her Tumblr, along with her height (5'10"). These numbers help Kate, and her 5,000 followers, track her weight loss. According to standards for healthy body mass index, Kate’s ultimate goal weight is more in line with a woman 4'10", or a full foot shorter.
Marketing to tweens/teens/millenials
Generation Text: Teens and Cell Phones from Social Media Today
The latest data on mobile phone usage, released by Nielsen, indicates teens are the major purveyors of increased mobile activity. Not only has their MB usage risen significantly in the last year, so has their text messaging -- all explaining why their hearts may be lit aflame for their mobile devices.
Troubling Questions Kids are Asking Online – Huffington Post
With the increasing buzz online and offline over Tommy Jordan shooting his daughter’s laptop, we came across this post and felt it somewhat relevant. Apparently posts & videos like this asking ‘Am I Ugly?’ have become a disturbing online trend…
A young girl stares earnestly, and perhaps a bit awkwardly, into the camera asking the world wide web of YouTube users to comment on her appearance. With 35,000 views and nearly 1,200 comments, her video is just one small piece in what seems to be a growing trend of teen and "tween" (between the ages of 11 and 13) girls taking to the Internet to broadcast concerns about their looks -- and asking strangers to weigh in on these insecurities.
Marketing to Moms
Celebrity Moms: Useful Marketing Tool Or Too Perfect To Relate? From MediaPost: Engage Moms
While moms honor each other through the bond of motherhood, they lack the ability to relate to other celeb moms’ lifestyles. They do not share the same values or problems that plague most moms. In fact, the life of a celeb mom can cause stress on real moms by setting the bar too high, and creating unrealistic standards of perfection….Even though it feels like celebrity moms are from another planet at times, moms value “real” stories of motherhood.
Liquid-Plumr Double Impact Has Twice the Uncomfortable Innuendo from Adweek
Liquid-Plumr has a product called Double Impact. So, really, what choice did DDB in San Francisco have but to create the innuendo-stuffed spot below with a housewife who daydreams about two plumbers double-teaming her clog by "snaking her drain" and "flushing her pipe." I suppose you have to hand it to the Clorox brand—they just went for it.
Mobile Marketing
Nielsen: Smartphone Penetration Reaches 48% from Online Media Daily Newsletter
The 48% of American adults with smartphones is up from 44% in the third quarter of 2011. It likely reflects a bump from the record 37 million iPhones that Apple sold worldwide in the fourth quarter. The 24-34 age group had the highest proportion of smartphone owners at two-thirds. That was followed closely by people ages 18-24, at 62%, and people 35-44, at 58%.
Time Spent In Mobile Far Outpaces Ad Spending from Online Media Daily Newsletter
In a new study, mobile advertising and analytics firm, Flurry, says mobile is the most imbalanced medium when it comes to ad spending versus time spent, at 1% compared to 23%. By contrast, print gets 29% of ad dollars but only 6% of time spent. “Madison Avenue and brands have yet to adjust to an unprecedented adoption of apps by consumers,” stated a blog post Monday by Peter Farago, VP, marketing at Flurry.
Moms Police, Promote Apps Made for Children from The Wall Street Journal
“Meet the latest app-store vigilantes: moms.
Clubs of moms who are app developers in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are increasingly trying to solve two big problems facing the booming industry—how to police apps to ensure they are appropriate for children, and how to promote their own.
The moms' clubs are growing as apps targeted at kids of grade-school age and below proliferate, with thousands of apps racking up millions of total downloads, according to developers. The growth has drawn attention from privacy advocates and regulators writing new rules around kids and online privacy.”
App Metrics, Not Web Metrics from Media Post
App engagement varies by category -- new titles have the longest sessions, while games have shorter bursts of use between different activities. Looking at app measurement, Aggarwal points out that apps can’t be reduced to a series of page views, like a Web site. They have unique IDs instead of cookies -- they change over time and can be more difficult to track. Web methods cannot be applied to app measurement.
Mobile Providers Losing Billions to Social Messaging from Media Post
Social networks have the potential to disrupt any number of established industries, and indeed are already doing so, with big negative impacts already being felt by mobile network operators… free social media message services that compete with short message services (SMS) cost mobile network operators some $13.9 billion in lost SMS revenue in 2011 alone… In 2011 the total mobile data market probably grew 22.5% to $314.7 billion, according to a separate estimate from Gartner released in August 2011; and in October of last year Machina Research predicted total mobile data revenues could grow to $660 billion by 2020.
Interactive Advertising
RFI Ads Up Engagement For Interactive TV from Online Media Daily Newsletter
As Canoe Ventures looks to build network and advertiser interest in its request-for-information (RFI) interactive TV product, new data shows about 20% of adults in a key demo took advantage of the offering in a test. That click-through rate via a remote control is an average for ads tested from five marketers: Honda, Fidelity, GlaxoSmithKline and State Farm.
Garnering data from an online panel of 4,200, 19% on average of those exposed to an RFI ad in the 18-to-49 demo took advantage of an offer.
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