Jess3 (Jesse Thomas) strikes again, and creates a fantastic video that shows us the ‘latest’ state of the internet… Kudos on a really interesting look at the trends and factoids in the social graph.
JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.
Social Networking is, as Charlene Li says ‘Like Air‘ – ubiquitous and everywhere. We are in a culture where every demographic on the planet is involved in some capacity or another. Some of the most visible? Athletes – especially professional athletes. Social Media is a way for the athlete to share a little bit of their ‘off court’ or ‘off field’ persona with those that support them most – their fans. From a fan’s perspective, this is an amazing peek into the everyday lives of their sports heroes. Is it always good for the athlete? No.
In many case – Lance Armstrong, Shaquille O’Neal, and Tony Hawk – their use of social media is positive and often used to make the world a little bit better (Lance promoting Cancer awareness and Shaq using his influence/large following to secure financial relief for disaster victims. I have a lot of respect for these guys as athletes, and even more as humans… they use their widespread influence for good – how can you not be impressed?
Then, comes the flip side. Using social media to make a complete mockery of themselves. Case in point… this week, Portland’s own Greg Oden. There are multiple incidents that are embarrassing for athletes that have a very public persona – and some of the ramifications are career threatening, in the case of Gilbert Arenas. In many cases, it is simply kids making a mistake that is extraordinarily public (Brandon Jennings on Twitter and Video). Remember, these athletes are often times not even of drinking age but making millions of dollars…with plenty of free time on their hands. You know what they say about idle hands…
From my perspective, the moral here for professional athletes to take care with their use of Social Media. You have an incredible opportunity to extend your influence for good and to give the people that ultimately pay your salary (the fans) the ability to take a peek into your ‘off field’ persona. Be careful of what you ‘Tweet’ – it could come back to bite you…
According to a recent study done by the site Pingdom, women participate more than men in most social networking sites. The outliers? Slashdot, Reddit, and Digg – which does not surprise me at all, based on the content that is prevalent on those three sites. Pingdom has a nice graphic (below) showing the gender distribution across the Social Web. For the full blog post for this report, continue reading here.
Social Media Today has a great article this week on Social Media monitoring – breaking it down to 4 simple cornerstones:
(1) Competitive Analysis
(2) Product Development
(3) Reputation Management
(4) Outreach
From my vantage point – many companies do a great job in 3 of the 4 areas listed above. I think the one that falls short is ‘Product Development’…which is a big miss in my opinion. At Intel, one of our marketing groups launched a pilot for this about a year ago with a technology partner – Asus, and a media vendor that understand the space very well – Federated Media. The project? Crowdsource design a PC that will be built by Asus, with Intel Inside. For more, check out WePC.
I send out a weekly ‘newsletter’ of the 10 most compelling things that I read each week to a small group of people internally and some of my agency and media partners outside of Intel. One of the topics that I included was the title of this post. Inc. Magazine released a study last week that I found to be very interesting. What the study shows is that of the 500 fastest growing private companies in the U.S. an overwhelmingly large percentage of them are actively engaged with Social Media disciplines, tools, and/or activities:
“According to the study, social media usage by companies on the Inc. 500 has grown in the past year, with 91 percent of companies reporting that they use at least one social media tool, compared with 77 percent of companies surveyed in 2008. Of the six social media categories covered in the survey, the one that continues to be the most familiar to Inc. 500 companies is social networking, with 75 percent saying that they are “very familiar with it.”
What’s interesting about this study is that all companies surveyed were privately held – perhaps showing a higher tolerance for ‘risk’ associated with Social Media activities. Another quote that shows where the motivation lies for adopting new and compelling marketing disciplines states very simply:
“Inc. 500 companies are focused on doing anything they can to grow faster and social media is an innovative tool that may give them an edge over their competition”
In summary – stay on the forefront of marketing innovation to ensure you’re message stands out over the competition. Pretty simple, but many public companies are slow to recognize this and the value that Social Media contributes to that leadership message…
Beyond what you read on V/Speak – there are some other ‘must reads’ out there that are summarized nicely on Freelance Folder’s site. Ritu lists out the top 25 blogs to help you stay current with Social Media including some of my favorites and daily reads:
Mashable – Founded in July 2005, Mashable is the world’s largest blog focused exclusively on Web 2.0 and Social Media news. With more than 12.5 million monthly pageviews, Mashable is the most prolific blog reviewing new Web sites and services, publishing breaking news on what’s new on the web and offering social media resources and guides.
Social Media Today – Social Media Today LLC helps global organizations create purpose-built B2B social communities designed to achieve specific, measurable corporate goals by engaging exactly the customers and prospects you most want to reach.
PR 2.0 – Brian Solis is Principal of FutureWorks, an award-winning PR and New Media agency in Silicon Valley. Solis is globally recognized for his views and insights on the convergence of PR, Traditional Media and Social Media. Considered one of the original thought leaders who paved the way for Social Media and PR 2.0, Solis is co-founder of the Social Media Club.
There is a larger subset on his site, and many are worth reading. The above represent my favorite three of the bunch as they are well thought out, informative, and usually a step ahead of the trend…
This is getting a lot of activity on the Social Web this week – an interesting view of the Social Media activities that are happening during the time you are on this site, looking at this post.
comScore, in collaboration with GroupM Search, released a study this week that discusses the important connection between Search and Social Media. Hard to see in the diagram above, the study shows a signficant lift in consumer tendency to search for brand and product related terms when both relevant and influenced Social Media are incorporated in the paid search effort. In my opinion, the value of the connection to Social Media goes beyond just search however, extending to every paid action a company has on their media plan. Below are some key soundbites from the report that are spot on in their assessment of the connection.
“There is a valuable audience for advertisers to focus on who are engaged with brands through social media and search. The study further validates our view that media discovery — specifically a brand’s owned and earned media — is as important to success as the paid media we handle every day. Generating upper-funnel awareness and influencing consideration through social media can produce better down-the-funnel performance with paid media, such as paid search.” (Credit: comScore)
and
“Social media-exposed consumers are far more likely to search for brand and product-related terms, and click on a brand’s paid search ad,” said Graham Mudd, vice president of comScore, Inc. “This finding provides strong evidence that investing in social media marketing can both increase initial brand consideration and drive higher conversion rates once the consumer has decided to purchase.” (Credit: comScore)
I’m not sure I could have said this better myself:
“Now, thanks to the blogosphere, Twitter, and other other social media tools you can kvetch all you like for the public at large. But you had better turn all that acidity into something funny or relevant if you want people to listen in.” (credit FastCompany)
