The hot social trend for the first half of 2009 has been undeniably, Twitter. Everywhere you look brands, personalities, heck even your grandparents have some sort of relationship with the micro blogging tool. The usage growth of Twitter has been well documented in my blog and in many blogs more interesting than mine over the last 6 months. This month, we see that growth slow for the first time in a 12 month cycle. Granted, Twitter enjoyed a phenomenal spike over the last quarter and will continue to grow – but will it see another burst that we saw between February and May of this year, visible in the graph below? I think so – especially if we continue to find innovative ways to use this form of communication. Steve Johnson has a fascinating article in Time that details the effect of Twitter on our every day life and the potential for it to drastically change the way we live. Clive Thomas is quoted in the article as saying Twitter provides us with ‘ambient awareness‘ of our social and physical networks. It’s that ambient awareness that keeps us hungering for more…
I think so
David Veneski Community, Twitter Brand, Social Media, Twitter
Great article in Advertising Age today discussing the fact that brands need to continue to be creative and open with paid media. Product advertising has evolved from companies ‘pushing’ a brand message to their customers through a one-way exchange to a model where the customer plays a formative role in a brand’s success. With adding the ‘social’ label/ability to traditional media and advertising, companies are giving their customers a ‘voice’ in the advocacy of their brand – thereby relying on loyal customers to continue to elevate the status of that brand through word of mouth and their personal network. In effect, by creating openness in paid media efforts, companies are leveraging unpaid customer advocacy to make those paid branding efforts work harder…Best said in the following quote:
“Putting the “media” back into “social media” allows us to reconfigure our priorities from merely reaching consumers with a message to providing them with enough value to augment that message’s quality. By rethinking our media planning and buying strategies, we can make initial impressions work hard to engage the consumer, while the secondary, organic impressions work even harder to create more organic engagements. And when we become comfortable with our paid media generating organic media, we will then realize that the social web is not the enemy, but the best friend we could possibly ever have.”
Done right, an advertising campaign that leverages the promotion of it’s customer’s ‘voice’ can scale the reach of a modestly funded advertising campaign to levels it never could have afforded through relying on paid media alone.
David Veneski Advertising, Social Media Social Media
I referenced Oprah in my post yesterday… It appears that her influence extends beyond just the NY Times Best Seller list and has been a ‘tipping point’ for bringing social media tools (specifically, Twitter) to the mainstream.
From Hitwise: “So what was the Oprah-Effect on Twitter?…. Share of US Internet visits to Twitter increased 24% on Friday, April 17, the day of Oprah’s first Tweet. Comparing visits with the previous Friday, visits were up 43%.”
When you consider the increased ramp in traffic overall with Twitter this year and the report from Tech Crunch that they are ‘poised to double their monthly traffic once again’ – pushing their monthly uniques to more than 30M, these are very impressive statistics.
David Veneski Social Media Oprah, Social Media, Twitter
Summarized from Ad Age and their reporting from last week’s Digital Conference. Unilever’s CMO, Simon Clift had some interesting and bold things to say about Social Media and its role in the success or failure of Brand Building. As Ad Age states, he ‘Throws Down the Social Media Gauntlet’ and warns those brands that don’t recognize and adapt to constantaly changing role of digital media are in danger of extinction through ‘accelerated natural selection‘. He makes a great point. Survival of the fittest (or most adaptable) – Darwinism in marketing.
“Brands aren’t simply brands anymore. They are the center of a maelstrom of social and political dialogue made possible by digital media.”
He’s right. He went on to discuss how brands are becoming ‘conversation factors‘ and the ‘conversation is no longer one way or 30 seconds.‘ In effect evangelizing an open dialogue model – truly cracking the brand disccusion wide open and letting the consumer share in the building, or eroding, of that brand through their social voice.
As a postscript to the article, Ad Age outlines their “New Rules” to maintain pace in this ever changing digital world. 5 great points that I’ve summarized quickly, you can find the full list on their site.
- Listening to consumers is more important than talking at them.
- You can’t hide the corporation behind the brand anymore, or even fully separate the two.
- PR is a primary concern for every CMO and brand manager.
- Cause marketing isn’t about philanthropy, it’s about “enlightened self-interest”
- Social media is not a strategy. You need to understand it, and you’ll need to deploy it as a tactic.
David Veneski Marketing, Social Media Brand, Marketing, Social Media, Unilever
I’ve often said that if I could get SportsCenter and the plethora of sports I watch through my PC, I’d ditch my paid TV subscription. From what I can see – we are getting closer and closer to that. Last year we saw NBC broadcast their Sunday night games with the option of several different camera angles that allows you, the fan, to customize your viewing experience. Major League Baseball has come up with much the same play, however they have added features that make the offering even more compelling – like the ability to ‘overlay their favorite radio broadcasters onto the television feed‘ which harkins back to the days when families sat around the radio and ‘visualized’ the scene as Vin Scully would bring the game to life by his colorful commentary.
Perhaps the most engaging thing to come out of Sports and the Web is the social aspect. I follow Adam Ostrow of Mashable on Twitter and notice that he is as avid a sports fan as I am…. in a recent article, he posed the question “Can Social Media Get You to Watch the NBA Playoffs?” He goes on to outline the massive social media campaign Turner Sports is launching in hopes of reversing the declineof ratings in the NBA’s postseason. Smart. The league and its broadcasters are embracing you, the viewer, with more access than you’ve ever had before. It’s made me a more engaged fan – will it do the same for you?
David Veneski Social Media, Sports MLB, NBA, NFL, Social Media
Youth love social networks. Apparently so do the baby boomers and those baby boomers are making a big splash. This IS your mother’s social web and our parents are adopting it at a rate that is far out pacing the 20 and 30-something crowd. According to a study from Accenture, those born between 1946 and 1964 are
‘…the fastest growing users of social networking sites…’
Pair this with the new Nielsen information about Twitter growth being the largest in the 35-49 y/o age group and we come to the conclusion that the social web is getting older – by it’s own standards, and those using it. Steve Rubel expands on his Micro Pesuasion blog.
David Veneski Blogging, Social Media Baby Boomers, Blogging, Social Media
Recession. Wikipedia defines it as “…a general slowdown in economic activity in a country over a sustained period of time, or a business cycle contraction.” Yes – we’re definitely smack in the middle of a recession.
In the profession that I am in – marketing and media – we see the effects squarely hitting the budgets we use to promote and market our products. Personally, my media budget of 2009 looks vastly different than it did just one year ago. That’s not to say we are de-emphasizing the importance of advertising within our marketing mix, but we are definitely looking to make every dollar we spend work harder for us during this time. In addition we are looking at ways we can integrate ‘human’ capitol into our plan to augment the $$ we are actually spending.
What’s interesting about this is that we are not alone in continuing to maintain, if not increase, our focus on Social Media during this downturn. According to Forrester Research through findings in a recent survey, it was determined that “the use of social media as a marketing tool is on the rise” (from ReadWriteWeb). In fact the report continues to say that over 50% of the marketers surveyed indicated that they will actually be increasing the spend on social media and social tools in the coming months (diagram below from ReadWriteWeb).
For those companies that can afford to ‘spend their way through the recession’ the opportunities that come with it are interesting. How you ask? With so many companies reacting to the downturn by sharply reducing money spent on advertising from their marketing budgets, rates will become cheaper as a result of the decreased demand. For those willing to continue to spend in this environment, they will be able to advertise without having their message diluted by competitors – for a significantly lower cost. The moral I pull from these reports is to be smart where you cut your budgets, because the opportunity to break through the clutter and advertise your product may not be as costly as you think.
David Veneski Online Advertising, Social Media Advertising, Recession, Social Media
Razorfish released their 2009 Digital Outlook Report yesterday. Interesting read that covers a new role for agencies, what’s emerging, consumer conversations, the evolution of research and measurement, and 3 things every executive should know in 2009. I thought the “Trends in Social Influence Marketing” and “Bringing Media Mix Models Into the Digital Era” were very insightful.
David Veneski Digital Marketing, Integrated Marketing Advertising, measurement, Media, Online, Social Media
I’ve been pondering this post for a while, as anything ‘political’ sometimes rubs people the wrong way. Enough pondering – it’s relevant so I’m posting. As Computer Weekly states, we are in the middle of the first truly digital Presidency. It’s an interesting shift in how a campaign footprint can extend beyond the status quo and can serve as a model for businesses to incorporate social computing into their marketing mix. Looking at this Fast Company article that I was impressed by his forward thinking ways. By incorporating social media tools (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace) and disciplines into his everyday campaign activities, he was able to ‘Fish where the Fish are‘ and go where his customer base was. That’s top of mind for me every time I engage in a social effort in my day job at Intel. It just makes sense. I don’t subscribe to the ‘If you build it, they will come’ mentality of marketing. Your customers have established patterns and heavily traffic sites they feel a sense of trust with. As marketers of a brand it is our job to engage valuable customers, both current and prospective, where they are already going. Obama’s campaign staff took that to heart, and it helped pave the way for him to the ultimate CEO gig.
Update 3.21.09 – Fast Company profiles Chris Hughes, the man behind the social media component of Obama’s campaign.
David Veneski Social Media Barack Obama, Integration, Intel, Social Media, Twitter
It’s no secret that Twitter use has exploded…it’s not just the social media mavens that are mad ‘tweeters’, but the mainstream is using it to stay in touch with friends far and near – most of which they’ve never met. Athletes like Lance Armstrong, Shaquille O’Neal, and Shaun White are very active – with Lance having one of the largest group of ‘Followers’ on Twitter. The biggest growth rate I am seeing? Business usage. Great article in Advertising Age about How Social Media Tools Can Complement What You Do.
David Veneski Twitter Athlete, Social Media, Twitter