Social Networking More Popular Than Email

These days social networking sites are grown rapidly and most of the people are tend to use it every day. In my profile i have 350+ friends and these days i just check for updates, status messages, photos etc. But earlier i used to spend my full time on it. Checking for groups, taking part in group discussion, playing games ( Warbook specially), send gifts, send card etc etc.

But there is other interesting story, according to the Nielsen research now people are social networking than e-mail. The report stated that by end of 2008, social networking had ovetaken email in terms of the worldwide reach. Based on the study, 66.8% of internet users accessed “member comunities” last year, compared to 65.1% for email.

The study also explored some other trends as well such as users spent 63% more time on member communities than they did in the previous year. The greatest facebook community saw a growth rate of 566% in time spent on it by the users. It also been reported facebook’s fastest growing demographic is old users.

Some other key findings from the report:
- Globally, Facebook reaches 29.9% of global Internet users, versus 22.4% for MySpace.
- MySpace remains the most profitable social network, generating an estimated $1 billion in revenue versus $300 million for Facebook in 2008.
- Facebook is the top social network in all countries except Germany, Brazil, and Japan (Nielsen still has MySpace as tops in US in the report, but as of January ’09, that had changed).
- On Twitter, CNN, The New York Times, and BBC have the greatest reach among mainstream media companies as of late February.

Overall, most of these trends aren’t surprising if you’ve been following the space, but nonetheless, tie some numbers to them. Most impressive is the rise of Facebook, who is outpacing the growth of the social networking space on the whole by nearly tenfold.

The Role of Marketing in Challenging Times

Every cloud has a silver lining and the current economic down turn- which started in the West but is having an inevitable worldwide impact- is no exception. Despite feeling anxious about the overall state of the global economy. The marketing bodies have found that marketers remain relatively optimistic about the fortunes of their own companies, and crucially, the prospects for marketers themselves.

How is this possible? Simple. Marketing is now at the very heart of business and is accepted as the competitive differentiator in these challenging times. In short, there is recognition that it will be those organizations that attract and retain professional marketers who will be best placed to ride out and even profit from the economic turbulence.

Why marketing? Surely when budgets are tight, the last thing you need is marketers overspending on ever so-creative but ever-so-ineffective campaigns? In fact, more and more organizations have woken up to the fact that qualified marketers can have a fundamental role not just in the here-and-now, but in the long term success if their business.

After all, marketing is about so much more than advertising or promotion. When times are tough, forward-thinking organizations need professionals adept in anticipating, identifying and then meeting customer and market needs. Never is this more relevant than at times like this, when competition for consumers’ spending becomes fierce. The survivors- the winners -0 will be those organizations able to respond quickly and appropriately to changes in their customers and markets.

In fact, in bracing themselves for challenging times, many marketers are already significantly altering their plans to cope with the rapidly different climate of the recession. They are adapting to the changing needs of their markets and customers; they are using their resources ever more wisely; and they are monitoring their achievements with growing precision.

What all this means is that there has never been a better time to be a professional marketer, for you have a key role to play in guiding companies through the tough times ahead. Being at the very forefront of business means this profession has more and more to offer both those embarking on a new career or those already working their way up the marketing career ladder.

Indeed, marketing is one of the most dynamic, constantly evolving profession. It encompasses a wide range of activities and skills- from number crunching and analysis right through to innovation and creativity. Marketing executives are involved in planning, advertising, promotion, public and media relations, PD, distribution, sponsorship and research- just name a few. And although marketers are found chiefly within the private sector, there are more and more marketing jobs in the public and not-for-profit sectors as the long-term benefits that responsible marketing brings become more evident. Social marketing too is how firmly on the agenda as a cultural force for beneficial global change.

Whilst the responsibilities of the role will course vary, depending on the size of the organization and sector, and whether the focus is on selling a product, service or raising awareness of an issue, what all marketing roles share is being in an exciting, varied and challenging role at the very centre of business.

Not only is marketing an exhilarating profession, it is also an increasingly popular one. Not only are unprecedented numbers of people choosing marketing as their profession of choice, but many millions of others are making marketing decisions as part of their everyday job role. This does not, however, mean that the profession is saturated. Indeed, it is the qualified marketer the situation, decide the best options and implement appropriate strategies to meet the rapid changes that lay ahead of us all.

For anyone in any doubt about the extent of the transformation within the sector, you need look no further how the techniques of marketing have changes hugely in the last 40 years with the spread of radio and then television, faster and more pictorial printing of newspapers and magazines and the growth of digital media.

The introduction of digital media alone has brought an explosion in the number of channels marketers can use. This year is just the 10th anniversary of the launch of Google. Moreover, we have, as marketers in recent years, had to take on board other business issues such as social responsibility, reputation management and increasingly demanding stakeholder communication.

I think, it’s our time for marketers. I would go so far as to say that as marketers, we are now requiring more than any other professional to understand the business and our role in delivering strategic business objective. Do you all agree?

Word of Mouth in the Digital Era

Word of mouth is an ever and ever powerful tool for the companies. Research from Nielsen carried out in 2007 showed that WOM is the most powerful selling tool available to marketers, with 78 per cent of customers trusting consumer recommendations above all other types of marketing.
The trust consumers place in WOM means it can change the way that brands are perceived, argues Harri Owen, buzz manager at Hyperlaunch. The biggest benefits come from increasing engagement and dialogue with the target audience.
Owen cites Dell’s “Idea Storm” (www.dellideastorm.com) initiative as a great example of WOM’s potential. By encouraging input from its target audience, Dell managed to shift customer perceptions of the brand away from an uncaring and remote image.
“Transparency is crucial,” says Owen. “Connecting with communities under their terms of use and their own community tolerances is critical. Each community sets these levels differently and they should be approached with caution and respect.”

Caution and respect are indeed important watchwords, but, while they should be kept in mind, they shouldn’t preclude original and engaging communication. Smart brands are stimulating WOM in clever ways.

Influential friends

Over the Christmas period, retailer Borders ran a Facebook campaign in which it challenged the wider Facebook community to create a group of friends entitled “I want to win signed Quentin Blake artwork from www.borders.co.uk”.
The person who created the biggest group of friends won the signed prints. As a result, Borders attracted many new friends to its online community, creating a wider audience for marketing messaging.
Borders digital marketing manager Nick Atkinson describes WOM as “a bit of a minefield”. He feels that, even with recent changes to regulations, many marketers are still not as clear and upfront about their identity and intentions online as they should be.
But putting ethics to one side, Atkinson believes this kind of deceptive marketing is lacklustre.
“You get a much higher quality and more sustainable response when you interact with people in a clear and honest way because it gives them the chance to make a considered response to your marketing,” he explains.
“There are two important aspects to a successful online campaign, and these are often the hardest things to achieve,” he says. “One is to trigger a genuine emotional reaction in your target audience, and the second is to be the most price-competitive.”
Sometimes creativity is the way to drive that emotional reaction. American retailer JC Penney created a viral smash for itself in the festive season with its “Doghouse” video, which benefited from high production values and a genuinely funny script (http://bewareofthedoghouse.com).

A question of taste

Burger King recently delivered a WOM campaign in the US that attracted criticism as well as plaudits. The mechanic of the “Whopper Sacrifice” promotion, which ran on social networking site Facebook, involved consumers deleting 10 Facebook “friends” to receive a coupon entitling them to a free Whopper. The ex-friends, meanwhile, were notified as to what had been done and why. Participants could also send each other heavily branded “Angry-Grams”.
The Whopper Sacrifice idea took off. By the end of the promotion almost 234,000 friendships had been sacrificed. Friends joked online about sacrificing each other for the sake of a burger – and the norm was for friends to be reinstated on Facebook after free Whoppers had been claimed. Yet some observers expressed distaste, with at least one blogger going so far as to label Whopper Sacrifice as puerile and obnoxious.
Burger King’s irreverent approach works well with its target audience, but may be too risky for many brands. Mobile phone brand T-Mobile is more cautious with its UK WOM activity. It has created an “Advocate Panel” on an extranet site to create a buzz. T-Mobile market intelligence manager Gavin Sugden says that panel participants are offered rewards such as tickets to football matches to get them to participate, but that they also simply take pleasure in giving their views on products and services.
This co-creation approach is of huge benefit to the company, both in terms of new product development and seeding positive brand associations. T-Mobile is among a large number of businesses that seek to measure customer loyalty using the net promoter score as a metric, dividing consumers into those who rate products or services highly (promoters), at mid-level (passives) or poorly (detractors). Online discussion of products and services can give insight into net promoter scores.

Talk tactics

The clout behind the online words of one individual or another is not equal. Paid services such as Brandwatch, Buzzmetrics and Onalytica offer an analysis of data and claim to be able to identify conversation influencers. Services such as Radian 6 and Sysomos offer a more do‑it‑yourself toolkit for conversation analysis.
Influence is not something marketers can always hope to command online, but respecting certain rules will gain marketers respect in turn. Marketing guru Seth Godin stresses the importance of delivering anticipated, personal and relevant messages to people who want them. Spamming people with your message will not create a buzz.
Nor is WOM about labelling a medium with branding. Justin Kirby, chairman of online WOM opinion panel Yooster, says many marketers fail to realise that in social networks, the people themselves are the medium, not the site. He reminds marketers that a few negative consumer comments should never trigger a knee‑jerk change of strategy. “You could make some schoolboy errors by basing strategic decisions on the input of a handful of vocal disgruntled teenagers.”
It is vital, therefore, to build up a picture of who wields influence and who does not. With regard to the blogosphere, the specialist search engine Technorati produces a measure of authority for all the blogs it searches, using the inbound links to an individual blog to generate a measure of its influence.
For social networks, simple measures such as the number of “friends” an individual has attached to their profile can help to define influence, but this can also be a measure of an individual’s preoccupation with popularity, which is not the same as influence. Emerging tools such as Facebook Grader attempt to calculate an individual’s influence scientifically.
Twitter offers a more immediate measure of influence in terms of number of followers of an individual profile, but the number of others they interact with and how often their messages are passed on are also worth noting. Tools such as Twinfluence aim to deliver a picture of reach and authority on Twitter, although the company may soon begin charging companies for its brand‑tracking services.
“If you go to a WOM conference, 70 per cent of the presentations are about digital WOM, but 90 per cent of the conversations people have about brands happen offline,” says managing partner of agency Spring Research, Stephen Phillips.
“The difficulty you have with offline is that you can’t measure it,” he says. In other words, never forget that online is only part of the picture.

Foot in mouth

Wal-Mart ended up with egg on its face when its PR agency Edelman was shown to be behind a fake blog, or “flog”, that followed the progress of a supposedly impartial couple driving their motorhome to Wal-Mart car parks across America. (www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2006/oct/16/whatsafloga)
A Facebook group of Tesco employees caused embarrassment to the retailer when comments were posted labelling customers as rude, smelly and stupid. (www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/20/michele-hanson-tesco-facebook)

In 2006, Sony was discovered to have hired a marketing company to create a sham fan site called All I Want For Christmas is a PSP, attracting plenty of negative comment on genuine games sites and blogs once the ruse was rumbled. (http://adweek.blogs.com/adfreak/2006/12/sony_gets_rippe.html)

Whole Foods CEO John Mackey spent a decade praising his company on Yahoo message boards under a pseudonym before his true identity was uncovered. (www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/05/23/rahodeb-returns-whole-foo_n_103244.html)

Burger King fired two executives in the US last summer after anonymous comments disparaging a farm-workers’ group were posted online.
(www.ciw-online.org/BK_campaign_archive.html)

Deliver to people who want to hear your message – spamming will not create a buzz

The above great article was written by Robert Gray for The  Marketer Magazine