DreamGrow Social Media

Facebook to be worth over $40 billion dollars next year?

As WSJ reported, Facebook will probably go public in 2011, once it has reached a year of $1 billion behind it in sales. So a bunch of investors were polled about what they think the market capitalization would be – The results came to be between $35 and $40 billion dollars!

Although, some brave analysts have even suggested that the amount would be $59 billion in 2011 (a market cap over 2 times bigger than that of Google’s in 2004), and up to $100 billion dollars by 2015.

Priit suggests that the time of poster-boy Google may soon be over. Replaced by the poster-boy Facebook. Over everything else, people want to communicate. And right now, nothing enables us to do it better than Facebook.

What do you think? Would you buy Facebook shares?

If You Need Influential Consumers And Word-of-Mouth Go To Online Forums

True fans are the people who really like you and won’t miss the opportunity to tell others about you. A recent study from PostRelease reveals that a place to look for brand advocates could be online forums.

Online forums are one of the first tools of social media. Early web-based forums date back as far as 1996. Our experience from running online forums the core users are very opinionated and very loyal. Usually a community develops around forums with regular users.

The new study shows that their influence reaches online and off. The users of online forums post reviews, share links, organize offline meetups and proactively recommend a purchase more often than regular internet users. About one fifth of Americans contribute to forums.

Some of the results from the survey:

• 79.2 percent of forum contributors help a friend or family member make a decision about a product purchase – compared with 47.6 percent of non-contributors and 53.8 percent overall
• 65 percent of forum contributors share advice (offline and in person) based on information that they’ve read online – compared with 35 percent of non-contributors and 40.8 percent overall.
• 66 percent of forum contributors post online ratings/reviews of products/services, compared with 16.8 percent of non-contributors and 26.4 percent overall.
• 57.7 percent of forum contributors proactively recommend that someone make a particular purchase – compared with 16.9 percent of non-contributors and 24.9 percent overall.
• 43.6 percent of forum contributors share links to articles about new products or with reviews of products – compared with 12 percent of non-contributors and 18.2 percent overall.
• 35.6 percent of forum contributors attend an offline event or meet up where people with similar interests or who share the same hobby connect – compared with 13.8 percent of non-contributors and 18 percent overall.
• 20.6 percent of forum contributors publish a blog – compared with 2.1 percent of non-contributors and 5.7 percent overall.
• 18.8 percent of forum contributors take an active role in organizing an offline event or meetup for a group that met originally online – compared with 2.4 percent of non-contributors and 5.6 percent overall.

So it seems a really good idea to find the forums relevant to your business and identify the key players in those forums. Here are some free tools that will get you started.

Boardreader
BoardReader can be used to find and information on the forums and message boards. Boardreader uses proprietary software that allows users to search multiple message boards simultaneously.

BoardTracker
A search engine in the ‘traditional’ sense. All the information in our database is from forum threads only, all extraneous text on a page is excluded by default which allows use to return even more relevant results without the ’spam’. Corporate users can arm their sales and marketing staff with BoardTracker accounts to give them essential business intelligence.

For other free social media monitoring tools visit our post: 46 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools.

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Image credit Peter Suneson

Social Media and Young Adults

Pew Internet & American Life Project released a study about internet and social media use among Millennial generation by situating it within similar data for adolescents and adults older than 30. The data on teens is drawn from a survey conducted between June 26 and September 24, 2009 of 800 adolescents (ages 12 to 17). The adult data are drawn from a survey conducted between August 18 and September 14, 2009 of 2,253 adults (age 18 and over). Here are some of the key findings:

Blogging is down among young adults

• One of the findings is that young people are blogging less than they used to. 14% of online teens say they blog, down from 28% in 2006.
• Also the commenting activity is lower as 52% of teen social network users report commenting on friends’ blogs, down from the 76% who did so in 2006.
• In 2009 15% of internet users ages 18-29 maintain a blog —a 9% point drop in two years. However, 11% of internet users ages thirty and older now maintain a personal blog (7% in 2007).

Social networking sites’ usage numbers

• 73% of wired American teens use social networking websites. 55% of online teens used social networking sites in November 2006.
• 47% of online adults use social networking sites, up from 37% in November 2008.
• 72% of online 18-29 year olds use social networking websites, significantly higher than the 40% of internet users ages 30 and up who use these sites.
• Adults are increasingly fragmenting their social networking experience as a majority of those who use social networking sites – 52% say they have two or more different profiles.
• Among adult profile owners 73% have a Facebook profile, 48% have a MySpace profile and 14% have a profile on LinkedIn.

Teens are not using Twitter

• 8% of internet users ages 12-17 use Twitter. Older teens are more likely to use Twitter than their younger counterparts; 10% of online teens ages 14-17 do so, compared with 5% of those ages 12-13.
• Young adults lead the way when it comes to using Twitter or status updating. One-third of online 18-29 year olds post or read status updates.

Mobile

• Three-quarters of teens and 93% of adults ages 18-29 now have a cell phone.

Internet usage

• 93% of teens ages 12-17 and young adults ages 18-29 go online. 74% of all adults ages 18 and older go online.
• 48% of online teens have bought things online: books, clothing or music, up from 31% in 2000.

Image credit Bina Sveda

Gartner: Social Software Is an Enterprise Reality

Gartner released a report “Predicts 2010: Social Software Is an Enterprise Reality” in which analysts offer predictions for the next five years. Concentrating on social software Gartner stresses five key points.

1. By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20 percent of business users.

This prediction is matches our own view of changes brought on by mass adoption of social networking sites. (Social Media Replaces Email and IM and 22 Social Media Marketing Trends for 2010). Gartner predicts that by 2014 about 20 percent of business users will use social networking sites as the hub of their business communications. We believe this number to be even higher as social networking companies will push to make this happen. On the other hand email provides will seek out ways to turn their user-base to social networks. These trends will blur the line between social and email.

2. By 2012, over 50 percent of enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging, but stand-alone enterprise microblogging will have less than 5 percent penetration.

Our view is that in-house corporate microbloging platforms will not see wide spread adoption. The main reason for this is that small user base will not generate enough social chatter to keep the interest up. The second obstacle in the adoption of private microblogging platforms will be the resistance from employees who see it as another “time waster”.

3. Through 2012, over 70 percent of IT-dominated social media initiatives will fail.

Well, this is a bit of a no brainer. We have seen it in our work and we firmly believe that IT-people should be kept away from making decisions about marketing communications. As Gartner puts it:

When it comes to collaboration, IT organizations are accustomed to providing a technology platform (such as, e-mail, IM, Web conferencing) rather than delivering a social solution that targets specific business value.

Social media communications is a business process. This process needs tools that come out of IT-department, but they do not define those processes. Business side must be very careful not to bend under the pressure from IT about what can or cannot be done.

4. Within five years, 70 percent of collaboration and communications applications designed on PCs will be modeled after user experience lessons from smartphone collaboration applications.

Yes, mobile is big! It will get BIGGER. But the user experience on different devices will (hopefully) be driven by delivering the best user experience, doh. Gartner suggests that people are more productive on smartphones than on PCs due to better user interfaces.

The experience with these tools for all who use them will enable the user to handle far more conversations within a given amount of time than their PCs simply because they are easier to use.

We believe that small devices have inherently worse user experience than their desktop counterparts. This ensures that full size computers will continue to provide superior user experience. This will hold until we have perfected voice commands, HUD-glasses and other wearable computing technologies.

5. Through 2015, only 25 percent of enterprises will routinely utilize social network analysis to improve performance and productivity.

The Gartner’s number 25 percent seems reasonable, but the reasoning does not. Privacy concerns will not hold people from analyzing social data. Lack of knowledge and initiative in the enterprise will do that. Our personal information is mined and analyzed in countless places and most of us don’t care. Agreed, social is more personal than that, but we believe that a lot of the benefits can be dug out from anonymous statistical analysis that doesn’t invade privacy. For more sensitive information consumers can trade privacy for benefits.

Social networking is in it infancy and the next few years will see a lot of change. How we communicate with friends and businesses, new business models and processes, new hardware technology, user interfaces, etc. But at the core of it is our need to communicate and belong. So, there.

Who rules the social web?

I found this really cool infogrphic. Gender balance in social networks? Chicks Rule! Women seem to be in general more sociable. This would make the social networking sites more appealing to them as places where to connect and share experiences.

I believe that the number of users may equalize in future. However, if we would look at the activity on the social site my guess would be that women rule even more.

Marketers must understand that women are directly or indirectly behind most household spending decision. Also, women lead 4 out of 5 stages of the buying process. Three of these stages are closely tied to social media sites: research, ownership and word-of-mouth.

To summarize: in social networking sites it is a good idea to target women and try to influence the non-purchasing stages of buying process. Women don’t buy brands. They join them (Understanding Women — Eight Essential Truths That Work in Your Business and Your Life). From the marketers point of view this is very important. So, adapt and get some women in your marketing team.

Here are some more facts about women spending (via she-conomy.com):

• Senior women age 50 and older control net worth of $19 trillion and own more than three-fourths of the nation’s financial wealth. – MassMutual Financial Group–2007
• Over the next decade, women will control two thirds of consumer wealth in the United States and be the beneficiaries of the largest transference of wealth in our country’s history. Estimates range from $12 to $40 trillion. Many Boomer women will experience a double inheritance windfall, from both parents and husband. The Boomer woman is a consumer that luxury brands want to resonate with. – Claire Behar, Senior Partner and Director, New Business Development, Fleishman-Hillard New York
• Women account for 85% of all consumer purchases including everything from autos to health care.
• 92% pass along information about deals or finds to others.
• 76% want to be part of a special or select panel.

And still women feel misunderstood:

• 59% of women feel misunderstood by food marketers;
• 66% feel misunderstood by health care marketers;
• 74% feel misunderstood by automotive marketers;
• 84% feel misunderstood by investment marketers
• 91% of women in one survey said that advertisers don’t understand them.

Social Media Weekend: Facebook vs Twitter, Sports, Olympics, Ski Resorts, Retailers

Olympics’ Social Rings. TV may still be the big marketing vehicle around the Olympics, but sponsors use social media to build buzz and get fans involved.

“People are blogging with their phones and taking photos with them,” says David Steel, svp of strategic marketing, Samsung Electronics America. “The timing seems perfect to have a program oriented around mobile social networking.”

A Third of Adults Now Post to Sites Like Facebook, Twitter Once a Week. The ranks of these networkers, dubbed “conversationalists” in a report released today by Forrester Research, have grown in the past couple of years. They’re mostly women, and they aren’t only young people — 70% of the adults in this category are 30 and older.

Ski Resorts and Snow Reports and Social Media: A match made in heaven? The Top 10 North American Ski Resorts Utilizing Social Media.

Retailers Lure Moms with Social Media, Free Stuff. The study found that women with children at home are more likely to use Facebook (60.3%), MySpace (42.4%) and Twitter (16.5%) than average adults (50.2%, 34.4%, 15.0%, respectively). Moreover, 15.3% maintain their own blog.

Study Reveals Facebook Better Than Twitter for Marketers. Can’t say that it surprises me. Facebook encourages users to aggregate external content on Facebook to be viewed within the network, while Twitter encourages users to link externally, viewing content outside of the network.

Led by Facebook, Twitter, Global Time Spent on Social Media Sites up 82% Year over Year.

People in the U.S. continue to spend more time on social networking and blog sites as well, with total minutes increasing 210% year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 143% year-over-year in December 2009.

Youtube search taking up 28% of all Google searches

A year ago, comScore reported that YouTube has grown to be the second largest search engine on the internet, topped only by Google itself.

Today, comScore’s 2009 US Search Rankings Report, published last week, reports that YouTube searches grew by 35% in 2009, reaching to more than 3.9 billion search queries.

YouTube had 50% more searches than Yahoo web search and 180% more searches than Bing. What we can see clearly here, is that people are getting used to finding information in the form of a video. The same tendency has also shown on websites – people are more likely to watch a short video, rather than read the text next to the video, saying the same thing.

The growing importance of Youtube search (and video search in general) isn’t showing any signs of slowing down, but rather it will grow even more in 2010. So keep an eye on Youtube and maybe consider picking up a camera yourself.

Study: Students would have technology before people

A study released by Twix, showed students would rather give up their significant other than technology when taking a study break.

This may seem shocking to some. I would argue that this is a very reasonable choice. This is not really people versus technology. Technology helps me to connect and interact with hundreds of people.

I would say that the question is really would you give up connecting to all of your friends or one of your friends. In this case isolating yourself from everybody in favor of one significant other would not seem as a good alternative.

Study shows that two thirds of students would choose a network over one node.

Melinda Messineo, associate professor of sociology at Ball State, said that social networking plays a part in results from this study.

Students can most likely stand not talking to one person, as long as they can maintain a connection with others through social networks.

Other findings from the study:

• Two in five named the Internet/social media as the number one thing they couldn’t live without at college
• Little more than half of their daily interactions (55 percent) are in-person.
• Today 74 percent of students arrive at college more focused on getting a job after graduation than students 10 (58 percent), 20 (56 percent) and 30 (55 percent) years ago.
• Current students are seven times more likely to reach for their computers (63 percent) than the remote (8 percent); 10 years ago they were twice as likely (54 percent; 28 percent).

On the other hand, when looking at picture I chose to illustrate this post, it also depends on the significant other. Image credit Alek von Felkerzam

Top Social Brands of 2009

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who in the land is fairest of all? Today I came accross a list of 100 top social brands of 2009 put together by a social media management company Vitrue. The top 10 is…

1. iPhone
2. Disney
3. CNN
4. MTV
5. NBA
6. iTunes
7. Wii
8. Apple
9. Xbox
10. Nike

…and it looks weird. I really couldn’t put my finger on it but then I read that:

Some powerhouse technology brands were omitted from the list as they provide the backbone of many social networks. While Google, Facebook and others are top brands, The Vitrue 100 is measuring companies that are using social technology, not those who are the technology.

So you have to take that with a grain of salt. A list of social brands that excludes Google, Facebook, Youtube, Ophra, etc. So I started to look for a second opinion. It wasn’t too hard to find Social Radar Top 50 Social Brands of 2009. Their top 10 is a bit more believable (at least for me).

1. Twitter
2. Google
3. Facebook
4. iPhone
5. YouTube
6. Obama
7. Mac
8. Apple
9. iPod
10. Microsoft

Maybe it is my tech bias or something else but this list seems more in step with my understanding of top social brands. So what do you think?
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Image credit Melodi T

Why Consumers Friend or Follow Companies

New chart by MarketingSherpa shows what is motivating the social relationship between consumers and brands.

[One] unique driver of social connectedness with companies is to “get to know” the company. Although other aspects of the Internet have already opened this arena up to scrutiny, social media accelerated the ability of individual consumers to monitor, communicate and comment on companies as citizens.