7 Key Findings On The Use of Social Media And E-Commerce: New Study. Online retailers have been rushing into using Social Media as the next big marketing thing and yes it is showing some promise. A recent study by Compete which evaluated online shopping trends, unearthed some interesting findings about the use of Social Media and online shopping, especially about Facebook and Twitter.
Case Study: Social Networking Does Work. M+R Strategic Services released their 2010 NonProfit Social Media Benchmark Study: An Analysis of Growth and Social Engagement Metrics for Nonprofit Organizations. The findings in the study are quite re-assuring for some of the best practices we already know.
Paul Gillin’s Guide to Choosing Social Media Tools. Most companies have the same problem: They’ve dabbled in blogs, Twitter and Facebook fan pages but after several months they lack traffic, followers and fans. They’re frustrated and confused. Wasn’t this supposed to be a cheap and easy way to build their brand and bring in sales? Social media demands a strategy, and that’s where businesses usually don’t go far enough.
B2B Case Study: How to Get Started in Social Media. The second in a series of “How To’s” to help you add social media to your integrated marketing communications program. Integrated Marcom Minute interviewed Katherine Watkins, Marketing Communications Manager, Eastman Chemical Company, to learn how she and her marcom team integrated social media into their marcom mix.
Adopting Social Media in the Enterprise. Most enterprises have made attempts at dipping their toe in social media mostly by establishing a presence on what we will call the “free social web” – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. While these social outposts are extremely important for branding and driving traffic to an enterprise’s web site or online community, they are difficult to measure and track and, most importantly, it’s difficult for the brand to own the conversations happening within the broader social web.
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.
The study indicates that social media is being integrated with rather than interfering with students’ academic lives. College students have grown up with social networks, and the study shows they are now simply part of how students interact with each other with no apparent impact on grades. – UNH adjunct professor Chuck Martin
It seems that most of the time that is used for social networks comes from TV, idle surfing, and gaming. This way the time spent on social networking sites could be said to be a “higher quality” activity. The time for studying and other important thing stays the same.
The research shows that there is no correlation between the amount of time students spend using social media and their grades. Grades followed similar distributions for all colleges.
63% of heavy users received high grades, compared to 65% of light users. 37% of heavy users of social media received what were defined as lower grades and 35% of light users fell into same category.
The study showed that Facebook and YouTube are the most popular social media sites, with 96% of students saying they use Facebook and 84% saying they use YouTube. 20% said they use blogs, 14% use Twitter, 12% use MySpace and 10% use LinkedIn.
89% of students use social networks for social reasons and 79% use them for entertainment. 26% of students use social media for educational reasons and 16% for professional reasons.
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Image credit Mary Gober
Status update demographics accross major services. 19% of internet users say they use Twitter or another service to share updates about themselves, or to see updates about others. This is almost twice as much as in the previous surveys from December 2008 and April 2009, where this nomber was only 11%.
Gadget people are using status-update services. The more devices someone owns, the more likely they are to use Twitter or another service to update their status. Use of status-update services by device count:
39% of users with more than three internet-conncted devices
Really interesting result for me was that: Analysis shows that the most popular channel for sharing content is email. Nearly 60 per cent use email to share content.
Other major findings
Despite the social media revolution – traditional forms of networking like email and instant messaging continue to be the most popular mediums of sharing content across the Internet. Nearly 60 percent of overall sharing happens over emails.
Facebook has displaced MySpace as the most popular social networking site when it comes to sharing content.
It is clear that Twitter is perceived to be a news broadcast platform and not a “sharing” platform. It enjoys only 5% of “shared information” traffic among popular social platforms.
Bookmarks are rapidly losing their significance in the social media space. Only 2% of shares happen over Bookmarking sites.
When it comes to email services, Yahoo Mail is still the most preferred, followed by MSN. Gmail is way behind.
Google’s services like Google Bookmarking, Google Talk, Gmail, and Blogger have failed to replicate the brand’s search engine success online, especially when it comes to ’shared information.’
LinkedIn, as a networking site, ranks the lowest when it comes to social media sharing.
According to the latest BIA/Kelsey’s study, 9% of small and medium-sized businesses use Twitter for marketing. In addition, 32 percent of small-businesses plan to use social media such as Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace in their marketing in the next 12 months.
39 percent of SMBs plan to include customer ratings or reviews on their own Web sites. It is about time to do that on their own territory as Google Sidewiki will let everyone to comment on every page. 31 percent plan to include links or ads placed on social sites or blogs.
Social media is here to stay and companies are noticing. As more and more people move to social media companies see thet if they do not follow they will become obsolete.
I think this one is a lose / lose. Journalistic integrity is a myth. Everyone has opinions. The idea of fair and balanced and “We report, you decide” is pure marketing BS. It’s how far a publication lets its opinions go that defines who they are and what position they hold in the marketplace.
The Washington Post is just exhibiting the desperate state of media as it goes through the growing pains of once having complete control and ultimate power to being relegated to the sidelines of relevancy because it has abused its position for far too long. People are fed up with the mainstream media controlling the message like these guidelines attempt to do so this will not help their efforts to stay alive.
Within 12 months, a full 82 percent of businesses will be using social media to promote their brand and the goods and services they offer consumers. Findings indicate that even though marketers will be turning more and more to social media for brand-building, many are still unsure how to begin or measure the effectiveness of this burgeoning media. For small business owners, the choice is clear — jump on the social media bandwagon or be left behind. via Social media will dominate small business marketing within a year.
More than half of all adult Internet users in the United States either visit or maintain a profile on at least one social networking site, according to a study conducted by Forrester Research.
Forrester says that the growth of users who consume social media such as podcasts, videos and blogs has grown almost as dramatically as social networking Web site users. The survey classified a full 73% of online U.S. adults as spectators, a big increase from the 48% that it classified as such in 2007. Additionally, the number of users who consume no social media has fallen from 44% in 2007 to 18% this year.
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