New Social Media Business Trends for 2011
Posted By: Jamie Sutera, VP of R&D, Jennings Social Media Marketing
Social Media is an important aspect to many businesses. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, blogs etc., are among the most popular ways to communicate and network. Business owners everywhere are utilizing social media in order to grow and manage their companies. Below is an article from http://venturebeat.com, written by Gary Halliwell, that reviews social media business trends for 2011.
According to the article, social media is always changing so it is important to stay on top of social media trends. Haliwell compiled a list of social media trends for 2011 to “help entrepreneurs make the most of this exciting marketing opportunity.”
Social marketing will move beyond Facebook and LinkedIn – A recent Harvard research study showed that information and influence travel up to three degrees across a social network. The information you communicate to friends, family and colleagues is often passed on beyond your network – possibly to thousands of people, most of whom you will not even know. Similarly, the information you receive each day may have traveled two or three degrees before it reaches you.
This is where the meat is for social marketers. In our connected world of Tweets, blogs, emails and posts, this information transmission is captured in electronic form, and what we know as “word-of-mouth” in face to face interaction has become “word-of-digital”, and it’s incredibly track-able and useful.
2011 and the years ahead will be a time when marketers start to get away from thinking of social marketing in terms of the limited information posted on Facebook or LinkedIn, and start to figure out how to influence and encourage the transmission of information across the vastly larger real social networks their customers inhabit.
Socially adept companies will align the needs of employees and customers – Social is about “we” – a dimension that few companies are used to operating in. “We” includes the inter-connectedness of customers on the internet, airing complaints and raving about things they like, creating resonance for brands both positive and negative. Just as importantly, and perhaps less intuitively, is that “we” also embraces employees.
I’ll again refer to Zappos, as it achieves customer excellence by ensuring employees and customers are aligned by delivering happiness to both employees and customers. Management knows that reacting to customers in real-time requires employees who are motivated, empowered and creative across the whole organization.
In 2011, we’ll see more companies embrace Zappos’ approach to social as integral, and large corporations relying on their inertia will feel the hot breath of excitement from fully motivated competition.
Millennials will take another step forward into the breach - The shift to greater social connectedness will continue to move forward in 2011. In 2010, at a recent conference about social media in Boston, not one of the 500 attendees was below the age of 30. As a result, a lot of the discussion about social media was that of fear, uncertainty and doubt.
As younger people begin to turn up at these sorts of conferences, expect the conversation to change into discussions and enthusiasm for the possibilities of social media, as opposed to the threats. Help is on its way, but it may be too late for larger more static companies where management think social is a cocktail in a bar.
Social will penetrate deeper into company structures – The Fall 2010 NetProspex Social Business Report analyzed over 2 million contact records of folks within the largest companies in the nation. The trends offered an interesting view into 2011.
Not surprisingly, marketing decision makers had the heaviest use of social media. Interestingly, our study also showed human resources professionals ranking 2nd for social network usage. CEOs, meanwhile, were number 11 on the list, outpaced by office managers and customer service reps. This is a trend that will hopefully reverse, as more CEOs see the power of social media to network and to amplify their thought leadership.
Go live or go home – In his recent book, Real-time Marketing and PR, David Meerman Scott gives many examples of companies that suffer from not reacting in real time to customer issues. Going “real time” means preparing an organization to react to what’s happening in their world, cohesively and adeptly. It requires planning for the future with room for ambiguity and change, and the flexibility to react from the top to the bottom of a company.
Going real time is something most companies, especially large ones, are not geared to do. Generally, management selection is based on planning, organizational and political skills. Now that customers have the power they do with social communication, in a conversation that is visible to all, Scott’s premise is that creativity and improvisation is required in the real-time culture that customer relations now demand.
The good news is that this pressure will create excellence seen in live performance, but 2011 is still the beginning of painful transition for the majority of business.
Thank you to Becky Bosshart, Writer for Recharger Magazine, for Featuring Valerie Jenning in a Recent Article
Posted By: Jamie Sutera, VP of R&D
Thank you to Becky Bosshart, writer for Recharger Magazine, for interviewing Valerie Jennings for a recent article. During the interview, Jennings discussed social media trends. According to the article, Valerie Jennings, who created a blog for InkCycle, said the company is building brand awareness of its eco-friendly ink cartridges using online reviews, and Sarah Thompson, LaserNetworks’ marketing manager, explains what new bloggers should expect from social media (hint: it’s a long-term investment).
Facebook Announces Map of the World – Relationships Revealed
Posted By: Carlee Vellinga
Facebook intern Paul Butler created a new visualization of Facebook relationships. He used the image of a map to demonstrate the connections that exist on Facebook with regards to geographical location. Read the article from mashable.com below.
The World’s Facebook Relationships Visualized [PIC]
Click the image for the full-sized version.
This is what the world looks like, according to the Facebook social graph.
Facebook intern Paul Butler was interested in the locations of friendships, so he decided to create a visualization of Facebook connections around the globe. How local are our friends? Where are the highest concentration of friendships? How do political and geological boundaries affect them?
Study Shows Twitter Surpasses Facebook as Marketing Tool
Posted By: Carlee Vellinga
A new study by SocialTwist reveals that Twitter links produce more clicks than links shared on Facebook. Twitter and Facebook are used for marketing as well as personal use. According to this study, Twitter proves more effective than Facebook at reaching customers. This article written by Barbara E. Hernandez from Entrepreneur.com highlights the pros and cons of both Facebook and Twitter.
Twitter Crushes Facebook for Marketing
Facebook makes up 78 percent of traffic among all social network sites and micro-blogging site Twitter accounts for 5 percent, but on average “tweets” with embedded links get 19 clicks while Facebook’s shared links only get three clicks, according to a study by SocialTwist.
The marketing firm, which offers viral social media marketing campaigns, analyzed more than a million shared links through its Tell-a-Friend widget that lets people share information on Websites. SocialTwist measured success by a clickthrough rate, a term for the number of clicks on a link that takes a user to a specific destination.
The survey yielded other surprises, such as that MySpace still has 15 percent of social media market share.
If you’re using Twitter or Facebook to reach out to customers, here’s what each service has going for and against it.
Ring In the New Year with 2011 Marketing Trends
Posted By: Carlee Vellinga
As the Holiday season approaches, the year is coming to a close. We look to the next year with anticipation and curiosity. What will 2011 hold for social media? This article written by Eric Tsai from B2C Marketing Insider reveals the four most expected trends for social networks, businesses and marketers.
4 Internet Marketing Trends For 2011
As we’re approaching the end of the 2010 there are numerous developments with businesses using social media. I had predicted that brands will need to figure out how social fits into their overall brand strategy by identifying where the leverage is with social media and how to manage it.
Online communities are now everywhere there is access and common objectives. Even social networks are interconnected themselves pushing and pulling content across various channels.
For business owners, bloggers and marketers, we have to realize that the landscape is changing and will continue to shift towards attentive reach, not frequency.
Instead of trying to reach broad targets of demographic groups, investing in paid media we find valuable organic content becoming more powerful, ranking higher by search engines and shared by passionate communities.
Need more facts to back up the growth of social media? According to Harris Interactive:
- 9 out of 10 (87%) online adults use social media
- Highest percentage (22%) uses social media less than 1 hour per week
- Highest percentage of 18-34 yr-olds (17%) uses social media 6-10 hours per week
Social Media Coupons and Promos Reach Audiences and attract “Followers” for Brands
Posted By: Carlee Vellinga 
More than half of consumers follow at least one brand on a social networking site. A new study shows that consumers chose to follow a brand in order to receive a deal or promo or to find more brand information. This article from InformationWeek.com was written by Alison Diana and it reveals the results of the new social media research.
Coupons, Promos Attract Social Media Brand ‘Followers’
The majority of consumers are willing to follow a brand on Facebook or Twitter — especially if there is a financial motivator such as coupons or special promotions, a new study found.
In fact, 60% of consumers polled follow at least one brand via a social network, and one in four said they did so in order to search for coupons or promotions, according to a poll of more than 15,000 residents of the United States and Canada by Empathica, a developer of customer experience management (CEM) solutions. Thirty percent cited their desire to seek more information on a brand, the study found.
“The challenge for companies is to identify the triggers that make consumers want to follow their brand, further engage with them and keep them top-of-mind,” said Gary Edwards, Empathica executive VP of client services. “Our survey results suggest consumers show preference to interacting with brands that offer coupons and promotions via social media outlets. It’s important for brands to recognize consumer preferences and what will help encourage them to visit an establishment.”
Valerie Jennings 
Cassie Stubs
Katie Stumpf
