Social Media Infographic Reveals Shocking Data: 52 percent of marketers have found a customer via Facebook
Posted by Joe Davis, content marketer at JSMM
According to a recent infographic produced by Wishpond, social media ROI is delivering shocking results, including these four findings: brands get half of their reach on Facebook posts within 30 minutes; 27 percent of time spent on the Internet is on social media sites; 46 percent of online users rely on social media for a purchase; and 52 percent of marketers have found a customer via Facebook.
The infographic below has 17 great social media marketing statistics that we think are crucial for businesses. Check it out below:
If you have any questions on how your business can use social media, email us at valerie@jenningssocialmedia.com or call 816.221.1040.
Does Social Media Sell? Influencer Over Purchase & ROI
By Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM
Social media marketing can sell, but what about influence over purchase? In this recent article about social media and sales, some brands still believe that social media shouldn’t be utilized for generating revenue. What a conundrum for a CFO: spend more money on social media but don’t use it for sales? JSMM disagrees. Social media should be utilized for sales for B2C brands and B2B brands should still have a ROI strategy, even if it’s just SEO.
Find out how retailers are making money from social media and how to tap influence over purchasing power.
(Image Source: The Guider Group)
Why Fab proves that social media sells
With high profile brands such as Gap, Gamestop and, in the US, JCPenney, having opened and then subsequently closed Facebook stores (presumably because they weren’t delivering ROI) it would be easy to assume that social media is not suitable for sales – too easy, perhaps.
But those who dig a little deeper may find that opportunities abound if social media is leveraged in the right way.
“We haven’t tried to use social as a sales channel at all. It doesn’t suit our demographic and we’re not a discounter,” argues Andrew Curran, chairman at luxury homewares e-tailer Amara. “Having said that, there are examples – take Fab – of retailers for which social is a significant proportion of what they do and drives a large percentage of their business.”
He’s not wrong. E-commerce site Fab, which specialises in “everyday design” items, grew sales by nearly 300% in January 2013 over January 2012. In Europe alone, 50% of its members have come from social sharing and lead to 33% of revenue in the region. Its member base grew to 11m people, up from 1.5m at the start of last year. With social networking sites and mobile apps forming a significant part of its business model, the innovative company has won a raft of awards.
What is Social Media E-Commerce?
Posted by: Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM
I get a lot of questions about what is on the horizon for social media e-commerce. Here is a quick Q&A regarding the basics of social media e-commerce. If you have additional questions, please post via the comments.
1. What is social e-commerce?
Social e-commerce is the integration of social media and traditional online shopping.
2. Why should brands care?
Social media marketing may generate revenue for B2C brands. Utilizing new social media channels, apps, offers, coupons, etc. brands can capitalize on a quantifiable ROI.
3. How do you measure social e-commerce?
Facebook may be the easiest channels to point to. Its new “offers” feature allows brands to track how many consumers claimed an offer. However, tracking links, coupon codes or landing pages, may be the best way to drive metrics.
Thanks to Auctioneer Magazine for Publishing Valerie Jennings’ Social Media Marketing Insights
Posted by: Katie Stumpf, Intern at JSMM
Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing and Viral Bolt Media, was recently highlighted in Bryan Scribner’s article published in Auctioneer Magazine, the official publication of the National Auctioneers Association. In the article, Jennings gives her thoughts, approaches and strategies on integrating social media into a marketing plan.
Social Media Marketing: Give your customers something to talk about
Jennings Social Media Marketing Examines Impact of Social Media on Presidential Debates 2012
Posted by: Chelsea Lewis, manager of Jennings Social Media Marketing
Jennings Social Media Marketing, JSMM, understands and embraces the power of social media. This week the political world did the same with the integration of social media during the first presidential debate.
Twitter revealed that the October 3 presidential debate between, former Massachusetts gov. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama was the “most Tweeted” event in the social media company’s six year history. More than 10.3 million tweets were generated during the 90-minute debate. Twitter tracked the number of tweets referencing the debate, candidates and related terms each minute.
At one minute during the debate, almost 160,000 tweets were sent, breaking the old record of 52,756, which were recorded during Obama’s convention speech.
Read the article.
A chart released by Twitter Thursday morning revealed Wednesday night’s Presidential debate in Denver Colorado was the most Tweeted event in U.S. political history, generating 10.3 million tweets in 90 minutes, making it the latest on the ever-changing list of “most Tweeted” events in the company’s six year history.
And everyone, it seems, is really excited about it.
JSMM Teaches Social Media Marketers New Tactics at KC Summit
By: Tumara Rogers, Social Media Marketer, Jennings Social Media Marketing
Valerie Jennings - CEO and Founder, Tumara Rogers - Social Media Marketer
During Jennings Social Media Marketing’s opening day of the summit to educate the new team members, I am outnumber by the new interns . Thirteen years in corporate America with the self-coined nickname as corporate guru, the view from a new way of approaching business is exciting and a little frightening. JSMM is moving forward at lighting speeds to keep up with the ever-changing social media industry. The mentality of eat or be eaten creates a breathtaking view from here. As the information flows fluidly from the founder Valerie Jennings to our eager and hungry minds, I am reminded of the changing times.
Social media is a virtual world comprised of many new ways of approaching marketing within a company. The old way of traditional marketing thinking doesn’t fit the social media market. By getting a firsthand educational lesson from a veteran in the industry the reality of how quickly this industry pivots is apparent in the lesson activities of the day. Facebook posts are focused on visual content and happy go lucky daily posts, while Twitter focuses on articles and shout outs to great articles. The realization that every media platform has different needs and user desires is beyond apparent.
As corporate America strives to stay consistent and predictable, the social media world is changing the face of business. JSMM has continued the social media virtual world into the company culture. Embracing virtual life has a freedom every corporate cubical junkie desires. Congratulations Jennings Social Media Marketing for continually morphing and successfully leading the future of social media and business in America.
Jennings Social Media Marketing Reviews Best Practices for Managing Online Reviews
Written by: Chelsea Lewis, social media marketing manager, of Jennings Social Media Marketing
United Airlines learned a few things when sonsofmaxwell posted a YouTube video about their company. The video was a catchy song that addressed the fact that the airline had broken his guitar. The video now has over 12 million hits. United Airlines learned the hard way how important it is to manage reviews, comments and posts made about your company.
When creating a social media campaign, companies have to think about every single detail. Ranging from what kind of picture to use on a Facebook post to how to manage and review comments made about your company online. If one negative comment is over looked or not addressed it could spell disaster.
Rody Moore recently wrote an article for Mashable, detailing the top four ways to manage online reviews. The simple fact is, consumers read reviews and the more postive reviews the more success a company can reach. The top four strategies included; companies need to pay attention to what customers say, how often reviews are being posted, promote your reputation on the web and respond to every review personally. Companies need to manage and monitor their online reviews before they end up owing someone a whole lot of guitars.
Here are the key findings from the article:
When Carmen Popa opened her acne treatment center, Luminosity Acne Skincare in North Carolina, she quickly realized how valuable online reviews were to attracting new customers. “Clients often mentioned that it was the positive reviews that encouraged them to try out my business,” she says.
Research shows that online reviews strongly influence buying behavior, with nearly half of American consumers stating that they are more likely to visit a business after reading a positive online review. That makes review websites such as Yelp, Google Places, and Citysearch online archives of consumer opinions on how a business compares to similar shops.
Facebook Monetizes Pages With Check-In Coupons
By: Chelsea Lewis, social media marketing manager of Jennings Social Media Marketing
Marketers have constantly tried to figure out what is the best way to reach consumers on Facebook. There has never been a clear answer to the Facebook consumer engagement problem, but recently a new solution may have come to light: coupons.
Wildfire Interactive recently performed a study that focused on randomly sampled Facebook campaigns to see which got the highest response rates and earned media.
The report speculated about why such campaigns tend to be more shareable. One possibility is that questions let the user discover an aspect of one’s personality they may have been unaware of. Another is the show-off factor: Quizzes let users display their knowledge of trivia and “pick your favorites” challenges let users express their good taste.
The benefits to creating such widely shared campaigns are that they draw new users into the fold. The chance of a pick your favorites query being clicked by a friend is 27%, while quizzes and trivia contests rate 15% and 13%, respectively. From there, the data is encouraging as well: 82% of friends who click on a News Feed post for a quiz will take the quiz. Some 74% of those who click on a coupon offer in their News Feeds will download the coupon. Overall, the study found that earned media could account for up to a 12% boost in engagement rates.
Though the study highlights broad categories that do well with users, it also advocates adding personality to the offers, getting into the consumers’ heads to see if such an offer might be appealing and working in a gamification element that rewards users for sharing.
To read the entire article click here:
Jennings Social Media Marketing Thanks Client Wyndham Vacation Ownership for 3 Amazing Years & Looks Forward To Future
By Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM
Wyndham Vacation Ownership and JSMM have been working together since 2009. We started on a small test project with Extra Holidays by Wyndham which grew into an amazing business relationship over the years. To date, Extra Holidays by Wyndham has increased its Facebook page “likes” from 0 to approximately 11,000 in a few months; grown the Twitter following to 842; and monetized all of the social media channels, contributing to revenue.
I think the new challenges with Facebook Timeline and the lack of attention to new monetization strategies by larger brands have held a lot of companies back, but Wyndham Vacation Ownership is going to excel in this space with its new pages coming soon. Thank you, WVO and Extra Holidays by Wyndham, for working with JSMM!
Jennings Social Media Marketing Welcomes Twentyseven Global, KC Mobile Application & Software Development Company, To Client Roster: JSMM Launches, Grows and Protects Company’s Online Brand
By: Micah Pratt, director of JSMM
In a few short months, Jennings Social Media Marketing (JSMM) was retained to implement an aggressive social media and digital strategy for Twentyseven Global. The Kansas City-based mobile application and software development company, owned by CEO Steve Roatch, has been driving the social media tactics with Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM.
Jennings said that the company had a small online footprint. “We wanted to increase traffic, SEO, SMO and drive engagement to build Twentyseven Global’s online presence. We agreed to promote the company’s reputation via case studies that reviewed the successful undertakings by Twentyseven Global and its clients.”
To date, JSMM has helped Twentyseven Global spread the word about its recent success with clients including Front Flip Mobile, Airport Life and Epilogue Systems through press releases that were picked up by major outlets including Yahoo! Finance. These releases also resulted in page 1 Google search results for Twentyseven Global which was not the case prior to launching the social media strategy. Additionally, the Marketwire releases have enhanced the company’s online reputation via search results with nicely packaged testimonials and case studies. JSMM is now working on other targeted search phrases to increase Twentyseven Global’s search ranking.
In the short time JSMM has been retained, Twentyseven Global went from having zero followers on Twitter and no presence on Google search to seeing a large increase in engagement across social networking channels including Twitter, Facebook and Google+. The most recent success has been the roll out of a new blog for Twentyseven Global. JSMM’s goal is to position Twentyseven Global as a major influencer in the mobile app and software development industries. “Like” Twentyseven Global on Facebook and follow them on Twitter at @27Global to stay updated on the most current mobile app and company news.
Twentyseven Global is a global software engineering company based in Kansas City, Mo. We combine experienced on-site leadership with a network of offshore delivery centers to produce exceptional results. Our local teams are comprised of professionals with proven track records at software companies and leading systems integration firms. Our offshore development centers have been in business an average of 15 years, providing outstanding software development skills in locations chosen for their cost-effectiveness, stability, availability of English language skills and ability to work with the American culture.
How Social Media, SEO & Digital Media Are Becoming One
Posted By Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM
This article, written by Harry Gold at ClickZ, does a great job reviewing how social media, search engine optimization (SEO) and paid digital media are becoming part of one world. I think it’s a little more complicated than that, but my thoughts concerning these boundaries are still consistent with SEO and content management.
I think marketing professionals need a clear picture when it comes to understanding their goals, objectives, prospects and then balance these initiatives among social media, SEO and digital media buying to keep organizations’ expectations and ROI on target. It’s difficult when boundaries continue to evolve based on new technology, but everyone can stick with the basics: without a clear plan to reach stakeholders’ objectives and goals, it really means you just have a moving target without a strategy.
Check out the article which highlights how these areas are becoming one.
Social Media + Search Marketing + Online Media = Success
One thing I often talk about is the blurring of the lines between social media, search marketing, and online media. The days of specializing just in one area are going away because focus in one area limits your ability to create synergy between those three channels.
For example, you can’t run a social media marketing program without a strong knowledge of SEO. Without SEO expertise, you lose the extra benefit of universal search and inbound links. Conversely, if you are not used to tracking and optimizing online media and paid search campaigns, your ability to treat social media like a measurable medium is greatly diminished. And nothing ads octane to a Facebook Fan drive like online media integration and specifically, Facebook ads that encourage consumers to connect to your brand. Finally, utilizing social sharing technology (chiclets – see my column, “Socializing Your Banners With Chiclets”), your ads and landing pages for media and paid search can turn a single paid click into hundreds of free impressions and clicks with no cost.
Some examples:
- YouTube sponsored videos and overlay ads: online media, social media marketing, or paid search?
- Social content development: SEO or social media marketing?
- Blogger outreach: social media marketing, PR, online media, or SEO link building?
How to Use QR Codes and SMS with Social Media Marketing Campaigns
Posted by: Micah Pratt, director of social networking R&D
Jennings Social Media Marketing (JSMM) has incorporated QR codes and text messaging into its services. The company’s official announcement was included in a new Web video, featuring Frank Ancona Honda, KickaNotch Mobile and CEO of JSMM Valerie Jennings.
Jennings said that with the increase of smartphone users and the recent estimate on engagement with those who are using social media and scanning QR codes, the company found it imperative to add mobile to its services. “With the success of leveraging monetization with QR codes and text messaging through offers and the promotions through our channels we are hoping for some amazing results and we are looking forward to seeing this new technology as it improves and the usage goes up,” said Jennings.
“Like” us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter at @valeriejennings to stay updated on what is going on at JSMM!
Jennings Social Media Marketing Launches Facebook Contest In Response to Fan Poll
Posted by: Micah Pratt, director of social networking R&D
Jennings Social Media Marketing (JSMM) announced their most recent Facebook contest, following a small poll the company posted on Facebook over the summer. Enter for a chance to win social media marketing services by JSMM just in time for the holidays by “Liking” us on Facebook and signing up via the sweeps tab.
The winner of the contest will receive a boutique style campaign which may include a social media evaluation, channel branding and designs, channel updates to social media sites and organic search engine optimization analysis.
Valerie Jennings, CEO of JSMM, said they polled their Facebook fans and asked which grand prize they would most like to receive: an iPad, Mac computer, iPod or two free months of social media services from JSMM. The two free months from JSMM won with an overall majority. “We are excited to reward our fans in time for the holidays and hope the grand prize winner really takes advantage of this opportunity,” said Jennings.
Jennings Social Media Marketing is a full service company that utilizes the art of online storytelling with the science of measuring quantifiable results. JSMM creates comprehensive social media marketing, mobile, Web videos and website design and development strategies. The company represents publicly traded to medium-sized businesses across the U.S. and overseas including technology, sports, sustainability, entertainment, travel, financial, health care and real estate (www.jenningssocialmedia.com).
Social Media Marketing Can Be Measured
By Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing is something we have been doing for more than six years at JSMM. Although, I started the company more than eight years ago in June 2003, we have been analyzing data across marketing channels during that time and into social media for roughly six years. We have valued strong organic search engine optimization (SEO) as part of our social media marketing strategy since we first began this system, but I know we have also reviewed other types of metrics such as engagement, brand awareness, monetization and other forms of successes such as cross-promoting our social media with e-newsletters, Marketwire press releases, media outreach, print pieces and websites.
Our successes at JSMM include tripling targeted website traffic, growing Facebook fans by the thousands, generating hundreds of new emails for prospecting via Facebook contests, downloading whitepapers and converting website traffic into revenue. I have a case studies page on the website which is broken down by industry that may be helpful to review specific information.
This article, written by Ron Joes at Clickz, does an outstanding job breaking down the different ways to measure social media:
5 Ways to Measure Social Media
As you know, the ability to measure the effectiveness of marketing activities is imperative to any company’s marketing strategy. Measuring social media marketing isn’t as easy as other marketing channels, but it can be done with the right tools and mindset.
As you consider your social media monitoring strategy, it will help to group your efforts into a progression where awareness and exposure lead to desired action from your target audience. As you do so, it will help to place each type of measurement into the proper context and will help you visualize how each one leads you closer to desired results.
Kansas City Car Dealer Frank Ancona Honda Launches 2nd Facebook Contest via Jennings Social Media Marketing
By Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing
Enter Here
Frank Ancona Honda, a Kansas City Honda dealer, which Jennings Social Media Marketing (JSMM) has been working with for more than a year, has launched a second Facebook contest this week. The contest is a chance to win a four-course dinner for two and wine pairing at Trezo Vino and a night at the Aloft Hotel at Park Place in Leawood, Kan.
Jennings Social Media Marketing has been utilizing the NorthSocial Facebook contest application for the past five months and has been impressed by the easy-to-use functionality, results, viral sharing opportunities and ability to load original creative work. Check out the contest on the Frank Ancona Honda Facebook page.
JSMM designed the contest, worked with Frank Ancona Honda on the creative, loaded the application via their Facebook page, developed the email opt-in opportunities and hopes to see 500 or more entries. The contests typically generate hundreds of new “likes” and email addresses for future prospective marketing.
Check out the NorthSocial applications on their website to understand what they are capable of providing, but have a social media professional design the campaign to reach your audience, engage with fans, design the NorthSocial landing pages, set up targeted Facebook ads, distribute viral press releases and send email marketing to prospects and customers to enter the contest.
How to use QR Codes with your Marketing
By Sarah Newman, client services manager
Little black boxes seem to be appearing everywhere. These black boxes are popping up at your grocery stores, restaurants and even in your mail. The boxes are referred to as QR codes. QR codes are the newest tool that is assisting marketing companies in reaching smartphone users.
QR codes contain advertisements and even videos for people to view on their smartphone. In order to access this media, smartphone users need only download the QR code application to their phone. Due to the ease of access, the QR codes have gained popularity. In fact, according to the social media source, Mashable, “Fifty percent of smartphone users use QR codes on a regular basis.”
Additionally, QR codes are helping businesses create new marketing plans for their clients. Let me provide a personal example, while sitting at a neighborhood restaurant with a girlfriend, I noticed a QR code on an advertisement at the far end of the table. We scanned the QR code with our smartphones while we waited and the QR code showed a video about the desserts the restaurant provided. Viewing the advertisement helped our time pass by more quickly and also aided in turning our conversation towards the restaurant.
At the end of the video, it gave us the option to share the advertisement on our Facebook or Twitter. How convenient is that? The ability to share this video in any social media forum will help increase the restaurants online visibility. This is also a great idea for restaurants or even waiting rooms to use for the sake of parents with children. If the children were able to watch videos while they wait, they would be distracted, making both the parents and the children happy.
Here at Jennings Social Media Marketing we recently used QR codes for a race sponsored by Frank Ancona Honda. The Frank Ancona Honda cars all had QR codes on them and the runners that took part in the race received a goody bag that had the QR codes on them as well. This allowed Frank Ancona Honda to continue to market to the runners after the event was over. Jason Heard, sales manager at Frank Ancona Honda, added that the mobile initiative is a step towards engaging their customers via social media channels and into mobile. “We are excited to be the first of Jennings’ clients to incorporate SMS and QR codes into our social media marketing. Valerie has been a key advisor throughout the social media integration at Frank Ancona Honda, and we know this will be the right move for our dealership,” said Heard. We were just as excited to help Jason have a great race and continue to market his brand.
It’s exciting to see where QR codes will lead to in the future. They serve as useful tools for planning marketing campaigns with all of our clients!
InformationWeek.com Reviews Tips for Business Facebook Pages During the Holidays: 51% of Consumers Are More Likely to Buy From a Company After Becoming Their Fan on Facebook
Posted by: Micah Pratt, director of social networking R&D
The holidays are just around the corner, and businesses are finalizing their marketing campaigns to optimize the shopping rush. Here is an article from InformationWeek.com, written by Kevin Casey, about how companies can prepare their social networking sites in time for the holidays.
4 Tips: Prep Your Facebook Page For Holidays
Will your company’s Facebook page help you take advantage of the holiday shopping rush? Consider these tips for SMBs and fine-tune your strategy.
Small and midsize businesses (SMBs), like Santa Claus, should be making a list and checking it twice. But rather than sorting out who’s naughty or nice, consumer-focused concerns should fine-tune their Facebook presence in advance of the holiday shopping rush.
Among the reasons: The bevy of market research showing shoppers increasingly turning to social sites before they make purchase decisions. Consider this recent study, which found 51% of consumers are more likely to buy something from a company after becoming their fan on Facebook. With the annual flurry of capitalism known as holiday shopping looming large, it’s time for retailers and other consumer-focused SMBs to make sure they’re ready to reap the rewards.
That means doing a bit more than putting up a page and hoping it connects with customers, according to Laura O’Shaughnessy, CEO of SocialCode, a social agency that emphasizes a quantitative approach to performance advertising, with a particular focus on Facebook. The firm recently added LinkedIn to its mix, and is considering the likes of Twitter and Google+.
Socialcode itself has an interesting SMB story. The 50-person agency was born as an internal department of The Washington Post Company, which owns–in addition to the flagship newspaper of the same name–a number of media, education, and other businesses. O’Shaughnessy said that the results of Facebook programs for the company’s various brands were so strong that it began shifting money away from its Google adverting and spending more on social. Later, Socialcode was spun out as an independent subsidiary and began signing on external customers.
In an interview, O’Shaughnessy shared these four tips for optimizing your Facebook activities in the coming weeks.
1. Set goals. The businesses that get the most out of their Facebook presence are the ones that have goals behind it. “Step one is deciding: Is my goal to drive people into my restaurant, is it to drive people into my store, is it to introduce a new product, is it to get people to buy my product?” O’Shaughnessy said. Without a clear sense of what they want to accomplish, SMBs, can’t make efficient use of their resources.
2. Design a campaign with a “viral accelerant.” O’Shaughnessy said the most powerful, effective Facebook campaigns place heavy emphasis on sharing. That often means developing an application, game, or a related microsite to encourage people to spread the word–no matter what the word is. “You want to make sure you’re taking advantage of the sharing activities that are going on,” O’Shaughnessy said.
While a development-intensive application might require a bigger budget, O’Shaughnessy noted that there are sharing-oriented things marketers can do on a smaller scale. She gave as an example a nonprofit client that found strong results simply using a light application aimed at sharing badges on Facebook walls.
“The most important thing about Facebook is really perpetuating that social sharing–getting one friend to spread, in this case, a badge to another friend,” O’Shaughnessy said. “Then all of that person’s friends see that action, so you get this immediate lift.”
The Future of Google+: Integrating Brand Pages with the Social Network’s 40 Million User Profiles
Posted by: Micah Pratt, director of social networking r&d
Last Wednesday at the Web 2.0 conference held in San Francisco, Vic Gundotra, Google’s senior vice president in charge of Google+, discussed the possible changes coming to the social networking site. One of those changes included the idea of Google+ brand pages for companies anxiously waiting to reach out to the more than 40 million users. Here is an article from Mashable.com on what Google+ brand pages could look like when made available to companies.
What Google+ Brand Pages Could Look Like [PICS]
A few weeks ago, Mashable contacted some ad agencies and asked them to imagine how brand pages on could change in light of that platform’s planned redesign.
Just as Facebook was announcing its tweaks, though, Google was on track to add brand pages to Google Plus. Though it looks like that will happen any day now, the integration hasn’t been announced yet. Meanwhile, a handful of brands, including Ford, are already enjoying the possibilities.
There are several barriers to designing brand pages for Plus. For one thing, it’s hard to stand out the way Plus looks now. The somewhat rigid format has a leveling effect. But Colin Murphy, director of social for Skinny, one of the agencies that accepted our challenge, says there are potential advantages to Plus, too. “A primary gripe among Facebook and Twitter users is that brands bombard them with messages they don’t want or care to see,” said Murphy. “In its current form, Plus doesn’t solve that problem, but Plus Brand Pages might, if they implement Public Circles.”
Skinny outlined how this might work with a hypothetical example for Mini, the auto brand. In this case, a Mini Countryman fan could join the Countryman circle and see just Countryman updates in her feed. “This level of selectivity isn’t possible on Facebook or even Twitter, unless of course you are a fan or follow the specific product you’re interested in — but there’s a major drawback to that method because the user has to seek out content streams,” Murphy says. “With Google+ it’s all in one place, and the all the admin has to do is feed pertinent content to the appropriate circles.”
In addition to Skinny, Fantasy Interactive created some fictional Coca-Cola and Starbucks brand pages. Are these on the mark? We’ll know soon enough, but in the meantime, let us know what you think of these agencies’ vision of how Google+ can accommodate brands.
Social Networking “Friends” Politics: How to Make Facebook Ads Work to Political Candidates’ Favor
Posted by: Micah Pratt, Director of Social Networking R&D
The 2012 presidential election will be like one never experienced before. Social networking sites are playing a role in these elections that wasn’t imaginable four years ago by hosting debates, facilitating the political conversation and connecting candidates with voters in the digital world. Here is an article from CMO.com, written by Kim Soth, senior vice president of business development & marketing at Jennings Social Media Marketing, on how to get Facebook ads to work in your favor.
Five Ways to Make Facebook Ads Work For You
There is much talk in social-media circles about how to build your audience organically and that, for the most part, it is the best way to build an audience. It is certainly a good way, but it shouldn’t be your only strategy. We suggest that if you are a new company or are launching a product, you can do a great job of building fans with Facebook ads, which offer a great alternative to your marketing strategy. What’s more, Facebook ads are not nearly as complex as Google AdWords—but don’t let the simplicity fool you. For our campaigns we’ve found that Facebook ads, on average, deliver a higher click-through rate than Google AdWords.
For example, we were brought in to help promote a senatorial race. After a month of struggling to gain fans on Facebook, we eventually doubled the candidate’s fans in a week by running ads: We picked up 1,500 fans for a total cost of around $1,000.
So if you think this strategy might be for you, here are five tips that will help you make Facebook ads work for your campaigns.
1. It’s about testing. Always run multiple ads targeting the same “Likes and Interests,” and keep your Likes and Interests the same while testing different ad copy, headlines, or images. What needs to remain the same as your control for a general test is your Likes and Interests keywords. You can test many controls, but the simplest is Likes and Interests. Facebook targets audiences off of two variables: Users and Likes and Interests: If you change these in two different ads, then you don’t have an apples-to-apples test.
2. Likes and Interests matter. Likes and Interests are essentially keywords you are targeting for your campaign based on what shows up for a user. You don’t want to use random Likes and Interests keywords. To make Likes and Interests work for you, it’s important to target based on what is associated with that individual in some way—associations they belong to, things they like, where they work, what they are fans of, or what they’ve written on their walls.
It’s is important not to get carried away and add a hundred Likes and Interests keywords just because it’s cool to see the numbers of possible audience continue to rise. It would seem that big numbers of audience is a good idea, but it’s actually counterintuitive. You want to choose highly targeted Likes and Interests keywords that are tightly associated with your ad copy. Don’t choose a keyword just because of its audience reach. You want to make sure it matches everything you know about the ad copy. Just because someone rides a motorcycle doesn’t mean he is interested in a Harley. One person might buy sports bikes, another might buy BMW motorcycles, while another might be really into Harleys. So it does no good to blast all of them with a message about Harley gear.
Jennings Social Media Marketing Reviews Mobile Apps’ Usage: 50% of Mobile Consumers’ Prime Time Overlaps With TV
Posted by: Eric Johnson
As the popularity of smart phones continues to rise, it was only a matter of time before the mobile screen began to catch up to the big screen in terms of usage. A new study conducted by a mobile analytics firm, Flurry, points out that approximately 50 percent of mobile consumers are utilizing mobile apps during TV’s prime time.
Flurry also reports that mobile applications currently reach more than 20 million U.S. consumers per hour and the number of active iOS and Android devices in the U.S. is estimated at 110 million. These numbers reflect a significant impact to prime time viewing habits.
For TV broadcasters, prime time is 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. In radio, programming and advertising are all about morning “drive time.” On the Web, the popularity of social networks like Facebook, instant messaging like Skype and video-on-demand services like Hulu are pushing up usage in the evening.
So what time of day do mobile apps find their biggest audience? A new study by the mobile analytics firm Flurry shows the audience for iPhone and iOS apps rises steadily during the day and peaks at about 9 p.m. That’s when half the U.S. app audience is using apps. “Mobile consumers are using apps either instead of, or along-side prime-time television and the Internet,” stated a Flurry blog post on the study.
The finding contributes to a growing body of research suggesting that two-screen viewing is becoming increasingly common while people are watching TV. The relative size of the TV audience during prime time was larger than that for mobile apps, at more than 60%. But app usage remained higher than TV from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and higher than the Internet almost all day. The Internet’s reach peaked at 7 p.m., when 40% of the audience for that medium was on the Web.
Mark Zuckerberg Reveals Major Facebook Updates at F8
Posted by: Micah Pratt, social networking research & development
Over the years, Facebook has been known to make small changes to how users operate on the social networking site. With Google+ becoming a threatening competitor, Mark Zuckerberg made serious changes to Facebook. On September 22, Mark Zuckerberg explained exactly what the 800 million users could expect from the new and improved Facebook at its annual developer conference including:
•Timeline: a stream of information about you
•Facebook Gestures: turning any verb into a button, similar to the “like” button. Example: Reading a book.
•Open Graph: third-party companies can connect their apps and services to Facebook using a one-time permission from the user to share stuff on Facebook
•Subscribe: subscribing to strangers or celebrities to receive posts from them without being Facebook friends
•Ticker: a real-time list of what your friends are posting
•Media: watching TV and movies, listening to music and reading news all within Facebook
How Social Media Has Changed the Game for Search Engine’s: 1/4 of Twitter’s 5 Billion Tweets a Month Contains Links to Content
Posted by: Micah Pratt, social networking research & development
Sharing and finding content over the Internet has become easier then ever, and now social media is changing the ways search engines track quality content. This article from Mashable.com takes a look at how social networks have impacted search engines.
How Social Media Affects Content Relevance in Search
Old school SEO pros cover your ears, or be prepared to adapt your craft: Search engines are changing, and social media is a huge part of that change.
Bing, Google, and an increasing swath of nimble little search engines like Blekko and DuckDuckGo are incorporating social data into their results. This is potentially great news for new businesses trying to achieve visibility in search. It’s less great news for sites that rely heavily on link buying (illegal, but hard to catch), producing huge volumes of borderline-useless content (long-tail, content farm approach), or just really old domains (previously an SEO trump card).
Both Bing and Google admitted in interviews that their search results are positively affected by social signals, such as tweets, Facebook Likes, and +1s.
“As ideas, thoughts, questions and answers are shared more freely and easily than ever, the increased amount of information from social sources provides great benefits to users,” says a Microsoft spokesperson for Bing (who asked to remain anonymous).
“The links that you build through social media, the references, the authority — all can have an impact in various ways on how you are ranked and listed even in ‘regular’ search results,” says Danny Sullivan, Editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, in an email interview. “Social media allows for people to provide more trusted signals.”
Search Engines Adapt to SurviveSince the early Internet days of Excite and Webcrawler, the principal goal of search engines has been to help people find what they’re looking for. Google rose to dominate the industry by tracking better indicators of content quality than anyone else. It developed a complex algorithm that measured which websites were “voting” for others by linking to them.
Essentially, it was social media, but for websites rather than people. If your site had lots of links from relevant sites, your Google rank climbed. Plenty of other factors, like putting keywords into headlines and titles, remained in play (and continually evolved), but the game changer of the last decade was links.
The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) industry emerged to help webmasters play the “me rank higher” game with Google. On the one hand, website owners attempt to adhere to Google’s standards and prove they are high quality (creating relevant, high quality content and formatting it to Google’s taste). On the other hand, shadier sites try to trick Google’s secret formula, “pretending” to be good content without having to bother with creating useful stuff.
Location-Based Mobile Services Becoming Increasingly Popular: Over 25% of Americans Have Used Location-Based Services for Recommendations
Posted by: Micah Pratt, social networking research & development
Using location-based services to find the closest restaurant or to get directions is becoming the newest trend in mobile technology. Here is an article from The Washington Post on how Americans are using location-based services.
Over a quarter of American adults use mobile location-based services
Not many people are “checking in” using services such as Foursquare and Gowalla, but over a quarter of Americans are checking out their surroundings using location-based services.
The latest research from Pew’s Internet and American Life Project found that 28 percent of American adults have used mobile or social location-based services to get recommendations such as the best-rated nearby cafe or directions from their current location.
Only about 5 percent of those surveyed used services that post their current locations, though smartphone users were more than twice as likely to signal their location to their friends. In a similar vein, about 9 percent of all users used the location-tagging options on social media.
As once might expect, younger smartphone users are more likely overall to use check-in services, but there was no clear divide on age when it came to hitching a location-tag to a Facebook or Twitter message.
CNN: Smartphones Make Up 35% of U.S. Mobile Market
Posted by: Micah Pratt, social networking research & development
According to a recent story on CNN.com, smartphones still do not make up the majority of the U.S. market. However, we cannot ignore the value, power and influence of these mobile devices that are about to change the way we conduct business, review products, make buying decisions, and most importantly, interact with our friends.
Why smartphones still haven’t taken over the U.S. market
Smartphones may attract nearly all of the marketing hype and news coverage, but comScore’s latest statistics show that smartphones still comprise only a minority of the U.S. mobile market — about 35%, as of July 2011.
The other 65% of U.S. mobile handsets in use are “feature phones” — which tend to be much less expensive to buy and own. Often, these phones do not require a pricey two-year wireless service contract with hefty early termination fees.
Even though smartphones cost much more, these devices have been getting popular with U.S. consumers, even in light of the country’s economic recession. After all, a 35% market share is nothing to sneeze at — especially considering that smartphones have only been widely available in the U.S. for about five years.
At some point, a majority of U.S. mobile users will indeed own smartphones. But that shift won’t happen as quickly as early forecasts anticipated.
Back in March 2010, the Nielsen Company proclaimed that smartphones would overtake feature phones by 2011. Specifically, they predicted that by the end of Q3 2011 (about a month from now), most U.S. mobile users would own smartphones.
That ambitious prediction doesn’t seem to be panning out.
For over a year, comScore has been publishing monthly mobile-market-share statistics that show the percentage of U.S. smartphones. I’ve been tracking these figures. Based on this data, it looks like it’ll be roughly October 2012 before smartphones actually take over as a majority of U.S. handsets.
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