Social Media

The $25 Tweet

Phillip Nones Advertising, Branding, Business, Marketing Communications, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

Value of a tweetA marketing analytics firm is claiming that the average tweet on branded Twitter sites is worth a little over $25.

Yep, you read that correctly; $25.62, to be precise.

The revenue estimate comes to us courtesy of SumAll, a data visualization and analytics firm.  It reached that conclusion after reviewing more than 900 of its customers’ social media program efforts.  SumAll published its findings last week in an infographic.

To those who might look at the ~$25 figure and scoff (that may be most readers), it should be noted that once the total number of people who see an individual tweet is taken into consideration, the amount of revenue gained per impression is only about one half of one penny, on average.

To put this into context, $0.005 revenue-per-impression is lower than most other marketing tools and about on par for AdWords revenues-per-impression.

The imputed revenue from tweets amounts to about 1%-2% in incremental revenues, according to SumAll’s study group.

Not surprisingly, this announcement was met with questions … and some skepticism.  Asked to explain further how SumAll came up with its results, a SumAll spokesperson replied on the company’s blog:

“… Our data comes from our own user base of over 30,000 people.  We anonymize the data first and then aggregate all the data to derive new, interesting insights from a broad population.  For this infographic, we collected data from all users who have a Twitter stream and commerce stream, and conducted some calculations to derive the value of each tweet.”

There, that should clear up matters nicely, right?

As if pre-anticipating the muffled sniggers or raised eyebrows in reaction to this “non-response response,” the blog response continued:

“This is obviously a little overgeneralized, but I hope that [it] clears some things up.”

Uh-huh.  Or as radio NPR talk show host Diane Rehm might say, “All right and we’ll leave it at that.”

The experience of our clients hasn’t approached what SumAll is reporting … but I’m interested in hearing what kind of results other companies may have experienced using Twitter as a social marketing platform.  Any particularly positive stories (or negative ones) to report?  Please share you observations here.

“Social Media Stress Syndrome”: Real or Fake?

Phillip Nones Advertising, Marketing Communications, Social Commentary, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

Social Media Stress SyndromeThere’s no denying the benefits of social media in enabling people to make new friendships, reconnect with old acquaintances, and nurture existing relationships.

Facebook and other social platforms make it easier than ever to maintain “in the moment” connections with people the world over. 

Speaking for myself, my immediate relatives who live in foreign lands seem so much closer because of social media.

Plus, thanks to social media, I’ve met other relatives from several different countries for the very first time.  This would never have happened in the pre-Facebook era.

But there are downsides to social media, too – and I’ve written about them on this blog on occasion; for example, whether social media is a platform for narcissists.

Other negative consequences of social media have been noted by numerous observers of consumer online behaviors, including Canadian digital marketing company Mediative’s Senior Vice President and online marketing über-specialist Gord Hotchkiss.

Gord Hotchkiss
Gord Hotchkiss

In a recently published column by Hotchkiss headlined “The Stress of Hyper-Success,” he posits that self-regard and personal perspectives of “success” are relative.  Here’s a critical passage from what he writes:

“We can only judge it [success] by looking at others.  This creates a problem, because increasingly, we’re looking at extreme outliers as our baseline for expectations.”

Hotchkiss’ contention is that social media engenders feelings of stress in many people that would not occur otherwise.

Pinterest is a example.  A recent survey of ~7,000 U.S. mothers conducted by Today.com found that ~42% of respondents suffer from this social media-induced stress; it’s the notion that they can’t live up to the ideal suggested by the images of domestic bliss posted on the female-dominated Pinterest social network.

Facebook causes a similar reaction in many; Hotchkiss reports on a survey showing that one-third of Facebook users “feel worse” after visiting the site.

It may not be hard to figure out why, either, as visitors are often confronted with too-good-to-be-true photo galleries chronicling friends’ lavish vacations, social gatherings, over-the-top wedding ceremonies, etc.

Social Media EnvyIt’s only natural for people to focus their attention on the “extraordinary” posts of this type … and to discount the humdrum posts focusing on the mundane aspects of daily life. 

Just like in the national or local news, people tend to focus on personal news items that are exceptional – the activities that are set far apart from the average.

Wall Street Journal report Meghan McBride Kelly has come up with a pretty interesting way to address social media stress:  She quit Facebook earlier this year after a nine-year run.  McBride contends that “Aristotle wouldn’t ‘friend’ you on Facebook,” writing:

“Aristotle wrote that friendship involves a degree of love.  If we were to ask ourselves whether all of our Facebook friends were those we loved, we’d certainly answer that they’re not.  These days, we devote equal if not more time to tracking the people we have had very limited interaction with than to those whom we truly love.”

Likewise, Hotchkiss tries to head us off at the social media pass:

“Somewhere, a resetting of expectations is required before we self-destruct because of hyper-competitiveness in trying to reach an unreachable goal.  To end on a gratuitous pop culture quote, courtesy of Sheryl Crow:  ‘It’s not having what you want.  It’s wanting what you got.”

What are your thoughts about “social media stress disorder”?  Please share your observations with other readers here.

The Very Latest Trends in B-to-B Content Creation Activities …

Phillip Nones Advertising, Marketing Communications, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , ,

Content Marketing, Content CreationFor anyone who’s paying attention in business, “content marketing” is all the rage right now.  That’s not surprising, considering that “content” is the common link between advertising, promotion, public relations and social media.

Each year, the Content Marketing Institute, working in conjunction with MarketingProfs and Brightcove, conducts research among B-to-B marketers to gauge the type of content marketing that is increasing in popularity.  The CMI’s most recent report, B2B Content Marketing: 2013 Benchmarks, Budgets and Trends – North America has now been issued.

This report provides results from more than 1,400 surveys collected from North American members and subscribers of MarketingProfs and the Content Marketing Institute.

I think the survey is representative of business as a whole because the respondents include a mix of company sizes – ranging from fewer than 10 employees (~39% of the survey sample) to the very largest firms having more than 1,000 employees (~5% of the sample).

Respondent titles are varied, too – encompassing advertising/MarComm functions (~37%), corporate management (~31%) plus various other functions that handle marketing and communications as part of their responsibilities.

When we compare the results of the new survey to the one that was completed last year (I blogged about that survey here), we find that in nearly every category of B-to-B content creation, there is greater participation now.  (The one exception is the use of print magazines.)

For the record, here is how B-to-B content activity breaks down today, from highest to lowest usage:

  • Social media:  ~87% of respondents are using
  • Website articles (own site):  ~83%
  • e-Newsletters:  ~78%
  • Blogs:  ~77%
  • Case studies:  ~71%
  • Videos:  ~70%
  • Website articles (other sites):  ~70%
  • In-person events:  ~69%
  • White papers:  ~61%
  • Webinars and/or webcasts:  ~59%

A number of other tactics are used by a minority of B-to-B respondents:

  • Research reports:  ~44%
  • Web microsites:  ~40%
  • Infographics:  ~38%
  • Mobile content:  ~33%
  • e-Books:  ~32%
  • Print magazines:  ~31%
  • “Virtual” conferences:  ~28%
  • Podcasts:  ~27%
  • Mobile apps:  ~26%
  • Digital magazines:  ~25%
  • Print newsletters:  ~24%
  • Annual reports:  ~20%
  • Gamification:  ~11%

So it’s clear that “a lot of people” are employing “a lot of tactics” in content creation.  But which ones do they feel are most effective?

An interesting finding of the survey measures the “confidence gap” between respondents who feel that certain content tactics are “more effective” versus “less effective.”  Taking the difference between these two percentages yields a “confidence spread.”

This evaluation shows that B-to-B marketers consider a traditional tactic — in-person events – to be the most effective one:

  • In-person events:  +34 “confidence gap” rating
  • Case studies:  +28
  • Webinars and webcasts:  +22
  • Blogs:  +16
  • e-Newsletters:  +16
  • Videos:  +16
  • Research reports:  +14
  • White papers:  +14
  • e-Books:  +10
  • Website articles (own site):  +6
  • Website articles (other sites):  +0
  • Web microsites:  +0

And where are marketers publishing content?  The survey finds that B-to-B marketers are using an average of five social media sites to distribute content, with the “usual suspects” coming in at the top of the list:

  • LinkedIn:  ~83% of respondents use for distributing content
  • Facebook:  ~80%
  • Twitter:  ~80%
  • YouTube:  ~61%
  • Google+:  ~39%
  • Pinterest:  ~26%
  • SlideShare:  ~23%
  • Vimeo:  ~12%
  • Flickr:  ~10%
  • Foursquare:  ~8%
  • Instagram:  ~7%
  • Tumblr:  ~7%

A number of these social sites didn’t even show up in last year’s results – Pinterest and Vimeo in particular, but also Tumblr, Instagram and Foursquare.

It really underscores how “fresh” things remain in the social sphere – and how marketers can’t afford to take their eye off of the ball even for an instant when it comes to the tactical considerations of content creation.

There are additional findings available from the CMI research report, which you can download here.  And feel free to comment below on any of the results that seem particularly interesting (or surprising) to you.

Optify Measures Social Media Activity in the B-to-B Market

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , ,

Optify logoThis is my fourth and final post about the findings of Optify’s recently published business-to-business online marketing analysis.  The focus of this post is on what Optify found about social media usage.  (You can read my other posts on B-to-B web traffic and advertising here, here and here.)

Optify, which is a developer of digital marketing software for B-to-B marketing professionals, analyzes web behaviors and releases a report each year.  This annual “benchmark” report is particularly important in that the findings are reported from actual web activity, not from surveys.

The key takeaway findings on the social media front are these:

  • Despite all of the continuing hype, social media remains a very small fraction of traffic and leads to B-to-B websites.  In fact, social media has contributed to less than 5% of B-to-B web traffic and leads.
  • Facebook drives the more than half of the social media-generated web traffic to B-to-B websites, versus about one-third from Twitter and most of the remaining traffic from LinkedIn.
  • Visitors who arrive at B-to-B sites from LinkedIn are more likely to view more pages per visit (~2.5 page views on average) than visitors who come from Facebook (~1.9 page views) or Twitter (~1.5 page views).
  • Despite generating more traffic Facebook drives fewer actual B-to-B leads than either Twitter or LinkedIn.
  • At this time, Twitter appears to be the most lucrative social media source for leads, with a higher-than-average conversion rate of ~2.1% (defined as a visitor taking an action such as submitting a form).

Because of this last data point, Optify posits that companies should not shy away from considering social media‘s potential as a source for leads as opposed to being just an  awareness tool.

I’m sure Optify’s figures don’t lie.  But I for one remain unconvinced about social media’s lead generation potential in the B-to-B realm.

Is Social Media a Platform for Narcissists?

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , ,

Narcissism on social mediaOver time, I’ve been seeing more articles and blog posts cropping up that broach the topic of social media and narcissism.  Here’s just one of the latest examples.

The issue boils down to this:

  • Do social media platforms cause people to become narcissistic?
  • Or is social media merely a conduit by which people who already possess narcissistic tendencies get to indulge in “self-referential behavior” on steroids?

One could probably start at the very beginning:  “Is Mark Zuckerberg a narcissist?”    (Don’t answer that question!)

My own view is somewhat conflicted.  I see evidence of some people who cheerfully relish the bullhorn – and attention – that social media appears to give them.

But social media can be deceiving in that a “personal environment” can be built that seems like the whole world is watching and listening – but in reality it’s just a constructed edifice more akin to a Potemkin village.

How many people are actually reading anyone’s Twitter posts?    (Don’t answer that question!)

But I can also see clear evidence of some of the more “Type B” people I know who have made quite an impact on social media by virtue of some very impressive contributions – written information, videos, photography, etc.

In those cases, social media has been a way to extend influence well beyond a small circle of friends or colleagues – and far more than could ever be possible before.

How about you?  What are your thoughts on this topic and what have you observed?  Please share them here if you’re so inclined.

(Don’t worry, we won’t accuse you of narcissism!)

The corporate resource commitment to social media: Plenty of talk … but how much action?

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , ,

Social media staffing prospects for 2013 are no better than they were in 2012.With social media activity seemingly bursting at the seams, it’s also risen near the top of many marketing departments’ punch lists of tactics to reach, engage with and influence their customers and prospects.

But when it comes to putting serious resources behind that effort, how much of a commitment is really there?

A recent Ragan Communications/NASDAQ OMX Corporate Solutions survey suggests that the commitment to social media may be a lot of “talk” … and a lot less “walk.”

The November 2012 survey of ~2,700 social media professionals found that two-thirds of the respondents perform their social media tasks above and beyond their regular marketing duties:

  • Social media tasks are on top of current responsibilities: ~65% of respondents
  • Have established a team for social media activities: ~27%
  • Use an in-house team along with an outside social media agency or planner: ~5%
  • Outsource all social media efforts: ~3%

For the distinct minority of companies that have seen fit to devote some degree of dedicated personnel to their social media program, nearly 85% of them have created teams of three people or fewer … and in more than 40% of the cases, it’s just a single individual instead of a team.

What departments within companies are involved in social media activities?  No surprise here:  It’s the usual suspects (marketing and public relations) with a variety of other departments having their toe in the water as well:

  • Marketing: ~70% of departments are involved in social media activities
  • Public relations: ~69%
  • Corporate communications: ~49%
  • Advertising: ~26%
  • Customer service: ~19%
  • Information technology: ~17%
  • Legal personnel: ~14%

As to whether we’re on the cusp of something much bigger in terms of resourcing social media activities, this isn’t evident much at all from the future plans of the businesses surveyed by Ragan.

Let’s begin with budgets. Excluding salaries and benefits, half of the companies surveyed have social media budgets of $10,000 or less – and one-quarter have essentially no dollars at all earmarked for social media:

  • Annual social media budget $1,000 or less: ~23% of respondents
  • $1,000 to $5,000: ~14%
  • $5,000 to $10,000: ~13%
  • $10,000 – $50,000: ~22%
  • $50,000+: ~26%

When asked whether companies had expanded their social media personnel assignments during 2012, fewer than one-third of the respondents answered affirmatively.

… And the trend doesn’t look much different for 2013, with more than three-fourths of the respondents reporting that there aren’t any plans to hire additional social media practitioners this year.

What about interns, that fallback position for cheap and easy labor?

Fewer than one-fourth of the respondents reported that interns are employed by their companies for social media tasks. Most others believe that using typically inexperienced interns for the potentially sensitive customer engagement aspects of social media is a “non-starter,” as they consider those sensitivities to be a disqualifying factor.

And in the cases where interns do help out in social media efforts, the vast majority of their activity is confined to Facebook and Twitter, as compared to LinkedIn, blogging,creating online “thought leadership” articles and the like.

How satisfied are companies with how they’re doing in the social media realm? According to this study, there’s rampant dissatisfaction with the degree to which companies feel able to measure the impact of social media on their sales and their businesses.

The tracking mechanisms put in place by companies range the gamut, but it’s not clear how convinced practitioners are that the information is accurate or actionable.

  • Track interaction and engagement (e.g., followers, fans, likes): ~86% of respondents
  • Track web traffic: ~74%
  • Track brand reputation: ~58%
  • Track customer service and customer satisfaction: ~41%
  • Track new lead generation: ~40%
  • Track new sales revenues: ~31%

The vast bulk of tracking activity happens using in-house mechanisms or free measurement tools (~59% use those), although the paid measurement tools offered by HootSuite and Radian6 do have their share of users.

The takeaway from the Ragan/NASDAQ research is this:  Company staffing and resource allocations have a ways to go to catch up with all the talk about social media.

Chances are, those resources will be easier to allocate once proof of social media’s payback potential can be shown.  But that might take substantially more time to prove than some people would like.

As if to underscore this notion, statistics compiled by IBM researchers covering the past holiday season found that less than 1% of all online purchases on Black Friday emanated from Facebook.  The percentage of purchases from Twitter was even lower — undetectable, in fact.

And similarly paltry results were charted for the rest of the 2012 holiday season.

As long as social media marketing continues to contribute such pitiful sales revenues, get used to seeing scant social media budgets and near-zero increases in dedicated human resources.

As direct marketing specialist and raconteur Denny Hatch has so pointedly remarked:

“Social media marketing is an oxymoron.  You cannot monetize a giant cocktail party.”

What do you think?  Is Mr. Hatch onto something … or is he just reaching for dramatic effect?  Share your own thoughts if you’d like.

A new milestone for LinkedIn: 200 million users.

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , ,
LinkedIn reaches a new milestone: 200 million registrants.
LinkedIn is adding new registrants at a rate of two per second.

It may have gotten lost in the shuffle amongst the news about other social platforms like Twitter, Facebook … and now Pinterest and Instagram … but LinkedIn has quietly signed up its 200 millionth user.

While LinkedIn may have only a fraction of the 1 billion users who have signed up on Facebook, reaching the 200 million milestone is a pretty big deal for a professional networking site, and in fact makes LinkedIn the 800 lb. gorilla in the professional social segment.

LinkedIn is adding nearly 175,000 new registrants each day; that averages out to about two per second. So it comes as no surprise that if you look at LinkedIn’s trajectory over the recent years, it like one of those exponential lines:

  • January 2009: 32 million user registrations
  • March 2011: 100 million
  • December 2012: 200 million

LinkedIn has gone worldwide, too – although it’s not as international as Facebook. There are LinkedIn members in more than 200 countries and territories.  The United States continuing to lead the pack, but it now represents well fewer than half of registrants:

  • USA: ~74 million user registrants (37%)
  • India: ~18 million (9%)
  • United Kingdom: ~11 million (6%)
  • Brazil: ~11 million (6%)
  • Canada: ~7 million (4%)

There are detractors to look at Facebook and its user profile and see a lot of chaff among the wheat: a large portion “wannabe” professionals who are sole proprietors of varying degrees of consequence or even validity.

But at least these people actually exist, which is much more than you can say about the Twittersphere – the very archetype of the “digital Potemkin Village.”

LinkedIn’s growth isn’t just noteworthy in and of itself. It’s also become much more of a revenue machine … to the tune of an 80%+ rise in 2012 3rd Quarter revenues in over the same period in 2011. Look for that trend to continue.

Launched a decade ago, LinkedIn’s been fluttering around the periphery of the “big boys’ club” in social media for the better part of a decade.

Clearly, they’ve joined the club now.

It’s Official: Instagram is in the Big Leagues Now

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , ,
Thanksgiving Day 2012 on Instagram
Thanksgiving Day 2012 broke all records for Instagram’s photo sharing volume, with over 10 million photos shared and more than 225 per second at its peak.

Instagram, the mobile photo sharing service that came on the scene about two years ago, has been quietly building a following among many people who are attracted to its simplicity and ease of use, along with the enhanced image quality it offers. 

This past Thanksgiving proves how important Instagram has become within the social media fabric.  On Thanksgiving Day, fully 10 million photos were shared on Instagram.

At its peak time at 3:40 pm (Eastern Standard Time), photos were being shared at a rate of ~225 per second.  and throughout the the peak dinner hours from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm EST, more than 200 photos per second were being shared.

According to Instagram’s statistics, Thanksgiving Day was the busiest in the service’s history, which normally has about 5 million photos uploaded per day.

Facebook, which acquired Instagram in September, sees far more photo uploads on its flagship social platform – around 300 million images per day – which makes Instagram a relative babe in the woods. 

But Facebook looks to have big plans for Instagram, including a goal of doubling the number of app users from ~100 million to ~200 million.

Clearly, Instagram is one social platform that merits following in the months ahead.  Now that it’s joined the rarified ranks of the other platforms that have broken through to the “big leagues,” it’ll be interesting to see where Instagram goes from here and how it monetizes itself.

The Free Lunch Ends on Facebook

Phillip Nones Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Promoted posts on Facebook is the only way to get exposure anymore.
Promoted posts are the only way to ensure decent exposure on Facebook now.

It had to happen.  Suffering from a raft of unflattering news stories about its inability to monetize the Facebook business model and under withering criticism from investors whose post-IPO stock price has been battered, Facebook has been rolling out new policies aimed at redressing the situation.

The result?  No longer can companies or organizations utilize Facebook as a way to advance their brand “on the cheap.”

Under a program that began rolling out this summer and has snowballed in recent months, businesses must pay Facebook anywhere from a fiver to triple figures to “promote” each of their posts to the people who have “liked” their pages plus the friends of those users.

And woe to the company that doesn’t choose to play along or “pay along” … because the average percentage of fans who sees any given non-promoted post has plummeted to … just 16%, according to digital marketing intelligence firm comScore.

Facebook views this as a pretty significant play, because its research shows that Facebook friends rarely visit a brand’s Facebook page on a proactive basis. 

Instead, the vast degree of interaction with brands on Facebook comes from viewing newsfeed posts that appear on a user’s own Facebook wall.

What this means is that the effort that goes into creating a brand page on Facebook, along with a stream of compelling content, is pretty much wasted if abrand isn’t  willing to spend the bucks to “buy”exposure on other pages.

So the new situation in an ever-changing environment boils down to this:

  • Company or brand pages on Facebook are (still) free to create.  
  • To increase reach, companies undertake to juice the volume of “likes” and “fans” through coupons, sweepstakes, contests and other schemes that cost money.
  • And now, companies must spend more money to “promote” their updates on their fan’s own wall pages.  Otherwise, only a fraction of them will ever see them.

Something else seems clear as well:  The promotion dollars are becoming serious money. 

Even for a local or regional supplier of products or services that wishes to promote its brand to its fan base, a yearly budget of $5,000 to $10,000 is likely what’s required take to generate an meaningful degree of exposure.

Many small businesses were attracted to Facebook initially because of its free platform and potential reach to many people.  Some use Facebook as their de facto web presence and haven’t even bothered to build their own proprietary websites.

So the latest moves by Facebook come as a pretty big dash of cold water.  It’s particularly tough for smaller businesses, where a $10,000 or $20,000 advertising investment is a major budget item, not a blip on the marketing radar screen.

What’s the alternative?  Alas, pretty much all of the other important social platforms have wised up, it seems. 

For those businesses who may wish to scout around for other places in cyberspace where they can piggyback their marketing efforts on a free platform, they won’t find all that much out there anymore.  Everyone seems to be busily implementing “pay-to-play” schemes as well.

FourSquare now has “promoted updates” in which businesses pay to be listed higher in search results on its mobile app.  And LinkedIn has an entire suite of “pay-for” options for promoting companies and brands to target audiences.

It’s clearly a new world in the social sphere … but one that reverts back to the traditional advertising monetary model:  “How much money do you have to spend?”