The Twitter Machine: Keeping Hype Alive

July 25, 2011July 29, 2011 Phillip Nones Uncategorized Advertising, Communications, Facebook, Google, Google+1, Internet, Internet & American Life Project, marketing, News, Nones, Nones Notes, NonesNotes, Online, Pew, Pew Center, Pew Research, Pew Research Center, Phillip Nones, Social Media, Thoughts, Twitter, Web

I’ve blogged before about Twitter’s seeming inability to break out of its “niche” position in communications. We now have enough time under our belt with Twitter to begin to draw some conclusions rather than simply engage in speculation.

Endlessly hyped (although sometimes correctly labeled as a revolutionary communications tool – see the North African freedom movements) the fact is that Twitter hasn’t been adopted by the masses like we’ve witnessed with Facebook.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project estimates that fewer than 10% of American adults who are online are Twitter users. That equates to about 15 million Americans, which is vastly lower than Twitter’s own claims of ~65 million users.

But whether you choose to believe the 15 million or the 65 million figure, it’s a far cry from the 150+ million Americans who are on Facebook – which represents about half of the entire American population.

You can find a big reason for Pew’s discrepancy by snooping around on Twitter a bit. It won’t take you long to find countless Twitter accounts that are bereft of any tweet activity at all. People may have set their acount up at one time, but long ago lost interest in using the platform – if indeed they ever had any real Twitter zeal beyond “follow-the-leader.” (“Everybody’s going on Twitter … shouldn’t I sign up, too?”)

This is the purest essence of hype: generating a flurry of interest that quickly dissipates as the true value (or lack thereof) is discerned by users.

Of course, Twitter does have its place. Some brands find the platform to be a good venue for announcing new products and sales deals. And it doesn’t take long for the best of those deals promoted on Twitter to leech their way into the rest of the online world.

Other companies – although far fewer – are using Twitter as a kind of customer service discussion board.

And as we all know, celebrities l-o-v-e their Twitter accounts. What a great, easy way to generate an endless stream of sound-bite information about their favorite topic: themselves.

Analyses of active Twitter accounts have shown that a sizable chunk of the activity is made up of media properties and brands tweeting each other … a lot of inside-the-park baseball.

What’s missing from the equation is the level of “real people” engagement one can find on Facebook in abundance … and maybe soon on Google+ as well. That’s real social interaction – in spades.

Actually, you mightn’t be too far off the mark if you deduced that Twitter is the digital equivalent of a bunch of industry insiders at a cocktail party … saying little of real importance while trying to appear “impressive” and “hip” at the same time.

But who’s being fooled by that?

How Are Social Media Behaviors Changing?

July 5, 2011 Phillip Nones Uncategorized Facebook, HR, Human Resources, Internet, Internet & American Life Project, LinkedIn, Networking, News, Nones, Nones Notes, NonesNotes, Pew, Pew Center, Pew Research, Phillip Nones, Social Media, Social Media Platforms, Social Media Sites, Social Networking, Thoughts, Twitter, Web

With the steady growth of social networking sites – particularly Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter – the characteristics and behaviors of their users continue to evolve.

The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project has been studying these changes in recent years through conducting a variety of consumer research surveys, and its lateest findings have just been released. And some of these key findings are quite revealing.

For starters, Pew finds that nearly eight in ten Americans are now using the Internet. Of these, nearly 60% are also using at least one social media site. And social media users now skew more heavily female (~56%), which represents something of a shift in recent years.

The Pew research also finds that among those people who engage with social media sites, Facebook is the 500 pound gorilla; more than nine in ten respondents reported that they are on Facebook, compared to only ~18% who are on LinkedIn and an even smaller ~13% who are on Twitter.

Moreover, engagement with Facebook is at a higher level. About half of the Facebook users report that they are on Facebook every day. By contrast, only one-third of Twitter users engage with that social media platform on a daily basis.

The Pew study also found that the average number of Facebook friends a user has is nearly 230 – a figure that frankly surprised me a bit. What constitutes “friends” break down as follows:

 Friends from high school: ~22%
 Extended family members: ~12%
 Coworkers: ~10%
 Friends from college: ~9%
 Immediate family members: ~8%
 People from affinity groups: ~7%
 Neighbors: ~2%

Interesting, on average about 10% of Facebook users’ friends are people that they’ve never actually met, or met only once.

Another interesting finding from the Pew survey is that Facebook users tend to be more trusting of others and more active in the extent of their social interaction on a personal level. This would seem to refute the notion that Facebookers may be more susceptible to pursue “cyber” relationships in lieu of old-fashioned personal relationships. To the contrary, the Pew report observes:

“The likelihood of an American experiencing a deficit in social support, having less exposure to diverse others, not being able to consider opposing points of view, being untrusting, or otherwise being disengaged from their community and American society generally is unlikely to be a result of how they use technology.”

And what about LinkedIn? Clearly, it operates on a completely different plane than Facebook and even Twitter. It has become the de facto Human Resources clearinghouse on the Web … an employment fair on steroids.

LinkedIn’s unique position in the social media sphere is reflected in characteristics like the educational level of its users. Whereas only ~20% of Facebook users have a four-year college degree – and just ~15% have post-graduate education – those percentages on LinkedIn are ~37% and ~38% respectively. (Twitter’s educational demographics are nearly identical to Facebook’s.)

LinkedIn’s age demographics also tend to skew older. This means is that even though LinkedIn users may not be engaging with the platform on a daily basis — in fact, only ~6% do so according to the Pew survey — they do represent a highly attractive professional audience that offers good potential for many companies in marketing their products and services.

Additional information on the Pew Research survey findings is available here. Check it out and see if your own social media behaviors mirror the Pew market findings.

Twitter’s World: Click … or Clique?

May 19, 2011 Phillip Nones Uncategorized Ashton Kutcher, Bloggers, Blogs, Celebrities, Celebs, CNN, Cornell, Cornell University, Elite Users, Following, Interactive, Interactive Media, Lady Gaga, Media, Much Ado About Nothing, New York Times, News Media, Nones, Nones Notes, NonesNotes, Online, Online Media, Phillip Nones, Social, Social Marketing, Social Media, Starbucks, Tweets, Twitter, Who Says What to Whom on Twitter, Yahoo, Yahoo Research

Twitter traffic: dominateed by a tiny fraction of users. — Half of all tweets are generated by fewer than one-half of one percent of Twitter accounts.

What’s happening these days with Twitter? The micro-blogging service continues to light up the newswires every time there’s a civil disturbance in a foreign land, because of how easily and effectively it facilitates planning and interaction among the dissidents.

But what we’re also finding out is that Twitter is overwhelmingly dominated by just a small fraction of its users.

In fact, Cornell University and Yahoo recently published results of an evaluation of ~260 million tweets during 2009 and 2010, which found that ~50% of the tweets were generated by just 20,000 Twitter users.

That is right: Fewer than one half of one percent of Twitter’s user base accounts for fully half of all tweet activity.

Just who makes up this “rarified realm” of elite users? It turns out that they fall into four major groups:

 Media properties (e.g., CNN, New York Times)
 Celebrities (e.g., Ashton Kutcher … Lady Gaga)
 Business organizations (e.g., Starbucks)
 Blogs

Even more interestingly, these “elite” users aren’t interfacing with the rest of us “regular Twitter folk” as much as they are simply following each other: Celebs follow celebs … media companies follow other media companies … bloggers follow other blogs.

The Cornell/Yahoo research report, titled Who Says What to Whom on Twitter, can be found here.

But one wonders if the report should be retitled Much Ado About Nothing?

Virgin Mobile’s “Sparah” campaign: Art imitates life … or vice versa?

May 15, 2011 Phillip Nones Uncategorized Advertising, Buzz, Buzz Marketing, Celebrity, Celebrity Couples, Consumer Advertising, Consumer Marketing, Facebook, FourSquare, Lillie Langtry, Lily Langtry, Marketing Buzz, Mobile Phones, Nones, Nones Notes, NonesNotes, Pay As You Go, Phillip Nones, Sarah Bernhardt, Sarah Carroll, Social Hype, Social Marketing, Social Media, Sparah, Spencer Falls, Twitter, Viral Marketing, Virgin Mobile, YouTube

In recent days, American television viewers have begun to see ads about a “faux” celebrity couple — Spencer Falls and Sarah Carroll – dubbed “Sparah.” What’s up with this?

It turns out that Virgin Mobile dreamed up these entirely fictitious characters as a way to raise interest and generate “buzz” about its Android-powered phones that feature monthly “pay as you go” plans that include unlimited web, data, messaging and e-mail.

The idea is to pique the curiosity of viewers who will then interact with other consumers and go online to view a variety of videos about this “celebrity couple.”

Now, before reading this blog post any further, I’d suggest you take a moment and view the intro ad here.

The “celebrity couple” is being “given” a house in Hollywood Hills, a stylist and an agent/publicist. As their “fame” grows, the “couple” is being asked to “participate” in activities “typical” of A-list celebrities, including photo shoots, store openings and appearances at special events.

As part of their “contract” with Virgin Mobile, the “couple” will be chronicling their “activities” across a variety of social media channels, including Facebook. Twitter and FourSquare.

And of course, the consumer public is being urged to “keep up with Sparah” by following all of the “important activities” of this “celebrity couple.”

Judging from the comments being left by viewers of the “Sparah” videos on YouTube, Virgin Mobile’s campaign is having the desired effect so far. Not only is the campaign generating significant buzz, it’s near-universally positive in tone.

There’s little doubt that Virgin Mobile has come up with a clever and successful way to generate awareness and interest in its phone plans as it competes with other service providers in the market. But what’s also interesting is that Virgin Mobile is shining a light on the hyperbole and “blue smoke and mirrors” that inform so much of social media and celebrity marketing today.

The line between what’s genuine versus what’s “manufactured” in pop culture – whether news or biography or gossip – is a very fine one. That’s always been the case, of course: the successes of a Lillie Langtry or Sarah Bernhardt a century ago would not have been so impressive without it.

But in today’s world, the explosion of interactive communications creates a hothouse-like environment in which the buzz can be born and spread faster than ever. (That’s why it’s often called “going viral.”)

It’s not hard to speculate that Virgin Mobile is conducting this campaign with “tongue planted firmly in cheek.” Still, the marketing pros at the company realize that while people may laugh at the irony of the campaign, at the same time Virgin Mobile is benefiting in a major way from the very things they’re spoofing. And that’s a master stroke.

Art imitating life? Life imitating art? It’s a pointed joke for sure … but on whom?

What Social Media is Teaching Us (Again)

March 6, 2011March 7, 2011 Phillip Nones Uncategorized Blogs, Business, Company Organization, Corporate Strategy, Facebook, LinkedIn, marketing, Marketing Management, Marketing Metrics, Marketing Strategy, Metrics, News, Nones, Nones Notes, NonesNotes, Organizational Behavior, Phillip Nones, Sales, Sales Management, Social Marketing, Social Media, Strategic Marketing, Thoughts, Twitter, Weblogs

Social media – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and all that – burst onto the scene only a few years ago. Because of this, we’re still learning daily how these tools are impacting and influencing attitudes about companies and brands … as well as the propensity for people to buy products and services as a result.

But some aspects are coming into pretty strong focus now. One of the interesting insights I’ve drawn from social media is that it spotlights the “disconnect” that exists between marketing and sales personnel.

This disconnect has existed for decades, of course. In my nearly 35 years in business, I’ve heard a common refrain from sales folks. It goes something like this: “I have no idea what those people in marketing do all day long!”

On the flip side, the marketing pros have a few choice words for the sales personnel as well: “All they ever think about is the next order. Unless it delivers instant hot prospects who are ready to buy immediately, they’re not interested in any of our marketing programs.”

This is why so many B-to-B companies have tried to cross-pollinate between marketing and sales by moving staff back and forth between the two areas.

But what company is inclined to gives up its star sales performers to marketing? What happens more often is that the underperforming sales people are the ones who end up in marketing … where they then achieve only middling success there as well.

Conversely, so many of the best sales performers aren’t “God’s gift to strategic thinking” at all … while the marketing people who are so creative and insightful when thinking about markets are woefully inadequate when it comes to keeping up with a Rolodex® full of dozens of sales contacts.

Another part of the problem is the approach to metrics. Marketing personnel have historically been focused on reaching wider audiences. To a salesperson, things like “creating awareness” and “building a brand” are frustratingly fuzzy. Instead, salespeople focus on individual customers, sales quotas and other quantifiable information – real “bottom line” figures.

Today, social media is bringing all of this into sharper relief. To be most effective, social media demand that marketing and sales personnel work together. It’s no longer possible for the two groups to employ different approaches, different interactions and different metrics for success.

To my view, it’s going to be harder for marketing and communications personnel to get their heads around new expectations for metrics and analyses when compared to the sales folks. There are many new analytical tools to be mastered – and that’s probably a source of fear for many a marketer.

For salespeople, who live and die by facts and figures, this is duck soup by comparison.

And if you really think about social media, it’s about audience (customer) engagement in a direct and personal manner. Who’s been doing that for years? The sales force, of course.

So does it make any sense to “silo” social media activity and content development within the marketing department? Generally speaking, no.

In fact, many sales personnel have already embraced social media activities because they see it as another useful tool to leverage customer engagement. This is an environment they already know well, because they’ve always been in the business of building relationships.

So the times demand that marketing and sales team up as never before. For marketers, that means opening up the social media initiative and structuring it to include sales personnel as well the marketing staff. Redlining these tasks won’t work.

And here’s another idea: Have the marketing staff hang around with the sales force. Put them out there at trade shows and other industry events where they are forced interact with customers and behave like … salespeople!

[This is especially true if a company’s marketing staff comes from collegiate or administrative backgrounds – a common weakness in many mid-sized B-to-B firms where the most lucrative upward career paths take employees through engineering, R&D or sales, not through marketing and communications.]

Social media reminds us, once again, that the key to success in business is “mixing it up” with customers and prospects. We need to make sure we do the same inside our own companies.

Facebook’s Hidden Bombshells

February 23, 2011April 13, 2011 Phillip Nones Uncategorized Blogs, Business, Douglas Karr, Facebook, Google, Internet, News, Nones, NonesNotes, Online, Phillip Nones Nones Notes, search engine marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEM, SEO, Social Media, Thoughts, Twitter, Web, Web Marketing, Weblogs

As Facebook has been busily turning itself into a web powerhouse – challenging even the likes of Google for dominance – some people are beginning to question the fundamental aspects of how Facebook treats users and the content they post.

Last week I came across an interesting article by Douglas Karr, a social media consultant and author, who has spent thousands of dollars advertising on Facebook for himself and his clients. Karr summarized recent experiences he’s had with Facebook accounts that now make him extremely leery of using it as a central rather than an ancillary platform for promoting companies and their brands.

Facebook somehow became suspicious of entries posted by one of Karr’s clients. Facebook then proceeded to disable every administrator’s account that was associated with this client’s Facebook page. Because Karr was one of the administrators, this action disabled all of his Facebook pages and applications as well.

It then took a Herculean effort to repair the damage, during which time Karr learned quite a bit more about the customer service side of Facebook – if you could even call it “customer service.” Here’s how he summarizes it:

Facebook lacks a meaningful customer service process. There’s no phone number to call … or dedicated e-mail address specifically for support. So good luck trying to get any sort of satisfaction. Karr was asked to submit a form in order for his account to be turned back on. But that communication only resulted in an automated reply message to verify his identity.

In the meantime, with his accounts disabled, there was no way for Karr to log in and retrieve any of the now-hidden content.

What Karr learned is when all of what makes a Facebook presence so valuable – postings, photos, video and other content, fans, applications, etc. – goes by the boards, there’s essentially no recourse for a business.

Luckily for Karr, his account was re-enabled after a few days – with no notification from Facebook. But then he still had to republish all of the pages.

[It turns out that Karr’s client had a “friend of a friend of a friend” at Facebook who was able to pull a few strings to set things right … but how many of us should be so fortunate?]

This experience revealed another distasteful reality: The content you post on Facebook may be yours, but Facebook owns the access to it.

Yep. If you look closely at Facebook’s fine print, this is what you’ll find: “You grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook.”

So much for keeping proprietary control over anything that may go viral and ends up on Facebook.

Karr’s word of advice for companies considering employing Facebook as their primary means of generating online traffic and revenue: “Don’t.”

Instead, he suggests adopting other tactics such as developing a blog, investing in search engine optimization and search engine marketing, using Twitter … and owning all of your content on your own domain.

That’s pretty smart advice from someone who speaks from experience.

A Game-Changer for Charitable Organizations and Causes?

December 6, 2010December 6, 2010 Phillip Nones Uncategorized Activism, Advocacy, Blackbaud, Blackbaud Index of Online Giving, Cause Marketing, Charitable Contributions, Charitable Giving, Charities, Chris Hughes, Facebook, Fund Raising, Fundraising, Internet, Jumo, Jumo Beta, Non-Profit Organizations, Non-Profits, Nones, Nones Notes, NonesNotes, Not-for-Profit Organizations, Not-for-Profits, Online, Online Fundraising, Philanthropy, Phillip Nones, Social Activism, Social Advocacy, Social Media, Social Network, Social Networking, Social Networks, Social Platform, Social Platforms, Twitter, Web

Jumo, a social network focused on charities. — Jumo, the newest social network focused on charities and social activism.

Chris Hughes — Jumo, the newest social network focused on charities and social activism.

There’s a new international social media resource being launched. Jumo, which was unveiled this past week in a beta test version, aims to connect people with not-for-profit causes and charitable organizations.

Established in February 2010, Jumo describes itself as “a social network connecting individuals and organizations who want to change the world.”

The founder of Jumo is Chris Hughes, a co-founder of Facebook who more recently served as director of online organizing for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. He sees Jumo as a way for people to find and evaluate organizations that focus on the causes that interest them. Such organizations can range all the way from health and educational initiatives to ones dealing with advocacy issues such as gay rights.

News articles, YouTube videos, Twitter posts and other content will be added to Jumo pages, and users can also add their own comments and feedback.

What’s the inspiration behind Jumo? It’s to establish a social platform focusing on issues, advocacy and not-for-profit organizations rather than on personalities or branded products. “The more connected [an] individual is to an issue they care about, the higher probability there is they will stay involved over a longer period of time,” Hughes has stated.

As part of establishing its mission, Jumo has outlined the following three key factors:

 Millions of people are working to improve the lives of others, many of whom lack the resources to have major impact.

 There are millions of other people who would want to help, but don’t know how.

 Despite where we are with technology, it’s still difficult to find meaningful opportunities to get involved.

Jumo provides a platform wherein people can discover the type of causes and organizations they care about, follow the latest news and updates in those fields, and support the work of these organizations through the donation of skills, time or financial support.

In Hughes’ view, this is what differentiates Jumo from social media platforms such as Facebook, which also allows the creation of pages for non-profit groups. Facebook’s groups tend to be passive, with many an individual’s interaction going little beyond “following” or “liking” them.

Hughes believes there will be significantly more volunteering and giving associated with the people who interact with organizations on Jumo. And if that happens, it may finally fulfill the promise of online platforms enabling not-for-profits to raise money more efficiently and less expensively than via traditional means.

That’s a goal that has been stubbornly elusive to date, as only about 5% of all U.S. donations come from online giving, according to the Blackbaud Index of Online Giving.

How does Jumo intend to grow and thrive in the online world? As a not-for-profit initiative itself, it plans to rely on payments from users and sponsorships from groups that would like to receive more highly visible promotion on the site.

Jumo already contains ~3,000 charitable organizations and issues-oriented groups which have been “seeded” on the site. But any organization that is certified as “tax exempt” is eligible to set up a page on Jumo.

Is Jumo destined to transform social activism? Only time will tell … but it will be interesting to see how this interesting new venture evolves and grows in the coming months.

The Big Dig: Scraping and Scooping the Web

October 14, 2010October 17, 2010 Phillip Nones Uncategorized Blogs, Communications, Data Scraping, Facebook, Internet, Internet Privacy, Mount Athos, MySpace, News, Nielsen, Nones, Nones Notes, NonesNotes, Online Forums, Patients Like Me, PatientsLikeMe, Peek You, PeekYou, Phillip Nones, Privacy, Scraper, Scraping, Thoughts, Twitter, Wall Street Journal, Web, Web Privacy, What They Know, WSJ

I’ve blogged before about how the Internet is making people’s lives pretty much an open book.

Most people who are online are pretty aware of how their reputation can be affected by their Facebook or MySpace pages and other public or quasi-public online information. But The Wall Street Journal has been publishing a series of stories on how much more pervasive than that digital snooping has become.

The series is titled “What They Know” … and it’s well-worth checking out. The most recent article appeared on the front page of the October 12, 2010 edition of the WSJ, and focuses on the phenomenon of “data scraping.”

For those who aren’t familiar with the term, “scraping” is a method by which sophisticated software is used to access and scoop up information that has been posted anonymously on sites that are supposed to be closed to prying eyes. One example cited in the WSJ article of a site that has been scraped is PatientsLikeMe, which has message boards and forums dealing with mental disorders, depression and other issues that most people would prefer to keep private.

People who post on discussion forums like these do so using pseudonyms, and the identity of the posters is carefully guarded by the host sites.

But it turns out that these sites are little match for the sophisticated IT capabilities of companies like Nielsen and PeekYou, who are in the business of matching psychographics as well as demographics to individual people for purposes of serving up relevant advertising — and goodness knows what else.

Think of it as the “lifestyle” direct mail lists of yesteryear – but now on steroids.

PeekYou has applied for a patent on a system whereby it matches real people to the pseudonyms used on forums, blogs, Twitter and other social media outlets. Taking a “peek” at the company’s patent application reveals the great lengths their systems go to ferret out and cross-analyze small, innocuous bits of information that, taken together, find the “needle in a haystack” match to the actual individual:

 Birthday match
 Age match
 First name match
 Nickname match
 Middle name match
 Middle initial match
 Gender match
 e-Mail address match
 Phone number match
 Physical address match
 Username match

When you consider that the same type of powerful computers that are used to analyze and process search engine queries are the ones processing millions or billions of information bits and instantaneously testing and slotting them based on relational patterns … it’s not hard to understand how, over time, eerily accurate portraits of individuals can be drawn that not only correctly reflect the “demographics” of the person, but also a host of psychographic and behavioral aspects such as:

 Shopping habits
 Recreational pursuits
 Personal finance profile
 Health information
 Political leanings
 Hobbies and interests
 Spirituality/religiosity
 Sexual preference or sexual proclivities

The WSJ articles detail how web sites are attempting to stay one step ahead of the “scrapers” by employing software that alerts them to suspicious “bot” activity on forums and other password-protected areas. It’s often a losing battle … and is that particularly surprising?

These days, not even the Orthodox monks at Mount Athos are protected, probably!

The Maturing of Social Media

October 10, 2010October 10, 2010 Phillip Nones Uncategorized Augie Ray, Blog, Blogosphere, Blogs, Collectors, Communications, Consumer Marketing, Conversationalists, Creators, Critics, Forrester, Forrester Research, Global Social Technographics, Inactives, Interactive, Internet, Joiners, Market Research, marketing, News, Nones, NonesNotes, Phillip Nones Nones Notes, Social Behavior, Social Behaviors, Social Marketing, Social Media, Social Media Behavior, Social Media Behaviors, Social Media Ladder, Social Media Trends, Social Networking, Social Networks, Social Technographics Ladder, Spectators, Technographics, Thoughts, Trends, Twitter, Web, Weblog, Weblogs

Forrester Research, an international technology and market research company, has been formally tracking the growth and maturation of social media behavior over the past four years. Each year it has seen steady increase in participation – until now.

In its most recent study, just released, Forrester reports that although social media “joiners” and “spectators” continue to grow in the U.S., the number of “creators” has now reached a plateau.

Forrester defines social media “creators” as those people who maintain a blog, publish their own web pages, or upload their own videos or musical creations. As of today, Forrester estimates that approximately 23% of U.S. online adults fall into this category.

But for the first time since Forrester’s annual “Global Social Technographics®” studies began in 2007, the number of “creators” hasn’t risen. In explaining this news, Augie Ray, senior analyst of social computing/marketing at Forrester, had this to say in a 9/28/2010 blog post:

“The reasons span things as complex as human nature and as simple as web site usability. For example, is it sensible to believe that ‘creator’ behavior will ever be universal? Not every person has a burning need to be a reporter, an industry expert, a videographer, a musician, a thought leader, an editor or a broadcaster. The fact that more than one in five online adults in the U.S. are exhibiting ‘creator’ behavior is a testament to how social technologies have lowered the bar, since these tools have allowed more people to create and distribute their ideas, opinions and creations than was ever possible in the past.”

The 2010 Forrester study did find that the number of “joiners” – those people who maintain social networking profiles – continues to grow. That’s explained by the fact that people feel they must be part of social media, if only to keep in touch with friends and relatives. Notes Ray, “Today, avoiding social networks is about as easy to do as avoiding e-mail – it’s possible, but it comes at a substantial cost in terms of relationships and knowledge.”

Another interesting aspect of the Forrester report is a look at the Social Technographics® ladder that does a nice job of breaking down social medial activities into behavioral categories. As of today, the research finds the following breakdown:

 ~23% are “creators” – They publish a blog or their own web page, or upload their own videos or music at least once per month.

 ~31% are “conversationalists” – They update their status on Twitter or social networking sites at least once per week.

 ~33% are “critics” – They post ratings or reviews of products and services, comment on someone else’s blog post, or contribute to online forums at least once per month.

 ~19% are “collectors” – They “vote” for web sites online, add “tags” to web pages or photos, or use RSS news feeds at least once per month.

 ~59% are “joiners” – They maintain a profile or visit social networking sites at least once per month.

 ~68% are “spectators” – They read blogs, listen to podcasts, watch videos, read online forums or read customer reviews at least once per month, without otherwise interacting with the content.

And what about the “inactives” – those who engage in none of the activities as described above? They represent just 19% of all American adults who are online. Based on the most recent findings, that’s a figure that may stubbornly refuse to decline much further.

How the B-to-B Sales Process is Changing

August 15, 2010September 1, 2010 Phillip Nones Uncategorized Adam Needles, B-to-B, B-to-B Communications, B-to-B Sales, Blogosphere, Blogs, Business, Business-to-Business, Business-to-Business Communications, Business-to-Business Sales, CBD, Colman Brohan Davis, Commercial Marketing, Commercial Sales, Communications, Digital Marketing, Direct Mail, Direct Marketing, e-Marketing, e-Research for Marketing, E-RM, Industrial Marketing, Industrial Sales, marketing communications, Media, News, Nones, Nones Notes, NonesNotes, Offline Communications, Online Communications, Phillip Nones, Sales, Silverpop, Technology, Thoughts, Twitter

In my 20+ years in industrial, commercial and other non-consumer marketing communications, I’ve witnessed more than a few “big trends” affecting the nature of the selling process in the business realm.

One of the biggest of these is the approach that customers take when evaluating products and services they might be interested in purchasing. Recent research findings about these behaviors has been published that sheds more interesting light on where things are at the moment.

A survey of ~300 B-to-B managers was conducted in late 2009 by e-Research for Marketing (E-RM) for Colman Brohan Davis, a Chicago-based marketing organization. This survey, which was limited to respondents age 35 or younger, found that only a few of the 13 tools used to research products and services represented “traditional media” – print-based resources, trade shows, or consulting with industry colleagues by phone or in person.

Furthermore, the study found that even these four tactics are losing their importance compared to the use of online social networks, which were exploding in usage.

These survey results reminded me of a comment made by Adam Needles, director of B-to-B field marketing at Silverpop, an e-mail marketing company based in Atlanta. “Somewhere around age 30 to 35, you can draw a line in the sand between people who are used to calling around to get everything and [where it’s been] all about relationships face-to-face.”

In contrast, Needles has this to say about younger staffers who conduct a great deal of the buying cycle online: “You have people whose expectation is that companies should put everything on their web sites; they should be getting real-time feeds and information, and companies should be totally integrated into … the blogosphere.”

Younger staffers tend to be influencers more than decision-makers. But this is not to diminish their importance, as they are the ones charged with conducting the research and drafting investigative report summaries and preliminary recommendations. Ferreting out information through resources like webinars and social platforms such as Twitter and blog posts, while it may seem exotic and less consequential to older colleagues, is not at all foreign to these staffers.

And we shouldn’t forget that today’s “influencer” at a company is very likely tomorrow’s “decision-maker.”

Which gets us back to the ER-M study. One big takeaway from that research was that customers are looking into all the corners of offine and online communications to find the information they feel they need to make risk-averse and “CYA” decisions that are also the successful ones that pay off well – hence building their reputations inside their company.

Tactics like direct mail marketing may seem old-hat or even quaint, but they can still be quite effective, while e-mail marketing, while fast and cheap, elicits resistance from some because they feel inundated with marketing materials that are irrelevant to their needs.

I guess it’s yet more challenging news for already-fractured marketing communications program tactics that continue to be under tight budget constraints.