AddThis: Sharing trends based on last 5 years (Infographic)

A while ago, ShareThis shared their insights why people share content. And also this year, bit.ly stated in a research they did that the half life of a link is approximately three hours.

Now, AddThis (1.2bn monthly users) is following their approach with an infographic on their 5th birthday to visualise user behaviour around Social Media sharing trends across the social web.

If you plan your next viral campaign you might consider time and day: 9:30am and Wednesday are said to be the best peaks for shareable content. Most users share content within the first 2 minutes. And 75% of shared content occur within the first day of a share. Interesting though is the fact that cut and paste sharing can still be up to 10x more used than the well-known social sharing tools.

PS: The average Twitter user shares half a tweet per day, according to Twitter CEO Dick Costolo…

CMO’s studies: Yes, Social Media is key! – Can someone gimme a plan on “Social”…?

CMO’s and marketers all over the world and across industries understand the increasing value of Social Media in (their) business. However, I sometimes wonder whether they really recognize how to use Social Capital and Social Business effectively.

How did I get this view…?

Well, studies show me the reality… and many seminars and webinars open eyes. Today, I came across two studies which might illustrate what marketers and CMO’s need to get their heads around. If they are good, they create brand advocate programs, if they act badly consumers will see brands as boring, poor, and even worse… not obeying the rules of social business. And today brands cannot miss out on “Social”. That is a fact, CMO’s understand…

Market Research vs. Social Research
In one of the latest IBM studies of 1,700 chief marketing officers from 64 countries and across 19 industries, 82% of CMOs stated that they will increase their use (or budgets?) of Social Media over the next three to five years. The flipside is that just 26% are currently tracking blogs, 42% are tracking third-party reviews and 48% are tracking the consumer reviews which might help change their market positioning, their marketing insights, their marketing programs. Let’s take the qualitative aspect of Social Research first.

From a quantitative research perspective, 80% rely on market research and corporate benchmarking to rely on as their primary sources for market insights. Obviously, most companies also obey other “non-social” monitoring tools to value the development of their business: 68% use sales campaign analysis for strategic decision making.

In the end, it comes down to numbers. 63% of CMOs believe the ROI on their marketing invest will be the primary measure of effectiveness by 2015. However, almost half of respondents don’t feel prepared to satisfy those business figure aspects. The reason is obvious: CMOs often don’t have enough influence on radical company-wide change processes. Over half of responding CMOs stated they have no impact on pricing process and even less have any impact on new product development or retail channel selection.

Community and Brand Reputation
On the other hand, another new Weber Shandwick study found out how companies understand and plan their social efforts. So, why are some marketers more social than others?

The challenge is to find the key tactics with best possible metric efficiency. Most marketers know about the impact of the 3 “r’s”… reviews, ratings, recommendations on their business efforts. 52% attribute their brand reputation to their online social presence. And even more, 65% project online sociability will boost their reputation in the next three years. However, I would doubt if they act accordingly.

Today, Social Media is part of CMOs marketing mix. The question is, why only 16% consider their efforts as “world class”. This study also makes clear that marketers have trouble establishing clear goals for their social media strategy. Finding the right KPIs is essential. No wonder, companies state they are not well-prepared for the social future in terms of effectiveness. Most o fhtese companies don’t really integrate their social engagement into their enterprise processes.

Spot On!
CMO’s and marketers need to get insights beyond traditional market sources like page impresions, click-throughs and superficial numbers like fans and follower. The good spot is that 54% of global executives experience rewards to outweigh risks – versus 23% the other way round, and some European bosses even focus their attention preferably on Twitter. Although, C-level often does not know how to leverage Social efficiency. The community gives input on the value of products, services and preferrences. When did we have that years ago?

Somehow, marketers are in a poor position as they are working in the transition period. Top down target-group thinking is out, community centric thinking is the future. In some day, we will publish a new strategic theory on this at the IBM JamCamp. Nice coincidence…

Study: The Social Customer – How consumer get influenced by reviews and recommendations…

We all know that we get influenced by the 3 R’s that people publish on the Social Web: reviews, recommendations and ratings. Now, there is some more proof with the study “2011 Cone Online Influence Trend Tracker” by Cone Communications. Positive and negative information found on the Social Web have the same massive impact on how people change their minds after having received purchase recommendations.

The study shows that more than 80% of users change their minds after reading reviews whether positive or negative.

Positive reviews confirm the process of consumer decision making. 87% of the repondents were agreeing a favorable review has confirmed their decision to purchase. Still, negative recommendation can also turn down a recommended purchase. Interesting for me was that blogs get tracktion as a credible source of information when researching products and services online – an increase by 20% to 2010.

In terms of trustworthy information source, people respect the fact that somebody has used the product or service in the first place (69%). Obviously, recognized experts with product or service expertise com in the top end position (60%) when it comes to trust. However, Social Media gets more importance from a marketing perspective when people trust someoone when “he/she has a lot of social media followers” (8%).

Finally, the higher the costs for the purchase are (i.e. cars), the more likely are people to verify the quality of the product and service online. However, moderate- and low-cost purchases are also quite likely to be verified online.

Spot On!
The study is a great support in the assumption that the influence of the social customer’s has essential power in changing mindsets on purchase decisions. The experience and feedback shared on the Social Web will influence the sales funnel in the future in a way we cannot foresee yet. What is definitely clear is the fact that sales people and marketers have to change their approach on how to interact with these reviews, recommendations and ratings. This is where the competition in the sales funnel will be decided, and in the end lost or won…

The multiscreen world is evolving…

Some days ago, I have written about the timely relationship in media usage between TV and mobile apps. This week, NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey Company, found a statistically significant relationship that shows a correlation between online buzz and TV ratings.

The study concludes that the correlation takes place throughout the TV show season. However, the impact online buzz has on ratings can vary based on a season’s timeline. The strongest correlation is with viewers ages 12-17 and 18-34 with a slightly stronger correlation for women over men. Seeing older viewers, social buzz gets more impact on ratings toward the end of the season.

The studies show that the usage of mobile and social are also linked when we bear in mind that 50% of social media usage came through mobile last year. It suggests that more and more people are sitting in front of their TV screens with their mobiles (smartphones or tablets) while surfing the web and chatting with their friends or other people all over the world about the shows they are watching… or other topics of interest.

We see more and more ConnectedTV’s coming to the market. US smart TV shipments is said to double in 2012, reaching 52.85 million units and 20% of the market according to Parks Associates research, and over 60% of US connected TV homes use apps.

There is no dout that TV and online will become one world in the future. Already, 74% of people with broadband surf internet while watching TV according to some OVUM research. However, the questions arise whether the user will have and use one or two screens in the future, and which one will be first and second screen? Will smartphones and tablets replace the importance of TV, or will the power of TV increase. In the US studies the average TV viewing time is

This week, I have been to Mediamind’s DED2011 in London where some great speaker where giving insights in the cross-channel consumer and the future of ConnectedTV.

Dean Donaldson, Global Director of Media Innovation at MediaMind gave a great summary of the latest development how users engage with screen today. The usage time of Online versus TV usage (more than 5 hours) is only 10%, mobile is used 20 minutes daily. However, this does not mean that the user is in front of the screen. The question is which screen is really catching the interest of the user and how long are people paying attention to what is happening on the screen. What was “watching onair” becomes “engaging online”. The latest Honda Jazz commercial illustrates the opportunities that the convergence of TV, Online and mobile offer.

After the event I had some time to speak with Dr. Patrick Dixon, Chairman of Global Change and author of Futurewise. His success ca be manifested in his social web figures. The website gets 14 million unique users, 4 million video views and his Twitter account shows 42.000 followers. This man knows what he is talking about…

Spot On!
The outook into the future of Connected TV is fascinating and goes hand-in-hand with the evolution of screen technology. ConnectedTV, or Smart TV, will need to take the customer with them and TV manufacturers, cable suppliers and broadcasters need to find the right path from hype, futuristic gaming to reality. Consumers are not buying a TV screen as fast as a laptop or a smartphone, although they are using it more often than the other devices. And marketing in a Connected TV world will become even more difficult as marketers need to address the customer with their brand message on the right screen, at the right time and in the contextual situation.

Study: Three mindsets of search categorize peoples’ seach mode

According to a new study conducted by the New York Times Co.’s About.com in collaboration with Latitude there are three kinds of search behavior: “answer me,” “educate me” and “inspire me”. Thus, the study identifies some distinct human behavior search patterns which will help marketers connect and understand the target groups they are heading for.

So, how do these three search pattern types differentiate in the study that surveyed 928 Americans, age 21 to 54 with household incomes of $50,000 or higher?

“Answer me” searches accounted for 46% of all searches, the study found. People searching in this mode simply just want exactly what they ask for. They don’t want any value add. Their typical search is looking for beauty, fashion and entertainment.
Advice for marketers: The option to capitalize on an “Answer me” moment by featuring product benefits front and center, in addition to aligning content that presents quick, easy-to-find answers, offers a massive opportunity to marketers to generate leads.

“Inspire me” searches accounted for 28% of all searches. This is the typical browsing mode. Usually, people in this mode look for travel as well as home and garden.
Advice for marketers: For those consumers in the “Inspire me” mindset, creativity and different inspirational information sources will be wanted by consumers.

“Educate me” searches accounted for 26% of all searches. People searching in this mode expect to find multiple perspectives on a topic. The top categories of most interest are health and finance.
Advice for marketers: In the “Educate me” the contextual search mode marketers offer might help consumers with creating informative, multiple messages.

From a brand marketer’s point of view, the study explains that ads can be relevant to search. When nearly 90% of respondents “enjoy when brands stop trying to sell you something and focus on teaching you something,” this tells them that putting your bets on search is defenitely not the worst tactic.

Furthermore, most respondents agreed on search advertising terms…
- the best ads are the ones that work with the information source to help you get what you need (88%)
- that ads can be useful when they are very relevant to their search (77%)
- that ads have helped them find great options, deals or discounts (64%)

Spot On!
However, marketers can take their advantage from this study, being successful with the findings is still a challenge. What is the best way to identify in which mode a user is? The easiest option will probably be to have some ads for each of the categories. Still, this means to have the right content when consumers are clicking through to the landing page. If you think about it, you will understand why content marketing is seen as a major trend from CMO’s.

LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook? Study finds leading social network from journalists…

What’s your guess? What is the leading social network for journalists? And what does this mean to business decision makers, managers and PR professionals?

The answer by far is LinkedIn with 92% – with a remarkable increase of 7% compared to 2009. However, this does not mean that it is their main source of information. At least, this is what the latest study tells us which is called 2011 Arketi Web Watch Survey: Inside BtoB Media Usage of Social Media.

For me it was a bit of an eye-opener as I thought journalists might prefer to use Twitter to monitor sources for trending topics and breaking news. Probably, the statement has some value still. For Mike Neumeier, Pricipal, Arketi Group was not surprised…

“It comes as no surprise more BtoB journalists are participating in social media sites, especially LinkedIn. (…) LinkedIn provides an online outlet for them to connect with industry sources, find story leads and build their professional networks.”

The second largest still is not Twitter. It is Facebook. 85% of journalists are on Facebook (increase by 30% to 2009). However, Twitter comes in nearly at the same result (84%) and with the highest growth of 60% to 2009. And nearly half of the responding journalists (49%) say they blog or read blogs regularly.

“When compared to the 2009 Arketi Web Watch Survey, this year’s results show significantly more journalists are using social media tools (…) This means companies have more online channels through which they can reach media targets. This is both a blessing and curse for today’s PR professionals.” Dr. Kaye Sweetser, associate professor of PR, University of Georgia’s Grady College

Findings where journalists have their news sources…
- 80% via public relations contacts
- 77% rely on news releases
- 74% turn to newswires (i.e. BusinessWire or PRNewswire)
- 71% get from email pitches
- 56% from blogs
- 44% from micro-blogs (such as Twitter), and
- 39% from social networking sites (such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Myspace).

More than nine out of ten journalists responding (96 percent) say they prefer to receive news releases via email from companies they know, and 95 percent of business journalists say they prefer to receive news releases via email from companies they don’t know but are in industries they cover.

Journalists get crucial information regarding breaking news from the following sources…
- 85% Industry experts
- 81% Company website
- 80% Industry website
- 80% Other interested parties
- 57% Industry blog
- 53% Company blog
- 41% Industry Twitter feed
- 33% Company Twitter feed

Spot On!
Although LinkedIn is very popular among journalists, it does not seem to be the centre of attention to get a big story. Still, the direct contact and company websites have massive power and as they are probably the most trusted sources, they still lead. Still, social networks make it easy for journalists to get in touch with relevant people for good quotes. It should assume that investigative journalism is on the rise. Reading newspapers and websites today, I personally get the feeling that blogs have far more to offer.

What is your view?

Marketing automation – A sleeping lead generation star…?

Although companies get flooded with information concerning the benefits of marketing automation, the topic is still “not self-explanatory” to most marketers. The majority of B2B companies understand the general benefit in principle. Nevertheless, only a few are using marketing automation yet (7-10%). It seems that marketing automation is a sleeping star…

Still, the market for marketing automation is growing as you can figure out from the numbers below. Not surprising. The solution providersfor marketing automation proclaim an increase in lead generation and explain companies how easy it is to manage the sales lead funnel. And generating leads is what drives the B2B world around…

The annuitas Group just recently published some statistics from numerous sources that summarize the marketing automation market and published an interesting infographic.

- 110 vendors are seeling products and solutions in the marketing automation space
- 81% of best-in-class companies see the benefit in closing deals faster
- 76% of marketing decision makers see generation of high-qualified leads as the biggest challenge
- 64% of them have neither an internal nor external process to manage marketing automation
- 36% use marketing automation for lead nurturing
- 451% increase in qualified leads get businesses that use marketing automation for lead nurturing
- 47% more closed werde generated via lead nurturing generiert
- 10% use marketing automation to follow up later in the buying cycle

Spot On!
The statistics illustrate the power of marketing automation and what it could do to lead generation. However, when companies use marketing automation, only 25% use the full potential of marketing automation. It has become a “must have” in the marketing departments, at least of enterprises. If small and medium-sized companies use marketing automation or their a pre-sales/telemarketing to leverage their marketing and thus sales potential would be an eye-opening statistic in these terms. In many cases, time and resources hinder most companies from diving deeper into the potential of marketing automation and thus their brand content, the context in which it appears, and the community that talks about their business, products and services. The approach that I came across the last three years was an outsourced solution to service providers like agencies, publishers or software providers. And the main challenge of lead generation and nurturing is to align marketing, sales and customer service for a more efficient web strategy.

Would you agree that marketing automation is still a sleeping marketing star for lead generation…?

LinkedIn – The future of career advertising goes social…

About one and a half years ago, the guys from Mediamind asked me if I want to write a guest post on the future of banner creatives on their blog. Well, I flashed back to find the future – the old strategic approach… What came out was a headline called “Engagement creatives reloading the future”. Seeing what was happening on LinkedIn in the last months, it seems I had quite a good feeling on what the future might look like.

In the Mediamind post, I focussed on the response banner functionality of Facebook creatives and how the referential potential of social graph marketing intelligence let the personal network get engaged. One individual creates buzz just by being integrated with a linked name in one line of the graphic. So, people know your name and get dragged into campaign activity, just by curiosity, just by wanting to know why, what and how. Just by … you name it.

In the last weeks, LinkedIn came from being just another platform selling space to opening the potential for intelligent career online advertising, and leveraging the network potential with clever display advertising. Companies were focussing on personalization, the social targeting opportunities and the API potential to enable innovative campaigns creatives on the business network.

While some social media marketing companies (funny right…?! see picture above) use the traditional way of banner creatives, Volkswagen identified the evolution of the pick-a-boo effect and the competitive aspect of having more contacts, more recommendations and better education. Just the things that make up a career…

Another example is AMEX. They took their social advertising career campaign even a step further by not spoting you, but the person next to us that helps successful managers, the teams and you: the administrators. People could nominate their business supporters, and by voting promote these “second liners” to have a chance to win a gift card courtesy of 2.500 USD.

In the end, the most convincing career social display campaign is when you find yourself in the middle of a personalized creative. When I checked one of my contacts from SAP today, a rectangle banner appeared next to the SAP contact profile of the person I am linked with. Now, guess what happened? I got offered a job from SAP. Well, maybe not the job I wanted but still a great approach.

The banner was personalized using my LinkedIn picture and my name. It was really somehow talking to me. It detected I could be in the software industry, I could be a consulting sales person, and yes, the creation is clever in terms of straight interaction and sharing. Don’t you think…?

Spot On!
We are still early stages with these new (career) display advertising opportunities. Still, the advertising evolution is happening, and publishers need to have a close look at the opportunities if they don’t want to loose the battle to social networks. These examples might be geeky – however, they are engaging, personalized and conversational. Just what traditional banner cannot offer far too often…

Study: Social Media and Advertising – What is the next hype for marketers…?

When you do Social Media marketing seminars and trainings (and I have done many in the last 24 months), most of the times marketers want to know everything around Facebook and Twitter (maybe Google Plus these days). However, according to the Pivot Conference that released their study “The Rise of the Social Consumer”, with the response of 230 brand managers, executives, and marketing professionals yesterday, some new hypes from marketers can be seen. Just check out the platforms that marketers are planning to invest in…

Although the big players on the market dominate at present, the next wave is already approaching marketers mindset. YouTube, LinkedIn, Foursquare and Zynga have made their popularity in the Social Media market and might get the future attention of the marketers. The second column shows an increase of those four platforms between 13-26% which obviously have some good business value if seen from the right customer service and customer relationship management spot.

For B2B companies LinkedIn got some great assets, not only with their special groups. YouTube is some higly underated platform in my eyes. It can be used for different visual aspects in B2B, but also viral topics and campaign opportunities in B2C. If restaurants, service providers or entertainment brands want to head for local promotions, Foursquare (and Gowalla in some areas – also 5% increase forecasted) offers some fantastic buzz potential. Whether Zynga is really so powerful for marketers to promote their offerings, needs to be seen and proved in the future. I would rather recomment and elaborate on reward advertising models.

The study also showed that 84% of brands encourage user involvement with social advertisement campaigns. This is interesting as very often the perception of marketers was that people don’t really see the ads next to their streams. The intention of marketers why they invest in Social Media advertising is manyfold…

Spot On!
Over half of respondents of the study (see full report) said they were shifting money away from other forms of marketing towards Social Media. 23% of respondents even stated that social advertising delivers a greater ROI than other forms of advertising. Although this sounds great, the strategic approach to every social advertising and Social Media engagement needs to be double-checked. The development of the results need to be aligned with the expectations and targets set before the Social Media activity started. At least if they don’t want to lack business credibility in front of their bosses…

Reports indicate, Facebook has value for B2B business…

Many discussions have been going on in the past two years with people who participated in the Social Media seminars and workshops I held recently. And there is still a “fight” going on how much B2B value Facebook has, and for which industry sectors Facebook is relevant, or if only for promotions and campaigns.

TBG Digital, a Marketing and technology company, has revealed some statistics now. The company put together a study called “Global Facebook Advertising Report” which analysed 200 billion impressions from 167 clients.

The report states that there is a 435% improvement in campaign conversion rates if companies and brands are targeting existing fans. Brand campaigns on Facebook grew by 104% quarter on quarter, and some industry sectors profit more than others, especially retail gains benefits…

The data provided highlights that one of the top five areas of growth is the business and industrial sector. Mentioning the amazing growth of these business areas, the report suggests that this ia the fact for the B2B value of Facebook which is “fast becoming a valid B2B marketing channel”.

If we combine these findings with a study published by digital agency The Group yesterday, the B2B picture becomes even more value. The Social Media Leaders tracking study revealed UK Facebook usage increased massively among FTSE 100 companies by more than 50% in the last six months.

Spot On!
The reports are more indicators (than proof) for the value of Facebook for B2B. It is not surprising that companies prefer to use Twitter (41%) to Blogging (12%) according to the The Group report. In the end, it takes resources to establish an effective presence with a powerful blog which is easier to be executed via Facebook (although another study claims that customer satisfaction is not the best at Facebook). However, I would see the value for B2B more in steady blogging effort than in Facebook (ad campaigns) but it depends again on what the objectives of the Social Media activity on Facebook will be.

How do you see that? Is Facebook a B2B platform? And if so, only for marketing and sales efforts or campaigns?

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