Social Media Marketing Best Practices

Every day, businesses want—and need—to know more about social media marketing. They want to know how to do it, how to measure it, how to manage it and where it’s going. This week, eMarketer is publishing a new series of Insight Briefs that answer the key questions that businesses have about social media marketing.


Social media is no longer a trend for marketers; it is a reality. eMarketer forecasts that social network ad spending will reach $2.5 billion worldwide in 2010 and $1.3 billion in the US. About 64% of US Internet users will interact with user-generated content this year, and 26 million US adults will use Twitter at least monthly. Mobile social networks will reach 223 million people around the world.


Already, more than one-half of marketers are engaging in some social media activity, according to survey data from a number of researchers.


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Study: Spending On Email, Social And Search Rising

Email service provider ExactTarget released a study this week showing marketers plan to boost spending in email, social media and other non-traditional outreach channels this year. Advisory firm Econsultancy conducted the research along with the Indianapolis-based ESP.


The study of 1,000-plus marketers shows 54% of marketers said they will boost budgets for email marketing, and about 66% in social media (even though about 80% of those acknowledged the difficulty in tracking ROI in the medium).


Delving deeper in social media, the research showed the medium is the "fastest growing digital marketing channel." That includes venues from Facebook pages to blogs.


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Facebook Moms Are Marketing-Savvy

Marketers going after moms on social networks such as Facebook know by now that users rarely embrace ads in environments where they are focused on socializing with friends.


Data from lucid marketing and Lisa Finn shows that most mom Facebook users feel neutral about ads on the social network, compared with about 36% who actively disliked them. Only a tiny percentage of respondents reported liking ads on Facebook.


Moms were much more receptive to marketing in general, however—at least when done on their terms. Though most moms used Facebook primarily to keep in touch with friends and family, and only 10.4% said they focused on checking out companies or products, three-quarters were fans of at least one company or brand.


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In the World of Facebook

By Charles Petersen

The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal
by Ben Mezrich
Doubleday, 260 pp., $25.00


Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America
by Julia Angwin
Random House, 371 pp., $27.00


Facebook, the most popular social networking Web site in the world, was founded in a Harvard dorm room in the winter of 2004. Like Microsoft, that other famous technology company started by a Harvard dropout, Facebook was not particularly original. A quarter-century earlier, Bill Gates, asked by IBM to provide the basic programming for its new personal computer, simply bought a program from another company and renamed it. Mark Zuckerberg, the primary founder of Facebook, who dropped out of college six months after starting the site, took most of his ideas from existing social networks such as Friendster and MySpace. But while Microsoft could as easily have originated at MIT or Caltech, it was no accident that Facebook came from Harvard.


What is "social networking"? For all the vagueness of the term, which now seems to encompass everything we do with other people online, it is usually associated with three basic activities: the creation of a personal Web page, or "profile," that will serve as a surrogate home for the self; a trip to a kind of virtual agora, where, along with amusedly studying passersby, you can take a stroll through the ghost town of acquaintanceships past, looking up every person who's crossed your path and whose name you can remember; and finally, a chance to remove the digital barrier and reveal yourself to the unsuspecting subjects of your gaze by, as we have learned to put it with the Internet's peculiar eagerness for deforming our language, "friending" them, i.e., requesting that you be connected online in some way.


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Is blogging a slog? Some young people think so

CHICAGO – Could it be that blogs have become online fodder for the — gasp! — more mature reader?


A new study has found that young people are losing interest in long-form blogging, as their communication habits have become increasingly brief, and mobile. Tech experts say it doesn't mean blogging is going away. Rather, it's gone the way of the telephone and e-mail — still useful, just not sexy.


"Remember when 'You've got mail!' used to produce a moment of enthusiasm and not dread?" asks Danah Boyd, a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Now when it comes to blogs, she says, "people focus on using them for what they're good for and turning to other channels for more exciting things."


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Few Companies Have Policy for Employee Use of Social Networks

Social networks have the attention of businesses not just as a marketing tool but also as a liability. Lost productivity, security problems and reputation issues can lead companies to restrict employee usage of social networks despite their usefulness, according to the “Social Networks vs. Management?” report from employment services firm Manpower.


Worldwide, only one-fifth of the companies surveyed had a formal policy for employee use of external social networking sites. Firms in the Americas and Asia-Pacific were somewhat ahead on this front, but the majority of respondents in all regions had no policy in place. Among companies that did have a policy, 63% claimed it was effective in combating lost productivity.


While productivity may be a big concern for businesses, it’s not the sole one—reputation management is a potential problem associated with social media use. Despite stories about people being fired for committing social networking gaffes, just 4% of companies worldwide said their reputation had been hurt by employee use of social networks. That rate was doubled in the Americas but still represented only a tiny percentage of respondents.


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Facebook Now Has Yahoo In Its Sites, Already Bigger In Pageviews

Facebook is well on its way to taking Yahoo’s spot as the third largest Web property in the world. (Google and Microsoft are No. 1 and No. 2, respectively). Last summer Facebook took the No. 4 spot globally, displacing AOL, but according to comScore there was still an estimated 241 million unique visitors a month separating it from the No. 3 site, Yahoo. In December, 2009, that gap narrowed to 125 million unique visitors globally. (That was also the same month Facebook passed AOL in the U.S. to take the No. 4 spot domestically).


In December, 2009, Facebook attracted 469 million unique visitors, up an incredible 31 million visitors from the month before. To put that in perspective, in a single month Facebook gained as many new visitors as Yahoo did all year. That one-month gain was also the equivalent of adding as many people as all of Digg or half of Twitter.com. Meanwhile, Yahoo lost 7 million unique visitors from November to December to end the year at 594 million unique visitors. (In the U.S., Yahoo is a stronger No. 2 after Google, with 161 million uniques in December, compared to 173 million for Google, 138 million for Microsoft, and 112 Million for Facebook).


These numbers are different than the 350 million registered users Facebook itself counts, half of which come every day. ComScore estimates total traffic, which is larger than the number of reported registered users (you don’t have to be a Facebook member to visit a public page). And these are estimates, remember that. And they don’t include the 60 million people a month who log into other sites via Facebook Connect.


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Who is the ME in Social Media?

Good friend Stowe Boyd recently shared a quote by Gabriel García Márquez, “Everyone has three lives: a public life, a private life, and a secret life.”


Indeed, quite simply many of us live life allowing specific, trusted individuals to know us in one or more of our personae. Our moral compass as well as outside influences affect how we balance our three lives. The size and permeability of our personal dividers vary in the separation of each life and resemble doors that open and close based on our desires. We nurture each individually with slight coalescence, but concentrate on the establishment of a distinct ecosystem for cultivating and grooming who we are in public, private, and in secret.


The challenge, and sometimes the quiet objective, is to balance the opening and closing of each door, and to what extent, where we either intentionally or inadvertently allow our lives to touch and inspire the others. The risk however, is that with too much exposure, we may forever alter our personal standards and ultimately our identity. If the lines slowly vanish and cease to partition our compartmentalized characters we disrupt the state, ethics, and relationships we distinctly support and preserve. A butterfly effect ensues and creates catastrophic fallout that forces mending and restoration and sometimes, complete demolition and the building of something entirely new.


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Univision Cleans Up With Clorox Deal

In a first for the network, Univision has cut a deal with Clorox (brokered by the client's media shop OMD, a unit of Omnicom) to co-develop cross-platform content for broadcast TV, radio and online.


The content includes a one-hour Univision prime-time special for Jan. 30 entitled “Intimamente…Compartiendo Entre Amigas” (“Intimately… Sharing Among Friends”), featuring celebrity guests—including Victoria Ruffo, Bobby Pulido, Graciela Beltran and Horoscopos de Durango—who will share their inspirational stories and field questions from a studio audience. Ninety-second vignettes will be developed for Univision Radio.


The partnership will also develop an interactive community site, Compartiendo Entre Amigas (Sharing Among Friends), where participants can go to share and comment on stories relevant to their every day lives.


The partnership is based on the insight that "much of what a Hispanic woman knows about running her home is learned from her family and social network," the companies said in a statement.


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Caribbean Mega-Church Stakes Claim On Development In New Virtual World

Carolina, PR (PRWEB) January 29, 2010 -- Pastor Otoneil Font, Senior Pastor of Fountain of Living Waters Church in Puerto Rico, has signed a contract to break digital ground on an exact replica of his church to be constructed in the Universe of Faith (http://www.universeoffaith.com), the premier, browser-based virtual world for the Christian community.


Developers at Entertainment Arts Research, Inc, the creators of Universe of Faith, will be working with Font to construct the church and city in the virtual world as it appears in real life. This will allow users around the world to have access to Fountain of Living Waters Church as if they were actually attending and participating in worship. For a ministry such as Fountain of Living Waters Church that already reaches thousands of people in the Caribbean, Universe of Faith provides a one of a kind platform to offer more ministry resources to even more people across the globe.


“I am very excited about the potential Universe of Faith has for the Christian community. To have a resource like this at our fingertips is going to allow our church to reach so many more people with the love of Christ”, said Pastor Font. “I am so proud to have our church represented in Universe of Faith. In order to reach the new generation, we have to use every resource available. Great things are to come. Great things.”


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Email Campaigns Bloom With Social Media

Pepsi recently became one of the first companies to pull its Super Bowl ad spend and redirect it to social media. Breaking a 23-year tradition, Pepsi instead will invest in a social media campaign called the "Pepsi Refresh Project." The project will enable people to start communities for charity projects that need funding. People get involved by suggesting and voting to determine which projects get funded by Pepsi.


Reading news like this, it's easy to think that social media is choking off all marketing efforts. Truth is, for email marketers, social media is one of the most useful tools available to make campaigns bloom with more targeted, relevant and successful emails.


By including a social sharing feature in email campaigns, marketers can extend the reach of those campaigns by letting members do the sharing with others who they feel will be interested in receiving emails. Like the old shampoo commercial: "They'll tell two friends, and so on, and so on." The result is a boost in brand awareness. In addition, this provides an excellent vehicle to augment email lists.


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Baby Boomers Get Connected with Social Media

Baby boomers have always been good communicators, as evidenced by their presence at sit-ins, protests, demonstrations and “happenings” in the 1960s. So it was inevitable that boomers would check out social media sites.


“Creating and renewing personal connections online is the biggest draw for these boomers,” said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Boomers and Social Media.” “About 47% of online boomers maintain a profile on at least one social network, according to several sources. Their contacts include family, friends and co-workers of all ages.”


Burst Media reported that 47.5% of online boomer respondents had a social network profile in June 2009. In September of that year, Deloitte found 46% of boomer respondents said they maintained a social network profile—an important difference from simply creating one and forgetting about it.


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Engagement on Social Networks Top Priority for Marketers

Though not immune to the recession, digital marketing rode out the downturn, and marketers worldwide are bullish about the space’s prospects in 2010, according to research from the Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA).


The “2010 Digital Marketing Outlook” report found that 81% of the brand executives surveyed expected an increase in digital projects in 2010, and one-half will be moving dollars from traditional to digital budgets. Further, more than three-quarters think the current economy will push more allocations to digital.


Senior marketers reported that social networks and applications were their biggest priority for 2010, followed closely by digital infrastructure. While social media marketing looks set to stay top of mind, a majority of respondents considered a range of digital activities at least “important,” with only games failing to inspire widespread interest.


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What Social Followers Want

Brand marketers want consumers to follow them to build buzz and engagement, but social media users often desire something in return. What they’ve come to expect is a good deal, but many consumers—including the most active users of social sites—are also interested in deeper engagement.


A December 2009 MarketingSherpa survey indicated that learning about specials and sales was the top motivation of those who friended or followed a brand online, supporting the results of earlier surveys. But looking for savings was followed closely by learning about new products, features or services.


Users described as “max connectors”—those with at least 500 social connections—were less interested than average in getting deals. Instead, they cared about new products and company culture, demonstrating the deeper engagement expected by social media power users.


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Core Twitter Users More Active, Engaged

Data from HubSpot confirms a widely remarked trend: After a peak in growth rates in early 2009, uptake of Twitter slowed dramatically toward the end of the year.


Based on a study of user profiles on the microblogging site, HubSpot found worldwide growth was highest in March 2009, at 13%, and dropped to just 3.5% by October.


Decreased growth rates may have a positive effect, however. The user base has matured and, on average, Twitter users have been members of the site for longer, making them more engaged.


Users are following more feeds, for example, and being followed more in turn:


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Campaign creativity in Latin America

If Latin America is a business area of interest to you, a report by AdAge.com on marketing success stories in Latin America makes interesting reading.


The report outlines ten companies that have done well in 2009 – nine of them in Latin America and one in Spain – which illustrates good things are going on in an area of the world that may not capture front-of-mind attention in the English-speaking business world.


The ten companies and campaigns highlighted by AdAge are:


•Molinos Rio De La Plata Argentina: soup for mothers
•Pepsico Argentina: diga ‘Pecsi,’ no ‘Pepsi’
•Sky Brasil: Gisele Bundchen brings HD-TV to life
•Tarjeta Naranja Argentina: happiness is orange
•Tigo Colombia: getting a signal
•Corona Mexico: brand pride
•Hyundai Brasil: consumers like their cars
•VTR Chile: going digital
•HSBC Brasil: straight to the online point
•Coca-Cola Spain: burn with juice


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Why the retweet is a powerful engagement tool

Last week Facebook announced that it is rolling out what is, effectively, its own version of the retweet. The new ‘via’ feature allows users to repost another user’s shared items. As with the retweet, it is a way of further sharing content you find and find interesting, and of expressing your interest in the content in the first place.


The retweet, and now Facebook’s via feature, are very powerful tools in these social networks. In any online community or social network, some people are more active than others. In fact, in a natural online community we would expect that out of every 100 users, only one will originate new content. Another nine will add to or expand on this content. And 90 users will just read and learn from this content. They are unlikely to publicly create or add to a conversation themselves, but they are critical to the success of the the online community – without them, the others wouldn’t start or add to conversations.


When we’re managing online communities at FreshNetworks, we work hard to provide these 90 out of every 100 people something to do and a way to express their opinion, without having to start or add to an actual discussion. It’s about finding other ways for them to express their opinion, perhaps by rating or voting for content, organising their favourites or voting in polls. You can engage more people by offering ways for them to express their opinion without actually having to express it publicly in their own words. More often than not just finding a way for them to align themselves with others’ words is enough. Indeed it is often the best approach.


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NAHREP Modernizes to Deal With Distressed Hispanic Mortgage Market

The National Association of Hispanic Real Estate Professionals (NAHREP) this week launched its 2010 initiatives including a new membership program, a multimedia Web site and the debut of NAHREP CONNECT, a social networking service for Hispanic real estate professionals.


“NAHREP has created new ways for members to connect and get info from leading experts through our website and share market intelligence that will help them build their businesses,” said NAHREP chair Tino Diaz in an e-mailed statement Monday.


The Web site features video interviews and podcasts, as well as a blog and the social network feature. The new initiatives aim to address market trends and issues facing Hispanic homebuyers – who at the peak of the market received subprime financing at more than twice the rate of the overall market, Diaz tells HousingWire.


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HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy

Harlyn Lauby is the president of Internal Talent Management (ITM) which specializes in employee training and human resources consulting. She authors a blog at hrbartender.com.


Over the past few months, we’ve talked about whether you should have a social media policy and what should be included in that policy. It only seems logical to discuss the next step in the process, which is what to consider when implementing a social media strategy in your workplace.


Just having a policy isn’t good enough — you need a plan to put it in place. Here are five areas to discuss when implementing a social media strategy.


1. Determine Your Objective


Luis Ramos, CEO of The Network, reminds us that creating a social media strategy is a complex exercise because “it includes not only looking inside the organization to establish appropriate practices, usage policies and content parameters, but it also includes looking outside the organization to determine the proper degree of engagement.”


Figure out why you’re getting on the social media bandwagon and what you want to accomplish with it. This step is absolutely necessary if you plan to measure ROI or develop your own internal metrics tracking.


When General Motors put together their social media strategy, they had some specific objectives they wanted to accomplish. Christopher Barger, director of global social media at General Motors, outlined the following:


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Minority businesses bridging the digital divide

What digital divide?


Curtis Brown was on the phone enthusing about how social media have boosted his Verona-based mobile marketing business when suddenly the line seemed to go dead.


"Whoops, sorry," he said after a moment. "I just got distracted -- someone sent me a message on LinkedIn."


A typical Internet geek multitasking on a cell phone and laptop? Yes, but Mr. Brown defies the stereotype in one important way: he is African-American, part of a demographic that has lagged behind other groups in Internet adoption surveys.


Not only did Mr. Brown cross the digital divide years ago, he and other minority groups, nationally and in Pittsburgh, are increasingly using social media to promote their businesses and build community.


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Multiple media carry Census message to be counted

First, they'll tell you the Census is coming. Then, they'll tell you why filling out and mailing back the forms is a good thing. Finally, if you've ignored the first two, they'll tell you to open your door to Census workers.
Today, the Census Bureau unveils a $133 million national advertising campaign that will debut at 9:15 p.m. ET Sunday during the Golden Globe Awards on NBC.


The money is part of $340 million the government is spending to promote the Census this year, including more than $70 million for ads targeting Hispanic, black, Asian and other ethnic markets.


The campaign chiefly targets the 84% of the U.S. population that consumes English-language media, but ads on billboards, radio and TV and in magazines and newspapers will circulate in 27 other languages.


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Younger Americans Still Fueling Facebook

As Facebook reached 350 million users worldwide, its largest single source of growth was still the US.


Inside Facebook reported that the US gain of more than 4.5 million monthly active Facebook users was the highest number of any country. Because of the large installed base of US Facebook users, it represented a 5% gain, compared with 10% growth in countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia.


For its size, India added relatively few new users in December 2009. Its high 9% growth rate was from a very small base, and Facebook still reaches only 0.5% of the population of the country.


The substantial increase in US users put Facebook’s domestic monthly active user audience over the 100 million mark. And at the same time as the most overall growth came from the home market, the biggest increases in the US came among younger adults, Facebook’s core audience.


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Hispanic media group to meet in Albuquerque

The National Association of Hispanic Publications will hold its 25th annual convention and business expo in Albuquerque from March 10 to 13.


Gov. Bill Richardson will co-chair the convention. Ed Romero, former ambassador to Spain, and Cayetana Romero are honorary co-chairs with NAHP President Clara Padilla Andrews.


This is the first time the organization has held its annual convention in New Mexico. Publishers will attend from around the country and Mexico. The conference will include workshops and lectures on advertising, sales and social media.


The Albuquerque Hispano Chamber of Commerce and the National Hispanic Press Foundation are also partners in the convention. The University of New Mexico is supporting the event by giving students a chance to participate in the future leaders’ day at the convention.


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Twitter Job Posts Suggest Serious Business

It looks like Twitter has finally begun to get serious about generating positive cash flow, after securing $100 million in venture capital funding last year. The company has 27 open job posts, from software and system engineers to business development.


Since the move to invest in people who can support projects signals maturity, it's now time to start generating ways to turn a profit and make money online. Some suggest that mobile will have a part in that, but none of the open positions directly reflect that sentiment.


One open position looks for a software engineer with experience working on large-scale search index and query processing systems. This person must have a focus on search applications and infrastructure.


Another software engineer position recognizes the need to get serious about ridding the site of spam. The full-time position asks for someone who can work with the "spam detection system" to make Twitter a "safer place."


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The Top 100 Social Media Brands -- Or, Sex Doesn't Just Sell, It Socializes

As usual, I've been spending way too much quality time mulling over something only the readers of this column, and yours truly, might care about: Vitrue's second annual list of the top social media brands.


After looking it over from the iPhone (#1), to Comcast (#100), here's what I've decided: that, as it always does, sex sells -- in this case, because it socializes.


No, Playboy didn't make the list, but when you look at who did, they are almost all brands that, using the broadest sense of the term, are inherently sexy. I speak of brands like Mercedes (#17), the NBA (#5) and Nike (#10). Of KFC (66), BestBuy (#22) and MTV (#4). In short, they are almost all brands that speak to the gratification engine that super-charges our souls, that makes life worth living -- and a BMW (#20) worth purchasing.


So, why do I point this out? Because it makes me wonder what the social possibilities are -- or aren't -- for brands that merely serve instead of gratify. I counted six consumer packaged goods companies on the list, and even them, including outlier Nutella (#42), were what I would define as sexy. (I mean, who, really, can resist a spread made partially out of chocolate?) The CPG list was rounded out by Coca-Cola (#31), Pepsi (#73), Red Bull (#47), Avon (#97) and Skittles (#65). No Tide or Hamburger Helper here.


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Your Message Doesn't Know What Twitter Is

Your brand message doesn't know what Twitter is. Your brand message doesn't know what Facebook is, either. But that shouldn't stop you from figuring out how to use Twitter, Facebook and many other social media tools to spread your brand message, because, when it comes down to it, your brand message has no idea what television, radio and print are, either.


How many people would you like the opportunity to deliver your message to, at what level of engagement? I don't mean to use "engagement" as a buzz term in social media (although I do believe very strongly it will provide a currency going forward for digital media), but you have to admit there is clearly a difference in the way people can and will experience your brand message on a billboard along the freeway vs. during the Super Bowl, vs. in a movie theater, vs. on their computer, vs. on their phone (hat tip, Marshall McLuhan).


Each has its own advantages and disadvantages in what the creative can do to engage a consumer with the brand message, but deciding the "what" of the message needs to happen before the "how" of delivery. Try taking out all medium-specific metrics to better evaluate which media channels work best, because it's very difficult, if not impossible, to compare the metrics from one medium to another. This tactic can even help agencies and clients have better conversations around what will define marketing success.


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So Act(R) Network Announces Consulting Agreement With Entertainment Industry Expert

HOUSTON, Jan. 12, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- So Act Network, Inc. (OTCBB:SOAN) announced today that it has signed an agreement with entertainment industry legendary promoter Roy Sciacca to assist the Company with marketing and promotion to the music and television entertainment market.


"Roy Sciacca has significant global experience in the entertainment industry to help us establish contacts as we cross over into the entertainment world to gain acceptance for our unique social/business networking platform," said Greg Halpern, So Act Network President. "Roy's experience with Quepasa (cross-over to the television world) will help us establish links to substantial foreign markets in the Latin Social Networking, music and television communities.


"I am extremely excited about So Act and where it can go because I represent a global company that reaches millions of people," said Roy Sciacca. "I believe in the So Act message to build a better world and I am confident that the public is ready for this type of change. What So Act brings to the table is of great benefit to the world and they can change the scope of social networking the way I am going to change the scope of music reality television."


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Hiring Pros Share Insights About Social Networking Sites

The Recruiter Roundtable is a recurring feature that collects career and job-seeking advice from a group of recruiting experts throughout the United States. The question we put before our panel this month is:
Are you using social networking sites as part of your recruiting -- either for finding and/or vetting candidates? What are your observations and tips about how candidates can use these sites effectively as part of a job search?


Leverage the Opportunity


Currently, we are using social networking sites -- mostly LinkedIn. Where we use Facebook is more in the groups section. I have joined a few alumni groups and have posted a position there.


More than 75% of companies in the U.S. were polled and agreed that utilizing social media was a necessary outlet for recruiting.


I would recommend that if you are actively interviewing, keep your profile clean. No profanity (this goes without saying), no inappropriate photos or negative comments. Be smart -- use it as a tool -- add your awards, accomplishments, professional goals. With more and more employers turning to this inexpensive tool, leverage this opportunity.
-- Carolyn Dougherty, owner of IntelliSource Inc.


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Marketing, Not Ads, Fuels Social Spending Growth

Going social is no longer an experiment for marketers; it is a reality. There is no question that companies and brands are investing real dollars in social network marketing. However, paid advertising in social networks—banners, text ads and search advertising, as well as the more targeted advertising being deployed by Facebook and MySpace—is only a fraction of the spending.


The remainder is difficult to track, since dollars spent on social network marketing initiatives often come from a variety of budgets—including public relations, cause marketing and research, according to the Jack Myers Media Business Report. The researcher estimated marketers spent $800 million in 2009 on social network, word-of-mouth and conversational marketing, up more than 23% over the previous year. Further growth of 35% is expected for 2010 to more than $1 billion.


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Minority Businesses Slow to Embrace Social Media and Web 2.0

New York, NY (PRWEB) January 6, 2010 -- Digital and social media marketing leaders T.C. Coleman, Esq., CEO of UpwardAction®; Lethia Owens, CEO of Lethia Owens International, Inc.; Andrew Morrison, President of Small Business Camp; and Eric Hamilton, Executive Director of The Web Academy will join forces during the 13th Annual Wall Street Project Economic Summit for the Social Media Revolution: Build Credibility, Raise Visibility, Grow Profits panel.


Those attending the Wall Street Project Economic Summit's “Social Media Revolution” will explore efficient and effective ways to use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Plaxo, online video and private social networks to attract new business opportunities and increase revenue. According to Reverend Jesse Jackson, Sr., “Our mission is more necessary than ever before: ensuring access to capital, industry, technology and deal flow. Social media technology has become a vital tool for competitive companies. Therefore, the information being presented is exactly what minority businesses must have to succeed in this new era.”


During the past year, an increasing large number of minorities are turning to social networks for social expression and communication. According to the 2009 Multicultural Marketing Study by the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University, DMS Research, and Captura Group, usage of social networking websites has exploded during the past year among all ethnic groups and this trend is expected to continue. This explosion presents a significant opportunity for minority businesses to attract new clients, expand market share and increase influence.


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Women Warm Up to Brands on Social Sites

Social networking has become a must for women this year, according to a new edition of the SheSpeaks “Annual Social Media Study.” Social networking profile penetration climbed from 58% of Internet users in 2008 to 86% in 2009.


Asked about brand-related activities on social sites, 80% of female Internet users said they had become a fan of a product or brand on a social network. In addition, 72% had learned about a new product or brand, or joined a group around one. Web users were less likely to participate on Twitter in all the product- and brand-related activities. SheSpeaks chalks this up to women being more active on social networking sites overall than they are on Twitter.


One-half of female Internet users had brought a product because of a social network. Purchases based on social networking sites and blogs both increased dramatically over 2008.


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Race and social network sites

A few weeks ago, Facebook's data team released a set of data addressing a simple but complex question: How Diverse is Facebook? Given my own work over the last two years concerning the intersection of race/ethnicity/class and social network sites, I feel the need to respond. And, with pleasure, I'm going to respond by sharing a draft of a new paper.


But first, I want to begin by thanking the Facebook data team for actually making this data available for public dialogue. Far too few companies are willing to share their internal analyses, especially about topics that make people uncomfortable. I was disappointed that so many academics immediately began critiquing Facebook rather than appreciating the glimpse that we get into the data they get to see. So thank you Facebook data team!


There are many different ways to collect quantitative data involving categories like race, ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, etc. None of them are perfect. Even asking people to self-identify can be fraught, especially when someone is asked to place themselves into a box. Ask a self-identified queer boi to identity into the binaries of "female/male" and "gay/straight" and you'll see nothing short of explosive anger. Race certainly isn't any prettier, let alone ethnicity or class. The salience of these qualities also depends on what we're trying to measure, what we're trying to say. For example, if we're talking about people who experience being targets of racism, should we concern ourselves more with self-identification or external labeling? At the coarsest level, we often assume race to boil down to skin color, meaning that we have to take into account how people read race, how they experience race, how they identify with race. We must always remember that race is a social construct and one's experiences of race are shaped by how one perceives themselves in relation to others and how others perceive them. And the very notion of race differs across the globe.


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What’s Working for Social Media Marketers?

A September 2009 MarketingProfs survey of business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) marketers found that the marketing tactics most often used on social sites are not necessarily the best ones.


The most common marketing tactic used on Facebook was attempting to drive traffic to corporate materials through status updates, followed by friending customers.


But the most effective tactic for consumer-oriented companies was creating a Facebook application, which was done by less than one-quarter of total respondents. Both B2B and B2C companies also reported surveys of their fans as effective; fan surveys were the third-most-common tactic attempted.


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Bridging the Gap

The media keeps reminding everyone how important it is to reach out to the Hispanic market, but practical advice on how restaurants can appeal to this demographic is often lacking. The reality is that, because of all the differences in income, levels of acculturation, and countries of origin, Hispanic marketing can be daunting for even the most sophisticated and budget-rich marketers, given the higher risks of getting it wrong versus the price of doing nothing at all.


With all the potential complexity involved with reaching this target, it might come as a shock that some of the most important business-building strategies for appealing to America’s Hispanic Latino population aren’t expensive ones and don’t require menu or language accommodations. In fact, much of the advice is built on good old-fashioned principles that have been guiding restaurant owners for decades.


Know Your Trade Area It turns out the adage about the importance of location still applies. Given that the Hispanic population is not only growing, but also is spreading well beyond traditional border states, Susan Mitchell, a senior analyst at Mintel Research, advises that “the very first thing is to know your local demographics,” which can be accessed through the American Community Survey link at www.census.gov. This is a distinction, Mitchell says, where the “smaller operator has a competitive advantage, since large restaurant chains generally don’t have the luxury of catering to demographic differences from unit to unit. Go and find out the local Hispanic population—where they live. How many Hispanics live in your area versus five years ago? Are they exploding, trickling in, or declining?” Mitchell says.


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Social Media and Brand Reputation Strategy

An oft-cited fear of brands is that online consumers will post negative comments about them, especially on social media where opinions can be broadcast far and wide. In their “Social Media and Online PR Report,” Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia explored ways marketers can combat brand bashing.


Asked what their company had done to minimize negative comments in the past, nearly one-half reported having directly engaged with the consumer. The second-most-common strategy was longer-term in focus: trying to improve products and services.


A few respondents had tried to get offending content removed, but that tactic can backfire and cause further negative remarks against the brand. Econsultancy noted that only 12% of companies tried to create their own content to offset negative consumer opinions in search results, and that more could go this route.


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Why 2009 was Facebook's year

Even by Facebook's standards, the past 12 months have been remarkable. The site cemented its position as the world's favourite social network, reached the verge of profitability and even exerted its influence over the race for the Christmas No 1.


After an extraordinary year, experts say the site now faces a series of challenges – not least the problem of how to keep getting bigger in the face of government interventions and its own internal strife.


With the astonishing landmark of 500 million users now in sight, internet insiders suggest that the pressure may bring more headaches to Facebook's 25-year-old founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and his team.


"It's definitely an interesting time," said Justin Smith, whose Inside Facebook website has tracked the network's ups and downs for nearly four years. "While 2009 was a year in which Facebook saw really incredible growth... we'll see how they manage that growth."


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How Can Social Media Help Small Biz?

Small businesses are set to increase the time and effort they spend on social media marketing, but research on its effectiveness has been mixed. In a survey from Citibank, for example, the majority of small-business executives found social networks no good for expanding their business.


But according to the “Small Business Marketing Forecast 2010” from Ad-ology, lead generation is the biggest benefit of social networking for US small businesses, cited by one-half of respondents. Social networks were also considered a good way to keep up with the industry and monitor online chatter about the business.


Small businesses rated Facebook the most beneficial social networking site, with one-third of respondents reporting it was at least somewhat helpful. It was also the social network most likely to be used. Use of LinkedIn was less common, but the business-oriented site was claimed as beneficial by 21% of small businesses, compared with 19% that said the same of Twitter.


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Latinos Online: How Changing Demographics Of Those Online Impacts Search

The PEW Internet and American Life Project just released new information about use of the internet by Latino adults in the United States. How does this relate to search engine optimization? Understanding who’s online and how they search is core to success in search acquisition beyond simply ranking well. Over a billion people are now online worldwide, which means the potential audience we can attract from search likely has varied internet experience, needs, and demographic profile. Data about who might end up at our sites from the search box can help us ensure that we build sites that keep them there once they arrive.


Looking at the Latino market specifically, according to comScore senior analyst Jamie Gavin, Latin America is gaining momentum in online use at the same time the United States is slowing. This latest data from PEW Internet provides insight on Latinos in the United States. The report notes that this demographic grew in internet use the most in the United States between 2006 and 2008 , rising 10%. Even more useful for ensuring that web sites meet visitor needs is that groups with typically low rates of internet use have had the largest increases. These groups include foreign-born Latinos, those without high school degrees, and those in lower income brackets. In fact, Latinos with household incomes above $50,000 had no change in internet use.


This trend may be true of other demographic groups as well. Some segments of the population already have high levels of saturation regarding internet use and therefore, growth tends to be among those who may be less tech savvy. My mom is now using your web site and I promise you, she does not know how to navigate it. She thinks Firefox and Internet Explorer lead to two different internets. From a search acquisition perspective, this means you may need to take a fresh look at your site’s usability. If someone who is not experienced with navigating web pages lands on any page of your site (since with search, every page becomes the home page), can they see at a glance that this page satisifies their search and the page include an obvious call to action? If you’ve done usability tests before, check the demographics of the users. Were they more tech savvy than the current internet population?


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Using Social Media Strategically

As marketers become more comfortable and more experienced using social media, they move from the trial phase of their marketing efforts toward strategic use of the channel. While the largest group of marketers is still somewhere in between, according to the “2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report” from MarketingSherpa, about one-quarter of social media marketers have made it to the strategic phase of their efforts.


Gaining maturity means improving the ability to tie objectives to specific metrics. Marketers in the strategic phase are significantly more likely than those in earlier phases of the process to measure their success across all objectives. An increase in Website traffic was the No. 1 objective targeted and measured by all marketers.


“Defining specific objectives for a social marketing initiative is only half the battle. The other half is aligning those objectives with corresponding metrics,” according to the report. “This alignment is important because it enables an organization to measure its progress in achieving the objectives and proving ROI.”


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Social Network Spending Shifts

2009 will end with major shifts in social network advertising spending. Facebook, at 350 million users worldwide, is the premier destination for marketers in the US and many worldwide markets. It will surpass its former rival, MySpace, in ad revenues in 2010, when marketers worldwide will spend $605 million on Facebook versus $385 million on MySpace.


“As more marketers incorporate social networks in their business, they will no longer look at them as siloed destinations. Instead, they will look to increase the impact of their social network presence by linking it to other marketing initiatives, both online and offline,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report, “Social Network Ad Spending: 2010 Outlook.”


Earned media will be a key theme of social network marketing. Combining social with mobile as well as with local will also yield more advertising opportunities. eMarketer also expects social ad networks to increase in importance.


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Quepasa Corporation CEO John Abbott Interviewed on "The Real Story" Podcast on TheStreet.com

Quepasa Corporation (OTCBB: QPSA), one of the world's fastest-growing Latino social networks, was recently featured in a podcast on TheStreet.com. John Abbott, CEO of Quepasa, joined a discussion of the popular Hispanic social website with Gregg Greenberg, host of "The Real Story." The podcast was made available after market on Friday, December 18, 2009 and can be downloaded at the following link: http://www.thestreet.com/podcasts/real-story.html


Abbott shared with "The Real Story" subscribers how Quepasa has grown its member base to 7 million, and is now adding, on average, 1 million new subscribers per month. He also detailed some of the site's recent successes, including the decision by institutions such as the Mexican Tourism Board to utilize Quepasa's DSM platform. The platform, which launched this year, is a viral ad product that allows advertisers and brands to target and distribute their marketing message across all social media sites. Abbott explained how these user-powered campaigns are extremely viral and create great word-of-mouth marketing for brands by motivating users to share content with friends and colleagues across all social media. As a result, brands are able to deliver a consistent message to a broad user base at the lowest equivalent cost per impression compared to other forms of advertising.


When discussing Quepasa's potential revenue, Abbott explained the new "Papacito" application which allows users to anonymously admire other users by adding them as their secret admirer. Each month the users with the most picks will be crowned the Quepasa "Papacito of the Month." To increase game play and extend functionality, more guesses per game will be available via both a la carte pricing and a monthly subscription fee payable via QDollars, the Quepasa premium virtual currency.


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Facebook becomes more diverse as Latinos, blacks join at rapid pace

Dec 17, 2009 (San Jose Mercury News - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- In its earliest days, Facebook was primarily a white and Asian phenomenon. No more. In the first study of the race and ethnicity of its U.S. users, Facebook said Wednesday that blacks and Latinos have joined the social networking giant at a rapid clip in the past several years.


Illustrating the growing diversity of online users as the Internet matures, a study by Facebook researchers found that about 11 percent of the social network's approximately 100 million U.S. members were African-American, about 9 percent were Latino and 6 percent were Asian, according to a post on Facebook's blog Wednesday evening -- a much higher share for blacks and Latinos than four years ago.


Facebook does not ask its more than 350 million worldwide members to disclose their race. But researchers at the Palo Alto-based social network used a Census Bureau database of the demographic characteristics of 150,000 American surnames to track the rapidly changing racial makeup of its U.S. members over the past four years.


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What the Trend?'s Top 50 Twitter Topics of the Year

Back in May, I conducted the first interview -- "The Twuth About Twitter Twends Revealed (by Brit Living in Shanghai)" -- with a young technologist named Matt Mayer who'd created a very clever site called What the Trend? (the question mark is an official part of the name, but for the sake of readability, I'll exclude it henceforth). Speaking via Skype from China, Mayer filled me in on the genesis and functionality of his service, which offers brief, crowdsourced explanations of the often mystifying memes that constantly pop up on the Twitter "trending topics" chart. It remains completely indispensable for anybody trying to make sense of Twitter.


Mayer and I have stayed in touch, and he recently informed me that he was selling What the Trend. Today, I can tell you that Mayer's creation has been formally acquired by a U.S. investor group. Start-up veteran Ingo Muschenetz (he was CTO at DefenseWeb, later acquired by Humana, and headed development at Aptana Studio, a web app-development company) has been named CEO and President of What the Trend.


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Social Media Users Want to Be Heard

While social media users may not find social sites quite as trustworthy as traditional sources of news, according to research from Crowd Science they do see it as an important communications medium—for better and for worse.


Users want to be heard. Overall, 45% reported liking when others notice them—leading some to stretch the truth or reveal too much personal information. Young people were especially vulnerable to activities that might haunt them later.


But 36% believed others are simply interested in what they have to say. That shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise to marketers, who know many users will tell all their contacts about good (and bad) experiences with products and services.


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AT&T Latino Launches to Bring the Latest in Entertainment and Communications to Social Media-Savvy Hispanics

DALLAS, Dec. 16 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ -- AT&T* announced today the launch of three AT&T Latino channels on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/attlatino), MySpace (http://www.Myspace.com/attlatino) and YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/attlatino), as part of its commitment to give Spanish-speaking customers access to the content and services they want, whenever and wherever they want it. The new AT&T Latino social media platforms were designed to keep consumers up-to-speed on AT&T's entertainment sponsorships, exclusive content, promotions and special offers, along with the latest in technology trends and tips for AT&T products and services.


"Studies show that Hispanics as a group are significantly younger than the general population; this is why it's crucial to engage young Latinos through social media and do so in a culturally-relevant way," said Roberto Garcia, executive director, Hispanic Marketing, AT&T. "We have unquestioned leadership in the Hispanic market because we're committed to meeting the needs of Hispanic consumers of all ages."


The AT&T Latino page on Facebook was developed to connect with AT&T's Spanish-speaking customers and complements already-existing English AT&T Facebook pages for AT&T news, entertainment and college recruiting. The page will offer the latest AT&T devices and service news, sponsorships and special events, as well as consumer-related information such as technology education.


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Multicultural marketing and social media: new challenges, opportunities

Multicultural marketing has become more popular in recent years as society has become more diverse. It also has become increasingly profitable, when done properly.
Communities are diverse and “one size fits all” no longer works. All marketing has moved toward greater diversity to the point of customization. And within ethnic communities, such segmentation and specialization continues.


Among Hispanics, for example, not every “Latino” speaks Spanish. Similarly, there are hundreds of stories about mistranslations and the use of the wrong dialect. The need to focus on specific ethnic communities, and subgroups within a particular ethnicity, is greater than ever.


The numbers show that interest in multicultural marketing continues to grow. According to the “DMA Techniques and Best Practices Report,” Latinos will account for all net population growth in the U.S. during the next decade. Currently, one in two marketers market to English- and Spanish-speaking markets; 20.8 percent are English only, while 19 percent have English and Spanish presentations.


Further, 84.5 percent of those who market in Spanish to Hispanics do not create separate versions based on dialect, and two of three marketers do not create separate versions for different U.S. locations. More than 90 percent of companies that market to Hispanics use non-catalog direct mail, and 51.2 percent use telemarketing. Three out of four Hispanic marketers collect data on language preference/proficiency (77.3 percent), age (75.8 percent), and gender (74.2 percent). These numbers continue to increase and the trend line points upward.


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Facebook Keeps Its Cool Among College Students

Social networking in general, and Facebook in particular, may be getting more popular among older users, but that doesn’t make the No. 1 US social network any less attractive for college students, according to data from Anderson Analytics.


The “American College Students Survey” found that not only do the vast majority of US college student Internet users find Facebook cool, more than one-quarter of them rate it their favorite Website of all. That was nearly a 12-point increase over last year, and put Facebook more than 20 points ahead of second-most-popular Google.


How students use social networks is just important to marketers as they face that they do visit the sites, and the outlook is positive. Nearly six in 10 female college students learn about products on social networks, along with 44% of males. In addition, 80% of females and 76% of males get product information from Websites they visit regularly.


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How to integrate social and email marketing

With the holidays upon us, let us give in to our innate desire to get social. And by that, I mean let's talk about the right ways to integrate email and social networks.

Over the past year or so, marketing writers have often spoken of email and social networking as mutually exclusive channels -- if one, then not the other. The growth in social networking, many have said, comes at the expense of email. Some data, notably comScore web traffic data, show a rise in time spent on social networking sites and a decline in time spent on webmail sites. First of all, these numbers do not include the time spent on PC- or mobile-based email or social networking, so the true extent of any shift from one to the other remains unknown.

But more importantly, these channels work together. Before social networking, email acted as the online social sharing channel. People emailed pictures, updates, and, yes, bad jokes to one another. With the advent of social networking, people shifted a behavior from one channel to another. Email remains the de facto requirement of social networking membership. Neither channel will eliminate the other.

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Viruses That Leave Victims Red in the Facebook

SAN FRANCISCO — It used to be that computer viruses attacked only your hard drive. Now they attack your dignity.

Malicious programs are rampaging through Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, spreading themselves by taking over people’s accounts and sending out messages to all of their friends and followers. The result is that people are inadvertently telling their co-workers and loved ones how to raise their I.Q.’s or make money instantly, or urging them to watch an awesome new video in which they star.

“I wonder what people are thinking of me right now?” said Matt Marquess, an employee at a public relations firm in San Francisco whose Twitter account was recently hijacked, showering his followers with messages that appeared to offer a $500 gift card to Victoria’s Secret.

Mr. Marquess was clueless about the offers until a professional acquaintance asked him about them via e-mail. Confused, he logged in to his account and noticed he had been promoting lingerie for five days.

“No one had said anything to me,” he said. “I thought, how long have I been Twittering about underwear?”

The humiliation sown by these attacks is just collateral damage. In most cases, the perpetrators are hoping to profit from the referral fees they get for directing people to sketchy e-commerce sites.

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The Problems With Friends Lists

I’m trimming a few of my friends in Facebook. Not a ton, but a few folks who are wonderful for wanting to follow me, but who I haven’t really interacted with in well over a year. (Quick note: none of the people in the picture to the left were being trimmed. I just took a snap of where I was in the list.)

The Emotions Around the Data
What strikes me is that this is a potentially emotional exchange to what should be a simple choice of data management. Think about it. If you remove someone as a friend, it says something more than just a line of data, doesn’t it? There’s an emotional transference. Some of you will argue that there shouldn’t be, or that someone should get over it, or whatever, but for the most part, I’d say that people who use social networks extensively (versus people trying to plumb the system for business purposes) would feel a little something, should they find themselves defriended.

It says you’re not important. It says you’re no longer relevant. It says you’re no longer entitled to a more intimate view and sharing. There are lots of potential combinations to feel when one is unfollowed or defriended.

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