Social Media (Facebook & Twitter) Replacing Email:
Due to this increased use of social platforms and the changing demographics Gartner predicts that by 2014 20% of business users will be using social networking services for communication instead of emails. The value to marketers is that when positive engagement happens over social media platforms it has a multiplier effect that email does not. Inversely this also applies to negative experiences and is something that marketers have to be prepared for.

Implication: Marketers are working to understand and engage with their customers through these platforms. This includes the role that it has as it relates to CRM and customer service activity.

Social Media Behavior Insights & Marketing:
Given the growth of social media use, specially Facebook with over 500 million global users, consumers are providing a wealth of data that can provide marketers with key insights for product development, marketing messaging optimization and advertising targeting. These opportunities go beyond the traditional demographic targeting of the past as consumers are now publicly sharing their interests, behaviors and social connections.

Implication: Marketers can actively listen to consumer online conversation for key insights; begin to engage users based on their expressed interests and leverage social network platforms and features (such as Facebook Social Plug-in) to scale branded online experiences to the users’ social network.

Mobile Web Becomes a Priority:
Given the current rate of adoption mobile web access is expected to overtake fixed internet access by 2014. This is driven by the mainstream adoption of smartphone devices (such as the iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows), the introduction of “broadband” mobile access (wi fi, 3G+) and affordable mobile data rate plans.

Implication: Marketers need to priorities their mobile web experience with a focus on optimizing the creative, content and context for what they provide to end users.

Location Based Mobile Check In Services:
Given the advent of services such as Facebook Places, Foursquare and Gowalla, marketers are able to begin to directly connect physical customer activity to digital experiences. Though these services customers are able to verify their specific location and share their experiences within their social network

Implication: Marketers can begin to offer incentives for location / retail specific activity, this includes driving initial customer engagements/trial and rewarding loyalty behavior. This activity also provides a platform for a force multiplier given the activity is shared within the network.

Online Video Consumption:
Online video consumption continues to grow with over 85% of the total U.S. Internet audience viewing online video in August of this year. Of this, video ads accounted for over 10% of all videos viewed. Sites such as YouTube and Hulu are offering improved content and advertising opportunities while subscription video services such iTunes, Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon are offering consumers a strong alternative to traditional network and cable networks.

Implication: Marketers are beginning to think about how they can create video content that is relevant in the context of the online experience. This goes beyond just leveraging traditional commercial assets to more effectively engage consumers on an ongoing basis.

Sources:

http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/02/facebook-twitter-email/

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1293114

http://gigaom.com/2010/04/12/mary-meeker-mobile-internet-will-soon-overtake-fixed-internet/

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/comscore-releases-august-2010-us-online-video-rankings-104090133.html

• More than 400 million active users, 50% who login each day
• Average user hases 130 friends
• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
• Average user becomes a fan of 4 pages per month
• Average user “Likes”9 pieces of content per month

The most amazing use of multitouch I’ce seen to date.

The key here is that the this is the easy part of a social media strategy. It’s what comes next that really matters to driving success in social media.

As more and more business are adopting Foursquare as a marketing channel by adding incentives for checking-in, the need to track and analyze this data has resulted in the launch of a Foursquare dashboard.  In order to use this dashboard, you must claim your venue. You do not have to be the person that created the venue to claim it, but you must be available at the venue to answer a phone call from Fourquare and provide details/proof that you are eligible to manage it. You can either manage the account through your personal Foursquare account, or start a new one, as the details of the manager’s account are public.

This dashboard is a collection of venue check-in analytics including stats like:

Key Metrics: (Overview of activity)

- Total check-ins
- Unique visitors
- Percentage of check-ins shared with Twitter
- Percentage of check-ins shared with Facebook
- Gender percentages of check-ins

Top 3 Visitors

12 Most Recent Check-ins

All Check-ins (detailed list)

Time Breakdown (time users are checking in)

See Below:

Currently, there is no way to access the information by a certain week, month, or day, so for now, we are forced to record this data and move into a spreadsheet or other tracking software.

This is a great step in the right direction for a business using Foursquare. We anxiously await more detailed tracking options from Foursquare in the near future.

For me the telling number is at the bottom; whereas, 22 links appear on Reddit before Digg compared to 6 links appearing on Digg before Reddit.