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

Social Platforms

Meebo’s Enhanced Social Play
“Meebo — which facilitates the integration of multiple services like Facebook and AOL Instant Messenger in one interface — has launched XAuth (Extended Authentication), which automatically recognizes active social platforms and lets users connect with ease on participating publishers’ sites.”

The idea is to increase engagement while diminishing user confusion.

Facebook Makes Major Announcements at F8
The “Become a Fan” button has become a “Like” button. Based on Facebook’s research, they found that users are two times more likely to press a “Like” button than a “Become a Fan” button, increasing engagement with brands.

Facebook also announced the development of the Open Graph API that will allow the “Like” button to be implemented almost anywhere on the web, increasing the reach of Facebook. The Open Graph API also allows people and brands to pull fans from Facebook to other web properties.

Facebook F8: One graph to rule them all

How Big is Twitter
Twitter announced this week for the first time, the actual size of its registered members. According to Twitter they have over 105 million worldwide registered users with 180 million unique visitors every month.

Twitter Stays Strong as Growth Slows
Traffic on Twitter has begun to plateau according to Comscore, Nielsen, and Compete. However, engagement on the platform continues to grow.

Mobile Technologies

Use of cell phone for pictures and video popular across age groups
Here is a great visualization of the rise of the use of mobile technologies across the “Teen” demographic for multimedia (photos and videos).

Foursquare vs. Gowalla: Who’s Winning the Geolocation War? [INFOGRAPHIC]
A great infographic of the battle between Foursquare and Gowalla, both geolocation platforms for mobile technologies. Users “check in” to locations they visit to score points and update their friends.

Decreased Media Usage Hurts Ad Market
Ad spending was down in 2009 as was the amount of time users spent with media (12 hours/day down from 14 hours/day). Every media witnessed a decrease in activities except one; mobile, which was up 39%.

Talk time on mobile was up 12%, while average daily mobile Web use rose 36% to 11 minutes. Texting was also up, by 55%, to take up 27 minutes a day in 2009.

Online Video Viewers Hungry for New Tech
With YouTube turning 5 this week, we still see it reign king in online video ranking way above other video platforms. However, we’re beginning to see a shift from strictly user generated content and more towards network programming and news.

How do the Most Successful Companies use Social Media?
The social media tools studied are diverse and serve many purposes. Companies reported using these tools for several reasons. They reported that the tools provide the following:

• Another way to communicate
• Added value to customers
• Product/brand awareness
• Ability to keep up with trends and competitors
• Demonstration of product
• A more cost effective and productive form of marketing

Portals Vital for Users and Marketers

“eMarketer estimates more than 57% of all US online ad revenues will go to the four major portals in 2010. By 2011, nearly 9% of total media ad spending in the US will go to these four sites.” An amazing display of the continued power of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL.

Full Details On Twitter’s Long-Awaited Ad Platform: Promoted Tweets
I’m sure you’ve probably heard about the Promoted Tweets on Twitter. It’s a long-awaited ad platform that will be pretty exciting to see it play out. There was a lot of buzz this week around the new launch, so here are a few other articles with different opinions.

Businesses Split on Paying for Twitter

First Take Analysis: What Twitter’s “Promoted Tweets” Means To The Ecosystem

Facebook May Be About To Jump Into The Virtual Currency Offers Game
Virtual currency is becoming a huge hit online… So big in fact, behemoth Facebook is getting into the mix. With no real details about what offers they will provide, it’s a great mystery to see how this virtual currency will work in Facebook’s favor. Then to see how brands can tap into the predicted $2 billion/year industry.

Consumers Follow Social Brand Referrals
68% of consumers said they would be likely to buy a product or visit a retailer fan page based on a positive referral from a friend. By engaging our online community in a positive, “shareable” manner, we can tap into their social network and begin to build new, positive relationships.
What is a Facebook Fan Worth?
$3.60 each… According to AdWeek, “On average, a fan base of 1 million translates into at least $3.6 million in equivalent media over a year. The company’s findings are based on impressions generated in the Facebook news feed, the stream of recent updates from users’ networks.”

After talking about Twitter, Facebook, and all of the other buzz worthy services, we are often asked by our clients, “so what’s next?” While there are a lot of possible candidates as to the next big thing, the real answer is in talking about the larger trend.

For the first 15 years of the Internet we have mostly lived in a world divided between being online and offline. Those of us working in advertising know this all to well as we work to create “integrated” campaigns. Inevitably this is limited to delivering a consistent message and using similar visual elements across traditional and digital channels.

We are now seeing this invisible barrier starting to erode and make way for people to connect across channels in relevant and valuable ways. For clients asking what they should be focused on moving forward, the answer may be in how they lean into this trend and help connect to their customers between the physical and digital experiences.

Some areas to watch:

The Emergence of Mobile Computing:
With out a doubt the biggest factor in driving this evolution is in the fact that people can now connect to the larger digital world from their mobile device. No longer limited to being just a phone, we are seeing how people stay connected to each other and to information from anywhere and not just while in front of a computer.

Location Aware Social Networks:
While Foursquare is likely the most well known, there are a variety of location based social networks (see: BrightKite and Loopt) that allow users to share their location with friends in the digital space by “checking in” to physical locations. Assume that Facebook and others will either develop or purchase their way into this space soon.

Image Scanning:
Be it QR codes, bar codes, or images of everyday objects, we are starting to see a wide variety of services that allow users to scan a physical item with their mobile device’s camera and drive to a digital experience.

Augmented Reality:
Allowing the ability to begin to treat the physical world in ways that had previously only been reserved for digital. Two popular examples: subway map and baseball cards.

Interactive Displays:
While not exactly a new concept, there continues to be a lot of great examples (see: Microsoft’s Surface, IconNicholson’s Social Retailing, and Schematic’s Touchwall) Almost all of them are looking to meet the expectation set in the Minority Report.

Physical Platform Gaming:
From Nintendo’s Wii to Guitar Hero, we are seeing a shift in gaming from a solitary activity on the couch to a much more physical and engaging experience open to a broader audience. Microsoft is planning to push this to the next level with the launch of Xbox Natal.