Customer Experience

By Nick Johnson - May 14th, 2013

Wednesday Update including the latest trends in B2B social media marketing, how second screen activity drives TV engagement and the power of Facebook login integration.

Social media engages TV audience

The so-called ‘second screen’ phenomenon that has been becoming commonplace thanks to smart phones and tablets has been shown to offer high levels of engagement. New research from the Australian arm of UK-based Neuro Insight has shown that far from being distracted from a programme by watching two screens at the same time, the results showed there was actually a noticeable increase in their engagement with the TV show.

At the same time it was discovered that those who took part in the study had an increase in their detailed memory – retaining detailed information around specific products such as price and web addresses. The findings have huge implications for advertisers wanting to get their message to a television audience.

Paul Newton of Neuro-Insight said: “Research based on neuroscience is entering the mainstream, particularly where clients want to tap directly into emotional response - a very difficult area for traditional research. Until now it has not been possible to measure the impact on a viewing audience of using social media while watching TV. Now, for the first time, there's real evidence available which is going to prove invaluable to brands who want to engage in a really meaningful and productive way.”

The research also focused on what type of TV gained the most engagement. Music videos rated the highest, but online TV was also highly popular and elicited increased engagement levels. It seems brands without a YouTube channel need to remedy that failing fast!

Social is essential for all B2B companies in 2013

The recent infographic released by Eloqua [http://www.eloqua.com] made for sobering reading for any business in the B2B sector. Companies in this space know that social media is important, but the rules of engagement and best practice had yet to be thoroughly worked out. New research from Real Business Rescue clarifies the social media environment for B2B organisations somewhat.

It seems that in the B2B sector Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn dominate the social media activity with roughly the same numbers of businesses using these platforms. What is also telling is that social media is being used by three quarters of businesses for customer acquisition and demand generation. Budgets aimed at social media are also expected to increase this year, with these resources coming second to search as the most important factor in a B2B company’s marketing activity.

Unmetric Guest Blog: How Dove Achieved 2,000% Subscriber Growth on YouTube In 15 Days

‘Love thyself, for thou art beautiful’ – seems to be Dove’s new commandment of self-esteem and beauty.

The personal beauty care brand’s on-going campaign for real beauty has helped the women of the world to realize that they are more beautiful than they think. As a result, the ‘Real Beauty Sketches’ video which depicts a forensics artist doing two sketches each for seven different women to portray the difference between how they describe themselves and how a random stranger describes them, was a runaway hit and went viral within the first week it was launched.

In a new report, Unmetric, the social media benchmarking company from New York, analyzes the social media performance and strategy behind the Dove’s ‘Real Beauty’ campaign. You can read the report here

Battle of the sexes

Segmenting your business’ customer base for better targeted marketing campaigns is well understood. Throw social media into the mix and this understanding of your customer base becomes even more important. A simple division of a customer database by sex may seem far too simplistic, but a new infographic from Compass Labs suggests that brands are indeed favoured more by one sex.

None of this will come as a massive surprise, but the infographic gives an interesting insight into the marketing landscape and how Faceook in particular factors into the buying decisions and brand loyalty of the sexes.

UK beats US in social shopping

Facebook Login integration is twice as popular with European online retailers than their US counterparts, reveals the Login to Boost Checkouts study Betapond. The report scored the websites of 200 of Europe’s top online retailers against a detailed best practice social integration benchmark.

With 14.5% of European online retailers implementing login with Facebook, compared to 6% in the US (according to a previous report by Sociable Labs), the study indicates that Europe’s retailers are working harder to make their e-commerce offering a social one. However, 14.5% is still a surprisingly low number considering the huge opportunity login with Facebook offers retailers. As personalisation becomes increasingly important, retailers that don’t integrate Facebook are risking missing out on a rich wealth of data that would allow them to tailor experiences to their customers, improving the ecommerce offering.

ASOS.com and Hepsiburada.com topped the social study, both achieving an impressive 79% against the social criteria. Both sites have implemented Login with Facebook, and feature a good array of social sharing options on product pages. However, not all retailers have embraced social ecommerce, with 33 out of the 200 assessed offering no social elements at all. This includes many retailers in sectors with products where social is proven to be a great influence on purchasing decisions.

Declan Kennedy, Chief Executive, Betapond, commented, “With the uptake among Europe’s online retailers still relatively low, there remains an untapped opportunity for retailers to take advantage of login with Facebook and its many benefits. Retailers are beginning to recognise the huge opportunity Facebook presents in terms of personalisation and are increasingly looking to their social strategies as a way to gain competitive advantage. We predict that the uptake of Facebook Login among top European retailers will grow steadily throughout 2013 as we move into the next generation of social ecommerce.”

Read more about how social login can have a huge impact on your business’ levels of customer engagement in our special report.

Until next time….

The Useful Social Media team.