By Nick Johnson - April 30th, 2013

In this week's review of the week's big corporate social media stories, we look at the different social media channels you should be using!

How mature is your social media listening?

A new infographic from Synthesio makes for interesting reading if you consider your business’ use of social media mature. The new research shows – not surprisingly – that North America leads the pack with over 50% of the population actively engaged with social media platforms.

The figures for Europe are mixed, with France leading. Their engagement rates are over a third of Internet users, with the UK polling 32.8%, which is still an impressive third of the online population. Asia, though has more people connected to social networks than any other region in the world, with China being the anomaly – not including Hong King of course – that have their own ‘versions’ of the leading social media platforms. Read more about how social media has evolved in China in our new feature that you can read here.

For brands the high level of usage across these regions and in specific countries does though, not mean brands are actively engaged with these legions of users. Businesses still need to assign resources to turn what can be little more than passive users of social media networks, into active buyers and brand advocates.

 

Big brands engage on Twitter

New research released by Nestivity and conducted by Evolve Capital and Dr. Natalie Petouhoff from the UCLA Anderson School of Management looks closely at the top 25 brands that are effectively using Twitter.

Says Nestivity founder and president Henry Min: “We commissioned the study to start the conversation about why and how engagement on Twitter can have a measurable impact on the business. The study shines a spotlight on organizations like @FunnyorDie, @NASA, @Disney and @WWE – brands who have mastered both the art and the science of using Twitter to get people more involved in their brands. We hope that by shining the spotlight on the ways that the most engaged brands cultivate relationships with customers, influencers and advocates using Twitter, we’ll inspire other brands to follow their example,” he added.

Additional research by the Acquity Group also found that nearly three-quarters of brands don’t reply to tweets.

"Although most brands are signed up for the major social networks, many struggle to understand how they fit into their overarching business strategy. The important take away for brands is to avoid haphazard or sporadic use of social media. When a new social media channel is introduced, brands need to take the time to analyze the potential impact and return, and develop a solid strategy from there," said Jay Dettling, Executive Vice President at Acquity Group.

The FT reports on digital and social media marketing

If you happen to be a subscriber to the FT, they have just published a report that looks closely at how social media has impacted on the marketing activity of businesses. If you’re not, Social Media Today has a handy – and free – summary of the extensive features.

The main point within the social media realm includes a look at how the leading networks are moving increasingly to ad models for their revenue. The much reported return of General Motors to Facebook clearly illustrates there is an appetite to spend on these networks. Interestingly, the targeting of ads on Facebook should be more accurate, as the platform now uses Datalogix figures, which includes credit card transactions.

Mobile of course will continue its inexorable rise to dominance and is expected to capture more than 20% of media consumption in the next five years, yet it receives only a minuscule portion of total advertising revenues, and a glut of mobile advertising inventory is causing mobile ad rates to plummet.

Clearly businesses that are looking at where to spend their marketing budgets, social media is claiming an ever increasing slice of this pie. According to eMarketer, advertisers are expected to spend more than $5.6bn on Facebook advertising this year, up more than 31% from $4.3bn in 2012.

 

Engagement is more than a pin

Brands have been flocking to Pinterest, as it gives them a chance to show their wares and use the increasingly popular visual search tools that are maturing. However, a study by Digitas and Curalate sheds light on Pinterest engagement specific to the fashion/retail, automotive and electronics industries.

For all three markets, the study reveals that unlike Twitter and Facebook, where brands drive their content through official accounts and pages, Pinterest is all about users telling the brand story. In fact 70% of brand engagement on Pinterest is generated by users and not by brands.

“Brands need to go forth and pin,” says Jordan Bitterman, Senior Vice President, Social, Mobile and Content Lead, Digitas. “This study reveals the opportunity for brands to drive the conversation on visual platforms like Pinterest. By leveraging rich consumer insight, brands can take the guess-work out of their visual content strategy, and share the types of images their audience wants to see.”

What is interesting is that the Pinterest community are doing more pinning than the brands themselves, in fact over 80% of fashion-related pins are not from brands. It’s important to stay active in this growing space to ensure your business is seen to be actively engaging with its potential customers.

In Brief…

  • Nearly three-quarters of UK adults visit their social media profile every day

The Drum reports that UK adults are somewhat social media obsessive, and also avid users of the Internet in general visiting on average 19 websites each week. Clearly for brands, making sure one of those 19 is theirs should be a major focus of all marketing efforts. The Ofcom research also revealed that the trust that consumers have in social media networking sites has fallen.  Not surprisingly the 16-24 age group is the heaviest users of social media networks averaging 22 hours per week. And also surprisingly, email remains popular with 80% of users sending at least one message per week. See the full report here

  • Video content reins supreme in North America

Video content has been fast becoming the format of choice when it comes to consuming information online. This proposition is supported by the latest research from Adobe. The key findings include: Digital video consumption has grown 30% year over year in Q4 2012. From Q3 to Q4 2012 alone, video consumption grew 13%. There has been 50% growth in video streams since Q1 2011. New TV and sports content drove the highest growth in video streams in Q4 2012.

Adobe’s advice is: “Find ways to create personalized digital video experiences for your viewers, visitors, and advertisers. While most videos are consumed on PCs, views on mobile devices have tripled from 2011 to 2012. Look for opportunities to weave more video content into your marketing channels, such as social media.”

See the full blog here or Video Presentation here

  • UK consumers bored of Facebook?

A report in the Express could make your business nervous if it is about to spend substantial amounts of revenue on Facebook ads. According to reports, 1.4 million Britons have abandoned Facebook in just a month. Nearly 5% of UK users have closed their Facebook accounts, with the corresponding figure in the US being even worse standing at 9 million. Alternative networks such as Instagram is on the up gaining 30 million users in just 18 months. No one is righting off Facebook just yet, but it’s interesting how consumers are always looking for the next hot social network to join.

See the full article here

Until next time….

The Useful Social Media team.

 

 

 

Next Reads

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October 2013, New York

How you can leverage social media for a more effective customer service function and better customer insight

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