Smartphone Users Aren’t Checking in but Are Checking out Geosocial Services
September 9, 2011
New research from Pew Research sheds some light on how smartphone users are using geosocial services like Foursquare and Gowalla as well as social tools like Twitter and Facebook. The statistics might surprise you. Here’s what Pew Research learned in its research of U.S. adults:
- 42% of U.S. adults own a smartphone.
- 92% use their smartphones to send or receive text messages.
- 92% user their smart phones to take pictures.
- 80% use their smartphones to send photos or videos to other people.
- 76% use their smartphones to send and receive email messages.
- 59% use their smartphones to access social networking sites like Facebook.
- 58% use their smartphones to access a geosocial or location based information service.
- 55% use their smartphones to find location-based directions or recommendations.
- 45% use their smartphones to publish photos or videos online.
- 15% use their smartphones to access Twitter.
- 13% use their smartphones to participate in video calls or video chat sessions.
- 12% use their smartphones to check in with geosocial services like Foursquare or Gowalla.
Smartphone users who are most likely to use geosocial services and access location-based directions or recommendations are young, college-educated, men and women in households with incomes over $75,000.
Location-based marketing and geo-targeting are hot topics for marketers these days, and the data collected by Pew Research could be very helpful in prioritizing future mobile marketing strategies and tactics. Of course, demographic segmentation is likely to be less helpful to most marketers than behavioral segmentation would be, but every bit of data can only help as marketers learn more and more about effectively promoting brands, businesses, products, and services to mobile consumers.
As with all marketing efforts, the trick is determining what your brand’s target audience wants and needs from you through their mobile devices and then consistently delivering and meeting those needs. This is still a form of business and marketing that’s in its infancy, and what we know (or think) today could be completely wrong tomorrow. Bottom-line, don’t inflict information paralysis on your brand marketing strategy. Keep experimenting, gathering feedback, and trying again. No one knows the recipe for success in mobile marketing yet, but persistence will pay off in the end.
Image: iurikothe
How Twitter Psychology Affects Consumers and Brands
September 8, 2011
It’s not a revelation that brands should have a presence on Twitter. Consumers spend a great deal of time on the most popular microblogging site, so it makes sense for brands to spend time there, too. It’s a perfect place to engage, share useful information, and build relationships that lead to brand loyalty and brand buzz. But did you know that you might be doing some things on Twitter that are destroying your brand’s chances for success?
WhiteFire SEO created a great infographic that highlights the psychology of Twitter so you can get a better understanding of the activities that interest users and the activities that annoy users. You can see the infographic below.
According to the infographic, over-tweeting is a big turn off. The reasons people unfollow other people (or brands) on Twitter are:
- They tweet too much = 66%
- Their tweets seem automated = 58%
- They share the same link multiple times = 47%
- They don’t tweet = 38%
- They tweet about themselves all the time = 34%
It’s interesting that people are more likely to unfollow a Twitter user who tweets too frequently than they are likely to unfollow someone who doesn’t tweet at all. This is an extremely significant statistic because it supports what social media marketers tell companies all the time. If your Twitter updates sound like corporate rhetoric or sales pitches or if your updates are entirely self-promotional, no one will want to follow you. Instead, successful brands on Twitter are the ones that provide useful information to their audiences, share their audiences’ content, interact with their audiences, and do so in a personable voice.
When it comes to tweeting too much on Twitter, the Twitter psychology infographic shows that 36 or more Twitter updates is too much. Of course, this isn’t a rule, but when in doubt, it seems that tweeting less frequently is a better strategy than tweeting more frequently.
Another interesting fact is how people find other people (or brands) to follow on Twitter. Most find people to follow through a retweet or @mention from someone else that they already follow. Here are the specific details related to why people follow other people on Twitter:
- See a retweet/mention from someone they follow = 55%
- Follow back someone who follows them = 42%
- Found by searching for related interests = 32%
- Suggested by Twitter = 16%
- Recommended in a follow Friday tweet = 13%
According to the infographic, most people follow other Twitter users when they see those other people in retweets or @mentions by others in their Twitter streams. That means brands need to get retweeted! 9 out of 10 people will retweet useful information and 8 out of 10 will retweet humorous content. Other ways people will retweet content on Twitter is if that content is published by a personal connection or celebrity. If your brand doesn’t have personal connections yet or a celebrity relationship, then offering an incentive is likely to get 3 out of 10 people to retweet your content.
La Rentrée
September 8, 2011
Today is finally – finally! – back-to-school day here: after a 7-week summer holiday. I’m sure summer was never that long when I was younger…
The French have a great word for it: la rentrée. It applies particularly to back-to-school, but there is also a political rentrée, as everything starts afresh after the holidays; and again the same is true for business people as they return refreshed and revitalised.
So the significance includes a clean, fresh start, or renewal. Advertisers have been, naturally, making a big deal out of it, choosing to use la rentrée, and new resolutions, as themes.
Even on the autoroutes as we drove north at the weekend (yes, we were on holiday), the gantry displays were trying to persuade us to make new resolutions to keep your speed down, or your seatbelts buckled up, for la rentrée.
So, since many of us greet September enthusiastically, with its freight of clean pages, new pens and fresh faces, I thought I’d ask what you were planning to change on your corporate website for la rentrée?
After all, new resolutions don’t have to be restricted to 1 January…
When CSR meets culture – India | CSR Around The World
September 7, 2011
India has been on the lips of just about every economist and businessman in recent years. Its booming economy is growing at over 10 percent a year and the country is ranked among the biggest, fastest growers by the IMF.
You’d think there’d be little room amongst all this capital-intensive activity for CSR, but you’d be wrong.
The Indian government has arguably tried to be a trailblazer in introducing CSR into its governance structures. In 2009 a new Companies Bill proposed that every company with either a net value of Rs 5 billion (£66 m), a turnover of Rs 10 billion (£13.2 million) or a net annual profit of Rs 50 million (£ 660,000) be required to spend at least 2 percent of its profits from the preceding three years on CSR projects (as defined by the company itself).
Perhaps unsurprisingly the move was deeply unpopular and earlier this year the government backed down from making the proposal mandatory and has has opted for non-regulatory guidelines instead.
However the intention is clear so to try and understand a little more what was going on India I turned to Akhila Vijayaraghavan, founding director of the international CSR consultancy The Green Den.
Marketing Brands as Social Groups – Why It Works So Well
September 6, 2011
Its a fundamental human desire to want to be part of a group. People seek camaraderie and a sense of belonging. Some brands are marketed in such a way that people want to be part of the group of consumers who buy that brand. For example, do you want to be in the Mac social group or the PC social group? Are you a Pepsi group member or a Coke group member?
People want to connect with other people, not companies or brands. That’s why brands that are successful at becoming relationship brands (like Apple) have a loyal and vocal band of brand advocates cheering them on. It’s not because the relationship brand is so important to them but rather, it’s because of the relationship those people feel like they have with the other people who buy and use the brand.
The social web has enabled people to come together in groups to share branded experiences and conversations in a way that brands couldn’t even dream of 10 or 20 years ago. The trick for brand managers is to shift from marketing their brands at consumers to marketing brands with consumers where consumers feel like they can choose whether or not the social group that uses the brand is the right group for them to join.
Think of it this way — when consumers decide to follow a brand’s Facebook page, they’re considering two primary factors in the decision-making process: what’s in it for me if I follow this brand’s Facebook page (i.e., discounts, exclusive information, and so on) and do I want all of my Facebook friends to see that I’m part of the group of people who follows this brand’s Facebook page?
Now, consider a couple of powerful relationship brands that already have large social groups of consumers supporting them. For example, it’s fairly safe to assume that a loyal Harley Davidson customer would be proud to follow the Harley Davidson Facebook page. In fact, Harley Davidson customers who use Facebook would probably feel left out if they didn’t follow the Harley Davidson Facebook page.
Therefore, you need to get creative and start thinking of how you can create a perceived us against them mentality that positions your brand against the competition through the lens of social groups. Make sure consumers understand what your group offers and means to them, and then let them decide if they want to join the group or not.
Image: bradleygee
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