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Susan Gunelius

Susan Gunelius

Europe Ahead of U.S. in Social Media Usage

A study released by Nielsen earlier this year shows that the British and Australians use social media more than Americans. As the image below shows, the United States ranked third in October 2009 based on the amount of time people spent on social media sites per day. Both Australia and Britain came out ahead of the United States in terms of social media usage.


Nielsen_Social_Media_Usage_Study


It’s interesting to note from this chart, however, that there are great gaps in social media usage from one European country to the next. Clearly, social media marketing strategies must account for these nuances. Furthermore, according to an article on The Economist earlier this year, two-thirds of the 350 million Facebook users are outside of the United States, so there is no doubt that social media marketing should be a global strategy for marketers.

These social media usage statistics are very important to companies looking to expand globally or within targeted international geographic areas. Blanket social media marketing strategies won’t work. Just as social media usage varies by age, it also differs by location.

Do your research and make sure you understand how your target audience is using social Web tools before you develop and launch social media marketing campaigns. While it’s still very difficult to measure social media marketing results, it’s much easier to learn how people use social Web tools and then tailor programs to match those behaviors.

Brands Really Can Connect With Consumers Through Online Video Ads

hulu Brands Really Can Connect with Consumers Through Online Video AdsWhile the consensus for years has been that consumers won’t accept watching ads (at least not too many ads) in online video like they do while watching television, a report from comScore tells a different story. It turns out that consumers who watch full-length programs on a site like Hulu.com are more willing to watch ads than advertisers originally thought, particularly if watching a few more ads per hour means the online video service will remain free to use.

For example, the study shows that most people who watch programs on Hulu.com are actually avid television viewers who choose Hulu.com not primarily to avoid ads but because they missed a program when it aired on television or to watch several episodes of a program at one time. Only 38% of the 2,000 people surveyed claimed to watch programs on Hulu.com because there are fewer commercials. The study also showed that respondents are willing to watch up to 50% more commercials per hour to keep the site free.

Considering the fact that (by number of viewers) Hulu.com is the second fastest growing online video site and the second largest online video site (but still significantly behind the market leader, Google video sites, which includes YouTube.com), these statistics are important for brand advertisers. It turns out that a medium which was once considered to be anti-ads might not be anti-ads at all, and that’s a big opportunity for brands to connect with consumers!

The trick for brands is to find the types of online videos where consumers are willing to accept watching ads. Clearly, not all online videos (and not all ads) are equal, and different video site are equally different. In other words, blanket online video advertising strategies will cause you to miss opportunities to connect with engaged, and targeted consumer audiences. A better online video advertising strategy is a highly segmented one.

What do you think about online video advertising as a marketer? How about as an online video viewer? Does your opinion change? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Flickr — Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV on Hulu.com

Apple and Google – Friends or Foes?

iphone_droidThere was a time, not that long ago, when Apple and Google could nearly be called friends.  In a recent article on Ad Age, Danny Sullivan describes the partnerships the two companies shared, and it’s an interesting read.  However, it looks like things are changing.  Google launched the Droid, which competes with Apple’s iPhone.  Google launched it’s own Internet browser, Chrome.  Apple already had Safari.  Google is the preferred search engine for both Safari and the iPhone.  Or at least, Google was.

What’s next for the Apple and Google relationship?

Well, Google recently launched its own social network, Google Buzz (available through Gmail, Google’s email application), and rumor has it, Apple is hoping to launch its own social network, iGroups, through the iPhone.

What strikes me as particularly interesting when looking at these two brands is the disparate brand promises.  Google promises first and foremost, the best search tool, and secondarily, a Web application or tool for everything you can image.  True, Google isn’t there yet, but the company certainly seems to be moving in that direction.

On the other hand, Apple promises first and foremost, cool technology and gadgets, and secondarily … well, I can’t really think what Apple promises secondarily.  Regardless, these two companies offer very different brand promises, but with the desire to expand their brands, they’re encroaching on each other’s territory.

And looming in the background trying to expand and steal market share of its own is Microsoft whose successful launch of its Bing search engine has drawn some attention back to the company that seemed to be missing the boat for a long time.  Microsoft’s brand promise of delivering the software people need to do their jobs must seem too constraining these days.

In fact, the current environment between these companies seems to foster brand expansion, while most other industries are realizing the benefits of brand contraction and focus.  This is an interesting competition to watch.  Who will end up on top?  Will one company take the lead or will the varied players each remain with their own niches of strength?  One would expect the latter to hold true, but you never know with these three companies.  What you expect to happen might not happen at all.

One thing is for certain.  As Google, Apple, and Microsoft battle it out and redefine their brand promises in keeping with coming expansions, consumers are getting access to more useful and cool products faster than ever.

Image: Flickr

Are You Talking to the Right People about Your Brand Online?

ladderEvery company is trying to jump on the social media marketing bandwagon having finally realized that if your brand isn’t a topic of conversation on the social Web, then you’re missing a big opportunity to build brand awareness, recognition, purchases, and loyalty.  But are you talking to the right people about your brand online?  That’s the truly important question that you need to constantly monitor and re-evaluate to ensure your social media efforts aren’t for naught.

One of the first steps I always tell my social media marketing clients who are just getting started on the social Web is to take some time finding your best customers and prospects online.  Where are they already spending time on the social Web?  Once you find them, join the conversation and start hanging out with them just as you would if you were trying to build relationships and network in person.  Once you get on their radar screens and develop relationships with them, you can start pulling them over to your branded destination for more conversations.  They won’t seek you out or follow you until they know you and know what kind of value you bring to the online conversation.

There is a second part to finding people to talk to and build relationships with on the social Web that is often overlooked.  You also need to consider the roles each person that you connect with online plays in the larger online community.  Their roles should affect how you communicate with them.  I like the breakdown of social media personalities from Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff’s Groundswell to help understand online behaviors and how they can impact your communications strategy.  In their book, they identify the Social Technographics Ladder, which is broken down into six categories of people based on how they participate on the social Web as follows:

  1. Inactives: At the bottom of the ladder are inactives who do not participate on the social Web at all, meaning they don’t create or consume content of any kind.
  2. Spectators: Spectators consume content.  They read blogs, watch shared videos, listen to podcasts, and so on, but they don’t participate in an active way.  In other words, they are passive social Web participants.
  3. Joiners: Joiners have profiles on social networking sites but aren’t particularly active in using those profiles once they create them.
  4. Collectors: Collectors participate on the social Web by consuming content and adding modest additions to content created by other people.  For example, they read blog content by subscribing to RSS feeds and they participate in online polls and voting.
  5. Critics: Critics consume and create, but they do so in a reactionary way.  In other words, they comment on other people’s blogs, contribute to forums, edit wiki articles, and post reviews of services, all of which are fairly reactionary methods of participation.
  6. Creators: Creators are at the top of the social Web participation ladder.  They are the true content creators who write their own blogs, create their own Web sites, publish their own online videos, create podcasts, and so on.

When you look at the six behavioral personalities defined above, you can better understand how the roles people play online makes them more receptive to different types of messaging.  For example, Critics and Creators are the most powerful online influencers.  They are the most vocal online audience and they can help you spread your messages.  The information and conversation that you engage them with should be very different than your interactions with Spectators or Joiners.

People from every group could be customers and can learn about your brand from the social Web (even Inactives could indirectly hear about your brand offline from someone who heard about it via the social Web).  However, just as you modify your messages when you network and build relationships with people in person, you must do the same on the social Web.  In other words, do your research and know who the influencers are.  Only then can you effectively interact with them and other groups on the social Web.

Image: Flickr

Potato Chips and Flickr — A Happy New Social Media Marketing Tactic

Lays_Happiness_exhibitFlickr is the most popular online photo sharing site, but it has yet to be fully leveraged for social media marketing.  The reason lies in part due to the restrictions of use that the site has in place to ensure that everyone who spends time there is uploading valid images that add to the community rather than detract from it.  PepsiCo’s snack food division, Frito-Lay, is trying to find the secret to marketing via Flickr with its new “The Happiness Exhibit” campaign.  Check out the Web site here and the Flickr group here.

Consumers are being asked to upload photos of themselves, friends and family to Flickr (or to Flickr from Facebook) while enjoying happy moments in life.  Some of the images will appear in People magazine and on Lay’s product packages later this year.  The campaign integrates well with Lay’s “Happiness is Simple” initiative that has played out in advertising and marketing over the past year.  The new digital component of the initiative on Flickr will be promoted with ads on Hulu, iVillage, Yahoo! and YouTube as well as on some Lay’s product packages.

This particular campaign has a big budget push behind it, and partnerships have been made between Frito-Lay, Flickr, and Yahoo! to make it happen.  The campaign was announced by press release on March 15, 2010, and by March 16, 2010, nearly 6,000 images had already been uploaded demonstrating that people like the idea of sharing photos without a lot of encouragement.  It certainly helps that a lot of people already have Flickr accounts, but the point is that people love to share content they’re proud of, and photos are included.

How can you leverage photo or content sharing to market your brand?  It’s something people clearly like to do?  Can you create a campaign around sharing — an activity that your customers are already doing?  It’s quite an opportunity.

Early Adopters Have Significant Influence on Brand Success

Ad_age_yahoo_early_adopters_reportA new white paper from Advertising Age (sponsored by Yahoo!) called Shiny New Thing: What Digital Adopters Want, How to Reach Them, and Why Every Marketer Should Pay Attention reinforces the idea that people who are quick to try new brands, products, and services, are influential both online and offline.

The statistics for early adopters tell us:

  • 62% of early adopters are more likely to upgrade a mobile phone as soon as a new model becomes available.
  • 68% are more likely to have purchased three or more computers in the past two years.
  • 58% are more likely to have purchased three or more flat-screen TV’s in the past two years.

Not only are they quick to try new products and brands in the technology industry, as revealed in the statistics above, but they’re also more likely to talk about those products and brands on the social Web where many early adopters have established followers.  That means the opinions of early adopters can be very influential on a broad scale.

In other words, the opinions of early adopter are no longer confined to the neighborhood or office.  Today, early adopters are vocal about their opinions and they share them freely using the tools of the social Web such as Twitter and Facebook.

As the Advertising Age report reminds us, “early adopters sway the early majority, and those groups can account for half of a new product’s sales.”  Clearly, this is a group that you want to connect with on a positive level, and what better place to find them and build relationships with them than on the social Web?  If early adopters can talk about your brand and products online, thereby influencing a large audience of consumers, then you can use the social Web to influence early adopters.  However, your influence should be indirect.  Strong arming people with sales messages on the social Web is a surefire route to disaster.  Instead, be patient, build relationships, and your efforts should be rewarded with brand advocacy in the future.

The Advertising Age report also reminds us of the three motivating factors that define early adopters, which you can use to help you find early adopters on the social Web and more effectively communicate with them in a language and style they’ll respond to positively:

  • They aren’t afraid to take risks.
  • They enjoy gathering and sharing information.
  • They like to research products and tell other people what to buy.
  • They are status seekers.

While the Advertising Age report focused on technology early adopters, the lessons can apply to most industries.  This is a customer group that bores quickly and is constantly looking for the next great thing.  The worst thing you could do is ignore them.  Instead, you need to deliver great products, earn a solid brand reputation, and build positive relationships with them.