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This post is from from my other blog here

I just saw this new report from eMarketer about the presence of brands in social media and what consumers expect from them. Of note is that 34% of people think brands should engage and interact regularly, 51% think brands should engage, but only intereract when requested. Only 7% thought brands had no place in the social media landscape.

I think this does not take a number of things into account including the value-add to the community, the quality of the offering and the level of participation (being a member of the community vs. just being there).

What do you think about these numbers? Are they low/high in your opinion?

Technorati Tags: conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer

This post is from from my other blog here

I've said this for years, and I think every digital evangelist wakes up in cold sweats every night thinking about it. ROI in the digital space (SEM, social media, e-commerce, campaign sites, email marketing, etc.) is measurable, accurate and accountable. You know your digital ROI for every dollar spent, but if you're spending offline, you really have no idea what you're getting. I've seen the equations that publications use to guess their reach and it's total BS. I've also heard radio DJs exclaim that they really have no idea how many people are listening.

I can say this all day long, but I think Gary Vaynerchuk (who I met at Blog World Expo and is even more fantastic in person) does it with his unique passion, so here you go. Enjoy, and if you don't follow Gary's blog and watch his videos please make it a point to do so.

Are you moving more dollars online? Are you seeing more pressure put on magazines, newspapers, radio and TV to deliver? What are you having success in measuring for clients?

I'd love to know what you think.

Technorati Tags: advertising, conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, Techno//Marketer, Gary Vaynerchuk

This post is from from my other blog here

It seems as though everywhere I go, marketers look at me and ask about Twitter. They bring up the fact that they don't want to know "what everyone is having for breakfast" each day. So they usually ask me why I use Twitter. I've found the best answer is to ask my Twitter community in real-time while I am sitting with them.

This happened the other day when a person at another agency asked me the same question. I turned the conversation over to Twitter and received some really great responses. I'm not sure if she'll join, but she was impressed by the quality and sincerity of the replies.

I wanted to collect the responses I received and post them here. I had to jump right back into meetings so I didn't get a chance to thank everyone who replies, so let me say thanks to CC Chapman, David Brazeal, Tim Brunelle, George Nemeth, Rob Boles, Jeff Lowe, Trisha Jackson, Bo Jacobson, Dan Perry, CK, Steve Woodruff, Brendan Cooper, Megan Maguire, Kevin Huff, Joel Libava, Joe Pulizzi, Jeff Beeler, Alison Edward, the good folks over at Thundertech, Leslie Caruthers, "Cleveland" Mark Goren and Sean Scott for responding.

They even crossed over into Facebook because I have my last message on Twitter update my Facebook status.

Here are some new reasons from my message today:

So why do you use it? Let me know in 140 characters (or more if you like).

Technorati Tags: conversations, Matt Dickman, social media, Techno//Marketer, Twitter, why do you tweet

This post is from from my other blog here

Today's video takes a look at an application for managing your Twitter-stream more productively, TweetDeck. One of the biggest challenges that I have in using Twitter is keeping up with the sheer volume of messages. I've tried a number of solutions to make sure I don't miss any messages/conversations, but TweetDeck is the best I've tried to date.

Have a look for yourself:

As more and more content is created, it's crucial to identify ways to keep up with it and keep ourselves sane. Google Reader is my other "must have" info management solution.

What applications/services do you employ to manage all of the content?

Technorati Tags: conversations, Inside//Out, marketing, Matt Dickman, micromedia, RSS, Techno//Marketer, Twitter, TweetDeck

This post is from from my other blog here

Today's video takes a look at an application for managing your Twitter-stream more productively, TweetDeck. One of the biggest challenges that I have in using Twitter is keeping up with the sheer volume of messages. I've tried a number of solutions to make sure I don't miss any messages/conversations, but TweetDeck is the best I've tried to date.

Have a look for yourself:

As more and more content is created, it's crucial to identify ways to keep up with it and keep ourselves sane. Google Reader is my other "must have" info management solution.

What applications/services do you employ to manage all of the content?

Technorati Tags: conversations, Inside//Out, marketing, Matt Dickman, micromedia, RSS, Techno//Marketer, Twitter, TweetDeck

This post is from from my other blog here

This is a continuation of my look at social networks and their populations from a marketing perspective. When it comes to this arena Facebook has most of the buzz, but MySpace still has the volume. As strategic counselors to our clients, it is important to make qualified decisions about the vehicles we use as part of a campaign.

MySpace has become the red headed step child of the social media world as Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn have continued to gain popularity and support. But, what does MySpace really look like and how does it compare?

I was able to pull comparison numbers for the age of both networks and some interesting patterns emerged. Take a look at the following graph that shows MySpace in blue and Facebook in red.

The age of MySpace vs. Facebook (US) Click to enlarge image.

MySpace has more people in every segment (nearly double across the board), but a couple points stand out:

• The 13-17 age group on MySpace is four and a half times larger than that of Facebook.
• Every age range between 18 and 50 is close to double on MySpace what it is on Facebook.
• The 50+ group on MySpace is 10 times larger than on Facebook, that is a 1000% difference.
• The 50+ age group on MySpace is nearly one quarter the size of the entire Facebook community.

Here are the actual numbers:

age range Facebook MySpace variance 13-17 4,943,960 22,618,106 457% 18-21 9,957,600 20,326,180 204% 22-25 6,833,380 13,029,345 191% 26-30 4,282,200 10,528,581 246% 31-35 2,402,720 4,958,016 206% 36-40 1,503,640 2,843,813 189% 41-45 727,880 1,577,310 217% 46-50 473,240 981,911 207% 65+ 703,020 7,030,912 1000%

Takeaways and questions:

• These numbers represent all total users, not active users so take it with a grain of salt.
• I don't have growth numbers on MySpace so it's tough to gauge its vitality at this point.
• MySpace has a huge number of Boomers in their community. I will watch this demographic in coming months.
• MySpace skews younger than Facebook, engaging more of the highschool population.
• Populations between MySpace and Facebook (18-50) mirror each other in terms of population trends.
• Both sites offer ad targeting

What do you think? Are you still considering MySpace for campaigns? The demographics and targeting options let you reach people in tailored ways. I do think that the marketing options on MySpace are very limited and that's one hesitation that I have personally. 

 

Technorati Tags: advertising, Facebook, LinkedIn, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, Twitter

This post is from from my other blog here

This is a continuation of my look at social networks and their populations from a marketing perspective. When it comes to this arena Facebook has most of the buzz, but MySpace still has the volume. As strategic counselors to our clients, it is important to make qualified decisions about the vehicles we use as part of a campaign.

MySpace has become the red headed step child of the social media world as Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn have continued to gain popularity and support. But, what does MySpace really look like and how does it compare?

I was able to pull comparison numbers for the age of both networks and some interesting patterns emerged. Take a look at the following graph that shows MySpace in blue and Facebook in red.

The age of MySpace vs. Facebook (US) Click to enlarge image.

MySpace has more people in every segment (nearly double across the board), but a couple points stand out:

• The 13-17 age group on MySpace is four and a half times larger than that of Facebook.
• Every age range between 18 and 50 is close to double on MySpace what it is on Facebook.
• The 50+ group on MySpace is 10 times larger than on Facebook, that is a 1000% difference.
• The 50+ age group on MySpace is nearly one quarter the size of the entire Facebook community.

Here are the actual numbers:

age range Facebook MySpace variance 13-17 4,943,960 22,618,106 457% 18-21 9,957,600 20,326,180 204% 22-25 6,833,380 13,029,345 191% 26-30 4,282,200 10,528,581 246% 31-35 2,402,720 4,958,016 206% 36-40 1,503,640 2,843,813 189% 41-45 727,880 1,577,310 217% 46-50 473,240 981,911 207% 65+ 703,020 7,030,912 1000%

Takeaways and questions:

• These numbers represent all total users, not active users so take it with a grain of salt.
• I don't have growth numbers on MySpace so it's tough to gauge its vitality at this point.
• MySpace has a huge number of Boomers in their community. I will watch this demographic in coming months.
• MySpace skews younger than Facebook, engaging more of the highschool population.
• Populations between MySpace and Facebook (18-50) mirror each other in terms of population trends.
• Both sites offer ad targeting

What do you think? Are you still considering MySpace for campaigns? The demographics and targeting options let you reach people in tailored ways. I do think that the marketing options on MySpace are very limited and that's one hesitation that I have personally. 

 

Technorati Tags: advertising, Facebook, LinkedIn, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, Twitter

This post is from from my other blog here

There are a lot of blog posts out there about whether companies should create blogs of their own. Blogging seems to be an entry point that most marketing people can easily wrap their heads around. For me it's always come down to five questions and the answer to all five has to be yes. Those five questions are:

1. Are you listening to your online community? - Are you spending a minimum of two hours a day searching, reading Google alerts or using a monitoring tool like Radian6?
2. Do you have something unique to say? - How will you differetntiate yourself from other blogs and other companies? This could be your people, the information you publish or other forms of thought leadership.
3. Are you willing and able to say it? - Can you talk about your industry and are you willing to put it out there?
4. Are you willing to be challenged and criticized? - This goes with the turf. You have to be able to facilitate conversation in a respectful manner to grow a community.
5. Are you willing and able to dedicate the resources to succeed? - People always underestimate this one. A good rule for this to succeed is to have one person dedicated to the success of your strategy for a minimum of 4 hours per day (2 hours of which is listening and commenting). That is one half of a full time person's week. Have staffing plans in place as you grow and start realizing your success.

Here is a visual decision tree that I use to see if clients/readers/individuals should create a blog. I'm a visual person and these help me think things through.

So, should my company blog?

My caveats:

• Identifying a voice is a next step once you're past this point
• I know not everyone should create a blog, but it's what companies "get"
• A blog is not always the ideal entry point with every audience, audience analysis will tell you more

What are your thoughts on this? Would you add any other questions? Do you think any of these are not necessary? Let me know what you think.

Technorati Tags: blogging, conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, research, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, listening

This post is from from my other blog here

There are a lot of blog posts out there about whether companies should create blogs of their own. Blogging seems to be an entry point that most marketing people can easily wrap their heads around. For me it's always come down to five questions and the answer to all five has to be yes. Those five questions are:

1. Are you listening to your online community? - Are you spending a minimum of two hours a day searching, reading Google alerts or using a monitoring tool like Radian6?
2. Do you have something unique to say? - How will you differetntiate yourself from other blogs and other companies? This could be your people, the information you publish or other forms of thought leadership.
3. Are you willing and able to say it? - Can you talk about your industry and are you willing to put it out there?
4. Are you willing to be challenged and criticized? - This goes with the turf. You have to be able to facilitate conversation in a respectful manner to grow a community.
5. Are you willing and able to dedicate the resources to succeed? - People always underestimate this one. A good rule for this to succeed is to have one person dedicated to the success of your strategy for a minimum of 4 hours per day (2 hours of which is listening and commenting). That is one half of a full time person's week. Have staffing plans in place as you grow and start realizing your success.

Here is a visual decision tree that I use to see if clients/readers/individuals should create a blog. I'm a visual person and these help me think things through.

So, should my company blog?

My caveats:

• Identifying a voice is a next step once you're past this point
• I know not everyone should create a blog, but it's what companies "get"
• A blog is not always the ideal entry point with every audience, audience analysis will tell you more

What are your thoughts on this? Would you add any other questions? Do you think any of these are not necessary? Let me know what you think.

Technorati Tags: blogging, conversations, marketing, Matt Dickman, research, social media, strategy, Techno//Marketer, listening

This post is from from my other blog here

With the latest version of my Face of Facebook eBook, some interesting comparison stats have emerged. I have already shared the explosive growth numbers by country. In this post I want to talk about the age of Facebook and more specifically the growth of some key audiences. Note that all data is collected directly from Facebook's advertising management system and was updated on September 15th. The 30+ audience is the fastest growing segment of Facebook.

If we look at the total makeup of Facebook in the US, it is still heavily skewed to the under 25 crowd. By volume, the 18-21 group is the largest population. This is followed by 22-25 and 13-17 respectively.

[Click for a larger image.]

When you look at growth of the population by volume there is a similar pattern, but it has slightly different spread. In the following chart you can see that the college 18-21 population grew by the most users. Much of this can be correlated by the back-to-school rush happening now. Past that point, however, you will notice that the 31-36 and 36-41 groups added the third and fourth most users for the month.

[Click for a larger image.]

If you were to stop there you may think there is little potential for the 30+ audience. But that is a hasty decision. Take a look at the followiung chart that shows the pace of growth over the past month. The 30+ segments have the first through fourth top spots. Overall the 40-50 segment is the most explosive of all. Growth in the 50+ segment was close to the 26-30 segment and surpassed all segments below 25.

[Click for a larger image.]

I will be sure to keep an eye on this trend in the future. What other stats do you want to see? Would having this on a per-country basis be beneficial? Let me know, I want this to add as much value for you as possible.

Technorati Tags: Face of Facebook, Facebook, marketing, Matt Dickman, social media, social networks, Techno//Marketer, trends, age