Posts tagged social media
Facebook and Twitter lead to 82% rise of time spent on social networks, year over year
Jan 27th
On 22 January Nielsen published new metrics which reveal that users spent 5.5 hours on social networks like Facebook and Twitter in December 2009. In comparison to December 2008 (3 hours) this represents a 82% rise!
Expepctedly, Facebook is by far the No.1 social networking platform and had 206.9 million unique visitors in December 2009 – this is 67% of all social media users in the world (jesus…). Time spent on site is also impressive – the average time of a user is almost 6 hours a month… maybe mostly spent in farming and in viewing your friends’ photos.
On average time spent, social networks and blogs are the most visited online platforms. Right behind them are online games and instant messaging.
In the United States Twitter remains the fastest growing social network in terms of unique visitors – with 579% year-over-year increase, by 2.7 million uniques in December 2008 to 18.1 million in December 2009. Month-over-month, however, unique visitors deflated with 5%.
The United States continue to be the leader in terms of social networks and blogs usage, charting a 142.1 million unique visitors with an average time spent of 6 hours per month. The States are followed by Japan, whose unique visitors total 46.6 million for December with an average time spent of nearly 3 hours per month.
While the UK, Italy and Australia are with smaller user numbers (which is normal, because the US have much more citizens in comparison) all of them chart an average time spent between 6 and 7 hours.
What do these results mean?
From this year on, we will see more earnest efforts by marketers to penetrate Facebook and Twitter. If you can not be strategic, however, or if these websites do not fit into your existing marketing strategy – better don’t even try.
There is something else, too, that many people these days fail to notice – businesses offering development of corporate/personal/etc websites are about to face “extinction”. It is much easier, profitable and cost-effective to just go and create a profile on an already existing platform where your audience already is. Consider Basecent, Etsy, Linkedin, Shustir…
And here is the visual data:
The Social Media Addicts Association :)
Nov 18th
If you happen to be a social media addict, this is for you. Check out the Social Media Addicts Association (SMAA) website, a funny, but yet artificial community that Sony invented to promote the Sony Vaio Mini W-series. Very well thought and unique, we find a series of videos parodying the compulsive and excessive use of Twitter and Facebook. To cure the addiction these poor little souls have a serious five-year plan!
- Admit you have a problem, dont tweet it!
- Accept to not validate or comment on a status to feel that you exist.
- Understand that poking a stranger is dangerous.
Repeat: “Alchohol and Twitter do not mix well.” : )
Remove one friend a day.
In the same manner, the website also offers its help to cure your addiction by watching video testimonials and confessions by other addicts. And even better, to share your struggle, they even have a web store selling SMAA t-shirts.
If the addict has still not recovered, after having covered all that is needed, then they can continue their addiction using the new Sony Vaio Mini W-series! This is quite an aggressive advertising message, but it worked for Sony. Sony highlights with a great deal of humor the place of social media in our lives and the risk of addiction that can be caused by excessive use. The campaign is nothing too original for a giant technology company such as Sony, but it is creating buzz by mocking the excessive praise social media gets. At the same time, Sony mock the cold seriousness of the social media critics with its Social Media Addicts Association.
10 tips to increase your Twitter followers
Oct 20th
Kevin Rose, a founder of Digg, co-founder of Revision 3 and Pownce, as well as investor in Twitter, has just published his tips to getting more followers on Twitter. With over 1,167,000 followers he is the most followed user of Twitter after Barack Obama.
So here are his tips:
1. Explain your followers what retweeting is and encourage them to retweet your links.
This will promote your username not only in Twitter, but all across social networks. Further, you can follow your retweets using the Retweetist software.
2. Fill out your Bio (adequately).
This will allow people that you do not know to learn a little about you. This field is also published on the “suggested users” Twitter page. A blank or inadequate bio will eventually discourage people from following you.
3. Post links to your Twitter profile EVERYWHERE!
Post links to your Twitter profile on Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook, in your blog, in your email signature and all your other online profiles. You can also use TwitterCounter widget for your blog. It is much like the FeedBurner counter.
4. Tweet about your passions in life and #hashtag them.
The use of #hashtags helps users to find content and thus people with similar interests more easily. If people like your content they will follow you.
5. Bring your Twitter account into the real world.
Push your Twitter profile in your presentations, podcasts, business cards…
6. Take pictures.
Photos are easily shared on Twitter. Those of the US Airways flights that landed in the Hudson were viewed over 350,000 times. Also use iPhone apps such as Tweetie or Twitterific for photos taken on your mobile.
7. Start a contest.
@jasoncalacanis promised to offer a Macbook Air if he became the most followed person on Twitter. He did not succeed in becoming number 1, but this strategy allowed him to gain several thousand of followers.
8. Follow the top Twitter users and watch what they tweet about.
Notice how they address their audience and what kind of content they tweet about. But never copy them!
9. Get involved in #hashtag chats.
On search.twitter.com you will find a list of the hottest current Twitter topics. Join the conversation and use the #hashtags in your tweets.
10. Monitor your results (of course)
The TwitterCounter tool allows you to know how many new followers you acquire every day. Quitter notifies you if someone unfollows you after and after which of your tweets.
You need to realize, though, that increase in number of followers is not a goal in itself. There are many tools, which i really do not approve of, that will generate you thousands of followers quickly, but it is actually better to have 100 followers only that are actually interested in what you tweet, than to have thousands of followers that do not even read your tweets. However, integrated in a larger strategy, the tips recommended by Kevin Rose can be really useful. Please, do not hesitate to comment about your own thoughts and experience on this subject.
9 ways to be retweeted on Twitter (statistics based:)
Oct 18th
There are many people looking for ways to increase their Twitter followers, retweets and thus traffic to their websites and blogs. No wonder since it is already a proven fact that Twitter marketing is now much more powerful than email marketing. Consequent to Twitter becoming such a powerful and popular platform is the occurrence of many paid info and software products about Twitter marketing. To be honest with you – all of these products suck big time and in order to keep it ethical to some extent i won’t mention their names.
If getting more retweets is your case, then check out the study called The Science of Retweeting by Dan Zarrella. After having spent 9 months in analyzing 5 million tweets and 40 million retweets, he has now published his Nine tips and tricks on how to get retweeted on Twitter.
To those who are still wondering in why we need retweets, Dan Zarrella explains that retweets may seem like a small idea, but are applicable to the viral concept for other media.
Well, here are the key conclusions of his study:
1. The shortest links get the most retweets.
Retweets contain 3 times as many links as normal tweets. New URL shorteners such as bit.ly, ow.ly, is.gd are more popular than longer ones such as tinyurl.
2. Ask for retweets.
Contrary to popular belief, it is favorable to you if you openly ask people to retweet you. According to Dan Zarrella, the words “please”, “retweet”, “check out”, and “new blog post” are often to be found in retweets.
3. Be pertinent.
Facts such as you may not have slept well or are drinking wine right now do not interest anyone. If you do not have anything interesting to tweet, you better do not.
4. Do not use abbreviations.
Retweets contain more syllables per word than normal tweets and are more difficult to understand.
5. Use punctuation marks, but avoid semicolons.
98% of retweets contain punctuation marks, while 86% of normal tweets do. The most popular punctuation marks in retweets are: the colon, the period, the exclamation mark, and finally the comma. Punctuation marks to avoid: the hyphen, the question mark, the ellipsis and the semicolon.
6. Tweet original content.
This may sound banal, but is still important to mention: original content is retweeted much more than already known and popular information.
7. Use names.
Retweets mostly contain nouns, proper names and verbs in the third person (example: Lindsay Lohan escapes from rehab facility; ).
8. Be pertinent.
Tweets about work, religion, money, media and celebrities are retweetd more often than tweets containing vulgarities, negative emotions or ones that talk about the author himself.
9. Wait for the ideal time to tweet.
Tweet on Friday afternoons at about 16:00. The proof is below…
Are you ready to tweet now : )
Social Media: Trend or Revolution?
Oct 9th
Social networks… are they just a trend or the most significant revolution since the invention of Mass Media?
The explosive evolution of networks such as Facebook, interconnectedness in all places and at all times, the massive change in consumer behaviour… If you need to better grasp the changes that we have undergone over the past few years and, of course, their impact on the use of media and marketing, watch this excellent, thorough, video created by Socialnomics.
Socialnomics conclusion is that: No! Social media in not an ephemeral trend. They represent a shift in our communication behaviour and an economy driven by ordinary people.
In such a globalized world this is more and more dominated by new technology, people need more than ever to belong to communities and to maintain social relationships and activities. The paradox is that… it is the same advanced technology that allows them to do just that. We have yet to see what the future holds, but for now we realise that social media creates new possibilities to many people all across the world and that people do not hesitate to adopt and use these tools. Enterprises, governments and agencies need to adapt to this new situation.
Are you ready for the new era of communication?
The Profiler – Enter the Web2.0 Matrix :)
Sep 7th
Here is an interesting campaign that i came across earlier today. It is developed by Famous Brussels for the Belgian Internet and telephone operator Belgacom. The Profiler offers you a superb user experience with a 3d interface that lets you interact with the data of your Facebook, Youtube and Flickr accounts.
With a stunning navigation, The Profiler, offers a never-ending data flow from your profiles, unless you disable some of the profiler tabs.
Without a doubt The Profiler is a remarkable technical achievement, and by communicating so much on social networks Belgacom taps right into the social marketing trend, but yet – not without a risk! Has anybody asked the question what happens to less experienced clients whose Internet use is more 1.0 rather than 2.0?
Yahoo! Know Your Mojo
Aug 28th
I was on a vacation and have not updated the blog in a while, but now i am back and am getting more and more material to post about. So stay tuned, a lot is coming up. And i am also going to reply everybody’s emails later today : )
Few days ago i discovered Yahoo! Know Your Mojo – a site launched by the Yahoo! portal, claiming to know who you are on Twitter.
The twist is very simple, the user has to enter their Twitter username and then in turn is analyzed by being compared to the 16 possible user profiles.
According to online testimonials, however, the site does not do what it promises to, as you sometimes do not get the same mojo if you try it several times with one username.
No matter the effectiveness of the site, it still represents a victory for the hegemony of Twitter and its ability to generate buzz. There is an obvious proof for that: the US Internet leader uses Twitter to promote their new homepage.