Social Marketing

It takes a lot to define a generation, and no two generations are alike. As much of the world is watching the young adults in the second-youngest generation develop and become full-fledged consumers, marketers are placing more and more emphasis on how to engage with them. Most are children of Baby Boomers, and all are eager to carve out a unique identity as they come of age.

Conversations on Twitter create networks with identifiable contours as people reply to and mention one another in their tweets. These conversational structures differ, depending on the subject and the people driving the conversation. Six structures are regularly observed: divided, unified, fragmented, clustered, and inward and outward hub and spoke structures. These are created as individuals choose whom to reply to or mention in their Twitter messages and the structures tell a story about the nature of the conversation.

Marketers will dramatically increase their budgets for social media even as they have difficulty showing its effectiveness, a new survey shows.

You gotta give it to Zuckerberg, despite all of the controversy, skepticism and challenges Facebook has gone through over the years, it remains the number 1 social networking destination in the world. While I do feel that Facebook has entirely changed the ways people socially communicate, it still has a ton of growth to go. With that said, Facebook is currently the number 1 destination for US Hispanics and I don’t see that changing any time soon… and neither are USH brands.  By Lance Rios – Founder of BeingLatino.com

Social commerce is a term used to describe marketing strategies that incorporate social media to facilitate online buying and selling of products and services.  (Yahoo first used the term in 2005 in a launch of a new online shopping store).  Spurred by the proliferation of electronic commerce, social commerce strategies are not just solely designed around click-to-buy action.  Rather, these strategies provide a virtual way for companies to attract, engage and interact with consumers at all points in the consumer buying decision process.  The advent of mobile technology has further encouraged social commerce, changing how users interact with and purchase from different companies.

As information thunders through the digital economy, it’s easy to miss valuable “weak signals” often hidden amid the noise. Arising primarily from social media, they represent snippets—not streams—of information and can help companies to figure out what customers want and to spot looming industry and market disruptions before competitors do. Sometimes, companies notice them during data-analytics number-crunching exercises.

Connecting with friends and family through social networks is high on the list of reasons to use social media among US Hispanic women. But it’s also a way to keep up with brands and current events, according to a recent study by Latina Media Ventures.

As technology becomes more deeply integrated into people’s lives, couples are feeling both the positive and negative effects of digital communications tools in their relationships.

According to Walden University’s 2013 Social Change Impact Report, nearly all adults (93%, on average) agree it is important that schools provide opportunities for young people to be involved in positive social change activities. Findings also reveal that if social change engagement is modeled to and started at a young age, it may lead to more involvement in adulthood as 89% of adults, on average, agree that being involved in positive social change as a child or teenager inspires people to be involved as adults.

Few would argue that social media has proven to be a significant direct sales channel or that it is not as strong a sales driver when compared with other tactics. Though it cannot be tracked in traditional ways, social is indeed valuable to retailers for engagement, brand awareness and influence that unquestionably affect sales, according to a new eMarketer report, “Social Commerce: Influencing Shoppers and Assisting Sales.”

Millennials are significantly more likely than older generations to be influenced by their friends’ social media posts about products and services. According to January 2014 polling conducted by Harris Interactive for The Webby Awards, 68% of 18-to-34-year-old social media users surveyed were at least somewhat likely to make a purchase after seeing a friend’s post.

Marketers love to evaluate demographics, and one of the most common ways they track consumers is based on age:  “Young people like this, but old people like that.”  Age is an easy way to evaluate consumers, but I don’t think it’s actually the most accurate.

Social media has become a critical channel for brands looking to connect with consumers, but it looks like many followers aren’t getting the attention they expect, according to data released in December 2013 by Sprout Social.

There’s no shortage of people tweeting about live TV these days—it’s a digital phenomenon and picking up speed. In 2013 alone, 36 million people sent 990 Million Tweets about TV, according to Nielsen SocialGuide. Until now, however, we haven’t known how many people tweet about TV and brands—critical information for advertisers who want to leverage the momentum of Twitter TV activity to amplify brand messages.

On Dec. 5, 2013, Mark Bradbury wrote Still Relevant: Top 5 Predictions For 2014 in this space. His points were well made. However, you won’t find the driver of improved sales to Baby Boomers (born before 1964) in a company’s planning department, or marketing/advertisement departments.

Some 73% of online adults now use a social networking site of some kind. Facebook is the dominant social networking platform in the number of users, but a striking number of users are now diversifying onto other platforms. Some 42% of online adults now use multiple social networking sites. In addition, Instagram users are nearly as likely as Facebook users to check in to the site on a daily basis.

When you really deconstruct true viral video, you see that it’s not really a marketers’ game. Fundamentally, most truly viral videos aren’t trying to sell a product, which can be a deterrent for the audience. Most went viral unexpectedly. Most had few, if any, media dollars pumped into them for seeding. It’s difficult to plan viral. It’s difficult to formulate it. And it’s sure as heck difficult to sell a product alongside it.

As 2013 draws to a close, and the Social Media Insider unleashes below the first in a two-part series of predictions, what strikes me about social media is how established it is. It certainly doesn’t feel new anymore. Maybe a better word for how it feels is — embedded.

In her recent article (Medical Marketing & Media, Nov. 3, 2013) Zoe Dunn posed the question “should Pharma abandon social media?” Her premise was that, in a world where brand marketers change every 18 months, can there ever be enough commitment for long-term tactics such as social? And she is right, to a point. The trouble is that today, at least in the Pharma space, social media is still widely considered a tactical “nice to have.”

In an always-on world, mobile devices are always at-hand as consumers move from screen to screen, according to a new eMarketer report, “Key Digital Trends for 2014.”