Social Marketing

The vast majority of consumers (92%) trust earned media more than any other form of advertising, says this week’s infographic, based on a study by Crowdtap.

While teen internet users in Mexico were slightly less likely to use social media (86%) than the general online population (88%) in 2012, according to Interactive Advertising Bureau México (IAB México) and Millward Brown data, they fueled Twitter’s success last year. Fully 69% of teen social network users subscribed to the microblogging service in 2012. By comparison, 58% of all social network users did so.

What’s more, new Forrester data shows that 60% of marketers will increase their social budgets this year, many by a significant amount. Yet, despite the social hype, many (68%) say the channel simply doesn’t offer enough ROI, and measurement challenges often create obstacles to delivering value.

Although content marketing and social media marketing are often talked about in separate conversations, the two are closely intertwined for marketers who have fully embraced the latter. Social media provides a great channel for brands and others to deliver content marketing to prospective audiences, but this also requires posting new material at a fast pace in order to keep the social audience engaged.

Telemundo Media unveiled the social TV experience for the upcoming “Premios Tu Mundo” Awards to air live from the American Airlines Arena on Thursday, August 15 at 8pm ET.

As part of their business continuity management (BCM) efforts, companies today are re-thinking their approach to crisis management, but are still behind in leveraging social media as a crucial resource, according to the new Business Continuity Insights Survey by PwC US.

Social networking reached 72% of US adult web users in May 2013, according to data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That’s up from 67% in December 2012, and an indication that social use is still growing, rather than beginning to plateau.

Last year, using social media marketing to garner positive sentiment was the leading goal, whereas this year it dropped to No. 4. Marketers may be finding that it is less important that their posts get a warm reception from social users and more important that they keep consumers posting, “liking” and sharing social content.

Pixability debuted “The Top 100 Global Brands: Key Lessons for Success on YouTube,” a comprehensive study on the use of YouTube by the leading global brands to drive video and digital marketing success. Revealing a 99 percent YouTube adoption rate and 73 percent year-over-year growth, the brands driving the best results are moving beyond television-style brand awareness to much more socially-engaged, longer-form, content-rich channels.

Given the prevailing megatrends (megatrends take years and even decades to evolve, and tend to manifest in a number of microtrends, that is, emerging and niche behavioural changes, over the years) of Tech Life and Social Cohesion, the increasingly important role of Tech Life in enabling social cohesion is becoming clearer.

In this report we also studied online adults’ use of Twitter. The percentage of internet users who are on Twitter has more than doubled since November 2010, currently standing at 18%. Internet users ages 18-29 are the most likely to use Twitter—30% of them now do so.

On first glance, it might seem possible to sum up the global social network landscape in a single word: Facebook. With almost 1.1 billion users expected by the end of 2013, Facebook has become the top social network in nearly every country in the world except China and Russia. However, it is far from the only social network internet users worldwide access. Even with a clear leader, the global landscape is too complex to be summed up with a single site, according to a new eMarketer report, “The Global Social Network Landscape: A Country-by-Country Guide to Social Network Usage.”

Telemundo Media partnered with Gain detergent and invited viewers to join in on social media activation during an episode of “La Voz Kids” that aired July 21. The “A Fresh Moment in the Spotlight” sweepstakes open to fans in both the U.S. and Puerto Rico marked the first time in television history where viewers participated in a real-time commercial experience via Facebook. Gain’s branded integration in “La Voz Kids” elevated engagement, with an increase of 75% in brand affinity and an 88% lift in purchase interest vs. Spanish language TV branded entertainment norms, according to branded entertainment measurement industry leader, iTVX.

Marketers – we’ve news for you. The bad news is that, with the internet as the enabler and social media as the driver, today’s consumers are the new brand custodians. Yes, your power base is being eroded.

Digital resources have upended the traditional linear path-to-purchase model, with consumers now relying on a number of resources to shop for and purchase goods online. Social media has certainly played a role in that process, but research from L2 Think Tank found that little traffic was flowing from social media to retail sites.

New research released by MIT Sloan Management Review and Deloitte reports that when asked to rank their company’s social business maturity on a scale of one to 10, 52 percent of respondents from around the world gave their company a score of three or below. Just 17 percent ranked their company at seven or above.