Social Marketing

Many of the Fortune 500, the largest companies in the US, are using Facebook, Twitter and corporate blogs, but not much has changed with their activity in the past year.

Social media use has become so pervasive in the lives of American teens that having a presence on a social network site is almost synonymous with being online. Fully 95% of all teens ages 12-17 are now online and 80% of those online teens are users of social media sites. Many log on daily to their social network pages and these have become spaces where much of the social activity of teen life is echoed and amplified—in both good and bad ways. DOWNLOAD Report Here.

Companies on Facebook and other social sites are always trying to determine what to post to get fans engaged. While each brand is different, and its fans will respond to different things, there are some common threads that companies can keep in mind when planning social media posts and status updates.

This year alPunto Advertising added the tactic of using “Latina mommy bloggers” to help spread the word about the Los Angeles Philharmonic among Hispanics.

eMarketer estimates there will be nearly 21 million Twitter users in the US by the end of this year, and a sizeable minority of those will use the service at least in part to follow brands.

The top reason for following or liking a brand, company or celebrity on social networking sites is to receive discounts and special offers, according to a recent survey of global online consumers conducted by Nielsen.

More marketers than ever believe their brands should be engaging with consumers on social networks—and advertising is an increasingly successful tool for doing so. As a result, worldwide social network ad revenues will surpass $8 billion in 2012 and approach $10 billion by 2013

YouTube is the highest ranked social media brand in equity among Americans 13 to 24 years old, based on results from the 2012 Harris Poll Youth EquiTrend study from Harris Interactive.

Booz & Company and Buddy Media released new research, “Campaigns to Capabilities: Social Media and Marketing 2011,” which reveals insights into how leading companies are transforming their marketing capabilities as social media plays an expanding role in advertising and branding efforts.

However, according to a new study from Scarborough Research, a consumer marketing research firm, their social and political influence reach far beyond the confines of the playground. DOWNLOAD Report Here.

Companies and marketers realize that amassing fans and followers is not the be-all, end-all of social media marketing. Yet the challenge remains how to measure success beyond counting these metrics.

For many social network users, Twitter is both a water cooler and a complaint department. Although most are there to engage with peers, many consumers are using Twitter to talk about their experiences with brands—and from time to time share their grievances. As more and more brands have joined Twitter, consumers’ expectation for interaction with brands has risen.

Nielsen’s recent Women of Tomorrow study highlighted not only the growing influence women have on purchasing decisions, but also provided insight into their behavior across social media. A key finding from this research illustrates that “social moms” (defined as females with at least one child who actively participate in social networking) are quite influential. DOWNLOAD Report Here.

BlogHer, Inc. announced the results of “Put Her in the Driver’s Seat”. The survey, designed to explore how women feel and where they turn for advice when shopping for cars, revealed a significant positive impact on female buyers who used blogs and social media — and a preference for blogs and official product information sources versus traditional media and social networks.

As of late I’m hearing in Hispanic communications circles much ado about whether or not marketers should pay Latino bloggers for posting brand-related content, product reviews, etc. While this topic has been fully addressed in mainstream circles, the issues take on greater complexities in the Latino blogosphere. For the benefit of those of you who are more on the advertising side, I’ll provide an overview of the general debate around guaranteed content vs. earned content and how it plays out in the new social media context, and then I’ll share my views of how these issues take on a complex twist in the growing Latino social media sphere.

By Cristy Clavijo-Kish is CEO & Partner of Hispanicize