eMarketer released a collection of research earlier last month about blogger demographics:
I'm going to be doing a Twitter training at the agency late next month and I'm collecting great content in the meantime.
Here's some of the latest:
Noah Brier has launched brand tags, collecting tags to assess people's perceptions of a wide number of brands -- from Burt's Bees to Jamba Juice. You can request that additional brands be added, so if you're looking for a little insight on a client brand — or your own, you might be in luck. Noah might want to adjust the size of the tags (I'm guessing he had no idea how popular this would be) because "smoothie" and "beard" are going to grow bigger than the browser.
Dave Alston from Radian6 guest posts on the Online Marketing Blog with a list of the Top 10 Reasons for Monitoring Brands in Social Media. As a fan of Radian6 who is trying to bring the tool to more of our clients, I appreciate Alston's comment, "Choosing not to listen doesn't make those conversations go away."
Southwest has expanded upon its successful blog, Nuts about Southwest. The site now incorporates their Flickr group, video blog, aggregated news, polls (lame) and the brand's social network profiles, including Twitter.
As should be expected, women are using social networks differently — and more — than men. They have more "friends" on the sites, but they are less focused than men on "acquiring" friends and more on building relationships. The research comes from MarketingCharts.
Simmons has created social media consumer profiles, although a few of them sound a little pathetic, e.g. the "socially isolated" and "approval seekers." (via Ad Age)
Burst Media has released research about the impact of "green marketing."
Piers Fawkes suggests using TweetClouds as a tool for monitoring the topics on the minds of the audience you are trying to reach as a marketer. (Right now my Tweet Cloud is dominated by "@catchuplady" — which might lead you to think I actually like her. I need to work on that.)
I don't imagine it would shock any of you to hear that the "buzz" about sustainability grew about 50 percent last year — moving from a discussion of global warming to a conversation about actions individuals can take to alleviate their negative impact.
Nielsen Online's research also indicates that the increased attention to "green" issues has led to greater cynicism about the credibility of many companies' efforts to portray themselves as acting in a responsible way toward the planet. 25 percent of consumers point out a company's "contradictory actions," 21 percent think that the actions being taken are "incongruous with the company or industry" (oil companies, perhaps?), 19 percent think companies are making "false/misleading comments," 18 percent think the government should be able to regulate claims that companies make about their "green" behavior and 17 percent of consumers are just plain suspicious.
iProspect released a new survey on the behaviors of search engine users.
Big findings?
There's been a huge jump in the use of social networks among the affluent: from 27 percent of affluent Internet users to 60 percent between January 2007 and January 2008 (via eMarketer, from The Luxury Institute).
40 percent of women Internet users are moms with kids under the age of 18 at home. Two-thirds of Internet users who are moms of young children use the Internet to research purchasing decisions (via eMarketer).
A survey of journalists conducted by Editor & Publisher found that 73 percent use blogs for their research, most often to "measure sentiment." On the flip side, 86 percent of bloggers say they are being contacted by PR folks (that number has GOT to be inflated). 24 percent of these bloggers say this outreach from PR folks never results in a post and 49 percent say this outreach results in a post 25 percent of less of the time. What are the percentages like for mainstream media pitches?
According to Business Week, young people are starting to turn their backs on social networks, rejecting the "deluge" of advertising. Over the past four months, research from Comcast indicates that the amount of time that Internet users spend on social networks has dropped about 14 percent. What's an advertiser to do? Collectively, they're spending $1.2 billion in advertising on social networks, a number that is expected to nearly double this year.
Jackie Huba from Church of the Customer reports on new research from Global Marketing Insight that manages to take Oprah down a notch. From a list of 11 influences, African American book buyers are most likely to cite a recommendation from a friend or family member as their reason for buying a book. Miss Oprah is number 6.
Some people do things just to be nice (not me). techPresident wraps up the year in political video. Consumers won't dismiss your company as using "green" as a marketing ploy if you're honest with them about what you're doing right -- and wrong. And a couple of things just for fun: Sesame Street and whiny white people.
Word of Mouth
It clearly says something about me that I presumed most people wrote online reviews to stick it to a company that's done them wrong. According to Keller Fay, it's just the opposite. The majority of folks who write online reviews have something nice to say and and want to share their good news to benefit other customers. They're also motivated by the desire to reward a company who makes them happy or to help that company get better at what they do.
Politics
techPresident has posted the best political videos of 2007 -- both "voter-generated" and videos from the candidates.
I love the SwiftKids
OpenCongress announced the launch of MyOpenCongress yesterday. The new feature allows users to track bills, members of Congress or issues and to develop connections with others within the network. OpenCongress is a project of the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation, both of which are dedicated to using technology to increase citizen engagement in politics and government.
Sure, you love Firefox, but that doesn't mean everyone does -- or uses it. Check out these browser stats from W3 Schools, "the largest web developer's site on the net."
According to Omnicom's Brodeur, more than 75 percent of American journalists look to blogs for story ideas, to get a new angle on an existing story or to gain a better understanding of a story's context. Just under 70 percent read blogs on a regular basis, with more than 20 percent spending more than an hour each day doing so. Nearly 28 percent have their own blogs.
The British Royal Family has launched their own YouTube channel. Tune in on Christmas Day for the Queen's annual Christmas broadcast. In the meantime, the thrilling (and three part) A Day in the Life of the Prince of Wales is riveting.
The League of Conservation Voters thinks that the Sunday morning news show hosts are neglecting the climate change issue when interviewing the presidential candidates. Head over to What Are They Waiting For? if you think 3 of 2275 questions just isn't enough. Sign the petition. Tell a friend about the site. Get more information. Donate. Keep the media accountable.
Finally, the Pew Internet and American Life Project released their latest report on teens and their use of social media. Lots of good data (as always), but few surprises. The number of teens who are online and creating content is on the rise. Social network use is on the rise, as is blogging, with the latter particularly on the rise among teens from lower income and single parent families. Teens are posting more photos and video than adult internet users. And, whatever you may think, teens who are heavy Internet users are also active offline. And those who are most plugged in are the most communicative and social of all.
Mashable does another one of its spectacular toolbox posts: 20+ Charity & Fundraising Tools. I'm not familiar with most on the list, although I have been a fan of Donors Choose -- which enables you to support classroom projects -- for a couple of years now. Back in my nonprofit days, those open source fundraising tools would have been handy.
According to the Mobile Data Association, the British send 1 billion text message per week, a 25 percent increase from last year. 4,000 messages every second. W/E
There's a new social network for caregivers, Agingcare.com (via 901am). The launch coincides with National Family Caregivers Month, a chance to acknowledge the efforts of the more than 50 million family caregivers. Agingcare.com features expert advice, news, polls and products. The "community" section of the site features message boards on everything from legal advice to hospice care to national and local events.
danah boyd is backing up her hypothesis that there are class differences between MySpace and Facebook users with some data, courtesy of Eszter Hargittai from Northwestern University. The debate is not over.
According to Nielsen, 78 percent of consumers worldwide think word of mouth is the most effective form of advertising. A study from GFK Roper says the numbers are higher in the U.S., with 80 percent of Americans saying word of mouth is the "most trustworthy source for purchase ideas and information" compared to 70 percent of consumers worldwide. (via emarketer)
Talk amongst yourselves.
Good news for the pharmas - Burst Media says 25 percent of folks are actually clicking on their ads (via MarketingVox).
Wired's Geekipedia lets you know everything you need to know at your next geek cocktail party. Now even I can attempt to talk about Ajax like a pro . . .
TeeBeeDee is another social network for boomers (actually, folks over 40). Did anyone tell them that Eons isn't doing so well?
I'm with B.L. Ochman, "The world doesn't need one more plain vanilla corporate blog. Blog readers are there by choice. You can't force anyone to read a blog. What you can do is make the blog totally fucking amazing."
Lazy blogger alert: I posted this on the agency blog.
Adults make rules for kids all the time. It’s their job, after all, to protect children and to help them to grow and to succeed.
But sometimes those rules can get in the way. And, according to the National School Boards Association (NSBA), the 92 percent of school districts across the country that have policies creating barriers against Internet use during the school day may be doing just that — getting in the way.
(Disclosure: I don’t have children and I love social media. But I do have a background in media literacy education. I hope that counts toward something.)
The NSBA recently completed a study of nine- to seventeen-year olds and their use of social media as well as the role of social media in education. What did they discover?
No shock here, but kids are heavy users of social media.
The thing is, many of them are using social media for educational reasons.
And most schools are requiring the use of the Internet to complete assignments.
But they are also making rules that restrict Internet use during the school day.
While these rules are only applicable during the school day, their mere existence is sending a (wrong) message to parents — and to students. Participating in social media has limited educational value.
Meanwhile — and despite the hype perpetuated by the media — students and parents report few problems with students’ social media use.
What was most interesting about the study was its discussion of students the NSBA labels the “noncomformists.” These students are heavy users of social media and they break the rules that school districts have for Internet use. They use inappropriate language, post inappropriate pictures, share personal information with strangers and, while online, often pretend to be someone they are not.
But these same students know about new sites and technology before their peers do, communicate more frequently with their parents and demonstrate greater proficiency with “21st century skills”: communication, technological, creativity, collaboration and leadership.
Meanwhile, their graders hover in the B’s and C’s, which the NSBA suggests has less to do with their capabilities and intelligence and more to do with the schools’ lack of effort to engage them in innovative and creative ways.
What does the NSBA recommend?
What would I add to that list? Why not actively engage those nonconforming students in developing ways to engage their nonconformist peers — as well as other students? Take advantage of their leadership capabilities and their knowledge of social media and give them a good reason to get excited to come to school and a chance to do well.
Do you have anything to add to the list?
(By the way, the study was funded by three organizations with an economic interest in encouraging students’ — and schools’ — use of the Internet: Microsoft, News Corporation and Verizon.)
Speaking of economic interest . . . while I was writing this post, there was an ad for the cable industry’s online safety campaign, Point Smart Click Safe. While most messages about online safety lean toward overemphasizing the boogie man in the closet, the message from the ad was that parents should simply spend more time learning about what their kids are doing online. In the ad, the dad had been reading his daughter’s blog and was able to speak more fluently about her interests.
“You might even like it,” the ad says.
The Myth of the MySpace Generation - Research from Synovate suggests that young people (18-24) in Europe are not all that "techno-savvy" after all: 76 percent have never used MySpace, 90 percent have never blogged, 94 percent have never downloaded a ring tone for their cell phone.
But There's Hope - Facebook use is on the rise -- 89 percent in the past year -- and the new users are in the 12-17 and the 25-34 year old age group. So says ComScore, via TechCrunch.
Doing the Right Thing - Fast Company reported on the recent Geneva gathering for the UN Global Compact, including the release of three new studies that all suggest that corporate social responsibility is good for the bottom line. This may repulse those of you who think we should all do good because it's the right thing to do have my sympathy. I wish the world was ruled by justice, but, alas, it isn't. By the way, my former advisor at the Kennedy School, John Ruggie, designed and oversaw the Global Compact as Assistant Secretary General and chief adviser to former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan for strategic planning.
A Higher Power - Speaking of the good ol' days in Cambridge, I found this Men's Vogue article about another one of my Kennedy School profs, Samantha Power via sk*rt (a site that I mentioned in passing recently, but which I have grown to love). I'd like to say that I would like to be Power when I grow up, but I think it's too late. I enjoyed the article, but I am feeling devastatingly mediocre right about now -- and it's not because she gets to play basketball with George Clooney, I assure you.
Google (Rules the) Earth - Mashable documents Google's efforts -- some successful, some not so successful -- to take over the world (or the market) for search, advertising, video, blogging, mobile, start pages, communications, social networking, photo sharing and office suites.
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