When it comes to the most cutting-edge companies in social media like Comcast, Dell, Adobe and Wells Fargo, what exactly separates them from the rest? Well, they have formalized programs, dedicated teams, line-item budgets, and have been at it for more than two-and-a-half years, according to social media guru Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group. But in a blog post highlighting findings from a recent Altimeter report, he goes beyond that basic definition to look more closely at social media-related spending, staffing and agency hiring among corporations with more advanced programs. The idea is to get a glimpse of how social business will develop for all large companies by examining how this group of early adopters works now. Overall spending -- both internal and external -- across a dozen social business programs by advanced companies came to $1.86 million, nearly double the approximately $1 million annual average. Specifically, they're spending 68% more on average on social-marketing teams at $406,000 per year. But still not enough is earmarked for training. "Sadly, these advanced companies spend very little on training and education, nor research and development. As a result, expect the social business team to be experimenting, self-learning, or relying on peers at other companies to glean knowledge," wrote Owyang. That translates as learning on the job. Advanced companies also rely heavily on the growing number of social-media boutiques rather than traditional agencies. These include firms such as Atlas Consulting, the Conversation Group, Gaspedal, Pistachio Consulting and Socialbomb. There is also more spending on social networks, although traditional agencies are likely to win some of that money to support campaign initiatives. In developing custom technology tied to social efforts, advanced corporations spent three times more than average -- $272,000 to $90,000. The difference in spending on community platforms -- the mainstay of social media programs -- was not as wide: at $198,000 versus $129,000. Advanced companies also budget $150,000 a year for brand monitoring tools compared to the $98,000 average. "Expect spending to only increase over the coming years, as social business becomes a mainstay spending line item, not just limited to marketing but every business unit," noted Owyang. But he predicts the proportion spent on boutiques and custom work will decrease as specialty shops get swallowed up by larger agencies that will, in turn, offer their own social-marketing tools. The data underlying the Altimeter findings is drawn for a research panel of 140 global corporations with over 1,000 employees each.
Women's media network SheKnows is expected to debut a new social media platform Monday dubbed SheKnows Connect. With the new platform, SheKnows hopes to better integrate its content and community, allowing conversations to begin around news stories, columns and other various features. "The SheKnows audience connects around passion points," said Kyle Cox, vice president/GM of SheKnows. "With SheKnows Connect, we are better engaging users on site around content." In addition, strengthening community relationships has been shown to benefit ad partners. A recent study conducted by BlogHer found that blogs are more than two times more likely -- 63% -- than magazines -- 26% -- to have inspired a beauty product purchase over the last six months. Another component of the relaunch is the SheKnows Dares initiative, which will encourage users to "dare" themselves to be better. By incorporating SheKnows Connect with Facebook Connect, users can accept and complete all manner of dares. They can also challenge their friends via Facebook to do the same. "With SheKnows Dares, we are encouraging the community to get involved to create an experience -- not only on SheKnows but within their social networks on and offline," Cox added. Later this year, the company also plans to launch a product centered around the SheKnows CityGuide, as well as a pregnancy and parenting product allowing women to share the different stages of motherhood. Along with larger players like NBCU's iVillage, the Meredith Women's Network, and Glam Media, SheKnows competes against a long list of smaller players, including, BlogHer, Total Beauty, and Sugar Inc. Owned by Evolve Media Corp., SheKnows claims to reach over 50 million unique visitors, citing Google Analytics data.
For the longest time, the mantra about young adults -- and particularly men -- was that they were difficult to reach as advertising targets because of their low usage of traditional media, such as magazines. To say that things have changed dramatically in the last decade is to say the sun rises in the East. With the rise of mobile devices and social media, people ages 18 to 34 (I call them Millennials but they're also called Gen Yers) are now the most connected and receptive age group for social media messages and advertisements delivered via text messages, according to my company's latest data. While nearly 40% of U.S. adults -- some 88.2 million people -- visited a social media Web site in the last 30 days, Millennials are the age group most dependent upon such sites to feel connected to others, according to the "2010 GfK MRI Spring Omnibus Study." Of the adults who visited a social media site in the last 30 days, Millennials were 33% more likely than the average visitor to agree that, "When I don't access my social networking Web sites, I feel like I'm out of touch." Gen X ers and Baby Boomers, on the other hand, were 14% and 28% less likely than the average social network visitor, respectively, to agree with this statement. Asked whether they agree that "Social networking is an important part of my everyday life," Millennials were 26% more likely than the average social network visitor to answer yes, while, again, Gen Xers were 8% and Boomers were 22% less likely than the average networker to agree with this sentiment. Millennials are also 29% more likely to feel that "My interactions on social networking Web sites are as meaningful as those that are in person." This compares to GenXers who are 16% less likely and Boomers who were 21% less likely than the average adult social network visitor to feel this way. Of particular importance to mobile marketers, Millennials with mobile phones look at texted ads and respond to ads via text far more than other cell owners. A look at the our "Survey of the American Consumer" shows us that Millennials are 57% more likely than the average cell phone owner to have looked at a texted ad in the last 30 days. Moreover, they are almost twice as likely to have used text to respond to an ad or to make a purchase. Gen Xers, on the other hand, are only 19% more likely than the average adult cell owner to have looked at a texted ad and they are just 6% more likely to have responded to an ad or to have made a purchase via text messaging. Boomers trail the pack considerably with regard to these activities; they are 40% less likely to have looked at a texted ad and 55% less likely to have responded to an ad or to have made a purchase via text than the average mobile phone owner. Meanwhile, as digital out-of-home media continue to proliferate and become increasingly sophisticated in interacting with mobile devices, men and women ages 18-34 are more likely than the population as a whole to report they viewed a place-based video ad in the last 30 days. Young men, in particular, show receptivity to this sort of advertising: they are 28% more likely than the population as a whole to have viewed any place-based video ad, 75% more likely to have view a video ad in a restaurant, 79% more likely to have noticed a video ad in an airport and -- surprise! -- nearly twice as likely to have viewed a video ad in a bar, in the last 30 days. This young, formerly elusive media demographic is now aswarm with digital media choices and, clearly, relatively receptive to digital advertising messages. But don't turn your back on "old" media as part of your mix when targeting the younger demographic. Amid all the new media buzz, for instance, an often surprising fact gets lost -- 57 million Millennials read magazines a decade ago and, today, 60 million of them are reading magazines. This traditional medium is very much holding its own in reaching this coveted group.
This week, photo-sharing start-up Color made huge news by securing a boatload of venture capital, banking on the idea that people in close proximity to one another will want to share photos. CEO Dan Nguyen said that Color was designed to be used with groups, but its effect is often to connect strangers through their photos on their mobile phones. Connecting strangers through an Internet connection has, in the past, gone terribly wrong. Take Chatroulette as an obvious example, where the service could not be used without encountering an anonymous man exposing himself on your screen. Despite its pitfalls, there was something extremely powerful about connecting with a stranger, webcam-to-webcame, and Nguyen's startup takes advantage of that draw while decreasing the risk of inappropriate conduct with two methods. The first: by adding proximity as an element that dilutes the anonymity of the interaction, thus decreasing the likelihood of bad behavior. The second, by further structuring the type of communication allowed -- although it's pretty easy to be offensive with a single image, it's still a bit harder than it is through video with a full audio connection. Gaming offers an even more structured way to interact with people on the Web. Online gamers are completely familiar with interacting with strangers online; indeed it's one of the chief pleasures and pitfalls of online gaming to meet interesting strangers who may be profanity-spewing psychotics or actually pretty friendly chaps. But some games -- Words With Friends, a popular iPad/iPhone Scrabble-like game springs to mind -- can be played without any communication at all. Playing games with people at the same location as you could be an entertaining way to pass the time and even make connections with strangers, without Chatroulette-like risks of offensive content. A great example of this can be seen on Delta's in-flight gaming options. A trivia game allows users to compete against the rest of the plane to answer various general knowledge questions, and users are identified by a self-chosen nickname plus their seat number. You can play against your fellow passengers in relative anonymity, but if you have a competitive game that comes down to the wire, you can look across the aisle and make an actual connection. It's because the communication among those strangers begins in a structured way -- through the game -- that allows them to qualify one another for an actual, personal conversation, thus avoiding the pitfalls of platforms like Chatroulette.
When it comes to the most cutting-edge companies in social media like Comcast, Dell, Adobe and Wells Fargo, what exactly separates them from the rest? Well, they have formalized programs, dedicated teams, line-item budgets, and have been at it for more than two-and-a-half years, according to social media guru Jeremiah Owyang of Altimeter Group. But in a blog post highlighting findings from a recent Altimeter report, he goes beyond that basic definition to look more closely at social media-related spending, staffing and agency hiring among corporations with more advanced programs. The idea is to get a glimpse of how social business will develop for all large companies by examining how this group of early adopters works now. Overall spending -- both internal and external -- across a dozen social business programs by advanced companies came to $1.86 million, nearly double the approximately $1 million annual average. Specifically, they're spending 68% more on average on social-marketing teams at $406,000 per year. But still not enough is earmarked for training. "Sadly, these advanced companies spend very little on training and education, nor research and development. As a result, expect the social business team to be experimenting, self-learning, or relying on peers at other companies to glean knowledge," wrote Owyang. That translates as learning on the job. Advanced companies also rely heavily on the growing number of social-media boutiques rather than traditional agencies. These include firms such as Atlas Consulting, the Conversation Group, Gaspedal, Pistachio Consulting and Socialbomb. There is also more spending on social networks, although traditional agencies are likely to win some of that money to support campaign initiatives. In developing custom technology tied to social efforts, advanced corporations spent three times more than average -- $272,000 to $90,000. The difference in spending on community platforms -- the mainstay of social media programs -- was not as wide: at $198,000 versus $129,000. Advanced companies also budget $150,000 a year for brand monitoring tools compared to the $98,000 average. "Expect spending to only increase over the coming years, as social business becomes a mainstay spending line item, not just limited to marketing but every business unit," noted Owyang. But he predicts the proportion spent on boutiques and custom work will decrease as specialty shops get swallowed up by larger agencies that will, in turn, offer their own social-marketing tools. The data underlying the Altimeter findings is drawn for a research panel of 140 global corporations with over 1,000 employees each.
Women's media network SheKnows is expected to debut a new social media platform Monday dubbed SheKnows Connect. With the new platform, SheKnows hopes to better integrate its content and community, allowing conversations to begin around news stories, columns and other various features. "The SheKnows audience connects around passion points," said Kyle Cox, vice president/GM of SheKnows. "With SheKnows Connect, we are better engaging users on site around content." In addition, strengthening community relationships has been shown to benefit ad partners. A recent study conducted by BlogHer found that blogs are more than two times more likely -- 63% -- than magazines -- 26% -- to have inspired a beauty product purchase over the last six months. Another component of the relaunch is the SheKnows Dares initiative, which will encourage users to "dare" themselves to be better. By incorporating SheKnows Connect with Facebook Connect, users can accept and complete all manner of dares. They can also challenge their friends via Facebook to do the same. "With SheKnows Dares, we are encouraging the community to get involved to create an experience -- not only on SheKnows but within their social networks on and offline," Cox added. Later this year, the company also plans to launch a product centered around the SheKnows CityGuide, as well as a pregnancy and parenting product allowing women to share the different stages of motherhood. Along with larger players like NBCU's iVillage, the Meredith Women's Network, and Glam Media, SheKnows competes against a long list of smaller players, including, BlogHer, Total Beauty, and Sugar Inc. Owned by Evolve Media Corp., SheKnows claims to reach over 50 million unique visitors, citing Google Analytics data.