Which gender should brands be targeting to help spread their message? While women outnumber men online -- 53% vs. 47% -- males are more likely to share digital media content -- 51% vs. 49% -- according to a newly released study conducted by AOL and Nielsen. Men are also more likely -- by a clear margin of 41% to 32% -- to share information they deem "important" and feel will be helpful to others, from how-to tutorials to traffic reports. "Men will share content that positions themselves as experts," explained Kristin Kovner, senior marketing director at AOL. Conversely, women are slightly more likely -- 33% vs. 31% -- to share information pertaining to a common interest like politics, arts and parenting. In other words, said Kovner, "women share to build community." Finding a direct relationship between content sharing and brand messaging, AOL and Nielsen found that a full 60% of content-sharing messages specifically mention a brand or product name. Overall, 53% of time spent online is directly attributable to content consumption, according to the study. What's more, showing the targeted and personal nature of sharing online, the majority of consumers claim to share content with friends and family. Email remains the primary sharing tool -- at 66% -- but as Kovner noted, the lines between email and social-networking platforms continue to blur, particularly since Facebook debuted its own email service. Nearly one-quarter, or 23%, of all social-media messages contain content sharing, while 47% of social-media messages about key focus areas -- including auto, tech, finance, entertainment or news -- contain it. On a daily basis, about 27 million pieces of online content are shared domestically, according to Nielsen. As 36% of content shared across social platforms is embedded, AOL suggests branded-entertainment initiatives to ensure that marketing messages are not lost in the sharing process. Also, since 60% of content shared on social platforms includes a link to an external site, marketers' messages should "be there" when users link back to engage with information. At the behest of AOL, Nielsen used its NM Incite Social Media Monitoring tools, online behavior panel and attitudinal analysis, tracking more than 10,000 social media messages and surveying more than 1,000 Nielsen Online panel members for 10 consecutive days last December. The study's main takeaway, at least according to AOL, is the idea that content is responsible for fueling the social media boom, and should therefore remain key to any marketing buy. "As marketers, content is the way to become involved in that social conversation in an authentic, additive way," said Kovner. It should be noted, however, that AOL has hinged its future on content, and increasingly competes against social-media platforms for ad dollars.
Heineken and Six Flags may have little in common, but marketers at each company agree on at least one point when it comes to social media: don't make it an afterthought. At the Argyle Executive Forum's 2011 CMO Spotlight Forum: Retail and Consumer Goods & Services on Wednesday, marketers from the brands spoke about integrating social media into their marketing mix. p> Laure Levin, solutions strategy director, enterprise solutions at Infogroup, who led the discussion, pointed out that online ad spend is likely to reach $28.5 billion this year, with social ad network spend likely to be up 55% over last year. But marketer confidence is not rising at the same rate. Citing an Infogroup study, Levin said that 73% of marketers feel that simply finding time to create social content is their biggest challenge. "Small businesses are slightly more likely to use social," she says. "The real question is whether it is helping to grow businesses or just, as [The Daily Show's] Jon Stewart said: 'A world passing around notes in a classroom.'" David McKillips, SVP of corporate alliances for Six Flags Entertainment, said social is regional and therefore a critical component for a company whose 19 parks in the U.S. attract crowds who live within 100 miles of them. He likens marketing at Six Flags properties to having kids. "They all look alike, but each has its own personality. So we have a national Facebook page, but we advertise locally and regionally, and not nationally," he says. "We have to reach the local customer. Nationally, we have 99% awareness. So we decided to go ahead with national Facebook page but it shoots you to our regional parks." At those sites, he says, interactions are really person-to-person, not consumer-to-company. He says each park has a staffer dedicated to talking to customers on social media, conversations in which the Six Flags rep uses his or her first name. McKillips says the company has 1.5 million fans on its national Facebook, and a total of 3 million regional fans. "And we are a top-25 brand on Foursquare. We are very active on Twitter, and we blog once a week. Our fans are also very active." He says social media also allows Six Flags to go beyond a single big message. Although the theme park's traditional marketing efforts are heavy during spring, when the company touts new rides and a season-pass message as well as a one-day ticket message starting on Memorial Day, TV ads "only give us 30 seconds to tell our story. On Facebook, we have an opportunity to talk about all the other things we have to offer. Also, it's not just a marketing engine but a critical part of PR and guest relations, which are incredibly important to us." Kheri Holland Tillman, VP trade marketing and sales strategy at Heineken, said the bottom line for her company is that its social and digital efforts must add up to a bigger idea. "For the Heineken beer brand, for example, it's about music. For our Dos Equis brand, it's 'the most interesting man in world' program. Everything must tie into a bigger plan. For each program, we do we have to make sure we have the right objective and strategy."
SEMPO has released its comprehensive "State of Search" report for 2011, and there are many key findings that are of interest to practicing search marketers, search strategists and PPC media buyers, to name a few. Over 900 agencies and companies from 66 countries were interviewed for the 133-page report. SEMPO research chair Marc Englesman of Digital Brand Expressions offered some key insights on the report for MediaPost. Of the findings, it is notable that social networks have become substantial alternative PPC networks, in some cases driving higher PPC participation than the Yahoo / Bing search alliance. "The SEMPO Report clearly shows that Facebook has rapidly become a top PPC advertising vehicle," said Engelsman. "This may be driven in part by companies looking to quickly and easily buy their way into social media presence instead of taking the time to build their digital outposts more organically. This would follow the trend we saw in the early times of SEO when many marketers decided to forego true search engine optimization in favor of paid search as a way to get fast visibility. "The reality of Facebook's PPC ad growth (and to a lesser degree, the growth we are also seeing in use of LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and mobile) means the PPC model has expanded well beyond traditional search engines, and marketers need to understand and budget for the growing opportunities in this arena." He also noted a key shift from in-house, back to managed and outsourced models for a company's search and social marketing efforts. "The reasons for this seem to be a combination of lack of time and skill levels to keep up with the fast-changing developments in SEO, paid search and social media," he said. The report also highlighted the following key findings: - SEMPO estimates that the North American search engine marketing industry will grow by 16% in 2011 to a value of $19.3 billion, up from $16.6 billion in 2010. - The emergence of the mobile internet is having a major impact on search marketing, even more than personalization. Seventy-nine percent of companies consider this development to be "highly significant" or "significant," and this percentage has jumped 14 % since 2010. - The utilization of social networks for marketing and media continues to grow. The percentage of company respondents who say they use Facebook now stands at 84%, up from 73% last year. Three-quarters (74%) of North American agencies say their clients run PPC campaigns on Facebook. Three-fourths of companies (75%) use Twitter for brand promotion, and more than a quarter (27%) of companies now use LinkedIn specifically for PPC campaigns. - Only 44% of companies are now executing search engine optimization in-house, compared to 51 % last year. Only 38 % of companies are managing paid search marketing in-house, compared to 47 % last year. - Google continues to dominate as a search engine, from both an advertiser and agency perspective, with 95% of companies paying to advertise on Google AdWords. - "More than half of companies (54%) expect increased spending on SEO this year, while only 10% expect to spend less. On average, companies expect to spend 43% more on SEO in 2011 than they did in 2010, the same average increase as was anticipated for 2010 in last year's survey. " - Social media marketing budgets are still modest compared to search engine optimization and paid search, but 64 % expect social media budgets to grow in 2011. - Around three quarters of North American agencies (74%) and two-thirds of those outside the U.S. and Canada (69%) say their clients use Facebook for paid search. - Of all Google features and placements, local results(55%), multiple listings(47%) and maps (42%) are considered to have the most significant impact on companies' search performance. - Around half of client-side respondents use location-based ads(49%) to enhance their paid search performance, while product listingsand product extensionsare the least used Google features. - There has been a significant increase in the proportion of companies saying that social media activity is primarily aimed at improving customer service and satisfaction, from 8% in 2010 to 13% this year. Fewer companies than last year say social media is about generating leads (-4%), but 3% more agencies than in 2010 say this is the main objective. Overall, the survey underscores the importance of a search marketing mindset in the changing media landscape, as well as many other key findings. Click here to obtain a full copy of the report.
Just when I thought I was burned out on all things Groupon, LivingSocial, et al (and there's lots of et als in this market), along comes Deals on Facebook. Which is not to be confused with those two, or BlackBoardEats or Google Offers, or Bing Deals, by the way. Why? Because these are Deals on Facebook. And believe it or not, even though I spent most of the last paragraph making fun of online coupon deals -- look for the launch of Catharine P. Taylor Deals, coming soon to an email inbox near you! -- this product is different, because it will probably be more social and seamless than those others, and that's better all around. For retailers who sign up, it will be a better promotional platform because of its easy integration with other promotional avenues on Facebook. For consumers, it will be a simpler way to buy deals and find out what deals your friends deem worthy. To get a bit hackneyed about this, it will be Groupon on steroids. If Facebook messes this one up, I'll be amazed. To briefly summarize, Deals is a Facebook-ian Groupon clone, in that it offers local deals, currently in a limited number of markets, such as Atlanta and San Francisco. (But not, alas, in New York.) To the extent those others are social, it's because you can use Facebook Connect and because every time someone buys a deal they can automatically share it with friends, with benefits accruing back to them. But for the Groupons and LivingSocials of the world, the social engine seems to rely on two things: people actually opening the email deals they subscribed to, and on people actively sharing once they've got a deal. I'm not saying people don't actually do this -- if they didn't, these services probably wouldn't have gained as much traction -- but the hurdles just seem bigger. And they seem bigger even though, like all businesses these days, those in the daily deal/couponing/group buying space (it's such a new industry it doesn't seem to have a definitive name) make much use of social tools like Facebook and Twitter. They are certainly no dummies, so they are leveraging the social graph any way they can. But even though that's the case, it's one thing when you leverage a platform; it's another thing entirely when you own the platform -- and that's going to be the huge difference between Facebook and those that have come before. In fact, while researching this column, I stumbled across one of the difficulties of working with the Facebook platform rather than being part of it. In the name of research, I bought a Groupon for Thai food at a local restaurant, and because of some confusion over whether I had accidentally signed up for Groupon twice, the system kept rejecting my attempt to purchase -- even when I tried logging in using Facebook Connect, which is supposedly an alternative way of logging on. What unfolded was the usual email verification/password resetting madness that usually causes me to dump whatever it is I was trying to buy. But for you, dear reader, I persisted. About five minutes after I requested that Groupon send an email to my inbox to verify my account's existence, it finally complied. Because of the password problem and other snafus, on the fourth or fifth try of inputting my credit card information I finally got the deal. Of course, it's not always this hard. But when it seems like all of us log on to new services with new passwords every day, how nice it would have been to conduct the entire deal through a service I use every day -- and that, of course, is Facebook. But I also wondered how well the Groupon integration with Facebook worked when I was actually in Facebook. How effective is it at promoting the deals, I like -- or have bought? As I've been writing this, I went back to my Facebook profile page several times to see; so far it's not showing anything about my activities on Groupon today. (I also "Like"-ed a Groupon deal.) Meanwhile, I did another experiment by "Like"-ing a Facebook deal on tours of Muir Woods. Not surprisingly, that was immediately displayed. I also checked out the News Feed of one of my Facebook friends who had bought a deal on Facebook to see if his transaction had made it into the Feed. It had. (How did I know he'd bought something? I clicked here, where it shows you which Facebook friends have bought, liked and shared deals.) Of course, nothing about group buying is rocket science, which is why there are so many start-ups clamoring to be the next to offer 25% off your next car wash. Indeed, one of Facebook's innovations in Deals on Facebook -- which has nothing to do with social media -- is to play up the participating businesses in its offers rather than focusing first on just how big each deal is. I've no doubt competitors will follow suit, since so many retailers don't want to be seen simply as a place where consumers can get a good deal. But what the others can't offer is a platform of hundreds of millions of people globally, millions in every major market, and the promotional power all of that interconnectedness can harness. That's why in an overheated market, Facebook will win. In the meantime, I'll go enjoy that Thai food I just bought. I hope finding parking ends up being easier than finalizing the transaction was.
Which gender should brands be targeting to help spread their message? While women outnumber men online -- 53% vs. 47% -- males are more likely to share digital media content -- 51% vs. 49% -- according to a newly released study conducted by AOL and Nielsen. Men are also more likely -- by a clear margin of 41% to 32% -- to share information they deem "important" and feel will be helpful to others, from how-to tutorials to traffic reports. "Men will share content that positions themselves as experts," explained Kristin Kovner, senior marketing director at AOL. Conversely, women are slightly more likely -- 33% vs. 31% -- to share information pertaining to a common interest like politics, arts and parenting. In other words, said Kovner, "women share to build community." Finding a direct relationship between content sharing and brand messaging, AOL and Nielsen found that a full 60% of content-sharing messages specifically mention a brand or product name. Overall, 53% of time spent online is directly attributable to content consumption, according to the study. What's more, showing the targeted and personal nature of sharing online, the majority of consumers claim to share content with friends and family. Email remains the primary sharing tool -- at 66% -- but as Kovner noted, the lines between email and social-networking platforms continue to blur, particularly since Facebook debuted its own email service. Nearly one-quarter, or 23%, of all social-media messages contain content sharing, while 47% of social-media messages about key focus areas -- including auto, tech, finance, entertainment or news -- contain it. On a daily basis, about 27 million pieces of online content are shared domestically, according to Nielsen. As 36% of content shared across social platforms is embedded, AOL suggests branded-entertainment initiatives to ensure that marketing messages are not lost in the sharing process. Also, since 60% of content shared on social platforms includes a link to an external site, marketers' messages should "be there" when users link back to engage with information. At the behest of AOL, Nielsen used its NM Incite Social Media Monitoring tools, online behavior panel and attitudinal analysis, tracking more than 10,000 social media messages and surveying more than 1,000 Nielsen Online panel members for 10 consecutive days last December. The study's main takeaway, at least according to AOL, is the idea that content is responsible for fueling the social media boom, and should therefore remain key to any marketing buy. "As marketers, content is the way to become involved in that social conversation in an authentic, additive way," said Kovner. It should be noted, however, that AOL has hinged its future on content, and increasingly competes against social-media platforms for ad dollars.
Heineken and Six Flags may have little in common, but marketers at each company agree on at least one point when it comes to social media: don't make it an afterthought. At the Argyle Executive Forum's 2011 CMO Spotlight Forum: Retail and Consumer Goods & Services on Wednesday, marketers from the brands spoke about integrating social media into their marketing mix. p> Laure Levin, solutions strategy director, enterprise solutions at Infogroup, who led the discussion, pointed out that online ad spend is likely to reach $28.5 billion this year, with social ad network spend likely to be up 55% over last year. But marketer confidence is not rising at the same rate. Citing an Infogroup study, Levin said that 73% of marketers feel that simply finding time to create social content is their biggest challenge. "Small businesses are slightly more likely to use social," she says. "The real question is whether it is helping to grow businesses or just, as [The Daily Show's] Jon Stewart said: 'A world passing around notes in a classroom.'" David McKillips, SVP of corporate alliances for Six Flags Entertainment, said social is regional and therefore a critical component for a company whose 19 parks in the U.S. attract crowds who live within 100 miles of them. He likens marketing at Six Flags properties to having kids. "They all look alike, but each has its own personality. So we have a national Facebook page, but we advertise locally and regionally, and not nationally," he says. "We have to reach the local customer. Nationally, we have 99% awareness. So we decided to go ahead with national Facebook page but it shoots you to our regional parks." At those sites, he says, interactions are really person-to-person, not consumer-to-company. He says each park has a staffer dedicated to talking to customers on social media, conversations in which the Six Flags rep uses his or her first name. McKillips says the company has 1.5 million fans on its national Facebook, and a total of 3 million regional fans. "And we are a top-25 brand on Foursquare. We are very active on Twitter, and we blog once a week. Our fans are also very active." He says social media also allows Six Flags to go beyond a single big message. Although the theme park's traditional marketing efforts are heavy during spring, when the company touts new rides and a season-pass message as well as a one-day ticket message starting on Memorial Day, TV ads "only give us 30 seconds to tell our story. On Facebook, we have an opportunity to talk about all the other things we have to offer. Also, it's not just a marketing engine but a critical part of PR and guest relations, which are incredibly important to us." Kheri Holland Tillman, VP trade marketing and sales strategy at Heineken, said the bottom line for her company is that its social and digital efforts must add up to a bigger idea. "For the Heineken beer brand, for example, it's about music. For our Dos Equis brand, it's 'the most interesting man in world' program. Everything must tie into a bigger plan. For each program, we do we have to make sure we have the right objective and strategy."