MediaPost reports that Twitter is planning to launch an advertising platform soon, possibly within the next month. This will be the first move towards 'monetizing' the huge volume of traffic that Twitter now generates, to create some revenue back to the business. The challenge facing Twitter is to do this in a way that won't alienate users and makes it clear that 'tweets' or tags have been sponsored or not.

This comes at a time when Twitter is now handling 50 million 'tweets' a day. The Sydney Morning Herald reports on the latest data provided by Twitter, which demonstrates the massive growth in the service, from users writing 5,000 "tweets" per day in 2007 to 300,000 per day in 2008 and 2.5 million per day in 2009. The latest figures represent a year-on-year growth of 1,400% in the short comments being posted each day, with the current levels averaging 600 tweets per second.

Labels: social networks, twitter

The Google blog has announced their acquisition of Aardvark, a 'social search engine' whereby users can login to ask questions and get responses from other users. Set up by ex-Google employees, Aardvark analyzes questions to determine what they're about and then matches each question to people with relevant knowledge and interests to give users an answer quickly (stated to be within 5 minutes), either by email or through instant messaging.

As with all Google's acquisitions, they tend to spot a good opportunity and a new service that could become more mainstream in the future. You can visit the Aardvark site here: http://vark.com/ask

Labels: google, social networks

A recent blog article from MediaPost examines the role that social media is starting to play by supporting existing forms of marketing, such as email marketing. It claims that social media is now a useful tool to help develop more targeted, relevant and successful email marketing campaigns, by extending the reach of these mailings using social sharing features. This means that recipients will share the content with friends who might be interested, which then helps to build brand awareness and potential develop the original email list with targeted contacts.

Social media is also seen as a valuable tool to build new email lists from scratch. Running promotions through Facebook or Twitter can create interest and involvement for future use, as long as the incentive relates to the long-term target market as well. As the article says, marketers will often attract prospects to their website and building email campaign lists through the use of promotions, but social media is unique because it "disarms prospects by building a connection with them in advance".

Labels: email marketing, social networks

New research by Forrester claims that social marketing will become more strategic and planned in 2010 with companies taking tools such as Facebook and Twitter more seriously. As reported by Media Post News, the new research contains a list of social computing prediction for 2010 and suggests that companies who are taking this media seriously will create social councils - cross-functional teams aimed at sharing ideas about social media - and allocate budgets and planned structures for these groups.

It also suggests that an increasing number of companies will adopt 'listening platforms' to monitor social media, that Twitter will become more profitable or get acquired and also Facebook will take a more proactive approach to protecting members' privacy in the light of increasing demands from users.

In another report - the 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report from MarketingSherpa - the No. 1 objective targeted and measured by marketers was said to be an increase in website traffic, followed by an increase in lead generation, increase sales revenue, improved search engine ranking and improved brand or product reputation.

Labels: research, social networks

Social networking website Facebook has once again run into a backlash from changes being made to its privacy policy. As reported by the BBC, the new conditions were introduced earlier this week with a pop-up box asking members to review and select their privacy settings. However, like previous changes to privacy and usage conditions, the change is attracting a large amount of negative feedback.

Digital rights groups and bloggers have responded with criticism of Facebook's changing policy, claiming that these are unnecessary and encouraged users to share their updates with the wider online community, as well as making content available to search engines. However, Facebook has responded by saying the changes should help members to manage updates they wanted to share, not trick them into revealing too much.

This is not the first time that Facebook has received such a response to changes, which reflects the extent of membership and usage of the site around the world. However, although it might damage their reputation in the short term, it remains to be seen whether this backlash has a long-term affect on usage of the service.

Facebook began testing the latest privacy changes during 2009 before introducing them site-wide. The changes let users decide who should see their updates, whether all 350 million Facebook members should see them, and if they should be viewable across the web. A spokesman said the changes to privacy made it easier to tune the audience for an update or status change so default settings of openness should have less impact, although users still have the ultimate choice of what to place on their profiles or updates.

Labels: facebook, privacy, social networks

The Google blog has announced a new Social Search service, which will be available to Google account users who are logged in when they search Google. With this search option, Google finds relevant public content from a user's friends and contacts and highlights this at the bottom of the search results. Users can also filter their results to see only content from their social circle by clicking "Show options" on the results page and clicking "Social."

Google is collecting these search results from publicly available information on the web and by linking a user's Google profile to their wider social circle of friends and contacts using such sites as Twitter or FriendFeed. The results are then specific to each user and, if Gmail is also used, will display relevant content from 'chat buddies' and other contacts.

Labels: google, social networks

The ClickZ website has summarised new data released by The Nielsen Company which says that the time being spent on social networking sites has nearly tripled in the past year. In addition to this trend, the amount being spent on advertising on these sites has also increased at a similar rate.

According to the report, consumer activity on social networking and blogging sites comprised 17% of all time spent on the Internet in August 2009, up from just 6% a year ago. At the same time, advertising spend on these sites grew 119%, from an estimated US$49 million in August 2008 to US$108 million last month. As a percentage of total online ad spend in the US, these ad expenditures on social networking sites climbed from 7% to 15% year on year.

Not surprisingly, Facebook is the big winner from this growth, as recently reported, and as well as the number of users growing substantially, the time spent on the site has also increased, with the average user now spending 5 hours and 46 minutes per month on the site, up from 1 hour and 40 minutes a year ago. As a result, Facebook has reportedly seen a significant growth in ad impressions, accounting for a 14.7% share of US display advertising views last month, up from just 1.8% in January this year.

According to Nielsen, the spend by industry sector on the top social network sites has increased in all areas, with the entertainment industry showing the biggest annual increase, up by 812%, and travel advertising increasing spend by 364%.

Labels: internet advertising, social networks

The Wall Street Journal covers the latest announcement from Facebook that it has now reached 300 million users, another sign of the continued growth of this popular social networking site. This means that an extra 50 million users have been added since July, when the 250m mark was announced, so the upward growth curve continues at a rapid rate.

Of course all these users are not regular users of the site, but it still makes for an impressive user base of registered names, with 70% reported to be based outside of the US now. Facebook also claim to have moved into a positive cashflow situation now and are expected to earn more than US$500 million in revenue in 2009 - another significant growth in the past year, up more than 70% on the 2008 figure.

Labels: facebook, social networks

A report by Reuters says that around one of every five Internet display ads in the United States is now being viewed on a social networking website, such as MySpace and Facebook. The data comes from a new survey by comScore which demonstrates the increasing importance of social media sites and the broadening acceptance of such sites by brand advertisers, as well as the challenge now being faced by the more traditional online publishers, such as Yahoo and AOL.

The new report says that social media sites represented just over 21% of U.S. Internet display ads in July, with MySpace and Facebook accounting for more than 80% of those ads. However, the question will remain as to whether these sites can be used as effectively for advertising, due to the nature of their usage. Also, because the content on social media sites is created by users, some have questioned the willingness of marketers to place their brands alongside that content and the potential risks that could bring.

Labels: internet advertising, research, social networks

Facebook, the market-leading social networking site, has been forced to change its global privacy policy following negotiations with the privacy commissioner in Canada. A report by the BBC says that Facebook was recently found to breach Canadian law by holding on to users' personal data indefinitely and has therefore agreed to make changes to the way it handles this information and be more transparent about what data it collects and why.

The other main stumbling block that has been an issue for some time has been the inability for users to deactivate or delete their account, but this is now being changed so that it will be possible in the future. The decision could also have implications for other social networking websites.

As well as updating their privacy policy, Facebook has said it will make changes that will give users more control over the data they provide to third-party developers of applications, such as games and quizzes. These changes will require applications to state which information they wish to access and obtain consent from the user before it is used or shared.

Labels: facebook, social networks

The Wall Street Journal blog includes an article about the use of social networks in the workplace and how this growing issue needs to be addressed by companies in a clear manner. According to a recent survey in the US by Deloitte, a majority of business executives believe that they have a right to know what their employees are doing on social-networking sites. However, most workers - not surprisingly - say it’s none of their bosses’ business!

However, the margin was quite low, as only 53% of employee respondents said their social networking profiles are none of their employers’ business, which probably reflects the awareness of many that whatever they might think, these details are in the public domain and are likely to be viewed at some time. Regardless, 61% of employees said that they wouldn’t change what they were doing online even if their boss was monitoring their activities.

About a quarter of employees said they knew of specific guidelines as to what they could and couldn’t post on social networking sites and a similar proportion also said that their company didn’t have a policy, or that they didn’t know if their company had a policy.

Labels: social networks

An article by Advertising Age focuses on the potential use of Twitter as a local marketing tool. It uses several examples of companies in the US that have been using this 'micro-blogging' tool successfully to target their local market and to drive new business through specific promotions.

Twitter's real-time messaging service can be used to attract local 'followers' for a business and then to harness that potential customer base with short term promotions or announcements. The other key advantage is the low barrier to entry, as Twitter is free and quick to set up. It just needs the right stratgey and application to make the time spent on developing the tool worthwhile.

The article concludes with 5 tips for local businesses using Twitter - namely, track every sale; recognise the difference between the immediacy of Twitter and the use of other social networking tools, such as Facebook; create a conversation and avoid too much heavy promotion; use it tactically for short term promotions; and alert followers to any special events or activities.

Labels: local search, social networks, twitter

A concise article from Advertising Age (subscription required) outlines the different stages of search over the past 15 years and what the new 'search 3.0' means for advertisers. The new era is one that combines the traditional search experience with social networks and user generated content to help refine the results and feedback for the searcher. As the article says, finding the right content is as much about whom it comes from as where you find it. For many companies and brands, this creates a host of new challenges and opportunities beyond the traditional search channel.

Search 1.0 is now seen as the first era of search engines which were focused on pages and the content within them. Results were ranked based on the number of times a particular keyword showed up in the page content or meta data, so that SEO (search engine optimisation) began as a core method of online marketing.

Search 2.0 is now seen as the period following the launch of Google where the focus shifted to the search network due to Google's use of PageRank and the importance of links between sites to establish authority. During this period, quality also became important with the relevancy of a landing page to a search query, which also became a key factor within Google AdWords.

With the new era of Search 3.0, relevance is now seen as not only what's on a page and surrounds it (links to it) but how that data also relates to the searcher's personal network. As more and more people connect to each other through social networks, the resulting social graph with content, links and comment is proving extremely powerful in helping users filter the data coming at them.

An example of this is YouTube, which started as a service that allows people to post videos but has since become the primary source that people turn to when they want to find video content on any subject imaginable. Also Twitter started as a way to communicate short personal status updates to friends, but is now becoming a search engine i its own right that allows users to tap into what's going on now.

The impact of these changes for brands, marketers and advertisers has also changed, according to this article. Whereas 1.0 was about making sure the information within individual pages of your site could be found, and 2.0 was about making sure your site was optimized within a network of related sites, now Search 3.0 is going to be about finding ways to reach individuals by using their social graphs.

That means reaching people where they're already sharing, linking, publishing and tagging, and becoming another node on their social networks by interacting with them and adding value to their experiences online. It's potentially a more difficult and time consuming way to channel a message to a target market but one that needs to be understood and developed in the new online environment.

Labels: search engines, social networks

Facebook signed up its 100 millionth member last August and is expected to reach 200 million shortly, representing a staggering growth rate that has seen the numbers double in 8 months. This article by the New York Times reviews how Facebook has developed and the challenges it now faces to maintain this momentum and to maximise the potential revenue from this membership base.

Facebook has developed its own momentum as well as a passionate user base that has reacted poorly in recent months to proposed changes by the company to privacy controls and also the recent redesign of users' home page. It is also facing increasing competition from newer start-ups like Twitter, the micro-blogging service which is attracting current media focus, plus there will be a growing issue between the original users of Facebook - young, tech-savvy early adopters - who move away from the service as it attracts a wider (and older) user base.

Labels: facebook, social networks

According to new research by Nielsen, social networking has now overtaken e-mail as the most popular Internet activity. As reported by AdWeek, the active reach measure used by Nielsen's online panels shows that "member communities" now exceed e-mail participation by 67% to 65%. What's more, the reach of social networking and blogging venues is growing at twice the rate of other large drivers of Internet use such as portals, e-mail and search.

The Nielsen survey predicts that this shift to social activity online would have profound effects on marketers and publishers. For publishers, social networks are eating into time spent with other online activities and for advertisers, the rapid growth of this sector represents mostly unfulfilled promise for a deeper connection with consumers who are more difficult to reach in social environments.

The use of social media includes communication methods that are taking traffic away from the traditional portals and email hubs. Nielsen found that two-thirds of the world's Internet users visited a social networking site in 2008 and social media now accounts for almost 10% of Internet time. Facebook continues to lead the market worldwide, with monthly visits by three out of 10 Internet users in nine global markets monitored by Nielsen. This growth in social media is not confined to the U.S. as the report charts comparable or higher growth for Australia, Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Labels: research, social networks

The New York Magazine features a long article about Twitter, the current flavour of the month and the latest 'hot web company' that is apparently being courted by the likes of Facebook and Google. The problem is, as the article reports, although this 'micro-blogging' service has become huge over the past year, there is no long term plan to make revenue as there are some limitations to how advertising or other options could be used. The report assesses the differences between Twitter and Facebook, with a review of how this increasingly popular service is being used.

Labels: social networks, twitter

An article by The New York Times reports on plans by Facebook to extend its reach across the Internet by allowing users to access other services with their Facebook login. Now described as the world's largest social network, Facebook has launched 'Connect' which gives users the chance to login to other websites and to see their friends’ activities on those sites. The new Connect service also gives members the opportunity to broadcast their actions on those sites to their friends who use Facebook.

Coverage on these additional sites remains limited at the moment and are mostly US-focused websites, but the intention is that major Internet properties will begin to share at least some of their usage data so that users don't need to enter the same identifying information again and again on different sites. Such programmes will help the emergence of a new “social web”, where interaction and 'chatter' amongst friends will infiltrate those sites that have been entirely 'unsociable' to date. It can therefore also be used as a way for recommendations to drive user traffic and activity across the Web in a more seamless fashion.

These moves raise the sensitive issue of privacy again with these services and how the data might be used by Facebook and the other partner sites to 'monetise' the traffic and behavioural data being captured. This remains new territory for the web whee boundaries are being tested and where Facebook has previously fallen foul of the privacy lobby with its 'Beacon' advertising network which was dropped in the face of criticism last year.

Labels: facebook, social networks

The rapid growth of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace over the past few years has been a significant online success story and one that advertisers have been looking at closely as a potential new channel. However, two new research studies have placed some doubt on the role that these sites have for marketers.

MediaWeek has published a story reflecting this growth in web traffic but indicating how advertising on these sites has been very poor. It reports that over half the US now actively uses social networking sites, but so far advertising on these properties has been very limited. Sites like Facebook and MySpace are seen to significantly under perform when compared to overall online advertising, according to research firm IDC. Just 57% of social network users say that they clicked on an advert over the past year, compared to 79% of all web users.

MediaPost also reports that, possibly related to this trend, marketing departments are certainly intrigued by the possibilities of social networking sites but are still thinking twice about using them. Research commissioned in the US shows that 27% of senior marketing executives identified social networking and word-of-mouth as the tools they would most like to introduce to their marketing mix to compensate for anticipated budget cuts, but 55% also indicated a low current interest in actually incorporating the networking sites into their plans.

These results probably reflect the uncertainty of using a new form of media without seeing proof of the results that could be achieved. In addition, the social networking sites still need to develop an advertising model that will be appealing to advertisers and not antagonise users who may be concerned about the privacy issues of targeted advertising.

Labels: research, social networks

Two recent articles on blogs provide contrasting arguments on the way that these tools can be used as an effective business tool. The first articles from Wired Magazine claims that blogs have now become a dated medium, outclassed by the more 'trendy' Web 2.0 sites like Facebook, Flickr and the latest 'hot site', Twitter. The argument is that the 'blogspace' is now so crowded and overused - particularly by large corporates - that it's almost impossible to get heard and therefore time could be better spent participating and developing content on the newer social multimedia sites.

In contrast, a report on the ClickZ website covers the results of some new research which has found that blogs can have more impact on purchase decisions than social networks, because blogs create the type of online conversation and 'trusted' resource that influences the purchase decision. The survey found that consumers were influenced by blogs more than social networks when making a purchase decision, mostly because bloggers establish themselves as an authority on a topic, particularly in niche areas, and create a relationship with the consumer.

Of course both of these arguments are centred around differing objectives for an individual or business and although there are clearly elements of truth in both viewpoints, there also has to be a clear strategy in developing either process, which can also work better in some markets compared to others.

Labels: blog marketing, research, social networks

AdWeek reports on the launch of a new advertising service from the social networking site MySpace. Their new self-service banner ad system is called MyAds and the intention of this system is to attract thousands of organizations and small businesses to create their own display ads which will be matched to user interests on the site. These small ads will then be placed on pages through a bid auction system similar to Google AdWords.

This advertising mines personal profile data - "hyper-targeting" - and will make the 56 billion banners displayed by MySpace each month more valuable to advertisers through better targeting. Of course, this type of system also raises the issue of privacy again within these type of sites and how personal information is being used to 'monetise' the site.

MySpace has been testing this system with 3,000 advertisers and is now rolling the system out across the network with the hope of significantly extending the number of advertisers using the site, not just in the US but worldwide.

This new launch comes after an earlier report by AdWeek on the latest research from eMarketer, which says that social networks now rank among the most popular destinations on the Internet (particularly with the youth market) and marketers will continue to look for ways to reach consumers at those sites. The 2 leading networking sites - MySpace and Facebook - are expected to account for 72% of the total US social network ad spend in 2008. Spending at all other online social network sites (including general social, niche and marketer-created networks) is expected to reach $370 million this year.

Labels: internet advertising, social networks

MediaPost reports that the business networking site, LinkedIn, is to launch its own advertising network to enable marketers to reach niche business sectors. This is part of their move to increase the 'monetization' of the site, now that it has built a membership of 24 million members, half of whom are based outside the US.

The article says that although LinkedIn currently runs some targeted advertising related to information that members publicly share in their profiles, this new network will help advertisers to focus on pre-defined audience segments such as corporate executives, small businesses and IT professionals. The non-personally identifiable data available to advertisers includes job function, seniority, company size, gender and geography.

LinkedIn is also reportedly planning on introducing foreign-language versions and expand into other international markets later this year, as well as developing a number of new mobile applications for users.

Labels: internet advertising, linkedin, social networks

The Washington Post warns of a new security threat to users of social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Apparently a new scam is doing the rounds whereby users may receive a bogus message from a 'friend' which leads to a joke video that displays on a web page that appears to be from YouTube and tells users that they need to download the latest software version to view the video. However, the downloaded file is actually malicious software that allows hackers to take over the computer and may also track keyboard activity to identify a user's passwords for secure sites.

As users of social networking sites tend to be both trusting and curious of messages from 'friends' these sites are being seen as prime sources of spam and malicious software. The article quotes research from Cloudmark, which says that an average of 64 spam attacks have been reported over the last year on social networking sites, with 37% of users having noticed an increase in unwanted messages over the past 6 months.

Labels: social networks

An article from Information Week reports on research from the US that forecasts major changes in the use of media and telecommunications over the next decade due to the growth of wireless social networking. In preparation for this, companies will need to plan and adapt for this change to take advantage of the market.

The widespread adoption of mobile Internet devices - such as the iPhone - will create a new generation of wireless social networking businesses and business models beginning in 2009, according to the research by iSuppli. It is forecast that nearly 7 billion wireless accounts will exist by 2020, with many people holding two or more accounts, and these wireless devices will facilitate primary communication, service, and content delivery for most users.

Labels: research, social networks, wireless Internet

An interesting article from The Boston Globe explains how more companies are starting to embrace the online community and include negative feedback from customers on their websites, as well as positive ones. The main example given is for the Bank of America who have now decided to be open to criticism on their products and services, however harsh it may be.

This trend reflects the growing use of consumer opinion sites, or comments made on discussion forums or blogs. The new attitude of these companies is that it's better to have some awareness and control of these negative comments as well as to balance off all the positive ones that it receives (although of course it's human nature to make complaints rather than pass praise).

Such a move provides a challenge to companies who want to protect their brand and implement reputation management strategies online. It does give them a chance to respond and may well attract more criticism directly to the corporate site rather than through other channels. Of course the same issues remain as always, with the opportunities for competitors to pitch in or for the company to provide their own positive reviews!

Labels: reputation management, social networks