Posts Tagged ‘san diego social media’

The Future of Social Media

Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010

There is no doubt that social media utilization has become the most popular and highly adopted form of emerging media within today’s marketing strategies. Every company that has a presence online has been frantically trying to increase their company’s exposure by following outrageous numbers of users of Twitter, bombarding fan pages on Facebook, and are seeking the newest markets within other social media networks.

According to eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson, the future of social media and its benefits are not only ever-changing but will play an entirely different role for companies who utilize them.

“Advertising—which some might say has already failed as a business model for social media companies—will not be the primary revenue driver,” said Ms. Williamson.

The better business model, other than utilizing social media, will lie in the mastery of analytics tools to track their conversion rates of visitors coming to websites. The use for social media in the future will not be for advertising specifically but rather for a plethora of other reasons including:

• Should be integrated within all marketing efforts

• Should be available for consumers to find out more information about your company, products, or services

And more importantly should be used for:

• Brand Monitoring
Social media will soon be the best way for companies to track and begin to understand the “why” of consumer chatter about them and their products/service as well as the “who”, “what”, and “when” of their customer base.

This statement was offered by Ravit Lichtenberg, founder and chief strategist, Ustrategy.com, in response to brand monitoring:
“Naturally occurring conversations will be utilized in product innovation and design, and companies will create incentives for people’s attention and engagement while repurposing and analyzing content and engagement in new ways that will deliver valuable input.”

In essence, social media and its use for companies will be ever-changing. However, the future use of social media will lie in helping companies get information about their consumers and hearing what they have to say about specific products or services to help them improve customer relationships.

Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

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Posted in Social Media Networking | No Comments »

The Importance of Your Brand Reputation within Social Media

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010

Many companies fear that online consumers will post negative or hurtful comments about them and their products or services. This is worrisome especially on social media where opinions about certain things are shared all over the globe and in real-time.

In their “Social Media and Online PR Report,” Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia explored ways marketers can combat “brand bashing” online.

They reported, when asked how companies most often combat these negative comments, that:
• Nearly one-half suggested having directly engaged with the consumer
• The second-most-common strategy was longer-term in focus: trying to improve products and services.

Many respondents had even tried to get offensive content written about their company removed entirely but that tactic can have many negative effects on a company’s image.

Econsultancy also noted that only 12% of companies tried to create their own content to offset negative consumer opinions in search results, and that more could go this route.

When companies were asked about their activities on Twitter specifically, Brand monitoring was the third highest activity behind publicizing new content and marketing using this form of communication channel.

Other findings from Twitter usage found:
• About one-quarter of companies were using the microblogging site for customer service or gathering customer feedback.
• Nearly two-thirds (63%) of companies reported responding to tweets, and 34% responded “systematically.”
• More than one-fifth of client-side companies told Econsultancy that fear of reputation issues was a factor preventing more effective social media engagement.
• Almost 30% of agencies said the same of their clients.

In response to the results of these findings, Econsultancy offered this statement to address brand monitoring and how to effectively combat it: “To address this, there needs to be more education around how to deal with negative PR and social media crisis management, as well as best practice on how to engage in the first place,” according to the report. “There is clearly an opportunity here for agencies to better educate their clients.”

Happy Branding!

Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

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Posted in Social Media Networking | 1 Comment »

Women Responding to Brands via Social Web on the Rise!

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

According to the new edition of the SheSpeaks “Annual Social Media Study”, social networking profile penetration of women climbed from 58% in 2008 to 86% in 2009.

Along with this increase, there was also an increase in brand-related activities on social media sites of female internet users. The study shows that 80% of female users said that they had become a fan of a product or a brand on one of their social media networking profiles. In additon, 72% of female users had learned about a new product or brand, or joined a group about one.

Twitter has become the least-likely alternative to finding out about products or services via social networking sites compared to the rest, the study also demonstrates.

Also, according to the study:
One half of female internet users had bought a product because of a social media network, adding to the overall growth of purchasing with the influence of social networking sites and blogs over the last year.
Women have also been more receptive to social network advertising, where 2% in 2008 said that they look at the banner ads and click-through them which has increased to 9% in 2009.

Women seem to be responding to social network advertising and brand awareness more-so now than ever, so it is important to target them as best as possible. According to Aliza Freud, the founder and CEO of SheSpeaks, “Last year our members were going online primarily to research purchases, but now they are looking to social media to help them research, guide and facilitate every kind of transaction, from social exchanges to purchases. Women have become more comfortable using social media, and for marketers, the overall growth and habitual use of social media represents opportunities to reach and engage women of all ages, and influence their purchase decisions.”

Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders

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Posted in Internet Marketing Fundamentals, Starting Up, Web Development | No Comments »

E-mail is still vital to Gen Y

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Some publications, such as newspapers, claim that e-mailing is declining in generation Y. Research shows that an increasing amount of people are joining social networking sites, for example, Facebook or Twitter, for communication but in reality college students still think highly of their e-mail accounts. WebitMD is active within these Social Networking sites as well. Follow us on Facebook & Twitter.

The Participatory Marketing Network and Pace University’s Lubin School of Business’ IDM Lab conducted research and more than one quarter of students claimed that e-mail was the activity that they are least likely to give up for a week. In addition to e-mail being the top activity is text messaging.

The research results show that emailing and text messaging are tied at 26% for the top two communication mediums that college students are least likely to give up for a week. Nearly one half of students send and receive about 500 texts per month.

“These results may be surprising to some, but not if you consider the role email continues to play in the day-to-day lives of Gen Y,” said Michael Della Penna, PMN co-founder and executive chairman, in a statement. “As long as email remains the collection point for social networking updates, including alerts around new followers, discussion updates and friend requests, it will remain a powerful force in marketing and our lives.”

Information Provided by; emarketer.com
Written by: Samantha Stephan

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Posted in Starting Up | No Comments »