Marketing Autopsy Blog » social network

Pointless Babble Is King: Twitter Study Almost Hits the Mark

Cuong Huynh — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 20:59:50 +0000

Pear Analytics recently did a study on how people are using and consuming Twitter. The study took 2,000 random tweets from the public timeline in English and in the U.S. over a period of 2 weeks, from 11:00a to 5:00p (CST) and was posted by Ryan Kelly. While I applaud the effort and think they are on the right track on providing a super-value added study to the public and marketers, I wouldn’t call this a conclusive study. Ryan mentioned that they will update it regularly so that’s a good thing.

Here are the results of the study with the categories defined by Pear Analytics:

Pointless babble 40.55%
Conversational 37.55%
Pass along value 8.70%
Self promotion 5.85%
Spam 3.75%
News 3.60%

You can read about the details of the study yourself (link at end of this post.) Some of the most surprising results are the following:

Self promotion and spam are not as prominent as many have complained about.
News represents a very small amount of activities, despite recent media buzz.

So it looks like issues that affect many people (like the Iran election and spams) that receive huge news coverage also tend to pump up public impressions about Twitter and exaggerate their real impacts. The real numbers seem to show that these are not much of a problem; you just think they’re big problems because they’re constantly in your face or they annoy you a lot. With more refinement (such as extended time of day included in the study) we may see an increase in these numbers.

I look at this study as work in progress with better updates to be expected. Here are a few issues I see that should be resolved to improve the study value in the future:

Pointless babble is not necessarily a negative thing as its name may suggest. This category needs more refinements as this big group represents many important pieces of information, both to consumers and marketers. For the consumers and individuals, it is exactly the social aspect of social networking, and people will continue to socialize the way they want to. All you can do accept it and understand it, not control or eliminate it. And this social spaces and activities are exactly where marketers need to be to understand consumer behaviors.
The time periods of 11:00 am to 5:00 pm CST is too limited to really understand Twitter users in the U.S. It’s only 6 hours of each of the time zones. At a minimum I think the study should begin at 6:00 am to midnight for each time zone. As it is, it merely tracks only the lunch to early evening hours of east coast time (noon to 6:00 pm, entirely missing 12 hours of east coast tweets,) and includes only the mid morning to mid-afternoon hours of west coast time (9:00 am to 3:00 pm, again entirely missing 12 hours of west coast tweets in the morning, late afternoon and evenings.)

See the original Pear Analytics post on “Twitter Study Reveals Interesting Results About Usage.”

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

Pointless Babble Is King: Twitter Study Almost Hits the Mark

Corporate Blogging – Minimum Must-Have Elements For Successful Strategy

Cuong Huynh — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:38:27 +0000

Regardless of how popular or visible Twitter is currently, your corporate social marketing and new media strategy still need to maintain an effective blog. Twitter or FaceBook alone cannot solve all your marketing challenges, but a corporate blog remains a very strong and viable marketing channel. Whatever you do, you’ll need to pay special attention to 2 key elements of corporate blogging: content relevancy and trackable analytics.

Content Relevancy

Content has been king, and will always be king for your corporate blog. It’s hard to defeat great content using anything else, tricks or otherwise. If you don’t have great content, then whatever you do won’t affect your site’s popularity or traffic in any meaningful manner. In fact the goodness of your content correlates directly to how relevant you are to your prospects and customers. Are you providing the right information that your prospects are looking for, at the time they’re looking for it? Are you making available help to solve your customer’s dilemma in a timely manner? Are you providing solutions that eliminate your clients’ problems before your competition does? In short, your corporate blog is a very powerful tool, and it can help you provide relevant content that is totally under your control.

Trackable Analytics

Analytics play several different important roles. One, it can help you find out what visitors are looking for and how they are finding them. It can also show you how your company may be able to satisfy that need. Two, it can be used to help guide your content generation plan. As we discussed before, relevant content is critical, and knowing what content is relevant before you generate it is a no brainer. As a bonus, trackable analytics can also give you a roadmap with which to directly engage with your audience, at the specific time and place in the blogosphere when they congregate.

Tips to Running Effective Corporate Blog

So how do you maintain a strong corporate blog in order to engage with your customers, build your brand, while at the same time drive potential sales? Consider these following tips:

Go where the buzz is. Know where the conversations are taking place that either talk about your brand or discuss something that your brand can help solve. Get involved with genuine desire to help, to build relationship and to establish yourself as subject matter expert. No marketing spiel is needed here; just stick to the facts. That’s what people are looking for. To help with this discovering and listening task, there are social media “listening tools” available to help.
Making and maintaining contact. Once you find out where you can beneficially contribute to the conversation, interact with both those already familiar with your brand and those new to it. Think carefully before you engage to make sure you understand the conversation and meaning behind each and every conversation thread. Again your involvement in the conversation must be relevant and helpful, or at least contributes on an informational level, otherwise you’ll be looked at as someone just out for personal gains. Lastly, maintain all social networking etiquette at all times, because you need to. To read more on social networking etiquette, here are a couple of articles to help: SEO and Social Networking as Reputation Management Tools, and Putting Twitter in Your Marketing ToolBox.
Maintain a powerful corporate blog. Make it exciting. Make it attractive. All rules about good website designs still apply, including easy and clear navigation, fast loading speed, simple yet effective interface, etc. And most importantly, post fresh and relevant articles often, and invite interaction and feedback.
Stay in control and work smart. A successful corporate blog doesn’t have to cost an arm or a leg. Once you established your plan and strategy, it’s easy to post new posts, it’s cheap to use monitoring tools and follow/track the blogosphere, and it’s painless to participate in dialogue to help other people. Corporate blogging does take time, so it helps to keep it simple and institute a routine and stick with it.
Continuously develop your social networking and new media skills. Common stumbling blocks abound. They include falling behind with regular posting of fresh and relevant articles, failing to follow and keep engaged in conversation threads, running up against corporate policies that should have been created at the beginning of your corporate blogging venture, and not taking advantage of all possible effective social networking traffic channels. You may be leaving free customer traffic on the table without realizing it.

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

Corporate Blogging – Minimum Must-Have Elements For Successful Strategy

Ford Gets Bloggers Involved in “What Women Want” for Instant Buzz

Cuong Huynh — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:24:22 +0000

“What Women Want.” That’s how Ford did it.

Getting bloggers involved. Prominent, well-known women bloggers. And get instant buzz in the process. It’s focus groups at work in the new social media space. There’s nothing wrong with it and it’s not a new trend. Pepsi did it in their Pepsi rebranding campaign. The Air Force is doing it in their Air Force social media push. And you remember 3M’s Post-It Note Carjacks? Now Ford is doing it with refined social media skills. But really, bloggers watch out, you may be part of a bigger PR machine without realizing it.

Check out any of these Ford YouTube videos. Here are some samples of blogger reviews.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU-A6kCnbTA

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDC1sBQY038

Ford describes the event in an article titled “Ford Wants to Know: What do Woman [sic] Really Want?” which included breakfast with a Ford executive, a day packed with hands-on tours, test drives and roundtable discussions, and I’m sure schwags. By the way, the event was conducted during the 5th Annual BlogHer ‘09 Conference, July 23-25, 2009. Quite timely and convenient.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always advocated that businesses need to get more into social network marketing and develop strong new media strategies. But there’s a grey area that both companies and bloggers need to be careful not to cross. In this case, to me anyway, if Ford really wants to get women’s input to help design future cars, the company probably won’t get them just from this narrow group of women demographic. But they will get a lot of free blog posts and discussions out of it, that’s for sure.

The final score: thumbs up for Ford marketing, a “huh, what were you thinking?” for the bloggers.

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

Ford Gets Bloggers Involved in “What Women Want” for Instant Buzz

Creating a Social Media Strategy? Don’t Forget the Legal Team

Cuong Huynh — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:23:48 +0000

Think lawyers are expensive? Maybe so. But it’s cheaper to bring them in before you have a problem. This common wisdom holds especially true for your corporate social media strategy, which is why your social media team should have a legal representative as well.

It should be a requirement to make legal professionals part of your team from the inception. Bringing them in on the back end to clean up a mess is never desirable. Plus it doesn’t make for a great collaborative relationship, because you messed up and you now need legal’s help. And solving legal problems on the back end is never pleasant. It’s far better to know and establish legal rules of the social media road before you’re entering into and engaging in conversations on social media sites. Let’s face it, corporate social media activities are really public relations (PR) in the new social networking space. Therefore it makes sense

Part of the POST method, your new media team should, at a minimum, get legal involved in the O (Objectives) and S (Strategies) phases. At a generic level, legal can help you stay out of trouble, guide you in all policies relating to news media and customer-facing communications. Legal can also provide you with guidelines on what an employee can and cannot (or should and should not) do in the social media arena. Here are some specific roles of legal participation within the social media team:

Social Media Policies. Comments, backtracks, discussions on and off of your site. This covers locations both within your own websites, blogs forums, and on other websites, blogs and forums. It also controls how your employee(s) should start new topics, and how to resolve complaints and negative feedback. Legal can provide guidance.
Authorized Corporate Bloggers. If you’ll have just a few key individuals actually doing the engagement with the outside world, establish rules for them to follow. Otherwise if you encourage a wider employee participation, then have a different set of rules applied to all. The key words here are guidance and coordination, not hindrance. Legal can help establish rules.
Social Media Interaction. We all know that the Internet is always open, and with the global reach that it provides, the corporate social media team (and therefore your company) is also always open. Consumers worldwide are active in the social media space all the time (and especially after work within their local time,) your social media team must be ready to engage at any time of day, within reason. This is especially critical when a potential issue (positive or negative) about the company and its products is going viral. So you’ll need to be involved early. Legal can help define the dos and don’ts.

With all these guidelines in your pocket, you are now ready to go all out and promote your company, products and services. They will protect you while you’re out there engaging, supporting and solving your customers’ problems.

So go ahead. Build your social media team. Select the best and sharpest marketers, PR people, and technologists. Just don’t leave out the legal rep.

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

Creating a Social Media Strategy? Don’t Forget the Legal Team

How to Build a New Media Corporate Marketing Team

Cuong Huynh — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 23:29:52 +0000

You know what I’m talking about. New media. You know, social media, social marketing, blogging, and Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, YouTube, etc, for your company? Many have found success where many others have failed. In the corporate environment, pursuing social media marketing is a full-time job.

Corporate social networking functions require individual special skills and knowledge, plus clear corporate objectives and goals. For companies that want to get with it in social media and marketing, don’t just try a few things here and there using inexperienced resources. What you need is focus and dedication. The key is to develop a clear reason why you want to be in the blogosphere, and provide dedicated resources to achieve those goal.

Here are the minimum considerations that must exist for your social media marketing to stand any chance of making a difference. Anything less will be just a waste of your time, money and human resources.

Establish a clear corporate social networking policy, the rules of engagement so to speak. It does not have to be detailed or elaborate, but it needs to have the basics in place. Remember this is still emerging technology.
Create your team from enthusiastic and knowledgeable individuals. They don’t have to be your best marketers or sales persons. In fact they should not be. The key characteristics you’re looking for include: being savvy with new technology and tools, being passionate about the company, its products and services, and above all, being honest with high ethics.
Empower and authorize team members to do what’s best for the company. If your team is knowledgeable and passionate, then they’ll do anything to ensure the best interest and protection for the company and its reputation. They are smart, and they’ll do the right things.
Always be on the look out for opportunities to go viral, especially in support of customer-generated viral media. All you need is to be there, provide support, and maybe give a little nudge. It’s social marketing after all. Do it right and you’ll attract loyal followers.

What about corporate legal? Do you need to get their blessing all the time? Probably not. Just do what’s right. Here’s what I mean. As long as you’ve made the proper communication with legal department and addressed corporate policies from the beginning, legal may just be your best friends in the company to get your social networking job done.

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

How to Build a New Media Corporate Marketing Team

Online Marketing Success: Don’t Forget the 45-and-Older Demographic

Cuong Huynh — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 06:38:37 +0000

Online marketing. It’s very important to know your numbers. For marketers, especially Internet or online marketing professionals, analytics is an absolute must-have. But while your own numbers can tell you a lot about where you need to improve, looking at the wider market analysis and trends can quickly point out where the big holes are in your marketing strategy. If you’re not targeting your products or services to the 45-and-older demographics, you may be leaving a lot of cash on the table.

Here’s the problem. Many think of the younger generations as being web savvy. You know, the Gen-X and Gen-Y demographics. This is definitely true. However, the latest numbers may surprise you. In the post called “Generations Online in 2009“, Sydney Jones, Research Assistant, and Susannah Fox, Associate Director, of Pew Internet & American Life Project, reported on the latest trends of online activities of different age groups by specific activities. While you can go there and read the complete article, here are a few things online marketing professionals can take some action on immediately based on the numbers. All graphics courtesy of PewResearch.org.

Below is the definition of generations as segmented by the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Internet use and email

While the younger generations (Gen-X and Gen-Y in the 18-44 age groups) dominate Internet use, older folks are actually getting more involved. At 22% (ages 45-54) and 13% (ages 55-63) for a total of 35%, older Internet users are coming on strong and are expected to continue to push this trend in the future.

There’s no surprise here as we’re really looking at the group of Boomers. With modern advancements, life expectancies continue to increase and people stay active for many years longer, further contributing to the growth of Boomers’ presence on the web.

With respect to email usage, the tendency is also similar. While the younger users prefer instant messaging, social networking, and blogging as their communications tools of choice, email are still the most popular application among older Internet users.

So without knowing these facts, many may not realize the following:

A third of Internet users are above the age of 45. And the trend is continuing upward, not downward.
Though the exact numbers can be argued, the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that peak earning years of U.S. male workers are now between the ages of 45 and 54 (1999 data). That’s exactly the leading group of this 35% older Internet users.
If you’re not marketing to this group on the Internet and via emails, you’re missing out.
The point: Don’t forget the 45-and-above demographic!

Tool for research, shopping and banking

While fully 80% of Gen-Xers continue to lead in online shopping, noted the study, the 45-and-above crowd prefer information research (mainly health care and other products), shopping and banking. And even though still trailing behind younger generations in shopping, 56% of users ages 64-72, and 47% ages 73 and older do in fact buy products online. However you look at it, these are pretty big numbers.

In the online banking segment, both Gen X and Gen Y maintain their high rate of activity to manage their day-to-day spending and finances online. And as these users grow older, they will effectively take their habits with them into the older age groups. Again

The point: Are you prepared for the 45-and-above demographic?

Video downloads, online travel reservations and work-related research

What about these other online activities like video downloads, travel reservations and work-related research? Well an interesting trend emerges here. According to the study,

Generations on the oldest end of the spectrum also became significantly more likely than they had been two years before to download videos. Some 13% of G.I. Generation internet users (age 73+) reported downloading videos, up from 1% in 2005, and another 13% of the online Silent Generation (ages 64-72) say they download videos, up from 8% in 2005.

If one looks at these “smaller” numbers in context, they are actually huge. Considering that the Internet concept itself never existed to these age groups during most of their life, the numbers really indicate that the older folks are not only already savvy with Internet technology and communication, but their numbers are increasing as well. And again when you further consider that the younger generations are growing older all the time, you’re looking at a growing market.

The point: You need to target for the 45-and-above demographic!

Broadband Internet Access Tripled in Oldest Groups

Let’s take a look at the broadband Internet access in the homes in the U.S.A. This is an indication of the capability of the users to do more online. It really is an enabler, because without it, user experience (or the lack of it) will always keep the users away, resulting in limited Internet use and growth.

Recent technology advancements, and more affordable price points, have helped large growth in broadband install for home use across the board (see graph below). While there was a doubling of broadband access in the home between 2005 and 2008 for many age groups, the real kicker is the tripling of broadband access in the 65-and-older group. Again absolute numbers are probably small, but the growth is phenomenal.

The point: Go ahead and market to the older demographics. They’re well-equipped and ready for you.

So online marketers, times may be bad and the economy may not recover for a while. But if you dig deep and make an honest assessment of your online marketing goals and strategies, you may find new and untapped opportunities right in front of you in the form of the 45-and-above customers. Like in any other market groups, just make sure you understand your customers, prepare the proper and targeted marketing messages to solve the customers’ real problems and needs, and you can position your organization for growth.

Share your experience with us. All comments and feedback are welcome.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

Online Marketing Success: Don’t Forget the 45-and-Older Demographic

Social Media Done Right: U.S. Air Force

Cuong Huynh — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 08:45:52 +0000

Need a little help to kick-start your social media marketing? Here are some tips from the Air Force.

From a post by David Meerman Scott on WebInkNow, the U.S. Air Force is now Armed with Social Media. The Air Force apparently now has a team called the Air Force Emerging Technology team, led by Capt. David Faggard of the Air Force Public Affairs Agency in the Pentagon. The group is responsible for “developing strategy, policy and plans for an ever-changing communication landscape for communicators worldwide”. This includes their main mission of using “current and developing Web 2.0 applications as a way to actively engage conversations between Airmen and the general public”. By any name, this is social media marketing at its core.

It is refreshing to see such a large organization committing and embracing social media as an important communication and public relations tool. This serves as a good example for private corporations who are still on the fence or even “not sure” on how to proceed with social media. When you are committed and do it right, social media can be one of your best marketing and PR friends. In the case of a global organization like the U.S. Air Force, what did it take to pull this off? I’m sure it was not easy flying. In Capt. Faggard’s words, “There has been resistance; but the leadership of the Air Force is very supportive of what the expert communicators say are the best ways to reach people”, especially young people.

Here are a few tips we can learn from the USAF on getting involved in social media:

Encourage, empower and employ all your human resources as communicators for the organization. The problem is not that people can’t represent their companies properly. It’s the lack of training and guidance from upper management on corporate policies governing such communication channel. Employees are always good resources to advocate for the company. For the Air Force, the program’s goal “is that every single Airman is an on-line communicator.” So what’s your corporate goal?
Again for the Air Force, the focus is on “Direct Action within Social Media (blogging, counter-blogging, posting products to YouTube, etc.); Monitoring and Analysis of the Social Media landscape (relating to Air Force and Airmen); and policy and education (educating all Public Affairs practitioners and the bigger Air Force on Social Media).” So if you’re not sure where to start your social media program, as a starting point, just replace “Air Force” and “Airmen” in the statement above with whatever appropriate for your organization. It’s totally applicable.
Capt. Faggard explains “counter-blogging” as when “Airmen counter the people out there in the blogosphere who have negative opinions about the US government and the air force.” Well this sounds 100% applicable to corporate marketing and PR to me.
According to Capt. Faggard, “We educate people in the Air Force about security of social media to make sure that people don’t expose secrets via Twitter or Facebook…” Again this is totally applicable to private corporations when running a social media campaign. Inaction is not a good option. The key is proper education and guideline must be provided to your team to carry out the mission.
“Besides Twitter, Capt. Faggard writes The Official Blog of the U.S. Air Force; has pages on YouTube, MySpace and Facebook; helps publicize a Second Life area called Huffman Prairie; contributes to iReport (user name USAFPA); and is on Friendfeed, Digg, Delicious, Slashdot, Newsvine, Reddit. There’s Air Force widgets. And there’s even a video mashup contest for high schools to show school spirit sponsored by the Air Force.” It’s a pretty impressive list of social media channels. However, it would be not be fair to expect a new corporate team to try doing all these things at the start. Just pick a few in combination that you’re most comfortable with and add new channels as you go. The important thing here is to get started.

Finally, courtesy of David Meerman Scott’s site, below is the detailed Air Force blog assessment flowchart shared by Capt. Faggard. It provides a visual representation of what social media work is all about. It’s obvious that you don’t have to be in the Air Force to understand and use it. We actually paid for this and I hope you’ll find good uses for it. I know I will.

In the end you don’t have to be a large organization to employ social media in your marketing mix. The Air Force is really using the resources it already has, and so can we.

Click on image to view larger version (172KB).

30 Largest Social Bookmarking Sites, December 2008

Cuong Huynh — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 08:23:03 +0000

Over at eBizMBA there is a list of the top 30 social bookmarking sites that just went up, dated December 2008. Based on a combination of Inbound Links, Google Page Rank, Alexa Rank and U.S. traffic data from Quantcast, the list gives an relative view of who are the biggest players in this social media field.

We all know that these are real big names and many are recognizable even to the most casual Internet users. On the other hand there are many that you’ve never heard of! That’s what amazing about the list. Regardless, I must say some of these numbers are staggering! They really show how huge and popular these sites are, and how small the rest of us are. Here we go, courtesy of eBizMBA, the sites are:

digg.com - 382,792,751 – Inbound Links | 22,578,945 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 10,300,000 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 124 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 8
Yahoo!Buzz - 900,571 – Inbound Links | **128,556,575** – Compete Monthly Visitors | 2,500,000 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 1 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 6
Technorati.com - 75,306,437 – Inbound Links | 3,231,709 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 1,400,000 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 216 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 8
del.icio.us - 171,593,051 – Inbound Links | 1,699,128 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 1,300,000 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 248 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 8
Propeller.com - 997,000 – Inbound Links | 1,454,912 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 2,180,176 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 2,308 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 7
StumbleUpon.com - 19,050,177 – Inbound Links | 1,313,586 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 695,239 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 300 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 8
reddit.com - 45,307,577 – Inbound Links | 2,587,503 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 344,383 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 852 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 7
mixx.com - 6,175,082 – Inbound Links | 507,100 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 475,000 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 1,880 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 7
Fark.com - 11,438,723 – Inbound Links | 306,597 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 1,767,165 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 1,958 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 7
MyBlogLog.com - 1,742,265 – Inbound Links | 1,972,847 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 84,922 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 432 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 7
Slashdot.org - 13,555,035 – Inbound Links | 724,424 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 269,884 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 579 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 9
kaboodle.com - 100,266 – Inbound Links | 1,751,763 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 851,858 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 9,125 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 6
Bloglines.com - 50,717,948 – Inbound Links | 382,663 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 103,711 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 853 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 9
newsvine.com - 24,200,775 – Inbound Links | 315,857 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 203,761 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 3,977 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 7
blinklist.com - 23,770,576 – Inbound Links | 243,277 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 165,306 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 4,647 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 6
netvouz.com - 8,112,272 – Inbound Links | 75,507 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 54,325 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 15,048 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 6
clipmarks.com - 164,419 – Inbound Links | 196,107 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 147,131 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 6,740 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 6
Furl.net - 49,595,144 – Inbound Links | 148,975 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 57,547 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 4,112 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 8
Mister-Wong - 13,214,146 – Inbound Links | 25,416 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 3,432 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 1,889 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 7
dzone.com - 1,065,009 – Inbound Links | 100,784 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 117,897 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 5,187 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 6
ma.gnolia.com - 13,701,444 – Inbound Links | 110,662 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 32,363 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 7,454 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 7
Tailrank.com - 5,320,211 – Inbound Links | 71,563 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 35,783 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 28,920 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 7
ShoutWire.com - 168,480 – Inbound Links | 101,738 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 55,337 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 10,552 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 6
simpy.com - 13,107,730 – Inbound Links | 62,645 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 49,205 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 10,948 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 7
BlogMarks.net - 9,748,453 – Inbound Links | 61,740 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 28,075 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 11,880 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 6
BlueDot.us - 1,159,780 – Inbound Links | 107,717 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 60,045 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 12,072 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 6
Spurl.net - 18,628,253 – Inbound Links | 42,300 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 3,483 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 14,300 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 6
linkswarm.com - 150,842 – Inbound Links | 14,504 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 10,476 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 47,267 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 5
Spotback.com - 97,564 – Inbound Links | 42,838 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 5,037 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 42,015 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 5
MyBookmarks.com - 25,191 – Inbound Links | 10,934 – Compete Monthly Visitors | 7,727 – Quantcast Monthly Visitors | 108,226 – Alexa Ranking. | Page Rank: 5

OK so for a quick comparison, and out of my own curiosity, I went ahead and got some Quantcast numbers for the more well known search engines: Google.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com and Ask.com, plus a few typical news sites like CNN.com, MSNBC.MSN.com and Reuters.com. I know these are not directly comparable to the subject matter at hand (social bookmarking sites), but it’s fun to look at numbers regardless. Here they are as of December 10, 2008 (M = million):

Google.com – 136.6M - Quantcast Monthly Visitors
Yahoo.com – 125M - Quantcast Monthly Visitors
msn.com – 93.5M - Quantcast Monthly Visitors
ask.com – 37.8M - Quantcast Monthly Visitors
cnn.com – 30.3M - Quantcast Monthly Visitors
msnbc.msn.com – 11.8M - Quantcast Monthly Visitors
reuters.com – 6.7M - Quantcast Monthly Visitors

By comparison, digg.com has 10.3M and Yahoo!Buzz 2.5M. Very impressive numbers and I think they will continue to grow at least for the foreseeable future, regardless of any market condition. Social bookmarking is only a subset of this whole larger social networking movement, which is probably one area that is pretty much independent of any social, market or political conditions around the world. In fact any new or extreme social changes will only serve as fuel for the social network to grow as we’ve seen it already time and again.

Despite this, many of us marketers are still struggling with this thing called social marketing. Well social marketing is here to stay, so just don’t get left behind.

So here are some questions:

What’s your favorite social bookmarking site or sites? How many of these accounts do you have? What’s the reason(s) for the multiple accounts and how do you manage them?

Do you prefer to get the news from social sites like these or from more traditional news sites?

Finally, as social networking evolves, what tools do you think will become important (or need to be developed) for us to streamline our online activities? Are there enabling technologies that we have yet been able to master? Your thoughts are welcome

Don’t Get Into Social Media: The “Pepsi 25″ Social Media Rebranding Campaign.

Cuong Huynh — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:07:34 +0000

So here I am talking/blogging about the new Pepsi logo. It’s really what Pepsi wanted in the first place.

For those not familiar with this marketing event, just Google something like “pepsi 25 new logo marketing” and you’ll have plenty to read. In a nutshell, Pepsi recently released a new logo on their cans by sending out 3 individual packages to 25 select members and thought leaders of the online social media crowd. This Pepsi’s innovative new campaign is being dubbed by many the “Pepsi 25″.

Darryl Parker over at Parker Web Marketing is keeping a list of who actually received the packages, and then blogged about it. Apparently only Pepsi knows who the 25 are, so the identities of these bloggers have to be pinpointed manually,

I would expect that, if you’re one of these 25, there is no obligation on your part to participate. It is not known if they were compensated other than receiving the packages. In fact receiving any compensation would all together defeat the purpose of this whole campaign, so therefore I think it’s safe to say that if any one of these folks blog about this event, then Pepsi would have achieved a successful viral marketing campaign.

Here are what a few other bloggers say about this:

Pepsi Cooler at FriendFeed.
Jennifer Laycock’s The Choice of a Social Media Generation.
Mack’s post over at his The Viral Garden.

I think this is a bold move on Pepsi’s part. Let’s pick it apart shall we? First off, many bloggers feel that Pepsi should target the smaller, more relevant group of Pepsi evangelists instead. But I tend to disagree. By choosing the supposedly biggest 25 marketing bloggers, Pepsi is shooting for the largest potential spread of viral marketing. Why go small when you can go big. This takes guts but it was a strong business reason.

Furthermore, if only one blogger decides to say anything about this, then Pepsi would have a success. By the very nature of social media, the selected “experts” cannot NOT blog about it. By the very nature of viral communication, the selected “experts” cannot by themselves find out who’s who, then agree among themselves not to blog about it. This is the beauty of social media. Even in the case of Mack’s post, where he absolutely refuses to mention the brand or company name, it’s hard to hide what he’s talking about. His post even made the list of 25 kept by Darryl Parker at Parker Web Marketing.

In the end, this is actually only part of a much wider, longer campaign that Pepsi’s running. According to AdAge, Pepsi finally seems intent on regaining its share. Its strategy involves three years; $1.2 billion; a complete packaging, merchandising and marketing overhaul of its soft drinks. So this is only the beginning.

Pepsi is a very large company with a very large marketing budget, and they will do what they need to do. Large corporations have done great marketing before, and creative marketing have been achieved way before social media arrives on the scene. This is another example that big corporations are making an effort in the social networking arena. And it’s refreshing to see Pepsi finding a good way to mix it up with their marketing push.

If you’re not approaching social media like Pepsi does, with bold creativity, detailed planning, clear goals, high intelligence and most importantly, utmost respect, then don’t get into it at all.

So what’s your take on Pepsi’s approach?

Post from: Marketing Autopsy Blog
© 2009 Marketing Autopsy Blog.

Don’t Get Into Social Media: The “Pepsi 25″ Social Media Rebranding Campaign.

The POST Method: a Mental Note.

Cuong Huynh — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 18:14:54 +0000

Here’s something older but especially relevant in this time of continued growth in social media marketing. Most online marketers know it’s from a post by Josh Bernoff called “The POST Method: A systematic approach to social strategy” at Forrester Research, Inc. I include it here for my own benefits, and maybe for those who reads my blog.

P is People. Don’t start a social strategy until you know the capabilities of your audience. If you’re targeting college students, use social networks. If you’re reaching out business travelers, consider ratings and reviews. Forrester has great data to help with this, but you can make some estimates on your own. Just don’t start without thinking about it.

O is objectives. Pick one. Are you starting an application to listen to your customers, or to talk with them? To support them, or to energize your best customers to evangelize others? Or are you trying to collaborate with them? Decide on your objective before you decide on a technology. Then figure out how you will measure it.

S is Strategy. Strategy here means figuring out what will be different after you’re done. Do you want a closer, two-way relationship with your best customers? Do you want to get people talking about your products? Do you want a permanent focus group for testing product ideas and generating new ones? Imagine you succeed. How will things be different afterwards? Imagine the endpoint and you’ll know where to begin.

T is Technology. A community. A wiki. A blog or a hundred blogs. Once you know your people, objectives, and strategy, then you can decide with confidence.

Still very wise words.

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