'Net Features : social network advertising

Study Assesses Value of Social Media Users

Michael Garrity — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 17:00:00 GMT

Not long ago, the Pew Research Center unleashed on the world the results of a study highlighting how Internet users, and specifically Facebook users, are much more likely to engage in political activities like voting or attending political meetings. However, another research company, Resonate, was conducting a similar study of their own, and their findings were drastically different.

According to Resonate, "heavy" social media users "don't translate to desired behaviors" offline, and they warn marketers looking to dive into social media that their "results do suggest that the rush to social should be tempered with a little more caution."

The study was broken down to observe the habits of three types of social media users: Heavy, who spend an average of 26 percent of their time online engaged in social media; Medium, who use social media about 4.1 percent of the time; and Light, who are only on social media about .42 percent of the time.

They analyzed these three groups in combination with their online purchase behavior and political activity and their findings seem to suggest that these consumers may not supply the ROI that many marketers are looking for (and investing in heavily).

What they found was that most of the heavy social media users are, no surprise, less involved in the offline world than their counterparts who don't spend as much time on similar sites.

But shouldn't all of that time spent online, and thus in more prolonged contact with all of the ads that can be found plastered on social media sites, lead to more frequent purchasing by these Heavy users?

Apparently not. In fact, the study says that not only are these Heavy users statistically less likely to purchase products or services online, but they typically spend less money than others when they do.

Of course, these are just the findings of a single study, and as I've already mentioned, other research shows that time spent engaged in social media has a greater affect on a users offline activities, so this particular set of data is likely not an absolute characterization of the issue. Still, considering how much money marketers spend catering to social network users, and, presumably, more, uh, heavily to the Heavy users, I wouldn't just sweep this data under the rug, either.

This handy chart explains:

Weekend Warrior: The Impact of Social Media

Michael Garrity — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 19:00:00 GMT

Democracy reigns supreme for companies that use social networking to market themselves and their products. A new study by Performics reveals that most users agree that the voicing of opinions on social networking sites can influence the business decisions of a company or brand.

Called S-Net, The Impact of Social Media, the study found that 52 percent of the respondents either strongly or somewhat agreed that voicing opinions on various brands, companies or products on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ can influence business decisions.

Eighteen specific industries were included in the study, including apparel, appliances, automotive, education, electronics, entertainment, financial services, food, healthcare/pharma, household, magazines/newspapers, alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, personal care, restaurants, sports, telecommunications and travel. Performics also discovered that educational institutions, sports and entertainment were the most discussed categories on social networking sites.

Below is a list of best practices for marketers looking to utilize social networks based on the results of the study:

Understand customer desire for brand interaction in the relevant category
The study revealed that 74 percent of people who purchase entertainment products will go back and discuss them on social networks. Hey, everybody’s a critic.

Create and adapt marketing strategies to cater to participation expectations and desires
Over half of the respondents (53 percent) admitted that they will follow travel companies or brands on social networking sites in order to get coupons or discounts. With the price of gas these days, who can blame them?

Allocate time and resources to the most relevant and appropriate social networks
Forty-two percent of those surveyed said that they will discuss automobiles on social networking sites as a way to compare prices.

Regularly monitor and measure social network activity
Thirty-two percent said that they have made a sports-related product purchase because of something they saw posted on a social network. In fact, I’ll even 'fess up to purchasing a Pittsburgh Steelers Snuggie while browsing Facebook.

Adjust strategies and tactics as necessary to optimize engagement
As with travel companies, electronics companies on social networking sites don’t have a lot of fans who like them based on personality alone. Forty-three percent of respondents said that they will follow electronics brands or companies on social networking sites for offers or chances to win points or online currency that they can redeem for products.

While social media can offer unlimited exposure and huge potential for Web marketers, there isn’t yet a perfect solution for analyzing and evaluating consumers' responses to the messages that businesses and brands are sending out. This study is a great start for those who want to get a solid, industry-specific look at how important social media interaction can be for their particular audience.

“Customers expect, and are already participating in a two-way dialogue,” says Daina Middleton, CEO of Performics. “It’s imperative for marketers to listen to customers and adopt strategies that engage them in every channel of their media mix – across all platforms, devices and screens.”

Kenshoo Introduces Facebook Advertising Platform

Linc Wonham — Tue, 24 May 2011 17:00:00 GMT

Digital marketing software provider Kenshoo has publicly released its new enterprise technology following an exclusive beta period in which leading marketers and agencies secured more than 24 billion targeted advertising impressions on Facebook through the Kenshoo platform.

Kenshoo Social is designed to help drive brand engagement through social network advertising campaigns in a more efficient and effective manner. After becoming one of the first companies to be granted access to the Facebook Ads API, Kenshoo quickly launched a beta program for select blue-chip advertisers and agencies to create and optimize Facebook ad campaigns. Since that time, Kenshoo Social has evolved based on customer feedback with dedicated research and development around the areas of audience targeting, bid management, attribution and social metrics optimization.

“Kenshoo Social is among the most advanced platform for managing Facebook ads,” says Sam Bloom, GM Interactive at Camelot Communications. “Through the robust feature-set and sophisticated algorithms, we’ve seen ROI increases upwards of 70 percent for some of our clients. The Kenshoo Social graphical editor also saves our team a ton of time when it comes to setting up targeted campaigns and pulling actionable reports.”

Kenshoo Social enables advertisers to increase efficiency by identifying only the most valuable audience segments. Through an intuitive interface and algorithms customized for Facebook, campaign managers can significantly reduce time spent setting up campaigns and generating returns from social media.

“The emergence of social media, and Facebook in particular, is the next big bang we’ve been waiting for in the online space,” says Kenshoo CEO Yoav Izhar-Prato. “We see social network advertising as a unique play and I’m very proud of the fresh approach Kenshoo has taken. The Kenshoo Social solution is a significant leap forward for brands and agencies looking to build a strong persona and generate demand through the social graph. We’ll continue to iterate and innovate with the product to ensure our customers can harness the full power of Facebook and other social networks to drive business results.”