Social media and corporations

Social media today

Here is a nice video to get what social media is.

New figures on Twitter

Sysomos has just released a new study about Twitter.

Social media is good for brands !

Online shopping is defintely about getting social.

According to Andy Lloyd, CEO of Fluid, a San Francisco-based interactive agency, shopping online is still a solo endeavor, devoid of the interaction many consumers seek. Without that interaction and purchase validation, shoppers, plagued by indecision, often abandon retailers’ sites.

In the coming weeks, two technologies – friend-based merchandising that involves Facebook and collaborative shopping  – are being rolled out to big-name retailers. This does includes vans.com and jansport.com.

More infos here.

What Are UK Women Doing Online?

According to IPC Media, 74% of female Internet users in the UK went online every day last year.

Women seem to more go online on weekdays but they spend more time online on weekends, an average of 20 more minutes a session.

Shopping was the most popular online activity. Nearly all the women (97%) said they researched products online, and 92% said they bought products online.

Social Networking are also very popular, especially Facebook in 2008. (Regularly visit on the website were from 14% in 2007 to 48% in 2008)

French people and Internet, top 10 site categories

ComScore has just released a study about the Top 10 site categories in France, it seems that total French Internet Audience Grows 19 Percent vs. Previous Year to 35 Million Users in February 2009 . In February, more than 35 million people age 15 or older in France accessed the Internet from a home or work computer.

Internet users in France spent a combined total of 932 million hours online in February, an average of 27 hours per person. Instant messaging claimed the highest share of total time spent at 14.3 percent, followed by social networking at 5.7 percent.

Online media also proved popular, with the entertainment category accounting for 8.6 percent of time spent and online gaming 2.9 percent share of total time spent online in February.

Top 10 Site Categories in France Based on % Share of Total Time Spent Online Total French Internet Audience, Age 15+ – Home & Work Locations* February 2009 Source: comScore World Metrix
Category	% Share of Total time Spent Online
Total Internet : Total Audience	100.0%
Instant Messengers	14.3%
Entertainment	8.6%
e-mail	8.2%
Social Networking	5.7%
Directories/Resources	3.2%
Online Gaming	2.9%
Retail	2.6%
Search/Navigation	2.4%
Business/Finance	1.8%
Sports	1.7%
All Other Categories	49.6%

*Excludes Internet activity from public computers such as Internet cafes or access from mobile phones or PDAs.

why do marketers use Facebook ?

According to a study from eMarketer, users on Facebook are now 175 million. And the users themselves contribute millions of pieces of content daily.

Each day during February 2009, Facebook users averaged over 3 billion minutes on the site. They updated their status 15 million times and became “fans” of a particular company, brand, product or person 3.5 million times daily.

Facebook is also used by marketers to increase brands or companie’s popularity.
Tns Media Intelligence has surveyed them to know their objectives. Most said brand-building initiatives such as gaining consumer insights, building brand awareness and increasing customer loyalty but none said increasing intent to purchase.

Indeed IDC found that 43% of social network users never clicked on ads.

Bebo is coming to France

After Italy, Germany and Spain, Bebo, the social network is finally coming to France.

Bebo has been strongest in the U.K. (Bought by Aol since this month) market and has about 22 million unique visitors per month, according to January figures from ComScore, but behind Facebook and MySpace, Bebo lags in user numbers.

Bebo France is also partners with AlloCiné and Film Trailer from Preview Networks. It allows users to get some cinema’s offers.

With a total membership of more than 40 million worldwide, Bebo is a global social media network which combines community, self-expression and entertainment to enable its users to consume, create, discover and share content.

Users are spending more time on MySpace than on Facebook

According to ComScore data even if Facebook is getting more popular than MySpace, the second one is keeping people !

It seems that since last month, MySpace saw the number of minutes each U.S. user spent on the site per month grow 15%, to 266.3 minutes – a new record for the social network, and a 31% increase since last January. Facebook has also shown an increase over the last month, growing 4% since December to an average of 176.6 minutes per user, but has only grown around 3% year over year.

E-advertising : +11% for the US

As said in our earlier post “Retailers E-Commerce Growth Drops Sharply : 14.3% vs. 19.8% in 2007“, growth is slowing down but still present. Therefore we cannot mention any recession. This means that the Web remains an interesting advertising medium in comparison to the offline media. Consequently, we expect a development of online advertising expenses in 2009.

• USA
  • Internet

In spite of the international crisis, IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) studies show that Internet advertising investments in the US have increased. They reached a total of 5.87 billion dollars which represents an increase of 11 %, if you compare the third quarter of 2007 and 2008.

Source: Quarterly $ Revenue Growth Comparison – 2000-2008 YTD, PwC/IAB Internet Advertising Revenue Report (www.iab.net)

• Other US media

While no one can predict the length of the economic crisis or its severity, there is slim chance of any sort of recovery in 2009. eMarketer forecasts a decline of 4.2% in US television ad spending in 2009.

• France

Though France is confronted to a similar economic context, we (interactive agencies) believe that e-Advertising will not be hit in any negative way for the following reasons

• • According to online marketing techniques, advertising campaigns are paid if results are conclusive
  • Real time in :
    • Content analysis,which allows immediate adaptation of the campaign if needed
    • Interactivity with users, which gives the chance perfect the campaign
  • Actions on the web are transparent and traceable therefore more reliable
  • Internet marketing or advertising has a better return on investment initiative

France, Electronic Business Group : 81 % of the announcers assert that their e-marketing budget is going to increase in 2009. The increase of these budgets would be of on average 63 %. Indeed Internet indeed continues to benefit from a transfer of a part of the announcers budgets previously dedicated to the traditional media.

On the other hand, the economic crisis impacts on the perception which sets forward a more profitable e-marketing strategy. Within total Internet expenses marketing investments represents 56 % of its volume in 2008, and this number should climb up to 63 % in 2009.

Forrester Research concludes that brands must seize without hesitating the techniques offered by Web sites where the Internet users participate or share contents and opinion This phenomenon is described as the “social media “.
Dashing into the “community” revolution will only be a first step towards a marketing evolution.

Mots clés Technorati : France,USA,social media,community,e-advertising