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Archive for
February, 2010
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Between December 2008 and 2009, the total time spent on social networks rose by a massive 82% — from an average of three hours a month, to almost six! To nerds like you and I, six hours doesn’t sound like a huge amount, but when you figure in the ‘casuals’ that bring the average down — like your grandmother — it’s a little scary.
And it’s all because of darned Twitter and Facebook! Yes, they’re to blame: other major social networks (MySpace, LinkedIn, Classmates) saw a decline in unique users throughout 2009. Twitter, bolstered by a humongous 579% gain from 2.7 million to 18.1 million unique users per month, saw the greatest percentile growth in the social networking sector. Facebook, with a minuscule 200% expansion in 2009, is still by far the largest network with 207 million unique visitors in December 2009.
While worldwide average growth for social networks came in at 82%, the U.S. in particular saw a 143% increase. Believe it or not though, Australia actually clocks up the highest average use of social networks: they spend almost 7 hours a month, while the US and UK spend a paltry 6 hours each!
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For some companies, marketing through social networks isn’t enough, they want to create their own social spaces to attract visitors.
Here are ten tips for building social networks and forums…
Occasionally, firms, especially larger brands, choose to build forums into their websites as part of their marketing strategy.
The idea is that the social network or forum will attract new and repeat visitors, build brand loyalty and recognition, boost your organic SEO and increase trust in your website.
Without a doubt, a successful forum can do that, but it can also be a huge amount of work and a gamble, since most forum attempts fail.
Recently, a few of my clients asked about forums and so I’ve been considering best practice. Here are my ten golden rules.
1. Set out some ground rules
Whatever industry your forum is geared towards, you’ll need to lay out some rules. Some are to protect yourself – for example, people must not write anything that could be considered slanderous.
Others are to protect the forum space itself, rules that even you as webmaster will follow. No spamming, no pestering, no trolling, that kind of thing.
2. Break it up
Any visitor to your forum should know exactly where to post their comments or query. If your sub categories are jumbled and confused then visitors won’t know where to browse for answers or leave their own questions.
What those sub categories are depends on your preferences – you may choose to set out an area for debate, one for people seeking help, one for sharing industry news.
Alternatively, you might prefer to lay it out by topic – for example an online marketing forum could have organic SEO, pay-per-click, email marketing and so on.
Just make sure it’s clear.
3. Don’t censor
Sometimes, your visitors may write things you don’t agree with. Of course, if they’ve broken your rules then you can delete their post. However, if they haven’t then you mustn’t arbitrarily delete their comments.
If you start doing that, you’ll soon find people lose trust and abandon the forum. Even on your corporate site you must remember that a forum isn’t your space, it’s theirs’.
4. Don’t sell
Don’t try and use a social space to pitch – it will alienate users and harm brand trust.
The benefits of a forum are more subtle, it isn’t just a space for you to shout about your products. If you’d consider it spam if someone else did it then don’t do it yourself.
5. Don’t lie
We’ve all seen it – a convenient forum post asking a question about a product that allows the forum owner to go in and pitch. Nine times out of ten it’s obvious that the company has set up that question to allow it to rave about a product or service.
This is even worse than spam, it makes it look like the spammer thinks the forum users are stupid.
6. Moderate appropriately
Your forum will need to be moderated. Leave it to its own devices and it will descend into a storm of spam, bitching and off-topic nonsense.
But also consider how heavily you plan to moderate your forum. You don’t want to leap down the throat of everyone who skates close to the edge of the rules, you’ll frighten people off.
Work out how involved you want to be – and stick to it. Let other forum members tell posters when they overstep the mark and give them a way to flag issues with you.
7. Be even-handed
When you’re moderating your forum, don’t blow hot and cold. If you ban someone for spamming on Monday but ignore someone doing to same on Friday, people will become suspicious about why. Do you have a commercial interest?
Nothing will clear your forum faster than unfair moderation.
8. Protect your data
If your forum collects email addresses, make sure they’re safe and don’t communicate with them without permission. No one will return to a forum if they don’t trust you with their data.
9. Promote it
Forums are hard work and they take a lot of promotion to get going, so make sure you’re shouting about yours. Tweet particularly interesting posts, blog about it, mention it in your email marketing, that kind of thing.
Until your forum becomes self-sufficient, it needs feeding with constant promotion or you’ll find it withers and dies.
10. Know why you’re doing it
Before you plough hours of work into your new company forum, work out why you’re doing it and make sure your bosses know.
A forum is an odd asset. Because you can’t use it to directly sell through, it can be hard to justify maintaining it. Make sure your company understands the benefits of a forum to the wider online marketing picture.
The last thing you want is your boss to suddenly demand the forum is used for advertising or that the email addresses of members are used for marketing.
Justify the forum early on, when everyone’s excited about it – not later on when budget cuts are looming and you have to prove a financial return on the investment.
source: http://econsultancy.com/blog/5460-ten-golden-rules-for-building-social-networks-forums
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Marketers still on the fence about increasing their budgets for social network marketing – be it for B2C or B2B – may be missing the boat.
January data from on Compete.com’s list of most visited internet sites showed that Facebook continues to grow, recently leapfrogging Yahoo into the number two spot on its list.
Facebook topped 134 million unique U.S. visitors in January, according to Compete.com.
This is the first change at the top of the list in two years. At that time, Google unseated Yahoo as the most popular website.
But marketers don’t need to eschew Google as it continues to hold the number one spot based on visits for the month, the company said. Its overall grasp on web surfers trails Facebook.
Over the past year, Compete.com shows that time spent by all visitors online at Facebook more than doubled to more than 11 percent in January 2009, versus the prior year. At the same time, both Google and Yahoo saw their numbers hover just above the 4 percent mark Yahoo came in at 4.25 percent while Google had 4.1 percent in January 2010.
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With Twitter co-founder Evan Williams announcing that the social network set a new record for daily traffic last month, marketers have been reminded not to overlook the value of such microblogging sites in raising their profile.
Indeed, the addition of Twitter to Google’s real-time search saw its overall unique visitor numbers rise by nine per cent from December to 21.79 million in January, according to comScore.
This rising traffic suggests the social network is more than just a fad – and that it can play a valuable role in helping marketers to spark interest in the mainstream.
Sam Tilson, director of marketing strategies at online supermarket Zoombits.co.uk, recently said that sites such as Twitter and Facebook should be increasingly important for search engine optimisation (SEO).
“If you are doing SEO for a contemporary reference, it is vital to ensure your message is placed on Facebook and Twitter to ensure [it is] included in the Google real-time search,” he said.
According to comScore, four out of five US internet users visited a social network at least once a month in 2009.
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There are several ways in which the social networking application Twitter is being currently used by companies from the travel sector.
This usage can be for engagement, news and information, sales and customer service. Twitter is described as an instant, efficient and modern way of interacting with a customer.
From a hotel’s perspective, Michael Perhaes, Assistant VP Marketing, MGM Grand, says every travel organisation needs a presence on Twitter, and a strategy built on both customer engagement and RoI via tactical offers.
“Social media is eating into the efficacy of email marketing and will soon supplant email as a primary communication device; we are already seeing evidence of this on Facebook and our hotel is preparing accordingly. We have dedicated social media staff; we include Facebook and Twitter URLs in all of our marketing communications, and actively enlist followers and fans,” said Perhaes, who is scheduled to speak at the forthcoming Social Media Strategies for Travel USA 2010 Conference.
He added, “This is the first, true two-way marketing communication channel. While we can still “push” offers in a manner similar to email (Twitter Thursdays), the social media channels allow customer feedback and content contribution.”
Special campaigns
Hotels, too, have come up with special campaigns to use Twitter. For instance, last year in September, Travelodge became the first British budget hotel brand to begin communicating with its customers through the social messaging service Twitter. The hotel chain decided to use the online portal to interact with its customers and inform them of new offers, hotel openings and job opportunities. Since over 85 percent of Travelodge reservations are conducted via the web and with such a strong online following, the company felt it makes sense to interact with its customers via Twitter.
Travelodge identified that this move enable the company to instantly tell its followers about the latest offers, new Travelodge openings and keep them updated on general company news.
Perhaes says his company views Twitter as both an adjunct to email marketing efforts and a useful customer communication tool.
“Our Twitter followers recently reached 15k, allowing us to expect reasonable response rates when we push exclusive offers to our followers. Like most hotels, we extract information by listening to our followers and fans, respond directly when appropriate, or indirectly via the respective department impacted by a comment or thread, positive and negative (food & beverage, reservations, housekeeping, etc.), he said.
The company also sees customers tweeting about the property. “It provides us with another angle on customer feedback, a fly-on-the-wall observation, if you will. This runs straight into the space carved out by sites like TripAdvisor but with a lot more credibility.”
Attractive deals
Late last year, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) chose to “tweet” nearly one million Priority Club points redeemable for hotel nights, retail gift cards, electronics and more during the hotel group’s December Tweet Away promotion. It was done for 31 days that led up to the new year 2010. IHG invited consumers to follow its hotel deals via its Twitter account.
One of the main reasons behind IHG’s decision for this initiative was the fact that travellers have been on look-out for hotel deals and value-added packages.
And by following IHG_Deals on Twitter, the company gave travellers a chance to be among the first to hear about the deals in a fun and engaging way.
In another development, Inoqo (in-OH-ko) introduced its Twitter-based hotel booking engine, targeting travellers who are seeking urgent hotel accommodation. For travellers with last-moment accommodation requirements, Inoqo only publishes hotel packages available within the next 48 hours. All offers are for check-in within 48 hours.
Responsibility
On how should companies go about setting up a team or structure for usage of Twitter, Perhaes said it depends on the complexity of the organisation.
“We have a one full time specialist overseeing our social media ecosphere, who works closely with Hotel Operations, F&B and Marketing teams to craft offers, Tweet relevant, engaging information and keep our channels properly aligned,” shared Perhaes.
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Viral marketing is a low cost marketing technique used to produce impressive results such as improving brand visibility and building public awareness regarding one’s product or company. Due to its many advantages, viral advertising has become an extremely powerful and popular method of advertising.
Use Viral Content to Market Your Business
Viral marketing is an ethical Internet marketing strategy by which a marketer creates a campaign to spread your business message. Usually, a viral campaign consists of passive as well as interactive components including video clips, images, music tracks, podcasts, interactive Flash games and text messages.
Market your online business through viral channels. As part of the viral campaign, create viral content that is easy to understand, spread and share. Utilize the most popular existing social networks including Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Dig, Delicious, Stumbleupon, Technorati and other online resources for spreading viral content among a targeted audience.
Key Advantages of Viral Marketing
Viral content has great marketing potential and will help you achieve exponential business growth. When using this powerful tool to your advantage, you can achieve various marketing objectives:
• Announce your website’s existence
• Improve your rankings on search engines
• Generate a steady flow of traffic
• Increase awareness of your brand or business
• Increase sales
• Increase advertising revenues
• Improve customer retention
• Earn a positive reputation
• Generate inbound links
Take Advantage of Viral Marketing Opportunities for Your Online Business
If you wish to improve brand visibility with viral marketing, just get in touch with an online advertising solution provider, who can offer smart and appealing viral solutions to enhance your brand recognition. These providers offer excellent online marketing services including consultation services for strategic viral marketing, planning, designing and development of marketing plans, content development and lots more to achieve positive long term results.
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Need another sign that social games are big business? A new report suggests that Zynga, the publisher of games such as FarmVille and Mafia Wars could be worth more than $3 billion — more than half that of Electronic Arts ($5.4 billion).
With a monthly active user audience of about 230 million just on Facebook, Zynga is “one of the largest developers of social entertainment widgets and games,” says the report from Next Up! Research and SharesPost, an online service for trading shares of private companies.
Thanks to expected compound annual growth of 35% until 2014, the analysts estimated Zynga’s value at $2.8 billion to $3.3 billion with a projected share price of $14.97 to $17.68. (There has been rumblings that Zynga is poised to go public.)
The report notes that five Zynga games — FarmVille, Café World, Texas HoldEm Poker, FishVille and Mafia Wars — rank among the top 10 Facebook apps. And Zynga has a “significant presence” on sites such as MySpace, Bebo, Friendster, Tagged, Yahoo and iPhone.
Analyst Michael Pachter with Wedbush Morgan Securities says that even though “nobody but Zynga knows enough about the company’s revenue, margins and growth trajectory to have an informed opinion about what the company is worth” he considers it “reasonable to believe a high value for the company.”
A $3.3 billion valuation, he says, “would suggest sustainable cash flow of $200 million or more. Clearly, Zynga isn’t there yet, as their revenues are probably only a tad above that level, and they incur costs to generate those revenues. Yet, it’s possible to come up with that value if the company can show a path to $200 million in annual cash flow, or higher. If we accept that Zynga will have much higher revenues in a few years (highly likely), and assume that the incremental margin on revenue growth is very high (also highly likely), it’s easy to see how they could get to $200 million in free cash flow at a realistic $500 million revenue level, and how they could get there in a few years.”
The report projects revenue of $460 million this year, increasing to $1.1 billion in 2014.
Other notes from the report:
Zynga’s user base has increased from 30 million in April 2009 to 228 million in January 2010.
Only 2% or 3% of users spend money on Zynga games and less than 1% consistently purchase virtual goods. Zynga makes nearly 40% of its revenue from those sales. Other revenue sources include in-game advertisements and marketing offers.
Upcoming Facebook changes could affect Zynga’s apps. Next month, Facebook is expected to adjust its notification policy for games, something that could “affect Zynga in unintended ways.” The report notes a Facebook change in July 2008 that turned off viral components for the Super Wall application. As a result, average daily users fell from 2.4 million to 0.6 million in a month. Currently, Super Wall users number 0.3 million average daily users.
Next Up! Research made news in November with its evaluation of Twitter, estimating it at perhaps half that of its popularly held $1.1 billion valuation. Next Up! also estimated Facebook at roughly $5 billion-to-$6.5 billion, compared to some estimates of up to $14 billion.
Source:http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gamehunters/post/2010/02/value-of-social-game-company-zynga-perhaps-more-than-3-billion/1
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Microsoft has recently enhanced its Office suite by adding new social media features. It has announced the availability of Outlook Social Connector on LinkedIn.
The Outlook Social Connector is a set of new features that bring together communications history, contact information, and professional and social networking information into the Outlook.
With the LinkedIn download for the Outlook Social Connector, users would be able to connect colleagues network and get updates through email.
In his blog, Dev Balasubramanian, product manager, Microsoft Outlook said, “ What we think users will appreciate is that the Outlook Social Connector doesn’t add another professional or social network into the mix.”
“The Outlook Social Connector does offer busy people, who are already a part of one or several networks, convenience – not confusion,” he added.
Microsoft is also planning to extend this platform over Facebook and MySpace.
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In this section of my site, I’ll be posting details of useful Facebook Apps that I’ve either used or recommend. Clarke
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The world’s biggest social networking site, Facebook, is to launch a slimmed-down version of itself exclusively for mobile phones.
Called ‘Facebook Zero’, the text-only low-bandwidth site is designed to be used by more than 100 million people who currently access Facebook from their mobiles.
Speaking from the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, a spokesperson for Facebook announced the site would be available to customers in the coming weeks.
Meanwhile industry analysts have said the stripped-down site could help operators free-up critical bandwidth on their networks.
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