Which Social Network Is Which? (eng. tekst)
Kilde: www.1to1media.com
Marketers like to bucket things. Take the term social network. It's used to describe any platform on which people interact and share information. There are different networks for different types of socialization, but they all tend to be grouped together in the media, as are the people who use them. But an understanding of what makes them different can help marketers succeed in using them.
Where should you target?
The statistics of who uses each social network change daily, but trends over the past year provide some surprising insight. "We knew that teens and young adults spent a lot of time on Facebook and MySpace, but I was surprised at the number of adults spending time on social networks," says Charlene Li, author of the Forrester report How Consumers Use Social Networks. "We particularly didn't expect half of them would be doing it at least once a week."Forrester found that adult social network users age 35 and over skew male, while the younger audience (under 34) skews female. As for specific sites, ComScore studied Facebook visitation trends for the year ending in May 2007 and found the site's unique visitors grew 89 percent, which was likely caused by Facebook's openness to the public after years of exclusively accepting college students. ComScore also found that Facebook's users are becoming more engaged, with the average time on the site per month per visitor growing from 138 minutes to 186 minutes.
eMarketer looked at the demographic profile of YouTube and MySpace users in relation to user-generated content on the sites. The study found that YouTube users are predominantly male (53 percent), white (92 percent), between the ages of 35 and 64 (48 percent), and earn a household income of more than ,000 (62 percent). Surprisingly, the study also cited Hitwise data that showed MySpace users are more slightly likely to be between 35 and 44 years old (20 percent) than 25 to 34 (19 percent).
Engagement is key
These social networkers are willing to interact with a brand or marketing campaign on a social networking site, if presented correctly and if they add value to the user. Forrester's Marketing on Social Network Sites asked social networkers why they engaged with a brand through their profiles. The top three reasons were because they felt an affinity with the products, wanted to learn more because the brand was associated with a friend's profile, and because they wanted to receive a promotion or discount."The issue with social network campaigns is that often the ads are designed as an extension of traditional Internet advertising, instead of making them specifically for a certain network," Li says.
She recommends looking at what the business objectives of using social networks are before entering. "There are five reasons to use social networks for companies," she says. "To listen better, talk in a different way, energize sales, support customers, and embrace a community for product development." Some of the most successful uses of social networks have been adding "backstage" elements that customers normally wouldn't have access to, like new product previews, or having executives answer questions directly. In many cases using social networks is only one part of a Web 2.0 strategy.
"You have to look at blogs, wikis, community forums, and discussion boards," Li says. "It's a highly fragmented space because no one has traction in every category."
Models of success
A variety of companies have found success using social networks. Ernst & Young, for example, uses Facebook to find college recruits for internships and entry-level positions. Its presence includes a page about working at E&Y, as well as ads that target students who attend schools E&Y visits. It also encourages students to ask questions. And because of Facebook's Newsfeed, the friends of anyone who asks a question can link to the message board page and see the E&Y recruiter's response.
Victoria's Secret has a MySpace page set up for its Pink product line. Rather than drive traffic to a website, the company uses advertising that leads to the social network page where users can download backgrounds, add badges to their profiles, make comments, and interact with friends.
"Victoria's Secret is able to drive 10 times more impressions because of that, and highly qualified ones," Li says. "There's context to the message because it's brought to you by a friend and not an advertiser, which makes it a testimonial instead of a marketing message."
Words of advice
Forrester recommends ditching traditional marketing like banner ads when it comes to social networks. The marketing report also emphasizes developing trust (and traffic) by linking any social network page back to the company's website. Li sees potential in leveraging the Facebook development platform to create branded widgets.
Most important, she says, remember that general interest sites like Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube are not the only players in the industry. Niche sites like Fashionizing, MyChurch.org, and Petster offer very engaged and passionate customer groups to tap into with very specific interests.
"Ultimately, if you can't find the right group that you want delivered," Li says, "just try another network."
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