At the end of last year I was teaching a session on social media in a masters of communication course at the London campus of the European Communication School. In total I was lecturing to 30 students in two groups. Most of the students were French or Belgian and in their early twenties. At the start of the course I conducted an exercise designed to define how people actually use Facebook, based on the students’ own experiences. What this exercise revealed was that everyone used Facebook to keep in contact with their friends and that this activity constituted the vast majority of the time spent on Facebook. No real surprise there.
I then looked at engagement with brands. Of the 30, only three confessed that they used Facebook to have any sort of contact with brands and of these three, two only did this in response to some form of incentive – getting freebies, entering competitions etc. And only one person said that they used Facebook to follow brands in any proactive way – albeit time spent doing this was very small, compared to time spent keeping in contact with friends.
I also suspect I am being generous here. The group I was talking to (early twenties graduates) comprised people who are probably the most engaged with social media generally. If we were talking an audience more typical for most consumer products we would more likely find that one in 30 (i.e. three per cent) coming in at somewhere closer to one per cent. This is, of course, just one sample – but I expect that the numbers I was generating hear are not wildly out of line with a more general case. In fact, I am tempted to do a bit of work to try and bear this out.
These are not especially surprising results – I suspect they would resonate with almost everyone’s personal usage of Facebook (possibly with social media in general). However, another way of looking at these results is to say that while 100 per cent of your consumers may be on Facebook, you could only ever use Facebook to reach 3 per cent of them. Or to put it another way, a Facebook page is a way of not reaching 97 per cent of your audience. Just imagine creating a new campaign and your media agency then coming to you with a plan which didn’t reach 97 per cent of your audience.
There is, of course, nothing wrong with reaching less that three per cent of your audience – provided what you do with this three per cent generates significantly more value per contact, that the type of value we are accustomed to generating when we are seeking to reach 100 per cent of our audience. In fact all effective social media strategies are defined by the fact that they are focused, at any one time, on individuals or very small groups and fractions of a total audience.
This is all obvious stuff – but it is not apparently obvious. Most organisations are still approaching Facebook, and social media generally, with approaches that are designed for audiences, rather than individuals. They still believe, for example, that the name of the game is content – forgetting that content is a concept that only works with an audience. They still believe that it is a good idea to run competitions in Facebook, because this activity is proven to create the most Facebook engagement, forgetting that there is no point in running a competition that more than 97 per cent of your audience will never see. But perhaps if brands are so keen to export traditional marketing approaches into social media, if we also export traditional media planning approaches into this space (i.e. advocating the design of campaigns that reach basically no-one) – this is a way of highlighting the errors of this thinking in a way which people can understand.
COMMENTARY: In order for brands to increase their active social media audience, it is very necessary that they understand what they need to do in order to increase fan engagement. This means knowing the reasons users follow brands, how users are connecting online with social networks, how much time they are spending online and with social networks, and understaning the difference between desktop and mobile social media users. All of these factors have a direct bearing on the degree of activity and engagement your will experience with your social network fans.
According to Aria, a Dallas-based full-service ad agency, brands need to make their presence on social networks something worth following. They must make sure that their tweets, Facebook updates, and blog posts provide educational, valuable, and engaging content that reflect a brand’s values.
People follow brands through social media not because they want to see a list of a brands products and services. They follow because they want something useful and relevant. Get Satisfaction created the following infographic explaining why people choose to follow brands on social networks. Some interesting numbers to pay attention to: Over 36% of Facebook users and over 43% of Twitter users said they connect with brands to stay in the loop on special offers, and 70% said they used social media to participate in contests or sweepstakes.
What Are The Top Reasons People Follow Brands on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter - Aria (Click Image To Enlarge)
Recent research by Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange provides new insights regarding the amount of time and how we spent it on social media. These findings are useful to guide your social media marketing.
Americans' Visits To Brands' Social Network Pages - Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange (Click Image To Enlarge)
The average online American spends 2 hours/day on social media venues from a variety of devices, PC, tablet and/or smartphones when non-social media users are included, according to the Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange research. This average increases to 3.6 hours/day when only people who use social media platforms are tracked.
While this may sound like significant proportion of one’s day, recognize that participants use a variety of content consumption behaviors to use their time efficiently, mostly dual content consumption and engagement during otherwise wasted moments. To put this in perspective, it’s less time than the average US spends watching television.
- Under 35 year olds spend an average 4.2 hours/day on social networks, 35 to 49 year olds spend an average 3.1 hours/day on social networks, and Over 50 year olds spend an average of 2.8 hours/day on social networks.
- Women spend almost 40% more time daily with social media sites than men, specifically an average of 3.6 hours/day for women versus an average of 2.6 hours for men. Since social media provides venues for social communication and engagement, this activity is similar to other devices and technologies.
- Business owners spend almost 50% more time on social media venues than non-owners, an average of 4.4 hours/day versus 3.0 hours/day. This is intuitively correct since they use these platforms to market their businesses.
- Senior executives and decision-makers spend 40% more time than those not in these jobs, specifically 4.2 hours/day versus 3.0 hours/day. This finding is a surprise since consumers don’t trust firms where senior executives aren’t involved in social media giving the impression that they’re not involved. (Here’s the research on Fortune 500 executives who don’t get social media.)
- People who are unemployed spend more time on social media than those who are employed, specifically 3.5 hours a day compared with 3.0 hours/day for people who are employed. This is attributable to the fact that social media is where people look to find jobs and opportunities.
According to the Nielsen 2012 Social Media Report, social media is at its coming of age. Social media has quickly become an integral part of our culture. The social media phenomenon has swept us by storm transforming many aspects of our lives. Social Media is entering its golden age as it offers consumers around the world new ways to engage with people, brands, organizations, and events, at their own convenience.
How People Are Connectiing To The Internet and Time Spent on PC and Mobile Devices - Nielsen - 2012 (Click Image To Enlarge)
A particularly interesting facet of the latest Social Media Report is the increase of social media usage through mobile phones. Personel computers remain at the heart of the social networking experience, but mobile usage is a large driving factor to the continuing growth of social media. According to Nielsen time spent on mobile apps account for 63% of the year-to-year growth in overall time spent using social media. 46% of users say they use their smart phone to connect to social media while the other 16% use a tablet.
Whether using a mobile phone or a computer, consumers are spending an increasing amount of time on the internet. Mobile Web use went up from 52,435,000 in July 2011 to 95.176,000 US audience users in July 2012. Similarly, mobile apps internet usage more than doubled within that same year going from 55,001,000 to 101,802,000 as more people began using smartphones. The PC's internet usage actually decreased from July 2011-2012 going from 213,253,00 to 204,721,00 audience members.
Social Networking Is All About Mobile and Time Spent On Social Media - Nielsen - 2012 (Click Image To Enlarge)
Likewise, mobile social networking apps' audience increased from 44.8 million people in 2011 to 85.8 million in 2012. The mobile web social networking audience increased from 40.0 million to 81.1 million within that year as well. The PC audience also increased but at a much slower rate from 162.6 million to 171.8 million. The report concludes that app usage accounts for a third of social networking time. Compared to last year consumers increased their social media app time by 76%. This research indicates that the mobile app market is going to become even more important as more website will begin to offer app adaptations. This also creates an opportunity for advertising and even market research. If so many people are spending so much time on the internet through mobile apps, it is a great way to reach your audience. The different types of apps would also allow advertisers/researchers to reach their target audience based on the the sites demographics and psychographics.
The Nielsen study also suggests that more people continue to spend more time on social media sites-20% of their internet time on social networks is from PCs and 30% is mobile time. Nielsen also reports that 17% of consumers' PC time is spent on Facebook. The total time spent on social media sites has went from 88.4 billion minutes in 2011 to 121.1 billion minutes in 2012.
Females spend the most time on the internet whether it be through a PC or mobile web and app connection. The average male spends 6.13 hours on social networking sites on the PC compared with females 8:37 hours. Similarly males spend 6:44 hours on social networking sites through mobile devices compared with females 9:43 hours. However, Nielsen does not go into detail about whether this data represents the number of hours a day, week, or etc. This leaves uncertainty in the results and may also misinform readers.
Nielsen's U.S. Social Media Survey was conducted on a representative sample of 1,998 adults ages 18 and older that were social media users. Participants were recruited from Nielsen's Online Panel to take the online survey. It is necessary that the survey was conducted on a representative sample with participants that closely represent the characteristics of the United State's population, because this information has been generalized to represent the entire U.S. population's internet and social media usage. The fact that the survey was conducted on a panel better allowed Nielsen to match characteristics of the America's population with participants, but also creates a bias because the panel was voluntarily taking the survey. It was necessary for this survey to be delivered online, not only because it was dealing with the internet, but also based on the results it was a very extensive survey which would have taken a lot of time to complete.
Nielsen also presented their data in an interesting way. Instead of compiling their findings in a written report, Nielsen used a presentation inspired report design with many graphics to depict the data. The report consisted of lots of statistics but Nielsen designed their report to present the material in a clear and concise manner with different types of graphs to represent the data. Nielsen's data can be used for a ride array of aspects in research but it is also important to appeal to everyday viewers.
Based on Nielsen's 2012 Social Media Report it is evident that the mobile app and web industry is helping internet usage to flourish, allowing consumers to use social media wherever and whenever they want.
Courtesy of an article dated April 11, 2013 appearing in Social Media Today, an article dated January 29, 2013 appearing in Heidi Cohen blog, and an article dated December 13, 2011 appearing in Molly Wangen-Becker's Research Blog
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