Merging of Traditional Media, SEM and Social Marketing

Late last year I wrote about The Top 10 Video Sites and the demographics of each site. Well a new study by Forrester Consulting for Veoh Networks in August updates some of the demographic data about who is watching videos online.

The Forrester study showed that viewers who watch more than 1 hour of online video a week make up nearly 40% of all viewers and watch nearly 75% of all Web video watched. These active viewers tend to be younger than the general population and are highly engaged when watching online video, paying attention to longer programming and the ads that run with it. The last point is an important one for advertisers it shows that engaged viewers are more likely to interact with video and be receptive to advertising.  

We have written many articles on social retailing and how the social networks are changing how we make a purchase decision.

If you are a retailer the first step is to make yourself visible on the social networks. eMarketer reported that an August 2008 survey of Web merchants sponsored by Internet Retailer found that, of the 39.3% of retail respondents that use social networks, 32% have a page on Facebook, 27% on MySpace and 26% on YouTube.

Received an interesting press release from Forever Living Products today about how they saved over $100,000 using social media. Now that piqued my interest so I had to learn more.

A little background. Forever Living Products (FLP) is the world’s largest grower, manufacturer and distributor of aloe vera based health and beauty products. They have distributors in 125 countries and traditionally they have kept them up-to-date with marketing messages and materials via DVD distribution.

FLP decided to house their distribution materials in a single social media based location called “AloePod Online Media Center”.

Some interesting data from EDUCAUSE via eMarketer about social network usage amongst college students. EDUCAUSE compared social network usage at 44 colleges and universities in 2006, 2007 and 2008. It found that nearly twice as many students at these institutions use social networks every day in 2008 (59%) than did in 2006 (33%).

Social networks have become such a large part of students lives today, both in high school and in college. The EDUCAUSE data showed that the percentage of students who said they never use social networks has fallen from 25% in 2006 to 11% in 2008.

Sometimes we get so caught up in our market or niche that we assume that everyone knows about it. Social networks is an example of this. Just because we read, blog and use social networks on a daily basis does not mean that everyone does. More than one-half of adults surveyed in 17 countries do not know what social networking is, according to Synovate.

Global head of media research for Synovate, Steve Garton, said the survey was conducted to explore some of the myths and facts that have built up around the online social networking phenomena.

Back from a couple of weeks of vacation and trying to work my way through my Google Reader as well as an increased subscriber base! Some posts that have caught my eye so far:

• eMarketer interview with Andrew Frank vice president of research at Gartner on marketing with social networks and misconceptions about the medium: Source: eMarketer
• Facebook: No. 1 Globally - The social network site has vaulted over rival MySpace in worldwide audience growth, thanks to tools that translate content into many languages. Source: Businessweek
• WOM Builds Loyalty as Businesses ‘Tribalize’: Source MarketingVOX

While video gets all the attention, one area of social media that continues to grow is Podcasting. According to emarketer nearly one out of five (19%) Internet users in the US say they have downloaded a podcast, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Pew’s researchers said that was up from 12% in August 2006.

So who is listening to Podcast’s? Not surprisingly, the answer is the young male. Among male Internet users in the US, 22% said they had downloaded a podcast, compared with just 16% of online women. As for age, Internet users under 50 were significantly more likely than older users to download podcasts.

One of my goals this summer was to get more involved with Twitter and see how companies are using it. While I was researching the post about how a Wine Retailer is Using Twitter to reach a whole new audience I came across Rae Hoffman’s post titled “An Actual “Non Big Brand” Twitter Case Study”

Rae’s case study is about a  a BlackBerry related website called BBGeeks . BBGeeks has had a Twitter account for around eight months now and has grown from zero to over 500 followers in that time. For a web site targeting a very niche market, this is pretty impressive.

Earlier this month, News Corp. said that Fox Interactive Media (FIM) generated $225 million in revenues in the quarter ended June 30, 2008, up 23% year over year. For the fiscal year 2008, FIM generated revenues of $856 million a little bit less than the $1 billion target News Corp. chief Rupert Murdoch had set this time last year.

FIM consists of a number of Websites, including MySpace, AmericanIdol.com, PhotoBucket and FOXSports.com. News Corp. has never said publicly how much of FIM’s revenues come from MySpace, but the generally accepted estimate is 80%. That would put MySpace at about $685 million in revenues for the fiscal year (including both US and international).