With banks struggling with rising mortgage and credit card defaults it is not a big surprise that some of them have turned to social networks as a way to attract attract younger consumers.
Information Week recently mentioned how Netherlands-based bank ING Direct has created their own social networking site called MoveOutMoveUp.com , aimed at first-time homebuyers, with community-oriented forums and advice pages under categories like “Oh Baby!” (for new parents) and “Moving in Together,” for prospective cohabitants.
We have been testing some different videos campaigns and I was struck by how social media optimization has changed how companies view videos. From a nice to have feature on a web site to a strategic portable asset
Video is not a new thing to the web. Pre-social media (say 2 years ago) a lot of sites had video. Characteristics of video pre-social media was:
- Long Videos (20 minutes was not an uncommon size)
- Stick on their own pages (usually pop-up pages with no content)
- Rarely found by search engines or users!
For the first time it looks like Facebook has overtaken MySpace as the biggest social network, at least according to ComScore. An article in the Financial Times said that:
Facebook attracted more than 123m unique visitors worldwide in May, an increase of 162 per cent over the same period last year according to ComScore, a company that monitors websites. That compared with 114.6m unique visitors worldwide at MySpace, Facebook’s leading rival, whose traffic grew just 5 per cent during the same period, ComScore said.
Hitwise recently reported that MySpace.com received 74% of U.S Social Networking visits for April 2008, down from 78% in April 2007. Facebook on the other hand saw its market share rise from 11% in April 2007 to almost 15% in 2008 (a 32% gain).
Without looking, can you name the top five social networking sites in the U.S. by market share? Myyearbook.com really surprised me as it does not get much mainstream media attention, but it has quietly taking the third spot in the U.S. from Bebo.
| Rank |
Name |
Apr-08 |
Apr-07 |
YoY % Change |
Earlier this week I looked at the demographics of blog readers which showed that the younger the user, the more likely he or she was to read or keep a blog on a weekly basis.
I focus so much on demographic data because it is important to understand who is using social networking sites before you start advertising on them. Recently I looked at some new social network user demographics which indicated that the Facebook demographic skews female and under 25, compared to other major social networks. That is important information to know if you are building a Facebook application.
emarketer has a huge post on social networks. As I was reading through the report I was struck by the type of advertising that influences a purchase data and how many ad agencies are focused on the wrong medium!
When marketers look at what ad placements most influence consumers to make an online purchase, for example, only 1% of respondents in a DoubleClick Performics study cited ads within social network sites.
I came across a fascinating report on the demographics of social network users. Rapleaf ooked at user profiles and demographcs for the major social networking sites (MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendster, Plaxo, and Hi5 ) as well as for Facebook. The data is fascinating.
Summary Numbers
- The greatest overlap between OpenSocial container sites exists between MySpace and Hi5, in which 43% of Hi5 users also use MySpace.
- Facebook users are 63% female and 36% male whereas the sites integrated with the OpenSocial platform are 61% female and 38% male
Interesting report from Hitwise UK last week about rural towns in the UK have higher broadband penetration than urban areas and as a result, more rural area users are visiting social networks than urban viewers.
The map above from Hitwise illustrates the representation of visitors to sites in Hitwise’s Social Networking and Forums category relative to the online population. Interestingly London is the most under-represented region, while Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland are all over-represented. The data indicates that Facebook, MySpace, Bebo et al are certainly not just a metropolitan media obsession, but do attract visitors from all over the country. This is an important point as it shows that broadband access is the “Tipping Point” for social network participation and as broadband access continues to grow (Wi-Fi, Mobile, Cable, DSL) that usage of social networks will continue to grow also.
Permanent link to this post (142 words, 2 images, estimated 34 secs reading time)
