Text Messaging – What Happened to Talking?

According to anew survey by Vlingo titled the Second Annual Vlingo Consumer Mobile Messaging Habits Report, (Click here for a pdf) nearly 60% of mobile phone users are now texting compared to 54% in 2008.

By the way Vlingo is a company that has products that let you control your mobile phone with the

My Cell Phone Bill is What!!!!!

power of voice. With Vlingo, you can simply speak to your phone to send a text or email message. Go figure.

Further to my last post about rearing 6 Millennials between the ages of 18 and 26 I confess I use text messaging and I am in my 50’s (early). I swore I would never resort to such an impersonal form of communication, but call screening by my kids drove me to it.  Apparently I am one of the 46% of people in their 50s that text compared to 94% of teens, 87% of 20-somethings and 64% of people in their 40s that text message.

Back to my story of how texting became a necessity of life. We used to call all 6 kids to invite them for dinner the next Sunday and by the time we got through to them  it was almost Monday. It was a combination of my calls being screened and not being able to answer their phones at work or during class. After overseeing the purchase of the 1.000 text message plan for two of the subjects in question I realized this might be a way of reducing the time lag between the invite and the event. Bingo! I send a atext to the 6 kids and their significant others to prevent double-booking and within seconds I have answers from all of them. Text messaging is the only reliable method of  communicating with these Millennials.

Here are some other interesting results:

• 35% of all respondents use their phones for texting more than for phone calls.
• 41% do not text
• 70% do not browse the Web
• 73% do not use email on their mobile phones
• Almost 50%  of respondents do both in equal numbers.
• Among those who do not text message, 27% cite the difficulty of typing on a tiny keyboard as a barrier, while 37% say it takes too much time to type.

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Marketing With Twitter

I started using Twitter www.twitter.com/GoodIdeas a few months ago as a social marketing experiment and have grown to value it as both a marketing tool and an educational tool. While I can only track a few instances of direct business as a result of being on Twitter there have been dozens of times where I learned something that I would not have known had it not been for following people on Twitter.

First let’s recap what Twitter is.  Twitter is a micro-blogging platform that lets you update your status and let the world know what you are up to. There are millions of Twitter user all over the world, and the number of active users has increased by 900% in the past year.

When you sign up for Twitter it is a bit like looking at a blank canvas and not knowing where to start painting. Most Twitter users sign up and then do nothing as it is not obvious what the next step is. What I recommend is you sign up at www.twitter.com and then do a search for me, GoodIdeas or Mike Blaney and Follow Me. I will be notified you are Following me and I will choose to Follow you. Your Twitter profile will then show you are Following 1 person and 1 person is Following you. The next step might be to see who is Following someone you respect and then Follow them.

The next step is to post a 140 character or less update. Here are  couple of my recent posts. They are dry, but informative. The last one is an attempt to get people to visit this blog:

1. People more likely to open email marketing messages relating to their interests than ones sent at a particular time of day or day of week.
2. Men interrupt women a woman’s conversation 76% of the time but rarely interrupt a man. Men, stop interrupting and start listening!
3. Mike Blaney – Today 145 people have googled business card and found my post about How to Make Your Business Card Stand Out http://tr.im/hgFK

Twits fall into two categories; the social tweeter (that is what a post is called) and the addict.  While I try to post tweets that will be of interest to people a lot of people Tweet a dozen or more times a day on every aspect of their life and you find yourself skimming past these people

But the point of this post is that companies can also use it to promote themselves.

Zeke Camusio, a serial entrepreneur and founder of The Outsourcing Company, wrote a great post on Startup Nation. His 7 steps are:

Step 1: Import Your Contacts

• Twitter allows you to to import contacts from Gmail, Hotmail and your own address book. Do it.

Step 2: Make Sure that Your Profile is Complete

• Fill in all the fields (both required and optional) and include your website URL. You can also personalize your Twitter page to match your company’s branding.

Step 3: Understand the Dynamics of Twitter
Twitter is a social tool, not a classifieds site. These are some tips that will help you to get followers:

• Don’t spam others about your specials
• Follow other users
• Don’t promote your company directly. Do it the smart way. For example, if you sell widgets, write a buyer’s guide about the kind of widgets that you sell and tweet about that blog post. That is useful information. Avoid tweets like “Great Widgets On Sale – Starting at $9.99!”

(See the article for a complete list)

Step 4: Build Your Followers Base
There are many things that you can do to build your followers base:

• Put a link to “Follow Me on Twitter” everywhere (your email signature, forums, website, and business cards)
• Every time you post on your blog, invite people to follow you on Twitter

(See the article for a complete list)

Step 5: Balance Your Followers/Following Ratio

• Try to have a balance between people you follow and people that follow you. If a lot of people follow you and you don’t follow them, they will stop following you. If you are following plenty of people but just a few are following you, you’ll be seen as a spammer trying to grow your follower base as quickly as possible.
• Grow slow. Instead of adding 200 new friends all of a sudden, add maybe 50 and wait for them to follow you back. Then follow another 50.

(See the article for a complete list)

Step 6: Make it Worthwhile to Follow You

• Tweet interesting stuff. Every time you are about to post something, ask yourself “Is this something I would be interested in?” If the answer is no, chances are that your followers will feel the same way.

Step 7: Learn from the Best

• Find users with several hundred followers and learn from them. See what they are doing right and get ideas from them.

Done right, Twitter should be part of your marketing arsenal as it provides positive exposure for your business. Depending on your business, Twitter could be an efective tool.

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Social Networks and Blog Use Rising

In a recent article in eMarketer, Nielsen Online reported that more people in the US and other leading digital countries worldwide are using social networks and blogs than email.

Top 5 Online Activities Dec 2008

The growth of the member community sector does not come as a surprise with the incredible popularity of Twitter and Facebook. As a marketer you also have to keep in mind that a 2008 study performed by IDC found that 43% of social network users never clicked on ads, and only 11% of those who did actually purchased anything. In contrast email proved more effective with another study reporting that 44% of internet users say that email inspired them to make at least one online purchase, but that is down from 51% in 2007. 41% said they had made at least one offline purchase due to an email pitch, down from 47% last year.

Top Social Brands of 2008

I am an avid believer in the power of social marketing using tools such as Twitter, blogging, video blogging, Linkedin and Facebook as part of my marketing mix.

The reason I think it works is I keep my focus on one simple mantra. It is meeting, not marketing. I use social networking to expand my sphere of influence and slowly expose this group to the services I offer. How else can you establish friends and associates throughout North America without paying a dime?

A company called Vitrue,  who has the slogan “we make advertising social” released the first-ever top social brands of 2008 list. The Vitrue 100 is the result of Vitrue’s daily analysis of over 2,000 popular brands.

Each day, Vitrue analyzes the online conversations on a variety of social networking, blogging, microblogging, photo and video sharing sites.

The Vitrue SMI calculates scores about the brand’s social conversations. They  then apply a series of algorithms to reflect the frequency of usage, the size of the social media environment, and the magnitude of the conversation. The result is a single numeric score for each brand: the Vitrue Social Media Index (SMI).

1. iPhone
2. CNN
3. Apple
4. Disney
5. Xbox
6. Starbucks
7. iPod
8. MTV
9. Sony
10 .Dell
11. Microsoft
12. Ford
13. Nintendo
14. Target
15. PlayStation
16. Mac
17. Turner
18. Hewlett-Packard
19. Fox News
20. BlackBerry
21. ABC
22. Coke
23. LG
24. Best Buy
25. Honda

For the complete list you can visit the Vitrue website.

What is interesting is which industry had the most brands in the top 25.  Can you guess? Electronics with 11. No other industry even came close. Broadcasters cam second with 5 of the top 25 (2. CNN, 8. MTV, 17. Turner, 19. Fox News and 21. ABC)

Electronics
1. iPhone
5. Xbox
7. iPod
9. Sony
10. Dell
13. Nintendo
15. Playstation
16. Mac
18. HP
20. BlackBerry
23. LG

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Which Medium is the Message in 2009?

In a survey, Media Myths and Realities conducted in late 2008 by Ketchum, one of the largest global public relations agencies and the University of Southern California Annenberg Strategic Public Relations Center it was revealed that consumers are using a wider variety of channels than ever before. Newer channels, such as blogs and social networking sites, are gaining more and more traction. The survey found that 26% of consumers use social networking sites, compared to 17% in 2006. The usage of blogs nearly doubled (24% in 2008 compared to 13% in 2006).

Photo courtesy of Sam LeVan

Influential consumers – the 10% to 15% of the population who initiate change in their communities – of which 43% read blogs by nonjournalists (compared to 16% of the general population) and 32% read blogs written by journalists (8% of the general population).

Conversely, the use of more established media channels continues to wane. The survey revealed that 65% of consumers use major network television news as a source of information (down from 71% in 2006). Local television news saw a sharper drop – 62% in 2008 compared to 74% in 2006.

The use of shopping Web sites among consumers has doubled from 2006 to 2008, with 44% of those visiting shopping Web sites reading consumer reviews and comments there, showing that these sites have transformed into virtual social gathering places and information destinations, rather than just a place to purchase goods.

You Are Reading This Blog – But are there others like you?

I track my blog stats regularly and can say that there has been a 45% increase in views from the fall of 2007 compared to the fall of 2008. The number of subscribers who receive posts by RSS or email has more than doubled in the last year. The increases are due to better search engine rankings in part, but I attribute some of the increase to the fact that blogs have become a more popular source of information.

In researching this premise I came across a study titled “Harnessing the Power of Blogs,” sponsored research by BuzzLogic and conducted by JupiterResearch, a Forrester Research company, which looks at the evolving influence of blogs from the reader’s perspective.

The study, which polled 2,210 people and was released this fall, found that the increase in blog readership from 2004 to 2008 was 300 percent; 47 percent of online consumers now read blogs. I was surprised to learn that 53% don’t, but this is where the growth is going to come from.

Blog Readers Survey

Courtesy of eMarketer.com

Half of blog readers said blogs were useful when they were considering what purchases to make, and more than half of that group said they looked at a blog just when they were about to buy something.

Readers look to links and multiple blog sources to extend the conversation: 49 percent of blog readers, defined as someone who reads at least one blog a month, and 71 percent of frequent readers all read more than one blog per session. Multiple blog sources offer more opportunities for consumers to see blog ads. A quarter of readers say they trust ads on a blog, compared to 19 percent who trust ads on social networking sites.

Advertisements on blogs are an opportunity for marketers to reach consumers. The findings said 40 percent of people reading blogs have taken action as a result of viewing an ad on a blog; and 50 percent of frequent blog readers say they have taken action. Of those actions: 17 percent have read product reviews online; 16 percent have sought out more information on a product or service; and 16 percent have visited a manufacturer or retailer Web site.

The study also found that blogs have more impact on purchasing decisions than social networks. One-quarter of readers said they trust ads on a blog, as opposed to 19% who trust ads on social networks.

Aside from technology-related purchases, for which 31% of readers said blogs are helpful, other categories for which respondents say blogs are influential included media and entertainment (15%); games, toys and sporting goods (14%); travel (12%); automotive (11%); and health (10%).

The survey also finds consumers are influenced by blogs at the moment of purchase decision. The channel plays a greater role than social networks, likely because bloggers establish themselves as an authority on a topic, particularly in niche areas, and create a relationship with the consumer.

My blogging goal in 2009 is to average 3 posts per week on a range of marketing topics, increase my subscriber base by 150% and encourage more people to contact me when they read something that might be of value to them.

Have a great 2009.

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The Impact of Social Media on Purchasing Behavior

The bottom line is that companies not engaging in social media as part of their online marketing strategy are missing an opportunity to reach consumers.

Word-of-mouth marketing remains one of the most effective marketing channels. Consumers don’t put a lot of trust in corporate blogs or social network profiles, but will readily listen to people–even if they are employed by the company selling the product–provided that they are open about their mission and relationship to the company.

To better understand this trend, DEI Worldwide commissioned OTX (Online Testing  eXchange) –an independent, global consumer research and consulting firm – to research the  influence  of  social  media  on  consumers’ purchase  decisions.  (Click here for a summary) The  study  was  designed  to  gain  deeper  insight  into  what  products  or  services  consumers  research  online,   what  online sources they use to gather information, and what they do with the information that they receive.

In the study, the term “social media  websites” refers to the following  online platforms:

• Blogs
• Chat Rooms
• Instant Messengers
• Message Boards / Forums
• Video Sharing Websites
• Social Networking Websites
• Excludes: Review Sites, Twitters, and Wikis

The study shows that consumers rely on various types of social media websites as much as company websites for product and brand information. As a result, companies that utilize  social  media and engage directly with consumers have a greater opportunity to not only reach more customers, but also increase their likelihood of making a purchase.

Percentage of people who report the types of online sources they have visited to get information on a company, brand or product

• Social Media Websites 70%
• Company Websites 68%
• Online News 57%
• Review Sites 49%
• Wikis 44%

Attitudes toward recommendations and  information provided by consumers online

• Valuable 71%
• Relevant 68%
• Influence purchase decisions 67%
• Influence perception 62%
• Credible 60%
• Honest 52%

Percentage of people who report they passed along the information they found online

• Social Media Websites 45%
• Company or News Sites 36%
• Others 23%

Data from DEI  Worldwide/OTX ”The Impact of Social Media on Purchasing behaviour”, 2008. For further details on socila media research, please contact their sales department at info@deiworldwide.com.

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Social Media Sites Battling For Marketing Credibility

Marketing Daily reported on an online survey conducted in late October by GfK Roper Public Relations and Media for marketing services firm Epsilon. 180 chief marketers responded representing brands with revenues ranging from $250 million to more than $10 billion.

Chief marketing officers are intrigued by social networking sites Facebook and MySpace as potential marketing vehicles, actually using them is another matter, with more than half (55%) indicating low current interest in actually incorporating the networking sites into their plans. Just 10% reported that they are already using Facebook and MySpace in their marketing plans.

More than one-quarter (27%) of consumer and B-to-B chief marketing executives identified social networking and word-of-mouth as the tools they would most like to introduce to their marketing mix to compensate for anticipated budget cuts–ahead of all other traditional or digital marketing channels.

Not much interest in Facebook and MySpace
One-third said they’re “not interested at all” in getting Facebook and MySpace into their plans, and 22% said they’re “not too interested,” while 35% are very or somewhat interested.

Traditional social media look more attractive
Other, more “traditional” social media scored far higher on the very/somewhat interested in integrating question. More than half (52%) ranked both Internet forums and Webinars in this category, followed by Webcasts and podcasts (47%), email (also 47%) and blogs (37%).

Email marketing looks bright for 2009
Marketers have plenty of proof that email works. Epsilon’s latest benchmark stats show that retailers, for example, realize 20 cents in e-commerce revenue for every email delivered.  Email is the medium they are least likely to cut back on in the face of anticipated budget reductions for the year ahead.

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Social Networking is Meeting not Marketing

Teresa Boardman is a real estate broker in St. Paul, Minn., and founder of the St. Paul Real Estate blog says it best when she wrote about “Meeting Versus Marketing Online“.

Her view is that Social networking sites are about meeting people and making connections as people are more likely to do business with people they know.

She uses the example of going to a party and meeting someone who just happens to need your product or service. “Using social networks on the Internet works the same way except it can be done in pajamas instead of a little black dress.”

Blogs work the same way. Are they effective for marketing your services. Yes as long as you do not market your services.  Blogging is about attracting and meeting people.

I use my blog to publish articles on a wide range of marketing, casting a wide net across the internet.  It attracts a lot of readers and every week I get a phone call or email from someone wanting to know more about my services. Invariably they have read many of my posts, seen my picture on the blog and they trust me before they have ever met me.  Whenever I meet someone and think they are a prospect I always send them to my blog before I even phone them as it is my silent salesman.

A couple of parting thoughts.

Always have your 15 second elevator pitch ready and use it whenever you can. People don’t necessarily know what you do and what kind of referral you would like to receive.

Always ask people you meet if they might need your services or do they know anyone who might.

When Twittering, blogging. Linkedin (ing) or Facebooking whenever someone interacts with you socially, interact back.  You never know where it might lead to.

People buy from people they like.

Yesterday, from my blog I received an email from a law office that went like this; “I am interested in talking with you regarding client events, client appreciation and client referrals, creating stationary on the email, writing bio and writing and getting press releases and writing articles for magazines.” Knowing the area code I could see from my stats this person read 16 of my posts before emailing me.

Sorry for going on so long, but I think Teresa is 100% correct that social networking is about meeting not marketing and if you simply meet a lot of people, tell them what you do, ask them for their business and referrals, your business will thrive.

I have to add one last gem I live by.  Whatever marketing you do today will pay off in 90 days so if you are not busy today then it is a reflection of what you were doing in August and September.