Women Put Trust in Social Media

According to The 2009 Women in Social Media Study of the 79 Million women online, over half are taking part in social media on a weekly basis. This study by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners also showed that 64% of women are nearly twice as likely to use blogs than social networking sites as a source of information. 43% Use social media for advice and recommendations and 55% for opinion-sharing.

Social Media Activities include:

• Social networks (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn)
• Blogging
• Reading blogs
• Posting to blogs
• Message boards & forums
• Status Updating (e.g.Twitter)

Companies looking to tap into women for product advertising shouldn't question whether or not to enter social media. The real questions should involve "How to connect with my target audience?" and "What can I offer them via social media".

Marketing Ah-Ha...Web Placement Matters!

Great research was just released on MarketingVox done by Conde Nast stating that Ads that run on websites with related content are 61% more likely to be recalled than ads running on sites with unrelated content. Can't say that is much of a shock, but good to know that the way we have been planning media at the agency follows the research. We have seen success in our analytics (2-3x's better) for the ads we have placed that were either contextually or behaviorally.

Many publishers and ad networks try to sell on reach and low CPM's, and believe that media planners only want low CPM's, with less emphasis on placement, trying to make it a numbers game (i.e. if the average CTR is .1%, I would need to buy 4 million impressions to get the 4000 clicks to make the campaign successful). We believe that the placement is most important, reaching that potential customer as close to a decision making process as possible. We do not believe in playing a numbers game because we believe that "Content is King" and it has played out well for us in our digital campaigns for our clients, as well as in the Conde Nast research.

Twitter Alone is Not Enough

A recently published study by Nielsen stated that more than 60% of US Twitter users fail to return back the following month. With only 40% of Twitter users being "loyal", marketers should be cautioned that Twitter, although growing at an incredible rate, is still only one piece of the total social media puzzle.

Marketing executives are looking to Twitter, the 140-Character micro-blogging site, as the answer to all their company's social media needs. The true of the matter is that social media involves a lot of work and hours, with more and more companies employing "community managers" to handle all of the companies social media tasks at a full time level. These managers Tweet on behalf of companies and manage brands in all social media by monitoring and responding to what customers and others are saying about their company, product, or service.

When companies and people are beginning their involvement in social media, it is important for them to be monitoring and reviewing the following:

-Facebook/Myspace/LinkedIn, etc
-Blogs, Micro-Blogs (Twitter)
-Message Boards /Wiki's
-Social Bookmarking & Sharing sites
-YouTube/Video Sharing sites