This posting is basically a 'retweet' of an article I saw this morning by Frank Reed of The Marketing Pilgrim, where he talks about the recent publication of the Social Media Marketing Industry Report by Michael A Stelzner.
With social media slowly but surely gaining more traction as serious mainstream communication channels, Reed believes that it will be increasingly possible to acquire useful field data about social media penetration and adoption that would be useful to marketers and communication practitioners alike.
Stelzner’s report comes on the heels of interviews with more than 900 social media users (amateurs and professionals), and some interesting aspects:
- Learn what the top 10 social media questions on the minds of marketers are;
- 72% of the survey interviewees have only just started dabbing into social media, which reveals how startlingly nascent this industry is, despite the number of years social media has been around;
- Trends are pointing towards the smaller enterprises (2-100 employees) as being the most experienced and adaptable to social media, and some have even been using social media in their operations for years;
- The silent generation may be silent no more as people aged 60-69 are increasingly likely to get started with social media than any other groups;
- The more time spent on social media tends to bring in bigger ROIs, thus reinforcing the cycle;
- The top four social media tools are Twitter (81%), blogs (79%), LinkedIn (78%) and Facebook (77%), while social bookmarking is the least understood application at the moment (it figures!!!)
The Point...
I agree with Reed’s point that these findings mean nothing unless we are able to apply them to our own setting and meet our needs. What’s your need? Are you a newbie (just like me?), or a social media guru? Or a social media marketer?
You’ll be interested to know that Stelzner has provided some guideposts in his report especially for people from these three categories!
For a better feel of what the report has to offer, take a look at the introductory video clip on Stelzner's site below and decide for yourselves. Or just download the free report and pour through for whatever is gold to you!
Bottomline – don’t do nothing!
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Yesterday I posted an article discussing the potential of social networking media and the collaborative systems that Web 2.0 brings to the our lives to create social isolation as much as it can create a new form of dialogue by breaking down legacy barriers. I recall something I was writing about ‘third places’ in my class on networked societies that seem to fit into the content of the current discussion on the cultural and anthropological impact of social media, and the following is a gist of it… I find plenty of resonance with Gooltz’s depiction of the current situation. My opinion is that there's a need to reconsider the premises of the third place construct vis-à-vis the largely web-connected world we live in today. Decades ago, before globalization became a buzzword, the lack of technology and mobility meant people were less traveled. Hence, physical third places where fitting for a more insular community where the town or the city they stayed in was their oyster. The case on the Internet is a totally different thing. Something I read in this morning’s Straits Times Interactive newspaper (the online version of Singapore’s flagship English paper) caught my attention: A 14-year-old girl who counts her mother, 41, as a friend on Facebook, and who's more comfortable keeping in touch with her through the application than, say, phone calls. It seems it’s no longer the case that people are maintaining applications like Facebook because it helps to connect geographically dispersed friends and family. It’s now a way of life, and one of the many modern-day truths of how people are staying connected nowadays. As early as 2005, the Stanford Institute for the Quantitative Study of Society (SIQSS) had already noted that although the Internet had revolutionized the way businesses and communications were taking place in the U.S., it came at a steep social cost. Dorie Clark, the CEO of Clark Strategic Communications, recalls the days in 2004 during her involvement as the Director of Communications for Howard Dean’s campaign in New Hampshire and says that in the midst of the campaigning, they were building up a support base involving thousands of supporters online, but they realized they had to have some means of taking those online capital offline, and creating something tangible out of it. Happy 3rd birthday, Twitter! I remember in my strategic management classes as recent as Spring 2008, we were still mainly talking about terms such as B2B (Business to Business) and B2C (Business to Customer); today it seems that in addition to the earlier pair, D2C (Direct to Customer) is also today a norm, given the connective capabilities of willing organizations to be involved in the online conversations and to dialogue directly with their customers and communities without intermediation. The growth of Twitter, in my opinion, is a microcosm of the rapid expansion of the social media scene that is forcing businesses and organizations to stop and take notice… and I hope, stopping long enough to realize they have to prepare themselves to be plugged into this ongoing dialogue. Is social media qualified to be called an industry, he essentially asks? How should organizations respond? MEDIA CENTERFind this Useful? Save this article as a PDF Now! So far, we’ve covered how the modern PR and public affairs industries came about in the 20th century in Part 1 of this three-part article about the changing communication landscape as a result of the rising influence of a Web 2.0 enabled social networking setting. Today's Focus Anecdote from the Promulgation.Rubicon Blog The amount of intelligence and the level of detail in which it is presented are currently much more than I can comprehend, but I find it empowering to be able to make use such statistics, coupled with other applications that come at no cost at all, to guide me in ways to make my site more efficient, attractive and successful. Jack of All Trades… For Now At Least! The Passing of the Old? Hardly… Investment and Financial Firms Face a Challenge Now How About Some Tangible Action Plans? It has been a long journey… now for a final thought! Selected ReferencesBreakenridge, D. (2008). PR 2.0: New media, new tools, new audiences. Pearson Education, Inc: New Jersey MEDIA CENTERFind this Useful? Save this article as a PDF Now! Stepping into something new is always a daunting task. You need a compass to provide some direction. I felt this way when I started exploring public affairs and PR from the lens of social media and Web 2.0. But I'm fortunate to have had the opportunity to speak to Dorie Clark, the CEO of Clark Strategic Communications at her contemporary home office on 26 Feb 2009. We chatted for some 50 minutes on issues ranging from her role in communications in the Howard Dean campaign of 2004, her thoughts about the interface between public affairs and PR, how Web 2.0 has changed the way these two industries operate today, and how new media could help government and corporate communications, among others.
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Daniel SeetDaniel is a student with Emerson College's Communication Management program. He is a recent convert to the world of PR2.0 and hopes to start a dialogue to broaden his, and other's, understanding of this subject. Archives
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