• If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest ahead of the United States and only behind China and India
• Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
• 80% of companies use social media for recruitment; % of these using LinkedIn 95%
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
• Kindle eBooks Outsold Paper Books on Christmas (COMMENT: I wonder how this will change next year with the iPad out)
• Successful companies in social media act more like Dale Carnegie and less like Mad Men Listening first, selling second

Here is the latest video.  What do you think about the stats?  Anything jump out at you?

For me, I use Twitter distinctly different than Facebook.  What I share with these distinct audiences is different, and purposely set up to be different.  In fact, I’m more likely to connect my Twitter and LinkedIn accounts than I am Twitter and Facebook.   You see, I use Facebook for personal reasons.  I don’t have two accounts like many people do (which violate their terms of service, you know that thing you agree to when you create accounts on sites that you most likely never read).  I leave my personal / professional network to Twitter and LInkedIn.  I often see people using the convenience of tools like Tweetdeck,  FriendFeed,  or even just built in integrations between Twitter and Facebook (with a Facebook App) to update a status once and let it go to many social networks.  I think that is a mistake.

I know I’m not alone when I find a tweet in my news feed on Facebook annoying.  Twitter uses different protocols for replies and use of hashtags for topics.  While Facebook has attempted to incorporate the @ symbol as well, to be frank, I just think that audience doesn’t get it, and that’s why it isn’t used.  I also think the way people tweet, at times linking people to other content, websites, or replies to people is different than how people publish status updates on Facebook.  This makes for a very disjointed news feed.  It has gotten to the point that I’m about to “unfriend” all my Facebook friends who integrate the two together.  I’m sorry, it just doesn’t work for me.

Presumably you use your networks differently as well.  Maybe not to the same degree I do, but the people you friend on Facebook may not be the same people you follow on Twitter or connect with on LinkedIn.  So why send them all the same message?  Just like marketers have to segment and target their messages to get the most return on their investment, you too should be conscious about what messages you send to your networks.  You will have stronger networks in the end who will pay attention to what you have to say, not ignore you because the last 10 tweets had nothing to do with what you talk to your friends about on Facebook.

I never found out the answer to my question regarding how many Facebook status updates were really Tweets.  Maybe someone will publish that stat someday.

I heard on the morning news today that despite the economy, companies are still willing to spend $3M for 30 seconds on NBC for the Super Bowl.  30 seconds in one of the most popularized, entertainment sporting events of the year.  Sure, your exposure is to millions of viewers (and a few football fans while you’re at it).  Some companies will spend about that much money to nail that 30 seconds for your attention.  To resonate with you to take some action.  What will be the return?  How can it be measured?  Sure there are ways, but the measurement is a conversion from one medium to another.  TV to Brick and Mortar or TV to Online.  Let’s repeat this, the measurement of success will most likely be a measurement of a conversion from one medium to another.  That’s where advertisers are missing the point in print.

Traditional uses of print advertising has been mostly around awareness.  It’s about branding.  But the problem is many companies haven’t adjusted their print strategies to consumer behavior.  They see that print isn’t returning results like it used to, and it’s too hard to “measure” a return.  The reality is that the C-level management want faster results, and print isn’t one for “timely” analytics compared to online advertising.  Additionally, circulation is still a “best guess” number, not as hard-core as actual pageviews/impressions that can be given in online advertising.  I get it, make sure you receive value for what you are paying for.  However, it’s reality. 

Arguments for why online advertising is better than print are completely valid.

• Better tracking
• Instant measurement
• Smaller buys can render bigger results
• Target, segment, target, segment
• Test, tweak, test, tweak

Yes, the are all good.  But let’s not forget that people still read magazines and journals.  They still like flipping through pages at stuff they can’t buy, or may want to buy, or are interested in. Online advertising, while instantly measurable, still has banner blindness.  The fear that a click on an ad will mean they will get more ads, or spam, or more pop-ups.  Seeing a full page ad in your favorite magazine means you can read it, flip past it, come back to it, read it again, and then make a decision to do more.  No fear.  They are in control.

Advertisers need to continue to understand consumer behavior.  Understand that your opportunity to grab one’s attention is still valuable in print publications.  Understand how you can create an effective campaign to go from offline to online and still measure success.  They need to accept the fact that the return on that media buy for an ad in a magazine isn’t going to show results for weeks after delivery.  But the incentive has to change.  You have to get the consumer to change mediums.  Print to online is possible.  The messaging has to be right, valuable, yet still enticing enough for somone to go online to do more.

Go back to my Super Bowl example.  How long of a lead time do you think companies are taking to get a campaign together for that $3M investment.  Weeks?  Months?  Now how long do you think it could take to put together a campaign and media buy for a print pub?  Yes, publishers still need weeks of lead-time, printing, and delivery.  So it may be on par with a TV advertisement, but not as expensive.  Not a one-time 30 second shot.

Integrate your marketing campaigns into multiple channels.  Print shouldn’t be ignored.  It still holds value, especially when it is being adapted to new mediums.  For instance, Digital publications.  Migrating to the Kindle and other digital readers.  When evaluating your marketing dollars, don’t forget the print publication.  It’s not dead.  It’s still valuable.  While patience is a virtue, management needs to know print can still return results.

Obama’s Seven Lessons for Radical Innovators – Harvard
Business Publishing

What Newsrooms Can Learn From Obama – Recovering Journalist
Blog

How Better Marketing Elected Barack Obama – Harvard Business
Publishing

BNET: Obama’s Communications Moving at Warp Speed

While the use of technology will was not the only game
changer in the Obama campaign, it played a significant role in my opinion.  His campaign strategically found ways to
connect with his constituents by allowing them to campaign on his behalf
through myBarakObama blogs, using text messaging for
updates, using YouTube to let video messages go viral, and use of his ever
growing email database. 

While I certainly can’t dissect his entire campaign
strategy, he also brilliantly executed an integrated marketing strategy.  He took the concept of “small is the new big”
by asking for small donations from individuals, not the maximum from them at
once.  Additionally, he asked his
database of volunteers and advocates to do small things such as calling friends
and strangers about his campaign, which resulted in a huge workforce. 

I think Obama executed two strategies extremely well during
his campaign.  First, he brilliantly used
social media to empower his followers. Jermiah Owyang, a Forrester analyst on
Social Media, researched and found stats on how Obama and McCain used social
media.   While Owyang won’t draw any correlations to
the use of social media to his win, Obama commanded the use of the Internet. I
believe it was that use of technology that helped, if for nothing else, give
him exposure to a larger population of voters. McCain followed suit by
participating in the same space, but I believe the generation gap of a 70+ year
old using MySpace and Facebook wasn’t as authentic as a 40+ year old.  In fact to compete with Obama’s “MyBarakObama”,
McCain launched McCainSpace using social network took Kick-Apps.

Obama’s second strategic win was how he treated his
volunteers, and that was with respect and authenticity.  He would send a message (or tried on several
occasions to mixed results) to his volunteers and donors informing them of what
he was going to do next before he would do it to the media.  He understood that by informing this audience
first he not only respected that they want information, but knew that they
would spread that message beyond what the media could accomplish.  However, by informing his volunteers and
donors first he also put transparency on his campaign and that, in my opinion,
is a level of authenticity that builds trust.

And Obama’s not done either. 
Change.gov launched yesterday getting not only himself ready for the
next four years, but informing the American people as well.  As technology evolves, going back to the U.S.
Mail distributing pamphlets to America
back in the beginning of our country to TV bringing a face and live debate to
every home to the Internet, our public officials and government will change as
well.  If Obama uses the Internet as much
during his presidency as he did during his campaign, change won’t be just that
an African American is at 1600 Pennsylvania,
it will be how he has enabled the entire country to speak to him to make changes
the American people want.  

Full Twitter String
RSS Feed
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Online Community Sites of Note:

Dell Community
IdeaExchange by Salesforce
Real World New Cast Member by MTV
IdeaStorm by Dell

Last year you may remember that Los Angeles had a major power outage.  Turns out that many Web hosts are located in LA, including Dreamhost, and they were hit head-on with the outage.  The building their server farm sits in lost power, due to the fact that all their back up systems (deisel generators, UPSs, etc.) all failed.  Yes, FAILED.   Well after learning from that experience Dreamhost went into pro-active mode and saught out some disaster recovery solutions, like migrating part of their network over to a second host.  The long and the short of the story is that in the process of being proactive, some other random server issues, and another power outage severs went down, routers crashed, and service was interrupted again.  It is through this blog post Josh, the owner of Dreamhost, explains the problems, how it happened, what was their fault, and how they are fixing it.  Through humor, bluntness, and some associated graphics, this post in itself will be the reason why I continue to host with Dreamhost.  Transparency is key and this blog, a corporate blog at that in its own unique way, is what makes it possible. 

If you are looking for a Web host that has a variety of features, check out Dreamhost.  If you are really looking to host with them, let me know and I can hook you up with a discount code to waive your set-up fee.  Drop me a line at fred [at] fromthe21stfloor [dot] com