REPORT: Facebook Branding Beats Twitter

Posted by on Feb 20, 2011 in Blog, Research, Social Media | No Comments

This brief article at All Facebook caught my attention:

Facebook’s brand effectiveness outranks all other social media’s branding efforts, according Brand Keys’ Customer Loyalty Index.

The index measures customer engagement and loyalty among brands in 79 different categories, one of which is social networking sites. This category has enough surprises to make us wonder whether Brand Keys’ assessment used sufficiently sized survey samples.

Brand Keys ranks MySpace second, LinkedIn third, Flickr fourth and Twitter fifth. We’d expect to see Twitter and the old News Corp. site in each other’s places. Or maybe MySpace shouldn’t even be in the top five, as many other sites have stronger brands, including FourSquare, Quora, Tumblr, YouTube and Yelp, not neccessarily in that order.



There’s No Business Like Social Business

Posted by on May 20, 2010 in Blog, Research, Social Media | No Comments

Some pretty interesting new research from Edelman:

Social media may or may not be advertising, according to some people on Madison Avenue, but according to the average consumer, it has emerged as a top form of media entertainment. That’s the conclusion of new research being released today by PR industry giant Edelman, which surveyed 1,000 adults in the U.S. and the U.K., an found that social media now is deemed a “higher value experience compared with other forms of entertainment.”

“In the U.S., the rise of the Internet as a frequent source of entertainment is most dramatic in the 18-34 group, rising from 27% in 2009 to 42% in 2010,” the firm disclosed. “In the U.S., 32% of 18-54 year olds look most frequently to the Web for entertainment (compared with 58% watching TV). The Internet also ranked second in the U.K., with 30% turning to the Web most frequently, compared with 57% watching TV.”

In fact, Edelman suggests that social media has spawned a new category dubbed “social entertainment,” blurring the definition of social media even further from its roots as so-called “word-of-mouth,” communications, and community.

Chart: Where People Share Influence Online

Posted by on Apr 29, 2010 in Blog, Infographic, Research, Social Media | No Comments

How To Promote Your Brand In Social Networks

Posted by on Apr 24, 2010 in Blog, Branding, Social Media, Video | No Comments

Chart Of The Week

Posted by on Dec 15, 2009 in Blog, Research | No Comments

Where Companies Are In The Social Marketing Lifecycle

[Found via MarketingSherpa]

Chart: Top Social Networking Sites (Aug-09)

Posted by on Oct 14, 2009 in Blog, Research | No Comments

Abbreviated Marketing News Round-up

Posted by on Sep 29, 2009 in Blog, Marketing News Round-up | No Comments

Click-Happy Tweeters View Ads Twice As Much

Twitter users are nearly twice as likely to click on internet ads, review products online and visit advertiser and company profiles than those who use only traditional social networks, such as MySpace or Facebook, according to a study from media research firm Interpret, LLC.

The survey, which was conducted in August 2009 among more than 9,200 internet users found that one-fourth (24%) of Twitter users reviewed or rated products online, compared with just 12% of those who’d used other social networks – but not Twitter.

Tweeters also show double the propensity for viewing online company profiles than do non-Tweeters (20% vs. 11%), and are almost twice as likely to investigate ads or sponsored links by clicking on them (20% vs. 9%).

UPS Shows Brands What “Brown Can Do” For Them

In a first for a package delivery company, United Parcel Service is giving away samples from major brands to its customers. The company is piloting a program in Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Miami, Phoenix and Washington, D.C., in which people who get UPS’ Direct-to-Door home delivery also get offers and samples from a roster of brands. It is expected to go nationwide in 2010.

The offers will be packaged in a custom-designed “UPS Direct-to-Door Pak”—white with an image of a UPS delivery van—and delivered to residents in the test ZIP codes who are receiving a small package shipment that day. Each Direct-to-Door Pak can contain approximately 12 offers and samples from UPS customers.

Brands participating in the program include Williams Sonoma, Bed Bath & Beyond, FTD.com, Pottery Barn, The Finish Line, Sephora, West Elm and Zappos.com.

Interaction Rates For Video Banners Higher In Social Media

Higher interaction rates, or video completion rates—what would you rather your online ads achieve? For the former, focus on expandable formats, while in-page formats are more likely to achieve the latter, according to new research from social media ad optimization firm Lotame. “Of the banner types in the social media space, we found that video creative had higher click-through rates than non-video units, with in-page units performing better on average from a CTR standpoint than expandable ads,” the report reads.

When compared on the three most common banner sizes within Lotame’s network of sites, the firm found that wide skyscrapers (160×600) had the highest click-through rate performance, followed by medium rectangles (300×250) and leaderboards (728×90), which had roughly the same click-through rate performance.

The study, which factored in consumer usage data from over 250 publishers, also concluded that click-through rates are not the best metric to determine a rich media ad’s effectiveness.