Social Media Training for Marketers

Brands may not adopt Facebook's new ad media in large numbers: It seems unlikely, but it is possible that marketers are just not prepared for the dynamic new ad model Facebook has unveiled.

FTC pushes for much more obvious disclosure of sponsored ads in users' newsfeeds: Allowing marketers to turn their posts into ads within the newsfeed is not new--Twitter is already doing the same thing with Promoted Tweets--but is the fact these are paid ads obvious enough to users? The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has a longstanding standard that people must recognize ads as such and cannot be duped into thinking advertising is content.

"MySpace felt a lot of pressure to monetize quickly after it was sold to News Corp. And I think as result, they added advertising, they added things we might consider to be spammy, things users found intrusive."

"Our study finds that the mere presence of social media icons on a Web page where we shop appears to cause us to feel as if our purchases are being watched by our social network, and we adjust our buying decisions accordingly," said Claudia Townsend, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Miami School of Business Administration, in a statement. "Marketers should be aware that the placement of these symbols in their Web design strategy could have a major impact on buying behavior."

37% of Facebook store operators were using the site as their sole sales channel.

No matter the size of the business, consumers still express hesitation when it comes to making purchases on social networks. According to JWT Intelligence, privacy was shoppers’ main concern when asked about F-commerce in June 2011. Similar percentages of consumers questioned whether Facebook was secure enough to be a safe purchase platform.

small businesses find the channel appealing because it lets them “leverage their scrappiness,”

Overall, the average viewer watched 21.7 hours of online video content in March 2012, according to comScore. On Google sites, people watched an average of 7.1 hours and on Hulu, 4.6 hours - the highest among the top 10 video content properties.

A comparison of comScore data for March 2011 versus March 2012 also showed that Yahoo's online video rankings had an 8 percent increase in unique viewers and a 72 percent increase in average minutes per viewer.

Web 1.0 companies never really seemed to be able to grasp the importance of building a social community and tapping into the backgrounds of those users.

 Why has Amazon done so little in social?  And Google?

 Even as they pour billions at the problem, their primary business model which made them successful in the first place seems to override their expansion into some new way of thinking.

In fact, according to McKinsey, companies that adopt social technologies can see a 50% increase in customer satisfaction, 48% increase in business leads, and 24% increase in revenue.

Social business apps allow users to follow the people, data and documents that matter to them at any given time.

To be transformative, social can't be an add-on. Social must be a strategy that is integrated into business processes across the organisation.

As you can see, Twitter usage according to Pew is almost even among men and women, with women edging slightly ahead. Just over one quarter (26%) of internet users ages 18-29 use Twitter. Most notably, those 18-29  represents nearly double the usage rate for those ages 30-49. Pew also found that among the youngest internet users, those ages 18-24, 31% are active Twitter users.

Pew discovered that Twitter use among those 18-24 year old increased dramatically between May 2011 and February 2012, both overall and on an everyday basis. Usage among slightly older adults, those between the age of25-34, also doubled—from 5% in May 2011 to 11% in February 2012.

One in five 18-24 year old cell owners (22%) use Twitter on their phones, and 15% do so on a typical day

Talk Time is a sales concept backed by research that values conversation with clients and prospects. Regardless how good a sales or account person is at “selling,” every minute they’re talking to a client or prospect is worth $25 per minute in future revenue. Whether you’re a bartender selling a drink or a Boeing VP selling a 737, the time you spend developing a relationship is valued at $25 a minute towards future revenue.

Agency owners should take note that obsession with the billable hour without creating connection is akin to stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.