Small businesses on social media: ‘Show me the money’
Catching up with some odds and ends from the social media world:
• Thanks to Steven Moore of Marietta, Ga. (who, by the way, shares great small-business advice on Twitter) for passing on some interesting news. A new survey finds a growing number of small-business owners are using social media to promote their businesses. The survey, by Internet2Go and Merchant Circle, found about 45 percent of those surveyed are using Facebook or Twitter. Writes John Jantsch of DuctTape Marketing in his analysis:
“… small business owners are coming to understand the power of social media and the relative low cost vs. high return opportunity. However, the survey further suggests, to me at least, that while it’s easy to get on Facebook and Twitter, there’s still a gap in understanding how to make them pay. The danger in jumping into social media networks, with no barrier to entry, without a strong “hub” foundation of a blog or content portal is that it’s difficult to convert someone from the awareness that might be gained through Facebook to the trust needed to make a sale.”
Absolutely, John. Social media by itself will not help you, unless you have a clear, integrated strategy that drives people to your blog or Web site and you build a business connection. Social media are emerging as a major piece in the business puzzle. However, “puzzle” is the operative word here; small businesses are still trying to make sense of how social media can rock their world.
In short, social media consultants better always be prepared for one request from potential small-business clients. With apologies to actor Cuba Gooding in the movie “Jerry Maguire” — “Show me the money.”
• TweetDeck released an upgrade today which already has proven it significantly reduces the drain on your computer and is much more stable. TweetDeck is the most widely used third-party application to get the most functionality out of a Twitter account — seamless retweets, direct messaging, link shortening, etc. Previously, I would have to load it a second time to get all the columns to load. This version is a great improvement. I wish TweetDeck were available for BlackBerry. iPhone users have a great choice between TweetDeck and Tweetie.
• Interesting Wall Street Journal piece today on MySpace (both owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp.) The article’s headline: “MySpace Tries to Recover Its Cool.” Says the WSJ:
In a strategy shift, MySpace is striving to become an online hangout for people to connect with friends over entertainment content, whether it’s the new Pearl Jam album, blogs from celebrities like British pop singer Lily Allen or a karaoke contest for the Fox musical comedy “Glee.”
The site is experiencing flat growth (especially compared to Facebook) and declining ad revenues (the article states eMarketer estimates U.S. ad spending on the site will be down 15% from 2008.)
The challenge for MySpace is how they are going to remain “cool” as users age and move elsewherewhile younger users face an endless selection of entertainment choices. We shall see.
Numbers: Facebook red hot; Twitter hot
Following up on this week’s post detailing Facebook growth, new stats for June from Compete show three significant trends among the major social media sites.
• Facebook is making a big run at Google in number of unique visitors. Facebook now has 122.6 million unique visitors, with a year-over-year growth rate of 248.17%, compared to Google’s 145.9 million uniques and 7.45% growth rate
• Twitter had strong growth in June after a flat May, with a 16.57% growth in unique visits and a 12.05% growth in overall visits.
• Plurk lost 11.48% in uniques and 12.68% in overall visits in June.
Other interesting stats: While Friendfeed lost only .26% in unique visitors, it dropped 20.26% in overall visits. MySpace, while far behind Facebook with nearly 61 million uniques, still had 7.19% growth last month.
What does this mean? My take: Obviously, the Facebook-Google wars will only escalate. Twitter, at No. 3 behind Facebook and MySpace, is not peaking as some suggested after the May numbers. And it increasingly appears people see Twitter and not Plurk as their micro-blogging tool of choice.
Twitter and Gen Y: Not what you think
Twitter is filled with young people merrily filling the Twitterverse with 140-character words of wisdom, right?
Not according to a new survey from Pace University and the Participatory Media Network. They found that only 22 percent of 18-to-24-year-olds have Twitter accounts while 99 percent have active accounts on social networks such as Facebook, YouTube and MySpace.
It’s clear that the young have adopted text-messaging and SMS as their method for instant communication. However, the PMN numbers indicate a small rise in the percentage of Gen Yers using Twitter.
What’s the message for marketers in this? Obviously, appearances can be deceiving. Second, as PMN’s Michael Della Penna observes:
“Marketers also play a major role and responsibility in how this communication channel evolves. To do that, it is critical we don’t repeat the mistakes of the past. That is – don’t spam. Let’s learn from email’s spam crisis – respect the channel, be relevant, timely and funny. Find a voice that works for your brand and provide insight that your followers will benefit from and appreciate.”
