eModeration Social Media Round-Up #4: Social Business
We've chopped it in two! It was just getting too darn big ... The second part of eModeration's weekly news round-up looks at the business of being social. Read the first part - Social Life - here.
BRANDS ON SOCIAL...
Asda is harnessing social media to take a giant leap towards transparency, with the launch of a 'new era of democratic consumerism'. The supermarket giant is placing webcams in factories and offices, launching a new blog called Aisle Spy, and tapping its 18,000-strong online community to crowdsource product launches.
Nokia this week took aim at Google Maps, and introduced Good Things via its Ovi ecosystem: the new interactive map feature allows users to let others know about the local things they love.
And cinema chain Cineworld is promoting Disney Pixar’s new release ‘Up’, encouraging users to compete to get the most digital balloons ‘attached’ to their home, on Google Maps.
First Looksies at Comparethemarket.com’s new TV ad went to Aleksandr Orlov’s 800,00 Facebook friends. The small but sophisticated mammal presented his latest offering from the comfort of a “soothing Jacuzzi bath”.
Phone network 3 is encouraging its customers to give free pay-as-you-go SIM cards to their social-network friends. If the friend tops-up the card, the customer gets £5 credited to their Paypal account.
SOME SOCIAL STATS…
Ah. Turns out the idea that the young don’t value their privacy is a myth - 55% of Americans aged 18-24 don’t want targeted ads. And the older you are, the less you want them – at 65+ it’s 82%. proverbial cocked hat. But it wasn’t all unmitigated hilarity – the overall market plummeted 16.6%, and 60% of the internet spend went to search, for which we can probably read ‘Google’.
Americans have tripled the time they spend on social networks to 17% of all their internet time, according to Nielsen. What’s more, US users are likely to be more affluent, and more urban, than average – and to place social networking at the centre of their lives, higher than game-play, TV, and reading.
Advertisers have been quick to act – the spend on top social networks and blogs rocketed by 119% to $108m in August. And according to eMarketer, nearly all online retailers will soon have Facebook Fan Pages, and 91% will be using Twitter by 2011.
This despite the fact that ads on social media are achieving lower click-through than other ads – although it’s not all bad news: engagement is higher, with users more likely to use ad’s interactive features. (It's well worth taking a look at our shiny new White Paper on Interactive Advertising, for the full lowdown on interactive engagement.)
LEGAL…
Disbarred lawyer Jack Thomspon, former crusader against violent video games, is suing Facebook for allowing its members to form groups which, he alleges, threaten his safety (one is called “Jack Thompson should be smacked across the face with an Atari 2600…).
A mother is suing four teens who allegedly created a false Facebook profile which misrepresented her athlete son as a gay racist. She says the profile, which amassed more than 580 friends, caused him considerable emotional distress, and she’s seeking compensatory and punitive damages on his behalf.
MOBILE NEWS…
Vodafone is joining Orange in the battle for iPhone customers, after Apple broke off its exclusive contract with O2 to allow rival companies into the field.
Confounding all stereotypes, it’s not young professionals who are driving mobile internet, but teens – and retirees. Males still lead in overall usage, but females saw a 46 percent rise. But in a reversion to stereotypical form, women use it for ecommerce and social networking, whilst men focus on business and information.
IN VIRTUAL WORLDS…
Newspaper owners take note. Boxed game sales are slumping – but online games are booming - and games makers are celebrating the success of the ‘Freemium’ model which allows free play but charges for access to enhanced features.
Electronic Arts launched the long-awaited Littlest Pet Shop Online, a girltastic world of virtual pets and customization. Key features include parental consent–based access to the game, anonymity of child accounts, and “safe chat” – meaning only approved words can be typed.
A 20% workforce layoff at Funcom will delay the release of The Secret World by "several months" according to the Norwegian developer.
Here’s Kzero’s useful list of brands in virtual worlds. It’s a little Second Life-heavy, but includes a growing roster of examples from WeeWorld, Playstation Home, Football Superstars and Stardoll, with more coming soon.
And Massively launches MMO Family, a resource for "leveling a gaming-specced family". Offering tips on balancing gaming with family life to finding age-appropriate niches for every family member, MMO Family is written by the mother in an all-gamer family that’s growing up on MMOs.
TOOLS AND TECH…
PostRank Analytics claims to capture social engagement and web metrics at the same time, giving publishers and bloggers a clearer picture of how many hits they are receiving as well as the level of conversation generated by blog posts shared on Facebook and Twitter.
Text-mining software company Clarabridge have launched Clarabridge Social Media Analysis, allowing companies to integrate social media content into their existing internal enterprise feedback for more useful customer analysis.
Sprout Publisher offers Facebook Fanpage administrators a way to create coupons, event notices and news-flashes directly from the Facebook page. Content can then be spread from fans’ news feeds, without them having to add an application.
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