In an analysis of consumers’ participation in social technologies in 2009 by Sean Corcoran and data expert Cynthia Pflaum in The Broad Reach of Social Technologies, the US has seen creators grow slowly and joiner activity and spectating become almost universal. This means that creators, those who create or upload content, are contributing but not in the way that some people might expect. A lot of people think that content creation is widespread and that everyone has offered something to the internet, but this is not true.
Most of the surge in social technologies is coming in the form of joiner and spectating behavior. This explosion of joiners is a reflection of the widespread adoption of Facebook, due to press coverage and constant badgering to join by friends. Spectators, those who consume social content, peaked at 73% of online Americans. It may sound trite, but this just reaffirms that social media is the real deal. This information should strike concern in those not involved and should usher in a torrent of redesigns and reinventions in the online presence of businesses.
Looking forward, it could be deduced that every online user will eventually become a spectator due to the impossibility of avoiding social media. Also, that joiners will see a meteoric rise as adoption of those technologies becomes standard fare for even the most common users. Beyond personal experience, this data shows that it is integral to know what your customers are up to in these social realms and that social media is not just a flash in the pan.
Below I have posted Oliver Blanchard’s presentation on the Basics of Social Media Return on Investment. It is as clever as it is entertaining and is perhaps the most easily understood presentation on the business definition of return on investment, the case for business justification of social media, and the actual equation itself. It also provides a handy step-by-step method for creating a social media return on investment with proof of concept, and real world no-nonsense advice.
My ever-so-knowledgeable bosses (fawning mode off) must have seen this coming: blogging substantially increases web site traffic. Companies that blog have far better marketing results. Specifically, the average company that blogs has 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages. Blogging is especially important because it enables you to have fresh content, better page rank for search engines, enables conversations through commenting and helps for seeding content to other social media services (you’re welcome). The whole study can be read here, but check out the stats below.
Nokia, the Finnish power house and maker of the world’s top-selling consumer electronics product, announced plans to become the world’s largest mobile bank as well. Nokia Money will be a mobile financial service that allows consumers to transfer money through their mobile phone to another person or entity. Pay bills, settle a bet, split the dinner check, or top-up your pre-paid minutes without ever stepping foot inside a bank or opening your wallet.
While Nokia Money will have an advantage in convenience to those in the first world, Nokia sees the service as a platform to bypass traditional banking in the third world. With 4 billion mobile phone users globally but only 1.6 billion bank accounts, the remaining 2.4 billion mobile customers don’t have access to even the most basic banking services.
Nokia Money intends to fill that void, allowing customers to perform all the functions of a basic checking or savings account from their mobile phones. For those without access to ATMs, bank branches or even the infrastructure to support a credit card economy, Nokia Money has a definite potential to flourish. By flourish, I mean boom and with 2.4 billion users, the potential is certainly there.
Apparently my peers, Generation Y, use social networking sites for self-promotion, narcissism and attention seeking. In a national poll of college students, 57% agreed that that people in their generation use social networking sites for self-promotion, narcissism and attention seeking. The poll also found that two-thirds agreed that their generation is more self-promoting, narcissistic, over-confident and attention seeking than previous generations. This news really doesn’t shock me, or probably anyone for that matter. We all have a friend who we’ve had to hide from our news feed because of their obsession with the mundane nuances of their daily doings and constant onslaught of kissy-faced self portraits, well at least I have. The video below talks about the study in greater detail.
