Budgets are Increasing for Social Media

eMarketer published an article last week on how marketers are increasing their budgets to allow for social media spending.  Here is an excerpt:

Even though tens of millions of users were flocking to social media sites every day, most marketers stayed away. They either didn’t understand how to join the conversations—without sounding like shills—or they were frightened away by the prospect of associating their brands with questionable content.

But things are changing.

Companies are learning how to leverage social media and tap into the rising tide of consumers participating in social network sites, blogs, wikis and Twitter.

According to the “The ROI on Social Media Marketing” report from the Aberdeen Group, sponsored by Visible Technologies, marketers have developed the tools and methodologies to drive marketing ROI by listening to and learning from customers and prospects.

The money is following the methods.

Aberdeen found that 63% of the companies in their survey (defined as best-in-class) planned to increase their social media marketing budgets this year.

“Companies use multiple approaches to identify the individuals who wield the greatest amount of influence in any given topic area and to track changes in their influence over time,” said Jeff Zabin of Aberdeen. “Best-in-class companies engage these top influencers as brand evangelists, and then track the impact of their words and actions in terms of return on marketing investment.”

eMarketer estimates that social network advertising alone will rise over 17% this year to $2.35 billion, up from $2 billion in 2008.

But simply because companies are increasing their spending on social media doesn’t mean all the drawbacks have disappeared. Measurement, in particular, is a sticking point.

The Aberdeen research showed that 39% of companies found it somewhat difficult to measure social media, and 20% said it was very difficult.

What is clear from this study, is that although marketers are moving towards social media, there is still a large need to measure the success of the campaigns and prove the value that the conversations provide.

For more information on measuring social media, check out:

Tools for Effective Social Media Measurement

One of the top questions that I receive about Social Media Marketing, is “which platforms/websites should I use to build my company’s business?”  The answer that I give is always the same:  “It depends.”  You see, there is no one-size fits all answer or approach to social media marketing.  Successful campaigns are developed by understanding this critical lesson, and creating a tailored strategy that takes into consideration the following factors:

1. Your current brand position online
2. Current social media tactics being used
3. Your company’s goals
4. Your goals for this campaign (i.e. sales increase, brand recognition, reputation management)
5. Your target audience & their online behaviors

Once you have a thorough understanding of your current standing in the interactive realm, and the key factors listed above, you can begin to develop your social media campaign.

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) recently completed a study showing the effect the recession is having on the marketing industry.  This is the second part of a two-part study, the first part was taken back in August of 2008 and asked if marketers thought their budgets would increase, decrease or remain the same in the next six months. Marketers were asked the same question again at the start of 2009, and the ANA is looking to analyze how the 2008 budget predictions compared against the actual budgets for 2009. This new study reveals that “more companies are identifying cost savings and reductions (93% as opposed to 87% six months ago) and that 37% of respondents today plan to reduce budgets by more than 20%, up substantially from the 21 % of respondents in the first survey.”

According to the study, the top five areas where marketers plan to reduce costs or expenditures in marketing and advertising efforts are:

• Departmental travel and expense restrictions (87% versus  63% in the previous survey)
• Reducing advertising campaign media budgets (77% versus 69% in the previous survey)
• Reducing advertising campaign production budgets (72% versus  63% in the previous survey)
• Challenging agencies to reduce internal expenses and/or identify cost reductions (68% versus  63% in the previous survey)
• Eliminating or delaying new projects (58% versus  61) in the previous survey)

Fortunately, online marketing is one of the most cost-efficient types of marketing out there today, which means that even though advertising/marketing budgets are being cut by over 70%, the remainder of those budgets are being used to create effective online marketing and social media campaigns.  If you are a marketer facing these deep cut-backs, let me share with you a few strategies that are cost-effective, and have not only been weathering the recession, but have proved to be extremely successful.

• Social Media Marketing - There are many benefits to engaging in social media. Social Media applications, like communities, social networking sites, and word-of-mouth marketing are proving themselves to be a rich new marketing technique that needs only a poor man’s investment.  These sites depend on an abundant resource – your customers – rather than a scarce one – advertising dollars, and with all of the new ideas for social media evolving, you may find these strategies improving all aspects of your business.
• Online Video – There has been a significant increase in video marketing over the past few months, and heard all of the chatter about the value of video from marketing experts, but did you know that video marketing, or social videos, are also an extremely valuable SEO tool?  That is a 2 for 1 deal!!
• Mobile Marketing - eMarketer forecasts that mobile social networking will grow from 82 million users in 2007 to over 800 million worldwide by 2012. “Along with the rapidly growing audience, marketers are drawn to mobile social networking because it creates a unique context in which to promote their goods and services,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and co-author of the report. “It goes beyond simply linking people with digital content by adding the immediacy of sharing with friends—a very powerful marketing proposition.”

By focusing on getting the highest value for their budget, Marketers can still develop highly successful campaigns and return measurable results, IF they focus their campaigns on the cost effective space of Online Marketing.  Hopefully this will be one of the final pushes CEOs and CMOs need to get off the fence and really dive deep into a strategic social media plan.

Of Facebook’s 150 million members, 25 million are strictly mobile users, utilizing their mobile phone to manage, interact, and grow their accounts.  With all of the new mobile phone technologies arriving from Apple, Nokia, and Blackberry, users are able to engage online via cell phone, as easily as they can with their laptops.
Facebook is only one of many platforms promoting their mobile profile services.  MySpace is another extremely popular mobile platform, recording over 7 million mobile users in it’s first 6 months of existence, and you can imagine what that number has grown to today!

Following along with this trend, eMarketer forecasts that mobile social networking will grow from 82 million users in 2007 to over 800 million worldwide by 2012. “This population will comprise current online social networkers who are extending their digital lives to mobile as well as a growing number of mobile-only social networkers,” said John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer senior analyst and co-author of the new report, Mobile Social Networks.

“Along with the rapidly growing audience, marketers are drawn to mobile social networking because it creates a unique context in which to promote their goods and services,” said Debra Aho Williamson, eMarketer senior analyst and co-author of the report. “It goes beyond simply linking people with digital content by adding the immediacy of sharing with friends—a very powerful marketing proposition.”

To help you as you begin to develop your mobile social networking strategy, I have developed a list of my top mobile social networks for you to begin with.  Remember, each network listed below has it’s own set of users, with it’s own demographic appeal.  Find the network that works for you, and engage like you would online.  Remember, these are social networks.  Ads and spam will be just as unwelcome here as they would on MySpace or Facebook’s internet-based communities.

• Hobnobster – Hobnobster is a web and mobile relationship service where singles can search and communicate with quality singles online and mobile.
• Zyb.com -ZYB is an easy way to store your phone’s contacts, pictures, text messages and calendar events online. ZYB also lets you connect with people you know and makes sure you always have their updated contact details on your phone. As most of your real life friends are already on your phone, ZYB gives some additional social features like photo tagging and content sharing with the people you know.
• Mig33.com – Get mig33 and you’ll be connected to people around the world. IM, visit chat rooms, send email, share photos, SMS and, of course, make cheap calls
• Mobiluck.com – Share where you are with your friends, receive alerts when they are nearby and chat 24/7 for free.
• MeetMoi – MeetMoi is a safe and easy dating service for meeting people near you. Using groundbreaking technology, MeetMoi looks for people around your location and lets you browse pictures, send messages, and connect with members, all from your cell phone. Since MeetMoi values safety above everything, no one’s actual location is ever revealed.
• BrightKite.com – Brightkite is a location-based social network. In real time you can see where your friends are and what they’re up to. Depending on your privacy settings you can also meet others nearby.
• JuiceCaster.com – JuiceCaster lets you meet new people, connect with friends and share your photos and videos directly from your mobile phone. Instantly post videos and pictures to your Myspace, Facebook and other sites.
• Treemo.com – Treemo is a online and mobile community dedicated to sharing digital media, empowering self-expression, and transforming creativity into action. By offering an ever-evolving gallery of video, audio, photography, words, and visual art, Treemo inspires visitors to create their own digital expressions, and to share those creations with the world – on the web and on mobile phones.
• Veeker.com – Veeker is Video and Picture Messaging for Phone and Web.
• Groovr.com – The groovr goal is to help people stay connected, not just online, but out in life too. We want our users to move seamlessly from laptop to mobile phone to meeting new friends in new places. Groovr keeps track of what’s cool. Find local events happening in your city right now. Mobile pictures, video, and live chat give you an inside look before you head out.
• Flagr.com – Whether exploring new places or revisiting their favorite venues, most everyone you know is constantly exploring. Every now and again, you may hear of the travels, but more often than not, such news is lost to the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Flagr changes all this by enabling you to easily keep tabs with your friends’ most current whereabouts as well as their thoughts along the way. Whether it’s a killer burrito place or a new hilarious movie that your friends stumble upon, you are “in the know.”
• Socialight.com – Socialight lets you create, share and discover virtual Sticky Notes stuck to actual places all around you. Sounds simple right? It is! It’s also very powerful…
• Twitter.com – Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
• Zannel – Zannel is about life in real time. It’s a way for you and your friends to share what you’re doing, feeling, and seeing as it happens. It’s a free service that allows you to create your own mobile page where you can post videos, pictures, and text updates with your phone to instantly share with your friends and start a conversation. You can also follow friends, meet new friends, and watch videos.
• Myspace Mobile - Myspace on your mobile phone.
• Facebook Mobile – Facebook on your mobile.

Online Video Marketing: The SEO Value of Videos

We have all seen the increase in video marketing over the past few months, and heard all of the chatter about the value of video from marketing experts, but did you know that video marketing, or social videos, are also an extremely valuable SEO tool?  Well, you do now!  According to a study by Nate Elliott, now with Forrester Research, Google’s “Universal Search” feature—which incorporates results from news sites, videos and maps right into the body of a search results page—was introduced in May 2007, and already 1/4 of Google searches return videos in the results, videos are 53 times more likely to appear on the first page of search results than text pages.  To determine this information, Elliott’s study looked at 40 of the most popular keywords, and found:

“Of the keywords for which Google offers video results, we found an average of 16,000 videos vying to appear on results pages containing an average of 1.5 video results—giving each video about an 11,000-to-1 chance of making it onto the first page of results. By comparison, there were an average of 4.7 million text pages competing for a place on results pages with an average of just 9.4 text results—giving each text page about a 500,000-to-1 chance of appearing on the first page of results.”

One of the reasons for this is that there is simply much fewer videos on the web, than web pages, making their fight for front page results much easier.

But how do you optimize your videos for high search rankings, and once they are up there, how do you make sure users actually watch the videos, and pass them on to their friends?  In order to create optimized, engaging videos (and potentially even viral videos) you want to make sure you complete the following:

• Optimize keywords by including them in titles, tags, and file names.
• Host your videos on YouTube, which shows up by far most often in Google results than other video platforms.
• Make sure to add new content frequently, because freshness matters to your users.
• Create the video so that it begins and ends with a black screen & the URL of the originating website.  If you’re using video to bring traffic to your website, you’ve got to tell people what your website is!
• Place the URL of your website at the bottom of the entire video.  This is a great idea because is if people clip it or make mashups – you are still getting credit for your work and visitors to your site.
• Keep it simple.  Videos do not have to be over-budgeted monstrosities, all they have to do is be engaging.
• Lastly, use humor in your videos. Humor is a great way to keep your viewers engaged through the entire video.

With 12 billion videos viewed online each month, and videos maintaining unbeatable search engine rankings, if you’re not using videos to market your product or service, you’re missing out on the newest and most effective social media and advertising strategy to date.  Social American, a social media marketing agency I partner with, offers low-cost, high-quality video production to create engaging media for your company, and through strategic video placement, you gain more exposure, customers and profits.  Web video syndication is among the tools you’ll receive from Social American, helping you harness the power of social media marketing for your business, forever, while our team guides you every step of the way.