Losing To The Social Web: Visualized

Interesting post from Digital Buzz Blog. I guess my only real argument against this 'everything going social' idea is that just as we've all foreseen the death of TV and print, the reality is that these media, just like websites and microsites, have roles that they will continue to fill for the near future at least, even though these roles may well change. To my mind, there is never a single answer and smart use of digital will involve multiple presences and activities that cater to the myriad of ways people want to find, absorb, engage and share information. Marketing via content, utility and distributed services... hell yes, but don't rely on me wanting to check out your products in public while i hang out with my friends.
-----------------

A brands website has been the single biggest ”online” focus for 99% of businesses over the last 10 years apart from banner campaigns and microsites here and there, but with the evolution of social media growing at unheard of rates (Twitter is up over 3500% alone this year, while Facebook increased over 700% to finally overtake MySpace and then turned them to dust!) businesses really need to think about what’s happening to their website traffic…

I recently read a great post on Supercollider by Geoff Northcott (via Martina on Adverblog) that talked about the end of the destination web, along with adage, we are social and adweek about how the times are fading for websites and microsites are dead – Geoff posted a few good Google trends graphs, so I thought I might take that a little further, find a few additional graphs and look at why and where this traffic is going…

What you’ll notice from the graphs below (you can see them here) is that some of the biggest brands, websites and portals are loosing unique visitors hand over fist for the last 3 years. Doesn’t make sense right? More and more people are connecting online, brands are spending bucket loads of cash on digital campaigns, so website traffic should be the complete opposite? (note. the graph below with out a heading is the BBC.co.uk)

So with such dramatic declines in website traffic and rapidly increasing numbers of Internet connected people, where is all that traffic going? The Social Web – the emerging networks where everyone is connected, everything is relevant, and everything can be shared with a single click and browsed, summarized or bookmarked with ease…

There are 2 key reasons why website traffic is declining.

1. Social Networks (obviously) are growing and most people prefer to hang out there instead of searching the big brands websites for content to interact with. Your friends on Facebook and Twitter share what you’re already interested in. Everything is relevant and you don’t have to leave to get the best content from 10 of your favourite brands / websites.
2. Off-Site Content Distribution is rapidly growing, I’m talking RSS Feeds, Twitter, YouTube Channels, Facebook Fan pages and so on… All the best brands and websites now actively push their content (the same stuff you use to get from their website and still want to access) to as many various “off-site” sources and platforms as possible.So naturally this removes unique visitors from their main sites, channeling them into a maze of various networks, feeds and tweets…Oh, and ofcourse, widgets/apps – we’ve only just seen the start of these.

Over the next few years, brands will need to re-structure they way they deliver experiences to their customers online (the best ones are already doing it), and that means delivering unique content to anywhere customers want to experience it.

Maybe that’s the latest offers by RSS feeds, new product demos by YouTube, campaigns by iPhone apps, online shopping via widgets in facebook or branding exercises by seeding stopmotion viral videos (they seem to be all the rage!)?

The fact is, agencies and brands will need to work out how to deliver the relevant content, branding and experiences they are currently achieving on their own websites, into highly competitive social networks, feeds, apps and widgets, where every “campaign” or “offer” has to be groundbreaking just to get noticed… and then there was tracking…!

I don’t think websites & microsites are dead yet. There are still years and years of usefulness ahead for them, we’ll just need to come up with better ways to connect them and their content into the social lives of customers online…

Couple stat grabs for social networks:

Top Social Networking Sites by Unique Visitors, December 2008 - thanks commscore via Clickz

Property	December 2007 (000)	December 2008 (000)	Change (%)
Total Internet audience	183,619	190,650	4
Social networking audience	120,201	135,715	13
MySpace.com	68,905	75,919	10
Facebook	34,658	54,552	57
Flickr	13,540	20,698	53
Classmates Online	10,002	16,553	66
MyLife.com**	N/A	15,018	N/A
Buzznet	4,973	9,781	97
AOL Community	40	9,208	22,701
Yahoo Buzz	4,864	8,724	79
AIM Profiles	2,587	8,618	233
Webs.com	N/A	8,053	N/A
Digg	6,026	6,844	14
LinkedIn	2,868	6,323	120
imeem	N/A	6,003	N/A
Tagged.com	1,156	5,778	400
Yahoo Groups	6,447	5,620	-13
Webshots	6,625	5,216	-21
DeviantART	4,102	4,905	20
Bebo	4,279	4,867	14
hi5	2,483	4,047	63
Windows Live Spaces	8,912	3,846	-57
Scribd.com	1,613	3,054	89
BlackPlanet.com	1,919	2,871	50
CafeMom.com	1,287	2,796	117
Sodahead.com	166	2,291	1,277
Notes: 1. ComScore audience measurement data report n media usage, visitor demographics, and online buying power for home, work, and university audiences across U.S. and worldwide Internet auciences. 2. Data excludes blogging sites. **MyLife used to be known as Reunion.com
Source: comScore, 2009

Facebook Fans by Brand- January 2009: Thanks ED100
And finally:
Now Even the Mafia's on Facebook

by: Matt Rhodes

We know that Facebook has seen staggering growth in 2008. Reports in January of this year showed that every 20 days, Facebook is adding another 10 million users. We know that it’s not just college kids on Facebook anymore, with 276% growth since October 2007 in members aged 35-54. We even know that people are now having to deal with their parents and even their boss befriending them on Facebook.

But now there are reports that show an even deeper acceptance of Facebook, of it penetrating new areas of society. Last week the New York Times showed how one rather unexpected group seems to be surfacing on Facebook: Cosa Nostra. The Mafia.

In recent weeks it seems that the Italian authorities have begun investigating groups on Facebook that are discussing the Mafia, and in particular Mafia bosses including Salvatore Riina, the ‘boss of bosses’, who was arrested in 1993 after more than two decades on the run. They think that those joining these groups may have more than just a passing interest in the Mafia, may be more than just fans. They think that the membership of these groups may include some Mafia members themselves.

It’s not a surprise that people would use Facebook to start groups about the Mafia and Mafia leaders - we know that social networks are a great place to find people with other interests. I’m sure there are many online communities devoted to the Mafia as we know that niche groups benefit from online communities. What may seem more surprising is that members of the Mafia are willing to identify themselves by joining such groups. We’ve written before about how you need to be careful what you say in Facebook. You also need to be careful what you do.

Social networks can seem like very private spaces - you build networks of friends and share things with them. Most people know that their actions may also seen by the rest of the members of the site, but sometimes it’s easy to forget that. When you and your friends are discussing something in a group you can forget that anybody else can see this. Including the Italian Police.

So I’m not surprised the Mafia are on Facebook, and for me that’s a real sign of mass adoption and acceptance of this social networks as a tool. People are using it for their own particular purposes, to connect with friends or to express their support or solidarity for a cause. One of the problems we are going to have to accept and then deal with as social media tools grow in popularity is that people will use them for things that we didn’t necessarily intend them to be used for in the first place. Facebook was originally a way for college friends to stay in touch. It may now be being used by criminal gangs to, at the very least, express their support or solidarity for a cause.

How we deal with this matters. The change in usage is a powerful form of innovation, really it is co-creation with users of the site finding the ways it can best support them. This will mean that new uses will develop with every new user that joins. Some will gain mass popularity and others will be restricted to just one or two users. You can control what is discussed in groups or on profiles by enforcing the terms and conditions of the site, but with a membership as vast as Facebook this will only get more difficult to do. But there is always another way of looking at a situation.

So the Mafia is on Facebook. Perhaps this is a good thing after all. Rather than tapping phones or reading emails, the Italian Police had a ready-made list of people to watch and conversations to follow. They just need to join the same groups and see who their new friends are.

Some more reading

• Rome Journal: Facebook ‘Fans’ of the Mafia May Be More, Authorities Say (nytimes.com)
• You Have Requested To Add Michael Corleone As A Friend (techdirt.com)
• Little Italian mafia worshippers on Facebook stir anti-movement (thenextweb.com)
• Mafia bosses prove a hit on Facebook (telegraph.co.uk)
• World Briefing | Europe: Mafia Finds Fans on Facebook (nytimes.com)
• Popular Facebook Fan Page Calls for Sainting a Mobster (allfacebook.com)

Original Post: http://blog.freshnetworks.com/2009/02/now-even-the-mafias-on-facebook/

Yellowpages campaign

Yellowpages.com Campaign Shows Off Cross-Media Versatility
by Laurie Sullivan, Monday, Jul 28, 2008 7:00 AM ET

Yellowpages.com launched a billboard outdoor advertising campaign this month in five target markets from Detroit to Sacramento, Calif.

The campaign designed by WPP Group's Mediaedge:cia and created by GSD&M Idea City in Austin, Texas will eventually add viral media and local search. It already taps television and online ads.

Matt Crowley, Yellopages.com CMO, says the push plays into the company's initiative to help advertisers reach consumers across cellular phones, online and television ads. He says it is part of parent company AT&T's three-screen strategy to provide services not offered by other Internet-based business-to-business or business-to-consumer search companies.

Yellowpages.com, for example, offers mobile ads as part of its package of services, along with video business profiles. Consumers can download and share the video, which acts as a widget, or post to other sites.

The television channel 97 on AT&T's U-verse service also enables consumers to search for local businesses. Search capabilities for mobile, online and television allow Yellowpages.com advertisers to reach more consumers on a variety of devices.

Taking advantage of AT&T's partnership with Apple as part of that strategy, Yellowpages.com designed a cell phone application for the iPhone that lets consumers find and share business information based on local search. The application, built on Apple's software development kit, launched July 10.

Apple iPhone demonstration kiosks at AT&T Mobility and Apple retail stores promote the free-for-download-to-consumers app. Flyers in the stores tell consumers where to find them. AT&T also preinstalled a software application, known as a client, on select phones available in its stores.

The software client lets consumers access Yellowpages.com on their handset. "The search feature is on millions of devices today, but it will reach tens of millions by the end of the year," Crowley says. "The preinstalled applications and special treatment from Apple in AT&T stores makes a huge difference in the amount of traffic we can drive through mobile applications."

Apple reported selling more than 1 million iPhone 3G handsets just three days after it became available in its retail and AT&T Mobility stores. Tina Teng, iSuppli analyst, estimates that Apple will sell 8.8 million 3G iPhones this year.

Good news for Yellopages.com, especially on weekends when mobile traffic reaches peak use. The company typically experiences double-digit searches from consumers on handsets during those two days. "The majority of all searches on our Web site come from mobile handsets, compared with online," Crowley says.

As for rival Yellowbook.com, customers are rapidly moving to upgrade their advertising to reach consumers through video and mobile ads, according to the company's CMO Gordon Henry. "We began testing video ads earlier this year and started rolling them out this summer," he says. "The sales force and some business-to-business advertising will highlight the service to customers, but there won't be a national media campaign. We tend to use national media to talk about the brand, not a specific service."

The billboard is running in five markets: Atlanta, Orlando, St. Louis, Detroit and Sacramento.

Yellowpages.com has more than 140 million searches per month, and was ranked No. 26 in comScore's top 100 URLs for May 2008.

Mobile searches have increased more than 50% from September 2007 to March 2008.

Thanks to MediaPost Publications for this: 

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.san&s=87402&Nid=45614&p=948634

Stop Driving Traffic, Start Capturing Leads

By Chris Chariton, thanks to Online Media Daily by Media Post Publications.

It's time we re-framed the concept of "driving traffic" to Web sites. Just what is traffic anyway?
Once upon a time, it wasn't much more than a bunch of anonymous vehicles, people or things moving from one place to another. But since the dawn of the Web, it's what companies receive when visitors click from one place to another. And that's the dissatisfying result: If your Web strategy focuses on driving traffic, you end up with anonymous clicks and page after page of site traffic reports of limited value.

In short:
a) Think customers, not clicks
b) Try online directories, e-newsletters, banner ads
c) Convert from Visitors to leads

In full:
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=85636&Nid=44429&p=948634

9 myths about widgets

Off the back of what I posted yesterday showing how Coke and Nike are using widgets well - here are 9 widgets faux pas so to speak. Thanks to iMedia Connection for these:

1. Widgets are trinkets (Consider: how have widgets have evolved exponentially since their Jurassic days)
2. Widgets aren't important (Actually, widgets will soon be the new model for the construction of whole websites)
3. Widgets are only about social networking (But as more traditional media companies and web portals become more comfortable with user-generated and user-mediated content, the industry is likely to see the widget world expand far beyond the realm of social networking)
4. Widgets are social application unto themselves (Think: widgets are still fairly small components of larger pages -- not distinct microsites. Widgets must still compete with other widgets and other content on a page)
5. There's no room for ads on widgets: (Fact: widgets are ads. At least, they can be. With the ability to insert dynamically changing feeds and run video within widgets, advertisers can take advantage of the medium to develop much more dynamic, richer campaigns. Widgeads?)
6. You can't make money on widgets (Consider this: When consumers use widgets to exchange notes or send messages, the widget itself becomes a product or a conversation. And for the successful advertisers who can use widgets to build a user base and generate clickthroughs, "The value of that conversation is ridiculously high")
7. Widgets are blind (False: widgets are in fact informed by social data. Each widget can be used to construct a unique social graph that tracks both user demographics and time spent with that widget across the web)
8. Widgets don't bring traffic (If that's the case, the publisher isn't using the widget correctly)
9. Widgets aren't viral (But they can be: to make widgets viral they have to contain video, photos or music, as well as some content that offers genuine value to users)

Visit http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/19736.asp for the full article.