Internet Marketing, Social Media, Business | StuckInTheFunnel

19% of Americans Tweet/Update Their Status Online

According to the latest survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, almost one in five (19%) of Americans uses Twitter or similar services to post updates about themselves and their businesses.

This data shows a substantial growth over previous surveys that reported Twitter use. In December 2008 and April 2009, Pew found that only 11% of Internet users made use of a status-update service. A study by Harris Interactive in March/April 09 found the number to be even lower, at a mere 5%.

Yum…Some Twitter Demographics:

  

In addition to the basic demographics of Twitter users, Pew also determined that the following 3 groups of Americans as those responsible for this new growth:

• Social Network Users (35%)
• Mobile Internet Users (25%)
• Young Internet Users between 18 and 24 (37%)

These figures continues to support the trend social media advocates have been trying to pitch to their upper management: Social Media is here and it’s not going away.

Enterprises Will Continue to Spend on Social Media Despite Spotty Success

A survey conducted by Deloittle, Beeline Labs and the Society for New Communications Research indicated that 94% of enterprises expending dollars for social media plan to maintain or increase their investment.

Despite the fact that investment in online communities and other social media campaigns by enterprises has been strong, many companies are having a tough time meeting business and marketing goals with these vehicles.

While some of the respondents agree that social media has helped them with word of mouth advertising, customer loyalty and brand awareness, many others report that the new phenomenon has had less that a substantial impact on their bottom line or customer acquisition costs.

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Internet Video Viewing Time Up 25%

Recent data from The Nielsen Company shows a 25% increase in total internet video streams and video time per viewer year-over-year in September 2009.

The Top Dog

It’s no surprise that YouTube is still the undisputed champion and brand in online video. The video giant accumulated 6.7 billion US Views in September and saw more than 106 million unique viewers.

The ever-growing Hulu streamed the second-highest number of online videos, 437 million, with 13.5 million unique visitors.

Yahoo, MSN and Fox Interactive Media were up in the top five brands as well:

Are there discrepencies?

Of course. The figures reported by Nielsen’s are more conservative than those recently reported by comScore, which acquires it’s statistics for their estimations of YouTube’s market share differently.

More so,  numbers released by YouTube itself, suggest that Nielsen and comScore are both, in fact, underestimating.  A recent blog post by YouTube founder Chad Hurley stated that YouTube routinely serves up more than 1 billion video views per day around the world.

Despite these descripencies, it’s no secret that online video is on the rise and here to stay.

Don’t Become a Social Media Burnout

In a world where you can let 1500 of your friends know what you are doing instantly, while tracking the status of your Dominos Pizza order online, there’s no secret as to why many of us may suffer from information overload.

I purposely spent some time the past couple weeks away from the computer during off hours to read and take a tour of North Carolina’s beautiful mountains.

Unlike most of my getaways, I only used my laptop and BlackBerry to access information that was pertinent to my trip itinerary which meant no work email. At first I thought I could not do it unless I tied my hands behind my back, but in the end, it was worth it.

The effectiveness of your Social Media marketing efforts are largely based on the amount of time and labor you put into them. That being said, it is important that use this time effectively so you get the most out of the time you sacrifice.

How to get the most out of Social Media without burning yourself out:

Set valuable and measurable goals

I stress the word “valuable”.   Telling yourself:  “I will spend 2hrs a day on Twitter”  is not a goal. Instead, commit to something like building 3 new relationships with potential prospects or professionals in your industry. This rule can be applied to any of the networks you participate in, whether it be Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, etc. Bottom line: get the most out of the time you spend.

Syndicate for success

With a little planning, you can syndicate your online content and reduce the time it takes you to spread your message across all of your social pipelines.

Here are a few tools that can help you do this:

• Tweet Deck (update Twitter and Facebook simultaneously).
• Word Press Twitter Plugin (Display your Tweets on a Word Press Blog)
• Twitter Feed (Automatically feed your blog posts to Twitter)
• Hoot Suite (for scheduled Tweets and other workflow)

While these programs may take some manual labor off of your hands, it is important not to abuse them. Don’t use them to blast your audience with never ending streams of content. Use them ethically and remember to build your audience organically.

Track and Refine

The only way to determine if the time you have invested has been well spent is to measure the goals you have set. If your goals are to build relationships and network, maintain a directory of the new contacts you have obtained and where they came from. If your goals are to increase sales and revenue, use a tool such as Pea Shoot to log your conversions and ROI.

Be Patient

Don’t expect to achieve all of your goals overnight. Just like any other campaign, get ready to struggle, test and refine. Do it smartly and you will achieve success while making time for the other important things in your life.