By Eric Newman
Social networking is all about linking people with common interests. For most, brands are a part of those interests. So much so that 56% of respondents to a new survey by online marketing consultancy Prospectiv, Woburn, Mass., said their social networking experience would be better if marketers pushed more targeted ads.
Sixty-two percent of the nearly 800 online social network users polled in March said they'd be interested in offers from their preferred brands.
The problem is marketers are failing to provide social net users with information and offers about products they want to use. The vast majority of respondents (87%) said very few or no ads matched their interests or preferences. About 54% of participants said they never respond to an ad they see on social networking sites.
"These users want, and welcome, information about new products, savings and other offers, and they're clearly stating that if the ads were more targeted and relevant, it would be worthwhile to them," said Jere Doyle, CEO of Prospectiv.
Why is there a disconnect? Brands too often consider social network campaigns as an extension of their mass media campaigns, so the creative isn't properly tailored for the medium, said John Paulson, president of interactive agency G2, New York, a member of WPP and a partner agency of Grey Worldwide. Brands "are treating the space like they would another, traditional content site. That doesn't work."
Another issue: There is a surplus of ad-space inventory not managed by the sites themselves that accounts for untargeted messages, per media buyers. Plus sites are not mining enough data from consumers to provide deeper targeting.
Jeff Berman, president of sales and marketing for MySpace, said the site has made great strides in this area. TJ Maxx and Target, for example, have reached consumers based on an expressed interest in fashion or a musical genre. Those efforts have netted "performance increases of up to 300% when compared to standard demographic targeting, and we're still just in the early stages of optimization."
On Facebook, a wedding photography agency, Bella Pictures, greatly boosted its business by placing ads for a photo-package sweepstakes on the profiles of women who had listed themselves as being engaged.
Mike Murphy, Facebook's vp-media sales, said increased targeting of ads benefits not only the brands and the users, but also the networking sites themselves. "The perception is that advertising is a cost that users pay to experience a free site. But the more that we can do to reduce that perceived cost, by providing targeted and relevant advertising, the better."
enewman@brandweek.com
Monday, May 12, 2008
Friday, May 9, 2008
Social Networking Going Mobile, Nielsen Finds
By Jason
A growing number of mobile phone subscribers worldwide are taking online social networking to the streets, research conducted by The Nielsen Company reveals. The findings, released by Nielsen Mobile, a service of The Nielsen Company, show that the U.K. leads Europe in mobile social networking on a percentage basis -- with the U.S. boasting comparable numbers.
In the U.K., approximately 810,000 mobile subscribers, or 1.7 percent of all mobile subscribers in the country, visited social networking websites on their mobile phones in the first quarter of 2008. That reach percentage was twice as high as it was in other major European markets-though similar to the U.S., where 1.6 percent of all mobile subscribers (4.1 million in all) accessed social networks via their phones in December 2007. For more details on mobile social networking access by country, see the chart below.
Mobile Social Networking Reach - US and Europe
% of mobile subscribers who Number of mobile subscribersaccess social networks over who access social networks the mobile Internet per month, over their phone
United States - 1.6% -- 4,079,000
United Kingdom -- 1.7% -- 812,000
Italy -- 0.6% -- 293,000
Spain -- 0.8% -- 291,000
France -- 0.6% -- 255,000
Germany -- 0.2% -- 141,000
Source: Nielsen Mobile; EU data Q1 2008, US data December 2007.
Leading PC Social Networking Sites are Also Tops Over Phones
In the U.S., MySpace.com, the leading social networking site among PC users is also the most popular mobile Internet social networking site. The site logged 2.8 million unique mobile users in December 2007. Also in December, Facebook, which has the second largest audience among social networking sites, had 1.8 million unique mobile users. In contrast, Facebook led mobile social networking sites in the U.K. with 557,000 unique mobile users per month in Q1 2008, while MySpace followed with 211,000 unique mobile users. While Facebook and MySpace.com were also among the top social networking sites in other European countries during the first quarter of 2008, MSN's Windows Live Spaces led in Italy (154,000 unique mobile users per month) and France (106,000), and ranked second in Germany (45,000) behind MySpace, which boasted 52,000 unique mobile users per month.
"Social networking is already a global phenomenon, and going mobile is the next big thing," said Jeff Herrmann, vice president of Mobile Media at Nielsen Mobile. "In the U.K. and the U.S. especially, we already see millions of users of MySpace.com, Facebook and other social networks interacting with their virtual spaces while they are on the go. Consumer demand for mobile social networking may be a significant driver of mobile service pricing models as evidenced by Vodafone UK's recent move to offer unlimited Internet access as a standard feature of its new monthly mobile price plans."Nielsen's Mobile Internet Reports are available today in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S. The reports provide detailed audience measurement metrics for mobile Internet and offer insights on how mobile users are interacting with social networking and other mobile Internet content.
A growing number of mobile phone subscribers worldwide are taking online social networking to the streets, research conducted by The Nielsen Company reveals. The findings, released by Nielsen Mobile, a service of The Nielsen Company, show that the U.K. leads Europe in mobile social networking on a percentage basis -- with the U.S. boasting comparable numbers.
In the U.K., approximately 810,000 mobile subscribers, or 1.7 percent of all mobile subscribers in the country, visited social networking websites on their mobile phones in the first quarter of 2008. That reach percentage was twice as high as it was in other major European markets-though similar to the U.S., where 1.6 percent of all mobile subscribers (4.1 million in all) accessed social networks via their phones in December 2007. For more details on mobile social networking access by country, see the chart below.
Mobile Social Networking Reach - US and Europe
% of mobile subscribers who Number of mobile subscribersaccess social networks over who access social networks the mobile Internet per month, over their phone
United States - 1.6% -- 4,079,000
United Kingdom -- 1.7% -- 812,000
Italy -- 0.6% -- 293,000
Spain -- 0.8% -- 291,000
France -- 0.6% -- 255,000
Germany -- 0.2% -- 141,000
Source: Nielsen Mobile; EU data Q1 2008, US data December 2007.
Leading PC Social Networking Sites are Also Tops Over Phones
In the U.S., MySpace.com, the leading social networking site among PC users is also the most popular mobile Internet social networking site. The site logged 2.8 million unique mobile users in December 2007. Also in December, Facebook, which has the second largest audience among social networking sites, had 1.8 million unique mobile users. In contrast, Facebook led mobile social networking sites in the U.K. with 557,000 unique mobile users per month in Q1 2008, while MySpace followed with 211,000 unique mobile users. While Facebook and MySpace.com were also among the top social networking sites in other European countries during the first quarter of 2008, MSN's Windows Live Spaces led in Italy (154,000 unique mobile users per month) and France (106,000), and ranked second in Germany (45,000) behind MySpace, which boasted 52,000 unique mobile users per month.
"Social networking is already a global phenomenon, and going mobile is the next big thing," said Jeff Herrmann, vice president of Mobile Media at Nielsen Mobile. "In the U.K. and the U.S. especially, we already see millions of users of MySpace.com, Facebook and other social networks interacting with their virtual spaces while they are on the go. Consumer demand for mobile social networking may be a significant driver of mobile service pricing models as evidenced by Vodafone UK's recent move to offer unlimited Internet access as a standard feature of its new monthly mobile price plans."Nielsen's Mobile Internet Reports are available today in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S. The reports provide detailed audience measurement metrics for mobile Internet and offer insights on how mobile users are interacting with social networking and other mobile Internet content.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Facebook Apps: Why they're focused on fun instead of utility?
Great post on Andrew Chen Blog
The reason there are few and little use of utility-based applications is not because users don't want to use them or because app developers don't want to develop them, or even because Facebook doesn't want to encourage them (which they clearly do). It's because the means of distribution inside Facebook are structurally biased against them.
As you know, the reason for this is simple math. The only way for a Facebook app to get any sort of distribution is to have a viral coefficient over 1. This is an extremely high barrier for any app in which inviting friends is not an inherent part of using it (or, in your parlance, in which it is not structured for "viral action").... more on the Andrew blog
The reason there are few and little use of utility-based applications is not because users don't want to use them or because app developers don't want to develop them, or even because Facebook doesn't want to encourage them (which they clearly do). It's because the means of distribution inside Facebook are structurally biased against them.
As you know, the reason for this is simple math. The only way for a Facebook app to get any sort of distribution is to have a viral coefficient over 1. This is an extremely high barrier for any app in which inviting friends is not an inherent part of using it (or, in your parlance, in which it is not structured for "viral action").... more on the Andrew blog
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