Archive for December 7, 2011

source: nielsenwire

Consumers are spending more time than ever using social media, as demonstrated in the Social Media Report recently published by Nielsen and NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey company. Building on this report, research by NM Incite helps uncover what impacts social media may have for marketers trying to build their brands and connect with their audience more directly.

Social media plays an important role in how consumers discover, research, and share information about brands and products. In fact 60 percent of consumers researching products through multiple online sources learned about a specific brand or retailer through social networking sites. Active social media users are more likely to read product reviews online, and 3 out of 5 create their own reviews of products and services. Women are more likely than men to tell others about products that they like (81% of females vs. 72% of males). Overall, consumer-generated reviews and product ratings are the most preferred sources of product information among social media users.

Research shows that social media is increasingly a platform consumers use to express their loyalty to their favorite brands and products, and many seek to reap benefits from brands for helping promote their products. Among those who share their brand experiences through social media, at least 41 percent say they do so to receive discounts. When researching products, social media users are likely to trust the recommendations of their friends and family most, and results from Nielsen’s Global Online Survey indicate that 2 out of 3 respondents said they were either highly or somewhat influenced by advertising with a social context.

Social Media also plays a key role in protecting brands: 58 percent of social media users say they write product reviews to protect others from bad experiences, and nearly 1 in 4 say they share their negative experiences to “punish companies”. Many customers also use social media to engage with brands on a customer service level, with 42 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds acknowledging that they expect customer support within 12 hours of a complaint.

On the flip side, another interesting trend is the interest of consumers to act as ambassadors and advocates for brands through social media. A majority of active social networkers (53%) follow brands. These brands are increasingly recruiting their fans and followers to spread word-of-mouth recommendations about their products and services, and among consumers who write product reviews online, a majority say their share their experiences to “give recognition for a job well done” by the company. Social media users are also interested in collaborating with their favorite brands, with 60 percent of 18- to 34-year-olds saying they want to give product improvement recommendations, and another 64 percent who want to customize their products.

Source: nielsenwire

Social media continues to influence how consumers interact with brands and share content every day. Increasingly, TV viewers leverage social media as a platform to talk about and engage with TV content. These conversations are not only opening new channels for consumer engagement with their favorite TV shows and fellow fans alike, but also are providing insight into which viewers are driving the conversations and when.  A recent analysis by NM Incite and Nielsen sheds light on which demographics are engaging with TV across social media and highlights some differences in composition between the general social media population and the population on social media sites talking about TV specifically.

The social media population overall, skews slightly higher among females (55%), than males (45%). However, when comparing this demographic split to that of the population on social media sites talking about TV, this split reverses skewing higher among males (55%), than females (45%). There are several interesting demographic shifts when comparing general social media users and the portion of the population talking about TV specifically on social media. Those under age 18 account for 34 percent of the overall social media population, yet make up only 12 percent of the population on social media sites talking about TV. The opposite shift happens when focusing on the 25 – 34 year-old demographic. This age break comprises 17 percent of the overall social media population, but jumps to 29 percent of the makeup of the population on sites talking about TV. Within these age groups it’s interesting to note that, the difference in percentages across ethnic backgrounds remains relatively unchanged for African Americans, Asian, Hispanic and Whites.

When are consumers discussing TV?
TV buzz closely mimics traditional ratings patterns as well as a show’s yearly cycle.

Buzz is highest on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday coinciding with days when a lot of major shows air. TV buzz drops off on the weekend and increases once again as the middle of the week approaches.

Research shows that TV buzz nears its high during September, right before a show premieres and during its initial month. Conversations taper off slightly over the ensuing months, but increase again in January with the introduction of new and returning shows. TV buzz then seems to peak during April and May as consumers respond to show finales, and then dips again during the summer.

What are consumers discussing?

Consumers use social media to talk about a number of key TV-related topics such as winning (14%), voting (6%) and judging (6%), which highlight the appeal of and engagement consumers have with reality-based TV. Top genres fueling the most buzz are funny (10%), romance (8%) and drama (6%). Entertaining (11%), physical attractiveness (9%), fans (9%) and writers/creators (6%) round out the rest of top topics driving consumer discussion across social media.

For more on TV viewers getting social, download research and watch video from Nielsen’s Advertising Week presentations.

While brands performing crowdsourcing (letting consumers take over a portion of your promotional activity) via social networks have experienced positive results, the practice can also backfire, according to [pdf] a new report from WaveMetrix. Results from “Q3 2011 Benefits and Limits of a Social Media Fanbase” show that brands with an established fan base and brand image tend to get better results from social media crowdsourcing.

The report focuses on social media crowdsourcing efforts of three brands: Colgate, Nando’s, and Uniqlo. A brief summary of each effort follows.

Colgate Gets Smiles on Facebook

With its “Smile” campaign in summer 2011, CPG toothpaste brand Colgate used a dedicated Facebook page where users were encouraged to upload pictures of themselves smiling. These were then turned into large collage posters which were displayed in supermarkets, shopping malls and other point of sale locations. WaveMetrix analysis reveals that Colgate’s strategy also had a positive effect on purchase discussion, as users became 2.5 times more likely to discuss purchasing toothpaste as the campaign went on (6% of purchasers produced buzz the week of June 13 compared to 15% the week of June 27).

Moreover, the “Smile” campaign had a positive impact on brand image, as users identified Colgate with a sense of community and fun.

Nando’s Noise Needs Nourishing

In a less successful social media crowdsourcing campaign from casual dining chain Nando’s, consumers were asked what noises they make when someone says the word “Nando’s” and invited to upload video clips of their “Nando’s Noise” on the campaign website. US comedian and beat-boxer, Reggie Watts, featured in the campaign launch ad, creating a series of “Nando’s Noises” which users could then mix with their own clips on the campaign website.

Wavemetrix analysis reveals that this latest Nando’s campaign had a positive effect on consumer engagement and purchase discussion. Positivity about the “hilarious” campaign generated the most interest and consumers were led to talk positively about Nando’s products.

However, discussion surrounding the Nando’s brand is very mixed, with some consumers criticizing the campaign for not reflecting what Nando’s does, or commenting that they prefer a competing brand. This shows that crowdsourcing can leave a company with less control of how their brand is portrayed and exposed to criticism through competitor comparisons.

Uniqlo Gets Shoppers Talking

In addition to having several more traditional regional Facebook pages, Japanese clothing retailer Uniqlo also has a “Worldwide fanpage” which has garnered close to a quarter of a million Likes. Described as “a page by Uniqlo fans for Uniqlo fans,” the site fosters a community of “Uniqlovers,” with both community managers and group members acting as evangelists for the brand.

WaveMetrix social media monitoring shows that the UNIQLO fanpage is successful at prompting consumers to talk positively about the brand, stores and products. Although half of the consumers who post discussion indicate that they are current UNIQLO shoppers, the other half of consumers are engaged by the social media content, but do not discuss UNIQLO.

Buddy Media: Most Branding Posts during Work Hours

Approximately 60% of Facebook branding posts are published from 10 AM through 4 PM, indicating brands are most active with their posts during core business hours (EST),according to a study released in October 2011 by Buddy Media. Data from “Strategies for Effective Facebook Posts” reveals that after 4 PM, the number of published posts steadily decreased. However, brands that posted outside of business hours (early morning, at the finish of the work day and late at night) had engagement rates approximately 20% higher than average.

If email were a stock, would you short it?   For many that live outside the email space, there seems to be a growing sentiment that email is diminishing in value as an asynchronous engagement vehicle.   While the projection for email growth is still climbing, the nature of the business is changing in many respects.  The response proxies are declining, the performance proxies are being challenged (conversion declining) and it’s never reached the scale of media in terms of reach and frequency without negative fanfare.

Email appending is still polarizing as a “responsible” way to reach customers that you engage through other channels.  Email deliverability is a really fickle business today, with all the fraud and litter that crowds the inbox.   With that said, it’s still seen as a critical layer of every customer engagement, it will continue in the future and it’s mainstream in the eyes of most generations that are “online.”  Shorting this stock might be a bit premature, in my opinion.

Yet is it really effective?  As they say, if you don’t have the answer to the question, ask a different question. I think we’re at that point of maturation in this space that we have to ask another question:  “Is there a real value exchange with the consumer through email?” I believe email has four functional values to the consumer:

• Informational value (newsletters, publications, general information tied to interests and connectivity).
• Promotional value (extensibility to offers and brand connections where there is some reward tied to the communication).
• Social value (today it’s more than viral, it’s about relevance of the “share” function — and there are many tools to enable this today, which is why email “viral” never lived up to its press).
• Notification value (this has been somewhat minimized with SMS and other site notifications, but as long as we are driving commerce with customer online, there will be notification systems that will be leveraged.)

The problem with this, in today’s time is that the use cases have changed.

Content generation, creation, curation is less about the brand today.  It’s become so easy to search, create, publish and syndicate information as a consumer that fewer people rely on email as their sole source if content.  Does this minimize the value of email newsletters?  No, but the value is changing, and timing in many respects takes priority over content.  It used to be about sharing an article from a newsletter.  It used to be the question was “is email designed to link you to the site?” or “is email expected to be the container of the information?” Today email has notification value.

Timing is changing our use case.  Time-shifting has evolved with the device.   No longer can we consider content as static or timing static.  Our publishing standards will have to shift to simplified real-time, vs. batch personalization.  Our notion of timing will be content on demand vs. push logic.   Email will follow the ad media optimization and multimodal consumption rather than the traditional personalization view of direct response marketers of the past.  It will combine contextual, behavioral, response, location, device and an interaction index that will support personalization on-demand.

The notion of what drove the sale has never been a great science, nor has it really benefited the email channel.    I believe attribution will be defined by a weighted interaction index that will allow us to understand and project channel bias, layers and recency of interactions.  I believe the index will have “network” and “reach” values that help isolate how customers are connected in what context and the values of these connections.  Many define that as influencers.  I think it extends past the concept of an influencer and has a much more granular value:   connecter, advocate, influencer, evangelist… each have a commercial value, and the use cases for how they engage with email changes by brand/type and timing.  It won’t be fixed view.

by David Baker