Social Media

Missing the Mark on Social Media

(This post can also be found on the Lotame Learnings Blog)

A recent study came out by Knowledge Networks titled: “Internet users turn to social media to seek one another, not brands or products.” Without even looking at the numbers, I think it’s safe to bet that it is in fact true that “Internet users turn to social media to seek one another, not brands or products.” There are two parts to every statistical experiment: 1) The design and 2) the analysis. In the case of this study, it is a bit troubling to see how biased the experiment is without even reading past the title. What do you think the results would be if I put out a report titled: “Music lovers turn to radio to seek music, not brands or products”, or “Movie lovers turn to movie theaters to seek great new movies, not brands or products.”

The reason marketers are so concerned with “Social Media” is because they realize that this is where users spend most of their time. This is where they “seek one another” to connect, engage, and share (in many cases about brands and products). According to a report from The Nielsen company, which, was distributed at San Francisco Ad tech:

“The Internet remains a place of continuing innovation, with users finding new ways to integrate online usage into their daily lives,” said Charles Buchwalter, SVP, Research and Analytics, Nielsen Online. “In recent years the Internet has changed dramatically as people seek more personalized relationships online. In particular, time spent on social networks and video sites has increased astronomically. Advertisers are starting to positively re-assess the value of the online experience and create more meaningful relationships with consumers.”

And this data cannot be ignored.

Some major highlights from the Global Online Media Landscape report (pdf) regarding online video and social networks:

  • The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339% since 2003. The unique audience for online video surpassed that of email in November 2007.

  • Time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000% over the same period.
  • In the past year, unique viewers of online video grew 10%, the number of streams grew 41%, the streams per user grew 27% and the total minutes engaged with online video grew 71%.
  • There are 87% more online social media users now than in 2003, with 883% more time devoted to those sites.
  • In the past year, time spent on social networking sites has surged 73%.
  • In February 2009, social network usage exceeded web-based e-mail usage for the first time:

It is a marketer’s job to penetrate the most popular mediums, and make their brands or products visible in the most efficient fashion. In today’s world, Social Media is the most popular medium and it is stillgrowing. So indeed, while users go to Social Media to “seek more personalized relationships“, it will still be a marketer’s job to try and penetrate this medium in efficient and meaningful ways. If a marketer can be successful in creating brand affinities with products in social media (which Lotame has had much success in doing – one example), then everyone wins as the consumer is able to find relevancy and the marketers are able to reach their target audience.

The internet is growing up. Please welcome NYTimes to Social Media and the Social Internet

Consider this (courtesy of Wikipedia):

  • September 18, 1851 – The New York Times was founded (although originally named New-York Daily Times).Newspaper.
  • 1995 – The Times has a strong web presence and is ranked one of the top sites. The content is generated by the Times staff.
  • March, 2005 – The New York Times Website has 555 Million page views. Content is still generated by Times staff.
  • 2008 – The domain nytimes.com attracts at least 146 million visitors annually according to a Compete.com study. The Times website ranks 59th by number of unique visitors, with over 14 million unique visitors in August 2008. 
  • June, 2008 – New York Times launches a Beta version of TimesPeople allowing users to connect, share, comment, and review items and content within the NYT site. A social network within the content driven site.

From TimesPeople:

“TimesPeople is a new way to discover what other readers find interesting on NYTimes.com — and to make recommendations of your own. With TimesPeople, you can share articles, videos, slideshows, blog posts, reader comments, and ratings and reviews of movies, restaurants and hotels.”

When we say “social media”, we should really be saying the “social internet”. The internet as a whole is beginning to harness the power of profiles, user generated content, and the social graph. Websites that have traditionally been known for publishing content, are now realizing the importance of social interactions and engagement.

The consumers are the content creators. The creators are the consumers. And now, organizations that have built hugely successful businesses with content creation as its core competency, are adapting to the ever increasing demand for social interactions and collective, community based content creation/sharing.

In The Power of Profiles post by Fred Wilson:

While I am sure the people who work at the New York Times think of themselves as a content company first and foremost, what goes on at the New York TImes website is as much about software as it is about content. And slowly but surely the Times online is becoming social software. That’s a big deal.

The internet is growing up. We are all adopting and evolving with the changing times. Please welcome The New York Times to Social Media and the Social Internet.

NOTE: This article can also be found @ LotameLearnings

Google and Social Networking

Until now, Google has been trying to identify efficient advertising solutions for social media.

And rightfully so.

Social media has become the premier medium for communication and media, and over the past few years, Google has arguably become the face of the internet.

So Google figuring out the social networking issue is a logical and expected event. The only question is, what would such a solution look like?

In a recent BusinessWeek article, Heather Green discusses such a solution:

“Say there’s a group of basketball fans who spend a lot of time checking out each other’s pages. Their profiles probably indicate that they enjoy the sport. In addition, some might sign up for a Kobe Bryant fan group or leave remarks on each others’ pages about recent games they played or watched. Using today’s standard advertising methods, a company such as Nike (NKE) would pay Google to place a display ad on a fan’s page or show a “sponsored link” when somebody searches for basketball-related news. With influence-tracking, Google could follow this group of fans’ shared interests more closely, see which other fan communities they interact with, and—most important—learn which members get the most attention when they update profiles or post pictures.”  

While the above excerpt may not be completely reflective of Google’s new, soon to be, patented technology for “ranking the most influential people on social networking sites”, the basic premise can be understood, with the premise being:

People, actions, interests, ENGAGEMENT and INTERACTION are the most important aspects of social networking sites.

Can a company, whose core technology is based on search, truly harness the power of engagement and interaction? Possibly (and if anyone can do it, Google will).

Can a company, whose core technology is based on engagement, truly harness the power of engagement and interaction? Most definitely (and if anyone has been doing it, it has been Lotame).

NOTE: This article can also be found @ the Lotame Blog

A New Age of Online Media – The Build Up

“Here’s what’s important. We’ve allowed the way transitions look from the outside to drive our perception of what they must feel like to those going through them on the inside. From the outside, they look dramatic, almost revolutionary breakthroughs. But from the inside, they feel completely different, more like an organic development process.“-Jim Collins, Good to Great

Lotame Grabs $13 Million in Funding for New Advertising Idea

August 19, 2008 — 05:31 AM PDT — by Don Reisinger — — 13 Comments

Online advertising is the key to the future for companies that want to be successful, but a small firm called Lotame has just raised $13 million in Series B funding to take aim at advertisers and provide a unique way of getting in front of the target audience….(continue reading @ mashable.com) or at:


“Clearly, the good-to-great companies did get incredible commitment and alignment – they artfully managed change – but they never really spent much time thinking about it. It was utterly transparent to them. We learned that under the right conditions, the problems of commitment, alignment, motivation, and change just melt away. They largely take care of themselves.”-Jim Collins, Good to Great

*And if I couldn’t make it any more obvious, anyone in business or plans on entering the business world, should most certainly go out and buy Jim Collin’s book, Good to Great

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