Word Marketing Blog

Word of the Year 2009

Words are powerful.

They are communication containers of thoughts and feelings.Rudyard Kipling said that "words are the most powerful drug ever used by mankind."

I was reading a book on culture night before last and the author had a list of things which contribute to the establishment, culture and maintenance of a nation. These characteristics must be established and maintained for a nation to be maintained. His list is:

• Land and Territory
• Culture (Ideals)
• Values (standards the people live to)
• Language (common form of communication)

Language creates national unity. Language is the arranging of the communication containers we call words into streams of discernible ideas. Words and language are constantly evolving and changing. Over time, we manipulate the words and alter the language. Periods of history and events contribute to this also. "Gotta give props to you" would mean nothing to the person living in the 1940's. Why? Because "gotta give props to you is created in the future." Slang from the 1940's makes sense to us today. Words like "gobbledegook", "city slicker", "easy money", and "old hat" are common to us now because they were created in the past.

Our world is changing constantly as new technologies and forms of communication are being invented and utilized. In 2004, the word of the year was "blog".Last year, it was "overshare". Facebook has changed us in ways we won;t understand for a few years. Social media is having a tremendous impact on our lives. Some embrace it, some shun it, some are in denial.

The word of the year for this year according to Merriam-Webster? "Unfriend". The act of deleting or removing someone as a friend on a social networking site such as Facebook. Also in the running were "netbook", "hashtag" and "sexting".

Welcome to our language, "unfriend".

Isn't that an oxymoron?

 

It's a community, not a commune

More and more people over the age of 30 are discovering Social Media. Just last week a bunch of my high school friends all flocked to a post started by someone on their Facebook page about how they missed high school and all the things that went with it. Almost 50 of my old buddies posted memories, comments and jabs about the school, teachers and times. All of these people are over 40.

If you are over 40 and you mention "online community", be careful not to let your mind think of "communes" as they were in the 60's and 70's. Communes of these decades were typically counter-culture and hippie oriented.

An online community is a bunch of people interacting together. They interact via communication media such as newsletters, e-mail, IM and Social Media. Even though some of my friends had not seen me and maybe not even each other in over a decade or more, through our previous association, we were magically brought back together as an online community through the technology of Social Media.

Your Facebook friend roster is an online community, and if you are a user, you are part of all of their online communities. As Mr. Spock says, "Fascinating".

In online communities, some people stay low, preferring to be an observer, some are just beginning to engage and others are constantly adding value, while others are just adding while working out frustration of not being able to share before, they share too much, I guess we could call this ITMI (internet too much info).

Some people leave. Can you believe it? Some people will actually stop following you on Twitter or de-friend you on Facebook? Yes, they will. They are either annoyed or just disinterested. Hey, some people's interests change.Maybe the new wore off or they just don't want to make time for you anymore. They don't see the same value or participation in the community as you do.

As I told a client a while back, this is the way the world is going, will you go with it?

Communities are about connection.

A conversation leads to a connection and that connection is community.

The Social Media Question

So, are you ready to schuck all your traditional media because Social Media is now all the rage?

You might want to back up just a tad.

Lately I've heard conversations going on from managers, business owners and such that include concerns about "my ad agency does a pretty good job with my traditional advertising, but what about social media"?

In my humble view, your social media strategy should be part of your marketing and communications strategy.  I do not believe that social media should live in it's own silo.  A solid marketing department or agency will understand social media at its core and will work to involve the benefits into the overall strategy.  It's only a matter of time until the many opportunistic social media shops will either be weeded-out or acquired into larger entities.

Tweeting Men

In recent studies, women have been the prevailing dominant users of social media. In a surprise, according to a recent Harvard Business School study, men may be the driving force behind Twitter.

Women actually comprise a higher percentage of the users on Twitter (55%), men actually have more followers (15%). Even though they tweet about the same amount each day, an average man is more likely to follow another man than a woman.  A woman is 25% more likely to follow a man than a woman and the average man is 40% more likely to be followed by another man than by a woman.

Recently, Inside Facebook reported that most of the online social activity focused around women, and men follow content produced by women they know and do not know. Generally, men receive little attention from other men or women.

So there's around 300,000 Twitter users now and about 80% follow or are followed by at least one user. In other social network mediums, only about 60-65% of users have at least one friend. All you really have to do is do a search for one of your friends on Facebook, when the matches come up, look at all the people signed up under that name which have no friends connected to them.

Many people sign up for Facebook because someone has pictures they want to see and then they never use the Facebook account again.

Some other interesting things the study revealed is that Twitter’s usage patterns differ significantly from typical online social networks, where individual users tend to make more per-person contributions. On the other hand, a typical Twitter user contributes very rarely. Among Twitter users, the median number of lifetime tweets per user is one. This translates into over half of Twitter users tweeting less than once every 74 days.

Twitter helps me keep my Facebook status updates concise, since Twitter "tweets" can only be 140 characters long. I update both Twitter and Facebook simultaneously using Tweetdeck. We also use Twitter for business purposes by direct messaging each other using tweets rather than calling cell phones or texting. It's handy.

In Defense of Social Media

By Anna Lawrence:

Recently I read an article that deemed social media just another form of narcissism. While the article did shed light on how some might utilize the technology, I submit that anything - quite frankly everything - can be misused or simply extreme-itized.

In defense of social media, I would like to share what I am witnessing as many practical, and profitable, uses.

• Eric says he's bad with names; he now uses Facebook to follow up on potential clients and prospects - adding more "face time" as well as some personality insights

• Kat uses Facebook to build relationships with new friends, which has lead to several new clients

• Troy uses Facebook to research potential clients, helping him to establish rapport quicker in initial meetings

• Kyle uses Twitter to promote weekly specials to his loyal followers, thus improving his customer appreciation factor

• Derrik uses Twitter to send daily industry tips to current and potential clients - talk about top of mind

• And I'm using Facebook to recycle this blog - just another way to market myself and my company

Don't disregard social media as simply a tool for narcissists or something the "kids" use to intermingle. If you'd like to know more about how it could help your business, we can help.

Word of Mouth Light Speed

by Anna Lawrence:

So you already know that the degree to which a bad experience is shared is equal to the degree of the frustration experienced. And you also know that the number of times a good experience is shared is equal only to how often someone asks for a recommendation for that service or business. Obviously, the two are unbalanced. But have you thought about how the rations have changed in light of new media?

A friend of mine got really upset with a business she felt treated her unprofessionally. When she couldn;t get the response she was seeking, she posted the situation on Facebook. Now think - how many friends do you have on Facebook? And how many friends do they have?

Word of mouth has increased to light speed. Do whatever it takes to keep customers happy, and make the ratios work in your favor.

Twitter...pated?

By Anna Lawrence:

In my ongoing investigation of the world of social media, I have recently begun to explore the phenomena of Twitter. Just when I thought Facebook was hard to figure out...

There are many mixed thoughts about whether or not to "Tweet" (the act of using Twitter in Twitter terms). Some find it trivial, others feel it has marketing potential and some find it just plain creepy. One friend said "all I know is that I'm following some people and some people are following me. Frankly, I feel like a stalker being stalked."

But the truth of the matter is that no matter what you think about Twitter, or whether or not you choose to participate. Twitter, Facebook and other social media are not going away. (And in fact, there are some marketing opportunities here.)

We all know the world continues to change, and the pace just keeps on growing. Take some time to familiarize yourself with how the next generation is communicating. You may find some surprising opportunities that aren't nearly as hard to navigate as you previously thought.

And if you need some help along the way, we'd be glad to provide some.

What's the deal with Twitter?

We have a running joke in our office.

People are following me on Twitter, and I'm not doing anything!

This week, I'm going to do something on Twitter. What? I'm not sure. DJ, one of our Associate Partners sent me a document I've read this weekend and so now I'm ready to do something with Twitter. I've been signed up for a while...even have some people "following me", but I haven't used it.

Twitter is the newest phenomenon.

A recent survey from MarketingProfs, LLC finds that a larger number of tweeters are doing it because they want to learn new things and get information quickly.

The study, which was conducted earlier this month among 425 Twitter users, set out to discover exactly why people use Twitter and how they feel about their participation and experiences with the site. It found that tweeters spend an average of 2 ¾ hours per day using Twitter.

Interestingly, there is does not appear to be one standout reason why people use Twitter, the research found. Rather, there are a variety of economic, learning and social motivations.

When tweeters were asked to rate the reasons why they participate, on a scale from 1 to 5 (with 1=strongly disagree and 5=strongly agree), MarketingProfs calculated the following averages for each of the responses:

• “I find it exciting to learn new things from people”: Average score 4.65
• “I value getting information in a timely manner”: Average score 4.58
• “I like to be connected to lots of people”: Average score 3.91
• “I want to generate new business”: Average score 3.70
• “I find it gratifying to have people follow me”: Average score 3.64

The findings show that the highest number of respondents are motivated by learning new things and getting information in a timely manner.

Key findings:

• The mean of responses for both questions was the same: 2.74 (on the same 1-5 scale).
• In the case of both questions, only about 16-17% of Twitter users have strong feelings - one way or the other (”strongly agree” or “strongly disagree”) - about the etiquette of following/reciprocity.
• The remainder of respondents are roughly equally divided among “neither agree or disagree,” “mildly agree,” and “mildly disagree” answer choices.

If you are a Twitter user, I'd be interested to hear from you:

• What do you like best about it?
• What makes it fun?
• What are the best uses for you?
• How does it make you feel?

It's Monday, let's have a great week!

Facebook Stats

Who says Facebook is only for the younger demographic consumer. This latest research shows that women over the age of 55 are taking Facebook by storm!

The number of US women over age 55 using Facebook grew by 175.3% since September 2008, making mature females one of the fastest growing demographic groups on the social network, according to usage statistics released by independent blog Inside Facebook.

The number of men over age 55 also grew dramatically during the same four-month period (up 137.8%), but women over 55 still outnumber men in this age group by almost two-to-one.

Key Facebook stats as of Feb. 1, 2009, from Inside Facebook:

• There are 45.3 million active US Facebook users.
• The number of Facebook users are growing in every age/gender demographic.
• Facebook use among women is growing faster than among men in nearly every age group.
• The fastest growing age group by total users is 26-34-year-olds; 45% of Facebook’s US audience is now 26 years old or older.

Older Users Fuel US Audience Growth

Facebook’s US audience has continued to grow in recent months, fueled primarily by those ages 26+, said Inside Facebook. In particular, the network has rapidly gained popularity in the US with people 45+, growing by more than 165% among both men and women in the last four months.

Women Outnumber Men

Overall, women (56.2%) on Facebook in the US outnumber men in every age group. This number is up from 54.3% late last year.

   

Nearly Half of Users over Age 26

Overall, 45% of Facebook’s 45.3 million active users in the US are now age 26 or older, and nearly a quarter are over age 35.

Teens now make up about 12% of the overall Facebook audience, according to Inside Facebook.  Facebook does not publish data on users under 13, because the terms of service require all users be at least 13 years old to join.