Fast Company: The Business Guide to Facebook Part 1: Your Brand Page for the Social Web

Originally Posted in Fast Company by Brian Solis 

Facebook is, at the moment, the most important social network in the world. Over 500 million people connect to one another in the "Social Network." And, with the introduction of the Open Graph, we are interacting with our Facebook connections on our favorite websites where our social graph and the corresponding activity of Likes, interaction, and commentary become the centerpiece for social curation and more importantly, our focused attention. We are putting our social network to work and we are learning how to share, discover, and collaborate in public.

Brands, regardless of size and focus, are converging on Facebook where the idea of connecting with customers and prospects represents a potential boon for both earning relevance in a new domain as well as expanding overall reach. Facebook is a sparkplug for word of mouth and when engaged, contributes to the end of business as usual and the beginning of social commerce. If fact, the top 10 brands on Facebook today host over 100 million "Likes" on Facebook.

The Top 10 Brands by Population (Rounded Out)

1. Starbucks--16 million
2. Coca-Cola--15 million
3. Oreo--12 million
4. Skittles--11.5 million
5. Red Bull--10.2 million
6. Victoria's Secret--8.4 million
7. Disney--8.3 million
8. Converse All Star--7.3 million
9. iTunes--7 million
10. Windows Live Messenger--6.8 million

With that said ...

By This Time Next Year

By this time next year, you as a brand or as a brand representative, will spend more time and resources on Facebook than you will on Twitter.

Allow me to clarify this statement as it's easy to misread. My sentiment is merely a reflection of the maturation of the social web and the commitment and attention required to cultivate communities, inspire advocacy, and foster engagement. Facebook and Twitter are unique in their design and their culture and each offer distinguishing opportunities for businesses. As such, they demand a dedicated focus, strategy, and approach.

Twitter is important and essential to learning, engaging, and cultivating customer communities. I believe that Twitter is your window to relevance, both understanding how to identify and earn it.

Facebook, as both a network and a platform, is unlocking new and important connections between people, brands, content, and data. The technical and creative aspects of what Facebook is capable of facilitating on behalf of your business and the people who define your markets, requires indoctrination. And, once we explore the culture and technical advantages of Facebook Connect, Likes, and the scope and possibilities of the open graph, we get an idea of the deepening emphasis required to transform Facebook from a "Fan Page" to a bona fide brand page, creating nothing less than a social epicenter for business.

If Twitter is your window to relevance, Facebook is your focal point for the social web.

Nothing goes without saying here. It is also important for you to invest in learning about where, when, and how your social consumer engages with peers as they most likely connect in other networks beyond Facebook and Twitter. It was after all, the inspiration for the Conversation Prism. Facebook is just one, albeit pivotal, pillar in your socialized business strategy.

The State of The Facebook

With over 500 million active users, Facebook is by far one of the most important networks in the world. 5o% of those active users log on to Facebook in any given day. And in total, people spend over 700 billion minutes per month posting, sharing, Liking, commenting, poking, playing games, and interacting with one another as well as the content and applications that define the pervasive social ecosystem.

The average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events and creates 90 pieces of content (social objects) each month. If you follow Zuckerberg's Law, then we will double the amount of content we share every year. When combined, the numbers are staggering. More than 30 billion social objects (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) are shared each month. Facebook is a vortex for content.

Everyday individuals on Facebook maintain a social graph of 130 people, which is in line with Robin Dunbar's theory (Dunbar's number) of the maximum number of relationships we can effectively manage. However, with suggested friends, I believe that number will push us to expand our networks from relationships (strong ties) to relations (focused, weak, and temporary ties). I call this Social Graph Theory. And much like Zuckerberg's Law, Social Graph Theory suggests that the size of our network will grow, but more importantly, become much more complex, yet focused. We will maintain relationships, but also expand into a thinner form of relations that include interest graphs, nicheworks (contextual networks) and temporary connections. What's important for businesses to realize, is that individuals now maintain peer networks that resemble engaged audiences where interests are the axis of conversational rotation.

Brands are increasingly globalizing and Facebook scales with the reach that they need. Currently over 70 translations are available and more than 70% of all Facebook denizens reside outside of the United States. And more than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries support Facebook as a "platform" with greater than one million websites integrating Facebook sharing, liking and visualized social graph features into content discovery and consumption. So, what does that mean? Integrate Facebook functionality into your online properties (in addition to other relevant social presences of course). Two-thirds of comScore's U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore's Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook.

And what of mobile?

Smart phones are the new sub-tablet so to speak. There are as many active users accessing Facebook on their mobile device as there are active users of Twitter. And that's a powerful statement. Today 150 million people access Facebook actively and they're twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users.

May I Have Your Intention Please?

Many brands underestimate Facebook and what's truly required to attract and captivate the social consumer. In my research, I find that a significant number of brands focus their efforts primarily on Twitter, treating Facebook as an afterthought. Rather than engage in each community with purpose and dedication, examples are abundant where companies are simply syndicating tweets to Facebook rather than updating each network individually. When people reply on Facebook, representatives are usually unaware as they're mostly monitoring Twitter responses rather than Facebook. In these cases, Facebook becomes a graveyard for tweets instead of a community where likes are earned and conversations are fostered. After all, how do we expect to trigger the social effect without investing time and attention in the people who define the very social graphs we're hoping to engage and activate?

Facebook success is defined by our investment of time, resources, energy and creativity. In other words, we get out of it what we put into it. In Facebook, it's not just about who we're connected to, it's about those we're not. What started as "Fans" has evolved to "Likes" and in that simple shift in phraseology comes something quite profound. "Fans" implies a hierarchical relationships where brands publish at will to a community that feels a bit more like a traditional audience. "Likes" begets a linear form of relationships where we earn the endorsement of a social consumer, but in order to foster a community, we have to continue to do so. This introduces a peer-to-peer (P2P) dynamic where rather than program our Facebook activity from a top-down perspective, we now have to consider an active participatory role in earning Likes, attention, and hopefully advocacy much more frequently than we may have anticipated initially.

Likes become a form of social currency and contribute to the overall social capital earned by a brand within Facebook.

In February 2010, market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey along with iModerate Research Technologies, surveyed over 1,500 individuals online as well as conducted one-on-one discussions to contextualize social media behavior. Their research shows us that social commerce and quite specifically, F-commerce (Facebook Commerce) is bursting at the seams.

Since actions speak louder than words, the study sought to answer the question of whether or not engagement actually leads to purchases. The answer is yes. An impressive 51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers indicated that they are more likely to buy since connecting online.

Success begins with a plan, which serves as a roadmap to reach customers and those who influence them. On the road to success, it is wise to refer to the map routinely to ensure that we stay on course. Doing so, reminds us why we're here in the first place.

The roles of the social consumer are distinct and the reasons for connecting with a brand are equally diversified. It's our job to cater to each segment to earn their Likes and attention now and over time.

 

On Facebook, existing customers topped the list with 49%. Following with 42%, consumers felt compelled to show support for the brand. In third with 40%, individuals admitted that they hoped to receive discounts and promotions.

Other stats worth mentioning, 27% and 26% of respondents stated that they would like to be among the first to know information about the brand and also to gain access to exclusive content respectively. And, 17% claimed that they were referred to the page by someone that they knew, which already demonstrates word of mouth at work.

Facebook is changing the way we think about business, customers and community and as such, there's much to learn. Everything begins at the beginning and together, we will earn relevance and expand business opportunities in a new social marketplace one Like at a time.

 

Reprinted from BrianSolis.com

Brian Solis is the author of Engage and is one of most provocative thought leaders and published authors in new media. A digital analyst, sociologist, and futurist, Solis's research and ideas have influenced the effects of emerging media on the convergence of marketing, communications, and publishing. Follow him on Twitter @BrianSolis and at BrianSolis.com.

 

 

Originally Posted in Fast Company by Brian SolisMon Oct 25, 2010

eMarketer: How Effective Is Sharing via Email vs. Social Media?

High click rates for social media don’t tell the full story

Originally published in eMarketer.

According to Chadwick Martin Bailey, three-quarters of web users say they are likely to share pieces of content with their friends and family, an activity brands are watching closely in their attempts to leverage the influence of brand advocates.

In a statistic that has been backed up by other studies, including the August one by CMB, SocialTwist reported email was the most common channel used to share content via the company's Tell-a-Friend widget, accounting for more than half of all referrals. Social networks made up fewer than a quarter of shares.

 

But shares on social networks had outsize importance in terms of clicks: 60% of clicks generated on shared items came from social networks, compared with just 31% from email.

 

One reason for the imbalance is the undeniably high clickthrough rates for shared content on social sites. Links posted to Facebook via the Tell-a-Friend widget generated an average of 2.87 clicks each. Twitter shares did even better, with an average of 19.04 users clicking each referral link.

But email may be performing better than it seems at first glance. Emails sent through the Tell-a-Friend widget include the full piece of content in the message, so users don't need to click through to the original site to read the item that a friend thought was interesting enough to send. Facebook and Twitter users, by contrast, must click through to read more than a blurb.

For many sources of content, the clickthrough is key: When visitors click through to the originating site it opens up the possibility of ad revenues as well as the ability to build awareness and purchase intent while the user is on an owned-media property. But email recipients who read the content shared without clicking through will still get the benefit of an earned-media recommendation. Brands should ensure that shareable content carries a message on its own that will remain effective when read through an email client, since such messages remain the primary sharing vehicle for consumers.

Earlier research similarly showed that email shares had a lower click rate than items sent through Twitter or Facebook, but email shares led to more engagement, including more pages viewed and, most important, more conversions.

eMarketer: Shoppers Take a Nonlinear Path to Purchase

Journey is complex and multidirectional

A lingering recession, coupled with consumers’ rapid adoption of digital tools, has inexorably altered shopping behavior in categories like groceries, home electronics, apparel and quick-service restaurants. Consumers engage with a variety of digital platforms as they research small and large purchases, when they’re in physical stores and during post-shop activities such as product reviews and referrals. Further, the path to purchase is increasingly nonlinear, according to the findings of a global retail study conducted by Microsoft Advertising and Carat.

The study, conducted in March 2010, examined how the recession has changed shoppers’ purchasing habits and how different media touchpoints affect consumer shopping behavior, including the way people learn about, research and discuss their purchase decisions. This shift has altered the traditional purchase funnel whereby marketers move consumers from awareness to sales to include digital media. For example, consumers may first learn about a product based on a tweet from a friend or a post on a social network, then go online via computer or smartphone to research the product, search for the product and consult product reviews. Beyond that, offline word-of-mouth and media remain influencers, making for a complex multimedia experience along the path to purchase.

Using mobile devices in-store to help make a final decision on an item is a newer and notable influence along the purchase path: The study found 38% of US shoppers said they used their mobile devices to help make a final decision to make a store purchase. And 31% of those polled purchased a new item after using their phone in-store. This finding signifies the rise of yet another media channel in the convoluted path to purchase.



 

Further demonstrating the need for brands and retailers to evaluate the impact of digital touchpoints, the study found that post-shop, 11% of those blogged about the purchase experience, posted a comment about the purchase on a social networking site and 11% posted a review online, respectively.

In addition, the research found that in the low-involvement grocery segment, 39% of those surveyed engaged in social network conversation about potential purchases but 47% of grocery reconnaissance occurred on the phone with friends and family. It is worth noting that not all social networking is digital.

 

Another study, “Engaging Consumers: The New Normal,” conducted by Chadwick Martin Bailey, iModerate Research Technologies and SageBerry Consulting, underscores the findings. That report found that since consumers have reduced spending, the shopping process becomes all the more important. The bottom line: Entirely new shopping, research and media consumption habits are emerging—and retailers and brands need to figure out how to address them.

“We found that the way people shop has changed and that during the period where people are making and refining lists, owned media from retailers is a top source of information,” said Beth Uyenco Shatto, global research director with Microsoft's ads unit.

By “owned” Shatto means media that originates from retailers online, in-store and elsewhere. Owned media created by marketers that appears on the retailer’s site (e.g., banners, video and microsites), along with in-store media, are also influential.

As consumer purchasing habits change, so must retailer and marketer communications. They need to collaborate to engage consumers on every channel that has the capacity to influence purchase and result in post-purchase satisfaction.

NY Times: Email Tops Facebook for 'Keeping In Touch'? Not For Long

By MIKE MELANSON of  Read Write Web

Sometimes, I read a piece of news and I wonder to myself if I'm on the bleeding edge of what's coming next or if I'm running miles behind the pack. Reading an article by eMarketer this morning that says that email still wins out over Facebook for "keeping in touch" has me wondering yet again where I stand.

According a survey conducted by Chadwick Martin Bailey, 86% of people use email to "share content", while just 49% said they use Facebook. As you might imagine, however, this is a stat that's strongly split between age groups.

Only the youngest age demographic, 18-24 year-olds, uses Facebook more than email to share content, with Facebook getting 76% and email getting 70%. The next age group, the 25-34 year-olds, are close with the two services flipped - Facebook gets 70% and email gets 78%. From there, the two services split more and more and the age increases, with 97% of those over 65 using email and just 24% using Facebook.

When I first read the headline my reaction, as I noted above, was a sort of "who are these people?" questioning, followed by a moment of self-doubt. As Techmeme editor Mahendra Palsule notes, the real battle is not between Facebook and Google, but Facebook and email, and if you're wondering who's going to win out, "Just ask the 18-24 year olds."

I couldn't tell you a single friend's email address, but I have more than 700 of them easily accessible from my Facebook account... and that number doesn't even compare to those 18- to 24-year olds. Don't get me wrong, email has its place and the whole "death of email" thread can be a bit overplayed, but when I think of sharing something non-work-related, its to Facebook I go.

As Palsule points out, email is inherently private and not really an area Facebook will endeavor to invest in - without social context, your content is a burden and a drain on its resources. The future, indeed, is in public sharing, tagging your friends in status updates, and one-off Facebook messages. The future is not searching through address books full of old, non-functioning email addresses that your friends abandoned because they became overrun with spam.

eMarketer: Email Still Tops Facebook for Keeping in Touch

Only 18- to 24-year-olds use the social networking site more than email for passing items on

Originally published emarketer.

Content-sharing has become a staple of internet usage for most online adults. Research from Chadwick Martin Bailey found that three-quarters of web users are likely to share content with friends and family, and nearly half do so at least once a week. But while much social networking content is built around such shared items, most people still prefer to use email to pass along items of interest.

Overall, 86% of survey respondents said they used email to share content, while just 49% said they used Facebook. Broken down by age, the preference for email is more pronounced as users get older. And only the youngest group polled, those ages 18 to 24, reverses the trend, with 76% sharing via Facebook, compared with 70% via email.

 

Earlier research from StrongMail and ShareThis also found email was still on top for content-sharing. Other studies have shown that, when limited to sharing on social sites, Facebook is No. 1.

Asked what gets them to share content online, web users polled by Chadwick Martin Bailey revealed selfish motivations. Rather than focusing on sharing content they thought the recipients would find helpful or relevant (58%), most respondents cared more about what they thought was interesting or amusing (72%). Asked to select the single biggest reason they shared content, the greatest percentage of respondents (45%) again said it was because they enjoyed it. Men and women reported similar reasons for sharing, but motivations varied by age. The oldest respondents cared more about the value of content to recipients: 67% of those ages 55 and older said they shared items because they would be useful to recipients, compared with just 45% of 18- to 24-year-olds.

 

This difference in sharing motivation could have a relationship to the method of sharing. Email is a more targeted form of sending content; while content-sharers may shoot off mass emails to large distribution lists, most email shares are likely sent to a person or small group selected based on the specific content being shared.

Sharing via social networks like Facebook, by contrast, typically involves feeding items to an entire friends list. The youngest users, who care the least about whether the recipients of their content actually want to see it, are also most likely to disseminate the information to the widest group. And the seniors and older boomers who find the recipients' needs more important dramatically favor email for sharing, suggesting they are sending relevant items to only those who will want them.

American Medical News: Consumers look to insurers to lower health care costs

As Published in American Medical News

One analyst calls it "funny and surprising" that insurance companies are expected to help policyholders wade through the health system reform law.

By Emily Berry, amednews staff. Posted Oct. 4, 2010.

A consumer survey shows that more people expect health insurers, rather than physicians, to help them sort through the health system reform law and lower the cost of health care.

"We were surprised about how high expectations were for insurers to play the role of an educator, and also for them to be accountable to lower costs. It's really health insurers here who consumers are looking to make a difference," said J. Mark Carr, managing partner of South Street Strategy Group, a consulting firm affiliated with Chadwick Martin Bailey, a Boston-based market research agency that conducted the survey.

The company surveyed 1,504 adults, who reflected the demographics of the country in terms of age, level of education and race. Given a list of groups to choose from (they could pick more than one), 61% of respondents said insurers should be responsible for educating the public about health care reform. Only government was chosen more often, at 74%.

"This represents both an opportunity and a challenge for insurers to step out and be more of a leader, educator, a trusted adviser to the consumer -- or not, and miss expectations," Carr said. "Not all health insurers have embraced that role, but there's an opportunity to move forward and be proactive."

Asked who should be responsible for lowering health care costs, 75% selected health insurers, higher than any other choice.

By contrast, 34% said medical professionals should provide information about reform, and 41% said doctors and nurses should be responsible for lowering health care costs.

That may not mean everyone trusts health insurers more than physicians, however. In a follow-up interview, one unnamed respondent said: "Medical professionals are a more trustworthy source and should understand more about what they will and will not do as a result of reform. ... If a patient asks a doctor, 'Is a death panel going to kill me because you tell them I'm ill?' the doctor can say, 'No, that's ridiculous.' "

Given that the reform law mainly reforms the insurance market, it's possible consumers believe insurers are going to be the best reference for what is changing, said Tim Lee, principal and consulting actuary in the Houston office of the consulting firm Milliman. "Nobody in any industry understands it better than people who work in the insurance industry."

Robert Zirkelbach, spokesman for the health insurance trade group America's Health Insurance Plans, said insurers have done what they can to help lower the cost of care, including creating disease management programs, providing incentives to take generic drugs and investing in health information technology.

Lee called the survey results about who should reduce costs "a combination of funny and surprising."

He said there could be a couple of explanations for so many people saying insurers should take responsibility for cutting health care costs: One is that they may remember insurers' success at cutting costs in the heyday of managed care in the 1990s, and they are willing to see some of those methods return.

Lee said consumers will require a great deal of education to remain open to changes that might keep them from seeing the doctor of their choice or create more hoops for their doctors to jump through.

"Ultimately, it's going to be up to the doctor, the hospital and the consumer to control the cost," he said.

But it might be giving the public too much credit to think they are ready for insurers to bring back tightly managed care, Lee said. It's possible that consumers are considering only their own insurance premiums when it comes to health care costs: "What they may be thinking is, 'Health care costs are manifested in my premium rate ... so clearly the health insurance company must be responsible.' "

The print version of this content appeared in the Oct. 11 issue of American Medical News.

 

 ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: 

Consumers seek reform help

Responses to an online survey of 1,504 adults suggest that some consumers feel lost when it comes to health system reform but place responsibility for education and cost control on health insurers rather than physicians.

How knowledgeable are you about health reform issues?
Not at all knowledgeable	30%
Somewhat knowledgeable	50%
Knowledgeable	19%
Which of these groups should be responsible for providing the most information about health reform? *
Government	74%
Health insurance companies	61%
Employers	43%
Medical professionals	34%
News media	31%
Hospital and clinic administration	30%
Pharmaceutical companies	14%
I don't think it's anyone's responsibility	3%
Which of these groups should be most responsible for lowering health care costs? *
Health insurance companies	75%
Pharmaceutical companies	54%
Hospital and clinic administration	49%
Government agencies	46%
Medical professionals	41%
Elected officials	31%
Consumers/public	25%
Employers	19%
Voters	17%
Other	2%
I don't think anyone should be responsible	2%

* Respondents could offer more than one answer.

Source "AMerican Consumers Uncertain About Health Reform," Chadwick Martin Bailey and South Street Strategy Group, September (www.cmbinfo.com/news/press-center/most-consumers-feel-helpless-in-lowering-healthcare-costs)

MarketingProfs: Email and Facebook Dominate Sharing of Online Content

Email is still a key component of digital marketing: 49% of consumers share content online at least once a week, with most of it shared via email (86%) and Facebook (49%), according to a study from Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies. Just 4% of surveyed consumers share content via Twitter and 2% do so via LinkedIn.

Among those age 18-24, Facebook (76%) is the most popular way to share online content, followed by email (70%), while 11% of such consumers say they share content via Twitter.

Among consumers age 35 and over, email is the primary vehicle for sharing content online (93%).

Entertainment is the primary reason people share content: 72% of consumers say they share content because it's interesting or entertaining, 58% do so because they think the recipient might value the content, and 58% say they share content to get a laugh.

Overall, branded and unbranded content are viewed similarly: 58% of consumers say it doesn't matter—they share both types of content, whereas 14% say they are more likely to share branded content and 10% say they are less likely to share branded content.

The top 5 types of content that consumers like to share are the following:

1. News about a family member or friends: 81%
2. Family pictures or video: 80%
3. Funny videos: 63%
4. Coupons/discount: 54%
5. News articles and blog posts (e.g., CNN, NY Times): 53%

About the data: Findings are from a study of 1,504 US adults age 18+, conducted by Chadwick Martin Bailey during the week of August 23, 2010.