By Amy Slife

Social media novices and companies who have yet to enter the space might be the first to say the social sharing medium is a fad, but the growth numbers for many social media platforms should show anyone questioning the staying power of social media otherwise. According to a Nielsen survey of February 2010 social networking usage across 10 countries, the average time a person spends on social sites is five and a half hours per month. Of the countries surveyed, Italy landed in the top spot with just shy of 6 and a half hours per person and Japan fell at the bottom of the list with 2 hours and 37 minutes per person being spent on social networks. (The U.S. landed third with a hair over 6 hours per person.) You might think 5.5 hours a month spent on social networks doesn’t sound like much given the average 31 day month is 744 hours long, but the kicker is that globally we’re spending 2 hours more a month on social media than we did last year.

This blog post will dive into social media usage stats for four popular social networking platforms that show social media is here to stay. If you’ve been working to convince your C-suite that social media is a key element to have in your marketing mix, some of these numbers might assist you doing just that. Is there one social network that you tend to use more than others or you think has greater sticking power? Share with us in the comments below!

Facebook

With its 400 million users logging onto the site at least once a month, and with 50% of those users logging on every day, Facebook is squashing its social network competition. According to the same Nielsen survey mentioned above, Facebook is the social network destination worldwide. It accounts for almost 6 hours per user session across the globe and the average user logs on 19 times a month. According to a Facebook fact filled infographic, which you can see in its entirety here, 70% of Facebook users live outside the U.S. and it’s the second most trafficked website, behind Google. Facebook’s lead in the social media market and plethora of new features, elements and redesigns being added each year illustrate its stronghold in today’s environment and many brand marketing mixes around the world.

YouTube

YouTube turned 5 this month, and Sunday, via the official YouTube blog announced that the platform has surpassed two billion views per day. Now if my math is right, that’s over 83 million views per hour. That’s a lot of YouTube video watching going on around the planet. For an even more convincing YouTube stat, the two billion views per day, according to the post, is about double the audience for the three major TV networks in the U.S. during prime-time TV hours. Another interesting stat, as of a March 2010 article, states that 24 hours of video is uploaded every minute. Not only can the average Joe upload their own YouTube video, but it’s a place for companies and brands to house and share their own viral video content. Five years strong already, YouTube seems to be illustrating true social media sticking power.

Twitter

Our 140 character-only social media network experienced similar significant growth in its early days, much like foursquare’s recent growth (see below for more on foursquare!). According to a report on Twitter usage as detailed here, Twitter’s awareness level is now on par with that of Facebook, as such 87% of Americans are aware of Twitter, and only 5% were aware in 2008. While it’s safe to say the majority of Americans are aware of Twitter, only 7% of the population is using this social network. While this population usage rate seems nil in comparison to that of behemoth network Facebook, some specifics on who that 7% consists of might surprise you and encourage your brand to jump on board with Twitter. The study found that Twitter users are more likely to live in higher income households and are also more likely to be following brands on Twitter versus on other social media networks. This in itself might encourage your brand to jump on this network to spread the word, assist with customer service and offer promotions.

foursquare

Location-based social networking platforms, like foursquare, are the newest kids on the block, but I think it can be said that location-based social media is the way of the social media future. In last Tuesday’s blog post, 4 Reasons to Foursquare, I mentioned how other social networks like Twitter have added options for location-based tweets, and that Facebook is rumored to soon be launching their own version; location, location, location is the direction the social media world is moving. The company that seems to be doing it right so far, and growing at some pretty incredible rates, is foursquare. On Monday, foursquare tweeted that’s they’re averaging 600,000 check-ins per day, and earlier this month it was 40 million check-ins total, up from 22 million check-ins five weeks prior; that’s almost double digit growth in just over a month. In late April foursquare hit the 1 million registered user mark, growth that was encouraged by the 100,000 accounts that were created in the 10 days of SXSW. With other networks jumping on the location-based bandwagon, it’s safe to say the popularity of foursquare’s fun check-in based social networking platform has tapped into a new social market that’s going to continue to grow and spread throughout the social media world.

By Jenna Lebel

We constantly commend companies for their social media effort stating that they “get it.” But some companies (and people) just don’t get it. And part of the reason they don’t get it is because they don’t understand it. I’ve been in several meetings that have turned into a social media 101 because of the audience’s lack of education. Here I’ve compiled a list of FAQs about social media to help quickly educate the social media novice.

Do you have other questions you want answered? Or do you have better answers to the questions listed? Share them in the comments section below!

Who is social media for?

We believe strongly that it can be for everyone. With the variety of social media platforms available, there is something out there for everyone.

Where do I start?

Before starting anywhere, know what’s already out there. Search for mentions of your company, brand or products not only on Google, but also on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and all other social networks to see what people are saying about you. Next, reserve your brand name. Even if you aren’t yet ready to invest, it’s worthwhile to reserve the name of your brand/company/product on all social sites. When you are ready to invest time and resources, where do you start? With thousands of social networking sites and tools available to businesses and people, it’s daunting to jump in the game.  We’ve given you 5 places to start here, but really we think no matter where you start, you’ll see the benefits.

Why does my company need it? What is the benefit?

Your company needs it because your customers and prospects are already there, waiting to talk to you. You can either join the conversation, or let them talk about you and your competitors (the good, the bad and the ugly) without responding. Beyond that, it is low-cost marketing compared to traditional media vehicles such as TV, radio, print, etc. It can help all aspects of your company (detailed below). And above all, if done well, social media marketing is word of mouth, on steroids. Surely your business has grown thanks to referrals and positive word of mouth. Now imagine your happiest client sharing how much they loved working with you with 100 Facebook friends, Twitter followers or LinkedIn connections. If this doesn’t answer your question about the benefits of social media, this certainly will.

How can I use it?

There are a number of ways to use it, the most basic being to connect, engage and share a dialogue with your current and potential customers. As I said earlier, it can benefit all aspects of your company. You can leverage social media to gain insightful consumer feedback.  You can use it to create a foundation to mitigate crises. You can extend your customer service model to social media and use it to actively address service issues. You can use it as a sales tool. You can use it for recruitment. Basically, you can use it to serve any need that your business might have.

How do I build relationships with fans?

Engage. Provide value. Acknowledge. Reward. Be human!

How is it different from other messages I’m putting out on my website and elsewhere?

Unlike traditional marketing messages, social media allows for two-way communication. Essentially, you’re able to have a dialogue with your audience. Instead of talking at them, you can talk with them.

How do you measure it?

This is a great question, one that is often asked by people who do get it. It first depends on what you’re looking to measure. Each platform is different and there are a number of great tools to measure success on each. Facebook has its own built-in analytics, Facebook Insights, which measures user exposure, actions and behavior relating to your fan page. So if you’re looking to measure the activity level and overall performance of your page, Facebook Insights does this for you. There are a number of free and per cost tools to measure conversation, interaction and success across all social networks. If you’re looking to measure ROI or a direct link to sales, it can be done. This Mashable guide explains (better than I can) how to properly measure social media ROI.

by Devin Sugameli

Late last year, our CEO Dave Kerpen vlogged about Twitter’s ability to connect celebrities to their fans, specifically citing a tweet from iCarly’s Miranda Cosgrove to his daughter as well as a reply from his own childhood celebrity crush, Alyssa Milano. Dave’s enthusiasm stemmed from the idea that Twitter makes it pretty easy for celebrities to acknowledge their fans on an individual basis. More efficient than handwritten answers to fan mail, a simple tweet from a fan’s favorite idol might make just as big an impact and help fans to feel closer to the celebrities they follow.

But what about the benefits for celebrities? Yesterday, Lady Gaga showed us all that social media likewise gives fans the power to make an impact on even the busiest of their favorite stars. This past weekend, YouTube user and Lady Gaga fan Ryan James Yezak posted a 10-minute fan compilation titled “Happy Birthday Lady Gaga Biggest Fan Made Video Ever” featuring clips from over 120 fans wishing Lady Gaga a Happy Birthday. He posted his call for entries on YouTube last month, giving fellow YouTubers and Gaga fans 2 weeks to submit their video for inclusion in the compilation. Thanks to the dedication of many a fan and twitter user tweeting the video link to @LadyGaga using the hashtag #GagaBdayVid, the singer herself noticed and viewed the video. While @LadyGaga has not been known to reply to individual fans, she did update both her Facebook fan page and Twitter account linking to the video with the following thank you:

As a huge Lady Gaga fan myself, I was really inspired and impressed by everyone in the video and of course the video creator himself for their ability to reach a rapidly rising star mid-tour and have such a genuine effect. While Gaga has long been hailed for her success across social networking and media sites like Twitter, YouTube, and Vimeo, her Happy Birthday fan video is an amazing example of the utility of social media in bringing users together to achieve a common goal – even one as simple yet seemingly impossible as sending a personal birthday wish to your favorite celebrity.

By: Shannon Aronin & Dave Kerpen

Given the buzz Pepsi’s Refresh Project generated by NOT participating in the Super Bowl and instead donating ad spend to charity, we expected the Big Game ads to be pretty heavy in social content. Overall, we were disappointed. At nearly $3 million for 30 seconds, what a waste when brands could have done a much better job building an ongoing relationship with their audience. A few Superbowl advertisers were at least using social media during the Super Bowl and talking to people about their ads. These included HomeAway.com, and the US Government Census Bureau, both on Twitter. In terms of social media integration into the ad campaign themselves, a few standout ads made the cut.

theKbuzz Presents:

Super Social Super Bowl Ad Awards

Honorable Mentions: Coca-Cola & Honda

Honda’s Squirrel ad got a lot more attention than the “Who Do You Know” ad they ran in the 3rd quarter – but it was the latter ad that featured a really short screenshot at the end of the ad, of the link: Facebook.com/Honda. While we couldn’t find anyone talking about this (and somehow we can’t even find the ad online today), we believe this was the 1st time any Super Bowl advertiser has used even a precious second to promote a Facebook Page rather than a website- a notable acievement in its own right.

We really wanted to love Coke’s ad for their Live Positively campaign. They get an A+ for effort. But somehow the execution fell flat. They had all the right ingredients: cause marketing on Facebook that donated $1 up to $250,000 to Boys & Girls Clubs of America for every Coke you shared, a sneak peek at the Super Bowl ad on Facebook, and it featured The Simpsons. We expected it to be innovative or hilarious. Instead it was just kind of cute. The “Open Happiness” tagline suggested that a broke Mr. Burns could be made happy, along with the rest of Springfield, just by having a Coke.

3rd Place: Motorola

Start with Megan Fox in a bath tub. As ads go, that’s a good start. Megan tells us that this “little guy” has MOTOBLUR. She goes on to tell us that MOTOBLUR pulls her important stuff and lets her update all of her networks at once with a shot of Facebook on her phone. She then takes a picture of herself and wonders what would happen if she posted it? Watch what happens next for a giggle. But the lesson in this ad is that you need to sell Facebook in order to effectively sell a mobile phone.

2nd Place: Vizio

Vizio’s had the star power of Beyonce and included a montage of what we love about the internet: David After Dentist, Numa Numa Guy, Overly Dramatic Groundhog, (interestingly CarMax seemed to build their ad on this meme too) Twitter, Flickr and of course Facebook. Vizio’s tag line, “The best of the internet on your TV,” sums up the strategy of this campaign.

1st Place: Google

The fact that Google bought an ad at all is buzzworthy.

The online chatter began the day before the Super Bowl when CEO Eric Schmidt tweeted hinting at the ad, saying that “hell has indeed frozen over.” The ad, “Parisian Love,” has been on YouTube for over three months, as explained on Google’s official blog. Undoubtedly, Schmidt’s tweet and subsequent online buzz helped catapult Google to the top of  BrandBowl, where it lost only to Doritos, who ran 3 Super Bowl ads to Google’s 1.

The ad is a bit of a tear-jerker. No dialogue at all. Just a demonstration of how google users interact with the product, and how their search capabilities can be life changing. It’s a classic boy meets girl tale, told as only Google can.

Congrats to the most social Super Bowl advertisers! What were your favorite Super Bowl ads and why? And when will television advertisers, Superbowl and otherwise, understand that in order to extend the buzz and effectiveness of an ad, you’ve got to use and integrate social media?

By Jenna Lebel

As 2009 comes to an end, we reflect on all of the huge milestones that have taken place in social media over the course of the year. Obviously this is a mere snapshot and we realize there are many more accomplishments from this past year. What are some of your favorite social media moments of 2009? And what milestones do you expect to see in 2010?

Facebook

• If Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s third most populated, behind China and India.
• Facebook registered its 350-millionth member in December, a phenomenal growth spurt considering the firm had 140 million members one year earlier.
• Some Facebook platform apps continued to flourish phenomenally–namely, games. Companies like Zynga and Playdom manufactured one “social game” after another, pulling in revenue that collectively may have surpassed Facebook’s own (Hello, Farmville!).

Twitter

• Some analysts estimate that there are more than 70 million Twitter users.
• Another measure of Twitter’s influence of world events came in June, when Twitter became a major conduit for the world’s news and communication from Iran as residents protested the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The U.S. State Department even asked Twitter to delay scheduled maintenance to make sure Iranians were able to tweet.

MySpace

• MySpace hired former Facebook exec Owen Van Natta to spearhead a turnaround for the News Corp.-owned social site as it saw its traffic increasingly eaten up by Facebook’s; at year’s end, it was still struggling to reinvent itself as a music and pop-culture powerhouse.

YouTube

• YouTube reached 100 million U.S. viewers in March as it lead the growth charge in online video viewing.
• In October, on the third anniversary of the acquisition by Google, YouTube announced that they were serving “well over a billion views a day” worldwide.

LinkedIn

• Likely a direct result of a struggling economy, LinkedIn’s popularity grew in 2009.  With more than 55 million users representing over 150 industries around the world, LinkedIn is the premiere destination for professional networking.

General

• More businesses continued adopt social media in 2009 and plan to get more involved in the new year.
• While the idea of running separate social networks on mobile phones was quashed long ago with the launch of Facebook’s slick mobile site and apps for handsets like the iPhone and BlackBerry, location-based networking apps like Foursquare, Brightkite, and Gowalla have started to break into the mainstream.
• Google and Bing incorporate live Twitter posts into search results (Twitter needed Google, and such a partnership was one of few revenue streams for Twitter this year.)

CNN and Mashable have picked up the story and there’s good reason, I Wear Your Shirt is a prime example of leveraging social media bridging on- and offline word of mouth. So what exactly is it? Outsourcing at its best. Jason Sadler and Evan White, who joined the project this year, are wearing a different t-shirt every day of the year to advertise companies.  The 2010 calendar just went on sale today.  The earlier you buy a date, the cheaper it is.  The price structure is buzzworthy too: Buy a date on January 1, you pay $2 (because two people are sporting the shirts), January 2, $4 and on through December 31 which is $730 dollars.   At the time of writing this post, January through March were already sold out.

To leverage social media, Jason and Evan are more than just walking advertisements, the project is brought alive online too.  The guys feature the t-shirt advertisement with daily updates on a blog, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Ustream and more.

Join in on the fun. You can buy a date here. Follow Jason (@IWearYourShirt) and Evan (@YourFriendEvan) on Twitter (#ILoveShirts) and watch the project on YouTube among other video sharing sites.

theKbuzz is wishing both guys a fruitful and buzzworthy year on their project!

Every so often a pointlessly entertaining meme sweeps the internet. This month’s YouTube video gone viral was the “JK Wedding Entrance Dance” a young couple choreographed their walk down the aisle. At the time of this post they have gotten 13,030,051 views! A number most marketing companies can only dream of. One smart production company piggybacked on this YouTube sensation and created their own sequel entitled “JK Divorce Entrance Dance.” Indigo Productions is a legitimate video production company that has created videos for the likes of Ricoh, Revlon, Fimat Financial Group and other Fortune 500 companies. Their most popular video prior to the “Divorce Dance” reached a whopping 245 views. The “Divorce Dance” video was posted two days ago and has already reached over 66,000 views. It is likely to cap at least a million views. This goes to show that with a little funny and a creative idea (it doesn’t even have to be yours) can make you an internet sensation and exponentially increase your brand equity overnight:

iJustine is an internet celebrity who has a large presence across social platforms.  I wanted to take a chance to breakdown one of her YouTube videos to show how cross-promotion can be well executed in addition to simply asking viewers to a call-to-action.  There’s a reason why she has over 2 million video views and over 90,000 subscribers.  

Her content is tailored for her target audience which airs more on high school age, but there are some important tips that can be learned from her.  The first one is consistency.  Post and post regularly so fans know what to expect.  While her channel is a YouTube partner channel, it does show links to all of her different social networks which brings us to point two: shows viewers how they can connect with you.  Read on to see how she integrates Twitter and YouTube into the video to encourage fan engagement.

Here’s a detailed breakdown of iJustine’s latest video from a social media perspective: 

1. Immediately a pop-up bubble asks “rate and fav” the video (call-to-action #1)

2. A contest announcement is shown with a URL to where more information can be found (the link is active and brings viewers to her other YouTube channel)

3. She answers a Twitter question – the question screenshot is shown (great fan engagement!)

4. She answers a YouTube video response question – the video response is shown (great fan engagement!)

5. She asks viewers to follow her on twitter (call-to-action #2)

6. She asks people to leave comments to ask questions (call-to-action #3)

7.  She asks viewers to post video responses as another way to ask questions (call-to-action #4)

8.  She asks fans to ask questions on Twitter (call-to-action #5)

9.  She shows her Twitter URL and hashtag

10. She asks fans to subscribe to her channel (call-to-action #6)

11. The last screen asks viewers again to “Please rate and comment on this video” (call-to-action #7)

12. The last screen also shows the subscribe button and the text “don’t forget to subscribe” (call-to-action #8)

So there you have it, a video with great fan engagement incorporating both Twitter and YouTube viewers. There’s also 8 different types of call-to-actions within the video. Lesson: Don’t be shy to ask viewers to do something (whether subscribe, etc.) and cross-promote!

Do you have any other examples of engaging and cross-promotional videos? Let us know!

View the video below to hear Dave Kerpen, CEO of theKbuzz, give some great tips on YouTube.

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Often, clients ask me about viral videos. While it can be done, I try and tell clients that a video of my kids talking to each other, unprompted, has a better chance of going “viral” than a highly produced corporate attempt at a YouTube sensation. This leaves them puzzled, and it leads me to wonder:

Will YouTube be the surprise failure of the Google empire?

Let’s think about this. Hulu was founded in late 2007. This year, it is set to tie youtubes revenues at 180 million. That’s not because of massive Hulu viewer ship. It’s because Hulu is built as an ad-friendly, corporate open medium that advertisers understand. Just go there! You’ll see corporate sponsored clips about cooking, along with clips from your favorite NBC shows. It’s a professional clean look, and it’s one that advertisers can understand. Youtube is seen as having a mass audience, but with mostly silly, useless, and often illegal content. A great comparison is found here.

Last night marked the premiere of YouTube Live, which was live streamed from CDN Akmai, no doubt something that cost a pretty penny, and signified YouTubes stream to do it on their own. The event got 700,000 viewers, a number which will expand massively, since Youtube is not famous for it’s live viewing, but for it’s stupidity staying power…(we all have seen Charlie bit my finger more times than we’d like to admit– and I’m sure we’ll be clips of Youtube Live for months to come). I agree with this guy
that the event probably lost money– but I don’t think they expected to make money on the first one. I think the bigger question is– can Youtube keep tinkering around with formulas in order to find advertising success?

My answer is sad, but my answer is, NO. Hulu got it right by setting themselves up as a “legalized” form of virality (Think Tina Fey as Sarah Palin going “viral” versus Chris Crocker). Now, any sign of a shift in that direction from YT will be seen as a stomping of user generated creativity. And their model of ads along the bottom of the Youtube box is simply not natural and distracting. So, this pessimist predicts it here:

Youtube is the surprise “fail whale” of google.