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Quantifying Social Media

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Quantifying Social Media

Online Social Networking has come a long way since it began in mid 1980s. It all started in 1985 with The Well or The Whole Earth ‘Lectronic Link – as a generalized online community. Many would not know that the underpinnings of Electronic Frontier Foundation could be traced to its forums. In addition, so will the roots of Craigslist. It still has more than 4000 members who dissect issues ranging from the gravest to downright silly. Now defunct Geocities followed the Well in 1994. Geocities hosted around 38 million user built pages until it was shut down. Geocities along with the Tripod.com [1995] formed the first wave of user-generated content. These sites essentially focused on raising the inter-connectedness of people through (1) chat rooms and (2) enable individuals expression through personal homepages. During the same time, social website Classmates.com [1995] allowed people to link with each other via email addresses. Other notable social networking websites from the pre internet bubble era included theglobe.com, sixdegrees.com and epinions.com. However, the times have changed since then. And so have we. Social networking, now, is more than connecting and finding likeminded individuals. Now, it is also a medium of expression for many – expressions that transcend beyond national boundaries, that too, in real time. Social media is also medium of news and acts as a channel of influence. Its pervasiveness can be gauged from the fact that people are spending as much as 6 hours per month on social networking sites. Moreover, web ready cell-phones have further aided in its expansion. It surpasses age barriers, as of now, at-least 47 percent of online boomers are socially networked. So much so that, the number of social profiles, together, can outnumber the population of India anytime soon. Social media is now influencing (1) public policy tactics, (2) marketing strategies of brands and organisations, (3) affecting purchase decisions of consumers, and (4) boosting growth of other forms of businesses. Through this article, we are trying to gauge – how much social media have we immersed in our lives? How it is affecting the communication paradigms between individuals and entities. Essentially, we are looking at, in quantifiable terms; the trends in social media use worldwide, how Social Media is being used across sectors and industries, notably, Defense, Health, Public Policy, PR and corporate network. We are also looking at Industry perspectives as well as consumer perspectives on brand engagement using social media. It is quite possible, that you will be already aware about some of the developments. However, what we have tried is to contextualize these various facts and statistics to presents a rather comprehensive picture of Social Media.

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The lure of Social Media

The Economist considers Facebook as the third most populous nation in the world1. By that semblance, Twitter would be somewhere around 23rd. However, this may come as a surprise to many – the combined user-base of some of the most used social networking sites2 is just a shade below the population of India, the second most populous nation in the world [Fig. 1]. Big number, that is. Netizen of these boundless nations, notwithstanding the geographical gap, remain just a “click” apart, sometimes one-to-many (Facebook, LinkedIn) and sometimes one-to-any (Twitter). And these individuals are producing astounding amount of social content; every minute, 20 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube; Twitter, Facebook and MySpace together get around 138 million updates on a daily basis. Consequently, a new form of information economy is taking shape – one that is real time and one where every opinion counts, well almost. Every second, on Twitter alone, 289 tweets are sent in English; correspondingly, 81 tweets per second are in Japanese, 52 in Portuguese, 35 in Malay, and 23 in Spanish3. This is the pervasiveness of human expression on just one of the social networking sites. However, many more factors capture the appeal of social networking in our lives, as follow:

The Pervasiveness of Social Media Social media is no more a fancy term; its popularity can be deduced from the findings of the latest PEW Research – as much as 70 percent of the economically active population is well entrenched in to the social media space. Similar statistics, albeit from a different source – eMarketer, further corroborates this notion; 46 percent of people in age group of 44 – 62 years and around 61 percent under category 27 to 43 years are

1 Source: Wikipedia List_of_countries_by_population; url: last accessed February 1, 2010.

2 Facebook, Windows Live, My Space, Baidu, Twitter, Orkut, Hi5, QQ, LinkedIn, deviantART

3 50 Million tweets per day segregated on the basis of finding from this Techcrunch study

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socially networked. Social networking in its online form is now getting suitably ingrained in our cultural DNA, so much so that the average time spent on the activity has been registering a continual increase over the years. People in some of the major economies, on average are spending around five and a half hours per month on online social networking, [Fig. 2]. It is pertinent to mention here that in February 09, social networking time-spend overtook the time spent on emails, and this is gap is widening with the passage of time. To some, these statistics might seem restrictive to developed nations only; nevertheless, social networking has made substantial inroads in to developing nations too. Largely the mobile Value Added Services and web ready cell phones are boosting this. Opera’s latest State of the Mobile Web for Southeast Asia, states that all the social networking sites, with the exception of Friendster, have significantly grown in 2009. And, Facebook stands as the most visited web site. [Fig. 3 & 4] However, the most noteworthy finding in the report is that among the top 10 websites visited via mobile browser in these countries, at-least 4 cater to social networking. Social networking is rising even in places where internet penetration is low. In terms of data consumption, on a worldwide basis, the data transcoded by Opera mobile browser, which at

present stands at 315 million mega bytes during December 09, has grown on an average by 332 percent per year since 2007. Mind it; opera mini compresses 90 percent of the data. Taking this thought a bit further in to

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the future, The Global Mobile Data Forecast for 2009 to 2014 projects that the global mobile data traffic will reach 3.6 Exabyte per month by 2014 – that would be a year-over-year growth of 108%. This proliferation in data consumption will be boosted largely by mobile video content consumption. Besides, during 2009 – 2014 more than 5 billion personal devices would be connecting to mobile networks. This is and will be the extent of our online connectivity or social networking in our lives, in the present and in the future. Still many would opine that social networking is a craze and would die down with time. However, if we see the historical trends, we find that, this craze, if we may call it one, has not only sustained but has also taken the role of spreading the news and serving as a channel of influence, besides of-course, expanding our relationship circle. What has changed and is prone to change in future too, is the user loyalty to a particular social networking service. Besides, what has changed, rather significantly altered is the way we social network online. We have moved beyond connecting and re-connecting to expression (both personal and political), we are using the medium to gain insights and make decisions, and we are becoming a part of collective consciousness. In plain terms, what people are looking for and doing in this medium is (1) to be informed about topics of their interest from the sources they trust, (2) participate in the discussions and further spreading this information, and (3) achieving all this with speed and utility. It would not be remiss to state that this collective noise is taking proportions of a collective voice, and is affecting the way interactions take place. Consequently, due to the frenetic activities in this space, it does not come as a surprise that social media is increasingly becoming the most sought after engagement tool by public personalities, brands and organizations, and yes, individuals like us.

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The Influence of Social Media

Right now, almost none among us would be surprised if told about the role of twitter in the recent Iranian uprising, or more so, about the much touted American Presidential elections, where online social engagement played a critical role in influencing mass opinion & public policy. However, there exist many more cases involving use of social media that throw up immense learning opportunities for practioners and observers alike. Social media is now increasingly becoming an ingrained aspect of political campaigns, national defense strategies, public policy, public relations, brand management and even intra company communication. Moreover, since it is still a nascent domain, its use, many a time, catches us by surprise, sometimes pleasant and sometimes crude. Yet still, it is one of the topmost things that individuals and entities are willing and planning to experiment with. It is now being used in sectors that were never expected to utilize it. Some of these developments are cited below.

Defense The defense department of USA recently authorized the use of Twitter, Facebook and other sites across the US military, saying their benefits o outweighed security concerns. As per the media reports, this strategy, essentially, has four distinct takeaways – (1) taking advantage of these Internet-based capabilities; (2) encourage information sharing across organizational boundaries and with mission partners; (3) promoting interactions between those in higher echelons of Pentagon with US troops, many of whom are in their early 20s; and of course (4) enable deployed troops to maintain contact with their families back at home. If one thinks that, US could be an exception in utilizing social media in its defense operations, another example can be from Israel. Israel is using the personal information that is put in massive amounts on the internet to identify the people who can maybe help Israel especially those with good access to Hamas or to criminal networks.

Health As of February 13, 2010, 557 hospitals in USA are using social networking tools, and they run 254 You-tube channels, 336 Facebook pages, 430 Twitter accounts & 70

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blogs. However, 557 hospitals may be a low count for a large nation like US, yet what is glaring in this data is the dawning of the social media idea in conservative industry like health services. Even smaller hospitals, those with less than 100 beds are venturing into social networking space. [Fig 5] Right now, US hospitals are using social media as another customer and community outreach activity, for crisis management, public relations, brand monitoring and for recruitment.

Public Policy Social media is challenging and eventually changing public policy paradigms. With every passing day, we are witnessing a decrease in the relevance of faxes and e-mail chains – the hallmarks of yesteryears politics. Public personalities are now increasingly being enamored by Twitter and other social services, which are faster and much more fleet than fax & email, and besides, these services help initiate a direct communication with the populace. Ever since we witnessed the Barack Obama Affect, social media use among politicians has substantially increased. So much so that the Republicans in the US are more savvy net-workers than the Democrats. As of January 03, 2010, in Congress, almost twice as many Republican s exist on twitter than Democrats. In addition, they are tweeting too! A lot of tweeting as compared to fellow Democrats; Republications have sent around 3o000 tweets as opposed to around 5500 by Democrats. Besides, they follow more people on twitter than the Democrats. Out of the 132 members using Twitter actively, 89 are Republicans and 43 Democrats. In the House, there are 75 Republicans using Twitter (42.13 percent of the Republican Caucus) and 32 Democrats (12.45 percent of the Democratic Caucus). [Fig 6] Then there is the Michael Bloomberg’s successful social media campaign of 2009. This campaign in all received 225K YouTube plays – that would be equivalent of around 448K televisions spots of 30 seconds each. The hallmark of such a policy being cheap production costs and quick turnaround time, and above all, Michael Bloomberg’s social media campaigns brought out 36’000 unique voters, as per the calculations by campaign managers. Some might say that substantial internet connectivity would be sin-qua-non for social media success. Wrong. Lawmakers in West Virginia, a state which has a national ranking of 49th in Internet and also ranks last in terms of broadband penetration (37%) are using social media to garner public support for public policies, encourage debate and of-course electioneering. Some of these public officials now attribute their online communications as one of the reasons behind introducing legislations, notably creating prison work crews and making dog fighting a felony in West Virginia. Public policy opinions on online social space stretch to developing world too, however, here, it is the populace that more active. During the past few years, Egyptians have protested against Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship on Facebook; Moldavians have tweeted against re-election of Vladimir Voronin’s Party of Communists; and Tibetans have used social media sites to protest the Chinese regime. Recently, United Nations Special Envoy for Malaria, Ray Chambers, announced the formation of a Social Media Envoy group to inspire and activate social media audiences in support of malaria control. These envoys would utilize their social profile to keep

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online and offline media audiences focused on the movement, milestones and resources required to achieve the goal of providing all endemic African countries with malaria control interventions by the end of 2010

Boosting Other Forms of Business

Public Relations Social Media has become a big business opportunity for Public Relation firms. Many PR firms are now managing the online social presence of several big firms; these PR agencies are tracking conversations and responding to consumer grievances on behalf of their client organizations. This business is growing substantially. A research by Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS), establishes that – spending on public relations in America grew by more than 4% in 2008 and nearly 3% in 2009 to $3.7 billion. PR firms are helping big organization to start blogs, and manage their web presence across other social sites, for instance, Edelman helped eBay launch a web-only magazine that helps customers and readers about best products and bargains. All this is happening when the overall marketing environment, across the sectors, is gloomy. The spending on marketing activities, notably advertising, by organizations has contracted by 8% in 2009 and by nearly 3% in 2008. However, spending in the social media space by organizations remains an exception, and it is handsomely growing. So much is the optimism about social media that VSS has gone ahead to project that spending on PR in America would surpass USD 8 billion by 2013.

Launch of Social Media Curriculum in Colleges There is immense noise on the web, about the utilizing social media for garnering jobs and attracting employers. So much so that the Warren County Community College in Washington is, introducing classes addressing the issues of utilizing social media for employment opportunities This 2 day a week class at $55 per head aims to help individuals learn about social media, creating and optimizing social media job search strategy, and building social media resumes.

Additional Source of Revenue to Mobile Operators through Value Added Services It has been estimated that people using Facebook on mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users. Likewise, in the case of twitter too, people using twitter via cell phones are more active. More than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries are currently deploying and promoting mobile social media products. While these efforts are mostly in the direction of enabling Facebook content – primarily resulting from more than 100 million active users on Facebook mobile, the fixation of people with online networking is promoting launch of phone devices and Value added services by telecom operators that specifically cater to social networking junta. This is the influence of social media. For those among us who still think that it is just a medium of expression should now re-think. The facts above are just a speck of the potential that social media has and further, these are some areas that are widely covered by the mainstream media or are the focus of research agencies. Did you ever realize that many individuals who just blogged have now successfully hopped over to the mainstream, could they do this if this expression engine was not there?

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Brand Engagement on Social Media – Industry

Brand Promotion on Social Media Channels Brand promotion is no more an activity that can be singly controlled by companies. It is rather hugely affected by blogs, other social networking sites, and user reviews. In fact, the success of a brand is determined more by what consumers say than what organizations intend to communicate. Isn’t the fate of the movies being decided on twitter itself nowadays?

In the present context, it is increasingly becoming pertinent for companies to (1) build a favorable base of consumers, and (2) involve them in decision making (hint:mystarbucksidea.com). According to Softpedia, during the last quarter of 2009, 86 percent of online retailers in US had a Facebook page. It was expected that this figure would reach 99 percent very soon. During this same period, e-marketer pointed that 65 percent of its surveyed online retailers were active on Twitter. Another 26 percent were planning to incorporate Twitter in their plans. e-marketer projects that by 2011, 91 percent of online retailers will be Twitter ready and all of them will have a Facebook page. Presently, greater than 700 thousands businesses have an active Facebook page. In addition, around 80 thousand web portals are Facebook Connected presently.

Beyond Facebook, retailers are interacting with consumers on various other social platforms too. These retailers span across technology, media, leisure, consumer electronics, and auto industry. [Fig. 7] Retailers are being enamored with this medium because it has made consumer engagement a two way street. Social media is a potent tool to unswervingly connect with those who matter the most – the customers! The dynamic and real time nature of the interactions further upholds this view. Consequently, social media leverages not only brand promotion but also aids in improving the brand itself. It makes it easy for the marketer to dynamically alter “the offer”; thereby making it more palatable to the prospective consumer. Besides, the advantages of direct interactions with consumers become a non-tangible benefit. Indira Nooyi, Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo best capture this thought

Good Messages, good things that we do are transmitted around the world very rapidly, and for global organizations like Pepsi that have global brands, global reputations to protect, that is very important. It is making us pause and use social media as a force for good and watch social media as for messages that they are sending us, so we can quickly jump in to action.

[Indira Nooyi, Chairman and CEO, PepsiCo at the World Economic Forum, Davos]

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Until recent past, social media effectively served as another customer outreach activity of organizations – essentially building brand awareness and generating leads. However, trends are now changing towards utilizing social media for positively affecting sales. A mindset shift towards making social media a committed engagement channel is already underway. An analysis by Wetpaint and Altimeter – engagementdb.com, concurs that the most successful companies on social platforms were maintaining profiles on 7 or more channels. Consequently, reflecting the organization’s commitment to connect with consumers on different social media channels. However, there is a caveat. It does not mean that organizations planning to execute social media interaction with its customers need to maintain numerous social profiles. Engagementdb research also highlights that organization that were highly selective of the channels also faired reasonably well in terms of higher gross and net margins – their simple philosophy being deep engagement within a few channels. [Fig 8 and 9] Nevertheless, number of channels aside, it all boils down to only one thing – Consumer Engagement. However, very few companies have this mindset. Multiple social profiles are of little significance if companies do not monitor conversations and engage consumers. There is a slew of companies that are present across platforms but devote little time to interacting with consumers. In fact, the Weber Shandwick study shows that 73 Fortune 100 companies had registered as many as 540 twitter accounts; but of these accounts – as many as 410 or about 76 percent accounts were virtually inactive – as they did not post often. Of those that were active, were essentially following the old school top-down approach for communication. Nearly 26 percent of twitter accounts were for serving news to the followers. What they lacked, however, was the feedback mechanism due to little engagement with followers. Another 24 percent used twitter for brand awareness, but in actuality it could be brand squatting than engaging as these accounts were just ensuring an online presence, and blocking others – those not affiliated to the brand – to claim ownership. [Fig 10] All this may be one of the prime reasons why nearly 50 percent of the Twitter accounts of Fortune 500 companies had fewer than 500 followers.

Irrespective of the size of a company, incorporating social media in marketing plans is stalled due to a variety of reasons. According to the MS&L Social Media survey, [Fig 11] more than half companies lack resources to implement it. Almost an equal number (43 percent) have no expertise, and another 10 percent claim lack of an appropriate agency to implement. It is pertinent to mention here, that many early adopters among companies hire interns to manage social media communications. In fact, this could be risky, as any goof-up by an inexperienced intern can seriously ruin the brand image.

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On the other hand, social media use scenario is more encouraging at small businesses. According to the State of Small Business Report, social media usage by small businesses increased from 12 percent to 24 percent in the last year. Further, almost 20 percent of small businesses actively employ social media as an integral part of the marketing strategy. In fact, small businesses are currently allocating 6% of their marketing budgets to social media. It is expected that this is expected to reach 10 percent by 2011 and further to around 18 percent over the next 5 years. Some of the findings from the survey are particularly encouraging from business via social media point of view, these include:

75 percent of small businesses have presence on a social networking site 54 percent are monitoring feedbacks 69 percent post updates or interesting articles on social media sites

Those are some overwhelming numbers, especially after the viewing the depth of social media penetration across big companies. However, what is most striking from the two surveys is the fact that while nearly 70 percent of Fortune 100 companies are virtually inactive. However, a similar percentage of small businesses are buzzing with activity on social media. Nonetheless, statistics aside, it is high time, that businesses, irrespective of their size have a social media plan that has 3 C’s in it, viz (1) a Companywide engagement strategy that (2) ensures Conversations with consumers, and (3) Causes user loyalty across social networks. The following post on Consumer Perspectives on Brand Engagement further strengthens this point of view.

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Brand Engagement on Social Media – Consumer Perspective

Consumer Response to Brand Promotion on Social Media

How many people follow a brand on Social Networking Sites? If statistics were to be believed, almost anyone would follow a brand now. One, because it makes us connect with other likeminded people. Two, we follow brands to show solidarity with brands we love. In addition, of-course, three, we follow brands to know about promotions and other marketing offers. A survey by Chadwick Martin Bailey – “Why social media matters to your business” – points that a mere 20 percent people do not fan a brand on Facebook. In fact, 75 percent females and 68 percent males are fans of up to 5 brands on Facebook. Some may think that following just about 5 brands is not a proper indicative of the consumer interest in brands. True to some extent, but then isn’t this phenomena recent. Moreover, teething issues with consumer engagement strategies further make brand promotion difficult. There are little precedents on successful or safe strategies to engage consumers on social media. This is why; companies are not upfront on brand promotion on social media. Obviously, consumers, will react to messages that appeal them, and hence a low number. There still is immense dilemma on incorporating and properly implementing social media in marketing plans. Probably this is why; brand engagement on social media fails for consumers in many cases. Yet still, for individuals social media is more about expression than just connecting. Even if individuals are not following a brand, they are talking about it. It has been estimated that approximately 83 tweets per second contain product or brand references. However, there is a positive aspect. Brands that conduct social media interactions with consumers properly; eventually result as a profitable proposition for both the consumer and the brand. Chadwick Martin Bailey research states that the likelihood for individuals to buy / recommend increases after they follow of a brand. [Fig 12] The fact that almost 50 percent Facebook fans of a brand already are customers further boosts this proposition. That is because, positive experience from direct brand interaction will undoubtedly ensure repeat purchases and recommendations. However, brand promotion strategies on social media must consider the gender differences.

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Gender Differences in Customer Inclination towards a Brand The motives for friending or following a brand vary for males and females. Nearly half (43%) of all women, become a fan of a brand to receive discounts or promotions. On the other hand, 50 percent men do so to show solidarity with a brand. Another research by ShesConnected.com, states that 79 percent women use social networks to research products and services important to them. Nearly 64 percent specifically look for discounts. Besides, Razorfish points that 44 percent people follow brands in search of promotions and discounts on Twitter. These differences between the behavior of males and females have been elaborately highlighted in the Chadwick Martin Bailey study, as below: Males on Facebook

52% become fan to show their support to brands 35% seek discounts and promotional information 28% become a fan to be part of a community of like‐minded people 17% become a fan because someone recommended it to them

Males on Twitter 59% follow a brand because they already are customers of the company 35% follow because they want to be the first to know about news and information 13% follow to resolve problems or seek customer service 29% seek discounts and promotions information

Females on Facebook 48% become a fan because they already are customers of the company 43% seek discounts and promotional information 17% become a fan on someone’s recommendation

Females on Twitter 60% seek discounts and promotional information 40% seek access to exclusive content 29% follows to receive content/information to repost and share with others Only 5% seek customer services resolution

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Again, some might feel that since these surveys are predominantly based on US market, their implication might not be applicable to other world markets. However, given the nature of the internet, which acts like one boundary-less echo chamber, we feel that these findings are equally valid for other nations too. Our assumptions are bolstered by the findings from Middle East. In UAE Socialize in collaboration with YouGovSiraj has quantified the evolution of online marketing. Their findings show that as much as 70 percent of the UAE consumers look for online reviews prior to making purchasing decision. Consumer interaction with brands is healthily happening on mobile platforms too. The Mobile advertising network InMobi survey on the mobile Internet usage patterns in India indicates that almost 33 percent of its respondents who surf the internet on mobile phones engaged with brands that advertised. Of this group as many as 73 percent visited, the advertiser’s website and 10 percent called the company. Eventually 18 percent of respondents actually bought the advertised product / service. Another interesting finding from the InMobi survey was that as much as 58 percent of the respondents were from the middle and lower income groups, indicating mobile internet usage is not an activity restricted to higher income groups. In nutshell, consumers are engaging with brands, they are interested in developments at brands they use; they seek reviews before purchase, and inform others about their opinions. Still if companies think that time is not ripe for entering the social media bandwagon – they might actually miss the bus.

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Additional Readings and References:

Led by Facebook, Twitter, Global Time Spent on Social Media Sites up 82% Year over Year

Baby Boomers Get Connected with Social Media

Mobile Social Networking in India – Orkut rules the chart, followed by Yahoo and Facebook

Urban Mobile Users in India – What do they access Internet For? [Market Report]

Mobile Phones: Key To Developing Nations US military allows Twitter, other social media U.S. military OKs use of online social media Military allows Twitter, other social media Information Is Overrated Bloomberg Campaign: Social Media Case Study Hospital Social Network List Social media: Listen less and sell more Facebook Moms Are Marketing-Savvy eMarketer Weighs In on 2010 Trends: E-

Commerce & Mobile 10 Web trends to watch in 2010 InMobi Survey reveals high mobile ad

engagement among youth in India The State of Social Media Marketing The Asset Manager’s Guide to Social Media 99 Percent of Online Retailers Plan to Have a

Facebook Page Consumers Slow to Embrace Social Media As

Shopping Resource Social Media conquers cubicles – Source for

Indira Nooyi Quote Public relations in the recession – Good news Warren County Community College class

addresses utilizing social media for employment opportunities

Toyota ’she can take a good pounding’ video accused of sexism and having incest overtones

Six Years of Making Connections New Data on Twitter’s Users and Engagement There’s an App for That: Mobile is the Next

Frontier for Brand Engagement

YouTube Fact Sheet Social Media Prediction for 2010 Blogging declines among teens, young adults Measuring Tweets Twitter Hits 50 Million Tweets Per Day; Still

Dwarfed by Facebook & YouTube LinkedIn Now 60 Million Strong Twitter Just Passed MySpace in Number of

Status Updates YouTube now serves more than 1 billion

money-losing views per day Lawmakers recognize Web as powerful

tool [Google Cache] 80% of UAE Consumers Use Social Media to

Make Purchase Decisions [pdf] United Nations Special Envoy for Malaria

Announces the Social Media Envoy Group 5 Ways to Monetise Social Media Twitter users send 50 million tweets per day Only 50% Of Twitter Messages Are In English,

Study Says Online Retailers: 99% Plan to Have Facebook

Fan Pages 5 New Studies Show Facebook a Marketing

Powerhouse 3 New Studies Prove Social Media Marketing

Growth ENGAGEMENTdb State of the Mobile Web, December 2009 [pdf] Twongress – The Power of Twitter in

Congress [pdf] Social Media and Young Adults [pdf] Do Fortune 100 Companies Need A

Twittervention? [pdf] Consumers Engaged Via Social Media Are More

Likely To Buy, Recommend New Study Shows ‘Intent’ Behind Mobile

Internet Use James Bond spies fail social networking