Applegate Media Group

While some media agencies believe that Facebook usage among younger consumers is starting to slip, others are arguing that this perception is due to the way usage is being reported. Younger consumers are accessing the site via mobile phones, but currently there is no single source that aggregates consumption statistics from all platforms so the younger age cells are likely under-reported.

According to Facebook, their overall growth is steady. Almost 5 million users have signed up in December, while the previous two months recorded increases of approximately 4 million each, with the coveted 18-25 age cell reportedly growing 8.2 percent. Here’s how the December growth rates are distributed across the various Facebook reported age breaks:

While women continue to lead in usage across all age groups, it remains the most popular social networking site, globally and in the US. According to Nielsen, the average time spent on Facebook by US users has grown by 200 percent from December ’08 to December ’09. The data suggests that it most certainly still has the “cool” factor among users and marketers alike.

• admin posted on February 25, 2010
  It certainly is hot! It's been touted as "the new black" of mass media. So exciting to be at the…
• Kelly Jones posted on February 25, 2010
  This is very informative. Social media is a hot topic these days as the industry awaits integrated, single source consumption…

Businesses and institutions are beginning to recognize the power of social media tools and sites to engage in crowdsourcing, also known as “social answers” or “help engines”.By definition, it means to tap into the collective intelligence of the public in order to complete a task, find a solution to a problem, etc. by asking a wide range of people or organizations if they can help, typically by using the Internet. Allowing businesses to enlarge their talent pool without increasing labor costs, it also improves creativity and capitalizes on competition as well as team work. The customer feedback is therefore enriched and quite possibly, in the most sincere form.

Execution is relatively simple:

1. Company uses a social networking site to invite people to participate in a project. This could be anything from creating an ad, developing software or applications to solving a complex R&D problem
2. Enthusiasts respond with ideas and form a community in which they collaborate on the project and learn from one another
3. The winner gets a monetary prize, recognition or royalty rights.

The technique has been implemented successfully by a number of companies, a few of which are shared below:

—Netflix who used it to improve its algorithm to predict customers’ movie ratings

—L’Oreal successfully used crowdsourcing to produce a TV spot for $1K that normally would cost upwards of $160K

—iStockphoto was judgmentally an early adopter of the technique back some 4-5 years ago, when they invited amateur photographers to upload their photos and videos and earn royalties each time their images were licensed

—Threadless who lets their online members submit T-shirt designs and vote on which ones should be produced

—Dell deployed Ideastorm.com as a crowdsourcing engagement tool to solicit ideas on new products, resulting in 9,400+ ideas posted on their site that were collectively voted on more than 644,000 times.

Key factors for success:

Expectation management: Be prepared to deal with ideas that can get you distracted from the real goal of the project.

Project infrastructure: To minimize vague answers, be specific in your questions and clear with your goals and deadline.

Corporate culture shift: Participants are not your company employees, so their work, actions and comments can’t be controlled.

Participation encouragement: To attract and entice the crowd, rewards and incentives must be offered.

Technological readiness: Participation usually comes in one big wave so make sure your platform can handle the traffic.

Measurable progress: If possible, create a means by which participants can gauge the success of their ideas.

If used properly, crowdsourcing can provide you with thousands of great ideas and probably several different ways to complete the task at hand. Used improperly, it can derail you and put your company in a negative publicity mess. As with everything else, research, plan and implement wisely.

• admin posted on February 24, 2012
  You're quite welcome! Acronyms only take ya so far you know?
• Asuncion posted on November 29, 2011
  Thank you for finding the time to explain the terminlogy for the rookies!
• admin posted on February 25, 2010
  Thanks! Crowdsourcing can be tricky but so beneficial if planned and implemented correctly. Has anyone else had any specific experiences…

It is mind-boggling that a 30-second spot during the Super Bowl can cost as much as $3 million dollars and CBS just announced that they have sold out all the spots for 2010. Most advertisers don’t commit without tremendous analysis and evaluation, though they typically reach their decision on an annual basis. Repeat advertisers assess the performance of their commercials during and after the previous year’s game and many even prior to the actual airing by leveraging the power of the Internet.

The Super Bowl is viewed by an average of 98.7 million people – roughly a third of the country. With such a huge audience, Super Bowl commercials often result in immediate sales increases. Here are some specific company examples:

—In the past five years, CareerBuilder’s sales have increased by 40 percent each year in the three months following the Super Bowl

— The market share for GoDaddy.com jumped from 16 percent to 25 percent after their first ad ran in 2005 and it has risen steadily since then by 32 percent

—On Super Bowl Sunday, 2005 website traffic increased 594 percent for Budweiser.com which was the biggest increase registered by any advertiser that year

—In 2009, Teleflora’s saw an increase of 1,464 percent in the number of online mentions the brand received in the days immediately following its Super Bowl ad. The goal was to get people to order flowers for Valentine’s Day.

Consumer package goods companies typically see an 11+ percent sales increase in the month following the game. Additionally, brand awareness scores rise, website traffic and search volume increases and the commercials are posted on YouTube providing repeat exposure in a new, viral way. In terms of efficacy, one Super Bowl commercial can be compared to 250 regular TV commercials. So, $3 million dollars for a Super Bowl ad, anyone?

Source: Advertising Age 1/25/2010, Bloomberg 1/21/2009, ZDNet Research 2/9/2005

Forms of Advertising - Degree of Trust

Forms of Advertising - Change in Degree of Trust

It’s no surprise that based on the Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, 90 percent of people trust recommendations from others they know. The survey also shows that 70 percent trust consumer opinions posted on brands’ websites and online in general.

—The greatest increase in consumer trust measured over a 2-year period is in the brand sponsorship category. A very close second is seen in the cinema advertising category.

—Although newspaper advertising is the only media form that recorded a drop in consumer trust, it still remains a widely trusted source with 61 percent surveyed reporting trust of the medium.

Perhaps the most interesting findings show that the newest and hottest media forms still have a lot of work ahead of them to earn consumer trust. Only 24 percent trust text ads on mobile phones, 33 percent trust online banner ads, 37 percent trust online video ads and 41 percent trust search engine results.

While experts point out that the biggest issue is the way in which online ads are served, there are also learnings that the online media community can capitalize on as it relates to the increase in trust of brand sponsorships. Finding ways to offer more sponsorship opportunities would allow them to leverage the trustworthiness of brand websites and by association, improve their own credibility scores.