Having internet access does not necessarily mean that consumers will be engaged. The behavior of those who currently have internet access, however, suggests use will be significant. Measured by a top 2 box response to frequency of use, 65% are currently checking email, 39% are doing local-based searches and 31% are updating their status on social media sites.

There is no way to judge what the full impact of that many internet enabled users might be on brands and products but certainly the venues to which they’ll have access are affecting both brands and products today. An example is Saturday Night Live acquiescing to the 1,000,000 plus fans who utilized Facebook to lobby for Betty White as the guest host.

White as the host was a big win for SNL with over 12.5M households tuning in. This represents about a 35% lift over a typical SNL audience. While NBC was undoubtedly appreciative of Facebook and its many fans, White conveyed her old, immutable self with her remarks.

“I have to thank Facebook. I didn’t know what Facebook was before this, and I have to tell you, it seems like a waste of time”  

A waste of time? Maybe. But, a popular one with nearly 2/3 of the adult internet enabled population spending a portion of their time on social networks. With that type of penetration, the ease of access provided by new technology and the power demonstrated by the SNL example this is a medium that marketers need take some risk to stay ahead of. 

Facebook has announced that later this month, it will launch its own location-based features.  Leveraging all of Facebook’s users, this might be enough to crush the growth of Foursquare and the other emerging location-based tools such as Gowalla, Whrrl and TriOut. In late April, Trone launched an online usage study that  measured the popularity of these tools. The study showed that the tools mentioned above each had 6% top two box response when asked “how often do you use the following location-based tools on your mobile phone”.  The data will serve as a great benchmark when understanding the impact of the Facebook features launch.

As the penetration of internet-based phones increases, one thing that we can expect is that the popularity of location-based tools will grow.  In the upcoming months, it will be interesting to see how each fights for its own niche market position in combating the Facebook giant.

This Sunday Morning segment reminded of me another recent exchange between a company and their customers regarding their logo.  On March 19, 2010 Nestlé posted the following status update on their Facebook wall:

“To repeat: we welcome your comments, but please don’t post using an altered version of any of our logos as your profile pic – they will be deleted.”

After several back and forth comments, Nestlé posted the following comment:

“Oh please…it’s like we’re censoring everything to allow only positive comments.”

The posts garnered at least 230 comments (no telling how many were deleted) and as you might imagine, many of Nestlé “fans” did not appreciate the threat.  One post questioned why Nestle “dislike(d) the molding of your kitkat logo”, Nestlé responded with the following link to an About.com posting on branding.  The link lists five “objectives that a good brand will achieve”:

• Delivers the message clearly
• Confirms your credibility
• Connects your target prospects emotionally
• Motivates the buyer
• Concretes User Loyalty

After reviewing Nestlé the string of comments on Facebook and subsequent posts from Nestlé, you tell me, did Nestlé connect with their target prospects in an emotionally positive way?  Did they motivate their buyers or concrete user loyalty?

Chocolate is supposed to be something we can enjoy.  A good product combined with good branding will leave the consumer wanting more.  And yes, after approximately 150 posts, Nestlé did apologize, but do their actions leave you wanting more of their chocolate?  Something to learn from this lesson, instead of going on the offensive when people “play” with corporate logos, maybe there is a way to “play” back in a way that will only enhance the brand by showing a little personality.

Maybe Nestlé could learn a lesson from EA Sports’ response to a customer who had a little fun at their expense when a glitch was found in Tiger Woods ‘08.  EA Sports could have gone on the offensive to protect their brand, but instead, they chose to have some fun the post.

Our interest in clubs was driven by two key factors. The first was the notable shift in mom’s shopping behavior as a result of the economy. The second was the unique communication challenges of a member-only environment.

As expected, clubs have benefitted from the economic downturn.

46% of the moms in our sample are members of a club, with one in nine club members belonging to two or more. Of those members, just over half (54%) visit the club one or more times a month. And, 52% of the members indicated that they had increased the volume of their purchases at clubs as a means of controlling their spending during the economic downturn.

For members, the rise in club purchases approached the most popular money-saving activities identified by moms at large. In the aggregate, the two most popular means of controlling spending were using more coupons (63%) and paying more attention to in-store offers (72%).

Club shoppers still favor “old school” communication.

When queried about their preferences regarding communication from their club(s) on a range of subject matter, moms adopted a very traditional stance. General, top 2 box interest in the media were:

Twitter – 11%
Club blogs – 14%
Facebook page – 21%
Email – 51%
Direct Mail – 56%

Somewhat surprisingly, among those interested in specific topics, the disparity between the preference for “old media” and “new media” actually grew—categorically. For example, as it related to notification of upcoming promotions, top two box interest in the communication vehicles was:

Twitter – 7%
Club blogs – 8%
Facebook page – 14%
Email – 58%
Direct Mail – 75%

Even in lower-interest categories such as “money saving tips for their home,” club shoppers displayed a preference for being communicated to via a traditional medium over the more contemporary options. Of note in this category was the interest shift between email and direct mail.

Twitter – 5%
Club blogs – 11%
Facebook page – 17%
Email – 68%
Direct Mail – 49%

This study establishes an important framework for understanding the value of various communication vehicles, specifically for the club channel but, with implications for other retail and product brands. It does not, however, account for all the marketplace dynamics.

All customers are not created equal.

Retailers have long known that some customers are of substantially greater value than others based on the volume of their purchases. In recent years great strides have been made in leveraging that knowledge. Supermarkets, airlines, hotels and many other industries have successfully (or less so) created loyalty programs to track and reward customer purchase behavior.

All brands, be they retail, product or service, have also gained an appreciation of the value of their customers as brand advocates. For example, in this study, moms were half again as likely to identify family and friends as important sources of information on children’s products than any other source. The difficulty lies in identifying who the advocates are and how to provide them the necessary information and motivation to become active disciples for the brand.

Clearly, the results of the study referenced above indicate that while “new media” has some value for wholesale clubs, traditional vehicles such as email and direct mail offer a substantially greater opportunity. What the study does not take into account, but a future study will, is the importance of the various media to those moms who are most likely to influence others.

Organizations like Trone^® and Forrester have identified that a relatively small group of people (~ 25%) are the primary contributors in social media environments. These moms can have an exponential impact on a brand’s spending. However, before they can disseminate information, they must first accumulate it and it will be the brands (retail, product or service) that best understand how and where to reach them that will be most successful.

Here are a few things I will be watching out for:

1. The influence of social media on the outcome
   As the Top 24 is narrowed to 12, we should see indication of popularity by visiting each participant’s social media site.  Can you imagine how much influence each site will hold as fans of the show try to rally their friends and family to support each contestant?  However, a new dynamic may enter as fans might become complacent and not vote if they see that their favorite has millions of supporters on their sites.
2. Each contestant’s ability to rally fans
   It will be interesting to see how each contestant uses their outlets to rally support.  This year’s winner could be decided on an artist’s ability to engage with fans to drive votes. A contestant’s social media savvy will be exposed.
3. Additional pressure on the contestants
   There is no doubt that each contestant feels pressure from the judges and live audience.  Will comments that critics place on the forums create more anxiety for the singers?
4. How much will Idol manage the forums?
   The true beauty of social media is unfiltered, transparent conversations.  I will be interested to see how much Idol allows.

Every year American Idol hooks me somehow, and now with this new dynamic, they have done it again.  How do you think the new social media policy will change the competition?

If you’re like me, in the first hour I used Google Wave, I thought…”eeh. Kinda cool, but I don’t need another thing to check, why not just integrate these features into Gmail? Well, I pretty much got my wish and more with Google Buzz. Now I’m not sure if it’s what I wanted. I think the integration of social media and multimedia-email-like-objects could be cool. I could talk about the potential positives with this new google product, but I think those are pretty easy to see, here are some potential aspects I don’t like:

(If you don’t know what google buzz is, here is a video. In short, its Facebook and Twitter meet gmail. It will be in every gmail account, whether you ask for it or not. (but you can turn it off if you want))

Social Integration

I don’t know if I want / need another digital social touch point. I already use Twitter and Facebook. I don’t see myself abandoning them anytime soon. So right now gmail serves a pretty specific purpose for me right now, it’s my email. I’m not totally keen on the idea of inviting the whole world into my inbox.

Privacy Concerns
If you’ve activated buzz you’ll notice it’s already set up people to follow. Ditto for others. This article put it best “The problem is that — by default — the people you follow and the people that follow you are made public to anyone who looks at your profile.
In other words, before you ever touch any settings in Google Buzz, someone could go into your profile and see who are the people you email and chat with most.”

Must Google run everything?
To me Google feels a bit like the robber-barrons of the 21st century. Right now I have 1) a gmail account 2) an igoogle account 3)p google blog 4)a google phone 5) a google voice account 6) a google reader account 7) a google checkout account 8 ) a google wave account 9) a google picture account (picasa) 10) it’s my interne browser,  its also 11) my text and video chat client and of course, my  12) search engine.  Thats 12 prety major things, and who knows what I forgot. Twitter, Facebook and Apple are among the few major players I still interact with that aren’t google. Do I think google is pure evil like some people do? No. But I feel like I should be cautious. If they do turn out to be pure evil I don’t want them to be in control of everything I come into contact with, no matter how convenient it is.

I’m pretty set in my ways. Right now I like my social media with my social media and my email with my email. Can I resist or will I be fully dragged into the Googlesphere. I guess only time will tell.

(This was originally posted at Digital Pivot before being reposted here and at my website, but I did write it)

I have to say when I first joined Facebook, I was a bit leery;  I thought that if I truly had a connection with someone, then why would I have lost touch.   How would an online medium, seemingly so impersonal be the right avenue to reach out after all these years?   But everyone was doing it, so with trepidation, I developed an account and decided my strategy would be to wait and see who wanted to be my friend. 

My first “new friends” were people I worked with or who lived here in Greensboro;  I interacted with them on a regular basis.  No “reconnection” there, just confirmation that I was on their meter.  The next wave were close out of town friends, but again, I spoke to them frequently enough to be in the know of what was happening in their lives. 

Ah, then there was that first “blast from the past”.  Yay, a chance to reconnect, catch-up on what had happened since the last school reunion or chance meeting when I was home visiting my parents.  After “confirming” that we were indeed friends, I was ready!  I had this lofty idea that we would engage in some sort of conversation, something on a personally level and hopefully something with content. 

Well, I can’t say that my expectations were met with the one-on-one connection.  But I have readjusted my expectations and will admit I have enjoyed gaining a glimpse into people’s comings and goings.  I’ve even been surprised at request from people who I barely knew, and in some cases don’t even know.  This begs the question – When do you “confirm” or when do you “ignore”?  

And how do you define a “friend”?  Does “friend” mean the same thing as it did ten years ago or has it slid more to the definition of “acquaintance” with the evolution of social media?

For example, you can’t publicize or administer a promotion on Facebook if:

1. it is marketed to people who are under 18
2. the objective is to promote the following categories:

• gambling
• tobacco
• firearms
• prescription drugs
• gasoline

There are many more…take a look.

There is still much to be learned by brands on social media. The environment and it’s regulations are changing all the time. So, the lesson here is to do your homework and stay in the know!

 This weekend, Brandon Griggs at CNN held a giant mirror to the Facebooking community and categorized “The 12 most annoying types of Facebookers“, complete with a handy quiz to see where you fall.  

I’ll be honest: that early morning status update can be tricky. I want it to be relevant, engaging, smart, hip, funny, etc. and would prefer there to be at least 3 comments or “likes” when I check back on it after lunch.

In this day and age of “wall spew” and too much information (see STFU, Parents), as a communication professional I have to be careful to not offer any insight into my clients’ work and also not look like a total flake to the world.  

So I took the quiz – apparently I have good status updates. But reviewing the 12 categories of annoying Facebookers, I have friends I’d place in each of those categories (and many of them have been “hidden” from Newsfeed view – sorry guys). It’s a good reminder for me to keep things interesting, and for others to stop asking me to take a quiz to find out what kind of shoe I am or let me know that “my boyfriend is truly God’s gift to women and OMG I am so, so, so LUCKY!!!”  

If you’re relatively new to Facebook (sigh, I remember when Facebook was a college-only thing and how exciting it was when UNC-Chapel Hill had their network set up in fall of 2005), or even if you are a seasoned user like myself, this quiz may come in handy.  

Happy updating…