news & tips

Social Media Sharply Influences Investment Decisions According to New Study from Cogent Research

According to a study released today by Cogent Research, social media plays a rapidly growing and influential role in individual investors' financial decision-making. The research, which examines the impact of social media on investment-related decisions, reveals three primary trends:

• Investors are highly engaged in social media;
• Peer opinion influences a majority of investment decisions; and
• Social media leads investors to question the accuracy of information delivered by official sources (advisors and investment firms)

Cogent Research produced the research study, "Social Media's Impact on Personal Finance & Investing," with input from social media PR agency, SSA Public Relations. The study measures investors' involvement in social media and its influence on their investment behaviors and decisions. Cogent is presenting an overview of the data at this week's Investment Company Institute (ICI) conference.

According to Christy White, chief of operations at Cogent Research, "There's a danger to dismissing social media as too new, too emerging or too small to think about yet. Our study clearly shows that high net-worth investors have taken to social media in big numbers - and they are listening closely to what their peers have to say. Financial services firms that fail to keep up with, and engage in, this emerging media are basically putting the fate of their brand into the hands of consumers."

Regarding decisions about personal finance and investing, the Cogent Research study revealed critical data points for investment firms and advisors to digest concerning social media engagement, opinion and influence. "Our goal is not only to provide the investment management community with a better understanding of investor behavior, but to be the catalyst the industry needs to become actively engaged in social media," said White.

"Engaging in social media is no longer a past-time of the younger generation," said Susan Sears, managing director of SSA Public Relations. "While individuals of all ages are now actively sharing their thoughts, ideas and opinions online, a surprising number of firms aren't even aware of the conversations taking place in the blogosphere about their own company. Today, savvy firms that understand the power of the Internet are monitoring their online brand and reaching out through all forms of social media to educate, inform and engage their stakeholders." (read more)

Social Networking Meets Behavioral Targeting

Social networks play a key role in society these days. What does this mean for behavioral targeting? I caught up with Andrew Monfried, founder and CEO of Lotame Solutions, which is providing solutions to publishers and advertisers to capitalize on this emerging social media environment.

Anna Papapdopoulos: What major developments and challenges have you seen in behavioral targeting in the past year?

Andrew Monfried: One of the biggest challenges is that the industry is trying to apply standard behavioral targeting techniques to the robust arena of user-generated content and social media. Emphasis is still placed on contextual relevance when, in reality, that metric doesn't take into account true behavior and consumer interests. People are commenting, uploading, posting, viewing videos, and using widgets. The key is to leverage this data in a way that will drive performance. Contextual relevancy doesn't capture those verbs or actions.

AP: How do you see it playing out in the social media space?

AM: There will be a move toward aggregating social data for targeting and monetization purposes, which is what Lotame is currently doing. I'm confident that we will be among the leaders in this space. We deal exclusively with social media and solve the problems that publishers and advertisers are facing. Continue... (Source: Clickz.com)

Think Different: Maybe the Web's Not a Place to Stick Your Ads

"Steve Jobs hates the internet." So jokes a contact of mine whenever he laments what he regards as Apple's relatively paltry investment in web advertising. The point that person -- who once had a stake in that investment -- is trying to make is not that Mr. Jobs is actually a closet Luddite but that Apple, one of the world's strongest brands, isn't as experimental as it should be and, as such, isn't contributing enough to the gold rush that is the digital-advertising business.

That's one way to look at it. Another is that regardless of what it lays out on ads, Apple has a greater online presence than most brands that spend many times what it does. Consider that in December, Apple sites had the 10th-best traffic figures on the web. Those sites, which grabbed more unique visitors than many of the most popular sites where Apple would place its own ads -- including The New York Times, NBC Universal and ESPN -- are destinations. Plus, there's the endless gusher of Apple-obsessed jabbering on any number of blogs and social networks. Oh, and Apple did manage to lay out $32 million in measured media online in 2007, more than double the amount it spent the year before and four times its 2005 outlay.

Look closely at the disappointment that an advanced marketer in 2008 wouldn't be willing to spend more than that to spray its brand all over an Internet already saturated by it and you'll see very clearly some misperceptions plaguing the marketing business today. First, there's the basic mistake that marketing is synonymous with advertising. Then, there's the underexamined assumption so popular in marketing circles of all kinds that when it comes to helping companies create brands or move product the Internet's greatest use is as an ad medium. Continue... (Source: AdAge)

YouTube Coming to TV, With TiVo the Gateway

Pick up the remote, turn on the television and watch YouTube.

The blurring of the television and the computer, envisioned by technology enthusiasts for years, advanced another step on Wednesday when TiVo, the popular maker of digital video recorders, announced an agreement with YouTube that will deliver millions of Web videos directly to users’ TV screens.

“TiVo’s strategy is to bridge the gap between Web video and television and make as much content available as possible for our subscribers,” said Tara Maitra, TiVo’s vice president and general manager for content services.

TiVo is the latest entrant into the marketplace for porting Internet videos to television. Apple has introduced a version of Apple TV with similar features. Although several companies are trying to merge online content with the big screen in the living room, no one product dominates the market. (Source: The NY Times)

Improve Client Relationships Through Social Media

With the growing popularity of social media platforms MySpace, Facebook and LinkedIn, businesses and nonprofit organizations alike are embracing the technology to build community and strengthen consumer interest.

Dan Backus, co-founder of ThePort Network, a firm that creates software tools for virtual communities, offers these four tips for harnessing the power of social media to support your company\'s communication efforts with consumers:

Know your audience. The tools you will want to invest in should be directly related to the online behavior of the people you are trying to reach. Ideally, you will want to conduct audience research to determine how often potential customers are online, what other sites they visit and how comfortable they are downloading podcasts or setting up RSS feeds.

Align organizational objectives with social media tools. Different tools are better at accomplishing specific goals. For example, blogs are a great way to get feedback on potential programs from large groups of readers, while photo-sharing programs are useful for building a sense of community and excitement around new programs.

Establish procedures.Social media require companies to have a higher level of trust in their publics than other communication tools. At the same time, it is important to retain some oversight to ensure communications remain appropriate and continue to focus on your company\'s key goals. You might want to begin by identifying forum moderators and establishing rules for posting.

Identify resources and bring everybody on the same page. A successful social-media strategy requires participation from many constituents, as well as from the organizational leaders themselves. Before initiating, make sure the internal personnel support the idea and are willing to integrate social media functions into outreach activities. Ideally, those same leaders will want to participate in the online communities themselves --both to learn more about their customers and to use that knowledge to shape future goals. (Source: The Wall Street Journal)

Social Media Could Thrive In a Recession

Marketing and PR people hate to hear talk of a recession or a depression. Our budgets are always the first to get cut, A report from Forrester out today says this time will be different -online and social media marketing could escape that fate.

Strategies For Interactive Marketing In A Recession says companies will continue to invest online

Online display ads won't be hit too hard -brand advertisers seeking cheaper media could turn from TV and print to online video and flash ads.
Money will flow toward search - Google and other search-based firms could actually see prices increase as marketing dollars cut from mass brand advertising begin to flow into performance-based search
Email marketing will increase -existing customers are far more likely to listen to your messages in a recession than new prospects Social Applications Could Thrive - social programs leverage the voice of the customer to get messages carried further than ad impressions, they're cheap and they motivate consumers in the middle of the funnel. (Source: SearchEngineWatch.Com)

Online Video Views Will Increase in 2008

User Generated Video (UGV) scored 22.4 billion views in 2007, up 70% over 2006. Source: AccuStream iMedia Research.

YouTube can say thank you to the writer’s strike for some of that traffic. According to Nielsen Online figures, YouTube showed an 18% surge in the two months since the writer’s strike began in November (Source: Bulldog Reporter)

ShoZu Raises $12 Million for Mobile Social Media Services

London - ShoZu, a developer of mobile social media services, announced on Tuesday that it has closed on a $12 million third round of funding, led by new investor SEB Venture Capital.

Founded in 2000, London-based ShoZu said it is attracting over 100,000 new users monthly to its service, which facilitates the exchange of content between mobile phones and Web-based social media sites, such as Flickr and Facebook.

For instance, ShoZu users can have new photos uploaded to a friend's Flickr account automatically delivered to their cell phones.

The company reached agreements last year with Motorola and Samsung, among others, that will result in its application shipping pre-installed on more than 50 million handsets in 2008. (Source: Digital Media Wire)

SSA Public Relations Enhances its PR 2.0 Platform with Radian6 Social Media Monitoring Solution

SSA Public Relations announced today it has deployed the Radian6 social media monitoring solution as part of its PR 2.0/Social Media platform to identify influential sites and individuals who have the ability to shape consumer opinion about corporations and their brands. SSA PR, which recently announced its new PR 2.0 platform to capture the emerging role that social media plays in today's world of public relations, is the only independent agency in Phoenix and Denver to utilize Radian6 in developing strategic social media communications campaigns. (Source: PR Web)

JC Penney Feels the Marketing Power of Link Love

Classically trained digital marketers know what to look for when it comes to measuring the impact of a campaign: number of impressions, click-through rate, cost per acquisition and maybe a study from Dynamic Logic or Insight Express to gauge lift in consumer perceptions. But sometimes there is another, unexpected outcomes to content-focused campaigns: organic search equity.

Yes, search equity is all about link love. Creating -- or aggregating -- compelling content online and letting readers use social-media tools to share the content can goose Google results for brand or related terms. It's something bloggers have known for years, but marketers are really just beginning to employ.

One case study: Federated Media and JC Penney teamed up to launch the Fall Shopping Guide, a collection of content from popular woman-focused blogs prominently sponsored by the retailer's Chris Madden Collection. (Source: Ad Age)

Study Looks at How Journalists Use Blogs

In a recent study by Omnicom Group’s Brodeur and Marketwire about how journalists use blogs, it was found that blogs are are a regular source for journalists for improving the speed of reporting news as well as guiding tone, but not for improving quality:

(Source: WebProNews)

Top 10 Trends in Social Media and Business for 2008

If 2007 was the year of the rise in social media, then this year we'll see changes in the way social media is used, and an increase on its effect on business. With the advent of the social web has come more and more interaction between consumers online. Social networks, and user feedback sites, which were seen as slightly quirky a year ago are being normalised by the consumer. Traditional search engines will become increasingly less relevant to the consumer and businesses will need to re-think their online strategies. (Source: ResponseSource.com)

A fair use primer for online content creators

"Recut, Reframe, Recycle," a new report from the Center for Social Media out of American University, explores the issues surrounding fair use in user-generated content with the goal of educating users about appropriate behavior. As the report correctly notes, fair use is not some trivial addition to copyright law, but something that stems from US copyright's essential feature: "to encourage the production of culture." Such production "can be encouraged both by providing such incentives as limited ownership rights and such exemptions as fair use." (Source: Ars Technica)

Get real: People will want to connect in 2008

Next year, our friends in China will be feting the Year of the Rat. We'll have no such luxury. Here in the USA, it'll be the Year of Getting Real. Or so says a brain trust of marketers, activists and cultural anthropologists who live to dissect our shopping, eating, viewing, networking and lifestyle habits. (Source: USA Today)