Twitter, Facebook, LinkdeIn, MySpace. They can be used for much more than just looking up old classmates or posting pictures of your pet. Businesses are utilizing Web 2.0 applications to speak AND listen to their clients, constituents, citizens and customers. 

Social networking is not a fad and should be a relevant piece of your marketing plan. These platforms deliver results that are very effective and are less costly than traditional advertising (are you smiling yet?)

Many agencies have heard of social networking but are "waiting to see".  At Web Video Vision, we are marketing, managing and creating social networking sites and content for our clients TODAY! Let our experienced team help you create a social networking plan that works for your business.

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Stats (Print PDF)

• By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers….96% of them have joined a social network
• Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
• 1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. last year met via social media
• Years to Reach 50 millions Users: Radio (38 Years), TV (13 Years), Internet (4 Years), iPod (3 Years)…Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months…iPhone applications hit 1 billion in 9 months.
• If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest between the United States and Indonesia (note that Facebook is now creeping up – recently announced 300 million users)
• Yet, some sources say China’s QZone is larger with over 300 million using their services (Facebook’s ban in China plays into this)
• comScore indicates that Russia has the most engage social media audience with visitors spending 6.6 hours and viewing 1,307 pages per visitor per month – Vkontakte.ru is the #1 social network
• 2009 US Department of Education study revealed that on average, online students out performed those receiving face-to-face instruction
• 1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum
• % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees….80%
• The fastest growing segment on Facebook is 55-65 year-old females
• Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres (combined) have more Twitter followers than the population of Ireland, Norway, or Panama. Note I have adjusted the language here after someone pointed out the way it is phrased in the video was difficult to determine if it was combined.
• 80% of Twitter usage is outside of Twitter…people update anywhere, anytime…imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
• Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé…In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen
• What happens in Vegas stays on YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook…
• The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube
• Wikipedia has over 13 million articles…some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica…78% of these articles are non-English
• There are over 200,000,000 Blogs
• 54% = Number of bloggers who post content or tweet daily
• Because of the speed in which social media enables communication, word of mouth now becomes world of mouth
• If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour
• Facebook USERS translated the site from English to Spanish via a Wiki in less than 4 weeks and cost Facebook $0
• 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
• 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
• People care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them
• 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
• Only 14% trust advertisements
• Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
• 90% of people that can TiVo ads do
• Hulu has grown from 63 million total streams in April 2008 to 373 million in April 2009
• 25% of Americans in the past month said they watched a short video…on their phone

Stats (Print PDF)

• Over 300,000 businesses have a presence on Facebook and roughly a 1/3 of these are small businesses.
• Gary Vaynerchuk grew his family business from $4 million to $50 million using social media.  Gary’s eccentric personality and offbeat oenophile knowledge have proven a natural path to success with his Wine TV Library.
• Vaynerchuk found first hand that $15,000 in Direct Mail = 200 new customers, $7,500 Billboard = 300 new customers, $0 Twitter = 1,800 new customers.
• Wetpaint/Altimeter Study found companies that are both deeply and widely engaged in social media significantly surpass their peers in both revenue$ and profit$.  The study also found the company sales with the highest levels of social media activity grew on average by +18%, while those companies with the least amount of social activity saw their sales decline -6%.
• Lenovo was able to achieve cost savings by a 20% reduction in call center activity as customers go to community website for answers
• Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice Facebook program incented users to give up ten of their Facebook friends in return for a free Whopper.  The estimated investment for this program was less than $50,000 yet they received 32 million media impressions which roughly estimated equals greater than $400,000 in press/media value.  Which to put in context is somewhat like reaching the entire populations of 19 states (understanding this doesn’t account for unique vs. repeat visitors, etc.)
• BlendTec increased its sales 5x by running the often humorous “Will it Blend” Videos on YouTube blending everything from an iPhone to a sneaker.
• Dell sold $3,000,000 worth of computers on Twitter
• To put things into perspective, only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive return on investment.  This is where the majority of media dollars reside today.  I don’t believe the majority of media dollars will reside there tomorrow.
• “You can’t just say it. You have to get the people to say it to each other,” says James Farley, CMO Ford.  Ford seems to know what they are doing, especially with Scott Monty leading the social media charge.  By giving away 100 Ford Fiestas to influential bloggers, 37% of Generation Y were aware of the Ford Fiesta before its launch in the United States.  Is it any wonder why 25% of Ford’s marketing spend has been shifted to digital/social media initiatives?  Ford is the only US auto company that didn’t take a government loan.
• Naked Pizza, a New Orleans Pizzeria that specializes in healthy pies, set a one day sales record using social media.  In fact 68% of their sales came from people “calling in from Twitter.”  On top of that (no pun intended) 85% of their new customers were from Twitter.  So, yes, social media does work for small businesses.  Feel free to have a bottle of Vaynerchuk wine with your pizza.
• Volkswagen goes 100% Mobile for launch of GTI.  The reason that I mention this is that mobile drives social media usage and social media usage drives mobile.  More and more we will see most social media usage on the phone.
• Tweets for a Cause sent out a tweet from Atlanta to encourage support of Susan G. Komen for the Cure.  As a result of retweets from such notables as @mashable, @G_man, @zaibatsu and others, the Atlanta Chapter site received 11,000 visitors in 24 hours as a result of this initiative by ResponseMine Interactive.
• Intuit introduced “Live Community” into their TurboTax® products 2 years ago.  Due in part to the resulting word-of-mouth, they have seen unit sales increase +30% each year and have now integrated “Live Community” into their other products like QuickBooks, Quicken, etc.  “Live Community” allows customers to ask other customers questions which has proved both beneficial to the customer and to Intuit.  In some instances, the customer can answer questions that Intuit isn’t allowed to answer because of regulatory restrictions.
• Software company Genius.com reports that 24% of its social media leads convert to sales opportunities
• During Barack Obama’s rise to the White House, he garnered 5 million fans on social media and 5.4 million clicked on an “I voted for Obama” Facebook button.  Most importantly this resulted in three million online donors contributing $500 million in fundraising. An astounding 92% of the donations were in increments of less than $100.
• The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center witnessed a 9.5% increase in registrations by using social media.
• Web host provider Moonfruit more than recouped its $15,000 social media investment as their Website Traffic soared +300% while correspondingly sales increased +20%.  They also saw a huge lift in their organic search engine rankings getting on the first page for the term “free website builder.”
• eBay found participants in online communities spend 54% more money
• Co-Chairman Alex Bogusky of Crispin Porter & Bogusky puts it best when he states: “You can’t buy attention anymore. Having a huge budget doesn’t mean anything in social media…The old media paradigm was PAY to play. Now you get back what you authentically put in. You’ve got to be willing to PLAY to play.”
• “Think of Twitter as the canary in the coal mine.” – Morgan Johnston, JetBlue
• 71% of companies plan to increase investments in social media by an average of 40% because: a) Low Cost Marketing b) Getting Traction c) We Have To Do It
• “Our head of Social Media is the customer” – McDonald’s

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Who takes coffee breaks anymore??? More like social media breaks! Smart companies will leverage Facebook and Twitter.