Social Communications Patterns Different from Voice

Those of you familiar with the typical voice usage pattern will find this graphic by Dan Zarella interesting. It shows that Facebook sharing ("communications") happens on weekends, in contrast to voice traffic which tends to happen on weekdays. Contagious content


Some would also note that much website "commenting" and reading tends to happen on weekends as well, suggesting that perhaps people engage in digital communications on weekends because that is when they have time to spend on social sites, read, watch and then share.


  


On the other hand, the data is not completely conclusive. Other studies suggest that the amount of Facebook content creation is fairly even throughout the week, though consumption might be said to peak mid-week, on Wednesday. Facebook shares and reads





But Zarella suggests Twitter "retweet" activity shows yet a third pattern, building during the week and then falling on weekends, suggesting people are reading during the work week, and then cutting back on weekends. People retweet when they actively are reading, in other words, implying that Twitter is getting used less on weekends.





Friday is the best day to get retweets, Zarella says. The click-through-rate of emails ist best on Monday and Saturday, as well. Less content is published on the weekend, therefore more comments are compiled on Facebook on Saturday, says Zarella. Best days for sharing, consuming

What is Twitter, Really?

What is Twitter? Sure, it is a "social network," but lots of people also say blogs are social networks. Initially, the idea was that Twitter was Facebook in 140 characters. These days, most observers would tend to agree that Twitter is something different, which only raises the question of "what" Twitter actually is.

These days, some would say, Twitter might be seen less as a social network on the Facebook model, but something that is as much broadcast network as a "social network." Of course, these days all social networks seem to be "media" as well as the digital equivalent of any real world place where people casually hang out and talk.

These days, the term "information network" seems to be the accepted term. Dick Costolo, Twitter CEO, says “there’s this huge opportunity for us to surface all this great content.” The difference might be subtle, but it's a bit like the difference between "what you doing right now?" and "what's happening right now?"

The former is an example of personal communication. The latter is "media."

Will Twitter Become Profitable?

Social Media Conversion Rates Low, But Worth It?

Marketers continue to believe that Twitter and Facebook are worth the effort. A new report from RichRelevance states that online retail shoppers who click through from Facebook only convert 1.2 percent of the time. If you think that’s bad, Twitter’s number is only 0.5 percent.

But Twitter shoppers actually spend more money when they do order.


Online conversion rates—the ratio of purchase sessions to shopping sessions—has remained relatively unchanged between 2010 and 2011, based on a year-on-year comparison of mass merchants. This rate was 2.1 percent in August 2010 and remained 2.13 percent in August 2011.


Overall online average order value has dropped from $128.27 to $116.58 in this period. The decline may be attributed to several factors, including increased cost consciousness and increased shipping efficiencies that encourage smaller purchases.


Shoppers behave very differently depending on how they arrive at the retail site. For example, while fewer shoppers come from Twitter than anywhere else, they spend more per order once they are on the site.

Twitter Conversions, Spending

Twollars: A Virtual Currency for Twitter

Twollars are a new virtual currency for Twitter apps.

Facebook Dominates Display Advertising

It wasn't so long ago that observers speculated about whether Facebook could keep growing, much less find a viable, self-sustaining business model. Looking at Facebook's share of online display ads, the concern about business or revenue model is not relevant any longer.

The only question might be the scale of Facebook's ad operations. These days, it is Twitter that occasionally still faces questions about its own revenue model.

http://goo.gl/utliu

10 Essential Twitter Stats

10 Essential Twitter Stats

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Twitter in Talks to Buy TweetDeck

Twitter is in advanced talks to buy TweetDeck Inc. for around $50 million, the Wall Street Journal reports.

TweetDeck is a popular third-party application programs that help Twitter users view and manage their tweets. TweetDeck has emerged as a favorite of heavy users of Twitter, letting people track tweets about multiple topics at the same time. The program, which many people download and use on their desktop computers, also lets people write tweets longer than 140 characters, among other features.

Twitter has encountered some static recently because developers fear Twitter now wants to clamp down on third-party apps that compete with features Twitter believes should be a core part of Twitter itself.

Google has encountered somewhat similar issues recently over new releases of Android, which some developers say Google develops in "too closed" a manner.

Twitter in Talks to Buy TweetDeck - WSJ.com

95% of Twitter Accounts Created Since January 2009

Fully 95 percent of the current Twitter accounts were created after January of 2009, according to an analysis by Sysomos. That is some serious scaling.

The other significant finding is that roughly 22 percent of users produce 90 percent of the tweets.

If you are familiar with the Pareto Principle, that is precisely what one would expect to find.

95% of Twitter Accounts Created Since January 2009

Facebook and Twitter are Big

Facebook and Twitter both are big. Here's a look at how big the two firms are. You can click on the image for a larger view.

Twitter Illustrates Pareto Distribution

The "long tail" distribution is a standard Pareto distribution, popularly thought of as the "80/20" rule, where a disproportionate share of just about anything comes from a fraction of the causes.

Twitter followers in December 2010 show a clear Pareto distribution, as do people that Twitter users "follow."

The clear implication for things such as market share in any sphere of business will also have a Pareto distribution.

The implications for businesses and organizations that use Twitter as a social tool is that, in all likelihood, modest expectations should be watchword. It is highly unlikely most companies and organizations will ever appear at the head of the tail. Those spots normally are held by celebrities of one sort or another.

That isn't a reason not to use Twitter, just a reminder to be realistic about expectations.

24% Provide Mobile Social Network Updates

Mobile status updating services have grown in popularity over the past few years, from six percent of online adults saying they had used such a service in August 2008 to 24 percent in September 2010.

Related internet activities | Pew Internet & American Life Project

Why Twitter Is a Big Win for Small Businesses

Not every small business will find these results, but Chanel Huston, owner of Boutique de Bandeaux, an Etsy shop selling handmade couture-inspired hair accessories for thick, curly and kinky natural hair, says her business has tripled since she started using Twitter to find customers and promote her business.

"I noticed that between the four-month period before I started using Twitter and the four-month period after I started using it, my sales tripled," Huston says.

"I was on a message board for natural hair first, called Black Hair Media, and it turned out that a lot of the girls were on Twitter," Huston says. "Once I got on Twitter, I found out that there was a big natural hair community that would meet and give tips and secrets to each other.”

"Twitter helps me find the people who are actually going to be interested in my products, who have the disposable income to spend on them and have the hair type that’s going to be appropriate for my products," she says.

“Finding people on Twitter is actually easy, if tedious at the start, she says. "I started by making announcements on the message board that I frequented to let everybody know that they could now follow me on Twitter. After that, she went looking for Twitter users that have a target audience similar to hers and become a "follower."

Now she says she has a little over 3,000 followers, and for the most part, she responds personally to all incoming tweets.

There’s a lot of temptation to follow everyone, but avoid the temptation, she says. If you sell children’s clothes, for example, add people who are following parenting magazines or are in parenting groups.

Why Twitter Is a Big Win for Small Businesses

Social Media Clutter Grows

Social media is more popular than ever (81 percent of U.S. online users engage with social tools at least once per month), but that popularity also increases "clutter" in the space, making it harder for marketers to stand out in a busy environment, says Nate Elliott, Forrester Research analyst.

(Click on image for a larger view)

The average U.S. Facebook user has 135 friend connections on the site, and MySpace and Twitter users aren’t far behind, with MySpace users having an average 107 connections and Twitter users an average 77 connections.

In addition, nearly 75 percent of online users consume other social content outside of social networks, like blogs posts and YouTube videos. Younger users are even more active than the averages suggest.

Also, most users don’t check their social feeds that often, Elliott says.  Despite the lingering stereotype of Facebook and Twitter users being tethered to their computers, the average social network user logs in only every few days, with Facebook users checking in less frequently than users of other popular networks.

From a marketing standpoint relatively few online users become "fans" of brands’ social networking pages. With more than 500 million people around the world using Facebook, and with nearly every business having started its own Facebook page, you probably could’ve guessed that social networks are by far the most common social technology through which consumers engage directly with brands.

But even this type of engagement remains disappointingly rare. Just 18 percent of U.S. online users have become “friends” with or “liked” a brand on a social network in the past three months.

Users are even less likely to engage with brands on less-popular social platforms. For instance, only eight percent have been to a brand-sponsored social network recently, while just six percent have read a brand’s blog. Only five percent of online users have followed a brand on Twitter in the past three months.

If such low levels of engagement continue, it will become difficult for marketers to justify dedicating budget to social channels. In fact, this challenge is already becoming evident: The majority of the large interactive marketers we survey say they’ve chosen not to increase their social media marketing budgets from 2009 to 2010.

With clutter growing, and with social networking users much more interested in engaging with each other than with brands,  interactive marketers have two options for reaching their audiences through social media: cut through the clutter, or  avoid it altogether.

And though many marketers try to fight through social clutter, this strategy is fraught with danger because most marketers simply aren’t interesting enough. Unless a marketer is blessed with genuinely unique content or a breakthrough creative idea, it remains tough to cut through the clutter.

It also costs money to get users’ attention on popular social networks. Although many marketers still think of social media as a “free” strategy, we rarely see successful social programs that didn’t involve some form of paid promotion, says Elliott.

Nothing is ever too easy in the online and mobile marketing business, it seems.

Twitter Really is a "Real Time" Media

Sysomos recently found that 29 percent of all tweets produced a reaction, in the form of a reply or a retweet. Of this group of tweets, 19.3 percent were retweets and the rest replies. This means that of the 1.2 billion tweets Sysomos examined, six percent, (or 72 million) were re-tweets.

Sysomos also discovered that 92.4 percent of all retweets happen within the first hour of the original tweet being published, while an additional 1.63 percent of retweets happen in the second hour, and 0.94 percent take place in the third hour.

The obvious take-aways are that Twitter really is a "real time" medium and that most people read, but don't write.

Replies and Retweets on Twitter

Twitter: Advertising Could be the Business Model

Twitter started with just six advertisers and now has about 40, including Starbucks, Ford and Microsoft, says Twitter CEO Dick Costolo. Twitter expects to have more than 100 advertisers by the end of the year.

Last week, Twitter added three avenues of advertising. Promoted Accounts, which began immediately with Xbox and HBO, allows companies to pay Twitter to suggest that people follow their free Twitter accounts, based on shared interests.

Twitter also began publishing ads on Twitter apps, starting with HootSuite; before, ads had appeared only on Twitter’s Web site. Twitter will split the ad revenue evenly with HootSuite and the other companies that make apps.

Twitter, After Number of Users Surges, Turns to Ads

Not So Many Twitter Replies and Retweets

There is a notion that social networking communication patterns "should be" symmetrical, or something sort of symmetrical, or at least highly interactive.

Systomos finds this is not the case. After analyzing 1.2 billion tweets, Systomos found that that 29 percent of all tweets produced a reaction of any sort, either a reply or a retweet.

Of this group of tweets, 19.3 percent were retweets and the rest replies. This means that of the 1.2 billion tweets we examined, six percent, or 72 million were retweets.

Sysomos also discovered that 92.4 percent of all retweets happen within the first hour of the original tweet being published, while an additional 1.63 percent of retweets happen in the second hour, and 0.94 percent take place in the third hour.

That's a classic "Pareto" distribution, often known as the "80/20" rule or a "long tail" distribution. Since so many processes and distributions in the natural world follow a Pareto curve, this should come as no surprise.

Pareto would suggest that a small number of tweets produce most of the replies or retweets. And that is precisely what Sysomos found.

Replies and Retweets on Twitter, a Report by Sysomos

New Twitter Design and Features Launched

Twitter has crafted a new design featuring scrolling Tweets (no need to click "more"), ability to embed photos and videos, a details pane that shows "additional details."

"Mini profiles" allow users to click a username to see a mini profile without navigating from the page, which provides quick access to account information, including bio and recent Tweets.

Twitter Most Popular U.K. Business Social Media Platform

Twitter is the most popular social media platform used by U.K. businesses, a new survey by Virgin Media Business shows.

Virgin Media Business polled 5,000 businesses across the United Kingdom and found that a third use social media. About 33 percent of the companies that use social media to engage with consumers use Twitter, compared to 32 percent who use Facebook. MySpace followed third, being used by 29 percent of businesses, while 19 percent of respondents blog and 17 percent produce and distribute video content via Youtube.

Virgin Media Business also discovered that the U.K.'s biggest banks are missing out on thousands of opportunities a month to connect with their customers online. Virgin Media Business research indicates that Britain's biggest banks are being tweeted about 180 times a day on average. Yet, despite a growing number of businesses using social networks as customer service channels, Virgin Media Business found that only one bank has launched a Twitter account to monitor and respond to their customer's conversations.

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Twitter or Text? Clutter Might be a Factor

Twitter has emerged a huge generator of mobile messages, dwarfing text messages, for example.

That should convince some mobile marketers that Twitter is a channel they ought to be using.

Others will see too much "clutter" and might prefer text messaging as a channel.

But SMS remains a highly-personal medium where the risk of end user irritation is quite high.

Twitter might be a more congested channel, but the risk of end user irritation is far lower.

A Twitter Movie Trailer?

Apparently so.