Whilst only a very small group of people have the time or inclination to tell their friends on Facebook about an awesome Tweet they did relating to their latest wicked good Tumblr, it’s high likely that we will start to see many of these networks starting to clearly divide by class, age and most certainly function.
I’ve come across a few stats this week that show how some of the popular networks are evolving in terms of user profiles.
The NYT highlights that despite Myspace’s decline it still has virtually the same amount of visitors as Facebook in the US. However interestingly it isn’t age that divides these two Networks, but potentially class. Danah Boyd, Microsoft’s Social Media Researcher who conducted the study found the following:
‘During the 2006-2007 school year, conversations with high-school students began showing a trend of white, upper-class and college-bound teens migrating to Facebook –much like the crowd in the conference hall has. Meanwhile, less-educated and non-white teens were on MySpace. Ms. boyd noted that old-style class arrogance was also in view; the Facebook kids were quicker to use condescending language toward the MySpace kids’.
The next indicator comes from Business Week citing a study conducted by Anderson Analytics. The US study found the following:
Twitter users like news, restaurants, sports, politics, personal finance and religion, pop culture, music, movies, TV and reading.
- They’re more likely to buy books, movies, shoes and cosmetics online than the other groups.
- Twitterers are also entrepreneurial.
- They are more likely than others to use the service to promote their blogs or businesses.
- More likely to be employed part-time (16% vs. 11% average),
- An average income of $58,000, and average 28 followers and 32 other Twitterers they’re following. They’re not particularly attached to the site, though — 43% said they could live without Twitter.
MySpace users skew younger
- They’re more likely to have joined MySpace for fun and more likely to be interested in entertaining friends, humour and comedy, and video games.
- They’re less into exercise than any other social group but seek out parenting information more than any other.
- Their average income is the lowest, at $44,000, and they have an average of 131 connections.
- They’re more likely to be black (9%) or Hispanic (7%) than users of the other social sites. They are also more likely to be single (60%) and students (23%)
Facebook users
News, sports, exercise, travel, and home and garden skewed slightly higher than average
- They are more likely to be married (40%), white (80%) and retired (6%) than users of the other social networks.
- They have the second-highest average income, at $61,000, and an average of 121 connections.
Facebook users skew a bit older and are more likely to be late adopters of social media.
- But they are also extremely loyal to the site — 75% claim Facebook is their favourite site
I came across this today which may well have been around for a while but I only just noticed it. You can now search Wikipedia direct from Google. Whilst this only saves me 2 seconds at most it’s a nice touch and over the period my life this could equate to a lot. Perhaps even a handful Tweets in Twitter Time.
It also reminded me of a Dan Ariely Ted talk that amongst other things highlights how easy it is to spend money on advertising but if you ignore the little micro interactions that precede it, you might be a wasting the lot. If you want the full story on how forms increased the number of organ donors and how The Economist tricks your mind to sell higher value subscriptions, then it’s well worth watching.
I love this kind of blurry stuff that is digital, traditional, social and a product innovation all rapped up in one (excuse the gag). It’s such a simple idea I can’t believe it has been used more often. Imagine how much The Ramones could have made with all those millions of walking adverts – it might also have ensured the cool kids actually listened to the music as well.
Not only that, it has raised the price to $39, probably reduced the production costs and generated cheap, peer 2 peer advertising. Genius.
After yesterday’s post I think I’m going to start a Zombieconomy Room 101. So here goes with entry # 1 …
But before I start this post I want to state that I have nothing against promotions, just the boring and lazy ones. I also have nothing against promotions using social tools, just the boring and lazy ones.
Now a post about giving away free stuff just to get an email address, followers or some traffic has been brewing for a long time. I just don’t think they work and at the very least it only delivers some very artificial or tenuous numbers that do not constitute effectiveness or engagement. I don’t have any concrete research to back this up – but I don’t think people find them interesting, I don’t think people want the brand more than the prize and only a certain type of person enters them. Of course all of these points can be overcome, but it would require people to stop being zombies. Again not concrete but it shows how uninteresting this is becoming. The fact that people spend their free time scouring the web for free stuff also speaks volumes.
However what tipped me over the edge this morning was the whole MacBook Pro Giveaway that Moonfruit are doing dubbed by Mashable as a ‘Twitter competition done right’. (Note: this is about lazy bribes not about trying something new and being on Twitter, which Moonfruit has done well).
So I can win a MacBook just by Tweeting #moonfruit? Thanks Moonfruit, I still have no intention of even visiting your site but thanks. It was top of the Twitter trends list for about 4 hours but now it is wedged in between #DemiLovatoLive and #urwashed. What does that mean and who cares? Only the people that sit on hashtags so they can spam people. Case in point
Has it influenced search? No. The biggest influence on search is us marketing folks talking about it.
The only interesting thing I have learnt about Moonfruit is that it’s also the term used for the part of the body you see when someone bends over too much whilst mooning.
However there are some great promotions out there such as the Whopper Sacrifice and Spot the Bull. These just weren’t created by Zombies.
However it wasn’t all bad. The original Walkman did have two sockets so you could share your listening experience with a friend. You have to buy an adapter with today’s iPods. Who said brands have only just started being social.
Umair Haque, Director of Havas Media Lab has posted this interesting article on Harvard Business relating to his theory about the ‘Zombieconomy’. In essence it relates to the problem businesses, brands, advertisers and people have with creating real value.
Haque, accusing the ‘Beancounters of killing the incentives to create value’ said: “We don’t reward people for creating, growing, nurturing, or even remixing assets. We just reward them for allocating the same old assets”.
Using the music industry and MJ as an example Haque continues to highlight this self destructive concept: “If the world’s biggest pop star only made $12 million a year from his recordings, why would anyone make serious music? Where did the rest of the money go? Why, straight into record labels’ pockets. Did they make better music with it? Nope — they made Britney and Lady GaGa. And that’s how they killed themselves by underinvesting in quality, to rake in the take”.
From a marketing point of view, the Zombieconomy is rife with this kind of thinking. Marketing peeps, as a rule of thumb have to/want to deliver on the short term beans and not the long term value. As a result they spend money doing the same things or repurposing the same stuff, in the same way as everyone else.
Take this down to a people level and think about the slowdown of blogging. It’s easier for people to create less for more currency- in this instance, currency = popularity. Two cases in point, Twitter followers/retweets and more recently Tumblarity, that both to differing degrees reward people for allocating the same old assets.
The ‘currency’ cannot solely be about the numbers any more.
1# It’s actually a worthwhile cause and not just the normal sensationalist rubbish surrounding MPs. Whilst it’s funny that they might be getting their butts whipped by one armed dwarfs in their spare time, does the public really care that much? This is news.
2# A great collaboration between a newspaper and its audience. Readers get to help in the investigation, ridding the UK of dodgy MPs who are wasting tax payers money in a recession – an trulyl social reason to get involved. People will be tied to this story and The Guardian for the long haul. I posted yesterday about the fact that society is watching Big Brother, rather than the other way around and this is a great example. Is there a future for trained journos managing an army of citizen journalists in a structured and organised manner? After all, if you can’t beat them, join them.
3# Many hands make like work. It’s a great example of brands and technology helping groups of people get stuff done. I’m excited when people use social tools to mobilise themselves around an issue, but very few achieve anything other than a large Facebook group or a zillion Tweets. It’s fantastic to see what could happen with the backing of a big business wanting to do something good as well as sell stuff.
4# It’s highly relevant and encourages competition. Not only can I investigate my local MP, I can investigate my Party, or even the Party I like the least. It becomes a competition around who belongs to the dirtiest Party, awesome. Everyone likes a bit of ammunition should you ever end up at a boring dinner party.
I particularly like his quote about George Orwell not getting it right in 1984. It’s more accurate to suggest that we are in fact watching Big Brother these days, rather than the other way round. A nice little articulation.
FYI I don’t think he is talking about the reality TV show either.
I like to think of myself as a bit of an amateur sociologist because a) it’s the most interesting part of my job, but b) its actually the most helpful way of thinking about and approaching marketing. Particularly with all this new social media stuff pissing on everyone’s fireworks.
So the point of this post and inspired by Everyday Sociologist, is about not thinking like a marketer, or even a social media expert for that matter, but a sociologist. Here’s their 5 steps for thinking like a sociologist
1# never assume anything
Easier said than done I know, but it’s arguably one of our worst traits. Assumptions about media, assumptions about our audience and assumptions about how our audience uses media are the main culprits. Oh and assuming people actually care about your thingummyjig that does doodah.
2# Get ready to be wrong
Nobody likes being wrong, but it’s often a good thing. It means someone has potentially seen something you haven’t and dare I say it, perhaps an innovation? Obviously challenge people and don’t always take an opposing hypothesis on face value, but don’t be afraid to accept that there might be a better way.
3# Ask even more questions
It’s not good enough having a nice pithy way of describing a target audience or an excel spreadsheet telling you how many times you are *potentially* going to bash someone over the head. Roll up your sleeves and ask the questions that tell you what your audience are really doing and thinking. Whlist you might not like the answer, it makes life more interesting trying to understand the why as well as the who and where.
4# Make the everyday strange
Who likes stuff these days that isn’t strange or different? What happens if I create a TV ad that will have more success on the web? What happens if I create a website that is more like a TV channel? What happens if I create a banner ad that’s a booking engine? What happens if I create a campaign that is really an involving story? All of these have been done of course, but don’t let other people be the first to do something that seems strange. Today’s strange is tomorrows normal.
5# Embrace life’s complexities
Oscar Wilde once said: “Life is not complex, we are complex. Life is simple and the simple thing is the right thing”. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for simplicity, but only up to a point. After all he did say this in 18 something and something and he also said: “Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative”.
We understand a lot more about people these days, how they behave, how irrational they can be and more importantly the context of various media and how they are intertwined with each other and networks of people. Technology enables us to collect vast amounts of data and see things that we would never have seen before. Yes it can be difficult to get your head around but it’s not an excuse to say something is too difficult and opt for the ‘let’s just keep things simple’ or the ‘big eyeball buy’ routes.
