Social Media Marketing Revolution

Much is happening in the world of social media. Here is a quick summary of recent major research findings:

In 2010, 26 million (1 in 7) U.S. Adults Monthly use Twitter

A new study by eMarketer extends its previous estimates of people using Twitter. Here is a summary of some of the study’s findings or predictions. The recent study found that in 2009, there will be 18 million U.S. adults who access Twitter at least monthly. This prediction represents an increase of 200% above 2008 levels. The study further predicts that monthly Twitter usage will reach 26 million U.S. adults in 2010, some 44.4% up. ”

Earlier this year, eMarketer reported use indication as much more conservative, stating that there was evidence of a large number of users leaving the scene shortly after the first month and many others use it only sporadically. Recently, however, eMarketer has revised their estimates due to “recent data showing healthy-and growing-share of U.S. Internet users adoption of the popular microblogging platform,” said eMarketer senior analyst, Paul Verna.

Twitter is not the only social networking site to report its registration numbers. In September, Facebook officially hit 300 million users mark, making the social networking site almost as big as the U.S. population.

Americans spend 17% of time online in Social Media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

As popular social media platforms continue to grow its number of users, it is logical to conclude that Americans are spending more time on social networking sites. According to a recent study by The Nielsen Company, 17% of online time was in social networking sites (an increase of 6% over August 2008).

In 2010, over 50% of marketers will use social media

Among those who pay most attention to this trend are advertisers. Marketers are increasingly aware that social media marketing must be a key component of their media buying strategy. Online ad spending increased by 119% to $ 108 million in August 2009.

This was recently affirmed the conclusions of the “2010 Study of Intelligence Media Planning” by the Center for Media Research, which examined the likelihood of marketing including social media in your marketing plan 2010. More than half (56.3%) of the traders said the media would be “realistic” to be part of that mixture.

Top 5 most popular media for marketing spend in 2010 were:

• Email (56.8%)
• Social networks (56.3%)
• Search by keyword (49.7%)
• Radio (42.2%)
• Magazines (42.1%)

In addition, 57% of media buyers report that will buy non-traditional media, including Internet, video display, search, mobile and event sponsorships, while 43% said it will buy the media more traditional, like television, newspapers and radio.

Blogs more useful Social Media tools, say 51% of companies

McKinsey Quarterly Global Survey “examined the overall business assessment of the value of the different technologies of social media. As reviewed by eMarketer, “When it came to customer-related benefits, blogs are the most useful tool for bringing measurable benefits according to 51% of the survey’s responding companies worldwide. Next behind blogging are video sharing and social networking at 48% each, followed by RSS feeds at45%. ”

In addition to these findings, the top three reported benefits of Web 2.0 marketing include:

• Increased marketing effectiveness (52%)
• Greater customer satisfaction (43%)
• Reduction of marketing costs (38%)

75% of marketing plan to increase media jobs in 2010

According to a recent study by the provider Unisfair virtual events, marketers are more focused on attracting and keeping customers in 2010 and plan to use social media to make this happen.

According to Unisfair, the 3 main priorities of marketing in 2010 according to U.S. retailers are:

• Acquisition of new customers (60%)
• Customer retention and commitment (48%)
• Thought Leadership (45%)

Top 5 marketing tactics to be used by U.S. marketers in 2010 are:

• Social media (75%)
• Web Search / SEO (51%)
• E-mail campaigns (49%)
• Virtual (48%)
• Online advertising (28%)

The study also asked traders to rank the value of the platforms of social media. LinkedIn entered the top 26%, 23% for Facebook and Twitter by 17%.

How might these findings from a social impact study of its future activities of the media? We’d love to hear from you.

Tips For Building Better Blog Posts For Better SEO

If writing is an art, then, blogging is one way of using words to come up with a masterpiece. Bloggers are artistic in their own right.  They carefully (or not) choose words that best describe their feelings, sentiments, wishes, desires, and any thing else related to their opinion. If you are business blogger you should be writing about information respective to your business.

If you are thinking of creating a blog for business or for pleasure, you need to decide on whether you want your blog to be found by people searching the Internet, or if the blog is for your own pleasure and entertainment. If you want your blog found, then you should continue reading this post to discover some tips for building better blog posts. A better blog post will get found and people will find them interesting.

Building Better Blog Posts For Better SEO

1. Have A Clear Understanding of Your Reason For Blogging

A main benefit for blogging is the creation of useful content for your business which search engines like Google love. Part of creating useful content is know why you have a blog in the first place. Once you know your purpose you can produce content consistent with your purpose. Consistent content strengthens the ranking of your blog in the search engines. Knowing your purpose is closely related to your audience. Who are you writing for is important to know when deciding on a purpose for your blog.

2. Identify What Your Readers Want

Now that you have your purpose in mind, you must write with your audience in mind. How you do this is to write to the person reading your blog. Just like this blog is written to you, the reader reading it, you should write your blog the same way. While writing to your reader, you need to keep your eye on delivering to the reader the message – “WIIFM” – “What’s In It For Me”. Your reader is reading your blog looking for information that you have – give it to them.

3. Keep Is Simple Sugar – KISS

If you are a business blog owner get to the point in your blog post. Keep in mind our society is about instant gratification. If you write a long essay to get to your point you will most likely lose your reader. Make your point first, then explain it.

4.  Create Keyword Rich Headlines

Blog post titles and headlines are extremely important to your blog and website’s search engine optimization. Include the most relevant keyword phrase in both the blog post title and the headline as well as the blog post permalink. The tendency of most rookie blog managers and writers is to write catchy funny titles and headlines which while they are funny or eye catching they do not lend any value to getting either the post or your site found in the search engines.

5. Write Great First Sentences

To continue our theme of writing better blog posts for better SEO, you need to include your keyword phrase for a particular post in the first paragraph – preferably the first sentence. Again, get to the point – do not make your reader wait.

6. Break Up Your Content

When writing, keep your paragraphs short. The last thing a reader wants to see when they get to your blog post is a huge long blast of text. Reading on a computer screen is much harder than reading on printed text. Make it easy to read your post.

Writing on the net, especially blogs is much different than writing for an english composition class. Paragraphs can and should be one or two sentences at most. White space is your friend.

7.  Apply Bulleted Lists

Along the lines of #6, break up your text with bullets and lists as often as possible.

This makes:

• your job easier
• keeps your reader’s attention longer
• your blog easier to read
• it easier for the reader to retain and remember

Research shows that adults prefer information is more easily digested if it is fragmented and short. Keep your lists short from between three to five items. Some online writing experts also recommend keeping the lists to an odd number of bullet points – bottom line use lists.

8. Provide Beneficial Informative and Educational Content

While you are free to write anything you want you need to keep in mind that your reader is there to:

• Get some benefit
• Be informed
• And learn something

Quirky writing on a business website only serves to devalue the blog content and thus the company.

9. Avoid Jargon and Technical Terms

This is related to your audience. Most likely, you know far more about your industry and the language of your industry than your prospective customer. Do not assume they know what you are talking about. In most cases act as though you are writing to a high school student, graduate or 1st year college student.

10. Mix It Up A Little

Use different types of media to get your point across – use pictures, video, mp3 downloads, charts, graphs etc. All of these things are interesting and catch the eye. One thing to keep in mind – keep your videos and sound bites to less than 5 minutes for sure and if you can – 2 minutes max.

Remember – blogging is an art form. Now all there is to do is create your masterpiece. We hope you have learned something from our Tips For Building Better Blog Posts for Better SEO.