Social Media is the New Advertising

According to Rajani Baburajan, contributing editor for TMCnet, the power of social media is best utilized by advertisers today. The evolution of microblogging technologies such as Twitter confirms the success of social media advertising among several businesses that communicate with their target customers through Internet. Social media optimization, or “SMO,” is also gaining traction among businesses that aim at improving the page ranking of their Web sites by connecting with different community Web sites. A recent study by BIA/ Kelsey analyzes the influence of various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace in the marketing activities of SMBs today. The latest wave of BIA/Kelsey's Local Commerce Monitor study shows that 9 percent of SMBs currently use Twitter to market their businesses. BIA/Kelsey also found that there is growing interest among SMBs to leverage the power of social media to improve the business. About 32 percent of SMBs surveyed in the study indicated they plan to include social media in their marketing mix in the next 12 months by using a page on a social site such as Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace. To invite more traffic to their business Web site, several SMBs – 39 percent – plan to include customer ratings or reviews on their own Web sites and 31 percent plan to include links or ads placed on social sites or blogs. Steve Marshall, director of research and consulting, BIA/Kelsey, said, that as local consumers increasingly gravitate to social networks, local businesses understand they need to be part of the conversation. “This opens up a market opportunity for local media companies that offer products and services that enable local advertisers to easily integrate social media into their marketing efforts,” Marshall said. BIA/Kelsey study also shows that use of social media advertising is more common in startups than the established ones. Among the SMBs that use Twitter for advertisement, 16 percent of them are in business for three years or less, 11 percent of SMBs are in business for four to six years, 6 percent of them are in business for seven to 10 years, and only 2 percent of SMBs are in business for more than 11 years. As the popularity of social media escalates among businesses as well as end users, service providers are looking towards exploiting the opportunity by offering innovative services such as free voice chat and video chat. According to another report published in TMCnet, Twitter is adding a free VoIP calling feature using JaJah’s VoIP technology. Twitter’s VoIP feature announcement comes just days after Facebook’s announcement about the launch of a new “voice chat” feature, using Vivox’s VoIP technology.

Multicultural Young Adults

Although multicultural audiences typically have racially mixed social circles and younger or second-generation Hispanics and Asians may be highly acculturated into mainstream American culture, Market Reasearch.com found significant differences still remaining amongst different racial and ethnic groups. For example, Asian audiences typically have higher incomes and a greater level of sophistication with technology, and are also more likely to be married, while black and Hispanic audiences often have lower incomes. PC ownership levels and frequency of web usage are also typically lower amongst these groups, although these differences also may be driven by differences in education and income level. Meanwhile, Hispanics are also more likely to begin families early and live in multigenerational households. Additional differences emerge by age, with those ages 18-24 having a strong interest in entertainment but limited household income available for shopping online and other expenditures, while those ages 25-34 are likely to be spending on furnishing their first homes and raising their families. Multicultural audiences are also likely to enjoy different types of entertainment, with dedicated music genres, TV channels and movies targeting the various groups. Although hit TV shows like American Idol, “big tent” movies and hit songs will still have broad reach amongst all of the multicultural audience, the overall mix of entertainment enjoyed by individual racial and ethnic groups is likely to vary. Certain groups may also be likely to have different interests and hobbies - for example, young Asian respondents to Mintel’s surveys have evidenced a strong interest in shopping, while young male black respondents are very interested in sports.