Facebook provides a powerful marketing platform for musicians to promote their songs, albums and connect with fans in real time within a multi-media rich Facebook ecosystem.

Musicians do not have to wait for the weekly TV show or breakfast TV appearance to broadcast their latest video clip and live performance… it can be posted instantly to Facebook.

So how does Facebook “Pages” digital social marketing transcend traditional mass media marketing?

1. Facebook pages are a more effective and intimate direct marketing channel
2. It is instant and up to date whereas printed and traditional media is usually out of date quite often before it hits the street
3. It is a real time research tool
4. You create a long-term relationship between the consumers and the brand that creates a digital asset with longevity
5. You create a highly leveraged channel that distributes your brand and message by “World of Mouth” as updates to the Facebook “Page” ripple and spread through friends updates and news feeds. This is an incredibly fast and effective organic brand distribution vehicle.

What are some notable Facebook marketing features of these major music brands that you should take note of ?

• Facebook stores where you can buy music videos, albums and individual songs
• Charitable promotions
• Mobile “apps” and “marketing” starting to make their presence felt.
• Email marketing is not “dead” with several music brands offering email newsletter subscriptions
• You don’t have to be “present” on this earth to make money with two musicians making the top 10 without being able to turn up to “live” shows

So with 3 of the top trends on the web being

1. Social media
2. Mobile
3. Online shopping stores

These musicians are on top of the latest marketing game and trends and are leveraging and spreading their “brand” with “World of Mouth” with very cool and trendy marketing that Gen Y can’t get enough of!

Who are the Top 10 Music “Brands” on Facebook?

1. Eminem

• Fans: 30,875,000 million
• Gain Today: 51,357
• Feature to note: YouTube Views of  ”Love The Way You Lie” with 306 million plus views!!!

2. Lady Gaga

• Fans: 30,492,997
• Gain Today: 43,642
• Feature to note: F-Commerce capability (able to buy the song on Facebook)

3. Michael Jackson

• Fans: 30,097,692
• Gain today: 28, 848
• Feature to note: “Store” on Facebook (check out the tab on the left column)

4. Rihana

• Fans: 27,719,524
• Gain today: 54,641
• Feature to note: (Promotes fans by making them famous)

5. Linkin Park

• Fans: 24,566,915
• Gain today: 35,912
• Feature to note: Charitable promotion with “Haiti Relief” as a custom tab on left side column

6. Shakira

• Fans: 23,762,549
• Gain today: 50,722
• Feature to note: You can buy the album on Facebook – click to buy

7. Justin Bieber

• Fans: 23,335,536
• Gain today: 45,763
• Feature to note: Email is still important in marketing with a newsletter sign-up form as a tab

8. Bob Marley

• Fans: 21,461,577
• Gain today: 34,905
• Feature to note: Marley shop on Facebook

9. Lil Wayne

• Fans: 21,345,545
• Gain today: 26,068
• Feature to note: Sign up to receive updates on your mobile also on the site is the link to download his “app”

10. Katy Perry

• Fans: 20,838,198
• Gain today: 50,424
• Features to note: Facebook store and able to buy from iTunes

Source: Insidefacebook.com

Image by Oceania Rock (Ocquo.com)

The speed of change in society is accelerating and according to John Hagel “the average life expectancy of a company in the S&P 500 has dropped precipitously, from 75 years (in 1937) to 15 years according to a recent study”.

Social media is part of that change and has become embedded in our pscyhe at an accelerated pace in recent years and is becoming part of our DNA as human beings and you only have to look at the Facebook phenomenon to see the evidence.

Social Media Is Dead

Recently David Armano of Edelman and the author of the blog “Logic and Emotion” declared “Social media is dead” which in essence means that social media is no longer a separate entity that has its own existence but has evolved and become enmeshed in how we work and play online in an increasingly social web.

Some companies are embracing this change while others resist and hope that things will remain the same. The potential threat to companies… which the laws of evolution has shown us, is that if you don’t adapt you become extinct.

So change is the the only constant we know in the 21st century and becoming a social business is now essential rather than optional.

The Challenge

The first challenge within organisations is how to get others to come along with you and embrace becoming a social business.

Sam Decker from Bazaarvoice was previously responsible for change management at Dell and the challenge he had was.. “How do you get others onboard with what you are trying to do?

Here are his 4 steps to create change within an organisation which can be applied to transforming your company into a social business

4 Strategic Steps To Become A Social Business

1. Start With the P&L

You cannot go to the CFO  or CEO and say” look at how many followers we have”  as it is not going to cut it as you need to speak their language which comes down to how that relates to the P&L. You need to create a bridge that shows that soft metrics such as fans and comments will translate to solid metrics such as visits and inquiry conversions then bridge that to the bottom line such as increased sales or reduced costs. That is the first step in getting buy in from the senior management.

2. Get Customers Participating

If you start getting customers participating that will get you attention. It can be as simple as a customer writing a review and creating content which increases customer engagement (up to 80% of customers are looking for a review when they come to a website or online store).

The cycle of engagement includes

• Visitors come to the site to read reviews
• More visitors are attracted to the customers content
• Visitors attracted to the customers content become a new customer
• New customer writes a product review

Note: Evidence  shows a 125% higher click through rate to a product with a rating next to it because people know that behind that lies the voice of the customer.

3. Get Employees Participating

How do you keep people following behind as you try to change the company to a social business if they are not involved and engaged?

One method is to apply what is known as the IKEA Effect which states “Labor undertaken in association with a project – similiar to assembly of Ikea furniture – increases people’s  affection for the result of that labor.”

So one strategy is to create a council and give them ownership of part of the project.  This could involve appointing a passionate enployee to become the company blogger or looking after the Facebook page and allow them to have access to metrics that validates that behaviour.

4. Tell Your Stories

This final step gives your employees a pulpit and voice within the organisation to tell their story of how they are assisting in transforming their company to a social business. It could be the product development manager presenting or communicating via a newsletter on how they have taken onboard customer comments and fine tuned products or services that better meet the needs of the market.

These are the strategic steps to start creating change to become a social business.

Is your company openly embracing becoming a social business or is still closed and hoping the social media hype will go away?

Image by Leo Reynolds

Facebook is battling with an awareness that it takes it’s users for granted as it makes changes that both infuriate and frustrate its subscriber base.

There are user groups springing up such as

• QuitFacebookDay (23,000 members) asking members to close their account on May 3
• FacebookProtest (3,000 supporters) that is requesting a one day boycott on June 6
• Facebook Group with 2.2 million members protesting recent changes to privacy and layout

These movements are an indication of  the level of discontent especially on its privacy controls. There are also people inceasingly having their accounts hacked and hijacked with spam messages and links being sent to users friends (that happened to me only this week).

Will this stop Facebook’s inexorable march to global social media domination?

Here are some competitors continuing and starting to nip at the heels of the 800 pound gorilla.

Appleseed

Appleseed is an open source project to develop free software that would allow users to set up their own social media networking hubs. Appleseed aims to create an open source, fully distributed and decentralized social networking software. Appleseed is still in active development. When it’s done, you’ll be able to pick an Appleseed compatible site, sign up, connect with friends, send messages, share photos and videos and join discussions. And if you decide you don’t like the site you’re on, you can sign up for another Appleseed compatible site and immediately reconnect with everyone in your network.

Diaspora

Diaspora is the brainchild of four New York University students who raised more than $180,000 in seed money. Their Vision is

“We are 140-character ideas. We are the pictures of your cat. We are blog posts about the economy. We are the collective knowledge that is Wikipedia. The internet is a canvas – of which, we paint broad and fine strokes of our lives with. It is a forward extension of our physical lives; a meta-self comprised of ones and zeros. We are all that is digital: If we weren’t, the internet wouldn’t either.”

Collegiate Nation

A small, subscription-based site exclusively for students which only connects college students, promises no ads , no data mining, no third party apps and no selling of your info to anyone.

OneSocialWeb

They dream of a world where all social networks are connected and work together in One Social Web. The OneSocialWeb projects aims to define the language to bridge these networks and make it easy for social networks to join. Yet they are closed environments that do not allow you to friend, message or share across networks. They are releasing an experimental social network for users over the Summer

Crabgrass

Crabgrass currently consists of a solid suite of group collaboration tools, such as private wikis, task lists, file repository, and decision making tools. They are currently working on a large user interface overhaul, better social networking tools, blogs, and event calendars, as well as better support for collaboration and decision making among independent groups.

Elgg

Elgg is an award-winning open source social networking platform that powers all kinds of social environments, from a campus wide social network for your university, school or college or an internal collaborative platform for your organization through to a brand-building communications tool for your company and its clients. You can create your own social application and build and run a site for your organization, or introduce a social layer into your technology stack.

Note: By the way Biz Stone one of the co-founders of Twitter is an advisor for Elgg

So there are some great  innovative social media visionaries that would like to think that one day that their platform could be the new Facebook .

The reality is that despite the protests Facebook is continuing to add users at over 10 million user a month since late April, so will Facebook be declining anyday soon?

I think not, and there are many reasons that most people will continue to stay.

• It is an integral part of people’s lives
• They don’t want to upset their friends
• They have invested too much time to walk away
• There is too much of an “emotional”  investment to pull the plug

So are you jumping ship?

I thought I would share with you some of the best social media articles that I have come across this week.

These blog posts are a mix of the latest news, thought provoking articles (maybe even a touch intellectual) and there are some multimedia posts including Slideshare and YouTube that should both entertain and inform.

1. How to Promote Your Blog on TV for Way Less Than You Think

Google has just announced “Google TV” which has been in the works for quite a long time and has partnered with Sony and Logitech.

Google TV is part of Google AdWords, and it works much the same way. It’s an auction-based system where you choose the price you want to pay. Obviously, the more you pay, the more people you’re likely to reach. But it’s possible to run an ad on network television for as little as $20…..Read more
(Courtesy: Dean Rieck from ProCopyTips.com)

2. Bloggers: 5 SEO Tips (that won’t make readers gouge their eyes out)

A lot of bloggers write great copy but forget SEO, so this simply put post is a good starting point for bloggers who want to improve their blogs Google ranking for those important keywords and phrases..

..Read more Courtsey Keisha Easley:

3. Do You  Have A Network In Place

Since I have been reading tribes by Seth Godin I have a greater appreciation of the value of a Tribe or a Network. So this post from Chris Brogan puts an  interesting slant on how the new tools provided by the new networks provided by social media should be in the mix, both for your career and if uyou are considering starting a new business…Read more

4. Roadmap: Integrating Social Technologies with your Corporate Website (Slides)

I am still dumbfounded by the fact that nearly 50% of companies still don’t have a website. The other aspect to this is that a lot of companies have websites that are brochureware ..(read…. static, boring and give very little reason for readers to come back as they offer no value to the website visitor)  so this article and slides by Jeremiah Owyang hit a chord with me. Read and view more

5. Social Media Revolution 2 (Refresh)

Erik Qualmann has produced some highly entertaining YouTube videos about Social media that put its growth and scale into perspective that is always inspiring for all the social media evangelists out there. So here is his updated video with a few new statistics and graphics that comes with a pumped up sound track..view and enjoy

So which of the 5 posts were your favourite or if none took your fancy what was the best post you have read or viewed this week?

I have enjoyed watching Conan O’Brien on late night Television over the years for his wacky and irreverent sense of humour. He epitomized the hold that mass media has had on us as consumers of all things TV.

Our life has centred around the square box in the corner of the room for nearly 50 years that had us schedule our life according to the time that the networks deemed as important for us to view shows. The ongoing web revolution is threatening to change this business model and Conan O’Briens well documented breakup with NBC could be the start of  a more web centric career for Conan.

This year the poor performing ratings of another of  the networks stars shows, led to Conan being bumped to another time slot that ended up in Conan walking away from a multi-million dollar a year contract due to “differences” .

He was banned legally from broadcasting on

• Television
• Radio
• Internet

Due to his contractual agreements.

Conan has had very little experience with social media and Twitter, so when the drama erupted he was amazed by the groundswell of Internet support by his fans. It also took the TV network by surprise (they thought he was behind it).

So three and a half months after leaving the TV network, Conan  O’Brien met with an audience at Google (and it was subsequently recorded and put on YouTube) after recently having visited Twitter and some other companies in Silicon Valley. S

So what was  he doing? I was curious so I started watching the online video. For the first 15 minutes Conan’s trademark humour had me laughing constantly, and then it became more serious as he started to outline his real life experience with Twitter and social media and its power in booking out his “Comedy Tour” nationally in 2 hours (after one tweet) after his falling out with the network. He then proceeded to provide some insights into his experiences with social media and Twitter up to the 23rd minute mark where his trademark humour cuts in again.

Click here to view the embedded video.

His experience that he outlined after being so legally constrained was that he felt like a prisoner in a 14th Century cell writing little things on paper (Tweets) so he hoped a peasant would come a long and pass on his message. He sent out one little scrap of paper (one Tweet) and it exploded overnight and he booked out his national show in 2 hours.

So what were his thoughts and observations of Twitter, Social Media and mass media network television?

• There have been a lot of people in Mass broadcast television that have been very dismissive of the Internet
• They are also very afraid of it
• They tend to deride what they don’t understand
• They didn’t understand the huge reaction from his followers (Tribe)
• They thought he was behind it
• He didn’t  have to spend a penny on advertising
• It has made a lot of people rethink how things are marketed as he didn’t have to advertise on one billboard and he didn’t have to talk to DJ’s and hawk his show.
• People are starting to understand that the world has completely changed
• 140 characters forces you to crystallize your comedy ideas
• In the future there might not be network televison as we know it

5 Reasons Why Conan O’Brien Loves Twitter?

1. It’s free
2. It works
3. It has given him a new career
4. 140 characters forces you to crystallize your comedy ideas
5. It provides leverage

So why do you love Twitter?

I recently came across a statistic that disturbed me, not that I wasn’t already slightly disturbed in a nice sort of way.

That number that had jolted me was that nearly half of all businesses (46% to be precise) don’t have a website. Did I hear someone saying.. “you have to be joking!” (I have just checked the calendar and I have verified by the way that it is 2010 not 1910).

To make more of a point on this, a recent survey by Discover Business Watch found  “Of the 55 percent of small business owners who don’t have a Web site, 57 percent say their businesses will never have one“. Now this is starting to go from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The other not insignificant statistic that businesses should keep in mind is that 93% of buying decisions start with an online search and if you don’t have a web presence it makes it a little difficult (to say the least) to turn up in the search results and people to make an enquiry and consequently buy, if you don’t have a website.

The really fascinating thing about this is that the business owner or CEO could even put up a blog on WordPress very easily for less than $30 with features such as

• Your own business domain name (Cost $20)
• Videos from YouTube (Free)
• Email subscription  to the blog (Free)
• Images (Free)
• Content loaded as easily as using Microsoft Word
• Links to other content and websites
• Menu across the top
• Polls and surveys for your customers
• Traffic statistics for the Blog/Website
• Moderation of comments
• Plus many other free features provide by plugins at no cost

Note: Cost is less than $40 and a bit of time and help from your teenage son, daughter or friend if necessary.

So with that in mind here are the 10 simple questions to assess your CEO’s marketing IQ.

1. Do we have a web presence (website or even a blog)?
2. Are you still spending money on advertising in the Yellow Pages?
3. Are you still spending a majority of your marketing dollars on direct mail marketing?
4. Are you marketing by fax broadcasts?
5. Are you still “thinking” about having a website for your company?
6. Have you heard of social media for business?
7. Do most of our reps still cold call?
8. Do you use print media for most of your advertising dollars?
9. Are our carrier pigeons still alive?
10. Do we have our milk delivered by horse and cart?

So if you think your CEO still has an excuse not to have a web presence so that people can find your business and buy from you then I think you should check your CEO for a pulse.

So do you know of any businesses that don’t have a website?

Marketing is going through a lot of changes due to the rise of the Web and the latest technologies, including Social Media where you can easily and efficiently publish and promote your content and get your message out to your customers and potential clients.

The old marketing paradigm consisted of cold calling, mass media (radio, TV and newspaper), fax broadcasting, direct mail and all the other traditional marketing mediums. The ability of these channels to produce effective cost efficient results is waning as new technology such as caller ID, email spamming filters, as well as government regulations being put in place such as do not call registers.This is what you could also call “Push Marketing” or “Interruption Marketing”.

The “New Rules Of Marketing”  is about getting customers to engage with you when it suits them and to start having conversations with them.via blogs, forums, and other types of Social Media” that eventually leads to them being pulled to you as they provide email or RSS subscriptions to your unique and valuable content and information that helps them find solutions to their business problems or “pain points”.

In this video I look at what are the Top 5 Social Media channels and the some of the interesting facts and figures that will give you some insight in to how these platforms can assist you in pulling customers to you by gaining their permission. 

This is the first in a series of videos. In the upcoming videos I will look in more detail about how to apply the “New Rules of Marketing”  to your business to generate more leads and sales as well as to reduce the costs associated in acquiring New customers.

So what “Social Media” Channels are you currently using?

 How do you use Twitter? For communicating?.. sending out interesting content that you found in Cyberspace .. Retweeting interesting links and content being tweeted? Maybe you use Twitter for driving traffic to your blog or website?

In a recent interview one of the top “Non Celebrity” users of Twitter.. Guy Kawasaki was asked a question.

Question: ”You currently have over 160,000 followers on Twitter (@guykawasaki) and are one of the top 5 users according to Twitter Grader (wow!). In what ways do you use and derive the most value from Twitter? What advice can you give marketers starting out on Twitter to inspire them that it’s worth investing their time?”

Answer: “Not everyone agrees with my use of Twitter. I approach it as a broadcast marketing tool to help me make Alltop successful. There is no right or wrong with Twitter. Like other large platforms, it’s a tool.”

He then mentions 4 different uses that people have for Twitter.

1. Some people use it to create friendships.
2. Some use it to service customers.
3. Some use it to develop leads.

He said “I use it to drive traffic”.

In a recent conference he also said that there are those on Twitter that “want more followers” and the “others are lying”

What do you think? Looking foward to your vote and at any time you can view the developing results by clicking on the “View Results” button on the survey form below.

What do you use Twitter for?  Would like to hear your comments.. are there some other uses I haven’t listed?

Twitter applications and tools have emerged as it has started to go mainstream. Because Twitter is a live stream of information links and updates, the importance of filtering out what you want from this constant passing feed of  data becomes crucial.

Some of the tools that I am currently using are: Tweet3, Tweetlater and TweetDeck.

• Tweetlater: This allows you to set tweets to be sent while you sleep,working or otherwise occupied, measure how many people have clicked on your links and from where from the link embedded in the the Tweet. It also can be set to automatically follow back those who follow you and other interesting features.

•        Tweetdeck: This is a twitter tool that allows you to filter a lot of the live streams that pass your screen in real time and it has the following features
  • Lets me update my Facebook as well as do a tweet in one convenient location
  • I can also shorten a URL and send it with the Tweet and the Facebook update
  • Create Groups that I can track, like Social Media “Gurus”, Top Bloggers and Friends in an easy to view column format
  • It provides a feed from my Facebook page so I can see what is happening with my friends on Facebook
  • I can retweet from within Tweetdeck
  • I can update my favourites
  • Send a direct message
  • Add Twitpics to my Tweets
  • You can even email the tweet from TweetDeck

Note:  A New version has recently come out and it is certainly worth playing with

•    Tweet3: This Twitter Application doesn’t seem to have got much media attention but it has some really unique features and I find it really easy to use. It allows you to tweet from one or   multiple  twitter accounts by just clicking on a button. It also interfaces to Facebook if you want to update your Facebook from the app. The really fun feature is that it has an analytics feature that allows you to measure and monitor how many people have clicked on your URL that you have embedded with your Tweet and its unique feature is that it shows a map of the world that allows you to see where the location of that click through has happened by city and quantities.  

So what Twitter Tools are using?

The use of Social Media and its role in helping Charities and Not For Profit Organisations engage with their community is becoming very evident. I was talking to Fi Bendall the other day who has worked in this area extensively, including Amnesty International Australia and Earth Hour Global and below is a snap shot of her findings.

“The impact of social media, from blogs, to video, to the rise of user-generated content has been widely reported. The impact of the social web on society has had a major impact on how the public are addressing global problems, and how citizens are becoming social activists to raise money and support for social causes through the power of social media.

Online sites, such as Kiva.Org, Causes on Facebook, DonorsChoose and Change.org have been pioneers in the way humanity views philanthropy and activism, as well as how many individuals go about trying to improve life on our planet. Online social activism has become a sector bound together by a growing critical mass, in online usership, online community with an expanding acceptance in the worlds of philanthropy, politics, activism and marketing.

The online world is always “turned on” and always “connected” and delivers results, for example:

The US 2008 presidential campaign generated tens of millions in contributors supporting candidates, in particular the social media campaign by Obama being the most famous. Kiva.Org, a not-for-profit start up uses social networking to direct loans from everyday people to small-scale entrepreneurs in the developing world. It grew from zero to more than 270,000 leaders in less than three years making loans of $26,149,810 USD. DonorsChoose, hot-housed in a Bronx public school just after the year 2000 delivered more than $25million USD to school teachers. GlobalGiving a not-for-profit founded in 2002, has funnelled more than $6million USD to 900 projects around the world. Cause on Facebook leveraged social networks most popular hub, to sign up 12 million supporters and raise $2.5 million USD for various causes.

People have the ability to get vocal, be part of a solution and lobby governments in a way they never have before. Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans sent the online social community into a frenzy of donations, missing persons posting and consequentially firing up American society’s horror and sheer anger at the latency of their governments response to the disaster. The online call to action became so loud that the Bush Administration had to make a public announcement on the issues of getting aid into the State so late. The online social environment is a fertile ground for fast-moving social activism, allowing for an individuals charitable involvement that is both personal and open to the world. Together through social connections, Ben Rattray, founder of Change.org calls them the “mega-public” a vast inter-connected army of people, who at least in part, want to change the world.

Of late, Australia’s own natural disaster, the Victorian Bushfires is still generating a mention every 9 minutes online as the author types, within 24 hours of the major centre of the fires hitting, tens of thousands of people joined a supporters group on Facebook, millions in donations were generated through Twitter and Tweetfestivals alone.

Social media has allowed for “self-organisation” and it delivers online social activism, non-profit fundraising, connected social entrepreneurship, political organising, flash causes and digital philanthropy. It overlaps into the larger world of organised charity and non-profits of politics and policy organisation and changes them. Millions are using social networks to raise money, push for votes, bring attention to some cause, big or small, that will make the world a better place. It is important to note that the most successful organisations using the social media channel are the ones who adjust their business and social models as they go along to keep in tune with the online highly emotive community chatter.

Social Media Audiences and Social Causes

There are distinctive differences emerging between the generations online, that any social media cause campaign should consider, in terms of content and strategy.

• 12-24 year olds – To their generation they live online, their causes are online and there is no separation between virtual and reality. They wear “the badge” even if their donations are the smallest of other demographic groups to make a statement.
• 24- 55 year olds – The most likely group to pass a message on, get vocal and behind a message, they will collaborate to move the wider collective group into making an action.
• 60 years old plus – The fastest growing audience online in Australia today and are recorded as being the most similar to the “tech savvy” as the younger audience demographic.

Sources: Mckinsey; Nielson; Audit Bureau of Circulation Au.

Social Media Demographic and Insights
Courtesy of the following Foundations: The Columbus Foundation, The Saint Paul Foundation and The San Francisco Foundation.
The analysis of social media power users revealed the group was younger than the traditional composition of donors one would find in a charity’s database. Forty-seven percent were aged 30-49, 40 percent were under the age of 30, and only 13 percent were 50 or older. Almost two thirds (62 percent) were female.

• 30 years and younger were not a high dollar donor generation: Only 4 percent donated $5,000 or greater in 2008, and only 11 percent donated more than $1,000.
• 20 percent of those between the ages of 30-49 gave more than $5,000 and 41 percent gave $1,000 or more, demonstrating potential for higher dollar contributions.
• 50 years and older, 47 percent gave more than $5,000 and 66 percent gave $1,000 or greater.
• The rest of the analysis focused on the 30-49 and over 50 age brackets as they represent the greatest opportunity for online cultivation of high dollar donors.
• 30-49 age brackets and the over 50 bracket have used social media to discuss philanthropy.
• 84 percent of the social media savvy aged 30-49 and 55 percent of those older than 50 used conversational media for these purposes.

N ote: This confirms social media is a potential growth area through which major donors can be cultivated.

Some of the statistics that show that “Trust” in social media is significant among social media savvy would-be donors.

Sixty one percent of those aged 30-49 trust social networks and blogs to provide important information, as is the case with 44 percent of those 50 years or older.

With 30-49 year olds, social media use is also very high with
* 91 percent of users participating in social networks
* 81 percent participating in blogs
* 56 percent participating in message boards.

Among those 50 and older
* 94 percent participate in social networks
*78 percent participate in blogs
* 60 percent participate in message boards.

Of all the forms of social media used by 30-49-year-olds, “only social networks and blogs received greater than 40 percent rankings” for “trust.” Specifically, 66 percent trust social networks and 50 percent trust blogs. In the over 50 bracket, 62 percent trust social networks and 42 percent trust blogs.

One of the most interesting learning’s from this data was that both the social media savvy groups in the 30-49 age bracket and the over 50′s prefer social media, with Blogs being the second most trusted source.
Whether for personal use or trust in third party sites, blogs represent the second most viable source of information next to social networks (among both the digital rich and the traditional brackets). After blogs, message boards, forums, wikis and review sites were all deemed more credible than videos or podcasts.

Social media savvy respondents demonstrate a significant opportunity for NGO’s to provide social media. Among 30-49 year olds, 81 percent said they would participate if the information was highly credible and of strong quality, and 77 percent said they would participate if it came from a trusted source. Even more telling, 86 percent of those 50 and older said they would participate if the information was highly credible and of strong quality, and 84 percent would participate if social media came from a trusted source.”

In the next post we will cover some of the processes involved in creating “Social Media Strategies”.