Social Media at Work

4% of Tweets Include Product Recommendations or Complaints

Tonia Ries — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 20:18:41 +0000

Semantic search company TextWise used their Semantic Signatures technology to analyze the content of Twitter messages. They used the streaming API to download a sampling of 8.9 million tweets posted by 2.6 million unique users.

They found that 2.7 million of these tweets, or 31%, were replies to a tweet posted by another user, half a million (6%) were retweets, and almost 2 million (22%) of the messages contained a URL.

They further analyzed the content of 1,000 tweets to see what the content was and found that 30% of tweets relate to a user’s “status” (what they’re currently doing or where they are), and 27% were private conversations. 10% contained links to articles. 4% of tweets analyzed included product recommendations or complaints — a small percentage but a huge amount of data if you consider that Twitter is now logging more than 50 million tweets a day.

See the details at SemanticHacker Blog.

Average Social Network User is 37 Years Old

Tonia Ries — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:23:23 +0000

Royal Pingdom has used Google Adplanner U.S. data for 19 different social network sites, and analyzed the data for age demographics. The analysis showed that the average social network user is 37 years old. LinkedIn has the highest average user age of 44, while Bebo has the youngest, 28. The majority of 64% of Twitter users and 61% of Facebook users are aged 35 or older.

Lots more statistics and charts at Royal Pingdom.

Tweets Prove Big Bucks for Conan O’Brien

John Eckhouse — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 21:38:55 +0000

All it took for Conan O’Brien to virtually sell out his upcoming nationwide comedy tour was a couple of Tweets. His team sent out Tweets about the tour to his more than 600,000 Twitter followers, telling them he was headed to their town and directing them to TeamCoco.com, which listed the venues and tour dates.

According to this account in The New York Times, the site was quickly overwhelmed by visitors. So O’Brien’s team quickly sent out another Tweet, advising people interested in tickets to go directly to the Ticketmaster website.

Most shows sold out in a matter of hours solely from the use of Twitter. O’Brien’s team did no other advertising.

Facebook Passes Google As Most-Visited Website in US in Week Ending Mar 13, 2010

Tonia Ries — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:45:44 +0000

Hitwise reports that, for the week ending March 13, 2010, Facebook passed Google to become the most visited website for the week in the U.S. Facebook.com had previously reached the #1 ranking on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day, as well as the weekend of March 6th and 7th, but this is the first time that the site held most-visited status for a week.

The share of visits to Facebook.com increased 185% as compared to the same week in 2009, while visits to Google.com increased 9% during the same time frame.

Original report from Hitwise Intelligence.

Foursquare Celebrates Birthday With Record Check-ins; Hitwise Releases More Growth Stats

Tonia Ries — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 12:10:42 +0000

On March 11, Foursquare announced the largest number of check-ins in one day, with a record 275,000 individual check-ins. On March 13, with SuperSwarms of Foursquare users congregating in Austin for SXSW, the service announced 347,000 check-ins in one day.

Experian Hitwise has released an analysis of Foursquare’s growth to mark the service’s one-year anniversary. According to this report, not only have Foursquare’s mobile apps seen growth, but so has Foursquare.com, which has seen a 5x increase in visits for the week ending March 6, 2010 as compared to the week ending September 19, 2010.

The site’s number-one referrer is Facebook, which accounted for 33% of visits in the week of March 8, 2010, more than Google (22%) and Twitter (8%) combined. Searches for Foursquare-related terms have also increased dramatically, spiking the week of February 20 (which was marked by publicity for pleaserobme.com) and remaining consistent since then.

The Hitwise report was also covered in this Mashable article.

JetBlue’s Twitter Promotion Takes Wing

John Eckhouse — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 22:33:29 +0000

JetBlue Airways has 1.6 million followers on Twitter and it must have seemed like every single one one of them was on the streets of New York this past Wednesday when the low-fare airline tweeted about a giveaway of 1,000 free roundtrip tickets anywhere it flies to celebrate its 10th birthday.

Besides rushing to the right spot in Manhattan, people who wanted tickets had to bring something along. At one of the three announced locations it was a birthday card for the airline, at another it was an item of blue (the airline’s colors) clothing, and at the third, a postcard showing the 10th city to which JetBlue flew.

It didn’t take long for word to spread. The first people showed up within three minutes at most of the locations and all the tickets were given out at each stop within 20 minutes. Full details can be found on CNET.

79% of Twitter Users Are More Likely to Buy Brands They Follow

Tonia Ries — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 01:44:14 +0000

A February 2010 study of over 1500 consumers by market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies found that 60% of Facebook fans and 79% of Twitter followers are more likely to recommend brands since becoming a fan or follower of those brands.

51% of Facebook fans and 67% of Twitter followers are more likely to buy the brands they follow or are a fan of.

Read the press release at PRWeb.

73% of Twitter Accounts Have Tweeted Fewer Than 10 Times

Tonia Ries — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:01:58 +0000

According to a report from Barracuda Networks, a Web security company, most of Twitter’s 50 million accounts merely follow other users rather than posting their own messages. 73% of Twitter accounts have tweeted fewer than 10 times . As of December 2009, only 21% of Twitter account holders were what Barracuda defines as “true users,” meaning someone who has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people and has tweeted at least 10 times.More at CNN Money.

Foursquare U.S. Visits Increase 50% Dec 2009 – Jan 2010

Tonia Ries — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:58:14 +0000

Hitwise reports that location-based game Foursquare has seen U.S. visits to the site jumped 50% in January. Traffic is up 200% since November. Foursquare’s base is estimated to be about 350,000 users.

More at VentureBeat.

UPDATE: More analysis on the growth of Foursquare at ReadWriteWeb.

Morton’s The Steakhouse Serves up Lots of Social Media

John Eckhouse — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 00:42:22 +0000

Morton’s The Steakhouse uses Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to spread the word about the restaurant chain and its events and to keep communicating and conversing with its customers. In a wide-ranging interview that appeared in Chain Leader, Roger Drake, the restaurant chain’s senior vice president of marketing and communications, talked about some of its social media efforts.

They include a celebrity-server series, where the chain posts videos on YouTube of celebrities serving customers at its restaurants. It also posts photos on Facebook that its guests send in from special events, like the time some guests got engaged during a Valentine’s Day dinner. Facebook also is used to promote special events.

But Drake says Twitter is the best social media tool when it comes to feedback on how the restaurants are meeting its customers wishes. That’s because there’s more frequency on Twitter and the restaurant can engage in a conversation where there are a lot of exchanges back and forth. The chain is active on Twitter on a daily basis.

Drake’s conclusion: use social media to listen carefully to guests and also to get your message out.

The entire Q&A with Chain Leader Senior Editor David Farkas is here.