Social Media at Work

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.

78% of Fortune 1000 Companies are Not Using Social Media to Reach Latinos

Tonia Ries — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 23:22:48 +0000

78% percent of Fortune 1000 companies are not using social media to reach Latinos, missing an opportunity to reach the 80% of Hispanics who use social sites, according to survey results released yesterday by Hispanics-focused agency Orci. Orci surveyed 9,300 senior marketing and advertising executives from Fortune 1000 brands in consumer and business-to-business verticals.

Of the companies utilizing social media to reach Hispanics, the survey found Facebook was the preferred site to focus efforts upon, with Twitter coming in a close second.

More at ClickZ.

Mobile Browser Access to Facebook and Twitter Surges

Tonia Ries — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 22:14:19 +0000

Audience measurement firm comScore’s March 2010 study of social networking access via mobile browser concludes that mobile access to Facebook has increased 112% in the last year, while Twitter has increased 347%. Nearly a third of smartphone users accessed social networking sites through their mobile browser in January, up more than 8% from a year ago.

Facebook’s mobile browser audience surpassed MySpace in February 2009, three months earlier than the Facebook audience exceeded that of MySpace on the non-mobile web in May 2009.

These figures do not include access of the social networking services by the nearly 6 million mobile phone owners who do so exclusively through mobile applications.

More details in this comScore press release.

The NHL’s New Twitter Feeds

John Eckhouse — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 19:46:43 +0000

A real-time Twitter feed on the National Hockey League’s site is increasing interaction with fans. In December, the NHL became the first in a handful of companies to launch a white-label platform from TweetMixx that aggregates tweets from Twitter on websites and blogs.

The NHL has three Twitter feeds labeled Insiders, Chatter and Links. While all provide interesting information, the one with the greatest influence comes from the Insiders’ Tab, where tweets stream from influential North American hockey writers. In Canada and the United States, the NHL-related stream on Twitter appeared in the top 10 trending topics. Those tweets feed through the TweetMixx Channel and onto the league’s site.

The NHL hopes that will intrigue advertisers., who would sponsor the feeds. Online Media Daily has more details here.

Twitter Approaching 10 Billion Tweets

Tonia Ries — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:10:56 +0000

You can see the current standing at Nathan Reed’s Tweet counter here: http://popacular.com/gigatweet/.

Social Media Aids the Brand of Toyota

John Eckhouse — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:21:04 +0000

Toyota’s aggressive social media efforts are helping it to avoid losing the public’s trust in its product. Toyota actually has grown its Facebook fan base more than 10% since late January, around the time of the marketer’s Jan. 21 recall announcement and its Jan. 26 stop-sale date. Toyota’s secret weapon: using one of the most important tools in a crisis-communications handbook: social media.

The marketer has been faulted for communicating too little and too late in traditional media, but it’s gone all out when it comes to Twitter, Facebook, blogs and other social-media channels. Prior to the recall, Toyota didn’t have a reputation as an aggressive social-media adopter, yet it’s managed to increase the number of fans on its main Facebook presence (from 71,600 to 79,500) over the past five weeks and, starting Jan. 21, it became a far more active user on Twitter.

Around Feb. 1 it created a social-media response room, always staffed with six to eight people monitoring the online conversation and responding at all times. It’s answering consumers on its four Facebook pages; it created a Twitter chat with Jim Lentz, Toyota Motor Sales USA president-chief operating officer; and it created two new platforms, one with Digg and the other on Tweetmeme called “Toyota Conversations” to aggregate online chatter and allow Toyota to respond directly.

Moreover, Toyota has approached online brand loyalists and asked if it could repost their tweets, blog posts and videos on its platforms. The car maker obviously can’t control what people say about it on blogs or Twitter, and to its credit Toyota is letting the naysayers take their swipes on its own platforms like Facebook.

Michael Bush has the full story on Advertising Age.

Del Taco’s Integrated Facebook, TV Promos Pay Off

John Eckhouse — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 05:08:38 +0000

Del Taco, a Mexican chain, grew its Facebook fan base from 20,000+ to 43,000+ in just five weeks after launching its entertainment webisodes platform, “The Del Taco Super Special Show,”on Facebook. The humorous webisodes are aimed at the chain’s core audience of men 18-39).

The chain’s TV spots now feature a clip from the webisode show at its start, and a shout-out for the Facebook page/show at its conclusion. Placements of online and social media ads for the show, as well as the creative and offers featured, are being tweaked daily based on impressions, click-throughs and other metrics. Tweets that promote the show and special offers are also ongoing.

Del Taco’s goals of harnessing social/traditional media integration to cost-effectively increase exposure and interaction with customers and prospects, particularly in newer markets, are being realized. As of year-end 2009, the chain had 518 restaurants in 18 states (including the West Coast, Southwest and Midwest and a few in Florida and South Carolina) and $568 million in annual revenues.

Karlene Lukovitz has the story on MediaPost News Marketing Daily.