While mobile advertisers are increasingly trying to drive users to brand pages or promotions on social sites, click-to-call remains the most common type of action they encourage in ads (at 36%), followed by signing up for a service (29%), submitting a form (28%), application download (24%) and watching a video (23%).

77% of mobile ad campaigns overall directed users either to a mobile site or a custom landing page. According to Millennial, spending on rich media units is up 85%.  MediaPost anticipates that spending on mobile rich media ads more broadly will increase dramatically with the launch of the iAd platform (also on July 1).

Among other findings from the Millennial report, the number of ad requests per page view was just over one (1.03) and the average monthly page views per user was 108. The average session time was up by a minute to five minutes — three seconds — as the ending of the school year led to more time spent on mobile phones.  See MediaPost articles for more findings.

• 80% of respondents have an active Facebook account, and 23% of those without an active Facebook account plan to join in the next six months
• 67% of respondents have reconnected with people through social networking sites that they never would have otherwise
• More than 30% of respondents access Facebook and/or Twitter from their mobile phone (through a browser or application) once a day or more
• 50% of Facebook users click on Facebook ads to “like” a brand
• 37% learned about a new product or service from a social networking site
• 32% of respondents have recommended a product/service/brand to friends via a social networking site
• 32% of Twitter users re-tweet content provided by a company or product

As reported on MediaPost, Daina Middleton, CEO of Performics, stated: “Social networks have made real and substantial changes in the lives of their users, in part by empowering them to more actively participate with brands and each other. More than a third of all respondents reported using a search engine to further learn after seeing an ad on a social networking site, for example, and more than a third think social networking sites are good sources of information about companies and products.” According to Middleton, social networking has led to a “more lively, two-way participation between brands and everyday customers.”

The study also revealed that consumers want to see more regarding products and services on social networking sites. Scott Haiges, noted that “Respondents expressed a strong desire to get more printable coupons [49%], notifications of sales and special deals [46%], and information about new products [35%] from companies or products on Facebook.”

Companies with a social media communications plan tended to focus on these elements: resource-allocation guidelines for ongoing activities, registration of branded usernames on social sites and research into competitors’ use of social media, as reported on eMarketer.

There was a significant disparity between what respondents thought should be part of their company’s plan and what was actually part of that plan. 71% of respondents were concerned with preparing and distributing policies for ongoing communications, but only 45% of companies had such policies. Respondents were equally concerned with the ongoing monitoring of brand reputation, at 71%, but only 52% had a plan for such activities. More than two-thirds of respondents saw a need for departmental protocols detailing how social sites should be used by sales, human resources, customer service and other groups within the company, but only 29% reported distributing policies and/or communications protocols to employees.

A majority of companies with a social strategy included marketing (94%), PR (71%) and sales (55%) in their plans, with customer service (26%) and human resources (16%) lagging behind in use of social media. 71% of respondents agreed that the responsibility for creating social media strategies should fall to marketing departments.

Findings suggest that companies that have held back on adopting social media throughout their organizations would benefit from starting with a cohesive plan that involves all of the key groups within the organization (marketing, PR, sales, customer service, and human resources).

Mediapost also references a report from eMarketer, released in December 2009, that estimates social network ad revenues in 2009 at $2.2 billion, a little over half the Borrell estimate. Even factoring in another third for the additional spending which Borrell says go to promotions (not advertising), that comes to just $2.9 billion, still significantly lower than the figure predicted by the Borrell report.

According to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook might make $1 billion in 2010, up from about $800 million in 2009. The separate (December 2009) figures from eMarketer have MySpace revenues at $465 million in 2009, decreasing 23% to $360 million in 2010. Twitter execs forecast $140 million in ad revenue in 2010, while Classmates.com had about $80 million in ad revenue in 2009 and is on course for similar performance in 2010.  This leaves MediaPost to speculate about which social networks are responsible for the rest of the current and future (projected) spending.

The report concludes that B2C companies generally obtain more value from their social media marketing efforts. 51% percent of B2C companies have acquired a customer from Twitter, compared to 38% of B2B companies. The difference is greatest in customer acquisition figures for Facebook:  68% of B2C companies have obtained a customer from Facebook, but only 33% of B2B companies.

When it comes to professional social media network LinkedIn, the trends reverse. 45% percent of B2B companies have obtained a customer from LinkedIn, compared to only 26% of B2C companies. Figures for company blog customer acquisition are closest in range, with 57% of B2C companies and 43% of B2B companies obtaining a customer through this channel.

As reported in Mediapost, results indicate that both B2B and B2C marketers have difficulty with executive social media buy-in. However, a much higher percentage of B2B marketers report low executive interest than B2C marketers. Twenty-three percent of B2B marketers report their executives are curious but need education, compared to 39% of B2C marketers. The two groups converge at the top level of having executives who support and are actively engaged in social media (14% of B2B and 13% of B2C).

Survey results indicate that while a sizable percentage of both B2B and B2C marketers have little or no social media engagement, the obstacles they face are somewhat different,  with insufficient personnel to maintain social media being a common problem for both B2B and B2C but other obstacles include a lack of organizational knowledge, preference for traditional marketing and perceived irrelevance to their field.

The survey strongly indicated the need for better internal education tools for B2B marketers to prove the value of social media.

For additional information, and access to the complete PDF file and charts, please visit White Horse.

The study examined the social media consumption habits of 630 technology professional respondents and 350 technology marketing respondents, reveals a gap between social media usage and marketing – “While many technology marketers have established a presence on Facebook and Twitter, many are not taking full advantage of the sites that technology professionals frequent and value most, such as LinkedIn and blogs,” said Brandon Friesen, VP and online strategist at UBM TechWeb.

For technology professionals (CIOs, IT VP/Directors, IT Managers, Line-of-business management, etc.), social media now accounts for an average of 13% of the total time they spend consuming media for work purposes, and four in ten respondents plan to increase the amount of time they spend with social media.  LinkedIn and blogs were ranked as the top two social media most used for business purposes,  and almost 60% use social networks to get information about technology purchases.  Technology marketers (CMO/SVP/VP Marketing, Directors, Managers, Media Management, etc.) see Facebook and Twitter as the most influential sites, and they plan to increase spending on marketing for social media outlets over the next year.  One-third of technology marketers will expect to use social media to deliver a marketing ROI in 2010.

“Understanding the technology decision-making audiences’ motivations and behaviors when it comes to social media is exceptionally critical – especially at this stage where marketers are still feeling their way when it comes to social networking,” said Scott Vaughan, VP Marketing, UBM TechWeb. ”Social media allows you to get a market pulse and truly listen to what your customers and prospects are saying, driving both short and longer term go-to-market strategy.”

Social networking experienced the strongest growth in application access, increasing 240% to 14.5 million users. Accessing news applications followed, growing 124%, while sports information and bank account applications both experienced a 113% surge.

Social networking also ranked as the fastest-growing category accessed via browser, growing 90% from the previous year to reach almost 30 million users, followed by bank accounts ( growing 69% to 13.2 million users).

“Social networking is by far the fastest-growing mobile activity right now,” said Mark Donovan, comScore’s senior vice president of mobile, as reported on digitalmediawire.  ”With 20% of mobile users now accessing social networking sites via their phone, we expect to see both application and browser usage continuing to drive future consumption of social media.”

Although Gomez was, at 17, already a TV star from her days on Barney and Friends and Disney’s Wizards of Waverly Place, she was not know for her singing. So she needed a strategy when she and her band,The Scene, launched their first album. They turned to a cost-effective campaign relying on social media to drum up interest and spread the word.

Fortunately, given her previous media exposure, her Facebook page had more than 3 million fans and she had 1 million followers on Twitter. Gomez and the band launched two major initiatives to get people buzzing about the album online. First, they held a contest through her Facebook page, urging users to upload photos or video of how they were helping to promote the album, handpicked 10 finalists and let the fans vote on the winners.

The second initiative was to offer a limited online preview of the album to fans who attended a listening party. Fans could listen to the full album on  a website, but they had to gain admission first by posting a message to Facebook or Twitter encouraging their friends to listen also.

The result?  In the first week, the album sold over 66,000 copies and went Gold in March 2010.

Check out the other lessons from this case study.

Airlines have realized the potential free marketing that social media provides. JetBlue, which has one of the biggest footprints on social media sites among U.S. airlines, announced a sale last Monday for travel on Tuesday and Wednesday. United Airlines launched a contest on Twitter this week that required its followers to “retweet” sweepstakes rules to be entered into a ticket giveaway.

The company turned to Chemistry for help and the agency decided to rely upon social media to have an immediate impact at low cost.
Paul Magnani, SVP of Digital Strategy at Chemistry, explains the strategy employed on iMedia Connection.  He says that Chemistry felt that the brand (socially responsible, health-focused) and product (natural, organic, healthy) were ideal for word of mouth (WOM) among moms, the primary buyers.  So it began a campaign that relied on:

• Internet coupons: Many family shoppers use social networks to share “deals.”

• Social media marketing: Listening tools such as SocialMention.com and Viralheat, as well as Facebook and Twitter.
• Twitter party: on the subject of how and why to select organic and natural foods when at the grocery store. The event generated 2,830 tweets in a one-hour period.
• Pay Per Click search: That drove roughly 20,000 site visits.
• Facebook Ads
• Blogging:
• Email: To all 68,000 in the company’s opt-in list.

Actual results were 250,000 coupon downloads (with a 20+ percent redemption rate), 6,000 blog and social network mentions, and more than 3,000 new fans/followers. Steaz’s December sales were double its previous best month ever. And Steaz shelves in Target stores nationwide were emptied.