Consumers use Twitter to talk about brands:

• More than 90% of tweets come from consumers
• 12% of consumer tweets mention a brand
• Types of brands mentioned most often:  Social Network (22% of mentions), an Entertainment brands (17%) or Technology brand (17%)

Brands can do a better job of talking with consumers:

• 43% of consumer tweets are conversational (@replies to other users)
• Only 12% of all marketer tweets demonstrate active dialogue with consumers, signifying that most of them aren’t tapping Twitter’s full potential.  Only 1% of consumer tweets that mention a brand are part of a conversation with that brand

Most consumer tweets about brands are neutral/informational:

• When it comes to talking about brands on Twitter, consumers are largely sharing news or information about the brand (43%) or reporting use of or interaction with the brand (35%).
• About one-fifth of tweets mentioning brands demonstrate an outward opinion of the brand – though only 7% of mentions demonstrate negative sentiment toward the brand. Most mentions fall into the neutral/informational category (82%) and 11% reflect positive sentiment.

360i’s summary of the research: http://blog.360i.com/pov/360i-whitepaper-twitter-the-consumer-marketer-dynamic

• 42% of high school students surveyed are using Twitter
• Facebook still reigns supreme above other social networks with teens and college students spending an average of 11.4 hours per week on the site.
• A little more than a quarter of the students surveyed reported spending less or no time at all anymore on the site. Among those, half traced the change back to six months ago or less.
• The reasons for the decline in activity were split:
  • 50% of girls claimed to be “tired of trying to keep up with all the activity” required of leading a demanding digital social life
  • Among males, 47% said that “most of my friends are using other sites now,” and 44% blamedMom and Dad for crashing the party
• 53% of high school females said they “can’t live without it” (hence the burn out syndrome)

More details at Ypulse.com: http://www.ypulse.com/ypulse-research-status-update-facebook-fatigue

Click here for video….

As reported on Brian Solis, comScore also revealed insight into social consumers and their spending habits.  According to the report, 23% of Twitter users follow businesses to find special deals, promotions, or sales.  Of that, 14% of Twitter users reported taking to the stream to find and share product reviews and opinions.

comScore’s research also shows that Facebook and Twitter visitors spend more money online than average Internet users.  On Facebook, heavy users spend on average $67 online, topping the total internet average of under $50.  Active Twitter users spend an average of $63. Twitter users, regardless of how often they were on Twitter, outspent general Web users by upwards of 64%!

Taking a snapshot view, members of social networking sites spend 1.5x more online than the average Internet user, indicating that engagement or paid presence within social networks definitely offers benefits to businesses.  See Brian Solis for more detailed analysis and statistics.

NASA learned some lessons in the very early days of Twitter with tweets about the Mars Rover. At the time, it was the third most followed Twitter account, with about 75,000 followers. That’s different than today, where NASA astronaut Mike Massimino has about 1.3 million followers on Twitter.

Tthe @NASA account is the primary NASA Twitter account and it is operated out of the office of communications at headquarters. NASA centers operate their own Twitter feeds, usually out of the office of communications. At the project and program level then it’s usually somebody on there who is running the Twitter feed because they are most connected to the information and what’s actually happening.

It recently introduced buzzroom.NASA.gov, which is tracks tweets, pictures and videos that employ the NASA hash tag. That way people without a Twitter account can contribute to the conversation through that page.

At TWTRCON NY last month, PETA launched a cyber attack on Twitter complaining about NASA’s treatment of monkeys. Schierholz says that while NASA works to correct any factual errors, it’s just not worth engaging with somebody who’s just out to be negative so it won’t respond.

Offline, NASA has been hosting NASA Tweetups. It gives people who follow NASA on Twitter the opportunity to come to an agency center and interact with agency personnel and get a behind the scenes view of what the agency’s doing. For the last launch Tweetup NASA had more than 1,000 people register online for 150 spots.

70% of social networkers now keep in touch with family via their various online networks, up from 61% a year ago, showing a shift as those who signed up for social networking to keep in touch with friends are using these sites to connect with family members as well.

Two-thirds of all online adults today have visited a social networking site in the last 30 days, up from 53% in 2008 and 20% in 2007. Social networks have thoroughly penetrated the young adult market, as nearly 9-in-10 online 18-to 34-year-olds visit such sites today. Older Americans are definitely involved as well, with 41% of online adults age 50 and older making monthly visits to sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

The rise of social networking tracks closely with that of Facebook. As of April 26, 2010, 46% of the U.S. online adult population reported having visited Facebook in the past 30 days.

An astounding two-thirds of social networking site visitors (68%) say they have shown their support of a product, service, company or musical group by becoming a “fan” or a “friend” on a social networking site – this number is up 9% from last year.

Knowing that social networkers are comfortable connecting with products and brands they support, it’s important to understand which brands have the best opportunity to connect with this group. Specifically, Facebook users are full twice as likely as the average American adult to shop at H&M. Twitter visitors are 3.7 times more likely to shop at Nordstrom.

Geographically, the report shows that heavy users of social networking sites are primarily concentrated in the Northwest and markets that are heavily influenced by major colleges or universities.

See the 2010 Social Networking Report on Experian Simmons for more information, graphs, and the full PDF report.

• 21% of BtoB marketers surveyed can directly attribute sales or revenues to their Twitter efforts
• 52% are satisfied with their Twitter efforts
• 67% have multiple Twitter accounts

Go to BtoB’s web site for more details about the report.

For example, about two years ago, Webster’s team was asked to develop a cult following for Cisco products, which is difficult, because most people don’t even see the products that are in the background or the infrastructure. So, for the launch of a router called ASR 1000, it enlisted fairytale characters from Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny talking about how dependent they are on the network and what would happen if they have reliability issues on Christmas Eve.

The microsite, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook campaign allowed people to send this to friends, and along the way, it encouraged them to register for a virtual event that was on this particular day to find out what it is that’s going to save Christmas, Cisco had 8,000 different members of the service provider community online at the same time for this reveal, and the overall results were about six times more than a launch it did in the traditional way in 2004 for about 1/8 the cost. It also ran a tournament that had over 50,000 participants around the world.

Webster says social media and social networking definitely are much more cost effective than other programs, although Cisco is not abandoning older ways of doing business. It’s just shifting the weight. When Cisco has major launches a couple of times per year, about 25 percent of the budget is dedicated to more traditional things like paid placement, and about 75% is for more Web 2.0 social networking, social media outreach, content production, virtual, online events.

Then, starting this week, Old Spice Guy started producing personalized videos in real time to folks who had commented upon him online. He sent these out via Twitter and has created a sensation. The 87 short comedic YouTube videos made Tuesday plus the 74 or so made Wednesday have now been viewed more than 4 million times and counting, according to Read Write Web.

He’s working incredibly fast, about 11 hours a day while standing topless in a shower setting. The campaign is being led by a team of creative types, tech geeks, marketers and writers gathered in Portland, Oregon by marketing agency Wieden + Kennedy.

The group seeded various social networks with an invitation to ask questions of Mustafa’s character. The responses were tracked and users who contributed interesting questions and/or were high-profile people on social networks are being responded to directly and by name in short, funny YouTube videos. The group has made videos in response to Digg founder Kevin Rose, former TV star Alyssa Milano, Perez Hilton and many more people, famous and not.

Whether the videos will lead to more Old Spice products sold is unknown, but as Mashable says, “it definitely creates a brand identity that people will be interested and excited to engage with.”