Guest post by Michael Brito. Follow him on Twitter, add him on Facebook or read his blog.
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This post is a reflection of my personal experiences working in the enterprise and does not reflect the point of view of previous or current employer.
Reality #1: Consumers already get it; brands are still trying to figure it out
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The attention dashboard is rapidly emerging as the online hub for sharing and discovering information, connecting us to people, content, and events in real-time. According to research, we’re already spending more time in social networks than we are in email. New studies are only fortifying these findings, documenting an increase time spent specifically in Social Media and blogs.
As I was writing the report on Facebook and Twitter traffic growth, I had noticed that the engagement time at Twitter.com had dropped by 31 percent year-over-year.
September 2009: 18:07
September 2008: 26:12
Engagement Difference = -31%
I suspected that the shift in numbers stemed from the migration of those who previously interacted on Twitter.com and now engage via third-party clients such as TweetDeck, Seesmic, CoTweet, HootSuite, et al. As such, I thought it would be productive to review the numbers to get a closer look at what’s truly transpiring at the engagement level.
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Recently, Facebook announced that it had surpassed the 300 million user mark. According to Experian HitWise, Facebook accounted for 58.59 percent of all U.S. visits among a custom category of 155 social networking Web sites in September 2009. This is an interesting stat and I would love for Experian HitWise to send the full list over, so that I can also analyze the playing field for new, emerging, and declining players across the board.
Twitter is a phenomenon unto itself. Which is why, in the study of Social Media, Digital Anthropology and Sociology prevails.
Technology indeed facilitates interaction while also introducing us to nuances that transcend the parameters governing natural conversations and asynchronous dialogue into new forms of conversational threads and networks.
Twitter is among those networks actively studied by many (myself included) as it seemingly defies the laws of natural flow and engagement. The foundation that makes Twitter work is also the very essence that should prevent it from working at all.
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I believe that part of the allure of the social web is the ability to not only publish content, but to also recognize the contributions of others. Twitter is one such forum where the public art of recognition and reciprocity is spoken through both actions and words and are usually done so through @’s, Retweets (RTs), Follow Fridays (FF), link sharing, et al.
What follows is the unabridged version of my latest post for TechCrunch, “FTC Values Sponsored Conversations at $11,000 Apiece“
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In May, I reviewed the proposed Federal Trade Commission guidelines that would ultimately affect and change how brands employ endorsements into their marketing, advertising, and communications programs.
Today, the Federal Trade Commission made good on its threat promise by releasing its final revisions to the guidance it gives advertisers on how to keep their endorsement and testimonial ads in line with the FTC Act. This amendment marks 29 years since The Guides were last updated in 1980.
As Twitter adoption travels from the left to the right of Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations Bell Curve, mainstream consumer behavior gathers momentum, manifesting into influential and telling market indicators. This invaluable behavior and sentiment eventually becomes deafening and without actively monitoring and analyzing this movement, we miss opportunities to learn, grow, and help.
We need a prescribed lens into the real-time thoughts, observations, and experiences of real people, unfiltered, to make informed decisions and both lead and evolve along with our markets.
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For the last year, I’ve served as a strategic advisor to PeopleBrowsr. While many of you may know PeopleBrowsr as a Web-based client for Twitter and other social networks, the real story is that over the past several months, we’ve quietly built a comprehensive foundation and supporting infrastructure for capturing, organizing, and analyzing data, sentiment, and corresponding activity to reveal the indicators, hotspots, opportunities and trends that define the Twitterverse and ultimately, business. As such, I’ve spent a great deal of time researching activity as it relates to many of the industries that I serve in order to help brands cultivate meaningful relationships while also evolving business services and practices based on actual intelligence.
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Social Networks are among the most powerful examples of socialized media. They create a dynamic ecosystem that incubates and nurtures relationships between people and the content they create and share.
As these communities permeate and reshape our lifestyle and how we communicate with one another, we’re involuntarily forcing advertisers and marketers to rapidly evolve how they vie for our attention.
Brian Solis is principal at Altimeter Group, a research firm focused on disruptive technology. A digital analyst, sociologist, and futurist, Solis has studied and influenced the effects of emerging technology on business, marketing, and culture. Solis is also globally recognized as one of the most prominent thought leaders and published authors in new media. His new book, What's the Future of Business (WTF), explores the landscape of connected consumerism and how business and customer relationships unfold and flourish in four distinct moments of truth. His previous book, The End of Business as Usual, explores the emergence of Generation-C, a new generation of customers and employees and how businesses must adapt to reach them. Prior to End of Business, Solis released Engage, which is regarded as the industry reference guide for businesses to market, sell and service in the social web.
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