Marketing Pilgrim Published: “Face-To-Face Still Trumps Social Media for Product Recommendations” plus 2 more |  |
- Face-To-Face Still Trumps Social Media for Product Recommendations
- Do Personal Tweets Make You More Credible?
- The TV – Twitter Connection
| Face-To-Face Still Trumps Social Media for Product Recommendations Posted: 29 Mar 2011 05:54 AM PDT I doubt that this really shocks anyone when they are rationally thinking about the power of social media rather than being swept up in whatever hype is coming out of Silicon Valley these days. Despite the social media revolution and the 'your life will never be the same!' messages that accompany every new product launch (Color anyone?) there still remains the fact that at least at this point in time people still talk more about brands and products face-to-face more than any other way. A study performed by Colloquy and reported by eMarketer shows that even amongst the technologically savvy young adult crowd (age 18-25) face-to-face is the most often used method for giving information about products and brands.
This is actually good news for the social media set on one front. It's fair to suggest that social media often fuels these offline conversations and that is likely to be very true. What is tough for the social media practitioners to stomach is that once these conversations leave the measurable confines of the Internet the tracking and attribution to social media becomes next to impossible. This is where the SEO crowd has struggled forever in trying to connect the impact of SEO campaigns to sales and conversions. Since there are so many other factors influencing purchase decisions there is no solid line that can truly be connected in most cases thus the frustration by SEO's and clients alike in trying to pin a true value on the practice. Same goes for social media efforts. What it seems that everyone wants to know is just how far social media will go in influencing the purchasing habits of people. There is a bit of a paradox here though because that won't be able to truly be known until the number of people who have grown up with this technology outnumber those who did not. It's about ingrained behavior vs. changing existing habits. Until there are more people who do technology as second nature it will be hard, if not impossible, to truly understand just how far social media will take the field of marketing. For sure the future is bright but it is also pretty far off as well. We have a considerable amount of time during the transition from traditional media to the digital age where many old and new sources of influence will play critical roles in the purchasing decisions of consumers. One thing that is likely to remain though is that immeasurable and invaluable face-to-face communication that people still need and are likely to need for as long as people are people. No matter how much we want to digitize our lives there is something about being in person that cannot be replicated online. At what point do you think that social media and online interactions will trump the face-to-face recommendation of a friend? Will it ever happen? Is it happening already? Join the Marketing Pilgrim Facebook Community
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| Do Personal Tweets Make You More Credible? Posted: 28 Mar 2011 02:57 PM PDT
The study had students follow a specially designed Twitter feed that was supposedly written by one of their professors. One group got only school-related Tweets, one got only personal Tweets and the third group got a mix. After following the feeds, the students were asked to rate the professor’s credibility. The highest ratings came from those who saw only personal Tweets. The addition of school-related Tweets did nothing to raise the professor’s score. The authors of the study felt that the higher rating came from the fact that the students thought the personal Tweeting professor was more “caring” which apparently is more important that competent. The study also found that older students were more likely to be concerned about getting too much information, which might make their relationship with the professor awkward. Though this study was designed for use with students and teachers, it’s easy to see how this would translate into the marketing world. The addition of personal Tweets (within reason) in a business Twitter account is a good thing. It gives followers something to relate to and makes the Twitter-er sound like a real person instead of a corporate mouthpiece. Of the brands I follow on Twitter, my favorites are those that sound like they’re being written by a person I’d enjoy having lunch with. And if I stick around long enough, I may even see a picture of their lunch on TwitPic. The caveat here is, of course, that you don’t go too far. Your followers might enjoy hearing about the party you attended last night, but they don’t want to hear about the consequences of one margarita, too many. Do you include personal Tweets in your business feed? If so, where do you draw the line between being social and TMI?
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| Posted: 28 Mar 2011 12:41 PM PDT
With an iPhone, it’s so easy to share important thoughts with the world like, “What’s up with that carpenter wearing a suit and tie? He looks like Dr. Who! #americasnextgreatrestaurant” and how I feel about the song choices of this year’s American Idol contestants. At least my Tweets have some substance. According to this nifty chart from emarketer, many people who Tweet while they watch TV, don’t tweet about TV at all. They tweet about the fact that they’re bored or that they’re eating or thinking about going to bed and 9% of them apparently Tweet about the fact that they’re Tweeting while watch watching TV. (Sometimes I fear for the future of our civilization as a whole.) Facebook also gets its share of multi-tasker updates, with 52% of those people making a statement of fact such as “I’m watching Hogs Gone Wild!” But that number might actually be higher if you counted the updates, rather than surveyed the users, because of apps like Get Glue. When you check in to a TV show there (a new habit of mine), you can set it to update your Twitter or Facebook with that statement of fact. What does all of this mean? It means that social media and websurfing may have replaced snacking as the top activity people do while watching TV. That’s good news for marketers for a lot of reasons, the biggest one being immediacy. Now that I watch TV with my phone in my hand, I’m more likely to tell my friends about the fun Old Navy commercial I just watched or how much I love the song playing on Smallville (what is it and where can I buy it?). And not only are people Tweeting while watching, they’re also reading Tweets so now that you know I’m watching American Idol, this would be a good time to pitch that Steven Tyler t-shirt you’re selling. Go ahead, I won’t mind. Because the good news / bad news about Twitter is that minutes after you’ve sent me your pitch, it’s already out of sight and out of mind.
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