Digital Marketing | Digital Strategy | This Digital World

Facebook Fan Growth for RealPlayer

This is an article I wrote for the RealNetworks intranet this week - highlighting the growth to 100,000 plus Facebook fans:

We hit a new milestone this week with our RealPlayer social media efforts – over 100,000 Facebook fans!

The graph below shows the growth in fans/likes since we launched the RealPlayer Facebook page in November 2009.  The spike that you see in March 2010 coincides with us encouraging users to become a fan on Facebook after they had installed the RealPlayer.

 
 

Facebook has been an important tool in our customer communication strategy over the past 12 months. Earlier this year, we moved some our customer support team to active Facebook duty  and encouraged our RealPlayer users to post questions, issues or general rants about the product on the RealPlayer page. 

With 24/7 monitoring, we are able to respond quickly to posts and point users to the appropriate help sections on our website.  It has done wonders for our transparency as a business, since everyone can see how well we are dealing with customer comments, both good and bad.

We also use the Facebook page to poll fans about new feature ideas and gauge their feedback on existing features.  Our Facebook fans even got a taste of the new RealPlayer via a special download link two days before we released the product to the public.

You can see from the graph below that the fan base is more heavily male, in line with our overall RealPlayer user base and is much younger than our traditional RealPlayer user.  This is important as we continue to extend our user base to younger audiences that have never previously needed or wanted to download RealPlayer.

 

Growing our Facebook users will continue to be a focus as we develop deeper relationships with our customers and engage them across many different platforms.  If you like RealPlayer but haven’t yet ‘liked’ our RealPlayer Facebook page, then please visit the page and join the 100,000+ strong community already there.

Facebook is just part of a larger social media presence that includes our RealNetworks blog, our YouTube channel and Twitter presence.

How Dell is Embracing Social Media

This is an interesting interview with the guy who is responsible for corporate blogging at computer giant Dell.

I have reposted the entire article courtesy of Digital Media Buzz:

DMB’s Dave Fidlin recently spoke with Menchaca, a 17-year Dell veteran, about social media, and how the method will continue to shape the company’s marketing and outreach efforts in the future.

Can you explain your role as chief blogger for Dell?

My role is to keep things moving with our external network of blogs. Direct2Dell now exists in five languages. Direct2Dell is our main corporate blog. Beyond it, we have 7 additional blogs. Our latest is Direct2Dell India, which focuses content on one of our fastest-growing countries in Dell’s business.

How is Dell marketing beyond established, traditional methods? Is the company getting the word out about its products through such avenues as Facebook and Twitter?

Yes, very much so. We have two main pages in Facebook — Facebook for Home, which focuses on product and service information for consumers and Facebook for Business, which focuses on reaching business customers there. We’ve been very active on Twitter as a company since 2007. We use Twitter in 4 main ways: 1) to keep our customers informed 2) to engage our customers from different areas of our business 3) to sell to our customers who opt in to sites like @DellOutlet and 4) to support our customers. We now offer 24/7 support to customers on Twitter via @DellCares. See Dell.com/twitter for more details

Aside from the two big companies — Facebook and Twitter — how else is Dell using social media?

Our core strategy in social media is to go where our customers are. That means we maintain a Dell presence in many other social sites like LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, SlideShare, Scribd and outside the US in Sina’s microblogging service. Beyond our own blogs, our forum site and all of our presence on outside social networks, we’re also focused on responding to comments on other places on the Web, like third-party user forums or blog sites.

Can you quantify, percentage-wise, how much of Dell’s marketing and outreach efforts go toward social media (versus traditional marketing) in 2010?

Our social media marketing budget is very small compared to our traditional marcom spend. Outside of some ad credits to drive awareness to the Dell Facebook for Home pages and drawing attention to some of our social media efforts via Dell.com, we spend very little to promote our social media activities.

Do you have an idea of what the ROI (rate of return) is for Dell’s social media efforts?

Yes, we do, and that’s an area where we are still working on. In the early days, we measured social media’s impact on customers’ perceptions and found a pretty strong correlation—at the low point in 2006, about 48 percent of what was said about Dell was negative. We were able to get that into the low 20+ percent range. Today, we’re able to track all the basic traffic numbers you would expect, but beyond traffic, we’re looking at things like reach, engagement, brand reputation and more. We’re also starting to use more of the same tools on the social media side that we’ve been using to measure Dell.com like Omniture. There’s still more work to be done, but we’re making progress.

Where, in your opinion, is social media heading into the future, and how is Dell going to stay on the pulse of this still-growing method of communication?

I really think over the next several years, social media will become an integral part of how companies in many industries will do business. To me it’s a natural progression to add from things like telephones, e-mail, the Internet, chat and beyond. Just like many other aspects of business, it all comes down to execution. In my view, companies who learn to use social media to really connect with their customers will have a huge fundamental advantage over companies who don’t.

Do you envision a day when social media might completely replace traditional marketing methods, or is that an extreme statement?

No way do I think that social media will ever replace traditional marketing methods. I do think that social media can and will continue to augment traditional marketing methods. I think social media will make companies smarter in how they market to and engage with customers, and I think that’s a good thing. Like many others in social media today, I’m glad to see the era of one-way push marketing giving way to something different – a place where customer feedback shapes the direction of the company.

Why Social Media Matters

 Geoffrey Moore’s bestseller “Crossing the Chasm” , sums up the reason why social media matters :

“Fundamentally, marketing must refocus away from selling product and toward creating relationships. Customers don’t like to be ‘owned’ if that implies lack of choice or freedom. But they do like to be ‘owned’ if what that means is a vendor taking ongoing responsibility for the success of their joint ventures.

Ownership in this sense means an abiding commitment and a strong sense of mutuality in the development of the marketplace. When customers encounter this kind of ownership, they tend to become fanatically loyal to their supplier, which in turns builds a stable economic base for profitability and growth.”

Social media is the perfect excuse to actually create a relationship with your customer. Enough said.

Social Networking Now the Most Popular Past-time in the UK

Spending hours looking at your favourite social network is now the most popular past-time for Brits, according to Irish social media experts Simply Zesty.

The agency just published an excellent short video, which you can watch below, detailing the social networking habits of the UK population.

I pulled out some key stats which reinforce why businesses must start taking the social networking evolution seriously:

85% of the population are now online and 60% of them read blogs
- do you know the most influencial bloggers in your line of work?  You should be establishing relationships with them, feeding them information and generally keeping them happy!

64% of the population have a social network profile
- does your business?

78% use the Internet to research products and services before buying
70% of people online trust reviews from strangers and 90% trust reviews from friends
- this means two things:
 
1. You need to be aware of what people are writing about your product or establishment and if necessary take measures to correct it.
 
2. You need to establish social relationships with your existing customers through Facebook and Twitter.  Offer your fans special deals, show them the love. They are your biggest ambassadors.

Facebook Virtual Goods Revenue Just Tip of the Zuckerberg

The digital world often looks to Asia for trend and growth prediction and the developments in social media are no exception.  Because of local restrictions by governments on sites like Facebook, local social networks have sprung up and are big business.

According to a video created by Thomas Crampton of Ogilvy, which you can watch below, Facebook generated only $5M in virtual goods revenue (mainly from social games) compared to $87M by Chinese firm QQ, $100M by Mixi in Japan and $200M by Cyworld in South Korea.

Anyone in the social games industry already knows the potential for virtual goods revenue over the next few years, which is why Disney recently snapped up Playdom for $763M.

The question is whether the trends we are seeing in Asia with respect to buying virtual goods online, will hold true for Westerners.

Casual Gaming Crosses Into Food Retailing

 This story is a great example of how the worlds of online and offline are becoming increasingly intertwined.  Farmville, a social casual game played by 65 million people worldwide, has teamed up with Green Giant, vegetable makers to the masses (owned by Betty Crocker), to put Farmville cash coupon stickers on various products in 4,000 stores across North America.

The idea is that this virtual currency is of real value to the game players, who can use it to buy all sorts of things in the virtual game itself, so they will be more likely to buy these food items as a result.

It's a very interesting cross-over between online and retail marketing don't you think?

Social Networks Now a Popular Hiring Tool

How do you find great talent for your business?  Recruitment firms do a lot of the legwork, but can also cost an 'arm and a leg'.  Traditional job sites like Monster may be cheap, but the lack of filtering can mean wading through hundreds of CVs.

So what about social networks?  According to new research by recruiting platform Jobvite, the traditional ways are now being challenged by social networks.

 Almost three quarters of companies that took the survey in June 2010 said that they now use social networks to hire staff.  Unsurprisingly, LinkedIn was top of the social networks for hiring, with 90% of new hires through social networks coming from LinkedIn.

LinkedIn's job search functionality has improved significantly in the last 18 months and provides a simple way for job seekers to find available jobs in their area as well as research companies that they might be interested in working for.  The killer feature though, is the ability to use your existing network to find a 'back door' into the organisation that is hiring.  Having people recommend you for a position is much more likely to get you noticed.

The survey showed that Facebook and Twitter were also growing in popularity as platforms to advertise open positions on.  And with half of those companies surveyed expecting to increase their spend on social media this year, now is the time to look at your own recruiting methods and decide whether social networks might be a more efficient way for you to find your rock stars.

David Cameron, Facebook and Social Research

 The UK government today released a video on YouTube, showing David Cameron chatting with Mark Zuckerberg about using Facebook to engage the UK population on policy change.

I take my proverbial hat off to Cameron; not only is he putting himself and his government in the place where a large proportion of his voters hang out (there are 26 million UK Facebook users) but through the Democracy UK initiative, it seems like he might actually care about what the voters want and think.

Engaging the public, asking their opinions on how to spend the billions he has at his disposal and doing it in a way that is natural and easy for people makes a lot of sense.

Interestingly Cameron remarks towards the end of the video, "If Government wants to engage people we often spend millions, sometimes billions...this is a way to do it for free!"

The potential for businesses to use Facebook as a research platform is huge and it's simple.  Announce a new product feature and ask for feedback; ask your users what they want to see next; ask them what's not so great about your product or service. The possibilities are endless, the upsides huge.

Remember there are also downsides.  The users that become a fan of your Facebook page will be your most vocal customers.  If they are spending the time to leave comments that will help you make a better product and ultimately more money, then they expect to be listened to.  They expect to get timely feedback.  They will criticize and expect you to deal with it in a level-headed way.  Learning how to communicate effectively with your customers/supporters through Facebook takes time and is not easy.  But if you are respectful of them, treat them like you would expect to be treated yourself and understand the power of Facebook as a research tool, you will be able to:
1. Do research for free
2. Make a better product/service
3. Change your 'brand' perceptions for the better
4. Create more loyal users

That's what Cameron is hoping to do with this initiative and I wish him every success.

You can watch the video below:

Add Share to your Email Marketing for Improved Response Rates

A study out today by GetResponse, an email marketing firm, shows that adding 'share' links to your emails will increase click through rate by at least 30%.

 

The study tracked 500 million emails sent and compared those that included sharing on Facebook and Twitter to those that did not.  When emails included 3 links to share the content, click through rates climbed to more than 50%, but only 11% of emails sent actually included three or more sharing options.

The conclusion?  Add Facebook and Twitter share links to any emails that you send out to your customers and you will increase engagement.  If you don't know how to do that, email me and I can tell you how.