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E-Mail: The Termite of the Web

By Mark Evans in Social Media No Comments Tags: , , ,

I love e-mail.

Well, let me put it another way: I get a lot of value from using e-mail, and spend a lot of time in my in-box. Some of it’s personal but much of it is for business to market, sell, do business development, send proposals and reports, answer questions, and manage projects. A day without e-mail is like a day without….well, a phone.

In that context, it has been interesting to hear people suggest social media is going to kill e-mail because there are other ways to communicate such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Yet despite the growth of social media, e-mail is not only alive and well but even social media users are active e-mail users. Go figure.

According Merkle, 87% of Internet users checked personal e-mail daily in 2010, a number that hasn’t changed much in the past four years. Among people with a separate account for business, 60% checked daily, down just 1% point since 2008.

So why is e-mail the indestructible “termite” of the Web? It may have to do with the fact e-mail is a centralized and personal place business and personal needs. It establishes a digital presence and identity that is complemented by social media as opposed to be replaced by social media.

For example, many people use Facebook to send messages but it’s not something that would become someone’s “inbox”. People feel like they own their e-mail inbox whereas you’re “renting” on Facebook or Twitter, which allows direct messaging.

Now, there is an argument younger people prefer to use things other than e-mail to communicate. That may be true but eMarketer made an excellent point that while the 18-to-29-year-old demographic may not be big e-mail users, they’re all over social media – and that social media users are active e-mail users. It suggests this demographic will likely use e-mail even if it’s not their primary tool right now.

To me, e-mail is a vital medium and pillar of the Web because it lets me communicate for a variety of reasons, I control and manage it as opposed to a third-party, and it’s a service that everyone uses. Look at e-mail as the telephone – despite the growing number of ways to communicate, no one has given up their telephone number. The same goes for e-mail.

The Rise of Facebook Advertising

By Mark Evans in Social Media 3 Comments Tags: , ,

When you think of online advertising, Facebook may not be top of mind but a new report from eMarketer estimates Facebook had advertising revenue of $1.86-billion in 2010, an 86% increase from 2009.

As much as I have my reservations about Facebook’s approach to privacy, there is no doubt it is becoming a more interesting advertising platform, particularly for smaller companies with limited budgets. In the past few months, I have been encouraging a growing number of clients to consider Facebook ahead of AdWords and other advertising opportunities. My interest in Facebook is driven by the following:

1. It’s inexpensive. For now, Facebook’s advertising model is volume-based. For the clients I have put on Facebook, the pay-per-click rate has been less than a $1.
2. Even if someone doesn’t click on an ad, the use of good creative means it can still register and make an impression on people. In some respects, it’s like billboard advertising; you can do anything with a billboard but it does make an impression. One client attracted 1,200 click-throughs on their ad but it was delivered more than two million times.
3. Facebook advertising is targeted, which means ads can be delivered based on specific demographics, interests and locations. Facebook’s doggedness to get more data from its users is driven by the fact advertising like the ability to target consumers.
4. Starting a campaign is quick and easy. It can literally be done in minutes, and you can cap your daily budget and pay by credit card.

All of these variables make Facebook an interesting proposition for many consumer-facing companies looking to reach out to consumers in a cost-effective way. By being able to filter through Facebook’s more than 600 million users around the world, companies can offer advertising that has a better chance of being seen and clicked on.

The downside to advertising on Facebook is many people don’t see Facebook as an advertising medium. It’s a place to communicate with friends and family, which means many ads are completely ignored.

The upside for advertisers is the ambivalence about advertising on Facebook means it’s pretty cheap to run a campaign. I’m sure Facebook would like to increase its prices but if that happens, Facebook lose some of its appeal for small advertisers looking for a way to embrace online marketing.

Canadians Love Donuts…and Social Media

By Mark Evans in Social Media, Uncategorized 4 Comments Tags: , , ,

It should come as absolutely no surprise but a new eMarketer report has discovered that Canadians are really into social media – almost as much as we’re into double-doubles (aka coffee with two sugars and two creams), hockey, Justin Bieber, maple syrup and hockey.

eMarketer expects by year-end about 15.1 million online users in Canada will have visited social networking sites at least once a month, an 11% increase from from 13.6 million in 2009. By 2014, 18.4 million Canadians are expected to visit social media, boosting penetration to 68% from 59%.

It’s no surprise Facebook is, by far, the most popular social media service with 9.6 million unique visitors a month but a surprising runner-up is Windows Live is 543,000 visitors, while Twitter is third with 344,000. Given there are more than three million Canadians registered with Twitter, I would have thought the service would have more traffic.

While the Canadian population is enthusiastic about social media, the same can’t be said for Canadian companies, who are continuing to take a fairly cautious and measured approach. This includes major consumer-facing companies such as Canadian Tire and Loblaw that should be all over social media but have stayed on the sidelines.

When I created ME Consulting in January 2009, I didn’t set myself up as a social media consultant because there did not seem to be enough corporate activity to generate business. The landscape started to change about a year ago as a growing number of companies started to explore social media.

As a result, 2010 has seen a healthy amount of corporate activity but I wouldn’t describe it as a wave or flurry. My take is corporate Canada is probably two or three years behind the U.S. Some of it has to do with the fact Canada tends to lag behind the U.S for most online trends even though we have high Internet penetration rates.

And I think part of it has to do with the fact many senior executives aren’t into or using social media so pulling the trigger on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and a blog can be a difficult strategic proposition even though it makes complete sense.

Below, you’ll find two charts from eMarketer. The first shows social media penetration rates, which seem low given Canada’s has the eight-largest Facebook population in the world, the fourth largest Twitter population and the highest penetration (68%) for YouTube. As well, it is puzzling to to DeviantArt and Classmates.com in the top-10 – neither one I would consider a social network. And what the heck is Skyrock, a service that I’ve never heard about before.

The Decline of Twitter.com; Not Twitter

By Mark Evans in Social Media 10 Comments Tags: , , , ,

cinderellaFor many people, Twitter is like Cinderella – the belle of the ball who will suddenly become a servant-girl again at the stroke of midnight. It explains why there’s a steady flow of reports that Twitter has plateaued or that Twitter is in decline whenever a report from Nielsen, comScore or Compete is published.

The latest “Cinderella” story comes from eMarketer, which breathlessly asks “Tweeting No More?” based on a 27.8% decline in unique visitors to Twitter.com in October, compared with September. While that number is large, there are likely several reasons to explain some or most of the decline.

The most obvious is the growing popularity of non-Twitter.com services and applications such as Tweetdeck, Seesmic, HootSuite, CoTweet, Thwirl, Tweetie, Twitterrific, Brizzly and SplitTweet. While Twitter has dabbled in making changes to Twitter.com, external developers are raced ahead with much better products that come with more useful and compelling bells and whistles.

For many people, Twitter.com is like a bike with training wheels. Once they have the hang of Twitter, many people move on to something else. While Twitter.com has added some new wrinkles recently such as Lists, it’s simply not good enough to maintain its place as the place where active Twitter users hang out.

In many respects, this is another one of those Twitter head-scratchers: the willingness to let others be innovative and, in the process, poach traffic coming to Twitter.com. Why, for example, has Twitter not used any of its venture capital booty to create an AIR application to compete with Tweetdeck or Seesmic. Where’s the ability to manage multiple accounts to compete against CoTweet or SplitTweet? Where’s the super-cool wireless application to battle Twitterrific? For all the talk about Twitter monetizing itself with ads, traffic to monetize those ads is slipping away.

Another interesting consideration is that according to a recent study by Sysomos (a client), Twitter.com’s market share has stayed flat over the past five months at about 46%.

So, how do you correlate flat market share with declining traffic?

Maybe it has to do with the data being crunched. Given the large ecosystem and the different ways people are using Twitter, it may be that getting view of the TwitterSphere is difficult, if not impossible. For all we know, the data collected by Nielsen, comScore and Compete may be inaccurate….or not.

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