People You Know Influential, Social Media Isn’t, in Purchase Decisions
People may be more honest on Facebook these days, but we still don’t trust them. MediaPost reports that an ARAnet study shows social media and search engine recommendations coming out tied among the general population—but search engine recommendations leap out in front among affluent (>$75,000/yr—49%) and younger adults (25-34—50% vs. 31% for social media).
However, the general consensus was that personal advice from friends or family members was tops, with 59% rating it as important in influencing their buying decisions. But to me, that sounds like a completely different dynamic—are we supposed to be measuring the influence of people we know vs. strangers vs. corporate messages, or are we measuring what medium is more influential? If your mom delivers her advice via your Facebook wall, are you less likely to take it than if she told you in a phone call? Is it surprising that most people trust people they know, who know them and their preferences, than random strangers on search engines or social networks?
Maybe the medium isn’t the message.
The full breakdown, however, does show an interesting breakdown among the information from people we don’t know (and from corporate sources):
Overall, most people participating in the survey — 59% — choose personal advice from friends or family members; followed by TV news or other broadcasts at 40%; search engines Google, Bing, Yahoo or Ask at 39%; TV ads, 36%; articles in newspapers or magazines, 33%; newspapers or magazines ads, 31%; online articles, 28%; and radio news or other broadcasts ads, 25%.
The remainder of the breakdown follows. Direct mail came in at 24%; radio ads, 20%; emails from retailers or manufacturers, 20%; online ads, 19%; messages or posts on social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or MySpace, 18 percent; and billboards, 15%.
Also note that the younger segment found social media to be far more influential than the general population did—31% vs. 18%. They also liked corporate information more: 32% (vs 20% for all respondents) appreciated information in emails from retailers or manufacturers, and 30% believed online ads were influential.
So really, what we’re saying is that younger people on the Internet are more influenced by random strangers and advertising.
What do you think? Is it the source of information or the medium used to convey it that has more influence here?
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Research Suggests We Don’t Lie On Facebook Anymore
It appears as though the concept of being “radically transparent” is reaching the huddled masses on social networks.
Back in 2007, 31% of social network users admitted that they had falsified some of their profile details. Today, a new study suggests that we’re all actually quite honest about how we portray ourselves–at least, on Facebook.
Psychologists studied 236 US and German students and looked at how closely their real personalities matched up with their “idealized personalities”–who they’d like to be online. Apparently, the majority of the group didn’t play out their perfect persona, instead they were pretty transparent in who they were:
…there was no evidence of self-idealization, and ideal-self ratings did not predict observer impressions above and beyond actual personality
Usually at this point, I throw in a pretty chart that provides a nice visual of the results found by the study. Well, this time we’re dealing with raw data, and I honestly have no clue how to interpret this chart:
My psychology professor would be so ashamed of me right now. 
Holy 1999: MySpace in Google Search (Oh, with Real Time)
Buzzy buzz buzz. Google would really like to keep us from thinking about PAY NO ATTENTION Buzz TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN, and old pal MySpace is here to help: the real time search deal the two discussed in December is now live. Oh boy, oh boy, real time updates from that cutting edge social MySpace right in Google!
Hm? What’s that? Is 2010 and Google’s had real-time results from social networks including Twitter and Facebook for months?
Oh. Much less cool 
.
Yep, as they said a while ago, Google’s using MySpace’s real time API to import real time updates (they do that on MySpace?) into selected SERPs. I’d go out looking for these results in the wild, but somehow I think they’re pretty hard to find. Even when I look for updates on news and current events in Google, I seldom see the real time results (or maybe I just don’t scroll down). Luckily, MySpace provides a few examples for me:
I love the Olympics. Every (other) year, I think, “Meh, I don’t really care about the Olympics,” and then I get sucked in and watch them obsessively. (“Go, go, person I’ve never heard of, representing a country I don’t care about, in a sport I’ve never seen before! Win!”) And I’m super glad that I can see what MySpacers think about the events. (Not. Did you read those comments?)
Um, anyway, I like that MySpace’s integration with Google is so flawless that the best way to get their real-time results is to actually include “MySpace” in the query. I suppose that’ll keep extraneous social results from showing up in my SERPs, though, so I’m happy 
.
On the other hand, it is convenient if you want to know what people are saying about a topic on MySpace. I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d want to, but . . . you know, it could happen.
What do you think? Are you looking forward to oh-so-pertinent results from MySpace coming to a SERP near you?
89% of Journalists Source Stories From Social Media, Yet Only 15% Admit Its Importance
Now this looks familiar.
A new survey by Cision and Don Bates of The George Washington University, suggests that 89% of journalists source their stories from blogs, 65% from social networks such as Facebook, and 52% from Twitter.
That’s no surprise.
Yet despite this admission, journalists continue to downplay the importance of social media to their reporting efforts, with just 15% citing it as “important.”
Hmm, does that seem to you like a profession not wanting to admit that citizen-journalists and content creators are making their job obsolete?
Breaking down the data, we see that those journalists writing for web publications are more likely (69%) to use social media for news sources, than those writing for magazines (48%).
While this demonstrates the importance of pimping your company via social media channels, the survey also highlights the importance of having a kick-ass media room on your corporate site–with 96% of journalists heading in that direction, when researching a story.
Want advice on building your corporate media room? There’s a book for that! 
Google Buzz Caving to So Many Demands, May Soon Rename to Google Bleh
Google is learning a harsh lesson about social networking, thanks to its new Buzz launch.
Knowing someone and being their friend are often two different things.
After the initial “buzz” Google Buzz has pretty much been a buzzkill. The service has outraged many that believe it revealed too much about their private interactions, while others have simply greeted the service with an apathetic meh.
Still, Google’s determined to push forward with Buzz–even if it means taking its licks over privacy. To its credit, Google’s reacting quickly to privacy concerns, rolling out further changes over the weekend.
First, no more auto-following everyone in your Gmail contacts. Now, Google Buzz will auto-suggest those you should follow:
All new users will see the screen above. Those already buzzing will soon get an option to start-over with those that they follow.
Second, Buzz will no longer connect your public Google items–Picasa or Google Reader, for example–automatically.
Lastly, you’ll soon see a new “Buzz” tab in your Gmail Settings, allowing you to turn the thing off completely!
And it’s that last item that suggests Google may be ready to wave the white flag and signal a retreat–even if a temporary one.
Google just has no idea how to run a social network. For example, had Facebook or Twitter received the same negative feedback, would they have been so quick to cave to demands? I suspect not. They’re social networks from the ground-up. They know what they’re trying to achieve and they know the lay of the land. Twitter and Facebook can tell the difference between the vocal minority–that will complain about anything–and the masses. How many times have we seen them back down over new features–it happens, but rarely.
Certainly, Twitter, Facebook et al are a lot slower to react to the instant, superficial complaints of those that would complain their candy tasted too good, given the chance. Google, on the other hand, has no experience in running a successful social network. It therefore has no point of reference to compare users’ complaints against. Without that, it’ll keep acquiescing to any complaints sent its way.
Then what will happen? Google will be left with a social network that doesn’t offend anyone–because it’s so boring, no one uses it!
Ad Spend on Social Networks Gains a Whopping Half Point in Share
Apparently, ads on social networks aren’t working out too well.
While this is not anything we didn’t already know, it must be disheartening for Facebook, MySpace et al, to learn that pinning their revenue growth on display ads may be a tough row to hoe.
It’s not a completely ugly picture, according to eMarketer, ads on social media networks will gain a 5.5% share of all online ad spending, but…
That’s up from 5 percent in 2008, the stats released Thursday say. The good news is that, unlike some other sectors of the ad world, it’s not shrinking–but it’s also not growing exponentially by any means. After plunging from a 61 percent rate of growth in 2008 to 12 percent in 2009, the rate of growth is projected to crawl back up to 14 percent this year and stay about the same at 13 percent next year.
MySpace is to blame for most of the stagnation–its own ad revenues have fallen–and it doesn’t help that Facebook is cutting back on its ad serving as well.
Of course, the news isn’t quite so depressing for social networking advertisers. Social networks still make up around 22% of all online display impressions, it’s just that they are dirt cheap–hence not being a bigger slice of the ad spend pie. 
Google Buzz Publishes Who You Email
Ah, Google Buzz. At last we see the chinks in your armor (well, aside from the fact that it looks a little useless)—the opt-out feature appears to automatically publish your contact list, which is compiled from the people you email and chat with the most.
As if it wasn’t annoying enough to be told you have dozens of new “Buzz” only to check and see the same message four times and twenty-odd retweets of an acquaintance’s old tweet, or to have to try to separate your work and your personal news.
Now, there are a few warnings: the standard light-gray-on-white text that states: “Your profile includes your name, photo, people you follow, and people who follow you.” Although it tells you you’re creating a public profile, it doesn’t clarify how they assign you people to follow. On a later page in the process, Buzz does specify that “You’re already set up to follow the people you email and chat with the most.”
As the Business Insider says:
A Google spokesperson tells us the followers lists are public by default so that people can quickly find new people to follow. Obviously, that’s a good thing for Google, which is hoping to get as many people using Google Buzz as soon as possible. It’s also meant to be helpful for users. And for those who are unconcerned with telling the world who they email most, it is. But for everyone else, it’s terrible.
It gets to a deeper problem with Google Buzz: It’s built on email, which is a very different Internet application than a social network.
I absolutely agree. Email is a whole different level of privacy than a social network—even with passwords and walled gardens, social networks are public, and far more public than email.
TBI has a solution: “We believe Google could and should simply make this feature ‘opt-in’ so that people know what they’re doing.” Agreed. Although Google has long been an opt-out only kind of guy, one of these days they’re going to have that turn around and hurt them. You know, kind of like what’s happened with Facebook . . . repeatedly.
Want to opt out of sharing your list? Read Write Web tells how in five easy steps:
- Sign into your Google account via Gmail (or any other Google service)
- Go to your Google profile here: http://google.com/profiles/me
- Click the link at the top-right of the screen that reads “Edit Profile”
- Here, you’ll see a checkbox that reads “Display the list of people I’m following and people following me.” To make this info private, just uncheck that box.
- Scroll to the bottom of the page and click the “Save changes” button
Or you could opt out of Buzz entirely. After all, who’s really found it useful so far? (We can turn it off, can’t we, Google?)
What do you think? Will Google learn their lesson? Or are they already too big to beat down?
Is International Social Media Marketing Just Too Difficult?
Social media marketing is pretty tricky – but it is too tricky to ever roll out international campaigns? Where do you start from when you’re targeting international social networks – success at home or do you need to start all-over?
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The 3 Biggest Risks You Take With Social Networking Profiles
Online reputation management isn’t always about big corporate brands. In fact, half of my book Radically Transparent is dedicated to building and managing personal reputations.
Just in case you’re not convinced that you need to worry about your personal reputation online, you might want to check out the interview I did with WCCO Radio:
In it I discuss three important themes:
- How your social networking profiles can hurt your career and job hunting.
- How debt collectors are tracking people down via social networks.
- How scammers and thieves are praying on the naive.
If you’re not an audio person, the same advice was recently published on Yahoo Finance via an interview I did with Bankrate.com.
Drop a comment with any case studies or other risks you can think of. Thanks!
Social Network Traffic to Retail Grows
We’ve seen the trend for a long time: social networks are sending more and more downstream traffic to retail sites. Hitwise has the numbers from December—and the downstream traffic from social networks is up 37%.
The change doesn’t look super significant, I know, but it’s the biggest percentage increase for any category. Fewer people are starting at retailers’ sites or through permission email, so search engines and social media are more important than ever.
So is it more because users are recommending deals to their friends, or is it because of retailers’ presence on social networks? Likely both. Hitwise found that many users were actively seeking info on popular retailers.
As an example, we ran a custom analysis of internal searches on Facebook to look for retail brands during the holiday season. . . . During the holidays over 2% of the traffic to Facebook (the 2nd ranked website in the US) visited a website in the Retail 500 immediately after. Retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and Bath & Body Works (and others) all appeared within the internal searches taking place on Facebook signifying that consumers were actively seeking their content and offerings.
The first week of December, that rate topped 3%. With 175M daily visitors, even 3% is nothing to sneeze at.
What do you think? Is this proof that even big brands should be on social media? Or should they focus their efforts elsewhere?
