I specialize in deciphering complex market data into actionable media plans.
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Will Facebook Have a Ten Year Life Span
NEW YORK (CNET) - Will Facebook suffer the same fate as MySpace in a few years? That’s what one analyst predicts. Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” television program on Monday, Eric Jackson, founder of Ironfire Capital, said that Facebook will lose its dominance as a social network in less than 10 years.
1) In his forecast, Jackson cited Facebook’s inability to crack the mobile market and the stock’s 27 percent nosedive since the company’s IPO.
2) “In five to eight years, they (FB) are going to disappear in the way that Yahoo! has disappeared,” Jackson said.
3) “Yahoo! is still making money, it’s still profitable, still has 13,000 employees working for it, but it’s 10 percent of the value that it was at the height of 2000. For all intents and purposes, it’s disappeared.” Projecting doom and gloom for Facebook has become a popular hobby, especially since the company went public last month. Faced with a listless stock price, concerns over its online advertising and the usual ongoing privacy worries, the social network seems to be on the brink of disaster, according to some people.
Source: dfw.cbslocal.com
Will Facebook Have a Ten Year Life Span
NEW YORK (CNET) - Will Facebook suffer the same fate as MySpace in a few years? That’s what one analyst predicts. Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” television program on Monday, Eric Jackson, founder of Ironfire Capital, said that Facebook will lose its dominance as a social network in less than 10 years.
1) In his forecast, Jackson cited Facebook’s inability to crack the mobile market and the stock’s 27 percent nosedive since the company’s IPO.
2) “In five to eight years, they (FB) are going to disappear in the way that Yahoo! has disappeared,” Jackson said.
3) “Yahoo! is still making money, it’s still profitable, still has 13,000 employees working for it, but it’s 10 percent of the value that it was at the height of 2000. For all intents and purposes, it’s disappeared.” Projecting doom and gloom for Facebook has become a popular hobby, especially since the company went public last month. Faced with a listless stock price, concerns over its online advertising and the usual ongoing privacy worries, the social network seems to be on the brink of disaster, according to some people.
Source: dfw.cbslocal.com
Social Media and Email update and new metrics
Email Metrics: Wee Hour Postings Pay Off
According to MailerMailer’s latest Email Marketing Metrics Report, despite the booming success of social media marketing, email remains the most reliable and effective tool for marketers today, earning $44.00 return on investment. Many expected that social media would replace email marketing altogether. Instead of replacing email, however, social media has become an ally, joining forces with email marketing to provide consumers with yet another way to engage with the companies.
Email remains the preferred method of communication among social media users who choose to interact with companies and brands online. 56% of US Internet users interact with brands via marketing emails only, compared to 1.3% who interact only on Twitter and 0.7% who interact on Facebook alone. The same source reveals that US Internet users engage with an average of 11.8 brands through email, compared to only 9.4 and 7.9 brands on Facebook and Twitter respectively.
The report quotes additional sources for study data relating to Email considerations:
- According to a study conducted by Lyris, 54% of online marketers in North America said that combining social media with email marketing led to either somewhat or significantly better results
- MarketingSherpa found that roughly 80% of marketers said social sharing elements in email campaigns “extends the reach of email content to new markets” (81%) and “increases brand reputation and awareness” (78%). Roughly 70 million mobile users accessed email through their mobile device or smart phone in 2010, with 43.5 million doing so on a near-daily basis.
- In a survey conducted by BtoB Magazine in January 2011, 63% of the respondents planned to increase spending on email in 2011. The Digital Marketing Outlook Survey found that 70% of brand marketers planned to invest in email marketing
The data for the report is based on over 977 million email messages from 87,000 newsletter campaigns. The data includes email messages sent to 25 or more recipients between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2010.
Email messages that are scheduled to be delivered very early in the morning generate comparatively high open and click rates. The findings suggest that email marketers who schedule their email campaigns to be delivered between 1 am and 5 am can expect higher volumes of email opens and clicks. A similar trend is apparent in the early evening following regular business hours. Email marketers who scheduled their emails to be delivered between 6 pm and 7 pm local time, for example, experienced a considerable jump in their open and click rates.
There is a notable drop off during the middle of the day in which email opens and clicks tend to be stagnant for several hours. This indicates emails which are scheduled to be delivered during the middle of the day are less likely to be opened.
Drilling down to the specific time of day, emails are typically opened during the morning hours between 7 am and 10 am which supports the data discussed in the section Open And Click Rates By Time Scheduled. During this time email open rates maintain a steady climb until noon, at which point open rates begin to slowly decline.
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Google+ takes on Facebook with “Friends Circles”
Google+: The Next Big Thing in Social Media?
Posted: 20 Jul 2011 12:36 PM PDT
Is Google + all that, or another stubbed toe for Google in social media? Despite their dominance in search, Google has not had as much success in social media (see Google Wave and Buzz). That seems strange for a company that just reported quarterly revenue of $9 billion (that’s Billion, Austin Powers). However, with Google +, they may have a winner as they are adding users in record numbers. They reported 10 million users last Thursday and may double that number by the end of this week. Still a long way to go to rival Facebook’s 750 million worldwide users, but there are enough early signs to say that it is at least a possibility someday. Google introduced Google+ in late June so obviously it’s still very early. In fact, in order to hype the intro one needs to be “invited” to join.
Basically, Google+ is a social network, much like Facebook. Its Stream is similar to Facebook’s News Feed. But Google+ has some unique features. The biggest difference is the segregation of your contacts into various segments called Circles – work, friends, family, high school buddies – whatever circle one wishes to create. This makes it easier to send “appropriate info” to the specific audiences. There are no more concerns when your boss wishes to connect. Just put him/her into the work circle and be sure to communicate how hard you are working, how much you love your job, etc. while at the same time telling your friends in another Circle how brutal your job is and how your boss is a jerk. No worries. “Our goal is to make sharing on the web like sharing in real life,” said Google CEO Larry Page in last week’s quarterly earnings call. “In real life we share different things with different people.” This is a step-up from Facebook for those who have the concern that all of their friends are privy to all of their information and postings.
Another differentiating feature is the forthcoming group video chat feature called Hangout, which allows a group of up to 10 to video chat. Definitely different, and has significant potential! There are also a couple of other interesting secondary features….Sparks, which lets you collect news and info about your interests, and Huddle, which lets some mobile users IM with their Circles.
In terms of business, it’s not at all clear what Google is going to do with their brand pages and what characteristics they may have. Obviously marketers are keenly interested in ways they may be able to promote their brands using Google +. Google might use some of its ad platforms on Google+, but that remains to be seen.
Will Google+ put a dent in Facebook? Maybe. Will it be the beginning of the end for Facebook? Unlikely. While it won’t replace Facebook, we think the introduction of Google+ is a significant one. We’ll be watching.
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Chris Note: With just a tweak Facebook could offer expanded benefits and block the growth.
