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Nielsen

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The State of Social Media – 2012 Recap

Nielsen just released their social media report from 2012 and I thought I would share some the information from the report. Much of this will be from the actual report.

SOCIAL MEDIA IS COMING OF AGE
“Social media and social networking are no longer in their infancy. Since the emergence of the first social media networks some two decades ago, social media has continued to evolve and offer consumers around the world new and meaningful ways to engage with the people, events, and brands that matter to them. Now years later, social media is still growing rapidly and has become an integral part of our daily lives. Today, social networking is truly a global phenomenon.”

What’s driving the continued growth of social media?
“More people are using smartphones and tablets to access social media. The personal computer is still at the center of the social networking experience, but consumers are increasingly looking to other devices to connect on social media. Time spent on mobile apps and the mobile web account for 63 percent of the year-over-year growth in overall time spent using social media. Forty-six percent of social media users say they use their smartphone to access social media; 16 percent say they connect to social media using a tablet. With more connectivity, consumers have more freedom to use social media wherever and whenever they want.”

How is consumer usage of social media evolving?
“Social TV is on the rise. The skyrocketing adoption and use of social media among consumers is transforming TV-watching into a more immediate and shared experience. As of June 2012, more than 33 percent of Twitter users had actively tweeted about TV-related content. Some 44 percent of U.S. tablet owners and 38 percent of U.S. smartphone owners use their devices daily to access social media while watching television.”

“Social Care is transforming customer service. Social media has emerged as an important channel for customer service, with nearly half of U.S. consumers reaching out directly to brands and service providers to voice their satisfaction or complaints, or simply to ask questions. In fact, one in three social media users say they prefer to use social media rather than the phone for customer service issues.”

“Whether through a computer or mobile phone, consumers continue to spend increasing amounts of time on the Internet. Time spent on PCs and smartphones was up 21 percent from July 2011 to July 2012.”

Social Networking Is All About Mobile
“When it comes to accessing social content, it’s all about mobile—particularly apps. App usage now accounts for more than a third of social networking time across PCs and mobile devices. Compared to last year, consumers increased their social app time by 76 percent, spending more than seven times more minutes on apps than the mobile web.”

“While the social media audience via PC declined a slight five percent from a year ago, time spent increased 24 percent over the same period, suggestinging that users are more deeply engaged.”

A Look At The Top Social Networks
“The list of most-visited social networking sites is pretty much the same whether people are going online through a PC browser, through their mobile web browser or using an app. Mobile usage once again proves to be a key component of social as each of the top networks via mobile web saw significantly greater growth compared to its PC audience over the last year.”

The Spotlight is on Pinterest
“Pinterest has experienced exponential growth since bursting on the scene last year. Although that growth has leveled over the last few months, Pinterest had the largest year-over-year increase in audience and time spent of any social network, across PC, mobile web and apps.”

Why We Connect…Some General Feelings
This is an interesting look at some of the general feelings after individuals participated in social networking.

Twitter Drives Social TV
“Twitter has emerged as a key driver of social TV interaction. During June 2012, a third of active Twitter users tweeted about TV-related content, an increase of 27 percent from the beginning of the year.”

Social Care Is Growing
“Social care, i.e. customer service via social media, has become an immediate imperative for global brands. Customers choose when and where they voice their questions, issues and complaints, blurring the line between marketing and customer service. Brands should consider this evolution and ensure they are ready to react on all channels.”


Social Advertising
“Brands and advertisers looking to share their message on social might consider this: While a third of people find ads on social networks to be annoying, more than a quarter of people are more likely to pay attention to an ad posted by a friend.”

This information was compiled from the Nielsen NMIncite 2012 Social Media Report. If you would like to download this report, GO TO –> http://nmincite.com/download-the-social-media-report-2012/

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Stories connect people…Nielsen Digital Consumer Report

Stories are amazing and I am always amazed how stories can connect people. I am getting ready to launch a project this week with Greenville Hospital System, and I have been amazed how the first part of this project has truly defined the meaning of stories.

The first story was one of connection…connecting people, connecting their thoughts, connecting their perspectives, and connecting missions. As Greenville Hospital System grows and spreads it’s footprint across the Upstate of South Carolina, relationships and trust become key. No better way to connect these ideas, missions, and perspectives than by finding a common language and stories fill that void.

Nielsen Research just released the 2011 3rd/4th Quarter Digital Consumer Report illustrating the point that we are growing more and more as a connected culture. Media has become our connection point and technology has provided that link between brands and consumers…and consumers as a whole. Let’s look at some of the recent stats from the US by  Neilsen:

274 million have Internet access
169 million visitors to social networks/blogs
165 million people watch video on a computer

117 million mobile Internet users
44% of mobile Internet users have a smart phone

70% of time spent using a tablet is at home

76 million tv homes are HD capable
35 million tv home have 4 or more tv sets

We are connected, but does that mean we are connected? Just because we have a device and we have internet access? Yes, we are online…but content brings us together. Specifically stories connect us…we seek out common threads, rich information that touches us in a way to read, watch, connect, and even purchase. We want something more than typing in a URL, downloading an “APP”, turning to a televisions show, or engaging in online conversation.

Our stories connect us and we are consistently seeking stories that take us to new places and times. We are seeing more story development during large events like the Super Bowl. Brands are recognizing that consumers want a story to follow. Audi’s Twilight commercial during the SuperBowl allowed people to continue following the Twilight storyline and connecting in conversation over Twitter using the #SoLongVampires hashtag.  Millions of people connected in conversation weeks after the SuperBowl…all via a story of vampires. Cool.

Stories connect us…we just have to find the right story to tell.

 

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“Social Media Return On Investment” – The Mobile Device Industry

With the iPhone4S to be released tomorrow for millions of Americans…we cannot wait to tap into this new device. As we look through the specs of this new, faster mobile device…we see that has the HSDPA technology built in stating that it can leverage up to 14.4Mbps download speeds. Now, there are many that have tested this feature in large, metro areas stating that these speeds in reality are not half this speed. But there are Android phones like the Droid Bionic that are tapping into the Verizon 4G LTE network with faster download speeds.

Yes…our mobile devices can access the network faster and faster and faster. Reading through the OnQ blog by Qualcomm as they address this explosion of social media technologies:

“With all this expansion, one lingering question on everybody’s mind is ‘will the wireless networks be able to keep up with this growth?’ The obvious answer is a resounding YES. As I have explained in these blogs, 3G/4G networks are well equipped now, and evolving in the future, to address the massive increase in the sheer volume of data growth.”

Nielsen release their 3rd Quarter 2011 Social Media Report with some interesting stats on mobile device usage: “The ability to access social media is a commonly used feature among mobile owners. According to a recent study by NM Incite, a Nielsen/McKinsey Company, nearly 2 in 5 social media users access these services from their mobile phones.”

Here is how social media access ranks against other features offered on their mobile devices (from Nielsen’s 3rd Quarter 2011 Social Media Report):

The above statistics suggest we are access social media outlets on our mobile devices more than access the web. WOW!

In Steven Van Belleghem presentation “Social Media Around the World” on slide 140 states, “56% of smart phone users follow a brand on social media.”

What does all this mean…people are accessing information via smart phones. People are heavily using social media outlets on their smart phones, creating data transfer which demands more bandwidth. The more the usage, the more the demand. This demand is fueling the growth of the mobile network. You think you see a lot of advertisements between the major carriers talking about 4G, 4G LTE, unlimited data, throttling…you need to start researching this information. We are data transfer hogs and connecting to others via our smart phones. This is fueling the growth in our networks, which is leading to large investments in the mobile infrastructure and mobile gadgets like iPhones and Droids.

Prakash Sangam, Senior Manager, Technical Marketing at Qualcomm, continues his explanation on the OnQ blog post:

“As has been very well established by now, smartphones are the key drivers for this increase in data demand. When you take a close look under the hood, interesting facts emerge about smartphone usage behavior and the corresponding network resource utilization.

Unlike the connected laptop or computer, smart phones connect intermittently to the network, and generate very small amounts of extremely bursty traffic. For example, when you check for updates from email programs or from social media apps (e.g., Facebook, Twitter), check weather, use location based services, send presence updates for IMs… and many more activites — often described as “chatty apps.”

Every time these apps get updates, the smartphone has to establish the connection, do the data transfer and tear down the connection, which means lot of signaling. Often that means more signaling than actual data transfers. There have been many studies on this, validating the fact that smartphone-generated signaling overwhelms wireless networks. The trend of vastly popular social media going mobile will only further amplify this effect.”

Our smart phone usage combine with our social media usage via these devices is fueling the growth of these data networks. These major carriers are banking on social media usage, connectivity, and ultimately our desire to continue to want to purchase the newest gadget for the faster speeds.

So, why did Apple release the iPhone 4S instead of the big jump to the iPhone 5? Well, many speculate…but here is an interesting perspective from Business Insider:

“If Apple had launched a radically new iPhone 5, more of the folks who currently own iPhone 4 would have upgraded, so Apple would have sold some more 4S units. As it is, the iPhone 4S is likely to appeal primarily to iPhone 3G and 3GS owners, non-smartphone owners, and non-iPhone owners, most of whom (like me) are presumably stoked to buy the iPhone 4S.”

Here is the game…get more people on faster networks, faster infrastructure, and newer technology. These mobile devices, their speed, their apps, and their access  to faster networks fuels consumers to access social outlets like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and other social applications. The real social media return on investment is the mobile technology and infrastructure that supports the connectivity.

*Blog header image from Yugatech.com.