Message from Michael - Social Networking - September 21, 2009

Message From Michael                                 

                                                                                                                        September 21, 2009                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

      CHASING THE BRIGHT ELUSIVE BUTTERFLY

      SOCIAL NETWORKING’S SWINE FLU

      TV’S FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

      IT’S A SMALL WORLD

 

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      CHASING THE BRIGHT ELUSIVE BUTTERFLY:  Of What?  Well, despite the song, it’s not exactly love, but sort of, according to research by Harvard University professor Mikolaj Jan Piskorski.  As in the song, men apparently are trying to ‘catch a fleeting glimpse of someone’s fading shadow.”  By studying the weblogs on such sites, he found the ‘biggest usage category’ is men looking at women they don’t know, followed by – what else – men looking at women they do know.  Next is women looking at women they know.  The result – women receive two thirds of all page views.  Piskorski says the ‘killer app’ on social networking sites is pictures.  He found that 70% of the time spent is either looking at pictures or looking at personal profiles.  It’s a sort of ‘voyeurism,’ he says.  While all that may be true of individuals, businesses are chasing the bright elusive butterfly of marketing through social networks, and going about it all wrong, according to Piskorski.  They’re so interested in ‘selling’ their product that they have lost track of why social networks started – to fulfill ‘offline’ social needs.  He uses a great analogy of people sitting at a table when a stranger comes up and tries to sell them something.  Not going to happen.  Instead they should be trying to help the socializing process.  Interestingly that is very similar to a point made in Entrepreneur Magazine in an interview with Jason Sadler.  Who, you say?  Sadler is the guy who started a whole business, wearing company T-Shirts, uploading video of him wearing the T-Shirts to Facebook and Flickr and becoming, in essence, a human billboard.  Before you dismiss him, he made $70,000 doing this and his appointment book is almost filled for next year.  Anyway, Sadler makes a similar point that people and businesses slap content on a social networking site and think they’ve done something.  He says the point is to share with people, don’t just shout at them, get involved in conversations and “be yourself.”

As noted before, several businesses, consultancies, websites and publications are offering seminars or advice on how to do social networking effectively.  Heck, there’s now a Social Media Business Council created to “discuss, share and collaborate on best practices.”  Multi-channel retail consultants The E-Tailing Group along with consumer review platform PowerReviews found that more than four out of five businesses (86%) of brand and merchants surveyed now have a Facebook ‘fan page’ and more than half (55%) are using consumer reviews on their websites.  What’s particularly interesting about this survey is that many of the groups adopted social networking not because of advantages but because they were afraid either a) they would be trashed online and not know it or b) that they would appear “less competent” if they didn’t have a social networking presence.  It tells you something that the bastion of conservative businesses, Forbes, has issued a corporate guide book which says ‘social technologies turn many corporate policies upside down.’  Interestingly, even Forbes has similar warnings to the ones noted above, warning that social networking is a communication tool but one in which you join the conversation, not direct it.  But my favorite article on social networking has to be Advertising Age’s article on How To Spot Social Media Snake Oil which notes that there are a lot of ‘hucksters’ out there trying to ride the social media bandwagon to financial success.

ON THE FLIP SIDE of that is a video on YouTube titled the Social Media Revolution.  It is built on the Now You Know theme used so often and says, for example, that social media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web – something we’ve mentioned in previous Messages.  One I didn’t know (and haven’t verified) is that one in eight couples married in the U.S. met via social media.  The video also makes the point that social media is a conversation to be joined, not directed.  Anyway, it’s well worth the 4 ½ minutes to watch.  Here’s the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8&feature=youtube_gdata

      SOCIAL NETWORKING’S SWINE FLU:  Trying to be topical here, but this is probably a bad headline.  Regardless, a fascinating article in The New York Times Magazine may have implications for social networking users.  Two social scientists have found that clusters of friends (a la social networking) can “infect” each other either positively or negatively.  Scientists Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler found that if your friends are fat, you are more likely to be fat; if your friends smoke, you are more likely to smoke; if your friends are happy or unhappy, same thing.  They call it “social contagion.”  Using data from a study originated by the National Heart Institute in Framingham, Massachusetts, they found, for example, that when a resident became obese, his or her friends were 57% more likely to become obese, too.  Oddly, if a friend of a friend became obese, that person was 20% more likely to become obese. If a friend took up smoking, you’re 36% more likely to light up, and again, oddly, if a friend of a friend started smoking, you were 11% more likely to do the same.  It is, in a way, the three degrees of connection versus the six degrees of separation.  The reasons, in most cases, are “commonsensical” as the article points out.  Peer pressure.  What is different is that the study hypothesizes a clustering effect.  If everybody in your group is obese, it is more acceptable for you to be obese.  If everybody in your social circle drinks heavily, then it is okay for you to do so.  Interestingly this example was more noticeable amongst women because women tend to drink less.  On a more positive note, the scientists say that we are all connected to more than 1,000 people within three degrees.  So, theoretically, we can make these people healthier, fitter and happier “just by our contagious example.”

      TV’S FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH:  According to a report by marketing research firm Magna Global, it’s the DVR.  In a report carried by Variety, the firm said the median age of broadcast network viewers has climbed yet again while the median age of cable network viewers has actually held steady or even dropped in some cases.  Now, here’s where it gets a little tricky.  As you sort through the numbers, you have to keep in mind there are three sets of them.  LIVE broadcast viewing where the median viewing age is now 51, up from 50 last year and 43 eight years ago.  If you throw in Live AND Time Shifted viewing, (which I should note is the new parlance of ratings) the median age drops – very slightly.  The oldest skewing network, CBS, goes from a median age of 55 to 54 for both, and the same slight dip holds true for the others: ABC (51 live, 50 combined), NBC (49 and 47), Fox (46 and 44), CW (34 and 33).  BUT if you count those watching programs ONLY on DVR, the media age drops a whopping ten years for ABC, CBS and NBC, a significant seven years for Fox and two years for the lower-aged and lower rated CW. 

Of course, all you smart Message readers will say – the population as a whole is getting older.  True.  So, out of curiosity I did look up age on the Census Bureau website which says the median age in America is 36.7 years, up slightly from 36.4 a year ago, and that the over 65-population is expected to double in the U.S. and the World at large, from 8% of the world population now to 16% by the year 2050.

For a little more perspective, the quarterly report issued by Magna predicts that the percentage of TV Households with DVR’s will go from a quarter (27% or 31 Million households) this year to just under a half (42% or 51.1 Million HH’s) in five years.  Video On Demand is already in 42% of the U.S. TV Households now, but will be in two-thirds of them (66%) by 2014.  Meanwhile broadband access will reach 87.4 Million TV households by 2014, according to the Magna predictions, compared to 71 Million this year.

      IT’S A SMALL WORLD:  The latest ranking of TV Households from Nielsen shows the smallest increase in growth in a decade – less than half a million (400,000 to be exact) year to year, bringing the total to 114.9 Million HH’s.  Household growth has averaged more than a Million every year for the past ten years, including the biggest leap in 2001 to 2002 when it grew by 3.3 Million.  Nielsen estimates the number of person two and up (P2+) at 292 Million, which is a little odd since the Census Bureau puts the total U.S. population at 307,500,180.  Does that mean there are 15 Million toddlers rug-ratting their way around homes?  The Nielsen report notes that four Florida DMA’s (Tampa/ St. Pete, Miami, Fort Myers and Tallahassee) all dropped because of “domestic migration.”  Orlando, Jacksonville and West Palm remained flat.  Number one ranked New York added the most people (59,710) while little Waco only increased by 9,980, but that was enough to move it up five spots to number 89. 

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