You may think that email, Twitter and Facebook are all slight variations on the same tune, but the ExactTarget Research Series, Subscribers, Fans and Followers has shown that each venue has its own X-Factor which makes it special. The trick, which is summarized in their newly published final report, is figuring out how to make them all work as a team.
The study begins by breaking down the numbers and there was a surprise here. 93% of online consumers say they receive at least one permission-based email a day. These are the subscribers. 38% said they are a Facebook fan of at least one brand. These are the fans. The surprise is in the followers, those U.S. online consumers who say they follow at least one brand on Twitter. That number is 5%. That’s it.
I probably spend more time on Twitter than the average person, so my idea of the usage is likely skewed by that, but I would have guessed the number at 10-15%. The upside is that of that 5%, 37% said that following a brand it made it more likely that they would purchase something from them. 27% of subscribers agreed as did 17% of the Facebook fans.
I’m not great with math, but I’m pretty sure that means that a larger number of people are getting emails and are getting influenced by them as compared to Facebook and Twitter. But all three venues have their success rate, which is why it’s so important to make them work together.
Many of the people surveyed said they were confused by where to look for information because the branding across the venues wasn’t consistent. For example, if I want a company’s monthly coupon offer, will I get it if I sign up for the email, or only if I become a fan on Facebook? Consumers didn’t like being told they had to subscribe to any one particular method in order to receive information.
Ideally, you want consumers to follow all three channels. To do this, you must cross-promote one channel with another. Announce Facebook winners in the email newsletter, Tweet about content that’s exclusive to Facebook, create a special email newsletter for Twitter followers. All of that takes time and that’s money – two items most businesses don’t have in abundance. That means you have to pick your battles. Try mixing and matching and monitor the results. If a campaign isn’t getting results, try something else. Social media is so new, there isn’t a proven pattern for success.
There are a few tips you should keep in mind and these come right from the consumers you’re trying to reach.
• Make it worth their time.
• Show gratitude for their business.
• Deliver quality products.
• Honor their individual preferences.
• Provide excellent customer service.
• Be honest.
I’ll bet you already knew those things, but are those points coming across in your email, Twitter and Facebook campaigns? That’s what is important.
You’ll find a lot more detail in the ExactTarget Subscribers, Fans and Followers report. If you haven’t downloaded this six part series, do it. It’s free and there’s a wealth of information in each report. As a bonus, the reports are light on text and big on graphics, perfect for those of you who want to be informed but don’t have the time to plow through a twenty page report.
Finally, let me leave you with this thought. If your audience is on the go, they may prefer Twitter over email so that’s where you should be concentrating your efforts. More of a social audience? Hook them in with fun games and community events on Facebook. The point is, the only statistics that really matter, are yours after you run a social media marketing campaign.
Do you have any ideas for making you email, Twitter and Facebook accounts work together? We’d like to hear about it.
Social Media Monitoring in Just 60-Seconds. Guaranteed!
More Apps Downloaded Than Songs by Year-End
The original chart was posted on Asymco's website, home to a hybrid industry analysis advisory and app development firm. Assuming the data the firm has collected is accurate (they say it comes from statements made by Apple representatives), Apple customers will have downloaded more iPhone/iPod/iPad apps than songs sometime in the near future, either by year end or just a few weeks later.
That's a staggering thought, when you really think about it. After all, the original iPhone didn't even support the development of third-party mobile applications when it launched in summer 2007. It wasn't until March of the following year that Apple released development tools (the iPhone SDK, or software development kit), allowing aspiring developers to begin work on mobile creations that would run on an upcoming version of the iPhone operating system, due out later that summer.
When launched, however, these natively-built iPhone applications quickly became more popular the previously supported "Web applications" in terms of usage. App downloads surged and have been surging ever since.
But why are these apps, popular as they may be, on the path to besting music in terms of sheer download numbers?
Ouriel Ohayon, the creator of mobile application sharing and discovery platform AppsFire, has ventured a few guesses and we think he's right on the money. Here are the reasons he puts forth on the AppsFire blog:
1. Apps Let You Personalize Your Phone
Apps let you personalize your phone in the same way as only ringtones and wallpapers once did. They are the new music playlists, in a sense, he says. In many ways I think that's true - I know the first thing I do when I get hold of someone else's mobile phone is look at what apps they're using. I could care less what their musical interests are. However, I don't think this is the main reason for the trend.
2.Many Apps are Free
Ohayon says that apps are surpassing music in part because so many of them are free. That's hard to argue with. Apps are probably sampled more often because they're free. However, some of those free apps probably aren't used as often as the 99-cent song you knew you liked enough to purchase is listened to. Nor do free apps make up the majority of iPhone apps available for sale - roughly 70% are paid. Free apps cater to our desire to buy things on impulse, but without the guilt of throwing our money away. So what if you only play that game once? It was worth the price - nothing - to kill five minutes of time while in the waiting room of the doctor's office.
3. Apps Provide Downloaded Music Substitutes
Mobile applications like Pandora, Last.fm, Deezer, Spotify, MOG and Rdio provide free and/or paid subscriptions to streaming music. You don't need to download and pay for a song in iTunes if you use one of these applications - you can just listen to it over the Internet instead. Apple itself may have caught onto this trend, too. The company recently purchased streaming service Lala.com, which many suspect will be turned into a subscription-based, Internet music streaming service for iTunes.
In addition, some apps are music themselves. Ohayon points to apps like this Lady Gaga one or this Katy Perry one, for example, that package popular music within mobile applications. Some games also feature music like Katy Perry Revenge or Lyric Legend, which, when you think about it, is actually a new format for listening to music. But there are many, many others beyond the few mentioned here.
In fact, we spotted this trend nearly a year ago, noting the rise of "music-themed" apps that offer tunes and other content from artists. We then cited examples from NIN, Moby and Usher as artists who were using apps to promote their songs. (See: "Forget the iTunes LP, Apps are the New Album"). Still, the most devoted fans will probably buy both the app and the album, since only the latter usually works in playlists and when you go offline.
While no single reason can explain this trend in its entirety, the reasons put forth by Ohayon are reasoned and sound, we think. Asymco's Horace Dediu agrees, responding to Ohayon via the comments of the post, saying "apps are indeed content," referring to how apps can replace other forms of content. "Apps-as-media has implications in the way they are produced, marketed, priced and consumed," writes Dediu. "All the data since has been nothing but confirmation of this."
eric seiger
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