Social networks – Possibly the next frontier of affinity and association marketing
Some interesting statistics:
- MySpace – 1 billion visits/month (did not even exist 5 years ago)
- Facebook – Traffic ranking among all Web sites increased from 60th to 7th from 09/06 to 09/07 (source: Alexa)
- Linkedin – 700% growth in 2007, 11 million visits/mo as of 04/08
- misc –
- 91% of consumer use social networks for information
- Social networks are 21st Century word-of-mouth
- Considered “most reliable source of information”
- 67% of purchases influenced by word-of-mouth
- Real people, real lives, high level of trust
- Promotes exceptional ‘virality’
Source: Building Your Brand in the World of Social Networking
Webinar by American Marketing Association and Ramius Corp.
Did you get your copy of Groundswell yet? Here are more stats from the book. I only wish it showed associated growth percentages for the last couple years – and sheer numbers of users. Might be an eye-opener.
| Participation in groundswell activities (page 42) | |
| Watch video from other users | 29% |
| Read online forums and discussion groups | 28% |
| Visit social networking sites | 25% |
| Read customer ratings/reviews | 25% |
| Read blogs | 25% |
| Update/maintain a profile on a social networking site | 20% |
| Add comments to someone’s page on an SN site | 18% |
| Contribute to online forums or discussion groups | 18% |
| Comment on someone else’s blog | 14% |
| Post ratings/reviews of products and services | 11% |
| Publish, maintain, or update a blog | 11% |
| Use RSS | 8% |
Also, as a postlude to my Social Networks series: Interesting article on Corporate Blogging and how it can lead to NEW BUSINESS! I’ll go further than that. I got a call this week from a major player in a major insurance category who found me via a Google search on ‘online insurance quoting’. I came up in third place on his natural results. I was happy to get that call.
Some interesting stats re the Web and social networking by Mike Wise first appeared on his blog, InsuraTech.
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Tags: affinity marketing • Blogging • social networking • social networks
Copyright © 2008 by IdeaStar. All rights reserved.
July 17th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Wow! I never realised how big all this social mumbo jumbo’s gotten.