Social Media is a Science. Rocket Science, in fact.

Yes, that’s what I said. Rocket science.  Shaking your head in disbelief? Really?

Well, would you design or develop your own website? Or would you look to a web development company or web designer to complete that piece of your marketing toolkit.

Likewise, would you shoot your own television commercial or buy or place your own media spots to air that commercial? And, if you did, would you be convinced that you are targeting your demographic and getting the best bang for your marketing buck?

Didn’t think so.

Recently, we met an attorney and he told us that we have a unique skill set as creative and marketing minds. In fact, he told us that we were like rock stars or athletes since our product exists between our temples.  Our product is our intellectual property.  What value does that have? What price tag can you associate with such a product? We know our value, but struggle with that in this ever changing world of new media, but we left the conversation feeling like we need to take out some hefty life insurance policies on our brains.

Just as when the internet revolutionized the advertising and marketing agencies in the 90s, and everyone sat back and waited for the established ad agencies to come in and eat their lunch, it didn’t happen. The eager college grads designed websites for big companies and tried to figure out how this new thing called the internet. The media world is being transformed again, and the question is will ad agencies leverage their client relationships in the social space? It didn’t happen with web development and design. Why you ask? Traditional agencies are about creativity not technology and they left web design and development up to the rocket scientists and we predict the same will occur with social media. Ad agencies will work with other entities that are comfortable in the space, and where the learning curve is short. Given the recent downturn of their industry, they cannot afford to take any unnecessary risks either.

The risks to not adapting to the shift in the market are great, though many are resisting and in fact, ignoring the trends, but then again, there are still nearly 40% of small businesses that do not have websites in 2010!

Consumer behavior is evolving at a frenzied pace. One in which the internet marketers find overwhelming and even those social media strategists. Why? Keeping your finger on the pulse of the marketing and advertising industry is a full time job in itself. Watching and identifying trends, seeking out new mediums to communicate and developing effective messages for those mediums is another. Here is a 50,000 foot perspective.

1.  The web is social.  48% of the 1,000 respondents in a recent study commissioned by Retrevo indicated that they check in on social media activity when they are awakened in the middle of the night.  Granted, this is heavily skewed by night owls that are in the 25 and under bracket, but a large portion of many big brands target market are online and engaged with social media networks at that time.  61% of  Facebook users are 35 and older. Still think your customers aren’t using social media?

2. There’s a reason that they call it “old media.” Media industry ad revenues declined 12% year-over-year to $125.3 billion in 2009, according to a report issued by Kantar Media.  The only major growth area? Online ad spending. TV ad spending fell 10%, with spot spending falling off dramatically due to the lack of political ads from 2008.  Magazines dropped 17%. Newspapers and radios each dropped 20% and outdoor advertising fell 13%.

3.  User content is key to the online experience of millions of US Internet users. Ranging from communications to e-commerce to entertainment, consumers are increasingly in charge of the creation, distribution, and consumption of digital content.  The number of people who consume user-generated content exceeds the number of creators.  This is true of any content loop – there are always more spectators than active participants.  The difference? User generated content is affordable, accessible and integrates well with mass participation. As a result, the gap between creators and consumers is smaller than in traditional media.  The downside? The craze of content generation is not likely to produce commensurate rewards for marketers or site publishers, since advertisers shy away from attaching their brands to unpredictable content.

What does this mean for brands and marketers? It means it is even more difficult to manage because the assets from media that traditional media used to control (print, broadcast, online publishing) is migrating to channels that they don’t control and most importantly, can’t. Why, you ask? Because the fun new media that everyone is all abuzz about is invite only.

The media world is changing, and predominantly, online media. The solution? Realize the full-potential of the over 82 million user content creators. How? Marketers and site publishers must be willing to work together. What does this mean for you and your brand? It means taking risks. Something no one wants to do in the current economy, and something few businesses every want to do with their marketing strategies or brand.  The other piece of it? It mandates becoming very savvy in the social media segment, finding safe havens with social media channels, and taking refuge among these content creators that you’ve forged relationships with.   Until these changes occur, user generated content will remain a phenomenon and the popular appeal eclipses its commercial possibilities.

So, how does this make social media rocket science? The chart below shows that 79.7 million people created content on social networks last year. What does that mean for you? It means that 23.9 million people posted blogs. 18 million videos were uploaded.  More than 13 million people participated in virtual worlds, yielding a number of over 88 million content creators, which counts everyone who generated content at least monthly. Just because it’s call the social space, doesn’t men it is like outer space and there is nothing out there. It’s crowded out there. There is a lot of competition, millions of businesses vying for attention. Plenty of things to crash into.

It’s a rocket ship alright. And in order to launch it, guide it and land it safely, you need a scientist. Choose wisely. There are many “experts” out there that may get you off the pad, but solid piloting skills? Not so much. Look for a team that can provide the telemetry you need to effect a successful mission of launching or guiding your brand in the social space.

Written by: Sara Paxton, managing partner, CTO, and Social Media Officer of Evans Media Group, Kansas City’s Social Media Agency, a boutique agency located in Overland Park, KS that specializes in traditional marketing, social media marketing, online marketing, and public relations.

Will Google Buzz Kill The Social Media Star?

For all of you little guys on the internet that have been leveraging your brand using social media and social search – sit up, and pay attention.

Last week, Google launched their own social network, called Google Buzz. For those of you just getting up to speed on Twitter and Foursquare, did your shoulders just slump with the burden of another social media network to manage, monitor, and update? Especially one with the likely impact of Google Buzz? It’s Google, for Pete’s sake. No one can ignore this one. Perhaps this is based on Google’s fear of Facebook, with the recent numbers in showing that Yahoo’s traffic has now been surpassed by Facebook. Even if you have the resources and time, the short answer is your time online just increased. Our advice? Pay special attention to this one. It will be tied to and directly impact your marketing, public relations, and social media marketing efforts. This social network, yes, the one backed by the heavy hitting search engine, is likely to most dramatically affect the search engine results for your brand. If you were impressed or intrigued by SEO drivers tied to Twitter search results, blog results and how your Linked In profile appears with decent ranking, be sure to invest some serious time in developing your Google Buzz profile for your brand.

How do you start that? Make the connection that they intended with your Facebook profiles and pages, and your Twitter profiles. Connect your friends on Facebook with your friends on Google Buzz. Currently, Twitter and Facebook are the two most prevalent sites from which Google Buzz accepts updates. When most social networks launch, it takes at least a year to gain traction, and much longer to become mainstream as evidenced by Facebook’s 6th birthday and Youtube’s 5th.  Twitter, often named the fastest growing social network, has surged to nearly a 300% increase in unique visitors over the past year, will celebrate its 4th birthday in the middle of March.

There is a lot of Buzz out there, good and bad, but the quick and dirty verdict is that it will be neat and fun to explore, but it won’t kill Twitter or Facebook. One of the biggest questions is what the adoption rate will be by bloggers and webmasters. Early indications show that Google Buzz will become mainstream and probably in record setting time. Tech Crunch and Mashable both added Google Buzz button’s to their sites and blogs nearly immediately. Most sites haven’t clamored to throw Google Buzz buttons on their sites. Though, just as businesses need to be found in Google search results to be deemed “successful,” it only makes sense that adding a Buzz profile on blogs and other sites will soon prove to be critical to success.

Just as Google revolutionized search and the online market, they are looking to do the same with social media. For such a big brand, there have been some serious blunders in the social space with the launch of Google Buzz. One of the biggest negative trends associated with Google’s Brand Buzz is the concern over privacy settings, or lack thereof. Other grumblings have been tied to the allegiance to their own email service, Gmail. Google Buzz is structured with Gmail as the nucleus of all of your social media activity. Given some of the recent publicity with Google and their privacy standards, and with the information coming to light that every search ever performed in Google is saved, stored, and most of all, linked to you, and your IP. That’s a little scary. Google, who has learned a bit about managing their online brand, and responding to negativity in the social space, took their user feedback about the useability and privacy issues, and made improvements, and detailed their feedback using a popular social media tool, their blog. They leveraged their resources and went to work very quickly, and made three changes in two days.  They enabled a feature to hide your followers/following list, an option to block anyone that is follow that you opt to, and have enable a distinction between public and private profiles. Very basic, but critical to their success.

It’s still new and many are still learning how to use the social media network and tools within. New or not, one thing is clear – usage is there. The current rate is over 160,000 Google posts and comments per hour. In approximately 48 hours, Google Buzz surpassed 9 million posts and comments. That’s a staggering number, even for Google. Another staggering statistic? The mobile usage is up there as well, the search giant cited over 200 posts per minute by mobile devices. The early stats that Google released are:

• 9 million posts and comments in about 56 hours, amounting to around 160,000 posts and comments per hour
• over 200 mobile check-ins per minute, nearly 300,000 mobile check-ins per day

Keep in mind, most users didn’t get Buzz until Wednesday the 10th.

This is not a small add on to an email client. It’s huge for search and it is huge in the social space.  It is unclear at this point how greatly this will alter the social media landscape permanently.  The leaders in the industry are simply amazed at the utter response and immediate acceptance. But, Google is leveraging their brand and their customer base in the social space the way many large brands could be.  Taping into their existing customer database of Gmail users was genius for guaranteeing a quick adoption rate by its users. Couple that with the brand equity that Google has, and the trust that most users instill in Google, and you have a great formula for success in the online space.

Other reasons we think Google Buzz has gained traction so quickly?

• Ease of use
• Easy set up
• Visible location right under the Inbox
• No new lingo to learn – people are still trying to figure out twtup, tweet, twitter, RT and more of the terms associated with Twitter.
• Search and easy tie into other people, topics and discussions.
• Google Buzz is linked to Gmail which people identify as a work related task, their calendar, their to do/task list – psychologically, Google Buzz has users thing it will be more efficent and productive than some of the more “distracting” social media sites.

Here is one of the comparisons we found online between the top social media sites and the newest one, Google Buzz:

Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz vs Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter (Feb 2010)

	Google Buzz	Facebook	MySpace	Twitter
One-Liner	A dark horse that has big backing and access to existing platforms.	A mainstay platform that needs to grow out of its shell.	The MTV of this generation is at risk during an ugly transformation.	Has opportunity to become utility-like infrastructure, but not a destination.
Vitals (see more stats)	Estimated to sit on a user based of over 100mm active gmail users, they have access to the most popular webpage in the world, google.com.  Has access to mainstream users on Google.com and advanced email users on Gmail.	Boasting over 400mm users in just a few short years, they’ve saturated Gen Y in US, and show global expansion at record rates.	Recently reported at 57mm US unique users most of which are heavily engaged with site.  Has saturation of coveted youth, working class and small businesses within US.	Although difficult to track, estimates indicate 75mm active users, but doubts are emerging about reduced rate of growth.  Usage by tech savvy, media, and celebs.
Strengths	A large talent pool of engineers to pull from, Buzz stands on top of existing Gmail, mobile devices, and dominant search portal.  As Buzz grows, they can integrate with all Google apps –and aggregate the entire internet.	Rapid US and international growth over last few years bodes well as quickly evolved feature set of platform and and FB Connect gain traction.  Attracts top talent from Google –which are quickly defecting.	Big backing by a media giant, a super engaged audience, and rich history of reaching media starved young consumers.	Has clinched adoption over media elite, celebrities, and tech influencers. Incredible media buzz, and easy-to-use features.
Weaknesses	Late to the party, Google has had a series of social networking misfires from Wave, Dodgeball, Orkut their culture shows signs of becoming corporate –like Microsoft.	Struggles with the conundrum of having promised users a ‘closed’ experience where to be successful requires them to be ‘open’. Historically poor track record in meeting privacy expectations of customers, and overall complex interface.	Complacent: they really let themselves go. In the eyes of the tech world, they are becoming irrelevant or even worse, a niched media play –not even a lifestyle network.  This leaderless ship without a captain is undergoing radical internal turmoil and innovation has stalled.	Although features are dead simple, they are now a commodity –status update features are ubiquitous. Mainstream users confused by how to get started. Overhyped, the infrastructure has shown strain.  Brands generally confused on how to interact.
Opportunity	The more information users share, tag, or create, the more data is created on Google’s platform to organize, giving them opportunity to monetize.	By integrating Facebook Connect everywhere, the service becomes ubiquitous, and therefore the default identity and default address book for consumer behavior.	A few hours ago, the CEO Van Natta was let go. Now a new chief can step up, and lead the recently formed executive team, fostering innovation and solidarity.	Must develop more features to increase the overall value of this utility of the this simple status messaging tool.
Threats	Mainstay email companies like Microsoft, Yahoo, and AOL have already shown social features ‘bolted’ onto their email systems, and could pose threat, although success hasn’t been proven by any. Secondly, Facebook has made notions to develop an email web client “Project Titan” that will threaten tech savvy users competing for Gmail’s attention.	Facebook is a conundrum as they must make experience open –yet this provides Google the opportunity to monetize as an intermediary. Social networks come and go, before MySpace was Friendster, they run the risk of becoming complacent, losing talent to Twitter and failing to innovate over the next few years.	Self-implosion from internal instability causes stalls, forcing media brands to develop their own social networking on their own sites, rendering MySpace a duplicate. Worse yet? Cool kids jump ship, and establish a colony elsewhere, leaving MySpace a wasteland of clueless advertisers.	Overhype from media leaves Twitter at risk for burn-out-syndrome like a Hollywood child star turned skid row.  Secondly, the more successful they are, the more strain it put on the already questionable infrastructure.
Marketing Platform	Although not fully developed, expect advertising options to appear for brands who want to promote relevant ads wherever Buzz is located, especially on SERP pages	Confusing and overly complicated, there are too many marketing options perplexing brands.  It’s not clear if brands should advertise, interact in pages, create widgets or do a combination of all.	Strong and straight forward. Established team has cut deals with many media companies and has legacy culture of understanding media.	Nascent. Although promises have been made for branded experiences, analytics, and other premium features, for most marketers it’s being treated like a chat room –not a marketing platform.
Future State	Buzz will aggregate the voices of their users –and those of other social networks, aggregate and serve up monetization options.	A communications platform for consumers and brands.  Expect Facebook experience to be in many public experiences and mobile devices.	There are two paths: Integrate MySpace into TV and mobile devices or fade into pit of irrelevance like Friendster.	Like gas, water, or power, Twitter is likely to fade into the background and become a utility that’s integrated into everything –someday, even your fridge will Tweet.
What They Don’t Want You To Know	The collective already owns you –you just don’t know it yet.	They’re trying so hard to shift from closed to open, and like a nasty divorce, it’s tearing them apart from users.	Like an internal disease, the insiders are hurting, morale sunk, teams in disarray, yet they don’t want the public to know.	Not sure what they want to be when they grow up.
What They Should Do	Demonstrate success with Buzz, then quickly integrate into other tools like Search and Chrome. Kill off the confusing Wave, and consolidate teams and efforts.  Aggregate public content from Twitter and Facebook, intermediate them and monetize their own content.	Get open now. Build a browser to quickly go transcend the web. Reward users to share more information in public like restaurant or media reviews in exchange for other values. Double down efforts on Project Titan email feature.	Quickly establish a chain of command and execute based upon a single vision. Have regular talent turnover to avoid complacency. Develop a white label product that can compete with Cisco EOS, Kyte, Pluck, or Kickapps (Altimeter client).	Develop a vision to become the dominant protocol over SMS, where teens and international cultures are already heavily texting. Continue to build out platform for developers to build on top of, becoming a data play, like a utility.

As the leading search engine globally, most people sit up and pay attention when Google introduces new features and tools. They revolutionizes social media and search when they began introducing social updates into their search results.  This reduces the value of some of the high priced Google Ad Words, and Search Engine Optimization experts out there.  But it also means that the freshest content will rise to the top, whether it is what your marketing has been working to get into the online space or if it is the disgruntled tweets of an employee or a dissatisfied customer trashing your brand like Southwest Airlines recently experienced with Kevin Smith.  When you have to combat all of the negative results that end up on the first page, social media will get your attention, one way or another.

Your PR and marketing teams need to have their ear pressed against the door, and their finger on the pulse to see trends as quickly as they arise, and before a groundswell occurs. It goes back to the basics of PR and the concept of nipping things in the bud.

Expect to see a revenue stream for Google in this space, allowing you to combat this negativity with some PR and marketing dollars as well.  Most of Google’s strategies are fairly transparent and have an ad budget as the backbone. Getting into the social space is key for every business in 2010, and monetizing it is a high priority for everyone, including Google.

Google Buzz basics are not that much different than the other channels:

1. Establish a branded presence and monitor the buzz surrounding your brand and your competitors.  Be sure to link all of your social media networks and link to your twitter profile, your facebook page, your blog, and your website.  One upside is the verification factor behind Google Buzz.  There is an added protection level behind Google Buzz that Twitter and Facebook have yet to offer to all users.

2.  Identify the connectors, the influencers, the interactors, and the brand ambassadors through this channel just as you would on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites.  Tools are already cropping up to ease the integration and to locate users on other networks.

3.  The key with any social media network is engagement. Share useful content and react and respond to positive AND negative feedback from your business partners, brand evangelists, clients, and yes, the nay-sayers.  Utilize this feedback to refine customer experiences, products, campaigns and other business and marketing initiatives. Social media is the new age focus group, with an added  layer of anonymity.

4. The key to any social network is the social aspect. The desire to share aspects of your life, where you are, where you are going, what your plans are, what you read that was interesting today, and, yes even those not so pleasant moments. Integrate your videos, photos, website and other content. The key to engagement is ease of use and easy tools to share pictures, info, and videos.  The key to search engine ranking is fresh and updated content. Social media enables you to utilize the available tools to get your new content out in front of targeted audience in unprecedented amounts.

Written by: Sara Paxton, managing partner, CTO, and Social Media Officer of Evans Media Group, Kansas City’s Social Media Agency, a boutique agency located in Overland Park, KS that specializes in traditional marketing, social media marketing, online marketing, and public relations.

Quit Counting. Social Media Isn’t About The Numbers …

Or fans.

Or followers.

Or friends.

Confused? Many people are. Most of us have been programmed to think that everything in life is about the numbers. How many minutes you’ve used. How much you weigh. How many screen hours your kids view each day. How many units you’ve sold. How much money you’ve made.

The world is abuzz about social media. Every day we see more and more posts about the top 5, 4, 10 things to do in social media to be successful. Those lists continue to grow each day as people and marketers beta test social media.  We’ve begun to think less about everything you should do and more about the huge mistakes you should avoid. There is not a comprehensive list of surefire methods for social media anymore than there is a guarantee it will be profitable for you.  But, we will be sharing some tips about some mistakes everyone should avoid.

It doesn’t matter the medium for your message. The response is the same. Was that worth my time to read and digest the message? Mainly, was it worth the inconvenience? This response doesn’t change with social media. Getting someone on a social media network to “opt in” to hear your marketing message is half the battle. Don’t think that this gives you the right to blast that marketing message to people whenever you want. If this is your approach to social media marketing, expect your followers and fans to opt out.

The ideal scenario is to establish a forum in which people are willing to exchange their time and attention for marketing messages with value. Just because traditional media is “dying” doesn’t mean that this dynamic is changed with the ever evolving “new media.”

Traditional and paid media can be leveraged to generate more fans and followers. Look at a number of recent TV ads that are driving traffic to their facebook pages rather than to a product or even a website. But, the question is what do you do with that individual once they have become your fan? A fan does not guarantee any future marketing opportunities, but it does provide a highly superior tool for data collection and demographic insights for future communication. Given the appropriate combination and environment, marketers can mix in marketing messaging among other content. But don’t misinterpret social media as the new soapbox for marketing or as a “free media.” Social media has value. Social media has benefit. But, benefit will always mean costs.

Just as with high quality traditional media, social media marketing results should yield a person’s undivided attention and give marketers the ability to deliver a marketing message to its full extent.  If you are looking to drive fans or followers through social media, remember what value and benefit you are bringing to them. What will motivate them to opt in and continue to listen to your message? Just consider your junk email box or unidentified calls to your cell phone. Don’t end up in the unanswered call log or in the junk feeds folder. Make sure that your tweets and fan page are giving something back to your fans. If your content and your message through social media networks don’t motivate interactions, it won’t motivate your fans and followers to do much else. Most of all, don’t end up wondering why you are exhausting all of your time and resources on social networking and no one is talking back.

Written by: Sara Paxton, managing partner, CTO, and Social Media Officer of Evans Media Group, Kansas City’s Social Media Agency, a boutique agency located in Overland Park, KS that specializes in traditional marketing, social media marketing, online marketing, and public relations.

Have you been beat by the tweet?

Tired of hearing about social media? Still can’t figure out if it is tweet, twit or tweeter? Haven’t figured out your Facebook page from your profile or your group?

Well, a great new video from the Socialnomics guys that told us all that Social Media is not a fad has been released and it showcases some of the numbers and statistics behind successful launches and implementations of Social Media Campaigns.  Will this be the result for everyone? Who knows, but if you haven’t even claimed your Twitter url or sent a single tweet, how will you ever know? What’s the worst that could happen? As the video shows, here are a few ideas:

Increase in sales?

Decrease in call center costs?

Traffic to your website?

Boy, any one of those would be terrible in this economy.  The simplest benefit that I could see would be preventing someone from squatting on your name and your brand.

Don’t think that would happen? Check out these examples:  vw, Kellogg,  Walmart or even Ad Age’s Marketer of the Year, Hyundai. Big brand names that were beat to the tweet and now are left wondering if their brand reputations are left at risk.  Maybe, maybe not, but if I had worked to build my brand, been recognized as a Marketer of the Year, in a year when there was little good news out of the automotive industry, I would hate to see it fade due to some ill-fated tweets about oysters, cellphones, and Yankees.  Not a big deal? Interestingly enough, if the course of writing this blog post and following the recent article in Ad Age regarding squatters, Twitter has finally taken the action to suspend the account. But don’t think it is easy to get them to sit up and take notice. This only happened after they contacted the social media site’s headquarters and began to contemplate legal action.  This account most likely was suspended due to inappropriate content like their bio that previously read, “Have a Lustful Day,” more so than due to any interest on Twitter’s behalf to protect brand names.

So, if you decide to join the Twitterverse to engage and interact and see if you can get a good ROI or if it is just online reputation management, please do so and do so quickly as this Social Media Revolution is not going away.

But when you do, don’t think it will happen overnight or that there is any “easy” way to gauge and measure ROI on social media.  There isn’t some nifty Google Analytic (yet) that you can track all of the ties to Social Media. You have to bear in mind the indirect and direct traffic, the benefit of the buzz around your brand, a positive reputation, and sometimes, just being considered a trendy brand by engaging consumers through this new method.  The diversity, the sheer number of social media networks out there make this an ever changing environment.  That may not fit well into the single page report your CEO wants to see, but it is a reality.  Erik Qualman (author of Socialnomics) uses what I think is a great analogy “What is the ROI of your Phone?”  Any ideas on how to quantify that? We haven’t come up with anything yet either.

Bottom line, you can look around at your competitors and see if you are going to be first or if you will just be left behind. You can’t afford not to engage, and I haven’t met a company yet in this economy that can afford to wait.

Check out this great video, focused on Social Media ROI by Socialnomics, with all of their amazing stats. We summarized them below for you. If at the end of the video, you are ready to jump on the Social Media Bandwagon, feel free to check out  Kansas City’s Social Media Agency to begin analyzing the steps to launch your social media campaign.

Here are the stats and quotes used in the video:

Over 300,000 businesses have a presence on Facebook and roughly a 1/3 of these are small businesses.

Gary Vaynerchuk grew his family business from $4 million to $50 million using social media. Gary’s eccentric personality and offbeat oenophile knowledge have proven a natural path to success with his Wine TV Library.

Vaynerchuk found first hand that $15,000 in Direct Mail = 200 new customers, $7,500 Billboard = 300 new customers, $0 Twitter = 1,800 new customers.

Wetpaint/Altimeter Study found companies that are both deeply and widely engaged in social media significantly surpass their peers in both revenue$ and profit$. The study also found the company sales with the highest levels of social media activity grew on average by +18%, while those companies with the least amount of social activity saw their sales decline -6%.

Lenovo was able to achieve cost savings by a 20% reduction in call center activity as customers go to community website for answers

Burger King’s Whopper Sacrifice Facebook program incented users to give up ten of their Facebook friends in return for a free Whopper. The estimated investment for this program was less than $50,000 yet they received 32 million media impressions which roughly estimated equals greater than $400,000 in press/media value. Which to put in context is somewhat like reaching the entire populations of 19 states (understanding this doesn’t account for unique vs. repeat visitors, etc.)

BlendTec increased its sales 5x by running the often humorous “Will it Blend” Videos on YouTube blending everything from an iPhone to a sneaker.

Dell sold $3,000,000 worth of computers on Twitter

To put things into perspective, only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive return on investment. This is where the majority of media dollars reside today. I don’t believe the majority of media dollars will reside there tomorrow.

“You can’t just say it. You have to get the people to say it to each other,” says James Farley, CMO Ford. Ford seems to know what they are doing, especially with Scott Monty leading the social media charge. By giving away 100 Ford Fiestas to influential bloggers, 37% of Generation Y were aware of the Ford Fiesta before its launch in the United States. Is it any wonder why 25% of Ford’s marketing spend has been shifted to digital/social media initiatives? Ford is the only US auto company that didn’t take a government loan.

Naked Pizza, a New Orleans Pizzeria that specializes in healthy pies, set a one day sales record using social media. In fact 68% of their sales came from people “calling in from Twitter.” On top of that (no pun intended) 85% of their new customers were from Twitter. So, yes, social media does work for small businesses. Feel free to have a bottle of Vaynerchuk wine with your pizza.

Volkswagen goes 100% Mobile for launch of GTI. The reason that I mention this is that mobile drives social media usage and social media usage drives mobile. More and more we will see most social media usage on the phone.

Tweets for a Cause sent out a tweet from Atlanta to encourage support of Susan G. Komen for the Cure. As a result of retweets from such notables as @mashable, @G_man, @zaibatsu and others, the Atlanta Chapter site received 11,000 visitors in 24 hours as a result of this initiative by ResponseMine Interactive.

Intuit introduced “Live Community” into their TurboTax® products 2 years ago. Due in part to the resulting word-of-mouth, they have seen unit sales increase +30% each year and have now integrated “Live Community” into their other products like QuickBooks, Quicken, etc. “Live Community” allows customers to ask other customers questions which has proved both beneficial to the customer and to Intuit. In some instances, the customer can answer questions that Intuit isn’t allowed to answer because of regulatory restrictions.

Software company Genius.com reports that 24% of its social media leads convert to sales opportunities

During Barack Obama’s rise to the White House, he garnered 5 million fans on social media and 5.4 million clicked on an “I voted for Obama” Facebook button. Most importantly this resulted in three million online donors contributing $500 million in fundraising. An astounding 92% of the donations were in increments of less than $100.

The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center witnessed a 9.5% increase in registrations by using social media.

Web host provider Moonfruit more than recouped its $15,000 social media investment as their Website Traffic soared +300% while correspondingly sales increased +20%. They also saw a huge lift in their organic search engine rankings getting on the first page for the term “free website builder.”

eBay found participants in online communities spend 54% more money

Co-Chairman Alex Bogusky of Crispin Porter & Bogusky puts it best when he states: “You can’t buy attention anymore. Having a huge budget doesn’t mean anything in social media…The old media paradigm was PAY to play. Now you get back what you authentically put in. You’ve got to be willing to PLAY to play.”

“Think of Twitter as the canary in the coal mine.” – Morgan Johnston, JetBlue

71% of companies plan to increase investments in social media by an average of 40% because: a) Low Cost Marketing b) Getting Traction c) We Have To Do It

“Our head of Social Media is the customer” – McDonald’s