the software company now has a different role in a different environment. That role is to try to influence.
Social media is a phenomenon of person to person contact. It happens to be through Websites and other tools, whether it’s a smart phone or PC, and again traditional marketing is an organization’s one to many marketing or one to many communications. Now, what are some of the types of social media? Blogs, syndicated feeds, RSS (real simple syndication), bookmarking, audio, video, social networks, podcasts, virtual worlds, wikis, forums ratings and reviews and tags and widgets. For the top, most visited Websites in the U.S. and worldwide are now social media sites; namely U-Tube, FaceBook, MySpace and Wikipedia. It gets a little colorful here with this conversational prism which is a nice device for showing the diversity and the splendor of social media. Brian Solice is a blogger who defined social media as conversation and the conversation he calls “the art of listening, learning and sharing.” He has nearly two dozen categories, including all the ones I mentioned along with things like crowd source content and picture sharing, events and messaging. So social media really ranges from the mundane – document sharing – to the hot category started by Twitter.
Going back to the social media, the technographics of it. The “Groundswell” authors I mentioned before, Lee and Bernhoff, created a model of technographics and these are technographics of social media users. What are these consumers like? They’re basically five or six categories: creators (18% of online adults) these are people who publish a blog or an article, they maintain a web page, upload their own videos or audio; critics (25% of online consumers) these are people who do such things as post a comment, do a review and we used to say, everyone’s a critic, but it turns out only 25% of social media users are actually critics. It must be the trade media readers.
Collectors – 12% of online consumers – these are people who save URLs and tags on social bookmarking sites. They receive RSS feeds. They vote for sites and so on. Joiners (25%) – of course these are people who participate in social networking sites and if you think the Web is clogged now with only 25% of online users being on social networking, just imagine when it really becomes plurality. The final category: spectators (48% of consumers) these are people who read and watch what others do online. Obviously some of these numbers overlap, some of these categories overlap. To the point of a clogged Web, only 56% of online consumers are actually using social media. So 44% of them are inactive, they’re not yet participating.
The other point I want to mention as far as access to social media and that is smart phone. That is really, really driving a big part of this. Sixty-two percent of consumers actually own or will own a smart phone, according to Adzuki Systems which just did some research on this. Those who have smart phones, 52% use their phones to access the Web and 25% of them use it to access social networks.
It’s the phone to Web connection that’s part of this social media trend. Again, smart phones aren’t really that old and I think we’ll see the numbers of participants go up.
Showing up matters. Part of the growth of social media is explained by the fact that consumers want organizations to be interacting with them using social media. The communications agency, Cone, did a study two months ago in September and they found that 60% of U.S. respondents interact with companies on social media Websites. So, they’re interacting with the brand, not necessarily the company itself, per se. But they’re talking about brands. They’re researching brands in a social media environment. Of these consumers in the Cone study, 93% said that they think companies should be there in social media. Obviously, this is where consumers are and they’re saying that the brands, the corporations should be there.
By the way, one other finding about social media. It’s not just a phenomenon of younger consumers. A third of young customers, ages 18 to 34, believe companies should actively market to them via social networks. The same is true of the wealthiest households. So, an interesting point for financial services. Household income greater than 75K, they want corporations to deal with them in a social media environment.
Let’s turn to some examples of what’s happening in the world of insurance and financial services. There are a few agents leading the way and it’s very interesting that they are because agents are traditionally strong with person to person networking which is really what social media is delivering. There is a fellow named Dennis Volz, who has started the San Diego Insurance Blog, you can see it here online. He’s writing for consumers, he’s writing and taking on the questions and issues that he gets as an agent. I’m sure every agent in the U.S. gets these same questions: What happens when I have a claim? Why are collision premiums so high? All these various questions. Do I have the right insurance for the value of my house? So, he’s gone and taken those questions. Peter, my business partner says the blogging that he’s doing is just another iteration of what agents do every day, which is talk one on one, answer questions and give advice.
LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a social network site which has really, really grown like Topsy. It’s a business-oriented social network. Interestingly, the Independent Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10