Ms. Adverthinker

Unless you were hiding under a rock this morning, you are aware that USA beat Algeria in a World Cup game.  I didn’t have to watch the game, I could just listen to the yelling right outside my office (where I have the unfortunate luck of sitting right beside the TV that everyone crowded around this morning).  It was quite a victory and even I – not a sports fan – was excited.  However, to a geek like me, one of the most interesting things about the match this morning is what happened online (stats courtesy of Mashable):

• “In the minutes following Landon Donovan’s game winning goal in the 91st minute of action (which sent the US to the round of 16), traffic spiked to 11.2 million visitors per minute, which moves the event past the 2008 presidential election as the 2nd highest traffic spike of all-time.”
• “The plethora of World Cup breaking news briefly knocked Yahoo Sports offline.”
• “Tweets containing ‘USA’ spiked to 6% of total tweet volume.”
• Many Twitter users encountered the “Fail Whale” as a result of the traffic volume on Twitter during the game.

And, I think every status update on my Facebook news feed was related to the game.  Yes, soccer has the power of influence this month.  It will be interesting to see how that influence is capitalized on by marketers both immediately and in the coming months.  Some of the lucky ones advertising during the World Cup coverage are even getting some of the chatter; a favorite among those I have talked to:

Enjoy the games.

Historically, six degrees of separation has referred to the idea that everyone is at most six steps away from any other person on Earth.  However, according to recent data, Twitter has now shortened our “degrees of separation” from each other: “On average, Twitter users have five degrees of separation between each other – meaning nearly everyone within Twitter is only five steps away.”  Therefore, “on average, a Twitter user will encounter 83% of all other Twitter users by visiting everyone’s friends up to a distance of five steps.”  So, in theory, it does not take a great number of “retweets” for a message to reach a large and diverse audience.

This is great news for marketers looking to justify a larger investment in social media as communications tools.  The news is even better for those looking to communicate in local (i.e., smaller) circles: “if a user traces their friends, and their friends and so on, in 3.32 steps on average they will discover a follower of their own. This means there are many small, circular connections on Twitter.” At this point, it almost seems negligent of a brand to not have a presence on Twitter.

When looking to wade (or dive deeper) into the social media pool, take the five-degrees-of-separation fact with a grain of salt and remember these few tips:

• Don’t build it and assume they will come.  Seek out quality followers: those active on Twitter who are predisposed to like the brand.
• Content should be relevant and interesting to warrant any “retweet” activity.
• Monitoring with the resources for rapid response are absolutely necessary.  A negative message will usually be spread faster than a positive one will be shared.

As Ms. Adverthinker, I feel compelled to direct you to this article in The Atlantic, titled “The End of Men.” A few highlights from the article:

“Earlier this year, for the first time in American history, the balance of the workforce tipped toward women, who now hold a majority of the nation’s jobs. The working class, which has long defined our notions of masculinity, is slowly turning into a matriarchy, with men increasingly absent from the home and women making all the decisions. Women dominate today’s colleges and professional schools—for every two men who will receive a B.A. this year, three women will do the same. Of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most in the next decade in the U.S., all but two are occupied primarily by women.”

And:

“Men dominate just two of the 15 job categories projected to grow the most over the next decade: janitor and computer engineer. Women have everything else—nursing, home health assistance, child care, food preparation.”

And:

“But women are also starting to dominate middle management, and a surprising number of professional careers as well. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, women now hold 51.4 percent of managerial and professional jobs—up from 26.1 percent in 1980. They make up 54 percent of all accountants and hold about half of all banking and insurance jobs. About a third of America’s physicians are now women, as are 45 percent of associates in law firms—and both those percentages are rising fast. A white-collar economy values raw intellectual horsepower, which men and women have in equal amounts. It also requires communication skills and social intelligence, areas in which women, according to many studies, have a slight edge. Perhaps most important—for better or worse—it increasingly requires formal education credentials, which women are more prone to acquire, particularly early in adulthood.”

And:

“Only 3 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women, and the number has never risen much above that.  But even the way this issue is now framed reveals that men’s hold on power in elite circles may be loosening. In business circles, the lack of women at the top is described as a “brain drain” and a crisis of “talent retention.” And while female CEOs may be rare in America’s largest companies, they are highly prized: last year, they outearned their male counterparts by 43 percent, on average, and received bigger raises.”

I have heard the argument made–as a rationale for highlighting men as future leaders of our state–that we have very few women in business in Arkansas.  I can only shake my head at this obvious oversight and antiquated way of thinking.  Even developing countries recognize the power of women:

“In 2006, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development devised the Gender, Institutions and Development Database, which measures the economic and political power of women in 162 countries. With few exceptions, the greater the power of women, the greater the country’s economic success.  Aid agencies have started to recognize this relationship and have pushed to institute political quotas in about 100 countries, essentially forcing women into power in an effort to improve those countries’ fortunes….Postgenocide Rwanda elected to heal itself by becoming the first country with a majority of women in parliament.”

Let’s have more discussion about the power and leadership of women in Arkansas.

Toyota has been running a series of commercials lately for their minivan, the Sienna, that are obviously targeting Gen Xers who are at that point in their lives where they are toting around young children.  And the spots are really funny.  They make fun of the minivan life and are so true.  I think these spots resonate with me because I have so many friends that are at this point in their lives and are excited and proud of their minivans now.

Check out the Sienna Family YouTube channel for all the spots.  Here is the music video that I just saw today and laughed out loud:

Here is a cool Facebook infographic shared over at Mashable.

[Source: Online PhD Programs for MashableMashable.com]

What is the point of Foursquare?  This social media location game is being billed as the next Twitter.  The application launched last March, and after a year of talk in social media circles, the New York Times has caught on and published an article about it.  This must mean it has finally reached its tipping point.  So, what is it and what is the point?

According to the site, Foursquare “is a cross between a friend-finder, a social city-guide and a game that rewards you for doing interesting things.”  Well, that explains it.  To put it more plainly: Foursquare is a social media application that allows for users to share their current location (businesses, restaurants, services) and offer tips about that location for other users.  For each check-in, a user is given points.  If you are the user that checks in the most at a particular location, you are deemed the “mayor” of that location (a title that can be stolen by the next person who checks in more frequently than you).  Some businesses are even giving “mayor discounts.”  Users can also be granted “badges” for doing interesting things at interesting places.  Yes, this is very vague.  I don’t exactly understand the badges yet, but per the Foursquare site:

“Badges are little rewards you earn for doing checking-into interesting places.  For example, staying out late on a school night or frequenting too many karaoke bars.  We’re constantly adding new badges and would love to hear your suggestions.

“A lot of our badges are tied to venue “tags”.  People use tags to describe the places on foursquare (e.g. jukebox, pool table, fireplace, pizza, etc)  Without giving away too much, here’s a few suggested tags you can add to your favorite places to help unlock badges :  airport, college, douchebag, food truck, frat, gallery, gym, karaoke, movie theater, photobooth, pizza, playground, socialite, sorority, tourist, etc.”

The honor of badges has even spawned an offline business called Nerd Merit Badges (brilliant!) that recently received approval from Foursquare to sell these badges for people to wear on their clothes, backpacks, etc. (there is even a velcro sash for attaching badges your laptop).  I am starting to see how this could be fun.  But, I am a bit of a nerd, too.

Admittedly, I haven’t used Foursquare much.  Yet.  I signed up when I first read about it;, but in the beginning, the cities were limited to only larger markets.  And although I could have still used it in Little Rock, it just felt pointless since no one else was really using it around me yet.  Recently, the service opened up to every city and we started to see some Little Rock users popping up.  So I spent some time checking it out.

The more I poked and prodded Foursquare, it first seemed that in order for Foursquare to be relevant, the user must route their updates through their Twitter feeds – a place where everyone is already hanging out.  But then I realized that the benefit of Foursquare over Twitter is that you can do a location search to find information about the place that you are or want to go.  Wait, isn’t that how we use Yelp, too?  Oh, but Yelp doesn’t have that game aspect and the nerdy-cool badges.  Ok.  So, I need Twitter, Foursquare and Yelp?!

Then, on top of it all, thieves are tapping into Foursquare to learn when we are home and when we are not?  Do we really need all of this?

For those of us who like to share our experiences and let others learn from our experiences: yes, we will use each and every one of these services.  For now.  Until the next iteration comes along and ties it all together and adds a new aspect.  We do this because it fun.  Because we like to help others out.  And because we are nerds.  But that is cool, right?

And that is the point of Foursquare: sharing, having fun, and giving the nerds something else to do.

Foursquare, here I come.

These are my rambling thoughts on Twitter use lately.  Clearly not well-formed yet, these notes are simply a way to ask you if you are using Twitter similarly or differently.

LOCAL POSTS

While I may not post tweets as frequently as others, I am reading tweets up to 15 hours a day.  I keep Seesmic Desktop active on my computer throughout the day and I frequently reference the Tweetie app on my iPhone when away from my computer.  I have noticed something about my tendencies as I scan the posts: I focus on the local people, but national news.  I follow 187 “people” on Twitter; that is a lot of news and information streaming in throughout the day.  And, while I glance at all of them, when in a hurry I look for the people I “know” and those tend to be locals.  And by “locals,” I mean the average, everyday person that is on Twitter and sharing news and information, not the local news (with the exception of a few, they still haven’t figured out how to make Twitter useful except when it comes to weather updates).

Posting constant Twitter updates is personally revealing.  As a result, you can feel like you “know” people you have no chance of meeting.  However, on a local level, there is a chance of actually meeting the people that you feel like you “know” from their Twitter updates.  Does this possibility make their posts more interesting and engaging?

FREQUENCY OF POSTS

The people and organizations that posts strings of tweets one after the other definitely get overlooked by me.  When they do this, I feel like they are crowding the space and trying to take it over.  That is not what social media is all about; social media is about sharing information in two-way communications.  It is putting something out there and looking for a response.  It is not a newscast.

LINKS

I am clicking through on embedded Twitter links more frequently; I am not sure if this is because more people are using them or if people are getting smarter about how to write their tweets in a way that intrigue people enough to click through.  If I click through on an embedded link in a tweet, I would consider that tweet successful: the message was effectively “teased” in the 140-character limit of Twitter.  However, if I am disappointed by what I find, the chances of me clicking through on link from that user again are slim.  The content that doesn’t disappoint can be anything from photos and articles to long-form video; it doesn’t matter what is there, as long as it was relevant to that tweet and ultimately interesting, it works.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I shun suits.  Even on occasions that “require” suits, I find a way to wear something else, usually a dress.  My preferred clothing, however, is jeans.  I can wear them anywhere, anytime and feel more confident and comfortable in the situation than I ever will wearing a suit.  The wearing of jeans by the account management (aka “client-facing) team has been a discussion at our office for several years.  And I think we have finally agreed that we hire smart people and smart people will use their good judgment to determine how to dress for the situations in which they are put.  And, when you know what you are talking about, what you say will be far more important than what you are wearing.  So, nine times out of 10, you will see me in jeans around our office.

As it turns out, this is a national trend.  So much so that the Wall Street Journal is even writing about it:

“Power jeans are increasingly common in high-ranking business and political circles. Indeed, jeans are now a legitimate part of the global power-dress lexicon, worn to influential confabs where the wearers want to signal they’re serious—but not fussy—and innovative.”

…

“Chosen well, jeans can suggest the wearer is confident and modern. Traditionally cut blue jeans carry a whiff of the laborer about them, so denim on a leader suggests a willingness to roll up the sleeves and dig in. There’s also something of the rebel in a pair of jeans. In the boardroom, that can read as creative.”

But there are still “rights” and “wrongs” to wearing jeans.  Just any pair won’t do.

“Few items of clothing speak as loudly, to the positive or negative, as a pair of jeans. As with tuxedos and Hawaiian shirts, wear them right (on the latter, only to a luau if you’re a mainlander), or not at all.

“To wit, fit is as essential for jeans as for tailored slacks. Eric Jennings, Saks Fifth Avenue men’s fashion director, suggests that men keep their executive jeans ‘dark and straight.’ And never dress as if the jeans had been switched out from formal suit pants at the last minute: No fancy French-cuffed shirts with jeans, he advises.

“In fact, getting power jeans right involves lots of no’s. No distressed jeans at work. No metal studs. No acid washes. No lavish embroidery. No boot cut. No skinny. No pedal pushers, shorts or cutoffs. No baggy high-rise. No super-low-rise. No holes. And no fussy ironing.”

Long live jeans!

Love this “Know Your Girls” video. Thank you, Yoplait.

As a supplement to yesterday’s post, here are some excerpt from a New York Times article today reporting that online videos are growing in length as technology improves for editing and viewing online:

“While online video is not going to replace television anytime soon, it is now decidedly mainstream. About 150 million Internet users in the United States watch about 14.5 billion videos a month, according to the measurement firm comScore, or an average of 97 videos per viewer. Although the Web lacks a standard for video measurement, comScore says average video durations have risen slowly but surely in the past year, to an average of 3.4 minutes in March.”

…

“Yet TV networks get much of the credit for the longer-length viewing behavior. In the past two TV seasons, nearly every broadcast show has been streamed free on the Internet, making users accustomed to watching TV online for 20-plus minutes at a time. By some estimates, one in four Internet customers now uses Hulu, an online home for NBC and Fox shows, every month. ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ the popular ABC reality show, draws almost two million viewers on ABC.com, according to Nielsen.

“’People are getting more comfortable, for better or for worse, bringing a computer to bed with them,’ said Dina Kaplan, the co-founder of Blip.tv.”

I am visiting my family this weekend and the DirectTV is not working.  Apparently, my dad has been without TV for a week now.  Initially, I didn’t think it would be a big deal:  with four computers in this house and a live Internet connection, and with an iPhone, I thought I wouldn’t miss the television.

I was wrong.  Yes, we can keep up with the world through our Twitter feeds.  And I can find something specific to watch online if I am looking for it.  But I miss the background noise of television.  Even in a house full of people, there is something about having the TV on that makes me feel like I am more connected to the world.  The house is too quiet right now.

This quiet time does have me thinking about multitasking lifestyles.  I spend a good portion of my day online and connected.  However, in reviewing my behavior, I realize that I am usually doing at least three things at once.  I am not alone.  When surveyed, over 80% of respondents are involved with another medium, activity or device while online and almost 60% of those say watching television is something they do while online.  Although media channels continue to get more segmented and fight for our attention, television is still a huge part of our lives; it still has value.  We have become accustomed to receiving information in several different formats with many of those delivered at the same time.  Does it enhance our knowledge or diminish the importance of the information that is delivered?  I believe it enhances our knowledge to receive information in a variety of formats, even if it is all at the same time.  Each delivery mechanism can resonate in a different way, giving the information a dimension it didn’t have when it is delivered in only one format.  When the television is on in the background, we can do several other things and still absorb that information.

There have been theories flying that television will soon be obsolete due to advancing technologies around DVR and online video.  But more recently others are saying that television viewership is growing: according to Nielsen, “the average American television viewer is watching more than 151 hours of television per month — an ‘all-time’ high — up from more than 145 hours during the same period the previous year.”

Obviously, television is not going away.  While I don’t feel like I am missing any news or cultural enlightenment by not having the television, I feel like I am missing an old friend.  The internet can provide me with everything the television can, true.  But I have to search to find that information.  The television just delivers it to me once I set the channel. The television enhances my online experience and the Internet enhances my television-watching/listening experience.  These media complement each other.

Of course, if I had to make a choice between television and the Internet, I would choose the Internet.

Social media sites are addicting.  These sites allow us to peer into the lives of our friends without getting too involved.  (Although sometimes it is like watching a soap opera and we begin to feel like we are part of our friends lives, without actually being part of their lives.)  But the nature of social sites is to create conversation.  So the problem with social media voyeurism is that we are expected to share back.  We create community when we share.  We learn about each other and keep in touch in ways that were never feasible in the past.  I love to learn new and interesting things from my friends.  I love to see how they spent the weekend or what their dog is doing.  Social media expands my small university into a giant one and is usually a complete joy.  I share a lot online: if I want you to know what I am doing, you will know – through Twitter, Facebook or Tumblr.  And maybe a little Flickr, Posterous and Loopt every now and then. Do I share too much?  I don’t know, maybe sometimes I do.

Social media can also be a burden; and this week I am feeling overwhelmed by my social media connectivity.  Yes, I preach about the value connectivity and social media.  Yes, my phones are practically connected to me and my computer is within reach 18 hours a day, on average.  While I keep up with messages, I don’t always respond immediately, or at all.  The reasons for this inaction vary.  Sometimes I don’t feel like talking.  Sometimes I don’t have anything to say.  And, yes, sometimes I am with real people and feel like it might be rude to be glued to my device in their physical presence.

Then there are those times when you just want to unplug.  It is hard to have “alone time” with the influx of social media.   When I need “alone time,” social media becomes a burden.  If you send me a text, email or chat conversation and I don’t respond, then just let it go and give me some space.  If I haven’t posted in a while, then maybe I am feeling overexposed.  Don’t attempt to make me feel guilty about my silence.  Being quiet says a lot.

For those who still want to argue against the influence of women on the future and their impact online, check this out :

“…42 million women in the United States (roughly 53% of the 79 million adult women in the United States who use the Internet) participate in social media at least weekly. As they spend more time with social media, women are spending correspondingly less time with traditional media: 39% less on newspapers, 36% less time reading magazines, and 30% less time watching TV.” (source)

…

“The women who post to blogs are the most actively engaged. They spend the most time online. Over 80% also participate in social networks like Facebook, and over one third of bloggers also participate in Twitter. But more to the point, those who blog are more likely to be tech savvy, on the leading edge of trends, and invest time searching for new products online.” (source)

These stats are the result of a survey conducted by Blogher in March 2009.  We already know that more women are online than men.  And now we know how engaged they are in the online space and how influential they can be on each other: women reported that they are significantly more likely to make a purchase decision based on customer experiences reported on blogs.  They are relying on blogs for information on politics and news, technology/gadgets, cars and business/career/personal finance.  They are relying on their social networks for social activism, sex/relationship/dating, entertainment and shopping.

Any marketer targeting women should be leveraging the influence of blogs and social networks to communicate brand and product messages, as well as news and information.

• Provide a forum for these women to speak to each other and to you about the brand/products/news.
• Communicate back and worth with these women.
• Reach out to them in their world.  Show that you are paying attention and that you care what they have to say.  Ask for their opinions.
• Monitor what they are saying and address issues and concerns.  Or reward them if they are brand ambassadors.

I have been reading The XX Factor blog on Slate for several months now and I really like it.  It is smart, funny and not the overdone stereotypical female voice.  This is not a mommy-blogger site or a fashion site or a celebrity stalker site.  But they talk about mom stuff, fashion and celebrities.  And they talk about politics, current events and pop culture.  The blog has been received such a great response that they are turning it into its own site: Double X.  Here’s a brief description from The New York Times today:

“To turn the blog into a full-fledged Web magazine, the site will draw from a number of contributors to include commentary and critiques of popular culture, film and television, home design and family life, along with features like personal narratives from women on surviving the recession. Double X has also formed a partnership with Google to offer a news feed focused on women on the site.”

Check it out.

Found in The New Yorker.