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.
Our next SWIM session focuses on the blogosphere and we would like know a little bit more about Arkansas bloggers. If you are a blogger and live in Arkansas, please email Emily (ereeves@stoneward.com) and I will respond with a link to our short survey. Thank you.
Social media has come about out of a desire to share information, whether it is about our lives, our work or even nothing at all. How we choose to use the technology has been the interesting thing to observe. Take eight minutes to watch the Ted talk below from Twitter co-founder as he talks about the evolution of Twitter use from the mundane to the informative (and I would argue, back to the mundane). I applaud the technology and the innovative use of it by those interested in social media. For those that are just jumping on the bandwagon: I wish you would just go away - you are cluttering the space and devaluing the tool.
Check out a cool experiment by blogger Noah Brier: Brand Tags. This experiment proves that consumers control brands - brands are what consumers say. On this site you can tag brands yourself, or you can see what others are saying about brands. Very cool and fun. Enjoy.
Focus groups feel so old-school. Marketers have been doing them forever and the methodology really hasn’t changed all that much since that “Mad Men” era. With the crazy amounts of consumer-generated media available to marketers, it is odd that we would even bother convene focus groups to tell us what consumers think about the brands we represent: people are telling us–and the world–without our asking. It seems that some companies are latching on to this new media better than others and using blog communities to gather relevant insights. As reported in AdWeek:
“Now firms with expertise ranging from research and word of mouth to digital media are setting up closed communities for clients to tap into the nuances, the spontaneity and the language of consumers engaging in a leisurely change, a different dynamic to one where they sit face-to-face in a focus group for a prescribed period of time. Some of the initiatives focus on a specific topic for a couple of weeks; others create a longer, ongoing conversation.
“‘…when you are a running a qualitative blog: You have people for 10 to 15 days, which is a huge amount of time for them to think about their answers and to challenge your own questions, which makes a big difference in results. What people say when they talk together is more interesting than what they say when they talk to us. What they say peer to peer is more sincere and sometimes very intimate.”
“Text Analytics–a general term for the mining and interpretation of written words–has been used for more than two decades, most notably by the defense industry as far back as the Cold War to read into the word choices and text of, say, a speech written by Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev.” — according to a recent article in Ad Age.
The article goes on to say that marketers are increasingly using text analytics to mine information from customer service surveys, e-mails, online forums, and blogs. “…while the blogosphere and social networks have so far not proved great advertising media, text analytics offers the potential to make them stronger marketing vehicles.”
Dove used the tool to not only understand reactions to their campaign, but to gain an understanding of what motivates people, which issues are most important to women in their target group, and how to create better products and messaging for them. All by using text analytics from content on its own message boards.
What a fantastic way to leverage social media tools with a quantitative analysis!
Over the holiday shopping season, Wal-Mart launched a new blog, CheckOutBlog.com. This blog is a new and interesting approach for Wal-Mart. The NY Times reported on this new blog over the weekend:
“Known for its strict, by-the-books culture — accepting a cup of coffee from a supplier can be a firing offense — Wal-Mart is now encouraging its merchants to speak frankly, even critically, about the products the chain carries.
“This unusual new Web site, which was quietly created during the holiday shopping season, has become a forum for unvarnished rants about gadgets, raves about new video games and advice on selecting environmentally sustainable food.
“…Wal-Mart’s site…turns the traditional model on its head. Instead of relying on polished high-level executives, it is written by little-known buyers, largely without editing.
“The result is an intensely personal window into the lives, preferences and quirks of the powerful tastemakers at Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest retailer, who have spent years shielded from public view.”
I wonder if won’t still be met with some skepticism just because it is hosted by “Wal-Mart.” It is a very interesting approach, and if nothing else, shows some progressiveness for the brand that is right in line with positioning it has taken on sustainability. If they keep this up, they just might gradually change perceptions of Wal-Mart — a task that at once seemed impossible, but could now be a plausible outcome.
