Say you work for a brand. Customers have more access to you than ever - and you've got a wealth of choices as far as channels go: traditional marketing, online & interactive, gaming, mobile, social media, etc.

But for your customers that are interested in interacting online, what do you think they want from you? And what should you do when you connect with them? Look no further! eMarketer Daily has very helpfully published a piece on Lightspeed Research's "Global Web Index."

What do customer want from the brands they love? Information, mostly (well, after a good discount, anyway). Ultimately, they want value. They're not there to be "friends," or to get your time-wasting app - they want something that's relevant to them that helps push the relationship forward.

Something to think about when thinking about your online strategy.

Chart courtesy of eMarketer.

Posted via web from The Full Monty

Labels: brand, customer relations, social media, strategy

Click here for a larger image.

Another interesting phenomenon is that we're seeing more young people using Twitter now. There have been anecdotal reports that young people were shying away from Twitter, but we can see the hard numbers here:

The median age for Twitter is now 31, while MySpace is down 26 from its previous 27 in May of 2008; and Facebook has risen significantly from 27 in May 2008 to 33 now.

I originally wrote this over a year ago, but I think it deserves another go around, as there seem to be even more social media "experts" out there. Please add your suggestion to the comments section or on Twitter with the hashtag #smbulb and let's see how many responses we can get.

Stop me if you've heard this.

Yesterday, I asked a question on Twitter - one that Joseph Jaffe rhetorically asked on his blog - I posed it as a joke and asked for responses.

The question was: How many social media experts does it take to change a lightbulb? My original answer on Joe's blog was: "309. One to come up with the idea, three to turn it into a strategy, five to execute it, and 300 to influence someone else to do it."

Naturally, responses to my question were far better than my lame punchline. Here are some examples of what I received:

@mncahill: 14,465 to twitter about the need for "LightBulbCamp" and one to hire a developer to change it.

@scottaparks: None, it never gets changed. They are too busy looking for a better bulb!

@cohnjoyne: before I tell you how many soc media experts it takes to screw in a light bulb, full disclosure, GE is a client of mine

@adam_rosenberg: at least 10. that way you have 1 to change it and at least 9 to tweet about it.

@scottstead: A: 500, Chris Brogan to ask the question, 495 to respond, 3 to organize #changealightbulbweek08, 1 to change the lightbulb

@ScottWitsToo: 3. One to change bulb. Two to discuss how we could change light bulbs better if only we could talk ad nauseum about the process

@LewisG: At least two, so an argument over the ethics of monetization can occur.

@jtobin: A team of 6 will happily consult, but nobody actually wants to execute the light bulb change for you. :-)

And this one from @jeffglasson: 4, Mitch Joel to give 6 steps to open the package, Brogan to write a 100 blog post series on the process, L. Feldman to score the puppet adaptation, and CC Chapman to actually screw the lightbulb in and get the job done!

My favorite was from @dmscott: What's your budget?

Got a retort humorous? Let me know by leaving a comment, or share the joke with some friends.

Photo credit: zetson (Flickr)

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It's all about usability. 

Common sense dictates that the easier something is to accomplish, the more readily it will be passed along. What information do you ask your customers to submit? And of that, which is really necessary? Less is more.

Courtesy of Stuff That Happens.

Posted via web from The Full Monty

Labels: Apple, customer relations, enterprise, Google

I'm perfectly capable of wasting it myself.

According to a recent poll by Ruder Finn, 100% of the people on the Internet go online to pass the time. But what other activities do they say they primarily use it for?

For those of you interested in the social space, 92% want to connect with others, 76% wish to discuss, 72% aspire to be part of a community, and 56% desire to influence others, and 52% hope to activate support. Those are pretty strong numbers.

Especially when you compare them to the percentage of people who wish to manage finances, comparison shop or join a cause (all 30% or less). Hmm. I wonder if that means we'll have a generation of people who are too busy yapping with each other to pay attention to how they spend their money?

Unless they connect and discuss personal finances with others in an influential community. :-)

Chart source: eMarketer

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Labels: social networks

If you get a chance, check out the latest statistics from InsideFacebook.com. Please keep in mind that these are only number for the United States. But there are some things that stand out:

Looking at percentages, the highest growth rate is coming from the over-45 demographic:

While the absolute number of members is smaller in that group, the growth rate is fascinating to watch. I would imagine this will eventually slow, as we've seen with the younger demographic, until it normalizes. In anecdotal conversations, I'm finding that many people from this demographic are using Facebook to connect with high school and college friends (especially as we move into reunion time), stay in touch with children and grandchildren, and even begin to use it for some business networking purposes.

Another worthwhile graph from the post breaks down current U.S. users by age:

If you bundle up the groups, you'll find that the 35 and older crowd makes up 38% of Facebook's population here in the U.S. Pretty cool when you consider that Facebook started about five years ago as a college-based tool.

And finally, looking at gender, we find that - in every single segment - there are more female users than male users of Facebook:

While we know that overall women use social networks more than men, I wonder how many of us are using that knowledge to effectively feed our marketing and communications programs? Seems like there's a good opportunity there.

Do any of these data strike you differently? Can you draw any conclusions or make inferences that I've missed? Let me know.

Chart credit: InsideFacebook.com

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Labels: facebook, news, social networks, trends