The Evolution of Social Media

The other day my wife was watching America’s Got Talent when Judson Laipply, creator of the YouTube hit “Evolution of Dance” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg), showed up as a guest star. Over 152, 534, 461 people have watched the evolution of dance on the internet and it got me thinking, just how many people have witnessed the evolution of social media over the last 10 years and not even realized what tremendous strides we have taken. Much of the credit for the following timeline goes to http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2009/10/the-history-and-evolution-of-social-media/

· Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) - In the late 70's BBSs were the first type of sites that allowed users to log on and interact with one another typically by dialing in through the host computers modem.

· Online Services - Early corporate attempts at accessing the internet including Prodigy, CompuServe, and Genie.

· Instant Messaging - Born in the mid 90's out of earlier programming IRC and ICQ

· Dating Sites – Allowed users to upload photos, create profiles, and interact with others

· Forums – A user friendly interface allowed forums to grow in popularity much more so than BBS sites.

· Six Degrees – Started in 1997, this is considered to be the first social media site, Six Degrees allowed users to create a profile and link with others

· Friendster – Started in 2002 Friendster was the original social networking site. Users could add friends and then become friends with friends of friends.

· Linked-In – Started in 2003 this was the first social networking site aimed at making business contacts rather than friends

· Facebook & MySpace – Currently the two most popular social networking sites, MySpace was started in 2003 and held the spot as the most popular social media site until 2008 when Facebook (started 2004) took over.

· Twitter- Started in 2006, Twitter was the first site to begin offering real-time updates of social information

As you think about the evolution of social media you have seen in your lifetime, what new technology or application of technology do you think we will see?

Marketing on Facebook Vs. MySpace

After viewing the Week 2 video slide discussing the difference in demographics between the two major social network sites, I thought it would be useful to compile some tips for advertising on Facebook and MySpace, and why the differences persist.

Demographics

Facebook – Facebook does not ask for demographic information from users, but they use surnames supplied by users to match the US Census Bureau and have determined that the ethnicity on Facebook nearly mirrors that of the United States with a slightly higher Caucasian instance.   63% of current users are under the age of 35, and 81% are under the age of 45.

MySpace - MySpace’s ethnic breakout is also similar to the averages of the US and Facebook, however has a higher percentage of Mexican and African American users.  MySpace has a much younger consumer base than Facebook with almost 45% of their users under the age of 24 (compared to 27% for Facebook).

Approach – Advertisers who target older consumers should use Facebook over MySpace as they will be able reach their segment more easily.  One opportunity for marketers is to use ads in Spanish on MySpace to appeal to consumers who are bi-lingual or of Hispanic descent.

http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/01/04/december-data-on-facebook’s-us-growth-by-age-and-gender-beyond-100-million/

http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/facebook-twitter-grow-more-than-100-11943/comscore-demographic-composition-facebook-myspace-feb-2010jpg/

International Audience

Facebook - Around 350 million international users (70% of total users) comprising 70 languages.   

MySpace – Around 60 million international users comprising 15 languages.  London, Berlin, and Sydney are the three countries that have the most promise for MySpace comprising large economic centers with high concentrations of MySpace users.

Approach – If you are marketing to an international audience Facebook is by far the social media site to use.  It comprises more users than MySpace and has a wider international reach.  Ads should be set-up in the language of the targeted consumer in order to appear authentic and real.

Degree of Segmentation

Approach – For segmenting your audience both sites should work best with the same approach, increase the number of ads and decrease the width of the group you are targeting.  Do not try to reach all users with a single ad; social media users can easily read through it and it will not be as profitable as multiple ads focused on smaller subsets.  Both MySpace and Facebook allow marketers to segment based on data collected such as age, birthday, relationship status, and interests/hobbies.  Advertisements must not come across as mass mail, but have a more subversive (not meant in a bad way) approach.  The following article http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=127907 discusses Toyota’s use of MySpace to help promote their brand image through tie-ins with unsigned artists.  Kim Kyaw, senior media strategist for Toyota, says Toyota's branding in the program is deliberately low-key. "MySpace is a complex social network, and in order to be authentic there you have to relate back to what it is people are doing there.”

Ethics & Targeted Advertising - MKT 595 Wk 1

As the internet becomes the new marketplace for commerce, companies’ advertising budgets are getting redirected from traditional media (television, print, radio) towards the internet. Although the marketing principle of segmenting the market, targeting a particular segment, and positioning the product to meet the needs of the target segment still hold for internet marketing, targeting has become a significantly more advanced and controversial topic when applied to internet advertising.




A great debate is currently raging on the ethical concerns over using targeted ads based on the user’s previous website history. Simply put, a cookie is a piece of text that can be used to track the user’s previous web-site visits. A computer program analyzes the web-site history gathered by the cookie to determine which products and services would likely be purchased by the user and those ads are placed within subsequent sites. According to Whatis.com, targeted ads can have a click rate of 1-5%, much higher than the standard ads placed within websites which typically have a click rate of 0.15-1.0%. Although this technique is profitable for companies trying to sell their product, many consumer activists and even the FTC are arguing that some of the techniques used by advertisers violate the consumer’s right to privacy. Younger generations tend to value privacy less as social media sites allow them to share pictures, personal information, and updates with the entire world.  This link http://www.cio-today.com/news/Web-Sites-Know-What-You-Do-Online/story.xhtml?story_id=12000DEDB220 will take you to a concise article from CIO-Today about privacy issues and what some consumer advocacy groups are trying to do to stop it.



Feel free to post any comments or opinions you have if you feel strongly one way or another about this topic