revolution + research = r2

Google's Project 10^100: Social Media Changing our World

One of the awesome ways social media is helping change our world is by letting people share great ideas and that doesn't just mean selling juice boxes or cars. Google's Project 10^100 asked people to submit their ideas to help as many people as possible. After choosing 25 of the best ideas, from the 100,000 they received in just a few months, Google will open up the voting to the public. The 5 best ideas will be implemented with 10 million dollars from Google. Take a look at some of the great ideas, and vote on January 27, 2009.

Do You Know...The Twitter Effect?

In his latest post 97 Remarkable Ways to Diversify Your Network in a Down Economy , Mark Hayward expands on his idea of using your indirect network to add value.

Most notably, he references "The Twitter Effect". Twitter creates organic links and relationships based on a collection of snippets of conversation, each under 140 characters. For example, I follow 173 people, reading each of their tweets (well, at least I try to read most of them). I may read something interesting between someone I follow and another tweeter, prompting me to then follow that tweeter. Each of those people follow hundreds more, so the opportunity to expand my circle of connection grows. Mark's post links the intrinsic value of those connections with the network created. Thus, the Twitter Effect.

But the Twitter Effect is not limited to just Twitter. A number of applications enhance the Twitter Effect experience:

Twitterlicious is a mashup of Twitter, Delicious, and Ma.gnolia.com. Much like Twhirl, Twitterlicious is a mobile interface, allowing one to see friends' timelines and have the option to clip the tweet. Clipping saves that tweet URL in your delicious.com or ma.gnolia.com account.

TweetDeck is an Adobe Air desktop application currently in public beta. It breaks down huge amounts of twitter feeds into bite-sized pieces, allowing users to split their feeds into topic or group specific columns.

Tweet Beep Basically, Google Alerts for Twitter. One can receive Twitter Alerts via email every time someone tweets about specified keywords or websites.

Twitterholic Provides a list of the 100 best twitterers based on their followers, the people they follow and the number of their updates.  As of right now, @BarackObama is #1 with 99,673 followers.

For more Twitter terms visit here and here.  
 

Moms are Savvy Online Users

Based on our research and from daily interactions with our Mom Panel, we know Moms use the web to research products and services, both for themselves and their children. Mom consumers transform themselves into "social researchers", seeking out user-generated content online to make thoughtful and well-informed purchasing decisions.  We also know that Moms rely on peer recommendations; suggestions from other Moms and Mom Bloggers weigh more heavily within their decisions than other factors.

"State of the American Mom" Survey conducted by Insight to Action reinforces these findings. Their data underscores the point that Moms are not visiting only parenting sites or communicating online. Email is but one aspect of the online behavior for these women.  They are voracious users of the web and make use of search, corporate web sites and services, and retail sites.

eMarketer estimates that there will be 35.3 million US mothers online in 2008, equivalent to 18.2% of the total US Internet population. The number will reach 39.6 million in 2012, an increase of 12% from this year.

To best inspire, activate and engage these women, brands should tap into the behaviors of these "social researchers" using online viral and WOM marketing, to create buzz, launch Mom brand enthusiasts and ultimately encourage Moms to take action.

r2 at the New Marketing Summit

The r2 Research Team is at the New Marketing Summit at Gillette Stadium hearing about some of the many tools and tactics that track, trend and measure consumer conversation and marketing's impact. There are so many interesting companies here and it's exciting to see the overall agreement in a focus on strategy.

A few of the things that stand out to me:

• View your website as a holistic experience, think about it as an application itself with goals and outcomes
• Test your content and refine your message
• Keep things fresh: avoid "content rot"
• Social media is a commitment not a campaign

Although we see a lot of different ways to measure and track; the big take-away is that you need to put strategy before the tools you use to implement it!

Mom Bloggers Emerge as Critical to Brand's Success

Every day, we work with hundreds of Mom Bloggers, both in terms of research as well as running extensive blog tours for corporations. For many brands, tapping the social media power of Mom bloggers remains untested waters. This powerful and yet maverick group proves extremely persuasive when enthusiastic about products and companies, and equally prickly when approached the wrong way.

We wanted to share an elusive insider’s perspective into these Mom bloggers—who exactly they are and how they build powerful brand awareness and influence consumer behavior.

The study, which was just completed, includes in-depth interviews with nearly 300 of the most influential and popular Mom Bloggers along with surveys of 495 Moms nationwide.  We asked these women to describe why they blog, their financial motivations, how much time they devote to blogging, their personal and professional backgrounds, and their interactions with brands.

Some powerful findings emerged:
•    96% of Moms value recommendations they find on Mom Blogs
•    Over 78% of Mom Bloggers now review products and services
•    94% of Moms rely on other Moms to make purchasing decisions
•    More than 60% of Mom Bloggers consider making money important and want more connectivity with companies
•    37% of Mom Bloggers have been contacted as resources for the press

The complete research package includes a four page Executive Summary, 56 page Research Paper and 57 page data set.

For more information, or to purchase a copy of the research study, please visit here or contact Tracey Hope-Ross at tracey@momcentral.com.

Do You Know...?

Every day for the next few weeks, we'll use this space to share interesting social media applications and tools we've stumbled upon.

Twhirl Allows twitter to sit on your desktop, rather than open in a browser. Updates Tweets in real time.

Tweetburner Really handy application. Tweetburner lets you track what happens with the links you share on Twitter.  Will track how many times other twitterers click the link posted. 

Twitterfeed Autoposts your blog entries to twitter, so users don’t have to worry about updating both. Twitterfeed does it automatically.

Tweet 3D Tweet 3D is a site from the people at Twitter that allows for browsers to search member’s Twitter topics in a 3D twitter tag cloud.

Tag Cloud is a visual representation of content or words.Tag Crowd is just one example of an application that creates tag clouds. Below is a tag cloud based on our site www.momcentral.com.

 

apples articles beth blogger bros central children code coupon enter experts fall family galore green grow halloween home house kids link liquid login lohan marketing mom national palin panel password picasso products read results reviews ringling rituals samples save school sitemap spirit surprising survey sweater target testing ticket traditions welcome

created at TagCrowd.com

Do You Know...?

Every day for the next few weeks, we'll use this space to share interesting social media applications and tools we've stumbled upon. Perhaps you already use some of them.  Perhaps you've never heard of any of these. Or maybe you created interesting ways of describing them. Either way, let us know. We'd love to hear your feedback and opinions.

Do You Know Twitter?
A micro-blogging service allows users to send updates/posts (known as tweets) up to 140 characters in length. To those who use it continuously, it evolves into much more.

Summize: Twitter search tool.  Can search by name, tweet content, location or company name.  Useful if you want to know who tweets about you and how often.

Twubble: Helps you find more Twitter friends. Twubble searches through your "bubble" of friends and makes recommendations of other "tweeters" you might like to follow. For example, "If you like Tracey Hope-Ross, be sure to follow Meg McManaman."

Slandr.net: Allows for mobile tweets. "Twitter on the go."

How Do Moms Cope With the Economic Downturn?

We know Moms make the majority of purchasing decisions within their home.  With the economy in free fall, we wondered how the current situation directly affects their daily decisions.  Via an online survey, nearly 1500 Moms shared their coping skills, demonstrating how they spend less while still trying to provide for their families. Their need to stretch each dollar directly influences their daily buying decisions.

No surprise, 99% of Moms we spoke with have been forced to make significant changes, altering their household's lifestyle to find new ways of saving money.

Here's what they told us:

• 78% now clip coupons
• 76% eat out less often
• 73% take fewer car trips
• 60% take shorter car trips
• 56% of Moms buy cheaper food
• 52% "shop around", spending time at several stores to find and buy the lowest-priced goods
• 41% buy less food in general
• 31% grow their own food

More Moms now buy second-hand, rely on others for food, use food stamps and start second jobs than before. With foreclosures and gas prices on the rise and stocks, home prices, and retirement plans decreasing, Moms feel the squeeze.

Who are the "Hockey Moms"?

There's no doubt that evoking America's "Joe-Six-Packs" and "Hockey Moms" makes for powerful political speech. Conjuring up these images of "main-stream" Americans  has been going on long before  Mark Penn coined the term "Soccer Mom" and helped to re-frame conversations about domestic policy surrounding the 1996 presidential race. But I admit I was still a little surprised to see NielsenWire put out the following headline: “Hockey Moms” Tune In For Prez, V.P. Debates".

Had Nielsen really come up with a concrete description of this heretofore-unknown block of women who were going to surge into the political sphere this election year?

According to a Nielsen analysis released Tuesday, “hockey moms” — defined as women ages 25 to 54  who live in homes with children and who watched at least six minutes of the most recent Stanley Cup       Finals on NBC – were more likely than average moms to watch the first two debates of the 2008 election.

Hmmmm. As nebulous as the term "Hockey Mom" is I think this is stretching it.

Measuring Word of Mouth: "Social Media on Steroids"

Last week, Michele Madansky posted video from a  panel of researchers (from Quantcast, Sometrics, Comscore and Nielsen) to discuss metrics and measurement in the realm of social media and word of mouth (WOM).

Although hardly a new topic for debate, one of the most interesting points made during this discussion is the continuing disagreement surrounding the use of direct versus panel measurement. More traditional panel-based measurement, such as those used by Nielsen, utilizes a select sample of websites (usually those with monthly traffic of >500,000) to gauge web traffic. Contrast this with the growing popularity of direct measurement tools like those from Google Analytics, that measure direct hits. 

Thinking about the particular challenges of measuring social media and WOM research, which makes more sense? As Konrad Feldman of Quantcast points out, agencies and companies are understanding that the fragmentation of the digital sphere and the sheer number of blogs and opportunities for WOM means that knowing the full reach of your brand is particularly important. The problem is that these analytics tell only part of the story and panel measurement is still a superior source for behavioral data.

As the IAB (Interactive Advertising Bureau) drives to standardize and increase transparency surrounding measurement standards, researchers involved in measuring social media and WOM need to continue to ask what measurement tools allow us to tell the full story for our clients and their consumers and hopefully bridge the gap between direct and panel measurement.