comScore Releases First Comparative Report on Mobile Usage in Japan, United States and Europe

comScore Releases First Comparative Report on Mobile Usage in Japan, United States and Europe

Japan Mobile Audience “Most Connected” with 3 of 4 Users Accessing Mobile Media in June

Social Networking Shows Highest Reach among U.S. Mobile Users, While Europeans Text the Most RESTON, VA, October 7, 2010 – comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR), a leader in measuring the digital world, today released a study on mobile usage and behaviors in Japan, the United States and Europe from its MobiLens service. The report examined multiple dimensions of mobile usage including content consumption, demographic comparisons and top social networking brands across markets to provide a comparative look at how consumers interact with mobile media across various geographic markets.

“Mobile media usage continues to accelerate across the globe, driven by advancing technologies and the growing number of content options available to consumers,” said Mark Donovan, comScore senior vice president of mobile. “As we look across markets, dramatic differences in mobile media consumption, brand adoption and user behavior become evident. These differences are even more pronounced than they are for PC-based Internet usage due to the complex nature of mobile – including various device capabilities, operating systems and methods of accessing content. For brands seeking to establish a multi-market presence, understanding usage dynamics across geographies is essential to implementing a successful global mobile marketing strategy.”


Mobile Behavior Varies Across Markets
A cross-market analysis of mobile activities in Japan, the U.S. and Europe revealed significant differences among consumers by geography. Mobile users in Japan were the “most connected” of the three markets, with more than 75 percent using connected media (browsed, accessed applications or downloaded content) in June, compared to 43.7 percent in the U.S. and 38.5 percent in Europe.

Japanese mobile users also displayed the strongest usage of both applications and browsers with 59.3 percent of the entire mobile population accessing their browsers in June and 42.3 percent accessing applications. Comparatively 34.0 percent of mobile users in the U.S. and 25.8 percent in Europe used their mobile browsers, with 31.1 percent in the U.S. and 24.9 percent in Europe accessing applications.

Messaging methods also varied with Europeans displaying the strongest use of text messaging with 81.7 percent sending a text message in June, compared to 66.8 percent in the U.S. and just 40.1 percent in Japan. Japanese users exhibited the highest reach in the email category at 54 percent, while consumers in the U.S. were most likely to use instant messaging services on their mobile (17.2 percent).
Social networking/blogs reached the greatest percentage of mobile users in the U.S. at 21.3 percent, followed by Japan at 17.0 percent and Europe at 14.7 percent. Japanese users were most likely to capture photos (63.0 percent) and watch TV/video (22.0 percent) on their mobiles, while Europeans were most likely to listen to music (24.2 percent) and play games (24.1 percent).

Select Mobile Behaviors in Japan, United States and EU5 (UK, DE, FR, ES and IT) June 2010 Total Mobile Audience Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Percent of Total Mobile Audience
	Japan	United States	Europe
Total Audience: 13+ yrs old	100.0%	100.0%	100.0%
Used connected media (Browsed, Accessed Applications or Downloaded Content)	75.2%	43.7%	38.5%
Used browser	59.3%	34.0%	25.8%
Used application	42.3%	31.1%	24.9%
Messaging Usage
Sent text message to another phone	40.1%	66.8%	81.7%
Used major instant messaging service	3.3%	17.2%	12.6%
Used email (work or personal)	54.0%	27.9%	18.8%
Social Media/Entertainment
Accessed Social Networking Site or Blog	17.0%	21.3%	14.7%
Listened to music on mobile phone	12.5%	13.9%	24.2%
Took photos	63.0%	50.6%	56.8%
Captured video	15.4%	19.2%	25.8%
Watched TV and/or video on mobile phone	22.0%	4.8%	5.4%
Played games	16.3%	22.5%	24.1%
Financial Information
Accessed bank accounts	8.0%	9.4%	7.1%
Accessed financial news or stock quotes	16.1%	10.0%	7.2%
Retail/Travel
Accessed online retail	7.2%	5.5%	4.1%
Accessed classifieds	4.2%	6.6%	4.2%
Accessed travel service	3.3%	4.7%	4.1%
Other
Accessed maps	15.7%	16.0%	10.8%
Accessed traffic reports	12.6%	8.2%	5.9%
Accessed weather	34.1%	22.3%	13.7%

Mobile Media Usage by Demographic Segment
A demographic analysis of mobile media users across markets showed that mobile media consumption was more balanced across age segments in Japan when compared to the U.S. and Europe. In the U.S., 25-34 year olds were 44 percent more likely to access mobile media than an average mobile user, with 18-24 year olds 39 percent more likely. In Europe, 18-24 year olds represented the most-connected segment, 54 percent more likely to be mobile media users, while persons age 25-34 were 35 percent more likely.

The U.S. and Europe also showed greater gender disparity among mobile media audiences. Females were 9 percent less likely to be mobile media users in the U.S., while females in Europe were 16 percent less likely.

Mobile Media Usage in Japan, United States and EU5 (UK, DE, FR, ES and IT) by Demographic Segment June 2010 Total Mobile Audience Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
	Connected Media Audience Index*
	Japan	United States	Europe
Total Audience: 13+ yrs old	100	100	100
Male	102	110	116
Female	98	91	84
Persons Age:
13-17	114	130	133
18-24	117	139	154
25-34	114	144	135
35-44	111	117	103
45-54	105	85	78
55+	80	39	57

* Index = % demographic segment / % demographic base*100

Top Mobile Social Media Brands
Across markets, local and global brands showed varying levels of adoption by mobile audiences. In all three markets, the top mobile social media brand mirrored the top PC-based social networking brand with Facebook leading in the U.S. and Europe and Mixi leading in Japan. Local brands Gree and Mobage Town were the #2 and #4 most accessed social networking brands in Japan. Twitter was the only brand to be ranked in the top four in all markets.

Top Mobile Social Networking/Chat/Blog Brands in Japan, United States and EU5 (UK, DE, FR, ES and IT) by Audience Size June 2010 Total Mobile Audience Age 13+ Source: comScore MobiLens
Japan	United States	Europe
Mixi	Facebook	Facebook
Gree	MySpace	YouTube
Twitter	YouTube	MSN / Windows Live / Bing
Mobage Town	Twitter	Twitter

About comScore
comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) is a global leader in measuring the digital world and the preferred source of digital marketing intelligence. For more information, please visit www.comscore.com/companyinfo.

Contact:
Sarah Radwanick
Senior Analyst
comScore, Inc.
+1 206 268 6310
press@comscore.com
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NJ Supreme Court To Consider Bloggers' Argument That Shield Should Cover Comments

The New Jersey Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by life coach and blogger Shellee Hale, who argues that a state appellate court wrongly determined that she wasn't a "journalist" for purposes of the state's shield law.

Hale, who criticized the software company Too Much Media on a message board, argues that she was acting as an "internet reporter investigating corruption" at the time she posted her comments on the message board, and therefore is entitled to protect the identity of her sources.

New Jersey's reporter shield law broadly allows journalists to keep their sources' identities confidential. But the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey ruled that Hale could not claim the benefit of that law because she wasn't a journalist. "Defendant has produced no credentials or proof of affiliation with any recognized news entity, nor has she demonstrated adherence to any standard of professional responsibility regulating institutional journalism, such as editing, fact-checking or disclosure of conflicts of interest," the court wrote.

The lawsuit grew out of allegedly defamatory posts by Hale on Oprano, which calls itself "the Wall Street Journal for the online adult entertainment industry." In one post, Hale hinted that Too Much Media engaged in "fraudulent, unethical and illegal uses of technology," according to the appellate court's opinion.

Too Much Media sued Hale for defamation and attempted to discover the identities of people who provided her with information. She unsuccessfully argued to the trial judge and appellate court that the state's shield law gave her the right to protect her sources' identities.

After losing in the appellate court, Hale asked New Jersey's highest court to consider her case.

Her lawyer, Jeffrey Pollock, argues that the lower court's decision could put all online journalists at risk of losing the benefits of the shield law. "If the court were to decide that people writing on the Internet, for the public's benefit, who cite confidential sources are not entitled to the shield law, you are going to have a big problem with freedom of the press in the future."

Too Much Media's lawyer, Joel Kreizman, counters that Hale wasn't acting as a reporter in that she didn't publish news on her own blog or on a Web site affiliated with a news organization. "She participated in an online conversation. That's not reporting," Kreizman says. "Even if you're a reporter working for a recognized newspaper, that doesn't mean you can go outside your newspaper, on a chatroom, and just defame people," he adds.

by Wendy Davis

What ads do moms want to see on mommy blogs?

When mothers read mommy blogs they are focused on many things, but not themselves. A new survey from rich media solutions provider Unicast sheds light on which ads they like, and those ads they expect to see, while browsing mommy blogs.

When Unicast surveyed 1,700 Power Moms for its 2010 Back to School Survey they found that saving money is still front of mind for the vast majority (80%) and ads that promise to lessen the strain on the household's purse strings are welcomed. No surprises there.

However, the survey did throw up some interesting findings.

Advertisers will be pleased to learn that only 6% of Power Moms "hate" online ads. In fact, over a third (35%) really like them or find them helpful.

But before you get too excited, a word of warning. Don't bother advertising products for mom on mommy blogs.

It was clear from the survey that moms put their kids, and their family's stomachs, first. When asked what ads they want to see on mommy blogs they responded as follows:

- 69% like ads for groceries
- 49% want ads for children's clothing
- 42% want ads for children's toys/games
- 41% want ads for children's entertainment
- 39% want ads for baby items.

Less than a third of Power Moms were interested in seeing ads for products for themselves such as beauty products, clothing, entertainment or travel.

"With these insights, marketers can better leverage ad campaigns across the web and specifically with mommy blogs - a highly trusted resource for millions of parents," said Bryan Hjelm, VP of Product and Marketing for Unicast.

"Not engaging with these blog publishers means ignoring an active and devoted audience of prime consumers: Power Mom readers preparing to shop."


by Helen Leggatt

AOL Launches 'Political' Campaign

Campaigning for political ad dollars, AOL on Thursday debuted an online destination for campaigns, advocacy groups, and companies interested in targeting constituencies online. The AOL Advertising Politics hub connects to Ad Desk for Politics and Display University, both of which were designed by AOL to educate and enable political marketers to more easily purchase display advertising.

For the push, AOL Advertising has expanded its Political and Issue Advocacy team to include seven dedicated team members focused on evangelizing the importance of display advertising in the political community. The team includes Rena Shapiro, who recently joined AOL from Google, where she created their political team in 2007.

"As more campaigns and issue advocacy groups begin to understand the power of the Web, AOL's original content and advertising technology puts us at the forefront of political online advertising," said Shapiro, director of political and issue advocacy accounts.

Through its Politics hub, AOL is promising to help political marketers determine how best to structure their online campaign, whether they are looking to use display advertising to help fund raise, build name recognition, organize their field operations, persuade voters, respond in real-time to negative press or competitive messaging, get out the vote, and educate voters about the issues relating to the race.

"AOL has positioned itself to be the go-to resource for political marketers needing to reach their constituencies," said Jeff Levick, president, AOL global advertising and strategy. "Our Politics hub lets campaigns and issue advocacy groups take their messages directly to voters and key influencers."

Earlier this year, a Supreme Court ruling lifted restrictions on political ad spending from corporations, so companies can now join campaign and issue advocacy groups in influencing voters online.

Meanwhile, the Presidential race of 2008 as well as the 2009 Scott Brown race in Massachusetts clearly showed the impact that spending online can have on a campaign's outcome.

Like any campaign, however, AOL faces its fair share of competition in the political sphere. The Washington Post, for instance, recently unveiled its answer to Politico. PostPolitics.com is led by Chris Cillizza, who writes the paper's The Fix blog, and aggregates political stories and blog posts from across the Post newsroom.

AOL's Ad Desk for Politics is a 'how-to' guide for political targeting in Ad Desk, AOL's display advertising platform. Its Display University, meanwhile, is a microsite to help marketers build their first campaigns and improve existing ones.

7 Social Media Truths You Can Ignore and Still be Successful

By Rich Brooks

There are a lot of social media experts out there—including the ones who claim there’s no such thing as a “social media expert”—and they’re telling us how social media works, how it doesn’t work, and how we all must behave in the social media arena.

Much of this advice is framed as “universal truths” that every business must follow. Unfortunately, a lot of it is based on the expert’s personal experience. And that may not be appropriate for you. Even the most well-intended advice is often off the mark when it comes to your business.

There’s nothing wrong with sage advice, but when guidelines become rules, they need to be scrutinized.

What follows are some of the oft-quoted “rules” that you need to question as you use social media for your own business.

Claim 1: Social Media Has Changed Everything
Balderdash. Yes, we’ve got shiny new tools, and consumers can give more public, vocal feedback on your products and services. However, leads still need to be generated, sales need to be closed and invoices need to be sent; no business survives otherwise.

Furthermore, networking didn’t start with LinkedIn. Before there was social networking there was real-world networking. And you know what? It came with drinks and hors d’oeuvres, so it wasn’t all that bad.

In fact, arguably the best book on social media marketing predates social media marketing: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Go and (re)read that book; everything he talks about is still true today, it’s just that now it happens on Twitter.

Claim 2: You Can’t Sell in Social Media
This statement is the mantra of early adopters who remember “the good old days” of social media, before Facebook had ads and all the spammers realized how powerful and inexpensive the medium could be.

It’s well-documented that Dell has sold million of dollars of PCs and accessories through Twitter promotions. Local coffee shops use Twitter to take orders that are ready when you arrive or promote themselves using location-based apps like FourSquare or Gowalla. (In fact, if you’d like some advice on how to sell in FourSquare, check out Why Foursquare Drives Business.)

Now this doesn’t mean that you should go out and spam everyone you can reach through social media. In fact, that’s probably a quick way to lose followers and even get banned from popular networks. However, when you put the right message in front of the right person in the right social medium, sales happen.

Claim 3: You Have to Stay On Message
This is preached by many of the most successful social media experts out there. But you know who stays on message? Politicians and boring corporations. If you don’t count yourself in either group, then staying on message isn’t for you.

I’ve bonded with people over my love of Phineas & Ferb, photos I’ve uploaded to my personal Flickr account, and my fear of a zombie apocalypse.

In fact, my interest in zombies is so well-known that friends tweet me zombie news and I’ve even received several zombie-themed gifts at events. It seems strange, but the undead have helped build my network.

While that may not lead to direct sales—Google Analytics still doesn’t list “zombies” as a traffic source—it has helped me make new connections and opened up new opportunities that have led to business.

While zombies may not be your cup of tea, sharing your interests—whether it’s gardening, cooking or skydiving—will attract like-minded people to you and help build your network.

As Chris Garrett says in his post “How to Boost Your Personal Brand with Social Media”:

Using light humor, being kind, sharing about more than just your work—including your interests—allow people to connect with you on a human level as well as a business and technical level.

Claim 4: You Need to Have a Lot of Followers
When I asked my network about expert advice they disagreed with, the focus on developing a large following was the most often cited.

There are two types of experts who talk about social media as a numbers game. The first is the social media “guru” whose Twitter bio promises to teach you how to get hundreds of new followers a day, but is somehow stuck at 17 followers himself.

The second is the social media evangelist who is almost always on message and has a business model that requires a large number of customers to succeed. For her, a lot of it is about the numbers.

And in defense of this particular piece of advice, the bigger your network, the more people you can reach. All things being equal, that’s a good thing. If you ask a question and you have few followers, expect few answers. If you have hundreds or thousands of followers, expect a lot more responses.

There’s also the matter of “social proof”: without anything else to go on, we often “trust” someone with a lot of followers, or who gets a lot of comments on his blog or video. Twenty-five thousand followers can’t be wrong… right?

But beyond that, social media is not an arms race. It’s better to have 100 followers with whom you regularly engage than 10,000 who never pay attention to you.

Some people spend each day following as many new people as they can, then unfollowing those who don’t follow them back in 24 hours to free up space for more new followers. What kind of return on investment are they getting for that behavior? When your followers are following 20,000 people, how much attention is being lavished on you?

Likewise, if you’re following tens of thousands of people, how many can you truly engage with? The rule of diminishing returns is at work here.

Claim 5: You Need to Have a Lot of Comments on Your Blog
Nothing gives you a warm feeling like posting a blog that garners a lot of comments. It’s nice to know that your work is having an impact.

That being said, comments aren’t clients. They may make you feel good, but they don’t impact your bottom line. In fact, focusing on comments can be detrimental to your business. I know of businesses that quit blogging because they weren’t getting many comments on their blog. They stopped creating new blog posts that would have increased their online visibility and generated more online leads.

If comments are your business goal, then blog about politics, religion or American Idol. If growing your business is your goal, then focus on whether your blog appears in the search engines and delivers warm leads to your website.

Claim 6: You Can’t Measure Social Media ROI
Of course you can. There are “soft” numbers, like how many people viewed your last YouTube video, how many people subscribe to your podcast, and how influential your blog is according to Technorati. It’s also easy to know how many Facebook friends you have, how many people follow you on Twitter, and how often your most recent blog post has been “dugg.” (Keeping in mind that not all friends or followers have the same importance and social media is not an arms race.)

There are also “hard” numbers, like the traffic social media and blogs send to your website, and how much of that traffic converts into business. If your contact form asks “How did you hear about us?” you may be seeing more people respond with “I follow you on Twitter” or “Your video came up in a Google search I did.”

As you can see from the graphic above, most of the non-search traffic to our site came from blogs (our own and those of other companies) and social media sites where our company and employees are active.

Claim 7: You Have to Be on Facebook (or Twitter, or Have a Blog…)
There’s only one reason to use a specific social platform for business: your audience is there.

There’s no platform that’s right for every company. If you’re using social media to grow a business, you need to focus on the sites and applications that are already being used by your target audience.

You should still reserve your “handle” on as many social media sites as you can, for two important reasons:

It protects your brand and keeps someone else from using “your” handle.
What seems like an unimportant platform now may grow into a popular place where your audience hangs out.
The important thing to remember is that there’s no one rule that’s right for every company. While much of the advice you hear might be solid, it may not be appropriate for your business. Just because it worked for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you.

Except for this one rule…

One Rule Worth Following
Provide value. That’s it. In social media it’s all too easy to unfollow, unfriend or unsubscribe from someone who’s not providing value. Every tweet, status update, blog post, video, or check-in should provide value to your audience.

Value means different things to different people. Your value may be in creating thought leadership blog posts. It might be in always posting links to great resources. Or it might be creating irreverent, sarcastic or even off-color commentary on what’s going on in your audience’s lives. The key is to just keep providing that value to your audience.

Now it’s your turn. What social media advice have you heard that you feel is completely off base, or has been the key to your success? Please add your thoughts in the comment box below…

5 Keys to Integrating Search and Social Media Marketing Campaigns

By Avelyn Austin And Renée Revetta
The relationship between search engine optimization (SEO) and social media can no longer be ignored. Integrating your SEO efforts with social media marketing can be accomplished by sharing links and, ultimately, using social profiles to attain higher organic rankings. Here are five keys to integrating your search and social media marketing campaigns:

 

Key 1: Know the basics of how search engines work.

Search engines use robots to scour the web, collecting data as they move through websites via links. The robots then pass that information to indexing servers, where it’s processed and ranked. Two main ranking elements for SEO are content and inbound links.

 

Key 2: Understand how social media affects SEO.

As consumers continue to demand the freshest news and content, search engines will incorporate more social media updates within organic search engine results. These updates currently appear at the bottom of the first results page as “Results from people in your social circle for … [your query].” Searchers can see content from individuals they're connected with via social networks. Additionally, search engines will soon likely integrate public Facebook updates into results pages, and already do so for more open networks like Twitter.

 

Key 3: Determine which social profiles your company needs.

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have generally been accepted as the most popular social sites across industries. However, for SEO, creating a corporate Google Profile and Buzz profile is increasingly important with the impending release of "caffeine," the new Google search algorithm. Your company should also create a YouTube channel and Flickr account for multimedia content — but try to also host that content on your own website.

 

Key 4: Learn to monitor social media efficiently.

Programs like TweetDeck, HootSuite and Seesmic make sharing content and links across Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook simpler. To monitor networks for inbound linking opportunities and reputation management, search columns for keywords or hashtags are extremely helpful. Additional monitoring can be done through Twitter Search and TweetBeep, while an overall online presence can be surveyed with tools like Trackur, Google Alerts or SocialMention.

 

Key 5: Use social media to increase organic rankings.

With social profiles created, your company's site listing should appear on the first page of results for branded queries, along with your company’s Twitter account, Facebook page and other social profiles — ultimately allowing your company to dominate the first page of branded results. Finally, social media profiles will allow you to quickly distribute content to more individuals, who in turn may create additional inbound links, increasing link popularity.

 

BusinessWeek’s B.L. Ochman said it best in a blog post last year: “For companies, resistance to social media is futile. Millions of people are creating content for the social web. Your competitors are already there. Your customers have been there for a long time. If your business isn’t putting itself out there, it ought to be.” At minimum, companies who wish to have a comprehensive SEO campaign should do the following:

• choose keywords wisely;
• add keywords to website content;
• engage in quality link-building efforts; and
• engage in social media by creating a corporate blog and Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Buzz profiles.

Visit for SEM Programs.

5 Steps to Build a Twitter Marketing Strategy

By Lee Odden

So you want to succeed with Twitter eh? Before you run off and chase shiny butterflies and little blue birds, take a seat and collect yourself. Then read the following tips on creating a potential Twitter marketing strategy that will help you become more productive and successful using Twitter for business.

 First things first. Who are you trying to connect with?

1. Describe your target audience on Twitter. If you’re not an active participant on Twitter, then research. Do the homework and write it down, including Twitter handles of actual target users. If you’ve been able to go so far as develop a persona that represents your customers that spend time on Twitter or social media sites in general, that’s even better.

 The first step in scoring is knowing all about the goal.

2. What outcomes are expected from Twitter participation? Besides being able to say you have 50,000 followers, of course. Incidentally, we experiment with Twitter accounts and those that have a substantial number of followers do not always result in the the most retweets and web site visits. This is important in the fans/friends/followers game. It’s not how many connections you have, it’s who you’re connected with that determines the propagation of tweets, spread of links, traffic, etc.

It’s essential to know how success with Twitter will be measured. If it’s just follower counts, heck those could probably be purchased. (Which TopRankMarketing does NOT recommend) However, that would be a fake network without effect.

Where does Twitter fit in?

3. Where does Twitter fit within your overall online marketing strategy? Is Twitter meant to be a customer service tool? Brand monitoring? Monitoring for sales opportunities? Promotion of other corporate social activities? (ie blogging, Facebook, YouTube, Etc) Does it support some other communications function?

 As a communications and social networking tool, Twitter can connect with customers, prospects, journalists, employees, candidates, investors and marketing partners. Understanding where Twitter fits within the overall mix of online marketing and communications will help with: allocating monitoring and engagement resources, establishing a working social media policy, workflow management and reporting. You may very well find a number of synergies available through Twitter, such as connecting with journalists and bloggers for PR purposes but also encouraging link usage when citing the company to assist with SEO efforts.

Twitter is a tool and only as useful as the tactics you use.

4. A firm grasp of the first three steps really needs to be addressed before useful tactics should be implemented. If all you do is focus on Twitter popularity tactics without addressing a plan for reaching other goals (hopefully being popular isn’t the sole goal) then the investment in time and effort becomes more like guesswork.

First and foremost for tactics, the Twitter page needs to be designed and optimized. If a business has the expectation to be perceived in a significant way, then the Twitter page needs to avoid looking insignificant. Tweets need to be diverse, yet follow a theme that is consistent to the messaging and audience goal. Kudos to customers and offering tips are great but alone are not going to attract followers fast.

There are a few tactics with Twitter that are almost always a good idea regardless of the audience, goals and overall plan:

• Having a persona or target profile in mind, research Twitter users and follow them.
• Associate the Twitter account with something else that is social, such as a YouTube Channel, Facebook Fan Page and/or a blog.
• Make an effort to link to a small number of high quality and creatively written resources, daily. Mornings are best. Brand these with a hashtag like #yourbrandtips, where “yourbrand” is the brand within your company that this Twitter account is focused on. It could also be a behavior or action. Ex: #niketips or #runningtips.
• Schedule a #yourbrandtips Twitter event every month, two weeks or weekly. This would be run like #blogchat where a real person from your company hosts a chat on Twitter about survey topics. Ideally there would be influential guests involved so that their tweets attract new followers to your brand’s Twitter account. The company should really post their twitter handle everywhere their web site address is posted.
• Find a way to ask followers questions, then use those answers in blog posts, which are promoted via the business twitter account.
• Create a Twitter list of a segment of the target audience. One list for each segment. Then solicit followers asking for recommendations of people that belong in the “segment one” list or “segment two” list. Ex: ”librarians” or “network administrators”. Mention that anyone who retweets a link to the list can get added to that list – provided they belong. Lists must be relevant and managed to be of any use. Promote lists with Listorious.com.
• Use #FollowFridays or #FF to recognize people that retweet the brand’s Twitter content the most. Also mention influential Twitter accounts that you have had some connection with. They might retweet the #FF and expose the brand Twitter account to new audiences.

Measure twice, Tweet once.

5. Measurement with Twitter can be tricky such as identifying referrers via various URL shortening services, but it’s the most important. By “measurement”, I also mean monitoring on an ongoing basis, not just counting outcomes or KPIs. Followers is just one dimension. Based on what the brand is trying to achieve, a mix of data points and measurement tools should be implemented. Some example metrics:

• Tweets published
• Retweets & potential reach from those retweets
• New targeted Twitter users that are followed by the brand’s Twitter account
• New followers of the brand’s Twitter account acquired
• Direct traffic from Twitter to brand’s web pages. URL shortening services should be used like bit.ly
• Mentions of the brand in Tweets without links
• How many lists the brand Twitter account is included in
• What new Twitter users has the brand’s Twitter account added to it’s own organized lists?
• How many engagements or discussions the brand’s Twitter account has with other users
• Connections (follow, retweet, @message, DM) with targeted Twitter users

Example Tools:

• search.twitter.com
• social media monitoring like socialmention.com, trackur.com, scoutlabs, Techrigy SM2, Radian6
• Web analytics
• bit.ly
• cotweet.com, hootsuite.com, tweetdeck.com

Obviously, there are many other tools for Twitter out there, including overall social media marketing campaign management tools such as: Wildfire, Objective Marketer, Spredfast, SocialTalk, pop.to and others.

Sure, you can “experiment” with tools like Twitter and find your specific strategy as you go, but you could also find productivity and valuable connections a lot sooner (as well as effective time and resource management) if you create a plan that addresses who you’re trying to reach on Twitter, what goals you hope to achieve and a plan for getting there. Make no mistake, there will always be a component of on-demand and real time or opportunistic marketing with Twitter. The platform is still so new that the community is finding new and innovative uses every day. You might find new uses too, so don’t get too committed to a single focus in your Twitter efforts. Be flexible, curious and willing to participate.

Some tactics are always a good idea and some will reveal themselves as you develop your Twitter network and participate with the community. Measuring success on Twitter has everything to do with goals, so make sure you’ve spent at least a little time figuring out where Twitter fits in with your overall online marketing strategy and then what tools make the most sense to use when measuring success.

Welcome to NJ Internet Marketing

Hello blog readers and welcome to the official NJ Internet Marketing blog.

We are going to have some interesting blog posts about new jersey and new jersey marketing - if you want to help author this blog please let us know.

Once again welcome to the new jersey internet marketing blog