Social Networking | Sunrise Packaging Blog

Posts Tagged ‘social networking’

B2B Companies Embrace Social Media in 2011

Wednesday, December 28th, 2011

In 2011, the use of social media platforms for business-to-business companies became more important in the marketing mix than it has in previous years. For many B2B companies, social media can seem to be a daunting endeavor, but with knowledge of how to enter the world of social media, social media can bring success. In this past year, many B2B companies have started to engage in social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and have found that these sites are generating success for their companies.

“Leveraging social media for branding and awareness-building can help humanize B2B companies, establish them as thought leaders, and offer new touchpoints for connecting with customers and prospects,” said Kimberly Maul, eMarketer writer/analyst and author of the new report, “B2B Social Media: A Growing Focus for Marketers.”

Knowing which social media sites to use and which ones will bring more success for your company can be understood by knowing who you want to reach via social media. Social networking site, LinkedIn, is used more as a professional networking site for B2B companies and is seen as a way to generate more effective leads and other sites Twitter and Facebook are Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, are helping B2B firms reach customers in new ways. In a web survey conducted by iTracks, survey respondents often site Linked In as the top social media site for B2B marketers while putting Facebok and Twitter above as the business minded social network. According to Sagefrog Marketing Group, by the summer of 2011, 58% of US B2B marketers that were engaging in social media used LinkedIn, compared to 50% for Facebook and 43% for Twitter.

There is no doubt that social media is an effective tool for any B2B company and that the use and understanding of social networking sites will remain important for B2B companies in their marketing mix in 2012.

Source: eMarketer.com

Tags:B2B Marketing, facebook, linkedin, Marketing, networking, Social Media, social networking, Twitter
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Twitter Hits 100 Million Users, So What’s Next?

Friday, September 9th, 2011

Twitter announced this week that the social network hit 100 million users and that 50 million of them log in everyday. Wow, that’s an astounding number! Twitter defines an active user as an account holder who logs in at least once a month. 40 percent of current Twitter users are signing in just to observe what’s going on, without sending messages. There are 200 million registered Twitter accounts total.

So now what is next for Twitter? What can users expect to see changing as this social network grows? One thing that CEO Dick Costolo is aiming for is no more fail whales. If you use Twitter often you’ve probably noticed an improvement regarding the site reaching capacity. This is because last year, Twitter beefed up their infrastructure to accommodate to their growth which they plan to keep up with during their next phase of growth.

Twitter also plans to aim for the mainstream. While 40% of users don’t actively tweet, Costolo has talked about creating workflows to turn passive users into active ones. Simplifying a user’s ability to find content is another goal. While there is so much mainstream and niche content floating around on Twitter, many users aren’t up to speed enough to know how to find it. For example, using hash tags and other characters are foggy to many users so Twitter aims to have the content delivered or at least a lot easier to find.

Design changes are also on the horizon for Twitter. They plan to simplify the interface and make it consistent between platforms where Twitter.com will look the exact same as Twitter on tablets and mobile phones.

One thing Twitter will not pursue are obnoxious ways of increasing revenue. Costolo says the health of Twitter is great and although he is presented with hundreds of ways to increase revenue beyond advertising, he declines, “The advertising business will sustain us”.

Follow Sunrise Packaging

Tags:growth, Social Media, social networking, Twitter
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Google+ Vs. Facebook: Feature-By-Feature

Monday, July 11th, 2011

Recently Google launched its new social network, Google+, in hopes of delivering a huge blow to the Facebook empire. My first thought was this: I don’t want to invest the time in diving into Google+ when Facebook suits my online social needs perfectly well. My plan was to wait until I witnessed a large amount of my friends migrating over to Google+. Within a few days, I was noticing many of them were far too curious and invites were flooding my Gmail. So what else could I do but check it out myself. Here’s a little info on the features of both:

FEEDS

The feeds in Facebook and Google+ are very similar in that they both allow users to post text, links, photos, and videos. Facebook’s feed has “Top News” as well as the “Most Recent” posts which are visible to whoever your “friends” are. Google+ has a “Circles” friend organizational tool where posts can be shared with as few or as many people as you like. However, its criticism is that it is much like a populated Twitter feed.

FRIENDING

Google+ works different than Facebook in “Friending”. Adding contact in Facebook is a two-way street where users must accept you as friends in order for you to connect. Google+ allows any users to follow you while you can follow anybody as well without having to accept friend requests. This is a huge difference between the two making Google+ more like Twitter than Facebook. The “Circles” feature in Google+ allows users to put all of their contacts into groups and if desired, be able to communicate with particular groups without all of their friends seeing a particular post. That’s a very handy tool.

Google+ users can also create profiles using any name they’d like, far different from Facebook’s real-name only policy. This could potentially make it difficult to find people you’re looking for.

NOTIFICATIONS

Notifications in Facebook and Google+ are pretty identical. Both tell you when someone comments on your post, tags you in a photo, or wants to be your friend. The only difference is that Google+ shows all notifications beneath the same tab where Facebook has a tab for messages, friend requests, and other activity.

BUTTONS

The buttons for Facebook and Google+ are very similar where users can click the buttons to show approval of particular content. Facebook however, also has sharing capabilities where a user’s “Likes” show up in their feed. Google+ doesn’t do this.

PHOTOS

Facebook has turned into the largest photo sharing site on the web making it simple to upload, share, and tag photos. The Google+ functionality is very nice as well and differs from Facebook because users can edit their photos easily. Editing features including rotate, crop, adding colors, and effects. The editing can be done in the photo album itself by clicking an “Actions” tab. Also, in Google+, comments appear to the right of the photos rather than the bottom like Facebook so you don’t have to keep scrolling up and down.

VIDEO

Video functionality is something that Google+ could offer that Facebook couldn’t. That is until Facebook announced last Wednesday their merger with Skype. A very good move by Facebook to quickly answer to the only clear cut advantage that Google+ would have. With that said, Google+ does have the edge in video. Facebook’s Skye video doesn’t have group-chat functionality where Google+ features “Hangouts” where you can video chat up to 10 people at once.

PRIVACY

Facebook has been heavy criticized in their privacy efforts especially in recent years. Setting your profile so your thoughts and actions are not viewed by the entire world is very difficult. In an effort to capitalize on this blunder, Google+ goes out of its way to make privacy controls a prominent feature. The privacy policy itself is much easier to read. It should be of note that Google+ doesn’t allow for a completely private profile. Facebook allows users to adjust their privacy settings themselves (though most users do not have a great understanding of them) and Google+ has placed privacy at the core of the social network.

So what is the future of the two social networks? It’s hard to foresee Google+ taking over in the short term as a lot of Facebook users, including myself, have invested a lot of time in building networks, pages, photo albums, etc. In the long term it will be interesting to see if Google+ will turn into the new hip place to be on the web and if Facebook will fade away like Myspace. My guess is no but a lot can change in a couple of years.

Tags:facebook, friends, google, photos, Social Media, social networking, Twitter
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Effectiveness of B2B Social Media Marketing

Friday, October 15th, 2010

Social media in a business setting has begged the question…how does this whole thing translate into sales? It’s a great yet complex question.

Now that social media has been around for a short while, marketers are beginning to understand how to use the medium to its full effectiveness. And hard selling via Facebook, Twitter, etc. is not the way to go. In fact, it’s a definite no-no to over-saturate your company’s blog, Twitter, & Facebook feed with advertisements and overt sales propositions. Using these social networks tastefully for business requires one to “know their audience”. It’s ok to inform your social networks about your company and engage in conversation- that’s the point. Show your personality.

Social media for business gets even more tricky in a B2B arena. Businesses are especially less patient with other businesses blatantly selling on social networks. B2B companies need to look at their social media strategies as branding devices rather than a virtual member of the sales team.

A recent social media marketing survey shows what B2B companies are identifying as the most effective uses of social media. The sample size was approx. 1,800 people.

Most Effective Uses of Social Media for B2B Companies

Influence brand reputation- 39%
Improve search engine rankings- 38%
Increase brand awareness- 37%
Increase website traffic- 33%
Generate leads- 17%
Improve internal communications- 17%
Increase online sales- 13%

Connect with Sunrise Packaging:
Facebook
Twitter

Tags:B2B, branding, digg, facebook, lead generation, linkedin, Marketing, Social Media, social networking, Twitter
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

Facebook vs. Twitter, For Marketing

Friday, September 24th, 2010

As the social media hype continues to grow, we ask the million dollar question for marketing. Which channels are best for business? A recent research report titled “Subscribers, Fans, and Followers” asks Facebook and Twitter users as well as email subscribers whose more prone to purchase products from these marketing venues.

Many marketers adhere to consistency with their marketing messages across social media and email channels. But when looking at the findings in the report we find that the audiences across these three channels have different needs and motivations.

Daily Twitter users who followed a brand were more than twice as likely to purchase a product from that brand than a Facebook user who “liked” a specific brand. Further, Facebook fans were the most likely group to disagree with the question as email subscribers fell in the middle.

The pattern among Twitter, Facebook, and email was similar when individuals were asked whether they’d recommend a brand in their social circles. 33% of Twitter users were likely to recommend brands while 24% of email subscribers and only 21% Facebook users responded in favor.

According to the study, Twitter followers are the most attractive group to marketers though it’s a smaller user base. Only 3% of US internet users follow a brand on Twitter. That 3% however, are the brand influencers compared to Facebook users and email subscribers. Facebook users generally become brand fans more for self-image because a connection has already been established in real life.

More info:
E Marketer

Tags:blogging, brands, consumers, email marketing, facebook, internet marketing, Social Media, social networking, Twitter
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

While Social Networking Keeps Growing, Are You Missing Opportunities?

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

The stats are enormous. Twitter recently has surpassed 20 billion tweets and Facebook now has over 400 million users, 175 million of which log in everyday. It’s no wonder why all of the marketing hype centers around social media. It’s growth is fast and relentless yet experts are still trying to figure out how to be as opportunistic as possible in reaching an audience that is spending a huge amount of time social networking. The focus has shifted for businesses and advertisers to try and join in the online conversations. After all, there’s no sense in spending marketing dollars on television commercials for example, when consumers are using commercial time to engage in more social networking, unless it’s the Super Bowl.

A recent Nielson study reveals that social networking eats up twice as much time on the web as any other activity. Facebook and Twitter account for 22.7% of time spent online with the next closest activity being online gaming, 10.2%. The stats also show the degree to which social networking is taking the place of other forms of online communication. Both email and instant messaging have seen a significant drop as an online activity. Here’s the full stats from the study.

So what does it take to convince company to start marketing using social media? If you’ve been thinking about getting your feet wet for a while, now is the time to put your toes in the water! You don’t have to completely dive in but with growth like this, you owe it to your marketing strategy. Businesses shy away from social media largely because there’s so much out there and the results are hard to quantity. So start with the basics:

1. Create a Facebook profile: Try to connect with ‘friends’ that are relevant to your business. Most likely whether you’re B2B or B2C, your customers are already on Facebook. It’s relatively user friendly and not cumbersome to manage.

2. Open a Twitter account: Tweeting is fun and easy- it doesn’t take a lot of time out of your day. Again, you might find that your customers have already joined the Twitter universe.

3. Start a company blog: Blogging can be a great benefit to a business by increasing customer and visitor loyalty and driving more traffic to your company’s website. Decide on a focus for your blog, and write awesome content that will keep people coming back.

There are so many great resources online that will help you begin your social media endeavor and down the line, sharpen your social networking skills. Check out Mashable and Social Media Examiner.

Socialize with Sunrise Packaging:
Sunrise on Facebook
Sunrise on Twitter

Tags:advertising, Blog, blogging, digg, facebook, Social Media, social networking, Twitter, youtube
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Recent Poll: Women Most Addicted to Facebook

Monday, July 12th, 2010

Facebook is the second most visited website behind Google. With that said, speculation is growing that the popular networking site may have reached its peak. After a blockbuster growth month in May 2010 of more than 7.8 million new US users, June supplied a growth of only 320,000. Privacy concerns surrounding Facebook is believed to be the explanation for this dropoff.

Though growth rates associated with Facebook have been inconsistent, researchers are finding that its users are becoming more and more addicted once they’ve joined and explored Facebook’s networking capabilities, especially women.

Last week, a poll that surveyed 1,605 adult users found that 34% of women ages 18-34, admitted that Facebook was the first thing that they thought of when they woke up. Further, many said they check Facebook before doing anything else in the morning, including using the restroom. Here are some other interesting statistics from the responses of the same demographic:

* 63% use Facebook for career networking
* 20% admitted to doing middle of the night checks on Facebook
* 48% get their daily news from Facebook posts
* 57% stated they talk to people online more than face to face

Generally speaking, 50% of the 400+ million Facebook users are logged in on any given day. The average user creates 70 pieces of content per month and is connected to 60 pages, groups, or events. The average amount of friends per user is 130 and in general, over 500 billion minutes per month are spent on Facebook.

With these stunning statistics is the June growth decline a cause for alarm for Facebook’s masterminds? If privacy concerns subside, Facebook should have lasting power. The site is very user-friendly which is extremely important with technology becoming more and more advanced. Moreover, users sure have a lot of stock and time invested in their profiles. Switching to a different cyber hangout seems like an unrealistic transition, at least for a while.

Join us on Facebook:
Sunrise Packaging

Tags:addiction, facebook, Social Media, social networking
Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

Social Media and B2B Lead Generation

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

A new study by Leadforce1 shows that social media right now might not be the best way to garner leads for B2B companies. In fact, very seldom are visitors from top social sites looking at product or contact pages. This suggests that they’re not in the market for the company’s products or services rather, they’re most likely to be interested in a company’s blog or ‘About us’ page.

This ranked list reveals the site pages of interest for visitors coming from Facebook to visit B2B websites (#1 being the most visited page):

1. About Us
2. Blog
3. Management Team
4. Contact Us
5. Careers
6. Products

Another list shows the rankings of site pages of interest for Twitter users visiting B2B websites:

1. Blog
2. About Us
3. Products
4. Contact Us
5. Management Team

These lists may not seem too promising for sales however, the visitors seem to have an interest in learning about the company which is a common behavior and usually the first step in B2B relationship building.

In addition, most B2B site visitors from Facebook and Twitter are not sticking around for very long. This data reflects the percentage of visitors referred from social media sites to B2B sites who only visited a single page before leaving:

1. Facebook- 63%
2. Twitter- 63%
3. LinkedIn- 39%
4. Wikipedia- 39%

LinkedIn and Wikipedia referrals generally were more likely to browse around on a company’s website before moving on. Further, LinkedIn visitors were most interested in “Careers” pages suggesting that the network refers many job seekers.

Get Social w/ Sunrise:
Facebook
Twitter

Tags:Blog, business to business, facebook, lead generation, leads, linkedin, Social Media, social networking, Twitter
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Brands Being Tested Through Social Media

Monday, June 7th, 2010

A recent Harris Poll was released showing how strongly adults are influenced by social media when it comes to brands and product reviews. The study was conducted in April 2010 and asked 2,131 adults in the US to weigh in on a series of questions regarding social media consumer influence. Here are some of the interesting findings:

34% of adults who use social media, use it as an outlet to endorse or oppose brands. The polling found that 26% of those individuals are using the medium to express dissatisfaction while 23% are sharing their positive brand experiences. Either way, 38% of ALL adults who share their opinions in cyberspace are aiming to influence others.

So are people ultimately influenced by these rants and raves? They certainly are. The polling found that the number one influencer (71%) was “Reviews from family members or friends”. Coming in at a distant second was “Reviews in newspapers or magazines” (46%) and “Reviews from friends or people I follow on social networking sites” (45%).

Young adults were more likely than older adults to say their opinions encountered on social media sites were influential. Further, 50% of 18-34-year-olds versus 37% of adults 55 or older said social media reviews sway their interaction with companies, brands, and products.

There is good reason why marketers are employing social media policies. If done right, it can be a great channel to get a positive conversation about a brand spreading like a wildfire. In contrast, brands can be more vulnerable as well because real-life messages and experiences are being cast out by these individuals. People are generally more accepting of this information because they know it’s not just another marketing message.

Tags:blogging, branding, consumer influence, facebook, Marketing, product reviews, Social Media, social networking, Twitter
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Posts Tagged ‘social networking’

Archives

Categories