Social Media Excites Marketers, but Doesn’t Yet Generate Revenue

Social media engagement is the most exciting digital opportunity for global marketers this year, cited by 54% of company respondents to a survey[download page] released in February 2012 by Econsultancy, in partnership with Adobe. Social media is far ahead of other top 3 opportunities company marketers are passionate about, including mobile optimization (38%), content optimization (37%), conversion rate optimization (31%), brand building/viral marketing (27%), and video marketing (24%).

Social Also a Top Priority

Marketers also indicated social media engagement to be among their top 3 digital-related priorities this year. The area topped the list, cited by 39% of company respondents, on par with the proportion who indicated content optimization to a be a top priority. Other areas marketers will be focusing on this year include conversion rate optimization (34%), brand building/viral marketing (32%), and mobile optimization (29%). And although content marketing (29%) matches mobile optimization as a priority, it is far less stimulating for marketers: only 18% cited the area as among their top 3 most exciting opportunities this year.

Passion Does Not Revenue Make, Though

Although social media marketing clearly is both a priority and a stimulating topic, marketers paint a less encouraging picture about its effectiveness as a revenue-generating channel. Among company and agency respondents, almost half said that social media has added many more programs and goals, but not the revenue to support new hires, indicating this to be a key challenge. By contrast, just 20% of companies and 13% of agencies said that this was not an issue for them.

Indeed, according to an Awareness survey released in December 2011, few marketers are tying social media marketing initiatives to lead generation (38%) and sales (26%), with a far greater proportion using soft metrics such as social presence (76%), measured by number of followers and fans, and website traffic (67%) to determine the success of their campaigns.

Engagement More Fun Than Analytics

This trend may not be changing soon, at least when looking at the areas marketers want to place their priorities this year. Data from Econsultancy’s “Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing: Digital Trends for 2012″ indicates that companies and agencies are placing far more emphasis on social media engagement than social media analytics. For example, when asked about their digital priorities this year, companies were about twice as likely to cite engagement as analytics (39% vs. 19%), while the disparity among agencies was even higher (54% vs. 19%). Similarly, when asked what excited them the most, companies were far more likely to cite social media engagement than social media analytics (54% vs. 27%), as were agencies (47% vs. 27%).

About the Data: The Econsultancy/Adobe results are based on an online survey of more than 600 client-side and agency respondents. 27% are based in North America and about two-thirds are based in Europe. 42% are exclusively focused on B2C, 32% are B2B-focused, and 26% are focused on both B2B and B2C.

QR Code Scanners Likely Male, Young

Although men and women report equal awareness of QR codes (77%), men who are aware of them are 75% more likely than women to have used one (28% vs. 16%) to access product information,according to survey results released in February 2012 by BrandSpark International, in association with Better Homes and Gardens. Looking at age groups, 18-34-year-olds (85%) display the highest awareness of QR codes, with 30% of those having used one. 35-49-year-olds are next, with 80% having heard of QR codes, and 23% of those respondents having used one.

These findings align with results from an August 2011 study released by comScore MobiLens, which found that a mobile user that scanned a QR code during June 2011 was more likely to be male (60.5% of code scanning audience), and skew toward ages 18-34 (53.4%).

According to the BrandSpark survey, overall, 77% of respondents are aware of QR codes, and of those, 19% have used one.

Smartphone Owners Interested in Coupons

Data from the “2012 American Shopper Study” indicates that 54% of smartphone owners are interested in using their device to download or scan coupons, while 32% would be interested in using an application that finds and categorizes mobile coupons. A significant proportion of smartphone owners are also interested in using their devices to make or store shopping lists (46%), make instant purchases/transactions (38%), use an app that informs them about new food, beauty/grooming, and household products (36%), and participate in a contest or other type of promotion (34%).

In fact, only about one-quarter of the respondents expressed no interest in performing any of those activities.

Women More Interested in Coupons

Female smartphone owners are 19% more likely than their male counterparts to say they would be interested in downloading or scanning coupons on their device (57% vs. 48%), and 55% more likely to say they would be interested in using an app that finds and categorizes mobile coupons (34% vs. 22%). Additionally, they are more interested in making instant purchases/transactions on their devices (39% vs. 29%).

Youth More Curious, Too

Breaking down the data by age groups, 18-34-year-olds (66%) are the most likely to be interested in downloading or scanning coupons, ahead of 35-49-year-olds (48%), and those over 50 (43%). The groups fall in the same order of preference when it comes to interest in using an app that finds and categorizes mobile coupons (35%, 28%, and 25%, respectively), and making instant purchases/transactions on their device (43%, 33%, and 28%, respectively).

About the Data: The BrandSpark International survey was conducted across the US, Canada, and Mexico from November 7, 2011 to January 26, 2012. The total North America sample size was almost 130,000. The sample size for the data on awareness and usage of QR codes was 2,933, while the sample size for the data on smartphone activities was 1,542

Facebook Ad Revenue Grew 69% in ‘11, Now Over $3B

Facebook advertising revenue reached $3.15 billion in 2011, representing an increase of almost 69% from $1.87 billion in 2010, and more than tripling from $764 million in 2009,  according to the February 2012 prospectus it filed in conjunction with its initial public offering (IPO).

The $3.15 billion in advertising revenue equaled 85% of the social network’s $3.71 billion in 2011 revenues, with the remaining $557 million derived from payments and other fees revenue, more than quadruple the $106 million derived from those sources in 2010. The proportion of 2011 revenue accounted for by advertising was down from 95% (of $1.97 billion) in 2010 and 98% (of $777 million) in 2009.

Notably, Zynga accounted for approximately 12% of the company’s revenue last year.

Fan Engagement Low, Though

Despite these impressive figures, brands using Facebook likes as a rating could be disappointed. In terms of engagement, only slightly more than 1% of users who like big brands such as Procter & Gamble or Coca-Cola actually engage with those brands, according to Ehrenberg-Bass Institute research, as reported by AdAge. The research, which measured Facebook’s “People Talking About This” metric relative to overall fan growth for the social network’s top brands during a 6-week period in 2011, found the proportion of the metric to overall fans to be 1.3%. Removing new likes from the equation, the proportion was even more minimal, at 0.45%.

Users Continue Growing at Rapid Pace

Even so, Facebook’s reach continues to grow at leaps and bounds. According to its prospectus, it had 845 million monthly active users (MAUs) as of December 31, 2011, representing growth of 39% from 608 million a year earlier, and 135% from 360 million at the end of 2009.

The amount of daily active users (DAUs) also increased 48% from an average of 327 million in December 2010 to an average of 483 million December 2011.

According to Socialbakers analysis from January 2012, Facebook grew 7 users per second in 2011.

Elderly, Adolescents Show Most Rapid Growth

Data from Socialbakers’ analysis shows that the amount of Facebook users aged 65 and older grew 52% in 2011 to reach 19 million, matched by the 52% growth among users aged 16-17, who numbered 66 million. Adults aged 18-24 made up the largest demographic on Facebook, at 248 million, but grew a relatively smaller 32% in 2011.

Meanwhile, the top 10 countries accounted for 55% of all Facebook users, led by the US, with 157 million MAUs, up 7% in 2011. Indonesia (42 million) and India (41 million) followed, although India displayed the higher growth in 2011, at an impressive 139%. Among the top 10 countries, Brazil showed the greatest growth, tripling its users to 35 million.

Other Findings:

• According to its prospectus, Facebook had more than 425 million MAUs who used Facebook mobile products in December 2011.
• There were more than 100 billion friend connections on Facebook at the end of 2011.
• Facebook users generated an average of 2.7 billion likes and comments per day during the 3 months ending December 31, 2011.

Source: MarketingCharts.com