Putting Some Numbers to Social Media

In post after post, we’ve explained why social media is an important outlet for reaching key audiences. But if you’re a believer of “truth in numbers,”  you probably need some figures. So we’ve compiled some statistics to help you see how social media has grown and how it’s being used.

The number of Americans who are 18 and older using social media increased to 35 percent in 2008. This was an 8 percent growth from 2005 figures, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

A June Nielsen NetView report revealed that time spent on Twitter grew 3,712 percent from April 2008 to April 2009. In roughly three months, 50 million people joined Facebook, bringing the total number of Facebook users to more than 250 million. According to the same June Nielsen report,  13.9 million minutes were spent on Facebook, a growth of 700% since April 2008. And it’s not  college students logging all those minutes anymore. Facebook’s fastest growing demographic is those 35 and older.

You may be asking what all those people are doing on social networks. Well, they’re uploading photos, chatting, letting their twitter followers know what they ate for lunch, sharing funny videos and reconnecting with friends from the past.

But that’s not all they’re doing.

They’re  opting-in to receive information from the 300,000 businesses that have a presence on Facebook (one-third of those 300,000 are small businesses, according to this USA Today article). They’re getting customer service requests fulfilled. They are reading reviews by prominent bloggers and influential review sites. Recent research from Universal McCann revealed that 77 percent of internet users are reading blogs.

They’re also adding their own two cents about brands and companies. According to a July Neilsen’s report, “Trust Value and Engagement in Advertising,” peer recommendations are the most trusted channel of advertising, trusted “somewhat” or “completely” by nine out of 10 people in a survey of 25,000 online consumers.

If you’re a number person, there are the numbers…and several more reasons why brands can’t afford to not be on social networks.

Using Social Media to Debunk Myths and Inform

Barack Obama (or as we like to call him, WOMmander in Chief) first used social media to help win an election. Now that he’s in the White House, he is using it to try to win approval for the health insurance reform. This week, Obama’s team launched the Health Insurance Reform: Reality Check Web site, which will give Americans clear answers about the reform, and what it means to them.

The front page of the media-rich site has videos of six individuals who explain different aspects of the reform. In the video below, Kavita Patel, who works in the White House and is a former physician, debunks the myth that reform will lead to “rationing.” In the video, she directly reads e-mails from individuals who are skeptical of health insurance reform, and responds with an explanation and information about what the reform plan could mean.

Each video features one individual talking in a a casual office setting. There’s no backdrop, heavy make-up or bright lights. The simplicity of these videos is a great example of how social media does not need to be scripted and excessively edited to be effective.

The site also has a FAQ section and a “contact us” button, which invites users to ask questions about health insurance reform or make suggestions on what topics should be addressed next. The initiative to educate Americans about health insurance reform is  social-media laden. When it’s combined with face-to-face interaction such as town hall meetings, it’s an exemplary model of properly executed word of mouth. As the President speaks in this afternoon’s town hall meeting, the White House is streaming video live on whitehouse.gov and on Facebook–with a live discussion to accompany it (WOM bonus points!).

The White House is doing a good job getting the message out. With more than 900,000 Twitter followers and 300,000 Facebook fans, it was exposed to more than one million viewers through those two outlets alone. Yesterday afternoon, the site was voted to Digg’s homepage and now has been “dugg” 1,425 times.

There is a lot of confusion and division on the subject of health care reform. Obama’s initiative will inform Americans about what his plan will include.  And informed people can make decisions based on the facts, not myths.

What will become of the health insurance reform is still unknown. One thing is for sure, though, the Obama Administration sure gets WOM.

You’re Hired–Via Social Media

In a year of joblessness and disheartening economic conditions, Julianna Wittig was among many individuals who were laid-off and forced to begin the job search.

In her search for a new job, Julianna, who is now The Cyphers Agency’s newest Account Executive,  headed straight to her computer. In her online search, however, Julianna didn’t rely on typical job search sites such as Monster and Indeed.  Using social media sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, Julianna took a proactive approach to finding a job. She kept her profile updated and her eyes open for any opportunities she found on those sites.

While Julianna was searching, Darren Easton, Vice President and Creative Director for The Cyphers Agency  was using social networks to find a candidate to fill an Account Executive position. For the position, Darren wanted to find a social-media-savvy individual, who could handle several accounts in the agency’s Push-n-Pull division.

Julianna saw the posting on LinkedIn and began researching The Cyphers Agency–checking into the culture, environment, clients and other employees. Darren was researching too. He asked others online if they knew of Julianna and if they thought she would be a good fit for the Account Executive position.

Thanks to word of mouth and social networks, Darren told Julianna in the interview that he “already knew everything he needed to know about her.” It was clear that Julianna knew how to effectively market herself online, therefore, Darren knew she would certainly be capable of marketing clients online.

Social media has impacted so much of our daily lives. It changes the way we do businesses, network, communicate and even find jobs. The days of faxing resumes and mailing resumes on crisp resume paper are done.

Job seekers can use social networks to search for jobs, interact with potential employers and create online profiles that display their skills. Employers can social media to post jobs, find qualified candidates and ask others about these candidates.

We’re glad social media enabled us to connect to Julianna. Welcome, Julianna, we’re happy to have you here at The Cyphers Agency!

Little Debbie Rewards Intern Heroes With Muffins!

What do you get when you combine a contest, free food and interns? Little Debbie Muffins. I heard about the Little Debbie Intern Hero contest a few weeks ago (via Twitter, of course). My ears always perk up for the opportunity to get free food, and as a word of mouth intern, it’s only natural that I told everyone I knew about the opportunity (as you can see from the snippets of conversation in the picture below). This photo was featured on the Little Debbie Intern Hero site last Thursday.

The Intern Hero contest makes everyone happy.  The Cyphers Agency got free publicity, the whole office will get Little Debbie muffins, and Little Debbie has social media-savvy interns across America filling social networks up with buzz about Little Debbie muffins. Thanks, Little Debbie. We are all looking forward to our muffins!

Earning Ambassadors of Our Own

Word of Mouth is best spread with slow, methodological strokes using a broad brush. We also reward our evangelists, with things as simple as sending a T-shirt and a nice message. Below, you can see a gift we presented to one of our clients. Sending a personalized message  and a Cyphers Agency T-shirt didn’t take much of our time, and it was an easy way to show someone that we value the relationship we have with them.

That’s what Word of Mouth is all about; creating relationships, fostering them and being genuine. People that think highly of your brand will spread the word. We call it earning some of our own brand ambassadors. And if they end up wearing the T-shirts we sent them, we’ll consider it WOM bonus points.

Word of Mouth Internship at The Cyphers Agency

The Cyphers Agency has an opening for ANOTHER paid internship during Summer and/or Fall terms. We are seeking a dynamic, creative, fun and interesting candidate that would like to learn about word of mouth marketing.

We are looking for someone with a thorough understanding of:

- Internet Research

- Social Networking sites (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Myspace, Meetup, etc)

- Blogs

- Online Forums

- Viral Videos

- Flashmobs

- Digg, Flickr, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Wikipedia, Review Sites, etc.

Requirements:

- In college or a recent graduate

- Advertising, PR, or Marketing Majors are preferred

- Able to work 20-40 hours per week

Wanna prove that you’re super awesome? Do some (or all) of the following:

-Show us your online presence (Facebook, Twitter, Google Profile, Flickr, MySpace, LinkedIn, your blog, etc.).

-Get others to talk online about why you should be the next WOM intern at The Cyphers Agency (comments to this blog would be a good start).

-Show us how you’ve used social media to get results (for school, work or personal purposes).

-Tell us what  YOU think is an awesome example of an effective campaign that used social media and/or Word of Mouth.

-Suggest an ideal client for WOM marketing. Tell us how you would implement a campaign for them.

It’s not required to do all the above listed tasks, but if you want to, go for it.  Before you get started though, take a look at WOMMA ethics guidelines. You can also get great ideas from there. Share any of that information on the comments section of this blog or find us elsewhere online and reach out to us.

As for the resume and cover letter, you can send it to andrew@thecyphersagency.com.