Who’s Who in Social Media Demographics, Part 4 of 6 | MySpace

May 17, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Social Networking Demographics

: Image via CrunchBase

Well, as you read back on May 11th we discussed the preferences of Women in blogs versus networking sites. As I mentioned, I wanted to dig a little deeper and see who is who in the world wide web. We’ve now created a six part blog series that will cover six networking sites’ demographics.

MySpace

MySpace still has over 64 million users? I didn’t realize that. I have almost forgotten about this site. I thought this was extinct. In August 2007, MySpace reached 83 million users, but since then it has dropped to 64.3 million users monthly. You could probably blame this on Facebook. I am not going to lie, I like Facebook more than MySpace and I did three years ago too. There is a reason why Facebook has taken over. However, we still can’t ignore MySpace. It still has over 64 million users. That means it still has influence that most websites haven’t ever touched.

44% of MySpace’s users are male and 56% are female. 27% of MySpace’s users are between the ages of 12 and 17. 46% of users are between the ages 18 to 34. This website is dominated by the younger generation. Most social networking site’s total users are not 27% teenagers. This may explain why 56% of users don’t have a college degree.

Most traffic on MySpace is made up of addicts. 18% of addicts make up 70% of the traffic. The other 82% only make up 30% of the traffic. That goes to show that most of those users are not participating all that much. Outside of the 18%, people are not very active on MySpace.

One statistic that really stuck out to me was that 14% of users are Hispanic. That is significantly higher than most other social media sites.

Anyway, while MySpace is dropping, do not completely ignore it if your demographic is there.

Tags: Campaign Technology, facebook, myspace, red state, redstate, social media demographics

WeAreYourCommunity.com

May 11, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: News, Social Media

Image via Wikipedia

What is social media? Is it Facebook? Is it Facebook & Twitter? Is it Facebook, Twitter, & MySpace? Well, those are all social networking sites, but they are not “social media” in the comprehensive way we talk about it. Social media (for the millionth time) is the conversation.

I wanted to take a quick short moment to check something out that I think is pretty cool. It’s a use of social media I haven’t really seen yet, that it, by a large organization. Sears rolled out a couple of social networks to build their own community. They rolled out a second one for Kmart, a sister company. This really has nothing to do with politics except that this really is the what you should want to do. Check out MySears.com & MyKmart.com.

Let’s see what they’ve done:

Links to visit them at: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, & YouTube.
List of their products (you would have a list of your issues).
Featured video.
Reviews (you should have content from your users).
Message Boards
User Profiles – the faces of their company, because their customers are their company just as your constituency is your organization. Never think it’s yours.
Popular searches – people like to know what others are viewing on a website.
Many more opportunities to contribute content: polls, blog, ideas, etc.

This stuff really is great and I have yet to see a large company like Sears employ such tactics in such a quick and open way. Check it out and replicate for your organizational model and strategy.

How To Get Best Out Of Social Network Services | Adult Business … (jonggunlee.tistory.com)
Networking to Build Your Personal Brand | eJewish Philanthropy … (jonggunlee.tistory.com)

Tags: facebook, Kmart, LinkedInk, mykmart, mysears, myspace, Sears, social networking, twitter, youtube

Top 10 Not So Popular social networking sites in 2009

May 2, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · 3 Comments
Filed under: Campaign Technology

Interesting post considering I’ve only heard of MeetUp.com from this list of the “not so popular social networking sites.” We spend most of our time just writing about Facebook, Twitter, MySpace (not so much me), LinkedIn, and a few others that we forget about what I call, niche networks.

There are thousands of social networking sites out there. It’s amazing, really. As a politician you cannot just rely on a handful of major social media sites. Yes, you need to use the big ones but this doesn’t mean you avoid the small ones. Think like a business. A cash cow is most likely to be in a niche market with a lot of barriers to competition. In other words, you as a politician, need to identify what you niche markets are and OWN them. Again, I don’t me own as in posess them, I mean own them by building the network around you or an idea that you support.

Niche networks have been the thing for a while now. As a matter of fact these networks get incredibly targeted to things like, professional surfers, high school sports coaches, etc. There has to be at least one niche network you can use to build a community. Look at this list. Again, I’ve never used any except MeetUp.com. Maybe one of these is the way to go. Your reach is limited but your influence can be more powerful and bleed into other networks as well because it’s very likely these users are on other networks.

Social media is not limited to just the big sites. As a matter of fact, SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT LIMITED, PERIOD. Rather, it’s limitless. Go out there and aggresively find your constituents. Find people that will believe in you. Find pepole that will support and stand up for you. Find people that will build your grassroots movement into a viral explosion on the web.

Here’s a cool link to a website that lists a TON of social networking sites. This is a good place to start. http://www.go2web20.net/

Read the Top 10 article here:

http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/top-10-not-so-popular-social-networking-sites-in-2009

The Fastest Growing Social Sites (mashable.com)
UnHub Offers A Simple Way To Showcase The Online You (techcrunch.com)
Create Your Very Own Online Google Profile (geeksugar.com)

Tags: facebook, LinkedIn, MeetUp, myspace, niche networks, operation red state, operation redstate, redstate, twitter

Facebook Opens Pandora’s Box

March 23, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · Leave a Comment
Filed under: News, Social Media

Thus far the world of Facebook has been protected in a digital box but now, the box has been opened. Imagine this: 180 million individual accounts constantly updating their status, importing RSS feeds from blogs and news outlets, sharing photos/videos, interacting through applications, and providing other content through their notes and other apps. This is Facebook in a nut-shell and until now search engines have been unable to utilize this content. Let’s just say, like many social networks, not all 180 million actively participate in Facebook. While it probably does have higher participation rates than other sites like Twitter & MySpace, let’s randomly assume only 40% of the users actually provide consistent content. This will still have a huge impact.

Facebook really is becoming the all-in-one package and now that they’re open for everyone to view we will start to see some major things happen – integration, findability, & content.

Integration:

Previously we were stuck with very limited integration between Facebook and other social networks. They allowed you to create badges and use your URL to include on blogs and profile pages but nothing that would update outside of their world. I couldn’t embed my Facebook updates on my web page or blog. I couldn’t share content from my friends with those in the outside world (being everything outside of Facebook) without copying and pasting. Immediately the developers of TweetDeck, which is a client to track Twitter updates, have now added a Facebook update feature. I can now update my Facebook from my desktop and read what everyone else is saying too. without ever going to their website.

Findability:

How many of you have tried to track down an old friend on Facebook and when you searched their name, John Smith, there were a million results and most of them didn’t even have a picture. To make it even worse, 99.9% of them were not connected to one of your networks so you either had to invite everyone of them to be your friend or just give up. I imagine most of you gave up.

Well, the solution isn’t a complete fix but it’s a start. As individuals continue to make their information public you will see your internet findability factor substantially increase. Publicizing your information is bound to become a trend on Facebook. Especially as more and more businesses and organizations utilize it. As this occurs you will see an increase in the number of friends you have through Facebook searches. Even better, search engines can now index your profiles to make them findable. If I Google my name I’m on the second page. Is the link to my blog or website? NO. It’s going to go back and forth between my LinkedIn account and Brazen Careerist account. The searching power a network like Facebook can deliver has the potential to surpass any other in a flash.

Content:

Go to all your friends on Facebook and count how many times they’ve updated what they are doing or feeling. Count how many posts they’ve put in there notes. Count how many photos and videos they’ve uploaded. I would of stopped after just one of them. Facebook is easily the most content heavy network in the world. You can now bring your content to the faces of millions.

Most users on Facebook are likely to not understand the power of content, especially video content. Even the heavy users just picked up the addiction in college or high school and can’t quit. As more and more profiles go public you will understand why they say that in 2010 the amount of information in the world will double every 6 – 8 months. Why is it my LinkedIn & Brezen Careerist profiles were the best for me? First, both are incredibly content heavy websites. Second, of all the other Steve Schultzs out there I provide more content than they do which is why I’m on page 1 or page 2 of a Google search. If today, all other Steve Schultzs publicized their Facebook accounts, I’m positive my LinkedIn & other profiles would move past page 20. Why? That’s how much content is on Facebook. The others would accidentally knock me out of there with the exception of my Facebook profile.

Why does this matter to you?

As a politician or public figure your success is based on your findability. If you aren’t on TV, in the newspaper, or online people won’t know how to extend the conversation and easily share your message with others. Thanks to Facebook and their recent changes you can drive traffic to your blog/website through social media integration. You will bring relevant content in all forms to a larger audience. Your findability factor will move you from page 100 of the Google search to page 1. If utilizing Facebook as a political tool wasn’t already obvious to you before this change, it definitely should be now because they just let it all out of the box.

Tags: Brazen Careerist, facebook, Google, LinkedIn, myspace, online content, public profiles, TweetDeck, twitter

Purchasing Power of Social Media

February 25, 2009 by Steve Schultz @GeniusbyOsmosis · 1 Comment
Filed under: Campaign Technology, Social Media

I was pilfering through my Google Alerts today and found some interesting stats I had never seen. We all are well aware of the success of the Obama campaign with social media. The numbers though are astounding if you look at four of the major social networks.

These stats were compiled courtesy of Jeremiah Owyang’s blog.

Internet Usage in United States

United States Population: 303,824,646
Internet Usage: 220,141,969
Penetration rate: 72.5%
Growth from 2000-2008: 130.9%

Stats from Internet WorldStats (Census, Nielson)

Facebook

Obama: 2,379,102 supporters
McCain: 620,359 supporters
Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain

MySpace
Obama: Friends: 833,161
McCain: Friends: 217,811
Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain

YouTube
Obama: 1792 videos uploaded since Nov 2006, Subscribers: 114,559 (uploads about 4 a day), Channel Views: 18,413,110
McCain: 329 videos uploaded since Feb 2007 (uploads about 2 a day), Subscribers: 28,419, Channel Views: 2,032,993
Obama has 403% more subscribers than McCain
Obama has 905% more viewers than McCain

Twitter
Obama: @barackobama has 112,474 followers
McCain: @JohnMcCain 4,603 followers*
Obama has 240 times more followers in Twitter than McCain

Obama won the Presidential elections.

We were not just beat, we were left in the dust. Imagine if each individual that was following contributed just $100 to his campaign. Just from Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, and Twitter, assuming no repeat users, Obama would have raised $343,929,600! Let’ look at the actual dollar amounts raised according to the Federal Election Commission.

Obama raised a total of $744.9 million | McCain raised a total of $346.6 million

Here is how it happened. If you check out FEC.gov you’ll see breakdowns of donation amounts. 45% of Obama’s total contributions were $200 or less. Guess what the amount was….$334,636,346; very close to our previously calculated $343,929,600. Obviously the assumptions behind my calculation are inaccurate but I have read that President Obama had around 8.5 million followers across all social networks & his website. That would mean each follower would only have to contribute $39.37. That’s not much. Again, this is based on the assumption that those who donated $200 or less all followed online.

This is the power of social media.

On the other hand, contributions of $200 or less for McCain were merely 18.5% of his overall contributions.

It is blatantly clear that social media is a powerful and progressing force in the political arena and NO candidate on any level of government can afford to ignore or underuse these tools.

Furthermore, NO candidate can afford to use them incorrectly.

By leveraging social media tools in your campaign…no matter the level (local/state/national) you will raise more money, reach more people, increase your capacity to influence others, and position yourself such that you will always know what your constituents want.
That’s a winning formula.