A study of branded online communities by ComBlu (via marketing charts) shows that organisations are deploying bells and whistles rich media within online communities, but are increasingly ignoring the human aspect – using advocates and so-called ‘super fans’ to make sure the message gets heard.

Over 90% of branded communities feature a funnel of ‘new’ content – i.e. almost every brand has some kind of system in place to get material out to the community, while 80% deploy media rich content.

However, less than half of brands surveyed now have a community manager to look after those communities, with the % dropping from 51% to 48% over the past year.    One would have to wonder why – whether its a sign of budget cuts or a community job being subsumed into a wider marketing function.

Not only that, ComBlu points out that the use of advocates (normally marshaled via a company super fan programme) in online branded communities is very low – at 20%.    ComBlu points out that this is a huge missed opportunity for brands as advocates who will fight a brand’s corner out of their own good will are

• 70% more likely to be seen as a reliable source of information (they don’t directly work for you per se)

• Increase conversions by 166% through content amplification and referrals

• Reduce the cost of overall product support by 60% – they effectively do a lot of it for you

• Are 50% more likely to create content that influences a purchase

• Are 83% more likely to share information

ComBlu says super-fans are “the core of engagement and help bring others into the brand fold” – wise words.

Over eight in ten branded communities have integration with other social media assets, it’s surprising that 20% don’t.

However, ComBlu points out that in many cases this is nothing more than streaming Twitter feeds and Facebook posts onto community sites – but few bothering with other feeds such as YouTube, Foursquare, LinkedIn or Slideshare.

In contrast to a one size fits all approach, research by Edgerank shows that certainly when it comes to Facebook, smaller, niche communities show much higher engagement levels

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This is a point that’s been made countless times, for example by Ofcom in the UK and Pew Research in the US – people who regularly consume traditional media are older, often 55+.

Harris Interactive (via Marketing Charts) carried out research for the Wall Street Journal about US media consumption habits.   Two stats that could be contradictory:   67% said “I prefer to get my news in more traditional ways”, while 50% said “I tend to get almost all my news online.”

However, I guess the key word is ‘prefer.’   Consumers may want their news from a newspaper or TV programme, but often they’ve switched into a routine which means that’s not actually happening.

And the key differences by age?   81% of the over 55s prefer to get their news via traditional media compared to 57% of the under 35s.   And while only a third (that many?) of the over 55s get their regular news diet online, for the under 35s that jumps to 65%.

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Perhaps no big surprise – the Pew Internet & American Life Project says that young adults (the under 30s) use mobile data apps the most by a fairly large margin.

However, the same Pew study (via Marketing Charts) shows that this gap is narrowing. It seems that all age groups now like taking photos with their cameras – 93% of 18 to 29 year olds but also 67% of 50-64 year olds.

Pew’s research also shows that the biggest growth rate when it comes to the use of mobile data applications on smart phones comes from the 30-49 year old audience – the audience that’s actually most likely to be issued a smartphone for work, or to have the money to buy that iPhone4 outright.

One in five (20%) 30-49 year olds will watch a video on their phones compared to 40% of the under 30s.

Mobile video use is in fact a significant figure to look out for.

Last year a study by Transpera found that significant use of mobile video is usually a sign that someone is ‘graduating’ from using their laptop or PC to their mobile phone as their primary Internet device.

Gays and Lesbians are social media leaders
Another study that caught my eye from Marketing Charts today, was the fact that Gays and Lesbians are significantly more likely to be social media participants than the general population – at least in the US where Harris conducted the study to find out.

While 25% of heterosexual Americans read news blogs, among gay and lesbian adults that figure jumps to 36%.

Meanwhile, 29% of gay and lesbians read an entertainment blog every day, compared to 16% of heterosexuals. When it comes to readership of blogs overall, 54% of gays and lesbians read them, the figure for adults overall is 40%.

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A statistic from a Harris Poll in the US (via Marketing Charts) – 50% of the under 35s who use social media say they are influenced ‘a great deal’ or ‘a fair amount’ by reviews on social media.

This compares to 45% of under 35s who are influenced by mainstream newspaper and magazine reviews and only 17% that are influenced by celebrity endorsements (41% are influenced by blogs).   Good news for marketers everywhere – get rid of the expensive celebrity endorsements and focus on social engagement campaigns?

Even among American consumers aged 55+, over a third (37%) pay attention to what people on Facebook or Twitter are saying, a surprisingly high number.

As an aside I took a look at Internet penetration as a whole among older age groups.   Here, in the UK, according to Ofcom, 60% of 55-64 year olds have household Internet access, but only 33% of people aged 65+.

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The other week the ex CMO of Unilver Simon Clift talked about a lost generation of marketers aged 30-45 who had neither grown up with online media, nor who had children at home using it, but still needed to get to grips with it in the day job.

A lot of that so-called lost generation is probably represented in these charts from socialmediaexaminer.com, which show that while 91% of marketers use social media, 2/3 (65%) have just started using it.

Marketing Charts, where I got these stats from, also refers to another study by Unica, which shows a slightly different picture.   That survey of ‘global marketers’ shows that while 80% are using social media or plan to in the future, only 47% do so now….in other words more than half don’t.    And depressing news for those of us in Europe, while 58% of marketers in North America use social media, here it’s only 34% – so barely a third.

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Now here’s a subject close to my heart, the continued usefulness or otherwise of the age old press release. Publisher Ragan Communications and PollStream carried out a survey in the States, which found that only 49% of PRs think ‘it’s as useful as ever’, while 33% thought it was a ‘necessary evil.’

Ragan’s Lindsey Miller says press releases are becoming ever less useful due to – yep, you guessed it – social media. According to Marketing Charts, Ragan’s take is that communicators are using social media to get around ‘canned’ information and to target and reach journalists. And obviously via Twitter lists is yet another way that can be done.

I guess it all depends what you define a ‘press release.’ Does it really have to follow the conventional standard for it to be classed as one? For example, some companies have started using blog posts in place of standard releases – Twitter is a prime example. It’s something that makes sense in certain circumstances but to my mind, a corporate post is a release of sorts.

Image – Bohman

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