Not that we didn't already know this but sometime a study is required to slap some people upside the head so they realize that what everyone is telling them is actually true. So what's the big finding?
While celebrities have a large number of Twitter followers, most of them are low authority users. On the other hand, "social media heavyweights" like @chrisbrogan, @jowyang and @jasonfalls seem to attract fewer but very engaged Twitter users with high authority rankings.
Um, well, duh. Those who follow celebrities are just "regular" people. Those who follow "social media heavyweights" are in the business themselves and because of that and their interest and participation in the actual business of social media, they have a fair amount of clout themselves.
The study, conducted by sysomos, also takes a look at the authority of those who follow news and media sources. Take a look at the full study here.
Some of you out there (ahem, @1938media) might enjoy the fact @mashable followers are more authoritative than @techcruch followers.
A recent study of rich media ads from textPlus, pointRoll and AdMarvel found, in the first four weeks of the iPad's release, ad interaction times were 30 seconds, ad interaction rates range from .9 to 1/5% (6X higher than desktop ads) and 67% of users who viewed the ads' video component watch all the way though as compared to 53% for the desktop.
Granted, some of this is likely due to novelty but if these numbers hold, there will be some willing iPad advertisers out there.
- A meat brand is showing ass crack in one of its ads featuring Russian lion tamer Edgard Zapashny.
- This Livead-created program promoted the first stock brokerage firm in Brazil to launch its online trading tool.
- Great Works and Fantasy Interactive have created IKEA Playreport, an exploration of child development the world over.
- Giant ants invade Houston. Marcus Thomas created.
- British Airways apologizes for using Bin Laden imagery on boarding pass in its employee magazine, LHR News.
- Frustrated by credit card confusion? Now it's explained by Capital One with cartoon simplicity.
- Who knew the creation of beer could be so beautifully represented? Dentsu Canada for Sapporo.
- Google is testing a new ad format for boosting Twitter followers.
Are you making enough money or are you getting stiffed? Now you can find out. Marketing and design talent agency Aquent, in partnership with design association AIGA, has released its annual survey of salary trends in the design industry.
The AIGA|Aquent Survey of Design Salaries 2010 isummarizes job types by region to give people an idea of the salaries at various job levels. In addition, this year's survey provides insights and advice from design professionals on remaining competitive and successful in today's economy.
The study is commissioned annually by AIGA and presented by Aquent, in cooperation with Communication Arts magazine. The survey results are available to the public, along with an interactive salary calculator tool, and can be accessed online at www.designsalaries.org. Have at it.
The social graph. Data portability. Privacy. Data control. These are the pressing issues marketers face (or should be) when it comes to social media and how everyone (publishers, advertisers and users) can play nice together and all win. Peerset CTO and Co-founder Amit Kanigsberg has a few things to share on this topic.
Time to lose the training wheels
First off, I'll state that I'm not getting onto the "let's tear down Facebook bandwagon." I have a tempered attitude towards the changing social networking landscape - as much as I do enjoy a well-placed tirade. There are a lot of people predicting Facebook's demise, but the fact is there are a lot of smart parties at the table with an interest in not imploding. I'd rather talk about more fundamental forces, largely external to Facebook that will contribute to shifts, particularly as it relates to privacy, data and ad relevancy.
In short, I believe that social networking sites have acted as the training wheels for our online social aptitude. They have allowed us to discover and explore the potential for social networking, while developing the foundation for a broader and truly distributed online experience. We're about ready to take off the training wheels.
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This is a guest post by Big Fuel Communications CEO Avi Savar. If you've every wanted to know anything about mommy bloggers and what brands are doing in this space then this article id for you.
Authentic Connections
Did Mom invent social media? Some say she did. And there is no arguing that she is driving it and helping it to evolve. There are 82 million moms across the U.S. of all ages. That's right, 82 million. And 26 million of them are mommy bloggers. And they are grassroots, Oprah-like brand advocates with loyal followers who can change the trajectory of a brand and its products.
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- A book of human billboards. Relive the trendlet.
- Bald man buys hair for car with loan from Santander.
- SponsoredTweets has converted its offering from a flat fee to a cost per click model.
- A new book, Idle Idol: The Japanese Mascot is out and will highlight some of the weirder brand mascots that have appeared over the years.
- Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. hit $5.9 billion for the first quarter of 2010, representing a 7.5 percent increase over the same period in 2009, according to the numbers released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
- Want to know what's going on over at crowdsourcing agency Victor & Spoils? Check out CEo john Winsor's blog.
With more brands jumping on the bandwagon, a PQ Media study found social media sponsorships grew 13.9% to $46 million in 2009.
PQ Media defines social media sponsorships as "a digital word-of-mouth marketing segment in which brands provide material compensation, such as cash, products, points or trips, to social media content creators to promote and/or review their products and services through long-form text or status updates, often with accompanying visuals."
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It's not like we didn't already know this but once in a while it's nice to have a study in the back pocket to whip out when that crusty old client or agency head refuses to believe what you're telling them.
This study, from mobile company ChaCha, informs...wait for it...teens prefer text as their primary means of communication. In a recent survey of 1,500 teens and young adults, 67.53 percent of respondents mentioned mobile text as their favorite way to communicate. That preference far surpassed all other modes of communication such as mobile voice (9.22 percent) and Facebook (8.84 percent).
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- McDonald's. Still telling "people" it's a good thing to reward good grades with crappy food.
- Another middle-aged, white Republican walks the line with a pro-racial profiling ad. If you think about it, stereotypes are just assumptions based on past history. It's like a scientist making a hypothesis. So is this ad really that offensive?
- Despite Microsoft's Bing, Google still leads share of search with 71.4 percent in April, up from 69.97 percent in March. Bing fell from 9.62 percent in March to 9.43 percent in April.
- Witty. Instead of just telling people to Shave Everywhere, Philips Norelco is now telling people "Deforest Yourself. Reforest the World." How very green of them.
- HP is sponsoring the 2010 Cannes Young Lions Competition.
- @^% the brands that are @^%ing the people.
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