Social Media, Social Networking, Social Media Marketing

Mike McGrail over at Social Penguin was asking for some ideas for definitions in less than 140 characters ( yes just a Tweet's worth)

social media - is about what consumers want to talk about

social media marketing - is about how brands listen and respond to what consumers talk about

social media networking - is about consumers gathering to talk and listen to each other and the brands they love or hate


Any takers?

It's not rocket science

..now appearing on the eCircle blog, Inside the Box.

Thanks eCircle

View from the Social Inbox

The View from the Social Inbox 2010 report from Merkle suggests that the use of email has shifted with users allocating a greater share of email time to permission email and a shrinking share to personal or social use.

But...the amount of time spent on social emails seems steady as does the number of social emails that are arriving.41% of email time is still spent on social emails

I'd imagine this reflects some switching to other social media for 'socialising' but not the mass movement we may well have expected, while the increase in email marketing whether promotional or service oriented, is reflected in users spending more time with them.

And hope is that users are spending more time with these permission emails because they are becoming more relevant, driving up engagement.

Email Click-Through Rates Increase 55% With Multiple Social Sharing Options

Email Marketing and Social Media Integration Highlights

• Emails that included at least one social sharing option generated over 30 percent higher CTR than emails that did not include any social sharing options.
• Emails that included at least three social sharing icons generated over 55 percent higher CTR than messages without any sharing options.
• 60 percent of all social emails included only one sharing icon. Only 11.2 percent of social emails included 3 icons or more.
• Twitter was the most popular social sharing option, included in 67.2 percent of all social emails; Facebook came in a close second at 62.7 percent.
• Emails shared on Twitter returned CTRs of 10.20 percent − over 40 percent higher than messages not linked to any social media.
• Almost 19 percent of SMB marketers (GetResponse users) used the Twitter integration feature (linked their campaigns to Twitter) at least once. Only 13.5 percent included social sharing options.

Full report available via registration here

Simplicity...not being too clever

This piece from the IAB highlights how the best ideas are often the simplest..