Can you try and guess who the winner social platform for Fortune 100 companies is?

You guessed right, Twitter it is.

65% of the world’s most poweful companies reported to have an active account on the leading microblogging platform. Facebook comes in second with 54% of companies having presence on Facebook Fan Pages and 50% of companies who have a YouTube channel. The study also found that only 33% have corporate blogs.

Only 20% of these international companies reported to be utilizing all four platforms (Facebook, Twitter,YouTube, blog) to engage with stakeholders.

There are also those who have multiple active accounts on Twitter and these include AT&T, Nokia and Samsung with 15 accounts each while the average number of accounts for the vast majority is 4.2.

The level of activity on social networking sites was also measured in the study. The total # of posts done on Twitter in the past week by 82% of companies was of 27 tweets, followed by 59% of companies who posted 3.6 Facebook posts in the past week, 68% who uploaded 10 videos on YouTube in the past month and 36% who submitted 7 new blog posts on their corporate blogs in the same time period.

You can find the complete analysis of the findings here.

Below is an infographic from Flowtown which helps visualize better the social media intake and engagement of these Fortune 100 companies:

77 participated both with a stand and was invited to speak in one of the panels dubbed ‘Benchmarking advertising on social networks’ where 77 partner and strategist, Amedeo Guffanti, intervened together with representatives from Speedo, i-Level, IKEA and Media Contacts.

The panel was a great success, after receiving good feedback from the audience who also showed to be very responsive and asking numerous of insightful questions. IKEA and Speedo also did a great job at providing the audience with useful examples of best practice used in successful social media marketing campaigns and other online initiatives.

Other global brands and social media networks who participated at the event include Facebook, LinkedIn, Viadeo, Xing, Orange, Justin TV, Netlog, COI and Virgin Atlantic.

We had loads of fun at our booth where we talked and met lots of interesting people, from independent marketers and B2C companies to freelancers and start-upers. It was a great experience overall, now it’s time to follow-up on all the new acquaintances and start looking forward to next year’s SMWF!

Check out some event photos!

After the success of our previous event on the 18th February, we now confirm our second forth coming event for this year!

Social Media: Maximising your brand presence on Facebook, YouTube and other social networks is the title of our upcoming event to be held on the 31st of March, from 4pm to 7pm, at the Soho House in Old Compton Street in London.

The knowledge sharing event for marketing professionals is being hosted together with B! Digital and in collaboration with Viadeo and Google. Speakers at the seminar, other than 77’s MD, Marco Corsaro, include Bruce Daisley, Sales Leader, YouTube & Display, who will be discussing how to make the best out of Video Marketing using YouTube, followed by Ben Duncan-Clark , Survey Manager, Viadeo who will share insights about market research in professional social networks.

The main objective for this series of social media events which we hope to continue running throughout the rest of 2010, is to provide professional marketers with a better understanding of the opportunities and benefits social media networks hold in store for brands.

Social media continues to grow at an exhilarating pace, it can become challenging for marketers to identify the best way to maximise some of the new online tools and channels existent in today’s social media marketing landscape. It is our intention to take a look at  how to utillize some of the key social networks such as Facebook and YouTube, to enhance marketing efforts, increase online brand presence and boost business ROI.

RSVP here!

Visit our 77 Facebook Fan Page to stay tuned for any updates, event photos + more on future events!

You can also visit www.77agency.com for more on 77Agency.

Figures show that Twitter users are not so social afterall. Facts reveal that only 21% of Twitter users are active users. In fact, a total 73% of Twitter accounts have tweeted fewer than 10 times.

Question is, are most Twitterers using the site just to get updated with the latest news? and follow their favorite celebs?

Barracuda claims that there was a follow-only trend which is described as the period in which celebs like Ashton and Oprah helped push the microblogging site into the mainstream. Such period is dubbed Twitter’s “red carpet era,” here are some of the findings:

-49% of Twitter users, and 48 of the top 100 most followed Twitter users, joined during the Twitter Red Carpet Era, indicating the significant impact celebrities have on the social networking landscape as they bring their real-world fans over to Twitter.
-The Twitter growth rate spiked at 21.17% in April 2009 due to the Twitter Red Carpet Era
-During the Twitter Red Carpet Era, the Twitter Crime Rate increased 66%, and continued to escalate reaching 12% in October 2009, indicating one in eight accounts created was deemed to be malicious, suspicious or otherwise misused and subsequently suspended.

Red Carpet Era effect:

In terms of tweets, 34% of Twitter users haven’t tweeted even once. However, the site is showing signs of potential activity increase. While that percentage still seems quite high, numbers do show users are being more active and connecting more often. For instance, the number of inactive accounts back in June 2009 was 37%, which shows a clear 8% decrease.

Do you think Twitter will continue to gain momentum?

However, in order to capitalize on this rising trend, companies must develop comprehensive social media advertising strategies to attain their goals. Such principle applies not only to B2C marketers, also B2B marketers are benefiting from these current media tendencies.

According to new predictions from a study by Forrester, B2B interactive marketing spend will be doubling up to $4.8 billion in 2014.

Social has proven to be a good vehicle to connect with consumers. However, we personally find that B2B and B2C social media campaigns are quite similar in that they both work to target opinion leaders or decision makers- whether they’re the consumers or the business executives.

We also keep hearing about social media being the best channel to foster relationships with consumers, respond to feedback, answer questions, engage in conversation and share important product information. Truth is, the same process works for B2B companies in that most of their business is centered around longer term relationships, only this time instead of customers it involves suppliers and consultants.

Forrester’s forecast states that paid search is still the top interactive line item for B2B marketers, but display, mobile, and social marketing are all growing quickly. As B2B marketers gain experience with interactive marketing, they are beginning to stretch outside of their comfort zone and turn to channels that can spark brand interest and help educate potential customers.

B2B companies that utilize the social tools available today are at a great advantage compared to those who have not yet joined the bandwagon simply because networks such as LinkedIn or Twitter help create better comunication as well as build strong relationships and partnerships.

Among the numerous online initiatives that were measured in the study, having a company page on a social networking site had the highest adoption with 75% of small businesses using it.

Small businesses today are considering different, cost-effective alternatives to keep their brands visible and accessible to potential customers some of which include posting status updates and/or articles of interest on social networking sites, building network through sites such as LinkedIn, creating a blog in area of expertise and monitoring positive and negative feedback about own organization on social networks.

As the study shows, the second highest activity used by small businesses is posting status updates and/or articles of interest on social networking sites which was implemented by 69% of businesses.

In addition, small businesses also declared that building online presence was one of their main priorities for the coming years, property sites being the top technology investment in the next two years, followed by an online showcase of products and services to help attract new customers and placing third are social media activity investments.

One highlighting fact which can be greatly exploited using social networks such as Twitter or Facebook is the fact that small businesses hold customer service as one of their biggest strengths, and have proven to be quite efficient at responding to customer claims, answering their questions and solving their problems.

For more information on the study you can visit www.growsmartbusiness.com

Outbound Marketing is basically the traditional way of doing marketing (push) via print, radio, direct mail, cold calling telemarketing etc. Its objective is to get the customer to take action; spend money on a product or service.

Conversely, inbound marketing (pull), could be claimed as relatively new since it is a style of marketing that gets its inspiration from Web 2.0. The method is focused on getting found by customers using tools such as search engine optimization, blogs, social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) and viral videos (YouTube).

Its objective is to be able to foster relationships with customers and prospects by offering them what they are looking for at no cost whatsoever or by just simply giving them something they want, period. Once this relationship is established usually the consumer tends to open up and be less skepical about information, messages or promotions being sent to them.

The idea is for inbound marketers to share useful tools, info, resources with customers to attract them to their websited while also building relationships and encouraging interaction.

A recent study published by eMarketer revealed that inbound driven companies report significantly lower cost-per-lead than outbound. In other words, social media, blogs, seo, content publishing, social networks, etc are proving to be more cost-effective than other traditional methods of advertising/marketing.

In fact, respondents claimed they spend 37% of their lead generation budgets on inbound marketing-related techniques. Additional information from the survey suggested inbound marketing is less expensive than outbound.

Some of the respondents in the survey came forward and revealed their cost/lead, those that spend 50% of their lead generation budgets on inbound marketing averaged $84, whereas those who spend 50% or more on outbound averaged $220.

Other significant results from the survey indicate that more than two-fifths of companies using various social media marketing channels had acquired a customer from those channels. As shown on the graph above, the channel that generated the highest results for B2C businesses is Facebook (68%) and LinkedIn for B2B (43%).

Some positive results produced by inbound marketing  to keep present include:

*the relationship aspect which leads to client conversion
*the loyalty factor which leads to more sales
*less expensive compared to traditional outbound methods
*the various tools/channels are easy to use + user-friendly

Apparently, Google has been feeling threatened by the 400 million user social media platform since many brands have began shifting online ad spend from paid search to Facebook.Virgin Media, Vodafone, Carlsberg and Fiat are some of the big names that have chosen the social network as their ideal direct response advertising channel.

Recent figures from Compete Inc. show us Facebook has passed search engine giant Google becoming the top source for traffic to major portals such as Yahoo and MSN. Today, social media is proving to have a stronger influence and a greater capability to reach the masses than traditional advertising. In addition, the average time users spend using Facebook exceeded 7 hrs per month in January 2010, 10% up from the previous month.

Other benefits this reasonably new advertising platform offers advertisers is the ability to link conversion data to Facebook ad groups making ROI information easily available, as well as the ability to create, delete, modify, and even bulk upload campaigns from a spreadsheet.

In addition, bids can now be optimised in real-time, it is possible to manage budget and status for multiple groups and there is a wider range of reporting and data analysis tools available than when using the Facebook interface alone.

The following articles below were featured on NMA and both discuss how brands are beginning to shift budgets from Google to Facebook thanks to the opening of its advertising API which is enabling agencies as well as clients to have greater control over their online campaigns.

77Agency was among the first three digital agencies in the UK to be granted the Facebook Ads API Agency title late last year and since then the technology is available to clients and is also being licensed out to other agencies, clients and third-parties.

Click on image to read full story:

Click on image to read full story:

Today, the huge success of online applications, the increasing number of brand marketers using social media and the numerous companies for which social media has delivered meaningful business results, is being referenced on a daily basis.

eMarketer took a shot at predicting the future of social media outlining some of the trends to be watching out for in the coming years.

The report explained how more marketers in the future will incorporate analytics, as social media becomes truly integrated into all marketing efforts. In addition, TV will become more social, as will search.

The research company continued explaining that as advertising via social networks increases, marketers need to gain active control over their brands and make brand monitoring a top issue.

As we have witnessed, there has been a power shift from the old media ways to more consumer driven communities, which will force marketers to track a diverse and growing range of sources that talk about a business or product.

Furthermore, these sources could also be influential enough as to reach thousands of potential cosumers in a very short period of time and have either a positive or negative impact on a given brand. And this is where brand monitoring is crucial. It takes only 1 negative comment to annihilate 10 positive ones.

Location was also highlighted in the report and we are beginning to see this in location-based social media tools such as Foursquare (and the likes) and how such companies continue to gain traction and prove to be an excellent way for companies to capitalize on location.

I’d like to go back to one of my blog posts from last week, Building Good Online Branding While Being Consistent, and discuss one very important factor that was kindly brought to light by Dominique Lahaix co-founder & CEO of Cairn Inc., a privately held software technology company.

His comment was the following:

Thanks for the article. I like the stress on having an objective.

What I think is also critical is to target a specific audience.
Most marketers define their audience as “social media” and I think this is a huge mistake. The web is made up by a myriad of communities and tribes (that connects thru blogs, twitter, facebook) and what marketers should look at is how to select the communities that matter and develop the right value proposal, messages, strategies for these communities not to broadly and loosly diffuse messages into “social media”.

And my response to his statement was:

Yes, I entirely agree. Strategies should be developed to cater a specific audience from a specific network. It’s like having a campaign targeted to a Spanish-speaking audience and using the exact same campaign with the literal translation in English to target the English-speaking crowd…it’s just not going to work. Community profiles are different,they have different customs, demographics, psychographics,etc. Great point!

Like I said, great point. And this is why I decided to dedicate a couple lines to explain this very important aspect.

It’s true that in the thriving world of social media, things won’t always be as easy as they seem. At times, trying to define a comprehensive social media strategy for your brand can even be overwhelming.

But as Dominique stated, marketers cannot assume that the citizens of the ’social media’ universe are all the same, that they have the same likes and interests, speak the same language, or practice the same hobbies.

Before determining your social media objectives you need to first understand your audience. Once you have distinctive goals for your digital brand strategy you can then embark on ‘mini-campaigns’ which target specific audiences in specific channels. In short, your company goals will automatically help you determine the crowd you want to reach and further define the message you want to depict.

For instance, Twitter has proven to be effective on the CRM and customer service front, whereas Facebook can be more useful to interact with customers and foster relationships. And this translates to two different approaches for two different networks.

In addition, measuring your campaign results will become a less daunting task since the idea is to be able to examine each one of your campaigns individually and track your ROI until eventually pinpointing the social media channel that best fulfills your company’s objectives.

(hat tip to Dominiq for the inspiration)