According to figures from comScore, visits to social networking sites Twitter and Facebook via mobile internet browsers showed triple-digit growth during January.

The study found that 30.8% of smartphone users accessed social networking sites via their mobile browser in January 2010, up 8.3% from 22.5% one year ago. Access to social network Facebook, in particular, grew 112% in the past year attracting 25.1 mobile users in January, compared to Twitter which experienced a 347% increase on the corresponding period of 2009.

Overall figures for January 2010 revealed that 11.1% of all mobile phone users accessed a social networking site via their mobile’s internet browser. This shows an increase of 4.6% over the past 12 months.

Such figures are proof that social media sites are increasingly being used by individuals worldwide regardless of their location, and this is where mobile marketing still holds great promise for marketers. Not only are users accessing social sites and community networks via their phones, they’re also feeling more comfortable making purchases from their handsets, as revealed by a recent Compete Smartphone Intelligence Survey.

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

Besides the mind-boggling figures from social media networks such as Twitter and Facebook, other remarkable numbers in the video include:

* 1.73 billion Internet users worldwide as of September 2009.

* 90 trillion is the number of emails sent in all of 2009, and on average a total of 247 billion emails we sent per day.

* 1.4 billion is the number of email users worldwide.

* As of December 2009, there are 234 million websites.

* 126 million is the number of blogs existent today.

* watch the video for more impressive stats!

For those of you who want to have a general idea of what role the Internet plays and continues to play in our everyday (personal, professional and multi-tasking) life, tune in and watch:

The video

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

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

Following a successful run of seminars hosted by 77Agency and B!Digital in 2009, business social network Viadeo has decided to officially join the partnership for 2010. Viadeo’s COO, Peter Crosby, has participated as guest speaker in previous events.

As 45.4% of Senior Marketers say they consider social networks and applications a “top priority” for 2010 and 26.8% say the same of mobile, the partnership of new media agency 77Agency, mobile advertising and marketing provider B!Digital and business social network Viadeo brings together specialists in each of the areas in which marketers are keen to focus over coming months.

The topics covered in the seminars will vary each quarter, ranging from a general review of current social media and mobile marketing opportunities to a closer look at different industry sectors and specific sessions to look at campaign management tools and measuring ROI for social campaigns.

Aside from the hosts, guest speakers from the new media industry are being lined up to take part in the events.  Bruce Daisley of YouTube has been confirmed for the March event.

Peter Crosby, COO Europe of Viadeo commented:

“The importance of social media is growing exponentially. It is fast becoming the medium of choice for advertisers and marketeers and increasingly for both internal and external business communication. It is essential that any business or public sector body gets a true understanding of social media so they can maximise the benefits and avoid any potential pitfalls. Social media is the new must-have marketing tool for the foreseeable future.”

Marco Corsaro, Managing Director of 77Agency said:

“We’re very pleased to welcome Viadeo on board.  We feel that the collaboration between the three companies can only build upon the success of last year’s events.”

“Buongiorno has developed unique worldwide experience in supporting and generating relationships between brands and customers via mobile devices in the last 10 years. I’m looking forward to participating in the Social Media Marketing events and illustrating how mobile marketing can be an integral part of the social media marketing mix, in a new convergent phase of the market, ” commented Stefano Diemmi, newly appointed Managing Director – B!Digital.

For further information on upcoming events, check out the 77Agency Facebook Fanpage or visit the 77Agency website.

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)

Below is a list of activities to help you bring your physical event online by leveraging online tools like social networks and the likes.

BLOG

If you have a blog already, make sure you write about the given event well in advance and also a few days prior to it. Look into your sector’s blogging community and identify the bloggers that would be most likely interested in blogging about the event, and of course, don’t forget to invite them to the event.

CREATE A FACEBOOK EVENT

If your brand or service already has a Facebook Page, include the event on the page, plus highlights of the event, keynote speakers, images, ways to participate, etc. Event’s can be easily shared between users and if you like, you may also promote your event by launching a highly targeted Facebook ad campaign.

After the event, you can add photos of the participants, tag people and even thank them for joining. It’s a great way to start conversation between you and your audience.

TWEET! + HASHTAGS

Tweeting during the event can generate great buzz and get people talking. If people talk and comment about it, that’ll get more people interested and awaken curiosity about upcoming events. A few days ago I attended the Forum Digitale della Comunicazione here in Milan and it was great in the sense that they had a Twitter live stream being projected in a huge screen and all tweets being shown included the dedicated event hashtag: #fd10tag (no idea why they added the ‘tag’ at the end).

The good thing about hashtags is that those who couldn’t make it to the event can 1. keep up with the live streaming as the event occurs and 2. look up news on the certain event using the hashtag on the Twitter search field.

SOCIAL NETWORK STATUSES

We all love the ‘what are you doing’ or ‘what’s happening’ questions, but moreover, we love answering them. Why not make good use out of these and promote your upcoming event, where you’re headed, which event your attending, why you’re looking forward to it and who your favorite guest speakers are, etc etc.

USE BUSINESS NETWORKS

Take advantage of online communities such as LinkedIn or Viadeo to promote your event. Networks such as these are advantageous for joining groups and communities where you can easily find subjects related to your industry or sector. Also, now that Twitter updates can be synced with your LinkedIn account people can keep up with your tweets and current activities as they are broadcasted on your status update.

UPLOAD PHOTOS + VIDEOS

A good way to generate some good noise is by creating photo albums on sites such as Flickr or Facebook or by uploading videos on YouTube. Online sharing applications are the best to manage your photos and share them with the world. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words…People enjoy viewing pictures/videos, not only are they entertaining, they also serve to inform and give people a general idea of what the event, conference, roundtable was like.

Try these out and let us know how it goes!

As time goes by, it’s interesting to see how social networks have evolved, the new developments being made and how users are engaging and participating in the social Web.

Below is another great infographic produced by TrendStream which provides a snapshot of the social media involvement in the market. The global map was put together after interviewing 32,000 Web users in 16 countries in order to best show a unique perspective on web behavior and social media involvement worldwide.

It’s evident that each region of the world adopts these social technologies differently, but what’s even more interesting is seeing how brands implement social media in their daily activities and which type of social activity they prefer to use.

These are the areas in which they’ve categorized the survey:

And this is the actual infographic- click to enlarge and view pdf:

Some observations provided by the company include:

* The social web is mass market: Hundreds of millions of web users are creating and sharing content every month
* The massive impact of China: The vast Internet population coupled with hugely socially active set of web users, makes for a massive volume of content creators. However due to the inward looking nature of China’s internet economy combined with the language mean that this volume of content does not impact the broader Internet
* Low engagement in Japan: We also associate Japan with technology innovation, and actual while you might not think it, the low engagement is indicative of progress. Why? Our map shows PC activity and we know from this research that a huge number of Japanese users are bypassing PC altogether and using mobile devices to access social platforms and create and share content. Just over 34% of social network users only accessed through mobile in the month of the research, this is compared to 3% in the UK, a staggering indication of where the future is heading.
* The low level of microblog engagement: Despite the Twitter hype, microblogging is still not a mass social activity and nowhere near the size and scale of blogging.

Many things can be done the wrong way if not embraced properly and your brand or product can be easily damaged.

For instance, try to avoid selling your product to your audiences. Selling, bragging, pushing the product into the consumer’s mind can have a negative effect to it. What consumers are really interested in is the what’s in it for me. What your brand or product can do/offer or how it can help them.

There’s a second part to the first statement and it is self-promotion. It’s a great thing that you believe in yourself, in your brand and what you’re selling, however, there’s a lot of useful information out there that you might be overlooking. Information that can be valuable to both you and your consumers. Don’t be afraid to learn from your competitors.

You’re not listening, therefore, you’re not engaging in conversation. You must always listen in order to know what’s going on, find out about what people are talking about and especially, what they’re saying about your brand. Do not ignore criticism, respond to it and try to tackle it the best way possible as to be able to turn the situation around to achieve positive results.

Don’t bombard your audience with millions of facts, figures and articles just to show them that you’re savvy. Do share information that you find offers interesting insights, even if it’s just one piece of information. However, make sure you share it, discuss it, comment on it, involve your readers and ask for opinions.

Have you spotted the right channels to place your brand? If you’re not sure, it’s important that you identify who and where your audience is. Make sure you’re listening and addressing your messages to the right people, if not, it’ll be quite hard to get anyone’s attention.

Do not use only one social network. If you want your brand to have the most visibility and exposure, why narrow it down to just one…especially when many social networks today cover all possible niches, therefore, there’s a much greater chance your content, brand or product will go viral.

These are only some of the actions you should avoid doing as part of your social media strategy. It’s important because, with technology being ubiquitous and accessible to all, we’ve been given the tools to carry on conversations, engage with prospects and customers, share and place our brand/product in the eyes of many, hence, it’s imperative that we embrace these tactics and exploit the opportunities available to us.

For more dont’s, check out this article.