Article, Report, Interactive Tool: How Are Email, Facebook and Twitter Audiences Different?
While this summary and the underlying research is aimed at Internet marketers, it's not only interesting reading but should be, at the least, thought about by libraries, vendors, and others in the profession who use e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter to communicate with users/customers and perhaps even potential users/customers.
According to ExactTarget’s “Subscribers, Fans and Followers” report, there is little cannibalization among the three channels—instead, there is significant overlap. Most internet users studied in April 2010 engaged with brands only via marketing emails, but nearly a third subscribed to emails in addition to being fans of brands on Facebook. The vast majority of social media fans or followers were also email subscribers.
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Overall, 94% of daily email users subscribed to marketing messages. Two-thirds of daily Facebook users were brand fans, and about four in 10 daily Twitter users followed a company or brand, [Our emphasis] showing that email is still the preferred channel for brand engagement even among heavy users of social media sites.
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But analyzed psychographically, ExactTarget found different patterns of engagement.
+ "E-Mail appeals to just about everybody."
+ "...using Facebook for both informative and entertaining communications would be most effective."
+ "Twitter appeals most to consumers who want to feel up to date and in the know, suggesting information about new products and services or other brand initiatives would be of interest."
The article contains the following charts and graphs:
+ Marketing E-Mail Subscribers, Facebook Fans, and Twitter Followers, April 2010
+ Average Number of Brands Engaged via E-Mail, Facebook, and Twitter, April 2010
+ The Social Profile Interactive Tool
Select an age group and gender and generate profiles for various groups of users. Make sure to read the help info that provides a full explanation. The numbers come from the same report from ExactTarget where the other numbers in this post are located.
Access to several reports (including the one where the stats above come from) are available (free) but do require registration.
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
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