Social Media profiling and the Ad targeting that's needed. One size doesn't fit all.

Business Insider has produced a really interesting report as part of their BI Intelligence work about the general profile of Social Media sites.

It's not exactly shocking but, it allows us to consider the different profiles of each site rather than consider them all, just as "Social Media". As Social Media develops, it's clearly going to become more niche.

More sites targeting specific interests rather than how it all started as "catch all" sites. They each have a different audience with different beliefs that we need to understand better.

This should be of real interest to brands and advertising.

Here is the broad analysis extract from the Business Insider website;

*Facebook still skews young, but the 45- to 54-year-old age bracket has seen 45% growth since year-end 2012. Among U.S. Internet users, 73% with incomes above $75,000 are on Facebook (compared to 17% who are on Twitter). Eight-six percent of Facebook's users are outside the U.S.

Instagram: Sixty-eight percent of Instagram's users are women.

Twitter has a surprisingly young user population for a large social network — 27% of 18 to 29-year-olds in the U.S. use Twitter, compared to only 16% of people in their thirties and forties. 

LinkedIn is international and skews toward male users. 

Google+ is the most male-oriented of the major social networks. It's 70% male.

Pinterest is dominated by tablet users. And, according to Nielsen data, 84% of U.S. Pinterest users are women.

Tumblr is strong with teens and young adults interested in self-expression, but only 8% of U.S. Internet users with incomes above $75,000 use Tumblr.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/a-primer-on-social-media-demographics-2013-9#ixzz2i5OZE81m

The Facebook profile data (young but broadening) comes as no surprise.

Instagram users are 68% women is a surprise because it basically started as a photographic nerd site that has developed into general photo sharing. Why that should be more women users, seems to reflect that women like to share their pics more (aka Facebook). So perhaps that's just a trend or reflects the scourge of selfies. 

Twitter is younger largely, because younger people are early adopters and they are the SMS generation but again, it's broadening. More older people and business see the benefits of tweeting. 

LinkedIn being more international and male, reflects their business ethos and positioning as a place to connect businesspeople. So that's fairly obvious.

Google+ being more male is unfathomable. Google+ I mean is unfathomable. It has members who don't know they are (like me) and a manner of connecting up your Social Media that no one understands but that seems to screw up everything else. So really, anything to do with Google Circles is beyond me.

Pinterest users are female and that is no surprise either (84%) as the site has been dominated by Fashion, Cooking and more female activities. But being dominated by tablets usage, is. So perhaps more women are using Tablets like Ipads and traditionally better at keeping, taking and sharing pics than blokes?

Tumblr is micro blogging, so perhaps teens and younger adults are more prepared to show and share their feelings to the world and perhaps they have more time to do so. Although my experience of blogging, is that it's an older profession. But Tumblr as a brand, is very cool in the blogosphere so that too could be the attraction.

What of course that means, and excuse me for stating the obvious, but different Social Media networks reach out to different demographics for different reasons. Hardly earth shattering but often not understood. And it's more crucial than it sounds.

Ad Campaigns tend for example, to be one creative treatment pushed out everywhere. Where in fact, it would be far more effective to have different, more relevant copy, for each platform. 

The Ad on Pinterest for example, should talk more to women and possibly featuring high end visuals. Whereas the Ad on LinkedIn should have a business slant.

But we don't do that. We use Ad networks to push it all out uniformly because we see it as all being "impressions" or as all being just Ads for the "samey Social Media" when it's not. Or shouldn't be.

Like traditional Media, different newspapers reach different audiences. Online is no different. When Streamabout do video for example, it may be that a video needs a different edit or a different take, depending on what site it's being shown on. Rather than the same video for everyone. The same thing applies here.

And it's a sign that Digital Advertising and Marketing, is maturing when we start to see coarse data like this. Because we're moving from trying to keep up with what's out there, to understanding what they do.

Exactly as traditional media started.

So we just need to understand it all better to do it better as the fog of an all-embracing Social Media lifts.

Tumblr showing stunning growth. 20 Billion page impressions a month. Start up to billionaire in 6 years.

 

Tumblr is really growing and is now one of the Top 20 visited websites in the US - about 19th (Google is number 1). In July last year, Tumblr was 92nd!! So this is a real dramatic rise.

The site now collects, wait for it....20 BILLION pageviews a month (Facebook collects a trillion a month, Twitter 5.9 billion a month) but this is dramatically up from Tumblr's 13 billion in September. Huge growth.

These are staggering numbers. Founder David Karp started Tumblr in 2007, really for himself to share his blog but the smartphone has really pushed it, which Karp credits as being the business driver. A lot of the site's traffic comes from mobile apps. Again, it points to the role of mobile in online businesses. Mobiles are basically pocket computers and getting more advanced so everything we do needs to be mobile enabled.

There's 77 million posts a day on Tumblr and shows the power of blogging. As a source of content, blogging is big and provides rich content to publishers globally. Tumblr however used blogging to develop photo sharing, a key online activity and the site, www.tumblr.com, looks terrific from a design point of view. It's really overseen by people who care about it because that shines through.

It should also be remembered that this traffic is "engaged" - they're taking time to read blogs, exactly as you are. So these are valuable visitors and have in a lot of cases, loyalty to a particular blog. So they return to read time and again as they follow a blog.

The company had an 800 million valuation mid 2011 and I expect it has now well exceeded that, deservedly. After all, Karp started it with his own money from a salary he was paid when working at Urbanbaby. 
 

It's a real start-up story driven by a techy with an idea and now it's going from strength to strength. One we should admire and point to. Karp is living the dream and has done it in the nicest, freshest way.
 
Just goes to show. 
An idea to billionaire in 6 years. 
Only the web can do that. 

(Don't you just hate him....)

Twitter suspends and unsuspends Independent journalist Guy Adams. Denver gunman "fans" (Holmies) are allowed to run amok on Social Media. Censorship dawns?

The decision by Twitter to suspend and then "unsuspend" journalist Guy Adams account, may have far reaching consequences.

Adams, who works with The London Independent (an excellent quality title) had tweeted his disgust over NBC's well publicised delayed Olympic coverage. I mention that here http://streamabout.blogspot.ie/2012/07/nbc-olympics-and-way-brands-can-easily.html

In tweeting however, he suggested that other Twitterers, would email a NBC executive whose email he disclosed. Twitter stopped the account and then after deliberation, re-instated it on the basis that they had wrongly thought that the disclosure of an email address was a violation. 

However, two problems. One, is that it has been suggested as a consequence of doing this, that Twitter might pro-actively censor comments they just don't like. Perhaps comments about their advertisers? The Government? Mitt Romney? Who knows.

The second is that in fact NBC and Twitter had already agreed a business partnership to provide Olympic games coverage - so, the argument goes, the critic Guy Adams, was deleted for business reasons. There's some truth in that and it makes Twitter look real bad. Imagine a call from NBC to their man in their "partners", Twitter, saying, "we don't like this guy, take him down" and they do....Wow.

So the interest of a business partner may have taken precedence over Twitter trust. Dangerous stuff and Twitter is getting the backlash, rightly so.

However, on the other hand, censorship or control of Social Media is becoming a major issue. Most of us believe it's not controlled but......on the other hand...

The shooting in Colorado during The Dark Knight, seemingly by James Holmes, has led to the opposite - calls that favourable pro-Holmes comments should be taken down. "Supporters" (I kid you not) of James Holmes, calling themselves 'Holmies' started a Facebook page and quickly got 800 likes. It was taken down although Facebook say they're not sure "by whom" (because if it was Facebook, they'd hate to admit it since they'd be seen to do what Twitter did).

Holmies have taken over Tumblr instead. Users such as "freeholmes" and "jamesholmeslovr" are active. They encourage writing to Holmes, dye their hair the same red as he did and produce fan-zines.

YouTube now feature a video clip of The Holmies Anthem.

Outraged? Now there's the issue. 

We all consider that to be a horrific use of Social Media and just bewildering. There's a lot of strange people out there determined to cause upset on a grand scale though. You only have to look at standard YouTube comments which are mostly pretty horrible anyway.


So do you allow Guy Adams to Tweet and consequently have to leave The Holmies alone? Or what?

And if you're a publisher or broadcaster or brand online, do you leave comments unmoderated exposing yourself to defamation or criticism (remember the McDonalds disaster) or censor them causing upset?

The Web has been a free, unregulated space that allows people express themselves in whatever way they wish, within the law. And if you want a view... so it should remain.

And yes, that does mean leaving The Holmies alone to do what they want but the overiding benefit of freedom, will mean, hard as it is to accept, it will be worth it for all.

What we don't need is Twitter censoring journalists anymore.

They're going to be sorry they ever did.