Snapshot of Presidential Candidate Social Networking Stats

Snapshot of Presidential Candidate Social Networking Stats: Nov 3, 2008. 

Internet Usage in United States United States Population: 303,824,646

Internet Usage: 220,141,969 

Penetration rate: 72.5% 

Growth from 2000-2008: 130.9% 

Stats from Internet WorldStats (Census, Nielson) 

Facebook 

Obama: 2,379,102 supporters 

McCain: 620,359 supporters 

Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain 

MySpace 

Obama: Friends: 833,161 

McCain: Friends: 217,811 

Obama has 380% more supporters than McCain 

YouTube 

Obama: 1792 videos uploaded since Nov 2006

Subscribers: 114,559 (uploads about 4 a day)

Channel Views: 18,413,110 

McCain: 329 videos uploaded since Feb 2007 

(uploads about 2 a day)

Subscribers: 28,419, 

Channel Views: 2,032,993 

Obama has 403% more subscribers than McCain 

Obama has 905% more viewers than McCain 

Twitter 

Obama: @barackobama has 112,474 followers 

McCain: @JohnMcCain (is it real?) 4,603 followers 

Obama has 240 times more followers in Twitter than McCain

Brutal, devastating, paralyzed

Ruth Ratney's latest article in REELCHICAGO gives the lowdown on the utter collapse of the commercial film and video advertising world in Chicago.  It isn't pretty.

"The extent of the slowdown How deeply did spot production sink in recent months? Fifty percent from August to October, according to the Chicago Film Office, which tracks the number of productions and shoot days that require permits for filming on city locations. August was pretty hefty, says CFO director Rich Moskal, with 15 productions over 22 shoot days on big-budget spots for Budweiser, Harris Bank, Career Builders and AT&T, produced by out-of-town companies, and for low-budget spots for local and regional advertisers.

In September, the number skidded to seven productions, 11 shoot days and - so far in October - the number is four productions and seven shoot days with two weeks to go before the presidential elections. Essanay had dark stages and idle trucks, except for a few days here and there, charting a 23% plunge in business from June 1 to Sept. 30, as compared with 2007."

InternetRetailer.com - Daily News for Thursday, October 2, 2008

Link: InternetRetailer.com - Daily News for Thursday, October 2, 2008.

“It appears that a general rule is, if someone watches a video on a product, that improves the sale of that product by about 50%,” says Alex Tabibi, co-founder and CEO.

What marketers are thinking

Curious about the state of online advertising?

Stop neglecting your viral metrics

iMedia has a great article about how to track and measure viral campaigns. This is a virtual template for reporting and measuring campaigns.

The article discuses how, while unique to each campaign, some examples of pre-campaign metrics are:

Number of pass-alongs or forwards. Most pass-alongs will happen one of two ways: either via a viral medium or through the email/mobile medium. A viral medium is something designed specifically for effective pass-alongs. For example, you could put a link that says "forward this message to a friend" in your viral email marketing campaign. If the recipient uses this link, you'll be able to track the number exactly. However, if the recipient uses an email or mobile pass-along, it will not be captured or measured. If they hit the forward button through their Outlook or Yahoo! email, it's nearly impossible to track. That's why it's important to include a clear, easy-to-use viral medium to avoid this untrackable option.

Number of embeds. How many people embedded it on their sites? Viral messages embedded in social networks can be powerful -- if the recipient embeds your link onto a well trafficked social networking site, your exposure increases. However, the flipside is also true. The embedded material can become part of a spam blog and the numbers can be skewed. One way to discount distorted numbers is to allocate higher weights to early clicks while also counting unique clicks in that time frame.

Number of comments in the comment field. Some social networking sites let you add comments to what you are viewing. If you include this option, it's important to keep track of the comments added.

Number of downloads. This is a pretty straightforward metric. If there are downloadable elements in your viral marketing campaign, track the number of downloads by each recipient.

Post-campaign analysis
The second phase of measuring your viral marketing campaign involves conducting a full post-campaign analysis. There are a few straightforward numbers that you might already have on your list to collect. Common data sets include:

Total number of views
Total unique viewers
Average number of views per visit
Number of conversions
Number of clickthroughs and the clickthrough rate
Number of referrer URLs and examples of referrers, which typically tell you where your users are coming from
Number of email addresses collected

Advertising - Whichever Screen, People Are Watching

Link: Advertising - Whichever Screen, People Are Watching - NYTimes.com.

The average American spent 127 hours of time with TV in May, up from 121 hours in May 2007; and 26 hours on the Internet, up from 24 hours last year. More than 282 million people watch television in a given month and nearly 162 million use the Internet.

Perhaps most important, the data reaffirms that online video viewing is no longer a novelty. Two-thirds of Internet users in the United States, 119 million people, watched video in May.

Likelihood of Engaging in Social Media

Check out this tool it's pretty cool. It analyzes the likelihood of a target audience engaging in a social media strategy... and breaks down what types.

"Companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — a blog here, a podcast there — to achieve a marketing goal. But a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for. You can use the tool on this page to get started."

And below you can watch a slide show on the audience types and their definitions:

| View | Upload your own

Online video: how to work it for your brand

From iMedia: "Deciding to have video on your website is just the beginning. Use this quick guide on purposes, placements and filming techniques to put your company's benefits into clear focus."

Some highlights:

--"In a 2007 study conducted by Advertising.com, 62 percent of consumers said they regularly view streaming video content online, and according to the Online Publishers Association (OPA), 44 percent of consumers have taken some action as a result of viewing an online video ad."

--"The advantages of video are clear; it's a way to differentiate your website from competitors... and it addresses the large percentage of consumers who are visually oriented and will almost always choose to watch a video rather than read."

--"People are interested in watching other people. Companies should use this natural interest to give key personnel the opportunity to introduce themselves and tell a little bit about their department or product/service sector. These types of videos should be on the various department pages, or in the “About the Company” pages. The goal is to further educate visitors and encourage them to make direct contact."

--"If you have a nice workplace, show it off! For one thing, an attractive or large facility exudes a level of professionalism that secures in the customer mind that you are able to deliver what is promised, and that you're not operating out of a garage somewhere. Also, displaying pride in your company promotes enthusiasm in the customer's mind."

--"They say” always carries more weight than “we say,” so if at all possible, get some videos produced of your happiest customers and load them onto the site. The goal is to convince customers that choosing your products or services is a smart decision!"

--"In general, online videos should range anywhere from one to three minutes or less. Any longer and visitor attention may start to wane."

--"Every video on the website should include a call to action or in some way encourage the customer to contact the company, whether it's "click on the link below to send an e-mail," or "call this number now" or "check out our specials below." This is a huge advantage of video that should never be passed up -- never miss an opportunity to ask your website visitors to buy or do whatever it is they need to do that will get them one step closer to buying."

10 Best Practices to Increase Email Response Rates for Fundraising | FastTrack Fundraising™ Tips and Articles

Link: 10 Best Practices to Increase Email Response Rates for Fundraising | FastTrack Fundraising™ Tips and Articles.

We asked an expert for his top 10 tips on the nuances of email marketing for nonprofits and ways to increase conversion rates.

Online Fundraising Stats and Tips

Link:
Fundraising
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DMAW - Direct Marketing Association of Washington
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Your online conversion rate — the percentage of Web visitors who join, give or take a desired action online — is the critical measurement of your organization's online success. Your conversion rate tells you how well or how poorly your Web site is serving the needs of your prospective donors or members — and your organization.

Think of online conversions as the equivalent of direct-mail response rates. In direct mail, the number of total pieces mailed is divided by the number of responses to yield your response rate. It's the same formula for the online world, except "total mailed" is "unique visitors" (number of individuals who visit your site) and "responses" are "online actions" (donations, memberships, e-mail subscribes, etc.).

Average online-conversion rates for retail Web sites are in the 2 percent to 4 percent range, even with top retailers such as QVC and Land's End seeing 12 percent to 16 percent, according to a recent Nielsen//NetRatings report.

Shocking, isn't it?
That means 84 percent to 98 percent of most Web visits do not result in a transaction.

You'd want to set your goals for a double-digit conversion rate. But since most nonprofit Web sites don't have a singular focus on membership or fundraising, as do retail sites selling products, you should look at your specific program's online conversion rate, too.

For example, what percentage of donors who visit your online donation form end up completing their donation? Use the same formula for memberships.

Among nonprofit organizations, I've seen donation-page conversion rates from a low of 0.5 percent (the site had problems) to a high of 17 percent for optimized sites.

For relief organizations collecting donations for the recent Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, that number shot up to 30 percent. While tsunami fundraising was certainly a special case, it shows us the potential for online fundraising.