With the debate over the debt ceiling raging in Congress and the countries credit rating hanging in the balance, President Obama’s social media team sent out more than 100 tweets asking his followers to contact Republican Members of Congress to compromise. During this tweet barrage the President lost some 36,000 followers which resulted in scores of articles describing this as a tactical failure.

Whether you agree with the President’s position or not, the loss of 36,000 followers out of a total following of just over 9.4 million before this campaign, amounts to a loss of just .38%. That would be like 9 of my followers leaving me after I tweet this blog post (I think my ego can afford this loss – my ego also realizes that this would generate no press coverage whatsoever).

The real question is whether this campaign had any impact on the conversation/debate occurring in Congress:

Clearly some members of Congress, like Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) responded to the President’s tweet: “@BarackObama Instead of tweeting me about a balanced approach Mr. President—you should balance America’s #budgetlike #Wyoming does #BBAmdt29 Jul ,” while many others did not engage in the President’s conversation.

The real question is whether the campaign had any affect on Obama’s followers, beyond those who unfollowed the twitter feed?  Did his followers respond to the challenge and tweet, email, and /or call their Congressional delegation urging a compromise?  If just 1% of his followers did, that would correspond to some 94,000 contacts, or on the average, 830 for each of his 113 targeted tweets.  Most advocacy groups using social media for outreach would view that as a huge success (quite frankly those using traditional outreach would be pleased as well).

Before jumping on the bandwagon and pointing to one metric as a measure of success or failure, it is important to assess the entire campaign, to the extent possible, before reaching any particular conclusion.  With all of the media coverage, both social and traditional on this issue, we may never know how much interaction with Congress the President’s tweeting generated, but it certainly would be worth trying to assess.  Do you think this campaign was a success or failure?  What metrics would you use to assess it?

Last year I wrote a post published in Social Media Today that estimated the number of Americans with Facebook accounts at 41.6%.  At that time, Facebook had about 500 million accounts worldwide. In the past 10 months the number of Facebook accounts has grown to over 695 million, an astounding 39 percent increase. During that same period, the number of accounts in the United States has grown by 22.5 million, with 151.4 million Americans with accounts as of June 30, 2011, according to checkfacebook.com. In fact, one out of every five Facebook accounts is in the United States, and the US has the largest number of Facebook accounts of any country in the world.

According to the Census Bureau’s population clock, as of June 30, 2011, there were 311.7 million people in the United States, of which 50.8% are woman and 49.2% are men. Of the 151.4 million American’s who have Facebook accounts, woman account for 54.7%  and 45.3% are men.  Clearly, in the U.S., woman dominate Facebook usage, with 51.6% of woman in the U.S. on Facebook, compared to 44.1% of men.  Based on the data, we can estimate that 48.6% of the U.S. population has a Facebook account today.

Not surprisingly, and part of what fuels the perception that Facebook is dominated by college students and kids, 52.8 million accounts are registered to individuals aged 24 and younger, 34.9% of all U.S. Facebook accounts. When you expand the age cohort to 44 years of age and under, this group comprises 113.7 million accounts, 75% of all U.S. accounts. If you remove children under the age of 18, 98 million own Facebook accounts, a whopping 86% of the 113.9 million Americans aged 18-44. Therefore, it should come as no surprise why brands focused on Gen X and Gen Y are using social media channels to engage their consumers.

Even though a younger audience dominates Facebook usage in the U.S., of the top ten countries by number of Facebook accounts, the United States ranks last in the number of accounts owned by individuals under 35 years of age. Consequently, marketers and advertisers have an opportunity to reach an older demographic on Facebook in the U.S. Checkfacebook reports 30.7 million Americans between 45 and 64 have Facebook accounts. With an estimated 82.3 million in this age cohort, more than 1/3 or 37.3% are on Facebook. Individuals 65 and older account for just 4.6% of all U.S. Facebook accounts, 17.2% of that age cohort.

If you are a business, not-for-profit, government agency, or local government, a communications strategy that fails to take advantage of facebook is missing an opportunity to reach a significant audience at a relatively low cost. Clearly the data validates the importance of using traditional communications channels, with slightly over 50% of the population not logging in, but if you are looking to reach those aged 44 and under, how would you spend your scarce advertising, educational, or advocacy dollar?

If your organization is trying to reach those aged 45 to 64, you certainly would have to use traditional communications channels, but you certainly can reduce your costs of reaching that audience by developing an appropriate social media strategy, by focusing some of those scarce resources by posting updates and advertising on Facebook. According to the Nielsen Company, the average active social media user, logs in 19.2 times per month on Facebook, spending an average of 5 hours and 52 minutes on the site. According to digitalbuzzblog:

Over 700 Billion minutes a month are spent on Facebook, 20 million applications are installed per day and over 250 million people interact with Facebook from outside the official website on a monthly basis, across 2 million websites. Over 200 million people access Facebook via their mobile phone. 48% of young people said they now get their news through Facebook. Meanwhile, in just 20 minutes on Facebook over 1 million links are shared, 2 million friend requests are accepted and almost 3 million messages are sent.

If you are a CEO of a business, an Executive Director of a non-profit, a Cabinet Secretary, Legislator, Mayor, Township Supervisor or Borough Manager, the role that social media can play in your communication strategy is a function of who comprises your target audience, and where you can find and engage that audience. Clearly, a portion of that audience, regardless of age, are using social media channels. The key to a successful social media strategy is to identify your audience and determine which social media platforms are appropriate for that engagement. Do you know who your target audience is? Do you have something of value to provide them with so they will engage with you? If so, almost half of them could be listening to what you have to say. Good Luck.

This post updates the data from a previous post from September 16, 2010

In developing a social media strategy identifying who your audience is and where you can find them is critical. Given that there are currently more than 695 million Facebook accounts, and 151.4 million of them are in the United States, it is likely that your targeted audience is logging in on a daily basis. If you are a political candidate, elected official, or an advocacy group trying to influence public policy, a considerable portion of your audience resides on Facebook.

According to the US Census Bureau, in 2008, there were 225.5 million people over the age of 18 living in the United States, of which, 206.1 million (91.4%) were US citizens eligible to vote. During the 2008 election cycle, there were 146.3 million (71% of eligible voters) registered to vote, and 131.1 million (63.6% of eligible voters) who voted in the November election.

Though applying these percentages to Facebook will not provide accurate results, they can provide a sense of the size of the voting population present on the social networking site. According to Check Facebook, there are 135.6 million accounts registered to individuals over the age of 18. If 91.4% of them were citizens, we would have roughly 123.9 million eligible voters on Facebook. If 71% of that number were registered, there would be 88.0 million registered voters on Facebook, and therefore 78.9 million (63.6% of eligible voters) who might turn out in next year’s presidential election. Since we know that Facebook users tend to be younger, the numbers above are probably slightly higher, but I think the numbers demonstrate that there is a large audience of potential and likely voters on Facebook.

The most successful politician on Facebook is President Barack Obama, with 21,846,135 people who “like” his page. That number represents 3.1% of all Facebook accounts. Though it is highly unlikely that 100% of his Facebook followers are US citizens who are over the age of 18 and registered to vote, if we assumed for the moment that they were, he could have as many of 16.7% of likely voters in the United States in his audience. Certainly when President Obama speaks, Facebook listens. Though his campaign expended considerable resources to establish this sizable presence, today his only cost to engage with this audience is the time it takes to update his status. Though the campaign should know what the average cost was per follower, the ROI on that investment every time he engages is substantial.

Another politician who has built a significant Facebook presence is former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with 3,167,304 people who “like” her page. If we make the same assumptions as we did for President Obama, she could have as many 2.4% of likely voters in the United States in her audience.
Regardless of your personal or political feelings of either of these two politicians on the national stage, their social networking ability (and that of their advisors and staff) has created significant audiences that have not even come close to reaching their potential. When you compare the cost of reaching these populations with a single direct mail piece ten years ago, and multiplied that by the number of status updates posted weekly, the ROI for the campaigns is stunning.

The reason I have failed to blog very much over the last several months is that when I become passionate about something it begins to consume my life (to some degree). I am no less passionate about social media, but I have found that to begin to learn and develop and use other social media channels you need to decide how much time you can afford devote to one channel over another.

When I started my social networking/media journey, I focused on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I used my Google Reader to aggreagate every article and blog that would assist me in soaking up as much information on the “new media” as possible. In turn, I decided to share those articles and blog posts with anyone who thought they might find them of value. This pay-it-forward mentality has resulted in my Twitter following rising to almost 2,000. But for those who follow me on Twitter, I have not fufilled my end of the bargain of late, and my reader has thousands of articles that I have missed and will likely not get to.

The good news is that much of what I have learned I have been sharing with my old client’s as well as the many new ones who are looking for assistance in developing social networking/media strategies (the blog has provided an ROI on my time effort and energy), and the articles I shared in the reader was a great source of information to pass on to these client’s. Unfortunately, by redirecting that energy, I have been somewhat off of the SM grid.

The primary reason though, is that I have been devoting a considerable amount of time to learning how to effectively use Youtube as a social media channel for my firm, and therefore my clients. Triad Strategies has invested in three video cameras, Adobe Creative Suite CS5 Master Collection, and the expensive 64bit computer you need to install the software on. The reason: If you are going to effectively reach all of your various audiences, you need to develop content that your audiences find value in, and deliver that content.

One of my former employees got me started on video in the late 90′s, when you needed to encode the video for people who were still using dial up modems. He had a great idea (thanks Tom) but we were ahead of our time because the audiences we wanted to reach did not have the means to have a positive experience with our content. Youtube, Vimeo, and the other video sites have changed all of that.

So, for the past several months I have gone back to school (the internet) and taught myself how to edit video, play with sound, create graphics, and dabble in special effects. If you have not found lynda.com yet, you have missed one of the best on-line training programs on the web. Today, we are posting video content weekly, and it is our hope that our friends and followers are enjoying the fruits of our labor. Of course, that labor is assisting us in further branding and marketing our firm, and that was one of our goals in jumping on the social media train. In our case, we plotted our course and new where we were headed every step of the way.

I will be blogging about the value of Youtube as an important communications channel over the next few weeks, and hope that you enjoy the content we are distributing. Feel free to check it out, and I would love to hear your feedback. In the mean time, I have pasted in a few links on how we are using it to support our brand and mission, and also included one we produced for my wife’s yoga boutique. Enjoy.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project released findings from a recent poll they conducted examining the profile of Twitter users. As someone who has been using Twitter for the past year to engage with others who share the same passion for social media and politics, the findings were both refreshing and surprising.

According to Pew, 8% of American adults who use the internet are Twitter users. Prior findings by Pew did not focus specifically on Twitter but rather looked at Twitter and other services that allowed individuals to share updates about themselves or to view others updates. Therefore, back in September of this year, Pew had reported that 24% of internet users were using Twitter and other services but those findings were being interpreted by many as Twitter usage. Therefore, Pew decided to include a question that focused specifically on Twitter.

In November, Pew added a question to their tracking survey which asked on line adults if they used Twitter. With the overall survey reporting that 74% of American adults are internet users, the 8% of on line adults using Twitter translates into 6% of the entire adult population using Twitter.

The table below shows the basic demographic breakdown of that population.

TWITTER USAGE BY DEMOGRAPHIC GROUP
% Of Internet Users in Each Group Who Use Twitter

Pew noted the following:

Some of the groups who are notable for their relatively high levels of Twitter use include:

Young adults: Internet users ages 18-29 are significantly more likely to use Twitter than are older adults.
African-Americans and Latinos: Minority internet users are more than twice as likely to use Twitter as are white internet users.
Urbanites: Urban residents are roughly twice as likely to use Twitter as rural dwellers.
Women and the college-educated are also slightly more likely than average to use the service.

Given the size of the sample, when you pull out only those who use Twitter, the surveys ability to accurately examine how users engage with the service has a pretty significant margin for error, but nevertheless, it is still useful for getting a general sense of how the service is being used.

The study also went on to examine the types of updates that are being posted on Twitter. According to Pew:

Overall, observations related to users’ personal or professional lives are the most popular types of updates, while location-based tweets and links to videos are the least commonly mentioned:

72% of Twitter users in our sample say that they post updates related to their personal life, activities or interests. A total of one-in-five Twitter users (19%) say they post personal updates once a day or more.
62% of those we queried said they post updates related to their work life, activities or interests, with 12% doing so on a daily basis.
55% of these Twitter users share links to news stories. About one in ten (12%) do this at least once a day.
54% of these Twitter users say they post humorous or philosophical observations about life in general, with 16% doing so on a daily basis.
53% of these Twitter users use Twitter to retweet material posted by others, with 18% doing so on a daily basis.
52% of these Twitter users send direct messages to other users, with 11% doing so on a daily basis.
40% use Twitter to share photos with others, with 12% going so at least once a day.
28% use Twitter to share videos with others. Fewer than one-in-ten Twitter users (8%) do this once a day or more.
24% use the service to tweet their location, with 7% of users doing so on a daily basis.

Though the sample size is relatively small, from my personal experience and that of my friends who tweet, the findings appear to be relatively accurate. So what is your experience? Do the findings accurately reflect your experience. Do you fit in?

Back in August I posted an article that social media use among older adults was rising. Today the Pew Internet & American Life Project posted a brief story that Twitter use was increasing among older adults. In fact, it appears that all age cohorts are experiencing an increase in their tweets. According to the data, 17% of on-line adults are using Twitter or another status-updating service, a 55% increase from the 11% reported in 2009. Though younger adults aged 18-29 comprise the largest age cohort of adult on-line users at 27%, the fastest growing age cohort are 50-64 years old, who experienced a 120% increase (from 5% in 2009 to 11% in 2010).

Clearly the use of Twitter or other status-updating sites are used by a minority of those who are on social networks. Nevertheless, as the number of individuals using social media continues to increase, it only stands to reason that Twitter would experience some increase as well. A study that examines how Twitter is being used by would be valuable for anyone trying to integrate Twitter into their social media strategies.

Of course, with the existence of social networks we do not need to wait for someone to do a study, we can simply put the question out there and let the blogosphere or twitterverse provide the answer. So lets conduct an unscientific study. How do you use Twitter? Are you simply updating your status, or passing along valuable content to your followers? Feel free to provide your age!!

If you have not had a chance to read Malcom Gladwell’s recent article in the New Yorker magazine you will miss an excellent argument on the importance of strong relationships in building a successful advocacy strategy. I believe he hits the nail squarely on the head by pointing out that successful advocacy requires an organizational structure built around strong relationships between individuals within the organization and between the organization and individuals. Yet in his attempt to refute the arguments of those who view social media as changing the landscape of political advocacy, I believe he misses the point of the importance of social networking platforms in helping advocacy groups create the very platform that he views as central to their success.

If you put aside the initial relationships that are built around our families, every relationship that we have built throughout our lives started as a relationship between strangers. The four friends who started the lunch counter boycott he points out had a strong relationship with one another.

So one crucial fact about the four freshmen at the Greensboro lunch counter—David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, and Joseph McNeil—was their relationship with one another. McNeil was a roommate of Blair’s in A. & T.’s Scott Hall dormitory. Richmond roomed with McCain one floor up, and Blair, Richmond, and McCain had all gone to Dudley High School. The four would smuggle beer into the dorm and talk late into the night in Blair and McNeil’s room. They would all have remembered the murder of Emmett Till in 1955, the Montgomery bus boycott that same year, and the showdown in Little Rock in 1957. It was McNeil who brought up the idea of a sit-in at Woolworth’s. They’d discussed it for nearly a month. Then McNeil came into the dorm room and asked the others if they were ready. There was a pause, and McCain said, in a way that works only with people who talk late into the night with one another, “Are you guys chicken or not?” Ezell Blair worked up the courage the next day to ask for a cup of coffee because he was flanked by his roommate and two good friends from high school.

What Gladwell leaves out of this account is that at some point these four individuals were complete strangers. As a result of their personalities, interests, experiences, education, and geography, these complete strangers overtime moved from their initial “weak” ties with each other to form a bond that led to one of the key events of the civil rights movement. These four individuals moved themselves along a “relationship continuum” that ultimately created a bond the resulted in putting themselves at risk. It is likely that over the course of their lives they met hundreds of people who never progressed far enough along that continuum and either remained weak ties or ties that were not quite strong enough at that point in time.

If an advocacy groups goal is to simply use social networking platforms to count followers, and does nothing more than amass thousands of followers whose ties to the organization are weak, then Gladwell is correct in his conclusion regarding social media and advocacy.

The platforms of social media are built around weak ties. Twitter is a way of following (or being followed by) people you may never have met. Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with. That’s why you can have a thousand “friends” on Facebook, as you never could in real life. . . . But weak ties seldom lead to high-risk activism.

On the other hand, if one of the advocacy groups goals is to cast a wide net to attract those who are interested in the issue, and uses the medium to turn those weak ties into strong ties with the organization, then the value of social networking for advocacy is clear. You can use a combination of traditional relationship building tools, in concert with social networking platforms to find those who will become the activists to support the organization’s mission.

Whether you are a labor union, chamber of commerce, charitable organization, issue advocacy group, political party, or consumer brand, social networking platforms are a valuable tool for recruiting individuals. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc, are a means to an end. By providing valuable content to your identified audience, you can develop an initial weak tie with people. By educating, entertaining, and engaging them over time, you can begin to build relationships with some who will develop into stronger and valuable ties with the organization. The goal is to turn those on-line relationships into members, donors, and consumers. Today, social networks are just another tool to be utilized to support an organization’s mission. It is not the be all and end all, but to discount its value in the 21st century is simply wrong.

Last week Harrisburg University conducted a social media experiment that found its way into the national news and even was commented on by Jimmy Fallon in his monologue on late night. During the week long ban on using social networking tools, the University hosted a Social Media Summit which examined legal issues, politics, business innovation, and education and training. I participated on the panel which examined how social media is changing the political landscape.

In preparing for the panel, I examined national election data to roughly gauge the number of likely voters who would have Facebook accounts. Since most of the audience was from Pennsylvania, I also estimated the number of likely Pennsylvania voters who would have accounts on Facebook (Click here for the Slideshare Presentation).

Over the past nine months I have posted a number of articles examining how various statewide candidates for office have used social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. In all of these posts I have argued of the value that the campaigns could realize by establishing a presence and building their on-line communities. So it seemed that an exercise to determine the ultimate value of a social media strategy would make sense.

The US Census Bureau estimates that Pennsylvania has a population of 12.6 million. With Facebook reporting 5.96 million accounts in Pennsylvania, approximately 47% of Pennsylvanian’s are on Facebook (which is slightly higher than the national average of 43%). In 2008, the Pennsylvania Department of State reported that there were 9.83 million people over the age of 18 living in PA, of which, 9.69 million (98.5%) were eligible to vote. During the 2008 election cycle, there were 8.76 million (90.4% of eligible voters) registered to vote, and 6.01 million (62.1% of eligible voters) who voted in the November election.

According to Facebook, there are 5.32 million accounts registered to individuals over the age of 18 in PA. By applying the above percentages to the Pennsylvania specific data reported by Facebook, we can roughly approximate the number of eligible voters and likely voters on the social networking site. If 98.5% of 5.32 million were eligible to vote, there would be 5.24 million eligible voters in PA on Facebook. If 90.4% of that number were registered, there would be 4.74 million registered PA voters on Facebook, and therefore 3.25 million (62.1% of eligible voters) who might turn out this November. Given that we are headed for a mid-term election, where over the past 20 years voter turnout has hovered around 37%, potential PA voters on Facebook might be closer to 1.8 million. Clearly, there is a significantly large audience of likely voters on Facebook.

At the national level there have been numerous stories of how the Republicans are out pacing Democrats on social media channels. This is certainly true when you look at the Facebook accounts of the four candidates running for statewide political office. Republican candidate for US Senate, Pat Toomey, leads everyone with over 13,000 people who like his Facebook Fan page. Attorney General Tom Corbett, the Republican candidate for Governor is in second place with over 10,500 “likes” on his Fan page. Congressman Joe Sestak, the Democratic candidate for US Senate is in third place with over 9,400 “likes,” and rounding out the field is Allegheny County Executive and Democratic Candidate for Governor, Dan Onorato, with over 4,700 “likes” on his Fan page.

Given the number of likely voters on Facebook, the size of the candidates following on Facebook may not appear impressive. Nevertheless, the true measure of success would be the level of engagement and passion of those who are following the candidates. If fans and followers are sharing and retweeting the candidates content, then a much larger audience could be engaged.

Do you think the PA statewide candidates could have built larger on-line communities? If you are following them are you passing their content to your own on-line communities? Have you noticed your friends sharing their content with you? Please let me know and leave your comments below.

Yesterday the Pew Internet & American Life Project reported that 21% of American adults do not use the internet. Though 34% of these non users have either used the internet in the past or reside in households that are connected, 48% of them are either too busy or not interested, view it as a waste of time, or do not need or want to use it. Additionally, 21% cited price as the reason they remain off-line, while 18% cite usability as a barrier for entry.

So what does this mean for those of us who are assisting our clients navigate their way through social networks in order to develop campaigns to support their brands and organizations?

As in any relationship building or public relations/marketing activity, identifying your target audience is critical in developing a successful strategy. Since 79% of your potential audience is on-line, you need to determine what they are doing when they are logged in. Back in August I posted an article that social networking was dominating on-line activity. That post was supported by a survey done by Nielsen Wire who provided us with a snapshot of that activity.

Therefore, one component of your on-line strategy should target social networks. Depending upon your budget, you could expand your campaign to include email marketing and advertising.

If the one in five Americans off-line are an important element of your audience, then traditional marketing and public relations activities need to be part of your overall campaign. Clearly social media channels should be an important element in almost any PR/marketing campaign. If we are in the business to create successful campaigns for our client’s, we must do the research first, and then determine what the appropriate tactics are to create a successful campaign.

How do you develop a winning strategy? Are you still using traditional communication channels?

In developing a social media strategy identifying who your audience is and where you can find them is critical. Given that there are currently more than 500 million Facebook accounts, and 133.9 million of them are in the United States, it is likely that your targeted audience is logging in on a daily basis. If you are a political candidate, elected official, or an advocacy group trying to influence public policy, a considerable portion of your audience resides on Facebook.

According to the US Census Bureau, in 2008, there were 225.5 million people over the age of 18 living in the United States, of which, 206.1 million (91.4%) were US citizens eligible to vote. During the 2008 election cycle, there were 146.3 million (71% of eligible voters) registered to vote, and 131.1 million (63.6% of eligible voters) who voted in the November election.

Though applying these percentages to Facebook will not provide accurate results, they can provide a sense of the size of the voting population present on the social networking site. According to Facebook, there are 120.8 million accounts registered to individuals over the age of 18. If 91.4% of them were citizens, we would have roughly 110.4 million eligible voters on Facebook. If 71% of that number were registered, there would be 78.4 million registered voters on Facebook, and therefore 70.2 million (63.6% of eligible voters) who might turn out in a presidential election. Given that we are headed for a mid-term election, where over the past 20 years voter turnout has hovered around 37%, potential voters on Facebook might be closer to 40.9 million this November.

So either way you slice it, between 40 and 70 million individuals over 18 are likely voters who have Facebook accounts. Since we know that Facebook users tend to be younger, the numbers above are probably slightly higher, but I think the numbers demonstrate that their is a large audience of potential and likely voters on Facebook.

The most successful politician on Facebook is President Barack Obama, with 13,549,340 people who “like” his page. That number represents 2.7% of all Facebook accounts. Though it is highly unlikely that 100% of his Facebook followers are US citizens who are over the age of 18 and registered to vote, if we assumed for the moment that they were, he could have as many of 17.3% of likely voters in the United States in his audience. Certainly when President Obama speaks, Facebook listens.

Though his campaign expended considerable resources to establish this sizable presence, today his only cost to engage with this audience is the time it takes to update his status. Though the campaign should know what the average cost was per follower, the ROI on that investment every time he engages is substantial

Another politician who has built a significant Facebook presence is former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin with 2,232,237 people who “like” her page. If we make the same assumptions as we did for President Obama, she could have as many 2.8% of likely voters in the United States in her audience.

Regardless of your personal or political feelings of either of these two politicians on the national stage, their social networking ability (and that of their advisors and staff) have created significant audiences that have not even come close to reaching their potential. When you compare the cost of reaching these populations with a single direct mail piece ten years ago, and multiplied that by the number of status updates posted weekly, the ROI for the campaigns is stunning.

Do you think the effort of building these audiences is worth the return on investment? How should they be engaging these audiences to strengthen their relationship with them? I am sure they would love to hear your thoughts.