Twitter and Youth Marketing - new research

I've enjoyed our recent posts about trust and youth marketing (more resources here). One of the challenges in marketing to youth is the changing landscape - youth always gravitate towards more trusted networks. When marketers got hold of email they migrated to Myspace and Myspace to Twitter.

Interested in Twitter?
Check out mobileYouth's own Graham Brown and Josh Dhaliwal on Twitter

One of the key research findings from our mobileYouth 2008 Social Media report was the exponential growth in Twitter usage by youth. We now see Under 25s as the heaviest users of Twitter!

Is Twitter SMS 2.0?
From being predominantly the domain of 25-34 year old techs, Twitter has burgeoned into a valid youth platform. Here are some interesting findings:
* Youth twitter usage rapidly adopting similar patterns to SMS usage implications for operator charging, marketing channels, PR abound...
* Under 25s now constitute 25% of twitter usage - the largest single age group
* Japanese youth have rapidly adopted twitter into their daily social activities. Go watch the public Twitter feed and witness how much Japanese content passes through.
* Twitter still has a long way to go to reach the lowest common denominator that made SMS fly but it has the advantage of a core consumer beachhead to play with.

Report links
* Download the Report PDF
* Social Media Presentation here
* Recommendations from the Social Media Report
* About the Report

Technorati Tags: twitter, social media, youth marketing, mobile youth, mobileyouth

Mobile Youth and Social Media - presentation from new research

Finally launches tomorrow. Here's what we are advising our clients on this research area:

1) Clarity: Enter Social Media with clearly defined organizational goals (e.g. reduce churn rates, time to market with produce development, improve your net promoter score etc)

2) Incumbents: Invest your efforts into established internet Social Media with mobile presence as opposed to pure mobile social plays (yes, web 2.0 techies love them but you're goals needs to be generating enough social proof to persuade planners to commit to the channel - and pure plays are not there yet)

3) Utility: Think "how can mobile generate further social utility for your consumers using social media?" as opposed to "how can we create mobile social media"? ~ your efforts need to further enhance and fulfill the 2 key fundamentals of youth consumer behavior (as highlighted in the report). That's the Value Add we're talking about in the report.

4) Many Small Niches: Build a portfolio of Social Media offerings that are lifestyle specific (either lifestyle focused apps on generic platforms) or lifestyle-specific platforms (eg Student or ethnic social networks) that match your core marketing objectives. Focus on brand consistency in your message and deliver consistently to your marketing beachheads within these segments.

5) Go Micro: Focus on integrating your efforts at the lowest common denominator - ie what is the one thing your service does well and focus on that rather than being a generic "everything to everybody". Utilize micro platforms such as Twitter as they gain popularity with youth to incorporate your mashups & applications.

6) Redefine your KPI: Going Social with existing industrial indicators (eg ARPU and market share) is merely meatball sundae thinking. You need to look at new metrics to reward your activity alongside traditional ones - eg Loyalty, Churn rates, Net Promoter Score, Lifestime Value etc.

Excerpts from the full 76 slide report available here for viewing online. Covering: mobile youth, social media, mobile behavior, web 2.0, loyalty, mobile advertising. More background here on the mobileyouth report part 3 on mobile youth social media

Technorati Tags: mobile youth report, youth research, youth social media, social media, mobile social media

Is Trust the Secret of Influence in Youth Marketing?

About 80% of the user-generated content on the web, including comments and questions, is created by less than 10% of web users, a group we refer to as the most frequent contributors (MFCs). The rest of the web community sits back and watches the interactions as a mostly-passive audience that only occasionally injects a few comments"
Carol Phillips (Millenial Marketing)

Influence is intrinsically linked to trust (see trust and youth marketing post earlier). Why is trust important to mobile and mobile behavior?

Well, start with the basics: what's good for the consumer is good for the company. Can you argue with that (see this article - source). Data from the Mobile Youth Report shows that 52% of youth trust their handset whereas only 27% trust their operator. Here are the video insights.

This begs the question, when Nokia and Vodafone both decide to launch new music services, which brand has the most persuasive power? Apple's influence relies of trusted - it is consistently ranked as one of the most trusted brands in Edelman PR's trust barometer surveys. No wonder then that they are able to launch new products to market with a degree of ease unseen in rival tech companies.

Similarly, platforms that aim to push brands through untrusted media necessarily face uphill challenges. Blyk is one that we blogged about earlier - if SMS is untrusted (as highlighted by marketingwatch) what influence can the platform have?

We can see evidence for trust representing the backbone of influence in the success of micro-engagement over macro; individuals trust individuals over corporations and the same applies to marketing messages.

That's why blogs are effective media in influencing purchasing decisions (also here & here) because done correctly, the marketing is a two dialogue between two individuals. Now unpack that logic with growing evidence that blogs are mainstream.

As the target group becomes more focused (eg ethnically aligned), consumers place a premium on trust. Defined beachheads offer greater marketing density and are therefore more conducive to word of mouth influence, such as with Ethnic groupings. Targeting market beachheads relies on building brand trustworthiness; in surveying Latinos in the US, just 2% of respondents said they preferred hard-sell "active interaction" with people representing the brand; most preferred a softer sell and a more passive message at an event, conveyed through signage or video presentations.

Getting it right comes back to the debate of Share of customer vs Market Share; Apple, Google, Nike, Facebook (originally), Myspace, Japanese auto brands (Honda for example) all benefit from adopting the "share of customer" approach and consequently, the trust dividend in influencing both product uptake and customer advocacy.

Similarly, influence and trust skew across lifestyle lines. Gamers, for example, overweight in influence amongst their peers. Research conducted for IGN Entertainment by Ipsos MediaCT, examined the audience for console games, handheld games and games for the PC or Mac. What they found was that gamers are likely to influence others when it comes to media and technology—beyond games.

Check out this post by John Bell on the subject:

One of my favorite strategies that the Obama campaign adopted was best articulated by ZeFrank. It's about micro-engagements or small things people can do amongst larger things that require more commitment. Think of it as a sliding scale of engagement from simple and quick to deep and rewarding. Whe ZeFrank was doing The Show, he was publishing the video above a comment string. He noticed that participants would leap into the string once a new video was posted and just type in "I'm first!", "I second", "I made it third..." and so on. That's all those users added to the conversation. Now, a more traditional content creator might get upset. ZeFrank saw the opportuntity - there were participants (can't just call them "viewers" as they play an active role) who just wanted a small form of interaction, a short and easy way to play a part. He created a series of simple clickable dingbats, easter-egg-y type interactions on teh main screen to give them a little more to interact with and keep them engaged at the level they clearly wanted to be.

Technorati Tags: youth marketing, influence, wom, trust, mobile youth, blyk, nokia, vodafone, apple

More Resources on Youth Trust and Marketing

Following on from our recent post about Youth, Trust and Marketing here are some more links of interest:

* Definition of marketing Trust over at Youth Marketing Buzz
* "Growing environments of trust is so incredibly critical to communication" by Jonathan MacDonald
* Youth Trust - the 6 Ways Brands Lose it and Abuse it over at mobileYouth
* Trust & Information Management. "It's not that masses of information is a bad thing, far from it. What is an issue, however, is how we manage it. The more we know, the more fragmented we can become, and - as Onora O'Neill wrote in her Reith Lectures - the harder it becomes to trust and operate within the institutions by which we seek to manage our society." in "The Crowd That Knew Too Much" over at TED.
* "If the research studies are correct that consumers trust other consumers more than advertisers in their buyer behavior, there’s no possible way to unpack ROI from CGM." - interview with Pete Blackshaw at Dan Schwabel's Personal Branding Blog
* Trust in business development by Brian Tracy as the key to influencing others: "One of the best ways to influence someone is to do something nice for him. I know many successful salespeople who make a habit of taking their prospects out to breakfast or lunch. During the breakfast or lunch, they do not talk about their products or services unless the client brings it up. They merely make small talk, ask questions and listen. They work on building trust, and they work on establishing a friendly relationship. "
* How can Vodafone build trust with young consumers - powerpoint presentation over at MobileYouthConsumers.com
* Blog readers trust the comments rather than the author. "Of responding blog readers, more respondents (14%) said that they trust reader comments posted on blogs than blogs covering specific products"
* Americans consider television and daily newspapers the most credible sources of news and information, while they trust free shoppers and magazines least, according to (pdf) a survey from ARANet , conducted by Opinion Research Corporation @ MarketingCharts.
* "Mobile banking: ease-of-use is more important than trust, really ..." - sounds dubious but it's research therefore it...er...must be true - over @ ZDNet
* Research Insights: Brands that Connect With Millennials over @ Millenial Marketing

Technorati Tags: youth marketing, marketing trust, trust

If Youth don't trust Mobile, is all this talk of Marketing Academic?

Youth Marketing + Trust is an interesting area of the mobile industry because it's so often overlooked. Last week I looked at the Blyk business model (focusing mainly on mobile advertising) and looked at the key challenges they faced:

Blyk face 2 challenges however. One is that SMS is generally distrusted (marketingwatch) and second that replicating the mobile advertising model requires providers to steer clear of internet analogies (see Amdocs analysis) and I'm not entirely convinced Blyk has got either right and there may be a touch of Meatball Sundae in the approach.

Why is trust important to mobile? Well, start with the basics: what's good for the consumer is good for the company. Can you argue with that (see this article - source)

Data from the Mobile Youth Report shows that 52% of youth trust their handset whereas only 27% trust their operator. Here are the video insights.

Data (from mobile marketing watch) also shows that youth distrust mobile advertising and SMS marketing. Where does that leave us?

Well, it seems something can be done. Here's a marketing presentation by mobileyouth on building trust with operators - in this instance Vodafone. One suggestion focuses on how brands can use simple metrics such as net promoter score and customer lifetime value to measure progress. Interesting.

Technorati Tags: trust, mobile youth, youth marketing, blyk, mobile advertising, business model

Download Research on Mobile Behavior

Last time we blogged on youth marketing and Blyk - will it work? If you're into Youth Marketing, then read on! Mobile Youth launched its 2008 guide in to youth mobile behavior.

The research contains pretty much everything you need to find out what the next great thing in youth mobile trends is going to be - invaluable insight for every brand, agency, mobile operator and technology company. Useful, unless you intend on making a meatball sundae out of your youth marketing.

Here's feedback from one of their clients @ T-mobile

"We use Mobile youth research extensively within International Marketing at T-Mobile" - Tony Kypreos, International Vice President, T-Mobile

Here's what mobileYouth says about mobile behavior on their site:

For us, mobile behavior is not a new addition to the portfolio or the next great thing but the core raison d’etre of our organization and a central tenet for making your product relevant in youth marketing.

You can also check out their video insights into mobile behavior.

Technorati Tags: mobile behavior, next great thing, youth marketing, youth mobile trends, mobile youth

Does mobile affect youth learning and other life skills such as writing? (mobileYouth Josh Dhaliwal)

Josh Dhaliwal from mobileYouth on BBC breakfast

View the video on Blinx/BBC website
Technorati Tags: mobile life report, youth handwriting, youth writing, josh dhaliwal, bbc

Josh Dhaliwal from mobileYouth on BBC breakfast

View the video on Blinx/BBC website

Technorati Tags: mobile life report, youth handwriting, youth writing, josh dhaliwal, bbc

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Original source : http://www.mobileyouthconsumers.com/youth_news/doe...