Daily Archives: July 28, 2009

Membership numbers of the business social networks are exploding. This is supported by a recent survey revealing that it is senior business decision-makers who are the dominant users of social media.

The research was carried out in the US, but given the worldwide membership growth figures for the business, or professional, social networks, it is likely that these findings are also relevant for Europe.

Key Facts
• The 3 principal social networks used for business purposes are market leader LinkedIn, Germany’s XING and Viadeo, a French-owned website.

• Research from Anderson Analytics and Greenfield Online carried out in May of this year and reported in Mashable revealed that:

o “The largest percentage of social network users are business users (31.8%) which correlates to a segment of 35 million users with an average age of 33 and an average income of $56k.”
o Anderson Analytics also revealed in an earlier report on LinkedIn that, 66% of the members are “decision makers or have influence in the purchase decisions” and that for individual members “the greater the number of connections the greater the likelihood of higher personal income”.

• Principal uses for all of the professional networks remains building a contact base, generating new business leads and recruitment.

LinkedIn
• LinkedIn is by far the biggest of the three, with 43 million members across 200 countries in May 2009, more than a 50% increase in membership levels since March 2008. In addition to the basic level membership there are three premium level memberships providing access to a range of services such as Inmail (allowing members to contact people outside of their network), introduction requests and the opportunity to view up to 700 results per search. Premium membership starts at $24.95 a month right up to $499.95 a month.

XING
• XING has over 7.5 million members (up 31% on 2008) and is available in 16 languages.

• Advantages of the XING network are listed as XINGJobs, more than 26 thousand specialized groups and over 90 thousand live networking events a year organized by members for members. The Headquarters are in Hamburg with local offices in Barcelona, Istanbul and Milan. Premium membership, starting from 4.95 Euros a month, provides messaging access to all members, the opportunity to enhance your profile with work samples and references and access to additional company information.

Viadeo
• Viadeo has 8.5 million members (a 50% increase in membership since April 2008). The head office is in France, with subsidiaries in Italy, Spain, UK, Mexico, India and China (through the acquisition of tianji.com in 2007).

• Viadeo positions itself as a global company with a local development strategy. Most of its members are not international business leaders but people who do business within their own city or region with members they know and trust. 90% of their professionals do business locally and 15% of the members class themselves as entrepreneurs. Members have an average of 50 contacts as members put quality, activity and interactivity before volume.

• Viadeo offers dedicated recruiting tools for HR companies and for business and alumni associations it has developed a specific platform called Communities, a private space to communicate and interact with their own members.

• Premium membership, starting from 5.91 Euros a month, provides access to all member profiles, the opportunity to see who has checked your profile, unlimited connection requests and the opportunity to place ads and create events.

Social Networking Developments
• Whilst there still appears to be some uncertainness as how to achieve the desired networking and lead generation results from these networks, a number of new companies have sprung up to provide advice on how to connect, build your profile or generate a group made up of your target audience. One such example is Linked:Group, who have set up and now administrate some of LinkedIn’s largest groups, including Group Linked HR with more than 150,000 members.

• LinkedIn has generated another new phenomenon, the LION’s (LinkedIn Open Networkers) who contrary to the stated intention of the network (where connections should be based on personal recommendations and trust), choose to connect to as many people as possible, even if they are perfect strangers. Some of the biggest “LION’s” now have more than 30,000 connections. A list of LinkedIn’s top 50 “most connected” is available at http://www.toplinked.com/top50.html. For those who want rapid access to a large network, it is possible to pay for access to the 43,000+ open networkers and their connections. (http://www.toplinked.com/). This phenomenon hasn’t appeared in the European networks such as Viadeo, where the emphasis is on building tight, close networks of trusted members.

• Highly-targeted advertising to selected professional profiles has been made possible with the networks offering tailor-made advertising formats.

Marco Corsaro, Managing Director of 77Agency who represent the largest business network in Europe, Viadeo, said “77Agency is proud of having been selected by leading business social media network Viadeo to manage some of their acquisition activities. Viadeo is a great platform and it is great that Linkedin is facing some fierce European and worldwide competition.”

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EventMingle announced today it has added support for Twitter in their popular online social networking platform for the tradeshow industry. Twitter is a free social messaging utility and micro-blogging service that enables users to send and read messages known as Tweets. These Tweets are text based and limited to 140 characters each making it perfect for event participants to comment about the event.

EventMingle is the first event-based social networking community to add support for Twitter. The implementation goals were:

Allow all members of the EventMingle community to monitor all of the tweets being sent about the event, without having to create a Twitter account themselves.
Allow event participants who have Twitter accounts to increase the number of people who are following them by listing their name, company name and title along with their Twitter name in a roster on EventMingle.
All event participants who use Twitter before, during and after the event can have their Tweet added to a message board on EventMingle simply by adding a special hashtag EventMingle creates and promotes on the site. EventMingle monitors the hashtag in real time and updates the message board on EventMingle.
“It’s a clean and elegant implementation by our EventMingle engineering team to support Twitter. During our beta test phase the last 3 months EventMingle participants have been getting into Twitter. They send Tweets during keynote and breakout sessions, they discuss the food and venue and more. One person sent a Tweet inviting people to meet him in the lobby of the bar for a drink and to his surprise over 100 people showed up.” Said Jim Harrer, co-creator of EventMingle.

Mr. Harrer went on to say, “Adding support for Twitter is just another example of our commitment to improve our social networking platform. Our team enjoys pushing the envelope by focusing on adding features EventMingle participants will use which is why we enjoy such a high opt-in rate time and time again.”

EventMingle Twitter support is now out of beta and available in our EventMingle Tradeshow Edition.

About EventMingle

EventMingle is the first Web-based, online social networking technology designed to cater to the tradeshow industry. EventMingle enables attendees, exhibitors and speakers to collaborate online prior, during and after the event. EventMingle improves networking among all participants while helping participants create an “action plan” prior to leaving for the event. EventMingle was launched in December 2005.

EventMingle is a wholly owned subsidiary of Specialty Match Network, a privately owned company based in Bend, Oregon. See http://www.SpecialtyMatch.com For more info about EventMingle, contact Jim Harrer, 949-607-0980. Follow EventMingle on Twitter @EventMingle.

The future of e-commerce is “social commerce” as online shoppers, particularly younger generations, are heavily influenced by social media and Web 2.0 technologies, according to a new “Future of Commerce” report from Hill & Knowlton.
“Online retailing is being profoundly impacted by the integration of social media into what historically has been a transactional experience,” said Joshua Reynolds, worldwide technology practice director, Hill & Knowlton and co-author of the report.
Key factors influencing behavior from the Future of Commerce report include:
Experience counts – 83 percent of respondents said “personal prior experience” has the greatest impact on where they choose to shop online. Trailing behind experience were the following sources: “family member” (48 percent); “friend” (44 percent); and “an online offer or ad from the online store itself” (43 percent).
Social media is “Word of Mouth 2.0” for younger generations – Younger generations are predominantly influenced by social media channels: 27 percent of Gen Y are influenced by an “online community or blog” compared to 19 percent of Gen X and only 9 percent of Baby Boomers.
Traditional media remains universal driver of influence – Traditional, offline media remains the most effective vehicle for reaching mass audiences: 19 percent of all survey respondents were influenced by an “article in a newspaper or magazine” and 12 percent by “radio or broadcast TV program.”
The link between thought leadership and corporate valuation – An analysis of more than 300 traditional news articles covering the industry’s top e-commerce leaders over a year-long duration indicates strong linkage between companies who talk about the industry – and not just themselves – and increased brand valuation. For example, e-commerce companies that discussed macro environmental topics, such as the evolution of e-commerce, scored highest in “brand presence,” perhaps an indicator of the positive impact of establishing a position and maintaining a strong voice in a changing market.
“The most effective way to reach consumers online is with highly-targeted campaigns tailored to engage micro communities that form around common interests,” said Julie Mathis, vice president, consumer technology, Hill & Knowlton. “One-size-fits-all marketing is not a viable communications approach in today’s PR 2.0 world.”
The economy is having a heavy impact on consumer online shopping habits according to the report:
Shopping is down – When asked how consumers have changed their everyday item purchases since the economy has receded, 46 percent of consumers said they shop less overall, whether online or offline. The older the consumer, the less likely they are to shop overall.
Value is key in a down economy – Fifty percent of respondents said they are shopping online more to look for better bargains. And, Gen X and Y are more likely than Baby Boomers to shop online for better bargains in a down economy.
“Our research indicates that online shopping increases in a downturn, providing a potential offset for offline retailers experiencing revenue losses in the downturn,” added Reynolds.
About the Survey
The report was based on a survey of more than 600 U.S. adults conducted by Penn Schoen Berland and Associates and supplemented with research conducted by Hill & Knowlton’s communications experts.
About Hill & Knowlton
Hill & Knowlton is a leading international communications consultancy, providing services to local, multinational and global clients. The firm is headquartered in New York with 80 offices in 43 countries, as well as an extensive associate network. The agency is part of WPP (Nasdaq: WPPGY), one of the world’s largest communications services groups.