Kribaby

Be Careful Who you Tweet With. What are You Picking up from Your Social Network?

A study published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine says that social networks can play a key role in helping people quit smoking.  Last year the same researchers reported that obesity also spread through social networks from person to person, like a virus.

The latest study showed that a smokers decision to quit was highly related to their social networks - including online social networks.

"a person's decision to kick the habit is strongly affected by whether other people in their social network quit -- even people they do not know. And, surprisingly, entire networks of smokers appear to quit virtually simultaneously."

The level of influence that our social networks have over us is possibly more than we had thought, especially online social networks.  The power to harness the potential of social networks for positive social change is incredible. 

An example of a company who is leveraging the power of virtual social networks is Nike through their running trackers.  Research shows that exercising with a partner increases your chances to stick with it, and the Nike running system lets you virtually race and track your progress against other people.  I haven't seen any stats on it yet, but I'd bet that the Nike Running participants are getting more exercise than they would if they ran in isolation.

The research referenced above shows that a social network can have a positive (quit smoking) or negative (gain weight) impact. 

Who is in your social network, and what are you picking up from them?

The 30 second spot is dead? Not according to the Television Bureau of Advertising....

Neilson just released a study, sponsored by the Television Bureau of Advertising showing that Television is still influential and important.  And just when we thought it was dead! (note the sarcasm).

Apparently among adults 53% of consumption is TV and 90% reported watching it in the next 24 hours vs 72% for the internet. (On a personal note I just canceled my cable and prefer to watch TV online and movies through Blockbuster).  Apparently time spent on TV is over double that spent on the internet.

So who cares that people are still watching TV???? They are all skipping the commercials (or at least most of them are and they all will be in a few years).  Grasping at straws.... 

Now, this is where it really gets interesting - you ready for this?  They have an answer to cynics like me.

TV had the most persuasive advertising (69.9%) and internet had the lowest (5.1%).  Furthermore, respondents said that brand and product awareness were most effective on TV (55%), with internet the second highest at 18.7%.

So, lets address these one at a time.  First, TV has the most effective advertising.  Of Course it does!!?!?!?!  Marketers have years, and years and years of experience with TV - it is one of the oldest forms of advertising.  Many, many years and many many millions of dollars have been spent perfecting the 30 second spot (and now the 15 second spot) and analyzing results to death perfecting both the best ways to run TV ads and the best ways to measure results.  The internet is new.  It takes time to learn the best ways to both use and leverage a medium and to decide the best ways to measure results.

Second the brand and product awareness are better on TV .  First, this was consumer reported - they asked respondents where they learned about products and brands. 

Brand and product awareness was also dominated by the tube, with 55% of respondents saying they were more likely to learn about products and brands they might like to try and buy on TV, trailed by the internet at 18.7%, magazines at 14.6%, newspapers at 7.1% and radio coming in last at 4.5%. - Ad Age

People are used to TV ads - we've been shoving them down their throats since most of them were born.  Of course it is the first place they think of when asked this type of question!  Furthermore, on the internet, "advertising" (meaning shoving banner ads at people) isn't the most effective way to communicate with consumers.  The measures are all wrong!!!!!!!!!

Its interesting that the Television Bureau of Advertising is publishing studies like this.  Focusing on the wrong measures, trying to convince the world that their sinking ship is not in-fact sinking.

I suspect that the only people persuaded by these stories are those who are on the ship and rather than jumping off, would rather believe that the ship could not possibly be sinking.