All of us who like to check out trends, market research and studies on communication have waited patiently. And finally they’re here – studies on what we really get out of Facebook and other social media.

Like in the recent issue of the Swedish psychology magazine, Modern Psykologi.  This study tells us that Facebook reinforces our identities. Extrovert people with a lot of friends in real life also make friends easily on Facebook. Hardly surprising, but here’s the beauty of it, introvert people also get more friends – despite less activity and fewer status updates. This effect is described as “The rich get richer” and “the poor get richer”. Or in other words, everybody wins.
Does the same go for businesses on Facebook? The study doesn’t say and perhaps we should be careful about jumping to any conclusions. But just like people, businesses have different personalities and B2B is all about maintaining and developing relationships. So this study is at least food for thought. Especially if you belong to a more “introvert” company which really can’t see the need for social media.

You might have seen the movie, the television series or even read or listened to the book? Yet there’s another way to enjoy a real classic. For the first time a complete novel, Around the world in 80 days by Jules Verne, has been published with Ubimark.

Ubimark is 2D code made up of ubilinks that can be printed on paper or an object. Resembling a graphic stamp, the code works like a hyperlink to the web. If you want to find out more about something on a page, take a picture of the ubilink with your cell phone camera. Click! And you immediately access audio, images, films, maps and other things that can enhance your reading experience. All you need is an app that you download for free.

Ubilinks have been around for a while without really breaking through. Well, that may be about to change. Making printed matter interactive certainly presents some interesting possibilities. Particularly today, when everyone takes their cell phone everywhere. When you’re comfortable in your chair reading Around the world in 80 days you can for example quickly find out where Phileas Fogg’s and Passpartou’s adventures take place. Or watch an episode of the film. Without having to tap in long URLs or make complicated searches. And if you get tired of reading, plug in your headphones and listen to the audio version.

In a similar way Ubimark could be used in a corporate presentation or product folder. The printed links can quickly guide prospects to more in-depth information about whatever catches their eye. Without having to wade through through several levels on a website. To see how Ubimark works, click here.

More and more people are turning to social media to find relevant business information. Research studies on how we use social media professionally are now also starting to turn up.

One such study is the 2009 B2B Social Media Benchmarking Study, at business.com. This study was carried out among 2393 North American professionals within B2B. This is to date the largest study of its kind.

Among the participants 69.1 per cent prefer to attend webinars or listen to podcasts. 62.2 per cent visits sites and forums that feature user ratings and reviews for business products. Almost as many, 62.1 per cent, visit company or product profile pages on social media sites.

Many also choose to visit company blogs (55.1 per cent), conduct searches on social media sites (54.5 per cent) and participate in online business communities or forums (51.1 per cent).

Eight out of ten b2b buyers find their suppliers instead of the other way around. This is the conclusion of a 2009 report from MarketingSherpa – an American research firm specializing in finding out what works, and what doesn’t work, in marketing.

Which is exactly why you should ask yourself the following questions: How easy/hard is it for prospects to find my company and my offering? What happens when they google my company name? Or services, products, business areas and key words that I want to be associated with?

But don’t stop there. What other ways are there for prospects – who might never have heard of me – to find out about me? As we continue to develop the way we search for information and form our opinions, social media is becoming increasingly important. In a recent poll 94% of business bloggers reported seeing measurable SEO benefits from blogging.

Which makes sense. An interesting blog increases traffic, which generates a higher search engine ranking. In addition, the content – even if it is niched – is broader than an informative corporate website. A blog features current events and more specialised subjects. The tone of voice, and thereby the language, is freer. All of this makes a blog ideal for long tail searches.

But even more importantly, a blog – and all other social media – enables dialog. Others can comment on your content and link to it. And you can post clever comments in already established and relevant forums creating an interest in your offering. Suddenly there’s a buzz. Word-of-mouth, digital style, makes you more visible and your offer easier for prospects to find. Spread the word

As online marketing rapidly develops, new expressions – acronyms in particular – appear. Some never to be heard again, others are here to stay. These are a few to keep in mind:

SMO = Social Media Optimization

CGM = Consumer Generated Media

SEM = Search Engine Marketing

SEO = Search Engine Optimization

SERP = Search Engine Results Page

CTR = Click Through Rate

PFI = Pay For Inclusion

PPC = Pay Per Click

PR = Page Rank

RT = ReTweet

UV = Unique Visitor

In consumer advertising an attention-grabbing film on YouTube may be enough for a breakthrough. You watch a funny film about say ice cream, and then you buy a tub next time you are out shopping just to try it. If you like the ice cream everything’s OK. If it’s not that good, just go back to your favourite sort next time.

But purchasing decisions within business-to-business are a bit more serious. It can take weeks, months, sometimes years from the point when a buyer checks out the market landscape to the time he or she is ready to sign a contract. Listening to a client’s needs is crucial to success. The better you listen, the better your chance of putting together a winning proposal.

Which brings us to the crux of the matter: Don’t just think about social media as a way to spread your message. Use them to hear what your customers want to buy. Follow the debate in blogs and forums. There you can find out more than your customers will ever tell you in a sales meeting.

Difficult to know where your customers are? Try Google Blog Search, BlogPulse and Twitter Search.

If you then want to take part in the debate – that’s another ball game. Apart from the usual question of resources it can be wise to leave the source of information untouched and make other online investments instead. Why not buy sponsored links for the key words you’ve just found out that your customers use?

Suddenly it’s just there. And it went so fast. A whole new universe. Even if most of us missed the initial Big Bang, none of us can have missed the enormous expansion – an expansion that is still accelerating.

We’re talking, of course, about the new social media universe that’s starting to change, well, just about everything. Six years ago there was no MySpace, YouTube or Facebook. Today they are sought out by 250 million unique visitors every month. More video was uploaded to YouTube in the last two months than if three of the biggest networks in the US had been airing new content 24/7 since 1948.

You can find further examples of how fast this exciting new reality is developing on YouTube (of course) in a short presentation from The Economist together with XPLANE: Did you know. Version 4.

Another thing that’s apparent in this brave new world – apart from the sheer speed – is that when a phenomenon gets big, then it gets BIG. So it’s not so strange that many bloggers, experts and media gurus are trying to grasp, understand and explain what this new reality means – and eventually how it can be mastered.

At the same time as we are rushing into the future, we are inundated with advice and tips on how we can quickly find the best and smartest route forward. Despite the fact we can only guess how the new map really looks.

So it’s quite liberating to find one piece of advice that sticks out when you surf from one social media philosopher to the next: Think long term. Don’t be a speed freak. Take your time to establish and develop a relationship with customers and users that is relevant and that you can all live with long into the future. Remember, this is only the beginning.

PS This just in. Facebook alone has just reached 350 million users …

A friend sent me this link the other day. It’s a simple little website for a simple little idea:
The Fun Theory.

The theory is this: Changing people’s behaviour is easy if you make it fun.

From that small seed, they’ve developed several short films showing people enjoying themselves while making a small difference to the world. We’ve got musical stairs, the world’s deepest litterbin and an arcade machine that recycles at the same time. Take a look and enjoy.

And you probably won’t see it immediately but you’ll eventually notice a logo on the right hand side and in the last seconds of each film. This site is very discreetly brought to us by Volkswagen (and their ad agency DDB Stockholm). There is certainly no heavy sell going on here – you have to click on the logo before you’ll even see a car – VW are just choosing to associate their brand with entertaining content. Content that also has a social point. Perhaps content that’s a little bit like … oh I don’t know … a sporty, environmentally sexy Golf?

Well, there’s no harm in that. Just like the way the site makes use of its visitors and their willing participation. Shortly there will be new content as visitors start putting forward their own ideas. And in the meantime everyone (me included) is spreading the word, sending links to friends or putting the films on YouTube where they are creating a real buzz with millions of viewings.

Why are we doing VW’s job for them? Because it’s fun :)