Janet Lee Johnson | The Art of Marketing

I have had a morning full of meetings, and (in a dangerous move) am drinking my second cup of coffee this morning. I am way early (almost an hour) for a meeting with my friend Katherine, at Albina Press in Portland. I thought I’d get here early and take advantage of their free wifi and work.

Once comfortably installed at a table, I rocketed through email, answered a couple of direct messages (DM) on Twitter, retweeted (RT) one, and posted this:

Not one minute later, my phone rings, and it’s Katherine. “We are meeting at 10:30, aren’t we?” She saw my Tweet and hoped she wasn’t late.

Talk about immediacy of conversations…

I have been doing some work for Smub, a productivity tool for those of us who like to share links with others… and in doing so, have been researching the demographics of Twitter and Facebook. I have been astounded as to how quickly the demographics of both are changing, and depending on where you sit, they’re probably becoming more valuable for your business.

Twitter Demographics:

According to HitWise in August of 2008, men made up 63% of Twitterers, and in January 2009, according to QuantCast, they make up 47% of Twitterers. Hitwise said Twitter’s largest age demographic in August of 2008 was 35-to-44-year-olds; who made up 25.9% of its users. Today, (again, according to QuantCast) 18-34 year olds make up 49% of its users, the largest age demographic, but the 35-44 year olds now make up 30% of its users, so their age group is still growing.

Facebook Demographics:

Here’s where it’s really changing. I found a series of studies by iStrategyLabs where they analyzed Facebook’s database, and there have been profound changes in older people joining Facebook.

Some highlights from this month’s study:

• The 35-54 year old demo is growing fastest, with a 276.4% growth rate in over the approximate 6 months since they last produced their report
• The 55+ demo is not far behind with a 194.3% growth rate
• The 25-34 year population on Facebook is doubling every 6 months
• There are more females (55.7%) than males (42.2%) on Facebook - 2.2% are of unknown gender
• The largest demographic concentration remains the college crowd of 18-24 year olds (40.8%) which is down from (53.8%) six months ago

So for those who think these social media outlets are only for the young, statistics will tell you differently. The demographics of being ’social’ online are changing quickly.

In an article on Media Post this morning, Hitwise said the market share of traffic to Twitter surpassed that of social news site Digg last week for the first time. Interestingly, in going to the Hitwise site, there is no news release there of the findings.

Some interesting stats about Twitter users from Hitwise:

• Internet users ages 25 to 34 now accounts for 45% of Twitter traffic compared to 12% a year ago
• Between 5,000 and 10,000 new accounts are opened every day on Twitter - with a 752.9% y/y growth (Source: Compete.com)
• Digg relies heavily on traffic from Google (38.8%), Twitter receives a higher share of visitors from social networks, mostly due to applications that feature the service.
• Twitter use is likely understated in the study, because mobile usage was not counted

I’m pretty sure we’re going to see an even greater surge in traffic for Twitter this week because of the Obama Inauguration - in which I participated heavily. Last week’s boost in traffic was likely due to the US Airways jet “landing” in the Hudson River, according to Media Post.

Forget Google Analytics. Forget landing pages. Forget a fancy email system. Sorry all my agency friends - this post is all about guerrilla marketing!

For those of us who are lucky to have a blog, use our own email accounts, and Tweet or use Facebook for fun or business, there are some pretty cool, free tools to test messaging and user engagement for our products and services.

(Never has it been more important to break through the noise online with your messages, and never has it been more important to keep marketing during an economic downturn.)

Say you want to test messaging into several different market segments. You can do so quickly with some pretty simple tools.

Hypothetical Scenario: Reaching Moms during the Holidays:

You want to reach moms during this busy holiday season with a special offer of some lovely bath products just for them.

You recognize the differences in the motivations and life patterns among moms:

• some prefer to stay at home
• some work outside the home
• all work inside the home - some for profit, some volunteer, some run the family

Subtle differences in anyone’s lifestyle, attitude and preferences are best served with subtly different messages.

Consider these (unscientific, on the fly, illustrative) examples:

Message 1: Stay at home mom - “Escape inside your own home - even for 30 minutes - and refresh your attitude! http://smub.it/jlj/escape” 104 characters - Tweet worthy! (Twitter limits you to 140 characters)

Message 2: Stay at home mom volunteer - “You give so much to everyone else - take just 30 minutes - and be good to yourself… http://smub.it/jlj/ahhh” 103 characters - Another winner for Twitter!

Message 3: Mom working outside the home - “Relax in the comfort of your own home - take just 30 minutes - and find peace. http://smub.it/jlj/peace” 103 characters - yes!

So Tweet these (assuming you’re following your market - moms who Tweet) and you can see how many times people follow your links using Smub, a tool to personalize and share links. (disclaimer: Smub is a client of mine, and there are other URL shortening tools that allow you to track links, but not personalize them.)

Your personal, secure MySmubs page will show you the number of “hits” you get from people who follow your Smubs (see the right-most column, below):

As those of you with REALLY good eyesight might see, I can easily track the number of click-thrus on any Smub. 

Want to test these messages in your blog, or send these messages in an email, or post them on your Facebook page (or your mom group’s Facebook page?) Go ahead. You can see the results immediately, and watch them over time.

The messages that are resonating (or interesting or…) are going to show up quickly in clicks.

So go ahead… take this time to test some messaging. Spread the word simply, and see the results. Without help from a web programmer, an agency, your IT guy or anyone else, for that matter.

Your guerrilla (free) marketing will be more effective as a result.

This morning I got an email from HighBeam Research letting me know my year-long subscription was almost up. In the note, it politely let me know exactly what would happen if I took no action:

I had found it to be a good research tool especially for clients in the health or biotech space, as it had catalogued many esoteric medical journals, etc. But not for $299.95. I decided to cancel my subscription. The friendly email reminder told me exactly how to do so, by clicking the customer service link in my account.

Imagine my surprise when I was made a special offer for those about to cancel:

I wasn’t surprised to see the special offer, that made sense. But see that last sentence there?

“…your annual membership will automatically return to the regular rate of $199.95 a year after one year.”

Having just been told my credit card would be automatically charged $299.95 for my next year, you can bet my next action was to say, “No thanks. Cancel my membership.”

Have I mentioned that nowhere on the Customer Service page was there an option to either speak with or chat with a representative?  (I could submit a form that would be answered within one business day. Never mind.)

I was a little nervous that canceling my membership early would shut down my account today (rather than waiting until Jan. 3) but was so irritated by their marketing and pricing inconsistencies that I took the chance. It would have been nice for them to spell that out on the cancellation page.

I was happy to find that I still had use of my subscription and a link on the cancellation confirmation page to a “billing questions” email form. So I sent them just a little feedback there… And Twittered about it, and am now blogging about it. I wonder which of my rants (if any) will get a response?

To try to milk people with accounts set up to auto-renew is appalling. I know many companies bank on auto-renew as their main source of recurring revenue… (how many of us ignore these messages/forget to call to cancel, etc.)

But to have your marketing be so out of touch with your billing policies (perhaps they submit forms to each other as feedback) in this day and age, is simply absurd.

I hear Google Book Search is now indexing magazine content. Undoubtedly, even the esoteric medical journals.

I think I’ll be just fine or now without HighBeam Research.