Posts tagged as: Facebook
The Next Generation of Online Couponing
Saving money is all the craze these days. Sites like Soap.com offer manufacturer’s coupons with a click of a check box. Reality shows like Extreme Couponing on TLC idolize the new hobby. Email specials like GroupOn and LivingSocial continue to grow in popularity.
Gen X and the Millennials are officially smitten. So what’s the latest? Wrapp wants you to give low-value gift certificates for free as birthday presents. It’s no joke. The European-based coupon king is coming to America and bringing the social side of saving money.
Rather than another “Happy Birthday!! xoxo,” the Swedish company wants you to post a $5 gift card to H&M, Gap, Sephora or 7 other brick-and-mortar retailers… so long as your social media birthday buddy meets certain demographic criteria.
The idea? Brands offer $2-$5 gift certificates online to gain exposure. You endorse the brand by posting it on a friend’s wall. Your friend gets a barcode sent directly to a smart phone, ventures out of the virtual world into the store, and spends far more than the original value based on your advice. And the brands only pay Wrapp when the gift certificate is redeemed. It’s a win-win.
Wrapp forgoes Facebook ad costs by convincing users to post for free. A few thousand posts later, and brands show up in newsfeeds across the country without so much as a cent going to Zuckerburg.
A Mobile Future: Mobile Consumers
Now that we know the fate of the PC and we’re up to date on the platform war, let’s get to know those millions of mobile users.
Mobile users are content consumers. In fact, consumption in many categories nearly doubled between 2010 and 2011 including: health information, reference and entertainment. This growth can be attributed to not only overall growth in mobile users, but also increased data speeds, ubiquitous connectivity, mobile formatted content and the proliferation of social integration.
Mobile users are gamers and the demographic is not just young males. In fact, women over 30 are the most avid players of mobile games. A recent report shows that 64% of users who downloaded an app in the past 30 days downloaded a game. Games are the most popular app category particularly amongst paid apps with 93% of app downloaders willing to pay for a game.
Listening to music on mobile devices is huge. Currently, 70% of Pandora’s traffic is from mobile devices. Along with Spotify, iHeartRadio, Last.fm, Rhapsody and many others, music apps offer the mobile consumer free, ad-supported or paid access to a nearly infinite library of music. Integration of mobile devices in home theater electronics and vehicle stereos, coupled with pervasive internet connections has turned the mobile device into the consumer’s music headquarters.
Certainly mobile devices are used for socializing. Facebook (33%) and Twitter (55%) are experiencing a large increase in percentage of traffic from mobile devices and the numbers are expected to continue growing. Many social networking platforms either originated as an app or exist only as an app. Location-based apps like Foursquare prominently feature social sharing features. Even photo-sharing apps such as Instagram have millions of users.
A huge differentiator in the mobile versus desktop consumer market is the concept of apps. Desktop users purchase a limited number of software titles and are often very deliberate with these often expensive purchases.
Meanwhile, the now $100 billion mobile app market is growing at nearly 100% per year. On average, mobile consumers have 33 apps on their phones. The relatively low cost of apps and the ease of purchase, download and installation has turned buying “software” into a cheap and trivial task.
The miniscule cost and easy adoption of apps has resulted in a volatile market. New or popular apps can see astronomical growth. Consider these stats:
- AOL took 9 years to reach one million users
- Facebook took 9 months
- Mobile app Draw Something took only 9 days!
Of course, with finite time to spend on their devices, mobile consumers can be quick to abandon apps. Popularity may be fleeting. As Draw Something rapidly gains users, the popular Words With Friends app has seen a steady decline in usage.
Shopping and spending using mobile devices is becoming mainstream. Nearly 38% of mobile consumers have used a smartphone to make a purchase. This was reflected on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year, as 14% of web traffic was from mobile devices that day in 2011.
Mobile payments are also growing via services like PayPal and Square. Paid media content such as downloaded music, books, movies, magazines and TV shows has become big business, particularly amongst tablet users.
The mobile consumer behaves inherently different than a desktop user. Mobile devices make information, games, music, socializing, downloading and shopping immediately available. This changing behavior will only continue to grow. Internet users will double in the next 3 years and most will be using a mobile device.
Consumers are different in the Mobile Future.
Additional References:
State of Media: Consumer Usage Report
Play Before Work: Games Most Popular Mobile App Category in US
Mobile made up 14pc of Black Friday Web traffic
Mobile Shopping Goes Mainstream
The Future of Mobile
Social Trend Watching: Shifting from Facebook to Twitter
Are people really spending as much time on Facebook as we think?
For some time now, I’ve noticed a subtle but steady shift in the behavior of my social circle, as they spend increasingly less time on Facebook and more time on other social networks – most significantly, Twitter. Such a claim may seem trivial when you compare the two: In 2011 Facebook attained 800 million users with earnings of $4.27 billion while Twitter had 200 million users with earnings of $139.5 million. Even so, I’m not the only one who’s wondering if things are actually what they seem: Facebook vs. Twitter
While Facebook’s numbers still reflect positive growth, a closer look reveals that most of that growth, 60 percent yearly, comes from untapped global markets. Asia-Pacific and Latin America are two such markets with huge populations experiencing Facebook for the very first time. However growth is waning in western markets – with Europe at 35 percent and North America at only 25 percent. This pattern of growth is most certainly why Facebook keeps expanding in emerging markets as they continue to saturate seasoned ones.
So why do audiences grow so rapidly in emerging markets? Possibly because of a kind of “Facebook phenomenon,” in which a person’s highest point of interest is when they first join and are still making fresh connections. Then as time passes, some experience Facebook fatigue. As a user’s network expands and becomes more cluttered with irrelevant content, their social experience becomes more predictable. One way Facebook is trying to combat this issue is Timeline. While it’s still too soon to tell, it will be interesting to see if Timeline is able to re-ignite and prolong Facebook’s initial excitement of discovery for veteran Facebook users.
So who is the primary beneficiary of this subtle shift that is underway? Many would say Twitter. Even though the two social networks are seen quite differently (Facebook more as identity management and Twitter as news with possibility), people are making a choice between the two. This tweet captures it nicely: “Facebook is for friends who are now strangers; Twitter is for strangers who should be your friends.”
Perhaps Twitter’s biggest advantage is not its ability to constantly evolve, but rather that its evolution comes from users not just updates. With its organic user behavior, unpredictable nature and pure outpouring of ideas and opinions, Twitter is able to do what Facebook has not: consistently facilitate fresh experiences.
