A fact that will always reign true is that good marketing relies on the targeting of the right demographic. Sure, there are hundreds of other factors involved, but demographics are quite high on the list. With social media marketing being such a huge commodity today, Pew Internet, a company that conducts extensive internet market research projects, could not have chosen a better subject for their most recent report. The report, entitled, “Photos and Videos as Social Currency Online” provided insight past the common stereotypes of social networking sites, and showed just who was really using each network. The main focus of the study was to show what and how people were sharing photos and videos on social networks, but it was the actual demographic information that struck me as more important.

For Facebook, the report shows that 66% of all internet users admitted to using Facebook, out of a study of 1,005 people. 63% of men surveyed said they were Facebook users, and 70% of women surveyed said the same. For age groups, the highest percentage was 18-29 years old, at 83%. However, an interesting statistic is that 56% percent of respondents from ages 50-64 reported using Facebook on a regular basis.

Facebook showed the highest percentage of total internet users, with LinkedIn and Twitter trailing far behind it. LinkedIn had a user percentage of only 20%, while Twitter had even less with 16%. As could have been expected, 58% of LinkedIn users were those with incomes of $50,000-$75,000, meaning that LinkedIn remains the social network of the business world.

For Twitter user demographics, the most popular age group was just what I had expected it to be, and that is the age group from 18-29 with 27%. Compared to Facebook the number is quite low, which tells us that Facebook still stands tall in the realm of social media networks.

The majority of the study goes into detail on the impact of photo and video sharing on social networks. Since it is the main focus, here is an overview of their more important findings about social visual content sharing;

46% of internet users post original photos and videos online they have created themselves and 41% curate photos and videos they find elsewhere on the internet and post on image-sharing sites. Women are more likely than men to use Pinterest, while Instagram and Tumblr attract equal shares of men and women.

The study covered two of the more important subjects in today’s social media marketing world. The internet is being converted into one huge visual, with images and videos being the most popular forms of content out there right now. Also, it seems that Facebook is still the more popular choice of social network for internet users. It has been a fan favorite for a while and, despite some pretty close calls with Twitter, Facebook is still pretty much king. The numbers are constantly fluctuating, so it is sometimes hard to keep track, but for now, Pew Internet has provided us with a good idea of how market demographics are looking.

Mobile advertisers are going crazy over the iPhone 5 right now. It is completely understandable too, as this new phone offers many things that we have never seen in a smartphone before. However, everyone knows that marketers have long preferred advertising with Android, simply due to its higher popularity with smartphone users. So, I am interested to see what impact the new device release from Apple will have on Android’s overall popularity and in effect its advertising value. The new iPhone 5 is a huge competitor with any and all devices that run Android operating systems, and most predictions are optimistic about consumers loving the new device.

It has already been predicted by Bloomberg, reported by the Washington Post, that Apple will sell 48.2 million iPhone 5 devices by December of this year, accounting for the upcoming holiday season. With that many devices being sold in such a short amount of time, you would think it would give Google something to worry about. If Android were to lose popularity with consumers, it would consequently lose popularity with marketers, therefor putting Google’s Android in a pretty rough spot. There are predictions that are expecting just that occurrence, but there is one particular reporting by ZD Net, a digital marketing news website, that makes me believe otherwise.

“It’s finally here. An iPhone with 4G LTE. Great new video and still photo features. Turn-by-turn directions. Bigger and thinner. Better performance. And the corners are still round (take that, Samsung!). All of which amounts to a big “meh” for the legions of Android superphone users and even for those who have opted for inexpensive Android devices.”

Basically ZD Net writer, Christopher Dawson, is saying that Android users are not impressed. Of course, the iPhone 5 is an impressive piece of machinery, but many Android users are saying that they will remain loyal to their favorite operating system. However, Apple has delivered another huge, possibly threatening blow to Android’s success.

One thing that might give Google pause? The iPhone 4 is now free with a contract, meaning that Android OEMs will need to work harder for the low end of the market. However, there are plenty of great free Android phones, too.

Dawson is clearly in favor of Android winning this fight, and there is good chance that it will come out slightly battered but still on top. For now, Google is relieved at the responses of Android users to the new iPhone. Android users will continue to love the operating system they have grown so accustomed to. It usually takes more than a flashy new device to win over consumers, especially in huge numbers. However, it would be unwise to think that Apple’s new device will have absolutely no impact on Android’s popularity or marketing success. With such an innovative new smartphone available, Apple will definitely be gaining a bit more popularity from smartphone using consumers, and many advertisers may just find the break they need with the iPhone 5.

As some of you may or may not have noticed, I have not written on here for a couple of weeks now. Call it writer’s block or actually taking to heart some comments that were made about me and my network (Affiliate Venture Group) and actually giving a shit about what some faceless people had to say.

Then I got to thinking that they are going to say and do what they want to regardless – so pardon my language, why the fuck should I care about what they have to say? They absolutely add zero intrinsic value to who I am as an individual so why even bother.

That being said – I do want to give a few shout-outs to a few individuals who have managed to keep me on an even keel through this, let’s call it “momentary ordeal” and had my and AVG’s back through it all.

1) First is Chris Kautz (https://www.facebook.com/chris.kautzscanavy ), my right hand man at AVG – aka The Affiliate Slayer. He is the one that keeps the wheels turning, the budgets flowing and definitely keeps me on the straight and narrow. He and I go back to 2004 and work quite nicely together. While I am busy being the front for AVG (good or bad) – he is definitely about the cough cough….back end.

2) Next is Rheya Sahni (https://www.facebook.com/rheya.sahni.3 ), without her – AVG would not be able to bring you the whole slew of offers we have but more importantly, she is the intake to all my venting – and believe you me, I vent a lot. It was her specifically that got me through the mess we had with that daily deal site owned by an unnamed newspaper/TV station based out or Northern Va. ;-). Being a few thousand miles away, she still manages to keep me focused. Unfortunately for me and probably fortunately for her – she is getting married in a few months so no more venting for me. If you all are reading this – do take the time to congratulate her, she deserves all the happiness she gets.

Some call the added ridicule a sign of success and while I agree with that to a certain extent, I got to thinking what are some common elements and traits that all successful people share and here are my top three I came up with:

1) Willingness to fail – all successful individuals have gotten over a crucial hurdle – they are not afraid to fail. No proven successful person is sitting there saying “what if?” – they are out venturing and testing. Zig Ziglar says it best – “Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street”.

2) Opinionated – do you know of a single individual who is successful who is not opinionated? They have to be willing to take a stance and not give in to what their peers may have to say.

3) Passionate – you have to be 100% committed to what you do with a level of enthusiasm and energy that rubs off on others. My favorite quote as it comes to passion is by one Howard Thurman, a great author and philosopher, “Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.”

What do you think are the common traits of a successful individual? Talk about it below.

In closing – while we all like and live for approval of others, the questions to ask yourself is, do they truly define who you are as a person? You know what’s right and wrong, we all live by a set of values – not values imposed from others, but values which come from within and your upbringing. If we can focus on these core values and not by the changing opinions and value systems of others, we will live a more complete and purposeful life.

“Living well is the best revenge.”
(George Herbert)

There are countless businesses and brands out there that are all trying to target their advertising efforts at one demographic in particular; shoppers. However, a large chunk of shopping today does not take place in the stores and boutiques, but rather on the internet and from mobile devices. People have become well accustomed to the practice of handheld shopping, and mobile shopping is becoming increasingly available. The idea of most marketers targeting shoppers is that the best people to aim their efforts at are women, because traditionally and statistically, they have been the ones most interested in shopping. Well, in the case of mobile shopping, there is a new infographic that proves that the age-old traditions of shopping trends are taking a slight turn.

The infographic comes from uSamp, an online market research company, and it shows that for mobile shopping, the bulk of activity has been coming from men instead of women. The numbers included in the graphic come from a survey of 1100 men and women asked about their smartphone shopping habits. An outstanding fact is that of these 1100 men and women, only 34% of the women confessed to making a mobile purchase from their smartphones, while a total of 45% of men confessed to making a mobile purchase at some point. The highest results came when asking the panel of respondents whether they have ever scanned a barcode, with 85% of women and 91% of men confirming the action. Barcode and QR code scans have long been a way to market to shoppers, and apparently even with them, men were the majority. Of the six different categories of question, only one resulted in a higher percentage of results from women, which was the use of mobile coupons. Men seem to be taking advantage of all of the mobile shopping features available in the world much more often than women are.

The fact that men shop on mobile devices more than women is surprising. What is not surprising though is what kind of shopping they are doing. Men showed a higher result in shopping categories such as consumer electronics, entertainment and movie tickets, and most of all digital content. Women, as can be expected, were the majority in health and beauty. Of all the categories though, this is the only one where women had a higher percentage than men. Though the percentages may be close, it seems that men are doing the majority of the handheld shopping.

The majority of the men asked about their mobile shopping habits said that they do most of their shopping at work. It was the same for women, but only 15% of women said they shopped at work as opposed to the 25% of men.

Marketing to mobile shoppers on mobile devices is still a pretty new practice, but many marketers have decided to target their advertising toward women, seeing as they have always been the majority in the shopping community. The results in this infographic clearly prove otherwise, meaning that mobile marketers that are targeting shoppers should consider some more “male-friendly” advertising if they want to reach the mobile shopping community effectively.

With the exponential growth of mobile advertising, its important to ensure that as media buyers, we are diversifying our mobile buys across all facets of mobile media. With the current growth pace of 80%, its even more crucial now to consider mobile advertising as one of your primary sources of ad inventory. In fact, new report by eMarketer estimates that mobile-ad spending reached $1.45 billion in 2011, up from $769.6 million in 2010.

The following are several major mobile publishing outlets that media buyers can take advantage of:

1. Incentived offer walls
a. Mobile offer walls (i.e. Tapjoy) are high volume ways of generating eyeballs to your app or Smartphone optimized campaign. However, please ensure that you are measuring metrics, as the incentivized motivation could lead to much higher churn and uninstall rate of your campaigns

2. Third party app marketplaces
a. Please note that this is relevant to Droid OS only. Since Droid is an open OS, they of course also have to allow for third party marketplaces like Getjar, as an example to openly compete with Google Play

3. Mobile display inventory
a. You can always purchase banner inventory within the device (i.e. Jumptap) as well as in ap display inventory. Charboost is a good example of a company that powers interstial ad inventory between app stages and levels.
b. The only caveat to buying mobile display, is that these platforms typically charge on a CPC, so it will very important as a savvy media buyer to understand your underlying PPI target goal as well as ultimately, your effective cpi target.

These are just a few of the many ways to monetize currently on Smartphones.

I’m certain there will be an influx of new and creative ways to both monetize your apps and campaigns as well as advertise your products in creative and novel fashions. I encourage you to take advantage of mobile media buying if you haven’t already, or are considering and to also ensure again that you are diversifying your buys. Its vital to find your niche in mobile media, in order to secure your spot in this burgeoning market segment.

The results from a study conducted by SMB Group, a marketing insight company, in March 2012 came in today and were reported by eMarketer. The study was conducted in order to see which businesses were using social media marketing efficiently and which were not. The results show that big businesses are doing quite well with marketing on social media platforms, but smaller and medium-sized businesses still struggle with seeing results or integrating social media throughout the business. Small businesses often have a harder time with marketing, especially social media marketing, due to less money for ad spending and less company awareness.

Anyway, the results of the study showed that of the small businesses with between 20 and 99 employees; only 24% effectively used social media platforms to engage with customers or potential customers in a productive way. On top of that, 20% said they were using social media, but as eMarketer describes it, “in an ad hoc, informal way.” For medium businesses, though, social media seemed to be less of an issue. Of those businesses with 100 to 999 employees, 33% said they were seeing success from their social media marketing campaigns. Still though, 19% of medium sized businesses were using social media in an “ad hoc way.”

Small businesses and medium sized businesses must use social media marketing more effectively to stay alive, for in many cases it has become the new word of mouth. Social media is the main technique used in today’s world to communicate with friends and relatives, and being present in the social media world can benefit a small business much more greatly than it could a big business. There are countless ways for these small and medium businesses to start helping themselves with social media, and there are many different networks to choose from.

In the study, the SMB Group found which networks the businesses that saw success in social media marketing were using. Since Facebook is a place where small businesses can raise awareness and advertise for very little money at all, it is no surprise that it tops the list with 26% of small businesses and 38% of medium businesses stating that they do indeed have a company Facebook page. The least used of the small businesses were the Geolocation social media networks, but for medium businesses, the least used were social bookmarking sites.

Basically, the study from the SMB group just gives insight into how small and medium sized businesses are using social media marketing platforms, but looking deeper, it shows that these businesses are neglecting a beneficial tool. With so little small and medium businesses effectively using social media, it brings to question how the others are marketing their businesses. Word of mouth used to be the most important factor for keeping a small business running, but after the recent digitalization of society, social media is the best tool for keeping a company with blood in its veins. In short, more small businesses need to tackle social media soon, or they will notice a significant slipping in business.