The power of facebook

Here at eskimosoup we have long understood the power of social media marketing (SMM). With the existence of social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc people are now able to form communities over the Internet and possess the power to influence large organisations, a good example is a u-turn made by British Airways.

A campaign on the social media site Facebook has caused one of the world’s largest airlines to do a partial u-turn over a policy it instigated without prior consultation to its surfing customers.

British Airways has decided to reverse a two-year ban on carrying surfboards and allow surfboards up to 6ft 3in on their flights but surfers say the new limit is not long enough to be of any use as most surfers use boards up to 7ft long.

Over 14,000 joined the campaign on Facebook, called Protest British Airways' Surfboard Ban, surfing websites were also flooded with messages from appalled surfers vowing never to fly BA again, and subsequently BA lifted the ban.

Rival airline Virgin Atlantic capitalised on the increasing publicity created by the social networking sites with a tongue-in-cheek advertisement proclaiming how they flew boards for free, which read 'No Sex Wax please, we're British Airways'. (Sex Wax is a brand of wax rubbed on the board for grip).

This u-turn is one of many, which are being facilitated by the increasing power of social media marketing. More people are joining the social networking sites such as Facebook – who now has over 300m users worldwide - and are finding that they have a powerful collective voice to aid their disagreements.

By Tony Towle.

eskimosoup.

www.eskimosoup.co.uk/facebook

facebook reaches 300m users, are you one of them?

Facebook has announced that it now has 300 million members worldwide and is making money

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, has announced that the social networking site now has more than 300 million users, and is cash-flow positive Photo: AP
Facebook now has more than 300 million users, making it the world's most popular social networking site.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder, announced the news in a blog post, and confirmed that the company was now cash-flow positive, generating revenue independently of third-party investment and funding.

"Facebook now serves 300 million people across the world. It's a large number, but the way we think about this is that we're just getting started on our goal of connecting everyone," wrote Zuckerberg.

"We're also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive sometime in 2010, and I'm pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong, independent service for the long term."

Facebook has enjoyed a rapid period of growth in the last two months, going from 250 million users in July to 300 million in September. The social networking site is still steadily adding users in major markets, such as Britain and the United States, and is also making inroads in to other territories. The recent launch of Facebook Lite, a stripped-down basic version of the site for users with slow internet connections, hopes to boost membership numbers in areas such as India and South America.

Facebook, which launched five years ago, has attracted more than $700 million of investment during that time. In 2007, Microsoft paid $240 million for a 1.6 per cent stake, valuing the social networking site at around $15 billion.
Zuckerberg pledged to continue investing in new systems and technologies to make Facebook perform faster and grow efficiently, and serve users in "increasingly deep and innovative ways".

"We face a lot of fun and important challenges that require rethinking the current systems for enabling information flow across the web," he wrote. "The site we all use every day is built by a relatively small group of the smartest engineers and entrepreneurs.
"In fact, the ratio of Facebook users to Facebook engineers makes it so that every engineer here is responsible for more than one million users. It's hard to have an impact like that anywhere else."

Industry analysts believe the milestone could mark a new push by Facebook to dominate the social-networking space, and rival sites, such as the microblogging service Twitter, could be caught up in its wake.

"If Facebook continues to open up its platform and adopt Twitter's best features, it could spell trouble for the Twitterverse," Ben Parr, associate editor at social media blog Mashable, told the BBC. "The world's largest social network is on the warpath."

original source from telegraph.co.uk

www.eskimosoup.co.uk/facebook

Facebook vs Twitter and the demographics of social networkers

Facebook makes you sharper but Twitter makes you thicker, according to one psychologist who claims the social networking site boosts a part of intelligence that is vital to success in life.

On the flip side, twittering away has the opposite effect. But keeping up to date with Facebook may have the same effect as playing video war games and solving Sudoku, said Dr Tracy Alloway of Scotland's University of Stirling.

It hones the ability to remember information and to use it, known as "working memory". Video games that involved planning and strategy, such as those from the Total War series, might also train working memory, says Dr Alloway in the Daily Telegraph.

Sudoku also stretched the working memory, as did keeping up with friends on Facebook, she said. But text messaging, micro-blogging on Twitter and watching YouTube were likely to weaken "working memory".

"On Twitter you receive an endless stream of information, but it's also very succinct," Dr Alloway said."

You don't have to process that information. Your attention span is being reduced and you're not engaging your brain and improving nerve connections."

However, networking – whether it be via tweets or Facebook – is a skill that can be learned, according to the blog TwiTip (http://www.twitip.com/10-networking-tips-for-tweeters/).

Networking engenders a community spirit – and one that is sorely needed if you spend your days at your keyboard in the privacy of your own home.

In fact, Facebook is our most used communication tool. A report from Nielsen in March this year found that by the end of 2008, social networking had overtaken e-mail in terms of worldwide reach. According to the report, 66.8% of internet users worldwide had accessed social networking or blogging sites, compared with 65.1% for e-mail.

Furthermore, social networks and blogs now account for more than 67% of all online activity. The likes of Facebook and personal blog sites such as Wordpress are growing twice as fast as any of the other four largest sectors (search, portals, PC software and email).

So what are the demographics?

Twitter users are more interested in sex, LinkedIn users watch soap operas and MySpace users don’t exercise, according to one study from Anderson Analytics.

Social network users’ top three interests are music, movies and hanging out with friends, and they use social media most to stay in touch with friends, family and classmates.

Not surprisingly, they do more online than non-users of social media, from watching videos to reading blogs to making purchases.

They are also four times more vocal than non-users when it comes to commenting on discussion boards, posting blog entries and uploading videos.

Nearly one-half of females visited social networking sites in Q2 of 2009, compared with 37.6% of men..

That percentage decreased as users got older, with only 43.1% of those ages 35 to 54 and 18.9% of users ages 55 and older visiting social networks. But what is attractive to advertisers is the huge jump in social network traffic across all age groups in the last 12 months.

Interestingly, an eMarketer report shows that over 50% of users visited social network sites at least once per day. And people are logging into social networks via office computers, home computers and mobile devices, showing how strong the connection to the social networks are.

In the UK alone, one in every six minutes a web user is online, is spent on a social networking site, with Facebook unsurprisingly leading the pack with the highest average time per user.

Users tend to spend a lot of time on social networks. The average social networker goes to social sites five days a week and checks in about four times a day for a total of an hour each day. A super-connected nine per cent stay logged in all day and are "constantly checking out what's new."

Social networkers' feelings about brands online in general are more positive than originally thought with 52% of users befriending or becoming a fan of at least one brand.

for original source click here

www.eskimosoup.co.uk/facebook

Ever seen an eskimo FLY?

All the team here at eskimosoup would like to congratulate their Marketing Consultant, Katie Dawson on being the bravest eskimosouper they've ever seen by completeing her 15,000ft sky dive last weekend.

Katie said about her dare devil antics "I did the sky-dive out of being a little bit crazy in general and also to raise sponsorship money in memory of my friend Matthew James Kamis. I raised over £400 in total which I am happy to say will help the charity C-R-Y purchase a hospital EGC machine. I would like to thank everybody for their kind donations, especially my eskimosoup co-workers who contributed massivley and supported me from the moment I booked the jump to the second I landed safely".

If you dare and are sitting comfortably hit play and enjoy Katie's jump video - but be warned it's not for the faint hearted.

It just goes to show, us eskimosoupers are made of strong stuff and it's now just a question of which team member will top Katie's stunt next...watch this space!

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