Portland Social Media

The Messages Are Still Bad

ClickZ News is reporting on a study conducted by ROI Research for Bluestreak, a marketing services company. ClickZ summarizes the press release, but you can read Bluestreak’s press release in its entirety on their website. The release hammers through some marketing-speak, but the numbers on new technology (channel) adoption were very interesting.

Among the 1,000-member panel, 100 percent of respondents currently use e-mail, and more than half of those respondents have held onto at least one e-mail address for a significant amount of time. Meanwhile 88 percent use text messaging; 71 percent use message boards; 63 percent use blogs; 36 percent use podcasting and 28 percent use RSS. Just over 32 percent of the panel was 35 or older.

To me those numbers seem very high - 36% of the 1,000 “use” podcasting. So, I dug into the press release and read their small print regarding the survey:

This study was conducted among 1,000 consumers from an eRewards’ panel of over 1.5 million households and includes respondents who use email and at least one of the other five emerging technologies (RSS, Text Messaging, Blogs, Message Boards and Podcasting). At 95% confidence interval, a sample size of 996 has a sampling error of 3.1%.

eRewards conducts marketing research; ok, now we have the specifics out of the way. The respondents seem to feel the trade-off between free content and advertising or sponsorship messages is at a happy equilibrium at this moment in time. That is, as long as the messages are relevant and of high quality - i.e. if you’re listening to an automotive podcast you really don’t want to hear a message about the latest advance in toilet cleaning consumables. Interestingly enough, podcasting scored highest in relevant and personalized messages - as opposed to blogs, email, videos, etc.

And a quick note to those thinking of ways to at least breakeven with their social media efforts:

The proliferation of sponsored channels seems to have little to no impact on consumers’ usage (70 percent would keep reading a blog they know is sponsored, 66 percent would keep reading a sponsored message board)

So, fear little when you make an effort to find a relevant and qualified sponsor for you podcast or video podcast.

Technorati Tags: marketing, advertising, survey, RSS, podcasting

happy+middle

happy+middle is a creation from the minds of Anna Johns and Jason Ruby, of the very popular Delta Park Project podcast. The happy+middle video podcast is a side-splitting pop culture sketch comedy featuring Anna Johns, Jason Ruby, Buffie, Ash, Christine, and Ted.

Hey, I like their LOST Fans episode the best; but what do I know? Here’s a hint, join their Entourage and learn more about this fun and original video podcast; created right here in greater Portland.

The Social Media Club

The Social Media Club has established a chapter in Seattle - their first meeting is December 6th. The Social Media Club is an organization bringing together leaders and thought-provoking personalities in the media, business and communications fields; as well as individual media enthusiasts.  Hey guys!  Let’s meet up in Seattle for a drink.

Social Media Club is being organized for the purpose of sharing best practices, establishing ethics and standards, and promoting media literacy around the emerging area of Social Media. This is the beginning of a global conversation about building an organization and a community where the many diverse groups of people who care about social media can come together to discover, connect, share, and learn.

The Portland Social Media Association is now taking the place of the Portland Podcasting Association; which was started in January, 2005 to address the growing interest in podcasting in and around Portland, OR.  The Podcasting group attracted businesses, individuals, newbies and radio professionals during it’s run.  So, thanks to all for being involved and motivated enough to make that experience work.

Portland has an amazing assortment of personalities and home-grown Internet famous citizens, and the community is an excellent place to experiment with a group dedicated to all things Social Media.  We ARE going to meet this month (November), and I’m working with John Hartman (among others) to secure a place for us to meet.

Please feel free to comment below and say hi; leave a link to your online work; or just whisper sweet-nothings into our ears.  Ready, Set, Go!