Comments on: Social Media: Bull Market on Users, Bear Market on Revenue

By: Vaibhav Domkundwar - ReadyContacts.com

Vaibhav Domkundwar - ReadyContacts.com — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:24:19 +0000

Craig, I am glad you said it! With all the hype around Social Media and B2B Marketers can leverage it, its still incredibly difficult to believe/prove how it translates into revenue. Considering that social media marketing is more than a full time job, its ROI is questionable for B2B lead generation. I can totally buy it that it can drive exposure, which is good, but its far from directly and sustainably affecting B2B revenue pipelines. If you see the recent Marketing Sherpa research report, its loud and clear.

Lets hope we start to see a lot more realistic and value-centric advice and tips on how to leverage social media for B2B and how it fits in the overall scheme of things.

By: Amy Hawthorne

Amy Hawthorne — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:03:44 +0000

Here’s some other interesting info -

“the median age of a typical Twitter user is 31, substantially older than the median age of MySpace (27) or Facebook (26) and closer to the professional network LinkedIn (40)”

Got to say, I’m a little surprised at the median age for Twitter users…

if you want to read more - http://www.minonline.com/news/9962.html

By: Ray Jones

Ray Jones — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 06:44:48 +0000

My dad attended church, not because he was religious but because he liked to socialize and he was a salesman and needed to meet professionals in his community. He belonged to the Rotary club for the same reasons.

These traditional types of networking organizations have a lot of upside: they provide service to the community, they are focused (Rotary, for example, had dinners with speakers on different topics), and they provide face-to-face interactions. And there are literally hundreds or maybe even thousands of other social-networking organizations that people with a specific interest belong to, from toast masters, to martial arts, hiking clubs, etc.

Blogging seems to supply some of the same upside. I’m in marketing, so I follow sales and marketing blogs and it feels a bit like a community. I see a lot of the same people commenting and referring to each other’s blogs. There is focused thought and discussion and some community service in the sense that most bloggers I follow promote causes they believe in.

Twitter seems like something else entirely. At worst it’s an interactive National Enquirer: “I did every tip on his [Guy Kawasaki's] list, and the rest is history. Now I have more than 1,000 followers”. At best, it’s a good way to stay in touch with your friends and a way to promote stuff, like your friends’ websites. On the other hand, as you point out — http://ping.fm/QLhdS — it’s unclear how Twitter will make money and it doesn’t work for B2B lead generation.

OK, I’m going to slink off now and see if I can make sense of how to use my new Twitter account.

By: Smarsh

Smarsh — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 05:47:52 +0000

I’m 26.
I have a @yahoo email account.
I use it as a dumpster.

As an e-mail option it certainly isn’t “it” but it opens the door to Yahoo! Fantasy Sports - one are where they still dominate (as validated by Google http://www.google.com/search?q=fantasy+sports&sa=Google+Search&cat=&hl=en).