Social Media and SMBs: Conflicting Data

Last week I took some heat from several people in response to a press release put out about a SMB survey done through MerchantCircle. The release showed a large percentage of survey respondents adopting social media for marketing purposes.

The release and the related post were clear that the survey population was ahead of the curve (“active” MerchantCircle users) and these respondents were not the typical SMBs — though in a way there’s no “typical” SMB. What we said was they were potentially representative of the future and where the market may be headed:

This group of respondents in my view represent a leading indicator of where a big chunk of the SMB market may be headed. These are scrappy SMBs, trying to find ways to promote themselves on a shoestring (44% spend less than $1K annually on marketing).

People who didn’t read the release or the remarks on the post carefully accused the survey of being biased or having an “agenda.”

In an effort to promote their upcoming conference, the Kelsey Group released some of its own data from its regular survey of SMBs (n=302). The headline says “9% of SMBs Currently Use Twitter to Market Their Businesses.” The release goes on to say:

32 percent of SMBs indicated they plan to include social media in their marketing mix in the next 12 months by using a page on a social site such as Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace.

Here’s what the earlier Citibank (n=500) telephone SMB survey said:

76 percent have not found social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to be helpful in generating business leads or for expanding their business during the last year

This means by implication that 24% said they had used social media sites to market themselves or as a source of leads.

Here are the Opus/MerchantCircle data:

Compare the numbers:

• Opus/MerchantCircle (active SMBs): 46% say they have a Twitter account, with 32% saying they have one for their business
• Citibank: 24% (by negative inference) have used social networks to promote their business
• Kelsey: 9% have used Twitter, with 32% saying they’re going use social media in the future

So who’s “right”?

Every SMB survey is a snapshot and cannot be generalized to the market as a whole. There is no “representative” SMB survey sample. I will acknowledge that the Citi and Kelsey numbers are probably closer to the broader market in terms of social media penetration. Yet the Opus/MerchantCircle numbers (n=2,403) show that among somewhat savvier and more active SMBs, a large number are already using social media to promote themselves.

If generalized to the broader market, however, the way in which the Citibank or Kelsey data may distract or confuse is in contributing to the perception that SMBs aren’t using social media or aren’t really interested (although the Kelsey data indicate future interest). However, there are already millions of SMBs on Facebook and to a somewhat lesser extent on Twitter. Again, there is no unified SMB “market.” There are market segments: headcount, industry, revenues, years in business. Each segment will share features with the others but be distinct in the way that auto dealers or realtors are distinct from lawyers and general contractors.

All of these surveys, including ours, are just data points for the broader trends discussion.

Is This MSFT Mobile Ad Effective?

The following is a Microsoft add that’s intended to promote the Windows (apps) Marketplace (via IntoMobile). The ad uses humor to poke fun at silly apps, suggesting that those in the Windows Markeplace aren’t silly.

Do you think it’s effective?

Is the objective to alert people to the fact of Windows Marketplace’s existence, to make fun of the iPhone, both? And who is the target audience: existing Windows Mobile users, those planning to upgrade to a smartphone?

I think the add is mildly amusing but I don’t find it effective.

New Over at Internet2Go . . .

Here are some recent posts at Internet2Go:

• Nook: ‘Kindle Killers’ Start to Arrive
• TheStreet: The GPhone Cometh?
• New Apps Add Engaging “Gaming” Element to kgb Answers Service
• Apple Earnings Call: iPhone Comments
• Foursquare Gaining, Loopt Mix Dating Site
• Survey: Mobile Site Speed, Performance Affect Brand Perception
• Google Gives Away WiFi on Virgin America
• Mobile Display to Yield to Search? Guess Again
• Verizon’s Moto ‘Droid’ an iPhone Killer? iDon’t Think So

Facebook and Bing: What’s Up?

My long-standing belief is that there’s a major opportunity for both Facebook and Microsoft in making Web search better on FB. Site search has recently gotten better on the social network but many people don’t even realize that Facebook offers Web search. I do notice that FB seems to be “federating” search results on a single page. For example, here’s the experience for the query sushi, san francisco” (my alternative to pizza):

The three results at the bottom are Web results. You can click through to “all Web results”:

At the top of the page above is “Find more Web results on Bing.com,” which then leads to this:

I suppose that the agreement between Microsoft and Facebook, pursuant to Redmond’s investment, probably gives Facebook total control over the “look and feel” of the presentation of results. That’s also true of the Yahoo!-Microsoft deal so it would make sense. Yet the Bing results are much more compelling than the FB presentation of them. If FB could integrate some of the Bing experience into its own look and feel it would probably see search volumes (and paid clicks) go up. Promoting the fact of Web search on FB wouldn’t hurt either. My guess, however, is that there’s some ambivalence at FB about promoting Bing on the site.

What about you? What might cause you to start using FB for Web search (if anything)?

RedBeacon Formally Launches in SF Bay

RedBeacon, “OpenTable for local services,” which won the TechCrunch50 top prize, has formally launched in the SF Bay Area.

Check out the video in the lower right of the homepage.

I’ve got to get a gate built (for real) so I’m going to try it out and see what happens. I’ll report back on my experience.

RetailMeNot-Harris Coupon Data

Last month RetailMeNot released the results of a coupon-related survey conducted by Harris Interactive (n=”2,175 adults ages 18+, 1,880 whom are online shoppers”). Here are some of the findings (going to demographics and consumer attitudes):

• To save money, 62% of online adults look for coupons for online stores, and 12% never make a purchase without checking an online coupon website first, a notable jump from 8% last year.
• The largest age group to use coupon websites is 35-44, with 41% of these online adults who use tools or websites to find good deals when shopping online, including 47% of these women and 34% of these men, using coupon websites
• 29% of college graduates use coupon websites to find good deals, compared to 24% of those with some college and 20% of those with an education level of high school or less; in 2008, these numbers were 23%, 20% and 20% respectively
• 27% of online adults that work full time or are self-employed use coupon websites (up from 22%); 22% of online adults that are unemployed use coupon websites (up from 18%); 25% of students use coupon websites (up from 23%); 18% of retired online adults use coupon websites (up from 14%)
• 30% of online adults will not make a purchase at an online store if they can’t find a coupon for that store, up from 27% in 2008
• 22% of online adults will go to a different store to make that purchase, up from 20% in 2008, while 8% will wait until a coupon is available to make the purchase (same in 2008)

Lots of data that basically say consumers want to save money and are interested in coupons. There’s no question about consumer interest. The questions and issues now surround coupon inventory and availability, gaining small business participation and consumer distribution (including mobile). Local coupons are also harder to do well than online for several reasons.

Recently Ask and TheFind launched coupon and deals-related initiatives.

Celebrity Local Guides on CityVoter

CityVoter has an interesting, promotional tie-in with NBC’s Biggest Loser reality TV show. Here’s how CEO Josh Walker describes it:

For the past few weeks on CityVoter.com, we’ve been profiling guides to healthy living created by the contestants of NBC’s Biggest Loser. After they’ve been voted off the show, they come to CityVoter.com and share their secrets to where they go in their hometowns to stay focused on their fitness goals.

Here’s a list of all the guides so far:

CityVoter’s focus on voting, top lists and favorites is a useful starting point in local that complements and represents an alternative to sifting through increasing volumes of reviews.

Is the Yahoo! Campaign Working?

I’ve been seeing the “It’s Y!ou” Yahoo! brand campaign everywhere, in the real world and online. Certainly it will help raise awareness of Yahoo! but do you think it’s doing anything concrete for the company?

I’m curious . . .What do you think?

ShopCity Staunchly Focused on Mom & Pops

A new site or network of sites, ShopCity, aims to be a comprehensive platform for consumers and businesses at the local-local level, but on a potentially global basis. The Canada-based site quietly launched over the weekend: 

While the above image reflects the global front door the company is more focused on building out hundreds and hundreds of independent local destinations, such as ShopMidland.com or ShopCorona:

There’s a broad suite of tools and marketing services for local businesses available through the site, but they don’t involve distribution to third party sites or networks for the time being. 

I spoke last week with Colin Pape, one of the founders of ShopCity. Though the site and the platform is polished, the question arises: “how will you compete with more familiar local online brands and get traffic?” He said that they’ll get traffic through SEO but also through outreach and partnerships with local organizations and cited some examples of those relationships in different markets. He added that the local stores and shops will promote their profiles and offerings on the site. 

As part of its pitch to local businesses, ShopCity does not accept ads from franchises or national-local businesses; it’s all about the “mom and pop” and independents (though sometimes moms and pops operate franchises; think Hallmark, Hardware stores). This “political” or policy stance will help create an identity in the market and win ShopCity some adherents among consumers and gratitude among local businesses.

This sort of Cityname.X.com strategy has been tried in the past — HelloMetro immediately comes to mind — without huge success, but ShopCity is being smart by taking a “political” position on behalf of local businesses and may generate a lot of good will as a result.

Localeze Parent, Telmetrics Offer Cross-Platform Call Tracking

Localeze Parent TargusInfo and call tracking firm Telmetrics have announced a cross-platform ad tracking partnership targeting national advertisers. According to the release:

The combined service provides national marketers with better visibility into advertising performance by identifying and measuring phone leads generated by their direct-response campaigns and routing those calls to the most appropriate call center or branch location to maximize conversions . . .

Telmetrics tracks and measures consumer response to any direct-response broadcast, online or print campaign that features a call-to-action with a phone number. The addition of TARGUSinfo’s On-Demand Location services routes those customer calls via a unique toll-free 800 or local number to the most appropriate local branch, franchise or call center.

Call tracking has always been capable of doing this sort cross-media attribution. But at the recent SMX East event there was a discussion about the absence of such solutions except at the high end of the market. Call-tracking like this is a way to capture the relative performance of the various media in a campaign.

Questions have been raised about the potential SEO impact of phone number substitution on core business data. I’m hoping to get Telmetrics’ Bill Dinan to speak to those issues in a Q&A interview soon.

European Directories Lures EU Google COO

In something of an apparent coup for European Directories the company has lured Ben Legg, COO of Google’s European operation, to take a similar position at the directory publisher. The news was first reported by TechCrunch Europe. 

Before Google, Legg was with Coca-Cola. 

There must have been some heavy duty compensation/incentives to lure Legg from the strongest brand on earth (save Apple) to “old media.” And it also indicates, in my view, a strong desire to take the yellow pages publisher in new, non-traditional directions.

A couple of weeks ago, European Directories announced a novel deal with Skype, designed to “colonize” (i.e., promote advertisers within) Google Maps results (10 Pack moving to 7 Pack).

Open Mobile Summit Discount

It seems like there are about a bazillion and one mobile conferences these days. However, one worth attending is the forthcoming Open Mobile Summit, November 4-5 in San Francisco.

I’ll be moderating a session  called “New Dimensions in Navigation and Search.” But take a look at the agenda, there are some very interesting speakers and the full range of mobile topics will be addressed.

Keynotes include Google’s Vint Cerf, John Donovan (CTO, AT&T), Cole Brodman (CTO, T-Mobile) and Michael Abbot (SVP, Palm). My Internet2Go program is a conference partner. So if you’re interested in attending you can still get $150 off the full-conference price.

Register here and enter the code: GREGS. (Their idea, not mine.)

Milo Enters the Local Shopping Fray

Though it launched late last year, I wasn’t aware of new local shopping engine Milo until someone made reference to it in a comment on this blog. I then contacted Milo and spoke with CEO Jack Abraham about the full range of questions that arise with a site trying to offer local inventory information: where the data come from, business model, syndication, mobile and so on.

I agreed not to share a chunk of what we discussed but here are some facts from the site and provided by Abraham: 

• Milo has real-time local inventory for 1.45M products. Abraham says that by comparison Krillion has inventory data for 38,000 products. 
• Milo covers most major retailers and features both hard goods and soft goods on the site.
• Milo is venture and angel backed by some of the people behind Yelp, Topix, Trulia, Eventbrite, Facebook and YouTube among others.
• As of  October 12, “we are on track to do 600k uniques a month, up from 300k on 10/2 and 100k just two months ago. The site is growing very, very fast.”

Milo appears to be a very serious contender in the local-inventory segment, especially as NearbyNow focuses increasingly on mobile and ShopLocal transitions to a marketing services platform for retailers. Krillion is still very much there. Channel Intelligence is too but on a limited basis. Not sure where Shopatron and Where2GetIt are in terms of their local inventory efforts. It’s been a little while since I’ve spoken to either. 

To test out the user experience on Milo — which I’m guessing comes from something like “fetch, Milo” — I performed a few searches for stereos and sandals, both of which I’m actually looking for:

One additional feature of the site that is useful is the ability to search inventory by individual stores:

Milo aspires to be a compelling shopping destination (rather than simply a data source) and has a mobile strategy lined up. The barriers to entry in the local inventory segment are considerable and greater than e-commerce by a mile — or “last mile,” as the case may be.

TheFind is a destination with local inventory information; however Abraham contends Milo has many more local products than TheFind. There’s also e-commerce on Milo; however that element is de-emphasized at the moment.

Overall the site offers a solid experience though it can evolve further to be sure. You should try it yourself and tell me what you think.

Local Social Summit in London Nov. 3

Dylan Fuller and Simon Baptist have put together a very interesting event in London on November 3. It’s called the Local Social Summit. As the name suggests, it explores the connections between local and social media. There’s also a dose of mobile in there too.

They’ve asked me to come and moderate several panels. Beyond me there will be quite a good group and interesting speakers, among them:

• Praized
• TrustedPlaces
• Yell
• Yelp
• European Directories
• adaffix/Yelix
• Brownbook
• BBC

It’s intended to be a small event and I’m told that it’s pretty close to selling out; there are roughly 21 tickets left. Those interested in attending should sign up here.

Amazon Gets Local with Same Day Delivery

One characteristic that local shopping has over e-commerce is the idea that I can have the desired item today. Amazon is trying to remove that as an obstacle with same day delivery:

Amazon.com, Inc. today announced the launch of “Local Express Delivery,” a new shipping option giving customers same-day delivery in seven major cities including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore, Las Vegas, Seattle and Washington D.C. The service will be extended to Chicago, Indianapolis and Phoenix in the coming months.

Thousands of items are now available for Local Express Delivery. Amazon Prime* members pay just $5.99 per item for the service. Full details, including the rate card for all other customers, are available atwww.amazon.com/help/shipping.

Items ordered before the following local cut-off times will be delivered the same day:

• New York City – Order as late as 10 a.m.
• Philadelphia – Order as late as 10 a.m.
• Boston – Order as late as 10:30 a.m.
• Washington D.C. – Order as late as 10:30 a.m.
• Baltimore – Order as late as 10:30 a.m.
• Las Vegas – Order as late as 11 a.m.
• Seattle – Order as late as 1 p.m.

Customers will find delivery cut-off times on each product’s detail page.

Another barrier for e-commerce is shipping costs, which this doesn’t address. But it’s a move to level the playing field with local shopping. Here’s some additional information from the NY Times. 

Would you use this service? Does this affect your opinion of Amazon or e-commerce more generally?

Local Listing Ads and Google’s Q3

I just wrote up the Google Q3 earnings on SEL. During the Q&A portion of the call SVP of product Jonathan Rosenberg spoke at some length about Maps and Local Listing Ads. Paraphrasing, he said that a number of recent innovations are “working together”:

• There are now more than 50 million Place Pages, which can be used as landing pages or websites for SMBs
• Local Listing Ads are very simple; no keywords, no bidding
• All the calls generated via Local Listing Ads “go through Google Voice” (i.e., call tracking)
• “Everything is finally in place to enable small businesses to connect with customers online”

The latter has a “master plan” ring to it . . .

Rosenberg also talked about Maps and how some recent changes will enable Google to be more “flexible” and create different and better maps. The example he kept using was how tourists and locals need different kinds of maps.

TeleAtlas as data provider has essentially received the boot (my words) in the US and Mexico. According to Rosenberg, “We’re using the new system in the US and Mexico.” He said the data “are coming from a wide range of sources” including Street View, Census bureau, overhead imagery, local knowledge (UGC). “It gives us lots of flexibility to create different types of maps. It allows us to launch better Place Pages and is quite significant.”

Witness the Emergence of ‘Engaged’ SMBs

My Internet2Go program (via Opus Research) and MerchantCircle recently conducted an online survey of small business marketing practices, using the MerchantCircle member base. Because MerchantCircle wanted to maximize completes there was an incentive and they targeted more active members of their community. In this context “active MerchantCircle members” were those that have done one or more of the following: created an enhanced profile, uploaded pictures, created a blog, coupons and newsletters and/or connected with other merchants through the MerchantCircle website.

The survey received more than 2,500 responses, 2,403 of which qualified as “small businesses,” using the definition of 99 or fewer employees. Here was the headcount breakdown:

Here is the respondent distribution by years in business:

Here’s the respondent distribution by industry:

Here were the marketing budgets:

In terms of headcount distribution, annual marketing budgets and other characteristics this group of 2,403 US SMBs, respondents were fairly typical of the larger SMB population. However there were other ways in which they were not. For example, 90% claimed to have a website (beyond the presence on MerchantCircle). The average is about 52% for the broader market.

The “bombshell” findings in my view were the following:

• 45.2% indicated they had a Facebook page for their business (a different question yielded a 53% response re “created a profile on a social network”)
  
• 46% indicated they had a presence on Twitter, either business or personal account or both

Earlier this week a Citibank survey found that SMBs were generally not relying on social media as a marketing platform. That had 500 respondents and was based on a telephone survey. Just like online surveys, telephone surveys are imperfect, especially in the era of mobile phones. There is also no “representative” SMB sample in the way you can mirror the US census with consumer data. So what we have are two diametrically opposed set of findings. I’m showing you what the industry, headcount, and marketing budgets distribution was so you can judge for yourself how representative these findings are.

This group of respondents in my view represent a leading indicator of where a big chunk of the SMB market may be headed. These are scrappy SMBs, trying to find ways to promote themselves on a shoestring (44% spend less than $1K annually on marketing). Facebook and Twitter are easy and free and thus offer very low barriers to entry. But there’s also a gap between adoption and perceived effectiveness. We asked what types of media are you using and then, separately, which ones are the most effective. Again, this is based on perception but here are the media types that yielded the largest “gap” between usage and effectiveness rating:

1. Social media profile
2. Online yellow pages
3. Blogging
4. Print yellow pages
5. Coupons/direct mail, email marketing (tied)

In other words, lots of respondents were using social media but a very large number did not rate it as effective. In the case of social network profiles 53% were using them but only 22% rated them “effective.” This may go to the inability to track or measure response as much as actual performance.

We also asked “What is your biggest complaint about online marketing?” Here were the top answers (aided response):

1. Too costly
2. Not enough time to do it well and still run a business
3. Too many places to advertise
4. Needs a dedicated person and don’t have the budget to hire one
5. Not effective
6. Too complex and confusing

In other surveys, too complex comes out as the top or one of the top two responses — another indicator that this population is somewhat different and “ahead of the curve.”

I want to reiterate that the survey population is more active and “engaged” but that this was also a very large sample (2,400) and in my belief shows:

• There’s pent up demand for simple, cost-effective online marketing solutions/tools
• There’s a large group of SMBs that will self-serve if the options are simple and the value proposition is clear
• There’s considerable danger for traditional media as SMBs are starting to more aggressively investigate alternatives

There’s more here and I2Go clients got access to the broader data set and my analysis. But if there are questions, let me know.

Placecast Survey: 42% Interested in LBS Offers

1020 Placecast has been doing the great “alert shopper” series and now has released online survey data on mobile shopping behavior and consumer interest in deals/alerts on mobile devices. I’ve written the data up at Internet2Go (formerly LMS). What the study finds is that a large percentage of mobile users (18-34) are in fact open to influence via deal alerts on their mobile handsets.

Skype Making B2B Push

VoIP alternatives to traditional carriers are finally starting to gain traction in the home and in mobile. The AT&T decision to allow VoIP apps to run on its 3G network a couple of weeks ago is something of a breakthrough, although as a practical matter it’s really only about international calling at this point. If there were data-only plans it would be a different matter.

But today I got the following email in my inbox, pushing Skype as a business service with a range of use cases:

Skype’s push to become a call-tracking and/or performance based ad platform for online is also very interesting (see, European Directories). For quite some time innovation at Skype languished under eBay’s lazy eyes. Now that the company is about to separate from the mothership Skype is becoming a much more interesting company — and more viable as a carrier substitute.

Google Building Maker Simplifies 3D

Google is accelerating “crowdsourcing” on Maps. The latest expression of this trend is Building Maker, announced yesterday. It simplifies the process of 3D rendering dramatically, in an effort to get ordinary people online involved in building up Google’s 3D warehouse of images. There the best version of a building with multiple renderings is chosen and added to Earth (and Maps).

Like Map Maker, My Maps and the new “report a problem” initiatives, Google is combining its own technology (satellite, Street View), public and some third party data, with crowdsourcing to enhance its Maps product. Microsoft by contrast relies on technology it acquired with Vexcel for automated 3D rendering.

There are all kinds of interesting potential applications of 3D cityscapes that I can imagine as the Internet migrates to TV screens.