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[Greg Martin Contribution Level: 4]

Interesting statistics on Social Media use for marketing from eMarketer. Here is the link...

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007668

A couple things I notice is that Twitter is STILL up the top just ahead of Facebook. I am a Twitter fan and it has become my main source of traffic (for now) for well over a year.

Also, I didn't know Linked in was so popular, I might have to go hang out for a while.

Third, check out the power of blogging over video sharing.

Anyone have any comments about these stats? Do they line up with your experience?

[Greg Martin Contribution Level: 4]

I am not sure what you can infer from those stats .. you would need to know more about the population surveyed.

How many of them are actually making money for example. It is all very well to say you are marketer and you use twitter or facebook - I see a lot of it going on, but I also know that a lot of it isn't working.

Or take forum marketing for example. There are lots of people that pass through here spamming their links and wasting everyone's time (are they self proclaimed marketers in this poll?), compared to say an offer put forward by someone like Richard Bravo, or Adam Taha. I am sure they get a much better conversion ratio from forum marketing.

Statistics aren't worth the paper they are written on unless you know the full picture.

I would go the other way with those stats and not target what everyone is doing - it looks like video is a far better option. Less competition and much less noise from the newbie spammers.

But that is just my take.

Dunno Dean, you probably know more about stats and marketing than what I do. I just thought it was interesting because blogging and Twitter is what I seemed to have gravitated to more than video. I haven't produced a video purely just to market with for I don't know how long, it's been a long while I know that.

What I do know is that I have a blog on the front page of Google for a company I am involved in. The blog frequently sits in 1st position above the company site on all related search terms (review, scam, pyramid etc) and that Twitter is really the only other form of marketing I do online (for now).

I do engage in social bookmarking and RSS aggregation to help boost the blog's position but that's it.

Yesterday I received an email from the company saying that I just received a new signup from someone in Dubai. I had never spoken to this person and had no idea they were looking at my stuff. This morning I woke up with an email from my upline sponsor congratulating me and an email from the new signup wanting me to contact them and wanting to know if I can help them build a site.

To me that's a pretty good response to my marketing and that's the type of prospect you want coming to you. So for me Twitter and blogging are very powerful and for now it seems to be working.

The only other thing is that I see a lot of people mention in various places that their response from Twitter was very poor. I like to encourage people with Twitter because I know it's the exact opposite, it's highly responsive and there are a lot of people on their looking for stuff.

Thanks for you feedback...

[Michael Stead Company: Fortune Hi Tech Marketing Contribution Level: 3]

Interesting statistics to say the least. I'm going to have to agree as well and say sure although those sites are getting a lot of traffic and usage from online marketers, how many of them do you think are actually having any success to speak of? The sad reality is that I'm sure over 99.99% of people do not have a clue how to effectively leverage those sites because they haven't had the proper training and as a result are investing themselves into a major time trap.

The top marketers out there today are making a full time income from social media marketing alone. Take Katie Freiling for example. She brings in between 20-100 leads a day just from social media and blogging alone without spending a cent on advertising.

Truthfully what is far more important than anything you'll ever do is taking the time to invest in your education. Knowledge is the new money and people will view you as a mentor if you are giving away more value than everyone else and are an expert in your chosen niche.

See you at the top,
Michael Stead

[Richard Bravo Company: Life Force International Contribution Level: 9]

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I agree Dean, it absolutely comes down to using the medium correctly.

Greg you've obviously you've found your medium in Twitter and Blogging.
I think that's awesome! I love both of them.

In fact I love it even more when people come along with a firm stance that "XYZ Doesn't Work!"
YeeHaw man ... that's like open season for people like us to scoop up all the money they are leaving on the table.

I've also noticed that 99.999% of the time the people who make statements like that don't have a clue how to use the medium they are dissing. They had bad luck with it so now it can't possibly for work anyone else either.

And yes, I've done very well with forums. Surprisingly actually. I won't call it "forum marketing" though because it's really not marketing. This particular medium, for me at least, has required a great deal of personal time to be invested to see the results I've seen. Based on my personal experience I don't see how you could possibly outsource this one either.

Everything I've experienced has been a direct result of personal one-on-one networking and building relationships. And everything that has come from my signature (which absolutely works by the way) I'm sure is a result of the quality of my feedback or value people get from it (at least I hope that's what it is) or my copy and offer were just on point for that person at that time when I make conversions.

I've seen the exact same thing with Twitter and Blogging. Less with my personal blog, but I think that's because my personal blog is somewhat neglected in the grand scheme of things in my overall business.

Video is absolutely hot!
Something I would add for consideration regarding those stats is to consider this, of the people polled about using video sharing on YouTube as a "focus of attention" in a marketers strategy, how many of the bloggers use YouTube simply as a video hosting option, but DO put emphasis on embedding their videos in their blog posts? That's a stat I would like to see.

As more and more people are running their own blogs these days, it wouldn't surprise me to see a larger percentage focusing on building relationships through blog comments on their own site, opposed to "socializing" on YouTube, etc.

I would be curious to see if a lot of these web 2.0 platforms are now widely used for media storage rather than an active social network - other than getting people back to your blog.

Great topic Greg ... thnx 4 sharing.
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[John Hinkle Contribution Level: 2]

The power of social media is such that in the coming few years, they will host more than half of the world's population. For the marketer, this should be a God send. Let's take advantage of this now.

Linkedin is probably the least talked about social media on BN. I do not know why? Is it because many marketers do not really know it or they don't like it. But it is a hub of activity for job seekers and employers. And both these groups are still very directly prospective for internet marketers.

Facebook is probably the fastest growing. And it offers much more than just casual friendship. It's a huge market. And ingenious marketers have started penetrating this huge huge resource. There now millions of groups whose sole purpose is to create fan pages with business in mind.

I believe that this is the next frontier for internet marketing.

[Cheryl James Company: Talk Fusion Global Contribution Level: 3]

Greg,

You proved to me a couple of months ago that you are the Twitter King!!! I would love to hear some of your advice on how to use it better.

I was a little surprised by the stats. I thought it would have been:
facebook
twitter
Blogs
YouTube
everything else

Youtube is such a great site. Where do you go when you want to learn something? Its lack of popularity is great news for those of us that are using it. Thanks for sharing this with us.

[Ginny Toll Contribution Level: 2]

Wow Greg, thanks for passing on the article. I'm also surprised, like Cheryl, that Twitter is on top of the list. I know someone who uses Twitter in company and she raves about it. She also said she gets a lot of traffic generated from this tool.

I also would love to hear more about how you use it as well. Any secrets you would care to share? I have never used it yet and would love to learn and hear more about it.

Thanks again and lots of continued luck with your success!
Ginny

[Greg Martin Contribution Level: 4]

Wow Greg, thanks for passing on the article. I'm also surprised, like Cheryl, that Twitter is on top of the list. I know someone who uses Twitter in company and she raves about it. She also said she gets a lot of traffic generated from this tool.

I also would love to hear more about how you use it as well. Any secrets you would care to share? I have never used it yet and would love to learn and hear more about it.

Thanks again and lots of continued luck with your success!
Ginny

Thanks Ginny, I am thinking of doing some training on it coming up in the future.

Most people equate Twitter with dollars & leads and if they don't get any of those they think it's a failure. But Twitter is much more than that and it's when you see the big picture that you see the power.

People should not even begin to evaluate Twitter until they get a follower list of 50,000 to 100,000. When they get that many then decide on what Twitter can do for you, until then you won't really see the potential because you won't have the numbers.

[Lilach Bullock Contribution Level: 4]

Thanks Greg for sharing that article, very useful.

I too am a huge fan of Twitter and have seen some amazing results from it. I'm a huge advocate of social media.

There are going to be some interesting changes to the way video marketing is done. I attended a seminar in London recently by one of the top SEO guys in the world, Guy Levine who said that soon videos will come up under Google search in the key words. Not sure if I'm explaining this correctly, basically say you submit a video with you talking about Twitter. Google will be able to pick up the content of the video and use them for the google rankings. Apologies if that's not clear lol!

Lilach