Modern Metrix

Where Facebook Ads Work Better: States with the Highest and Lowest Click-Through Rates

This article in Mashable shares interesting statistics on geographical difference in click-through rates for Facebook ads,  provided by digital marketing agency:

"Facebook users in South Dakota, Tennessee and Colorado click through ads on Facebook at record rates. In South Dakota, Facebook users click on ads at a rate of 174% the national average.

Meanwhile, residents of Vermont, Alabama and Indiana are the least likely to take the bait. In Vermont, the click-through rate (CTR) is 57% the national average."

The differences are not explained. If you ask me, the first what comes to mind is demographics, most likely, education (states with less educated population have higher click-through rates). I also suspect that states with the higher click-through rates are are ealier stages of Facebook adoption (the novelty factor comes in play, hence more clicks). But that is just IMHO.

Free Book on Social Media Measurement and Analysis

Great FREE book on Social Media Measurement and Analysis from Radian6  http://bit.ly/cm8pS1

SSI: Study of the Effects of Survey Length on Fatigue and Response Quality

The PDF report of the new study by SSI on the relationship between the length of online survey and the quality of responss is now available on Research Voice web site (free registration required). The major findings: 

• Survey length does not affect the response rates
• Most drop-outs occur in the middle of the interviews, and longer surveys do not necessarily have higher drop-out rates
• Repondents tend to speed up the responses and pay less attention to the questions as they get tired, and as a result, the longer surveys yield data of lower quality.

Differences in content preferences across the social networks

The online advertising network Chitika compared the genres of sites that receive traffic from the major social networks (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and Digg) and found differences in the content preferences across the networsk. In particular, according to the analysis of over 280,000 links, Twitter users are more like to consume news (47% of traffic), Facebook users are interested in news (28% of traffic) and community (17%), MySpacers prefer video games (28% of traffic) and entertainment (23%), and traffic from Digg is almost equally distributed between news, entertainment, technology and video games categories (~18% each).

Via Mashable

 

Microsoft products users are more click-happy?

Via Techcrunch: The analysis of clickstream by advertising network Chitika yielded interesting results: Bing users are 75% more likely to click on ads, compared to Google users. The similar patterns were found for browsers adn operating systems: the click-through rate of users of Internet Explorer is 80% higher than that of Google Chrome users, and 40% higher than for people using Firefox; the rates were twice higher on computers running MS Windos OS, compared to Linux or Mac.

Peerset: Next Generation Psychographic Hyper-Targeting Tool

Techcrunch profiles Peerset, web startup that offers tool for automated data-driven psychographic profiling and ad placement recommendations based on content analysis.

YouTube Video Ratings are highly skewed

YouTube blog: "Five Stars Dominate Ratings"

And now Time Inc. wants to launch its own e-reader...

These guys just don't get it. Instead of continuing sitting in your own silos and rolling out your own platforms, just make your content available across as many platforms as possible.

Wake up, people!!! The new formula is Media = Content + Platform + Brand, where Content and Platform are not necessarily functions of Brand, Platform is not limited to just one or two, and Content is personalized and controlled by your audience.

Comparing Online and Offline Word of Mouth

A study by Keller Fay Group finds that online and offline conversations differ substantially, when it comes to the content:

"The group compared the 50 most talked-about brands on social media last year as measured by social media consultancy Vitrue's Social Media Index, with "all" WOM -- both offline and online -- as measured by Keller Fay's own TalkTrack system...

Some of the results

* Only two brands -- Sony and Dell -- were within the top 10 on both lists.

*The all-WOM/TalkTrack top 10 were (in descending order): Coca-Cola, AT&T, Verizon, Walmart, Pepsi, Ford, Sony, Dell, McDonald's and Sprint/Nextel. The Vitrue social media top 10 were: iPhone, CNN, Apple, Disney, Xbox, Starbucks, i Pod, MTV, Sony and Dell"

Findings of the study confirm that WOM in social media is not representative of all WOM: only 1% of WOM takes place online in social media such as blogs, forums and chat rooms, with the most brand-related conversations (90%) happening offline.

(via MediaPost)

Big Five Personality Factors and Use of Facebook

Interesting research on how Big Five personality traits are related to the use and various activities on Facebook (after controlling for computer competence.) Among the findings:

• Respondents with higher scores on Extraversion dimension (tendency to be sociable) are likely to be members of more groups on Facebook on average, compared to all other respondents
• Respondents with higher scores on Neuroticism dimension (tendency for psychological distress and sensitivity to threats) were more likely to use Facebook walls, whereas respondens with lower scores were more likely to post photos
• Respondents with higher scores on Openness to Experience (intellectual curiousity and openness to experimentation) were using Facebook more frequently on average than all other respondents