Happy Monday! Did you take advantage of your extra hour of sleep yesterday? We certainly hope so! Well, here’s what we’re covering in this week’s Social Mashup: Glamour Magazine’s use of Social SnapTags to generate more “likes” for advertisers, Google’s “GoMo” mobile initiative, Twitter’s testing “Top News” and “Top People” in search results, and LinkedIn’s continued growth.
Google Mobile Initiative: “GoMo”
Businesses are looking to get on mobile, but often find it harder and trickier than expected. Google saw a hole there and has launched its “GoMo” (short for go mobile) initiative to help these businesses create a better mobile presence.
When a customer visits a mobile site and finds it is not working properly, they may be turned off and the business will lose a prospective purchase. According to Jesse Haines, group marketing manager for Google’s mobile ads,
“This happens hundreds, even thousands of times every day because most businesses’ websites don’t work well on smartphones.”
Businesses are pointed to HowToGoMo, which lets them view how their site looks on mobile and resources that will help in building out a better mobile site. They can then choose from a list of vendors where they can pick from plans based on the amount they are willing to spend and the timeframe for building the site.
So why might Google be pushing businesses to other vendors to build mobile friendly websites? Easy. Google wants to continue growing its mobile ad business which has a $2.5 billion run rate this year, a dramatic increase over $1 billion last year.
Twitter Testing “Top News” and “Top People” in Search Results
It looks like Twitter is testing yet another new feature. Some users may see “Top News” and “Top People” results at the top of their realtime search results. When search for a story, a box will appear highlighted with a link to the top news story and thumbnail. If you search for a famous person, the “Top People” result will pop up at the top of the search results with a link to their Twitter stream and their profile picture.
Unfortunately, the feature is only in its testing phase so only a small group of people can see it. If Twitter highlights “Top News” and “Top People” in search results, they will undoubtedly help users find the most pertinent and popular information floating around Twitter.
The feature is definitely a benefit for content producers. If they can get their story to the top of the search results list they are going to see more traffic to their websites or blogs.
Top search results could bring in a new revenue source for Twitter. Do you think Twitter could eventually charge for the top spots just as Google does for its top search results?
LinkedIn Growth
LinkedIn is continuing to grow at a rapid rate with over 131 million members and more than a million groups. The professional social network’s CEO, Jeff Weiner, announced on an earnings call that 15 more million people have joined the network during Q3 2011. That’s a growth of 63% compared to the same time last year.
Want to know what’s really remarkable? How about LinkedIn’s mobile use has grown 400% year-over-year. Mobile visits account for 13% of all visits to the network.
LinkedIn’s Share button is now on 180,000 domains, an increase of 80,000 from the second quarter. More developers are using LinkedIn APIs to bump up the usage by 30% from Q2.
The company’s revenues increased by 126% to $139.5 million. The Hiring Solutions product has seen the significant traction and growth. The product has 7,400 customers, increasing 159%. Marketing Solutions has also seen increase in usage with a 113% growth rate year-over-year. Premium Subscribers is growing “faster than overall membership,” doubling in size since last year. Pretty impressive.
Glamour Magazine’s Experiment with 2-D Barcodes
Glamour Magazine experimented with Social SnapTags in its September issue. The 2-D barcodes incorporated Facebook and helped generate nearly 51,000 new “likes” for the magazine’s advertisers. Glamour saw an opportunity to use SnapTags to engage consumers and wondered whether or not readers would respond and act more upon the viewing the Facebook logo.
Advertisers were bugging the magazine about wanting more ‘likes’ so “this seemed like a logical solution,” said Jenny Bowman, executive creative services director at Glamour. “We loved what SpyderLynk had to offer with a Facebook logo in the circle that was different from other 2-D barcodes.”
Over 100,000 readers activated the codes, coming out to 4.2% of the issue’s paid circulation and .8% of the magazine’s total readers. A total of 512,339 readers interacted with the Social SnapTags by either scanning the codes with an app, snapping a photo and sending it in, liking an advertiser or article, signing up for a deal or sweepstakes, or sharing one of the offers with friends. Bowman said,
It was strong out of the gate and proved that readers wanted that print-mobile experience. And the numbers stayed strong over the month, not just in the first two weeks. The momentum continued. I think that had a lot to do with the sharing capabilities of the app.
What’s impressive is that 67% of the readers that activated one of the Social SnapTags “liked” either the magazine or one of the advertisers to access deals. Of those 67%, 18% shared deals with their friends. But it was the sample offers and sweepstakes that produced the highest conversion rates. These offers represented 85% of all “likes” followed closely by exclusive content at 84%, coupons and promotional codes
Bowman says that Glamour is looking to continue the use of Social SnapTags for its March issue, including expanding into e-commerce with the codes.
