Amanda Bird

Here’s a look at what happened in digital over the last week: Ask.com and Facebook both launched Q&A offerings, 360i released a white paper on Twitter and how it’s being used by consumers and marketers, SCVNGR announced a new rewards program and Forrester debated whether marketers should care about location-based social platforms. Find full recaps of these and other stories in the post below. And follow @360i on Twitter for insights from our team all week long.

360i Study Uncovers New Findings about Twitter Usage Among Consumers, Brands

Last week we shared the results of a six-month study tracking Twitter usage among consumers and marketers. Why are people using Twitter – and how? And given these insights, how can marketers use the service to create deeper connections with consumers?

Key conclusions from the study include:
(1) A major disparity exists between how consumers and marketers are using Twitter.
Most marketers are still largely using Twitter to broadcast, while consumers are using Twitter to converse. The study reveals that the number one reason for a consumer to compose an original tweet (non re-tweet) is to converse with another user, with conversations between users representing 43 percent of all original consumer tweets. By contrast, three out of four tweets by marketers contain messaging centered on news and information, with only 16 percent demonstrating active dialogue with consumers.

(2) Conversations about brands on Twitter are still limited.
According to the study, only 12 percent of consumer tweets mention a brand by name. When they do refer to a brand, consumers are sharing news or information about the brand (43 percent) or reporting use of or interaction with the brand (35 percent).

(3) Twitter presents a huge opportunity for brands to learn about their customers.
The study shows that Twitter continues to be an important tool for brands to listen to what consumers are saying and to get to know their customers better, as 94 percent of tweets are personal in nature and 85 percent of tweets represent original content (non-retweets). Unlike with Facebook, where privacy controls make it difficult for marketers to monitor conversations among consumers, only eight percent of Twitter users make their tweets private, creating a ripe platform for online listening.

The full report can be downloaded here.

Ask.com Unveils New Site, While Facebook Launches “Questions”

Last week, Ask.com unveiled a new version of their site, currently in beta, which will combine the engine’s search technology and leverage the power of the Ask.com community to provide answers to users’ questions. Ask President Scott Garell claims that Ask.com receives four times more questions than the other search engines, and that this latest site evolution will help Ask take advantage of what they “believe will be a multi-billion dollar Q&A category.”

A day later, Facebook seemed to concur with the market’s potential, launching Facebook Questions. Much like Ask’s new site, Facebook Questions will rely on the power of their global community, which recently reached 500 million strong.

These latest features are evidence of the continued collision of search and social. Google has made its own headway in this area with the recent acquisition of start-up Metaweb and other companies are sure to emerge as this area heats up.

SCVNGR Launches Local Rewards Program

Last week the location-based mobile game SCVNGR announced a new rewards program that will offer discounts and free giveaways at 1,000 locations for completing custom-built challenges on their mobile phones.

SCVNGR, who also pioneered the “social check-in” which allows users to check in simultaneously to earn points, is finding new and creative ways to engage mobile users in real world places. Businesses can take advantage of the new rewards program and offer unique incentives for customers who complete different challenges.

With the added level of interactive games and challenges to the geo-location social check-in, SCVNGR is certainly a player to watch.

To Foursquare or Not to Foursquare?

In a study published last week, Forrester reports that only 4% of U.S. online adults have ever used location-based mobile apps such as Foursquare and that nearly 80% of them are male. Given these findings, Forrester recommends that marketers trying to reach a male audience may want to test out location-based start-ups, but suggests most major marketers should steer clear given the platforms’ small audience size.

However, in a POV in Ad Age, 360i’s Sarah Hofstetter rebuts that Foursquare and other location-based social networks do hold promise for many marketers, despite their scale.

Early adopters of emerging platforms often maintain a disproportionate share of influence in their own social circles, so can potentially help a brand spread their message organically both on and off the original platform. In addition, brands who approach new platforms and experiment early on will be ahead of the game when and if these platforms take off. The sooner you get involved, the faster your influential fan network can go to work on your behalf and the more you can ultimately reap from these bleeding-edge platforms.

For more on why we consider Foursquare a ripe opportunity for many brands, you can read the full article over on Advertising Age.

Which stories piqued your interest this week? Let us know in the comments below.

Dave Hendricks is COO of LiveIntent, a technology that helps people create meaningful connections on social media by answering the question: “Who do I follow?”  LiveIntent re-invents the rules of introductions across social channels by providing introductions based on common interest and level of engagement. To learn more, visit www.LiveIntent.com.

[360i]: Currently LiveIntent is very focused on Twitter – do you have plans to work with other social platforms, as well?

[Dave Hendricks]: LiveIntent has planned from the beginning to create a ‘Connections Server’ that presents and recommends the best creators of content, regardless of which service they inhabit. We started with Twitter because it had several characteristics that made it a good place to start. First, Twitter has an excellent API on which to build complementary services. Second, while the concept of ‘following’ was already established, the mechanisms for recommending the best accounts had not been developed. We thought that Twitter’s ‘Suggested User List,’ while generating many followers for the few accounts that it promoted, was not the ideal solution for most users. Twitter users, especially newer ones, are often frustrated and lose interest because they can’t figure out who to follow in order to make Twitter productive and enjoyable. We sought to solve that problem first within Twitter – the Discovery Problem – and then move on recommending the best friends/channels/groups/fan pages on other services like MySpace, YouTube, LinkedIn — and eventually Facebook.

Above: LiveIntent window on celebrity news website JustJared.com

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