Research company and social media giant join together to create a new ratings service

Communicating is an innate characteristic of being human. With the introduction of social media networking, we have been able to reach out to more people instantly than ever before. Conversations that would have taken place in the office or over the phone to discuss last night’s TV show are now on statuses, posts, tweets, etc. In order for advertisers to stay current, The Nielsen Company and Twitter have joined forces to create a rating system to measure social TV activity.

According to MediaPost and AdvertisingAge, the new social media TV rating service will be called The Nielsen Twitter TV Rating. It will measure the total audience for social TV activity on Twitter exclusively. With the rating service, it will include both the people who comment on TV programming and others who have been exposed to the comments.

It’s reported that Twitter currently has 140 million active users which equates to about one billion tweets every two-and-a-half days.

Industry professionals are hoping that this could establish a stable metric that can help define how social activity and television work together. As a result, better marketing efforts can be placed to create stronger programming. 

2012 Cyber Monday reaches record high and what advertisers can learn from it

We are in the midst of the expensive holiday season. Between setting up budgets for the next fiscal year, finalizing the accounting books for this year, shopping for presents for family, friends, clients, co-workers and trying to make it home on time, it can get hectic for consumers and advertisers alike. A part of our job that never rests is research. In that, it enables us to know what is going on in the media landscape and gives us the foresight to create the best possible media plan. That being said, reports have been released in regards to this year’s Cyber Monday.

According to eMarketer, comScore reports that ecommerce sales on Cyber Monday have consistently grown over the past seven years.

§       2006: $608 million

§       2007: $733 million (a 21% increase)

§       2008: $846 million (a 15% increase)

§       2009: $887 million (a 5% increase)

§       2010: $1.03 billion (a 16% increase)

§       2011: $1.25 billion (a 22% increase)

§       2012: $1.47 billion (a 17% increase)

eMarketer has predicted that the 2012 holiday season online spending is going to reach approximately $54.47 billion, which is about a quarter of the year’s forecasted US retail ecommerce sales.

What does this mean for advertisers? If you are in the retail category, it means that a good behavioral targeting online campaign during November and December could be very lucrative for your return on investment. If you are in a different business category, like healthcare, you may experience smaller inventory selections and slower traffic. If that does happen to you, take heart and remember that inventory will likely be more readily available in January. The bottom line is know your audience and the trends in order to make the most of your advertising investment.  

Research helps B2B advertisers with email blast subject lines

As an advertiser, have you debated how to start out a subject line in an email blast? Is it too long, too short, just right? How is one to know? Luckily, if you are in the business to business (B2B) industry, some new research by Adestra can shed a little light on your dilemma.

Reported by the Center for Media Research, Adestra found that subject lines that are either less than 30 characters or more than 90 characters produced the best results. Email blast subject lines that fell between that area were classified as the “dead zone.” Apparently, the shorter subject lines produce premium results for transactional or direct-response type emails. These lines also proved to have higher engagement with readers. The longer lines worked best for emails that were more information-based in that it could better communicate benefits of the advertiser.

Also researched was personalized subject lines and how users relate to them. While they do have an immediate engagement, it can be just as quickly lost if the email content is not personalized.

Overall, advertisers can not expect a cookie cutter email blast to work. Experimenting with subject lines and personalization of content will enable advertisers to know what works best for the target audience.

Cable news networks see audience increase in November

With this being an election year, it comes as no surprise that cable networks were affected by the coverage. According to MediaPost, some cable news networks saw a boost in viewership during the month of November. Regardless of the spike, ESPN still maintained overall dominance.

ESPN averaged 3 million viewers during prime time in the month of November; however, this is down approximately 16% from November 2011. Coming in second for viewership was the USA Network at 2.6 million, which is down 16% from last year as well. Fox News came in at third for 2.5 million.

The cable news networks had the following gains throughout the political season:

§       Fox News: 2.5 million viewers: 46% gain

§       MSNBC: 1.3 million viewers: 75% gain

§       CNN: 1.1 million viewers: 63% gain

It will be interesting to see in the upcoming months if the news networks can hold onto the increased viewership or if it will go away now that the election is completed.