I just got an email today that ExactTarget just released another report in their fantastic Subscribers, Fans and Followers research series. Their ninth report is entitled Mobile Dependence Day and goes into depth about our collective dependence on our smartphones and other mobile devices. (You can see my previous reviews of the SFF research series if you want. I covered report #7 Social Mytbhusting here.) While I was reading the most recent report, I realized that I hadn’t blogged about the previous report: The Social Breakup, so this post consists of reviews of the two most recent reports as part of the Subscribers, Fans and Followers research. If you’re interested in downloading the reports for yourself, check out ET’s Subscribers, Fans and Followers page for the full reports.

Report No. 8: The Social Breakup

The eighth report in the Subscribers, Fans and Followers series focuses on the “social breakup” – how and why consumers “break up” with brands and stop following them via Facebook, Twitter and email. You might be surprised at how much similarity there is across all channels. Here are some of the highlights:

• Email
  • 67% of subscribers hit the unsubscribe button to end the email relationship rather than just deleting (17%), reporting as spam (8%), ignoring (6%) or setting up a filter to auto-archive the message(2%)
  • Top 3 reasons people unsubscribed from emails:
    • Too many emails from the company
    • Repetitive or boring content over time
    • Email overload – too many emails in general, cleaning out the clutter
• Facebook
  • When fans no longer want information from a brand they previously “liked”, 43% of them go to the brand’s page and click “unlike, 38% click the “X” in their newsfeed to remove them from the wall and 19% just ignore the posts.
  • Top 3 reasons people “unliked” a brand on Facebook:
    • Too many posts – too much frequency can overwhelm users walls
    • Repetitive or boring content over time
    • They only “liked” the brand because of a promotion, discount or deal offered to fans, and “unliked” once they got what they wanted.

• Twitter
  • Nearly half of consumers who created a Twitter account no longer use it with 52% saying they found Twitter to be pointless, 38% saying it became boring and 23% thinking that Twitter was too chaotic.
  • Top 3 reasons people stopped following a brand on Twitter:
    • Repetitive or boring content over time
    • Tweet stream became overloaded with marketing posts, wanted to clean up
    • Too many posts – too much frequency can overwhelm users tweet streams

Notice the striking similarity between why people unsubscribe, unlike and unfollow brands? While there are different strategies to employ for brand to get the most out of email, Facebook and Twitter, online consumers – across the board – seem to all be saying the same thing when it comes to ending their relationship with a brand’s digital initiatives: don’t talk too much and keep the content interesting.

Report No. 9: Mobile Dependence Day

The ninth report in the Subscribers, Fans and Followers series really focuses on our increasing dependence on our smartphones and other mobile devices. Even within the past year, the share of US consumers with smartphones (as opposed to feature phones) has grown dramatically. Here are some of the high points about what it means for interactive marketers:

• 89% of US consumers 15+ own a cell phone. 41% of those have smartphones
  • Android: 33%
  • iPhone: 25%
  • Blackberry: 19%
  • Other: 23%
• Smartphone’s Big 5 (the five most frequently used functions on today’s smartphones):
  • Phone Calls
  • Texting
  • Email
  • Internet
  • Facebook
• How important is the smartphone to people who own and use one? Here is the percentage of people who would (if forced to choose) rather keep their smartphone than the following items:
  • Game Console: 72%
  • Dishwasher: 46%
  • Laptop: 40%
  • Microwave: 34%
  • Refrigerator: 13%
  • Car: 8%

The rest of the report gives recommendations of ways you can integrate your marketing efforts across all three communications channels and is definitely worth a read.

Have you looked through ExactTarget’s Subscribers, Fans and Followers series? What do you think about their findings?

Two more parts in ExactTarget’s Subscribers, Fans and Followers research series have been released since I wrote my last post on the first four parts of the series. The two most recent parts focus on Facebook X-Factors and the Collaborative Future. ExactTarget has done a fantastic job of putting these research reports together and they’ve really dug into consumers motivations when it comes to how and why they interact with technology. If you haven’t ready my summary of the first four reports, click here to read about them. If you’re interested in downloading the reports for yourself, check out ET’s Subscribers, Fans and Followers page for the full reports.

Also, if you’re attending ExactTarget’s Connections 2010 Conference on September 14-16, drop by the Lead Nurturing and Lead Scoring session on Wedensday (9/15) at 9:45am – I’ll be speaking about how we’ve worked with Right On Interactive to nurture and score leads through the Visit Indiana Foursquare/Leaf Cam promotion.

Report No. 5: Facebook X-Factors

The fifth report in the Subscribers, Fans and Followers series focuses on Facebook. After detailed reports of Email and Twitter users, how do Facebook users stack up? Do they want to interact with companies or do they want to keep Facebook purely personal and clear of marketing speak? Here are some of the highlights:

• The top four things that motivate users to follow a business are:
  • To receive discounts or promotions
  • To show my support of the company to others
  • To get a freebie (free samples, coupon) – very similar to #1
  • To stay informed about the company’s activities
• 70% of consumers who ‘liked’ a brand or company on Facebook didn’t feel they’d given the company permission to market to them (maybe Troy Thompson is on to something with his thoughts about comparing Facebook Likes to bumper stickers).
• Far and away, consumers use Facebook to reconnect with friends and maintain current friendships as opposed to maintaining and cultivating professional relationships.

So Facebook is used primarily for connecting with friends and less so for connecting with businesses. And consumers that do connect with businesses are really looking for a good deal. How can you leverage those opportunities to bring success to your company’s Facebook page?

Report No. 6: The Collaborative Future

The sixth report in the Subscribers, Fans and Followers series really focuses on ingetrating email, Facebook and Twitter – keeping in mind the strengths and weaknesses of each medium. Here are a few insights gleaned from the sixth report:

• Email is more likely to drive increased purchase intent among the largest group of consumers.
• Facebook is the least effective channel to drive increased purchase behavior.
• Twitter is actually the channel that is most likely to drive increased purchases and recommendations after a consumer follows a brand.

The rest of the report gives recommendations of ways you can integrate your marketing efforts across all three communications channels and is definitely worth a read.

Have you looked through ExactTarget’s Subscribers, Fans and Followers series? What do you think about their findings?

Local email marketing provider, ExactTarget, has released some fantastic research in the past month, all as part of a series they call Subscribers, Fans and Followers. So far, they’ve released four reports, which I’ll detail below. If you’re interested in getting PDFs of all of the research, check out their Subscribers, Fans and Followers page. While ExactTarget started out as an email marketing company, they’ve expanded to become much more than that. They recently purchased CoTweet, a California-based Corporate Twitter Management software company, so they’re definitely headed in the direction of a communications management company. This research fits really well with the direction ExactTarget seems to be heading and I think its great that they’re handing out this research.

Report No. 1: Digital Morning

The first report in the Subscribers, Fans and Followers series focuses on general user behavior. What’s the first thing online customers check in the morning? How engaged are online consumers with email, Facebook and Twitter? Digital Morning gives a great overview of those and other questions. Here are some highlights from the report:

• 58% of US online consumers check email as their first online activity of the day.
• 93% of US online consumers are SUBSCRIBERS (receive at least one permission-based email a day).
• 38% of US online consumers are FANS (have a Facebook account and are a fan of at least one company or brand).
  • 69% of US daily Facebook users are FANS.
• 5% of US online consumers are FOLLWERS (have a twitter account and follow at least one company or brand).
  • 69% of US daily Twitter users are FOLLOWERS.

Even with the huge rise of social media, permission-based email is still extremely important for marketing. But even with a smaller percentage of US online consumers using Facebook and Twitter, those consumers should not be ignored. Use your target demographics to dictate whether getting involved in Facebook or Twitter would be beneficial for your organization.

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First of all, thanks to the Firebelly Digitalia blog for the great idea to do a weekly recap of some great social media-related articles.

Check out these posts in case you missed them this week!

1: Mailchimp Integrates Facebook Likes Into Email Campaigns | All Facebook

Social Mediarology thinks: What a great idea for one of the top email providers. Email isn’t going away anytime soon, but this is a great way to provide their customers with some deep social media integration.

2: 10 Dos and Don’ts for Brands on Twitter | Mashable

Social Mediarology thinks: This post is a couple of months old, but it contains some really great tips for what you should and shouldn’t do with your business’ Twitter account.

3: Experts Agree: Gen Y Will Not Grow Out of Social Networking [STUDY] | Mashable

Social Mediarology thinks: Do you STILL think that you don’t need to get your company involved in social media? There are some predictions that Gen Y consumers (Millennials – roughly considered to have been born between 1980 and 2000) will outnumber Baby Boomers soon. Do you really want to leave them behind?

4: Top 6 Social Media Mistakes and How To Fix Them | Social Media Examiner

Social Mediarology thinks: Are you making any of these mistakes? If so, they’re easy to fix.