Despite the fact that everyone talks about social media constantly, brands spent only 4 percent of their media dollars on social last year. Or did they?

The analysis is just one of many insightful bits you’ll find in Razorfish’s new ‘Digital Outlook Report’ (just published)

According to the report, the 4 percent statistic is misleading because:

1) social ads can be bought inexpensively
2) media dollars are spent towards social efforts to drive users to communities, content and apps but these are not captured under “social” ad spending because the buys don’t occur on social sites
3) much of the media spend on social doesn’t express itself in the form of buying media, but in the labor it takes to build a community/conversation

Since looking at social media spend is a misleading benchmark, Razorfish recommends a new lense: ‘investment’. Compared to your competition, you might be spending the norm on social media, only to find out you’re woefully behind investing in the people, resources and technologies it takes to fuel an ongoing relationship with consumers.

“Passive spending on media is quickly becoming a thing of the past. So, while the studies show that companies intend to put more dollars toward social, the truth is that those dollars are largely not going to be spent on buying ad space, but instead on investing in the people, resources, technologies and relationships that having an ongoing relationship with consumers requires.” – Alyson Hyder, VP, Digital Marketing

If your job is digital or you live in the digital world, we highly recommend investing some time in the ‘Razorfish Outlook Report’.

P.S. We love the explanation for removing ‘digital’ from the report’s title: “it’s now so mainstream, that it no longer needs to be included.”

#thetrendwatch

Everyday over one million users flock to Chatroulette. Without question, the six-month-old site is the internet phenom de jour.

Is this ‘freakshow’, as skeptics call it, a marketing crapshoot? Or is Chatroulette proving to be an excellent PR/Viral play?

Here’s a look at 5 brands who were the first to give it a shot:

1) French Connection
In line with its Manifesto campaign (i.e. men have lost the ungentle art of manliness), FCUK dared men to charm women on Chatroulette. The first guy to score a date won a 250 pound voucher.

Whether you’re skeptical of Chatroulette or not, 250 pounds was a small price for FCUK to pay, considering the amount of PR it generated as the very first brand to pull the trigger.

2) Burger King
As part of BK’s Steakhouse XT giveaway promotion this spring, Crispin Porter + Bogusky thought about putting The King on Manhattan streets to hand out coupons. Instead, they put him on Chatroulette, with a link to a coupon site.

“People are using Chatroulette as another screen, another TV channel,” said Jason Marks, CP+B interactive creative director. “We entered their screens the way commercials enter TV. This is their own live, personal TV commercial they take part in. It was totally unfiltered, not like an ad buy. It was real-time interaction in a completely new way.” [Brandweek]

3) Condomerie
Here’s a campaign born for Chatroulette

4) Sunny Queen Farms
After egging people on for a bit, Sunny The Egg’s Chatroulette video was posted to his fans on Facebook. The results? 80,000 interactions in under 72 hours. As Sunny would say, the results were eggtastic…

5) Travelocity
Taking a break evidently from his travels, The Roaming Gnome began popping up on Chatroulette. According to Travelocity, he generated 400 conversations, 350,000 chat impressions and the value of PR impressions was in the region of 17 million.

“We’ve gotten a lot of positive buzz from this that we really weren’t at all expecting,” said Joel Frey, a Travelocity spokesperson. “The PR alone has totally captured the ROI” [via clickz]

In hindsight, it’s easy to envision a condom brand, FCUK and the King on a site like Chatroulette. Travelocity and Sunny Queen Farms, however, are surprising. Could their success warm mainstream marketing up to Chatroulette?

As always, we will watch whose ‘nexting’.

Socialnomics strikes back, with a refresh of their original video (viewed nearly 2 million times).

Viewer reaction to the refresh has been consistent: wow, amazing, beautiful to watch, definitely worth sharing, just change the music please!

Here’s a look at what – besides the music – has changed in the past 9 months:

- Over 50% of the world’s population is under 30
- Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.
- Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year
- If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest (previously 4th)
- Britney Spears replaces Ellen DeGeneres (Twitter stat)
- 50% of the mobile Internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook
- Wikipedia has 15 million articles (previously 13 million)
- 60 million status updates happen on Facebook daily

Besides the aforementioned stats, the ending is new. Since the original video, the question of ROI has been on every brand’s mind. Fittingly, the refresh ends with a bold answer:

The ROI of social media is your business will still exist in 5 years

Anyone have a more refreshing answer?

#thetrendwatch

In April Foursquare surpassed the milestone of one million users. As more jump into the game, the pace of location-based marketing innovation is accelerating.

Here’s a look at 4 fantastic uses of Foursquare in just the past 40 days:

1) First-ever product check-in

Besides being Jimmy Choo’s first social media campaign, Catch a Choo marks the first time Foursquare has been used to check in an object (rather than a person). While treasure hunts are nothing new, product check-ins are an innovative tactic to get fans chasing down Jimmy Choo’s new line of trainers. (via: the gloss)

2) Meet the mayor

It’s safe to assume that mayors know a thing or two about an establishment. To make up for lost ground to Yelp, Zagat is interviewing the mayors of popular establishments. The first interview in the ‘Meet the Mayor’ series features the oh so tasty, Momofuku Milk Bar. Not only is Zagat’s tactic a brilliant use of the mayor concept, it’s also bringing well-needed, social media cred to the brand.

3) Real world pop-ups

To spark interest around its show ‘America the Story of Us’, the History Channel is making clever use of Foursquare’s often overlooked feature ‘Tips.’ When you check-in at select venues, which coincide with the show, the History Channel serves up interesting historical tidbits. As Techcrunch noted, the History Channel’s use of tips turns Foursquare into a real world pop-up video .

4) Celebrity mode
Fans of MTV and VH1 are easily crazy about celebrities (real or not). MTV Networks is the first in media to launch “Celebrity Mode,” a Foursquare product that allows “friending celebrities.” Latching onto viewers’ fascination with a celebrity’s every move is a clever way to build interest in programming. According to plans by MTVN, it could also be a way to tie in sponsorships.

While Foursquare is admittedly a small community, it’s nonetheless a powerful space for brands to play in right now. Beyond engagement opportunities with one million people, the visibility a brand gets from innovating in this medium extends into all social media. Be on Foursquare or be, as they say, square.

#thetrendwatch