Social Media to break $10bn barrier in 2011
With such large numbers of people involved with social media sites such as Facebook, it perhaps comes as no surprise that online revenue from social media is set to reach $10 billion in 2011 according to Gartner. This figure is up 41% from 2010 and is set to rise again to a staggering $290 billion by 2015. The majority of this figure is from advertising, but social gaming also constitutes a significant portion. Facebook UK revenue alone is tipped to hit a high of £180m in 2011, according to Enders Analysis. The advent of the Facebook store earlier this year with Asos will also start to slowly contribute to this figure, which brings to mind the question of f-commerce and the impact of social media on the psyche of the online buying process.
However, this number does pale when you compare this to Google’s advertising revenue for 2011, which is £32.2 billion – accounting for 97% of its total revenue.
BlueTube
Manchester City has signed a deal with YouTube which allows the English Premier League club to have its own branded channel with rights-owned and club-created content. This deal is the first of its kind between YouTube and a football club, with other Premier League teams sure to follow. City has embraced digital media in the last few years, featuring innovative moves such as using AR apps and QR codes, in addition to live streaming of open training sessions on Facebook. Richard Ayers, Head of Digital at Manchester City spoke of their plans to become part of the YouTube community:
“Our goal is to deliver a market leading experience for fans in terms of online video. That means delivering the great content we make to where the audience is – i.e. on YouTube. This deal is the first move in laying the foundations of our syndication strategy and is part of a series of deals to expand our online capabilities.”
The channel will predominantly feature behind-the-scenes footage, interviews and insights – match footage won’t be available due to licencing restrictions.
Advertorials Heating up Facebook ROI
Bauer Media (owner of titles including Heat magazine) have announced that they are going to be building dedicated paid-for advertorials into its major titles on Facebook pages.
In addition to connecting with audiences through existing brand websites, Bauer Media are looking to target readership through Facebook and capitalise on the large numbers in that community. Joseph Eva, head of creative digital at Bauer Media, explains that “..if FHM has a 400,000-strong Facebook community and they’re constantly on there, we need to be able to offer advertisers access to them.” A strategy for maintaining high levels of engagement with Facebook pages after users have Liked the page is by producing creative and compelling content, which Bauer Media is hoping to achieve with these new sponsored advertorials. Bespoke tabs will be sponsored by brands in an attempt to entice Facebook users to engage more with the page, which essentially will act as another advertising platform on Facebook. With the existing Facebook advert system in place, how the revenue of these new advertising platforms will be negotiated between Bauer Media, brands and Facebook remains to be seen. But what is clear is how campaign objectives are increasingly being based on social media.
Black Out for BlackBerry
If, like some of us at Fast Web Media, you’ve got a BlackBerry you’ll know only too well what a tough week it has been. BlackBerry’s massive service disruption this week prompted an even bigger outcry when the company failed to communicate effectively early on over what was plaguing its service. Today, as the EMEA service was still crippled, the Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis has issued this service update, apologising for what’s happened. The service disruption has had BlackBerry users tearing their hair out as they struggled to access email, BBM and internet browsing services since Monday, although a press conference at 3pm today tentatively announced the service had been restored.
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