• Facebook users view an average of 661.8 pages every month
• Hi5users view an average of 351.2 pages per month
• MySpace users view an average of 261.8 pages per month

So not only does Facebook hold a commanding lead over its social networking rivals in terms of sheer numbers (according to the Facebook blog, they surpassed 350 million in December 2009) but it also has a huge edge in terms of engagement.

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When Yahoo announced in early December that it would integrate with Facebook Connect, many considered it an admission of the long-reigning portal’s defeat in the battle to be the hub for people’s online identities. Om read the deal as a signal of Yahoo’s “technological irrelevan[ce],” and by extension, the “ultimate validation” of Facebook.

Cody Simms and Chris Yeh of Yahoo

Yahoo certainly made itself a target by pre-announcing a non-monetary integration set to “begin in the first half of 2010″ but offering little to no information as to what, exactly, that meant. However when it comes to the social web, the company does have a master plan, said Yahoo’s Cody Simms and Chris Yeh in a visit to GigaOM this week. (This follows previous posts I’ve written about Facebook and Google’s master plans for the social web in 2010.)

What Yahoo wants to do is aggregate its users’ activities from around the web. The Facebook Connect integration is the first in a string of coming deals with other social sites, said Simms, who is director of product management for the Yahoo application platform. It is also supposed to be a deeper form of content and user sharing than that available to those sites that simply integrate Facebook Connect on their own (but again, there’s nary a mockup to give some actual shape to the deal).

2009 was a behind-the-scenes building year for Yahoo’s social aggregation strategy, said Simms and Yeh, who’s head of the Yahoo developer network. The company has finally created a common platform layer for its many, many products — with more than 80 of them integrated since last April. It’s also allowed outside applications to come onto its platform, for instance Mint on My Yahoo, through OpenSocial.

And now, at the center of Yahoo’s new open social strategy, is a product called Yahoo Updates, which consists of activity streams shown in Yahoo Mail, on its front page, in Yahoo Messenger clients and on its toolbars. They are already functional; users receive a feed of updates from their contacts’ participation on Yahoo media properties when they comment or rate a story, for example. So when a normal user goes about their business chatting with their friends or reading their email, they’ll also see a stream of their friends’ social activities and updates taking place on Yahoo or elsewhere.

Yahoo users’ primary mode is consumption, said Simms, so that sort of activity will remain the core of Updates. But what the Facebook integration will do is enable that feed to be interactive — so a user could see a post from Facebook and comment back on it, for example. And a user’s Yahoo activity could show up in their Facebook stream. The concept and execution is quite similar to AOL’s Socialthing/Lifestream efforts.

What about integrating with Yahoo’s own services? This will happen in a number of ways:

• In the next couple of months Yahoo plans to start allowing comments on its incredibly popular News, Finance and Sports sites. While that will undoubtedly set off unfathomable floods of comments on the story pages, you’ll get the ones from your contacts brought right to you.
• Right now the people you see in your Updates are those with whom you have explicit Yahoo Connections. Next the company will add in your Mail and Messenger contacts. (Google is also planning to make use of existing social ties in its communications products.)
• Yahoo will also try to make helpful content connections itself. So if an update says “Just saw ‘Avatar,’” Yahoo might drop in the appropriate movie trailer.

The beauty of the Yahoo Updates product is that it isn’t really a product. And there won’t be any “big bang release,” said Simms. Unlike similar efforts like FriendFeed or Cliqset, which are great at aggregating social activity, Updates doesn’t require users to do anything but go to their friendly and familiar Yahoo sites — something millions of people do every day. And Yahoo should be able to attract developers to build interesting things because it can offer them an tremendous amount of traffic.

But Yahoo will need to be really smart about integrating services in order to ensure that the combined user experience is better than going to all of them individually. And that’s going to be hard, because often someone else owns the social graph, users syndicate their updates all over the place, commenting and rating systems differ — in other words, the whole thing could end up an uninformative, repetitive muddle.

Photo courtesy of Yahoo Anecdotal via Flickr.

via Yahoo’s Big Plan for the Social Web in 2010: Aggregate It – GigaOM.

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Brette Borow is the President and Founder of Girls Guide To, the “ladies only” guide to life, and spends most of her days engaging with the community’s over 140,000 members.

There are over 56 million women using Facebook in the United States, and for marketers this means one very important thing –- if you have a brand, product or company that targets women, Facebook is the place to be.

Unfortunately, unless you’re a brand that every woman knows or loves, then just being on Facebook is not enough. Facebook has done a great job of giving marketers a powerful tool with its Pages product, but like most things in life, it comes down to execution. To help, here is a list of 10 tips for marketing to women on Facebook.

The first thing I tell marketers, whether it’s a Fortune 500 company or a friend launching an online jewelry site, is to remember that women are bombarded by marketing messages all day, every day. On the surface, Facebook is no different than the “real world” –- constantly being pitched to and spammed is annoying. The main difference between Facebook and the “real world” is that on Facebook, fans can “hide” your marketing message much more easily than they can avoid the billboard on the way to work. As a result, you are going to have to try your best to connect with them. On Facebook, quality rises to the top more often than not.

So quality rises to the top, but what does that mean? For starters lets take a look at what Dove has done on Facebook. Dove is one of the few brands that seems to grasp the fact that on Facebook, content really is queen and that brands must deliberately create an emotional connection with their fans. This is a great strategy to emulate because in order to reach women on Facebook, you are going to have to connect with them by providing content that women can relate to. Something that ignites a reaction like “Wow, that’s me!” will encourage women not only to respond to your messages, but actually remember them. Making an emotional connection is one of the best ways to motivate women to use your brand or service.

Utility should be synonymous with your brand. It will allow you to create a relationship with your fans. Create a series of posts that your fans can look forward to on a daily or weekly basis — something they will feel a real connection to and will teach them something they can use. If you run a fashion web site, for example, provide a piece of advice from a designer every Friday –- it will make it much harder for your fans to block your updates if they have something to look forward to.

Women like to be heard. Stand out from the crowd and engage us. By creating a two-way conversation, you are personalizing your brand and making it one that can be trusted.

Your Facebook Page is also one of the best “focus groups” on the web. Not sure if you should add a product to your line? Trying to decide which functionality to add to your iPhone app? Just ask your fans. A great example of this type of interaction is H&M. They are constantly asking their fans what pieces they want to buy, what they would pay and what they want H&M to carry. This type of feedback is invaluable and brings the fan into the overall experience. Women can share their thoughts, and you can enjoy the free insight you’re receiving straight from your target consumer.

Not only do we like to be heard, we also like to know we’re actually being listened to. If a fan posts a question on your page, answer it. If she compliments your brand, thank her. And if she complains about it, address her concerns and reassure her that you’re working on fixing it. This is a great way to build trust and showcase the great customer service and support your company offers.

If you’re doing a giveaway, running a great promotion or launching a new product, you need to keep the process simple. Cosmopolitan Magazine, for example, constantly offers giveaways and discounts, but always do it in a clear and simple way. The lesson here is not to overthink your promotions. Your fans will look forward to the next time your brand has something new and exciting to share, as long as taking advantage of the offer is relatively pain-free.

Unlike Twitter, where most people are following a plethora of people and information is passing by at lightning speed, Facebook has a tendency to draw attention to “spammy posts.” Facebook users do not want to see the same message posted multiple times in their feed. So if you’re promoting something through your Fan Page be sure to reword it and provide additional value before you post it a second time.

You need to remember that women tend to be the CPOs (Chief Purchasing Officers) in their households, and that they tend to ask friends for advice about brands and products. Women are more than happy to share a good deal when they find one.

The Limited was one of the first brands to really grasp that Facebook represents a huge opportunity to reach their CPOs. They have started to embed actual retail offers into their newsfeed. But unlike other brands, they do not drive their traffic off of Facebook. Instead, their feed stories open up into widgets on Facebook that can handle the entire transaction right there. This clever use of technology is a prime example of ways that brands need to think outside of the box to reach their social shoppers.

Women also tend not to be shy about sharing their distaste about a brand or product or talking about their poor experience, so never take advantage of your fans. The last thing you want is your target demographic badmouthing your brand on a viral platform like Facebook.

Keep your offers and processes clear and honest and always respond to feedback and criticism.

Fill your fans in on the positive but don’t be afraid to address the negative. As we all know, the web is transparent. Allow it to work in your favor. Just launched a new Android app? Let your fans be the first to know. Just got nominated for 6 Grammy Awards and want to share it with the world? Then do what Lady Gaga did and let your fans know the moment you find out. In a transparent world, you can share your news with your fans, and the sooner the better.

Last but not least, if your company is experiencing difficulties like supply shortage or a down web site, be the first to let your customers know. Be upfront and straightforward. Your honesty will speak volumes about your brand.

via 10 Musts for Marketing to Women on Facebook.

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The FMCG giants are moving away from sites created on a campaign-by-campaign basis in favour of investment in existing communities. While both companies will continue to create campaign sites for certain brands in the immediate future, they have said the long-term future lies with social media on platforms populated by their target consumers.

Coca-Cola will position its official Facebook and YouTube pages as the lead online channels for upcoming international activity for its Coke Zero and Fanta brands, new media age understands.

Prinz Pinakatt, the Coca-Cola Company’s interactive marketing manager for Europe, said, “In some cases some of our campaigns won’t need a coke.com-hosted site. In most cases these will still exist as it’s the most obvious destination for a consumer, but it might only be a page linking to YouTube encouraging people to join the community there.

“We would like to place our activities and brands where people are, rather than dragging them to our platform,” Pinakatt added.

Unilever is also abandoning campaign sites in favour of long-term community engagement platforms.

Cheryl Calverley, Unilever UK’s senior global manager for Axe Skin, said, “You’ll see fewer brands creating a site for one campaign and then throwing it away. Certainly we won’t do that at Unilever any more.

“It’s natural online to go to the place where people are already consuming media,” she added. “It’s less effort to ask people to leave an environment they’re already in.”

The shift has caused some digital media specialists to question the long-term future of campaign sites.

Jo Lyall, head of invention and digital at Mindshare, said, “The challenge is understanding what a campaign site is now and how you get everyone into the mindset of creating a continuous stream of content.”

Julie Jeancolas, digital board director at media agency Carat, said, “It’s not always cost effective to produce a site every time you launch a campaign. What we tell clients is to create something ongoing that has scope for community.”

Unilever’s Calverley said the shift in focus won’t mean less work for creative agencies, more that their output will evolve.

“The digital agencies that have a proper planning arm and think very seriously about the consumer’s journey through the digital space will be those that will benefit,” she said. “The battle is now to understand how to continue engagement with a consumer outside of a campaign site I’ve driven them too. It’s a much more complicated planning challenge.”

via Cover story: Coke drops campaign sites in favour of social media | News | New Media Age.

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Some advertisers, like Pepsi, are pouring marketing dollars into homegrown projects rather than flashy bets like the SuperBowl. But even so, online video ad dollars will grow significantly this year according to the most recent figures from eMarketer–they’ll be buoyed by pre-roll ads. Keep an eye on new video ad formats that will emerge this year thanks in part to fresh evidence of the effectiveness of tailored and interactive online video spots. For more details, watch this week’s New Media Minute.

Editor’s Note:  Daisy’s New Media Minute is produced and sponsored separately from Beet.TV.  We are pleased to publish her segment regularly here.  AP

UPDATE: The Nielsen Company announced today the overall online video usage and top online brands ranked by video streams for December 2009.  Unique viewers, total streams, streams per viewer, and time per viewer were up, led by a 13% growth in time spent viewing per viewer in December.

For more December online video data, visit Nielsen Wire.

via Beet.TV: Social Media Spending to Hit $1.3 Billion This Year.

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Via Slideshare.

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1. Pay Attention to the Metrics
You can’t manage what you can’t measure. Chief Marketing Officers are going to pay more attention to metrics and tie in social media more directly to overall business goals, not just web-related goals. When starting up new project agree on what the metrics should be and what goals are appropriate.

2. Scale Good Habits
As you grow, make sure you match your structure, policy and guidelines to your organization size. What works with 2 people won’t work with 20 people. All in all your structure should encourage good habits. Your entire team should be motivated to respond quickly, post consistently and talk like a human. Speaking of policies and rules…

3. Have Rules, But Trust People
As your social media strategy matures, you’ll add in more rules and guidelines. However, you can’t have a rule for every situation. You need to trust your team. Lead by example, don’t manage with rulebook.

4. Creativity & Personality Trump Big Budget
Social media is definitely one of those areas in life where more money doesn’t always win. Two of the most powerful ingredients in social media are creativity and personality. They are the key to having a viral message and to being a trusted resource. They are also essential to discovering useful strategies and tactics. You can’t be afraid to try something new or go against the grain.

5. Listen Listen Listen
Don’t focus so much on you and your message. Put that farther down on your To Do List. Focus first on your customers. Hear what they are saying, see what they’re up to. Once you’ve been able to connect, and figure them out, then see how you can help.

via 5 Social Media Secrets for 2010 – SlideShare Newsletter.

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