Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

Composition Index Trend (Source: comScore Media Metrix)

Marta's off today, so I'm stepping in to bring you this week's digital happenings.

Twitter's Getting Younger and Facebook is Getting Older
Not only has your Grandma probably posted on your Wall, those college student that have been on Facebook since it's inception are aging. Hence the median age of users is going up. And all those reports that say Gen Y just isn't interested in Twitter are now out of date. According to ReadWriteWeb, "Twitter is now the second-youngest of the top four social networking sites." MySpace still takes the youth crown. Back to Twitter: 12-24-year-olds now represent the highest average growth segment, beating out the ever-popular 35-54 range. Could it be celebrities popular with this audience (remember the Ashton-CNN faceoff) that are driving this trend? Jonas Brothers have over 950,000 followers. Katy Perry has attracted over 1.3 million. Case in point.

Bold Moves
Volkswagen claims the only advertising they are doing for the launch of their new GTI is via an iPhone app. That's more than a $59 million savings. But it's also a first in car launches. VW has clearly defined their target and they feel this is a smart move. It might work due to the press behind it, but I wouldn't encourage marketers to be quick to copy. A second, third or tenth marketer to do this wouldn't have the novelty that might be part of it's success.

More Insight Into Your Social Media
Omniture announced the Social Media Optimization Solution in order to bring you "more actionable insight into social media activity, performance and impact." So now brands can more easily spot trends in Twitter or Facebook activity as they relate to a specific action on the brand's behalf. And that's just the beginning. This might be the first step in helping marketers more effectively spend their time and money on social media.

Google's Keeping Tabs on You
Google's Friend Connect is another way for users to interact with your brand. But do brands really need to add another tool to their "connect" mix? If it allows their users to interact with each other on their own terms as does Google's new Friend Connect, they might want to consider it.

Then again, users might be turned off to find the search-engine giant coddles your online habits in their Privacy Dashboard. Once the word is out, the Friend Connect feature on your brand site might not be the worth the implementation.

What's new in your digital world this week?

Sarah Jo Sautter