Social Media: Briefly Mentioned

I am in the midst of the third of three social marketing workshops with the Canadian Health Network (more to come on that) and have not had much time for working on posts. Here are three places to go to feed your social media appetite in the meanwhile.

1. The winners of the YouTube awards have been announced. In fact we used Here It Goes Again for our physical activity break this afternoon.

2. MarketingSherpa writes on How to Market in the Virtual World including cases studies of Toyota in Whyville and American Apparel in Second Life and a number of useful resource links. The bottom-line is (as always for effective marketing) keep it relevant: 

It's still early for brands to begin large-scale marketing in Second Life. This does not mean they should not have a presence there. But before trying to buy and sell or advertise, they might consider building their brand by helping the citizens solve some of the unique problems that are common in Second Life. [Open access until 4 April 2007]

3. The Kaiser Family Foundation released a new report Food for Thought: Television Food Advertising to Children in the United States. Among their findings:

• Television advertising exposure for 8–17 year-olds is 35+ minutes a day.
• Annual average exposure to TV advertising for all products was estimated among children ages 2–7 to be 13,904 (106 hrs); 31,155 ads (230 hrs) for 8–12 year-olds, and 28,655 ads (217 hrs) for ages 13–17.
• Food is the largest product category of TV advertising for all ages (32% for 2–7 year-olds, 25% for 8–12 year-olds, and 22% for 13–17 year-olds).

And the take home message is:

...the study underscores the limited expectations that policymakers should place on public service campaigns on fitness and nutrition. Given these campaigns’ reliance on donated ad space (or limited campaign budgets), it is not surprising that children see very few such messages. For example, children under 8 see one PSA on fitness or nutrition for every 26 food ads; for tweens, it’s one PSA for every 48 food ads; and for teens, it’s one for every 130 food ads. While this certainly does not mean there isn’t an important role for PSAs in the fight against childhood obesity, it does indicate that those undertaking educational campaigns should have limited expectations, or a substantial budget.