US NetMarketing Nikkei Column: Dec. 2nd “How much can companies commit to social media strategy?”

The Dec. 7th column titled “How much can companies commit to social media strategy?” of monthly Nikkei BP Column, NetMarketing Online (in Japanese) “US NetMarketing Chawa” covers the heavy use of social media by companies for the U.S. holiday shopping season and is analyzed from both corporate and consumer standpoints. According to Deloitte’s 24th Annual Holiday Survey of 10,000 US adults issued on Nov. 11th, almost 1 in 5 people (17%) said they would use social media tools for holiday shopping for the following reasons:
・60% to get coupons and sale info
・53% to get gift ideas
・52% to check what gifts friends and family want

Companies are aggressively utilizing social media to meet these consumers’ needs. An excerpt in English follows below, and the column (in Japanese) can be found at the Nikkei site.

Dec. 7: “How much can companies commit to social media strategy?“

Unfriend: the word that represented 2009

Excerpt: On Nov. 16th, the New Oxford American Dictionary selected “unfriend” — to remove someone from one’s social network’s friend list — as the word to represent 2009 （http://blog.oup.com/2009/11/unfriend/）. Unfriend was first used in January for a Burger King campaign “Whopper Sacrifice,” where a Facebook app was used offering a free Whopper coupon by unfriending 10 people from one’s Facebook account. Since notices were sent to those who were unfriended, there was a huge outcry by the participants, and Facebook asked BK to stop the campaign due to privacy violations.

This provocative word created much buzz and media coverage, and according to TechCrunch, the campaign was halted after just 10 days. In the end, 82,771 participants unfriended a total of 233,906 people from their friend lists. This showed the anxiety of users whose number of SNS friends were out of control enough to want to unfriend some of them, and was a glimpse into how SNS was an integral part of consumers’ lives. The British English “Collins English Dictionary” announced on July 6th that it was adding “Twitter” to it’s next edition. As seen by these new official terminology, social media is increasingly becoming a critical component in consumers’ lives. (The column continues in Japanese.)