Fun Friday - Chobani Rocks the Yogurt World

This post is the first of a series on Chobani Yogurt that will continue next week. Those that know me know I am a big fan of the Brand and the Product.

Announcement in Yahoo Finance April 20, 2011

In April of this year Chobani became the number one yogurt in the US. This is not a social media story. This is a product and timing story. They have the finest yogurt (in my opinion) which justifies their premium pricing. Their tag line Nothing But Good is not a load of bull. Read the label. It truly is Nothing But Good. All natural. No chemicals or preservatives. Even the milk is hormone and chemical free. All ingredients are premium high grade stuff. People know this. If you haven't been aware there has been a shortage of product because they can not keep up with demand. Show me a Consumer Food Product that has a shortage? I have never seen this. 

Chobani has 60,000 Facebook Fans. Two months ago it was 40,000. So this is a product story not a social media story. I will go into the details next week on what they have done right in their marketing. But I have said over and over no marketing or advertising can make up for a bad product or poor customer service.

This is a fun brand. They have passionate fans and customers including me. If you follow me on Twitter or see my Facebook posts I am very active in supporting them. But this goes deeper. They have created this passion in me beyond the product. Yes I have received free yogurt from participating on Twitter and Facebook in coupons and twice a whole case of 12 sent to me. They give away a lot of Yogurt! They encourage people to engage across many platforms. They support bloggers, chefs/cooking and fitness/nutrition. Their staff is as passionate as their customers. They care about their fans and do many things right.

Look at these fans. These are photos from their Facebook Page

I recommend you follow @Chobani which the very personable Emily Schildt who is Chobani's Communications Manager and thus Community Manager. As well as @ChobaniNicki which is Nicki Briggs MS RD who is their staff nutritionist. Ask her a question she will help you.

And if you want to see their CEO Hamdi Ulukaya interviewed on Bloomberg in April with his truly immigrant to America success story adding to 400 years of such history which is why people outside of America view us so differently here you go:

Social Tuesday - Finally the Facebook is Dying Wake Up Call

This blog is littered with proof Facebook is dying. The reason most Media Publications are silent is if it dies they have less news to write. Mashable has their whole business at risk. VC's will flee Social Technology Companies if this happens. Workers, Entrepreneurs and I.P. will run to where the highest potential for gain is. This wouldn't be the case if the hype machine had not started. If people who are smart cunning self promoters but only average marketers in real life, hadn't jumped in early with books, and twitter followings, and Brands and Agencies getting suckered into thinking Social Media Marketing was ever going to be bigger than TV or even Digital. 

Would you read a book (never mind buy) by Brian Solis or Chris Brogan focusing on the next big wave in Marketing if they do so just 2 years from now knowing Facebook is flailing and Brands have decided there was no home run, that it was just ancillary sales being added and that all the hype for Brand Pages and Communities just didn't pan out? Would you hire them as a CMO even? Probably not.

What if the Social Influence companies like Klout or Edelman also don't deliver. Klout goes away. Does this impact Edelman's non-social line of business if their clients feel they were mis-led in a major way (not on purpose btw). How would you feel about the quality of their advice? This is no different than the stock market people. When a brokerage house bets wrong and their client's lose money, investors flee to who got it right vs saying 'Well next time you will get it right'.

Three key articles here are worth reading:

First is by the wicked smart Ben Kunz (@benkunz)  of Media Associates on his blog Thought Gadgets: LINK

He discusses why Facebook will die using history of networks dying for his thesis.

Next is Business Insider who shows a loss of users in key markets like the US as a sign of something is wrong. LINK  (thank you Chris Baccus for this article)

You should compare that to my last blog post. LINK

Lastly is Media Post also bringing up a flagging network. LINK

In April I proved the network had seen over a 30% drop in use per person per day. I also guest posted on Waxing Unlyrical showing how anyone can use math to figure this stuff out: LINK

As a Brand what do you do. Do you blindly trust the Social Agencies, Social Media Talking Heads, Mashables, VC's and Goldman Sachs that Facebook will be supreme in commerce and marketing to make you money when really the goal is for them to make money, when they don't give a flying shit about you? Or do you believe the smart people who show you over and over that this is not happening now nor will it happen in the future. 

Remember once again Class Repeat after Me:

Social Media is not Media nor Marketing! It is a Revolution in Interpersonal Communication Technologies. Ad Support will fail Marketing will fail! Proof is your cell phone! Do your calls get interrupted by a word from your sponsor? NO! You pay through the nose for the service because the value is communication! And that is where these networks should focus. On bring value to consumers and showing they need a service and will pay for the service vs gimmicks, smoke and mirrors, and cutesy games.

Yes I can be smug. I have been screaming about this for over a year. So dear clients of the Agencies like Virtue and Likeable Media I am available for hire. I will not steer you wrong.

As you all know I hate Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. I find them slimy unethical weasels who would rather exploit people over and over in chasing a buck than care about their users whom without they have no network! Es Stupido!

Why Math and Reality Hurts Facebook

Every so often I go to the Facebook Stats Page to number crunch and see what is really going on. This blog and my previous one are littered with proof Facebook's hype is way beyond reality from the 33% drop in use per person per day since April 2010 to the fact that for every 2 Unique Active Users that log in each month only 1 will take an action (Status Update, Comment, Like). I see this lack of activity when I run a client's Brand Page. This client makes the most delicious gourmet ice cream sammies on earth and yet when I try to give them away to our 1700 Fans they aren't paying attention. If FREE Gourmet Ice Cream Sammies that people pay $5 each for and they buy a lot of them, can't get someone's attention what hope does a major brand selling something boring like Mac and Cheese or Chips have?

So I am interested here is the two key metrics Compete shows. Unique Monthly Visitors and Visits. Monthly visitors is not accounts. Per the Compete notes if I click on a link and it takes me to Facebook to view a photo or anything on their network I am considered a visitor. A visit is being active on the site not a log in. If I leave the site and I am inactive for 30 minutes they end my visit. And if I come back an hour later it is a new visit.

First I will say to get over half of the 250 Million US consumers over the age of 13 to visit your site once per month is very freaking impressive. But as Compete notes Facebook could buy a ton of digital ads that get people to click and this take them to Facebook to kind of game this system if they wanted. I am going to say they do not do this nor have too.

But the increase from 125mil to 137mil unique visitors is technically flat over the last year rising less than 1% per month. Definitely not a juggernaut in the US anymore and has probably peaked. And the 18% drop in visits in April from March? Curious about that.

But if I take the number of total visits last month and divide by unique visitors I get 23 per month per unique visitor. Which means on average each person visits 3 out of 4 days a month. That assumes one visit. This is something important people! Your visit ends if you are inactive for 30 minutes! So if I visit for 10 minutes and leave that is not a lot of time spent on Facebook. The average time per active account is down to 35 minutes per day from 55 minutes in April 2010 (from Facebook stats page).

What if one person visits four times a day = 120 in a month? That erases 5.2 two people!!!!!! If 22 Million people in the US got to Facebook 4 times a day for a whole month. Then that leaves ZERO visits for the other 115 million unique visitors.

My point being the number of people on Facebook each day is being grossly overstated by the Media, Social Media Agencies, and Social Media Guru's. This is possible because Facebook is coy and only now gives gross numbers like number of accounts vs real activity numbers. Whenever they give activity numbers it always is embarrassing so they try not too. Like each active user watching 0.5 Videos on Facebook per month is a huge failure even if 300 million videos viewed seems a lot. This allows the people looking to snow companies into thinking they can reach more people with Facebook than they really can. And reinforces why when I post a chance to win a FREE Ice Cream Sammie only 6 people participate out of 1700. The 1700 are real people and real accounts but they aren't on Facebook very much nor spending much time on the network. And that my friends is 100% factual.

Editors Note: Obviously with visits down 18% there were more visits per Unique Visitor per month in March 2011. It doesn't change the thesis here. What would be great to see is if May had a drop in uniques too. Then Goldman Sach's will buy Compete just to shut them down to protect their Facebook Investment!