Social Networking During That Big Game of Which the Name Is Forbidden to Be Spoken Lest Someone Think I’m Affiliated With a Giant Saucer ⇥ marketingland.com

Matt McGee of Marketing Land:

According to my count, Twitter was mentioned in 26 of 52 national TV commercials — that’s 50 percent of the spots that aired during CBS’ game coverage. Facebook was mentioned in only four of those commercials — about eight percent. Google+, which is reportedly the No. 2 social network in the world, wasn’t mentioned at all.

Given that Facebook is bigger than Twitter, you’d think it would have more mentions. But I think the marketing geniuses at these brands recognize that Twitter is more personable, and therefore more valuable to market towards.

Also, I didn’t post about it when that survey was released, but I’m calling bullshit that Google+ is the second-biggest social network. Of the dozen-or-so people who I have on both Facebook and Google+, not a single one of them has posted since mid-November. Anecdotal, sure, but that’s what’s important: if your friend group (your “network”, as it were) doesn’t use it to socialize, it isn’t a successful social network, is it?

Update: Bobby Grasberger notes a flaw in McGee’s methodology:

All 26 of his “Twitter mentions” included hashtags. But many of the hashtags were platform agnostic: not accompanied by a Twitter logo.

Intriguing that the hashtag is no longer a Twitter-ism, but broadly supported across Instagram and Google+ as well.