MaxxoMedia Digital Media and Entertainment Trends

Via Mashable

David A. Yovanno is the CEO of Gigya, Inc., a leading social optimization platform for online business. He can be found on Twitter at @daveyovanno or e-mail dave(at)gigya(dot)com.

Now that most social networks are supporting functionality on third party sites — via Facebook Connect, Sign in with Twitter, Yahoo! Open Strategy, MySpaceID, and other similar technologies — entertainment companies are experimenting with a variety of approaches.

While movie promotions on Facebook, top sports moments on YouTube, and MySpace music pages remain key fixtures, many entertainment companies are also now actively focused on how to apply social strategies to their own sites to deepen relationships with fans and become more relevant. Here are four ways on-site social features are benefiting both fans and the entertainment industry today.

Social networking has risen among all age groups in the past few years, particularly among teens and younger adults. 73% of online teens used social networking sites in 2009, compared to 47% of online adults. Breaking down online adults into older and younger demographics, 72% of adults 18-29 use social networking sites, compared to 40% of their counterparts 30 and older, according to research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Social networking adults in all age brackets favor Facebook by a wide margin, with older adults preferring it slightly more. Seventy-three percent of all adults 18 and older who use social networking sites have a Facebook account. Broken down by age demographic, this includes 71% of adults 18-29 and 75% of adults 30 and older.

Mobile social gaming community Cellufun is letting its eight million monthly visitors create discussion groups and advertisers can use this content to psychographically target their ads to members.

Each group has real-time chat and its own private forums as well as officers who get to decide membership criteria and review applications. Group affiliations also appear on users’ home pages, enhancing social ties throughout the community.

“Cellufun has become a social hub for millions of users all over the world, and they’re increasingly opting to spend time on our site rather than PC focused social networks like MySpace, Facebook, and hi5,” said Keith Katz, VP of Marketing at Cellufun. “We’ve always had informal groups popping up and posting in various forums, but one of our most frequent user requests has been to have a more formalized system for creating affinity groups, much like what’s available on various Web-based sites.