As Twitter moves into the business mainstream — nearing some 35 million unique global visitors, according to ComScore — it’s increasingly clear that one community has yet to fully embrace the social-networking tool du jour: agencies.

The irony is that the same people clients hire to erect communications and social-media strategies often appear uncomfortable using Twitter themselves.

One stark example: A couple of months back, Volvo struck a landmark ad-placement deal with YouTube to promote the Twitter feed for its XC60 model (@VolvoXC60). But the agency that created the innovative rich-media ad for Volvo, Havas’ Euro RSCG, has an account (@Euro_RSCG) that’s never been used.

Asked what gives, a Euro spokeswoman said: “We’re developing our Twitter strategy and in the meantime want to hold onto the name. It’s a Catch-22: You don’t want your Twitter handle stolen, but you also don’t want to start using it before you’re really ready.”

Whatever the case may be, save for a few shining examples of shops that “get it,” agencies need to catch up with their clients — and fast.

Marketers offer better examples
Many marketers are known for successfully leveraging Twitter to boost brand awareness and interact with their consumers, among them Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh (@zappos) and the chief marketing officers of Best Buy (Barry Judge, @BestBuyCMO) and Express (Lisa Gavales).

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Ever roll through some sleepy burg and notice the townsfolk have painted each fire hydrant, recycling bin or park bench as its own work of art? That’s one thing… but how about a whole country? Only in Japan, where the same famously zany locals fascinated with sailor costumes and neon lights on dump trucks have done it yet again. Only this time, their attention has shifted to manhole covers. Yes, manhole covers.

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Think Major League Baseball’s stats and live video iPhone app is cool? Imagine what Apple could do with technology it was granted a patent for this week: a network of sensors that deliver real-time velocity, impact, rotation and other data from sporting event participants to the web. Imagine your iPhone’s accelerometer placed inside a boxer’s glove, a snowboarder’s snow suit or a NASCAR driver’s car – with the information captured delivered to your iPhone or Apple TV while you watch the competition either in person or remotely.

Would you pay a premium for an event ticket that includes real time stats like that delivered to your iPhone? I would. Of course Apple is granted all kinds of patents all the time and only some of them amount to anything – but this one is very cool.

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Don’t get too caught up in the hype of digital media usage. That is a key message of “How Teens Use Media,” a new research report by the Nielsen Company.

“The notion that teens are too busy texting and Twittering to be engaged with traditional media is exciting, but false,” according to the executive summary. Instead of replacing traditional media with new media consumption, teens are simply making time for both, it concludes.

Other myths that the report debunks are that teenagers’ preferences differ vastly from adults, that teens’ media and entertainment spending is insulated from the recession (they actually reduce it, with out-of-home entertainment more affected than in-home) and that traditional advertising can’t resonate with teens (once ads break through the clutter, teens like them more).

The leading type of media use among teens is still television, with the average teenager watching 3 hours and 20 minutes per day, debunking the myth of YouTube as the lead medium. Actually, Nielsen says that teens watch more TV than ever, with usage up 6% over the past five years in the U.S.

In comparison, a typical teen only watches about 11 minutes of online video per day, Nielsen found, or an average of about 3 hours per month. That is much less than adults ages 18-24 who watch 5 hours and 35 minutes per month and even less than adults ages 35-44 who watch 3 hours and 30 minutes per month, according to the study, which compiled data from across Nielsen’s media measurement businesses and its biannual global survey of consumers across 50 countries.

“Teens watch less online video than most adults, but the ads are highly engaging to them,” the summary of the Nielsen report says. “Teens spend 35% less time watching online video than adults 25-34, but recall ads better when watching TV shows online than they do on television.”

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Someone sent us this today:

der Sorgenfrei

The pitch:
“In production for over 60 years, this unpretentious chair is perfect for Office, Kitchen and Cafe alike. Oh, and did I mention that it’s extremely comfortable?”

Go get one

In the fall we conducted a short survey with Warren Sukernek on Brand Perception on Twitter. Survey was very well received, so we decided to do a follow-up survey in May. This time we surveyed 208 people with 6 questions regarding interacting with brands. The full results are here. A couple of key insights:

1)    Not surprisingly, most users (97%) agree that brands should engage their customers on Twitter. This is 8 percentage points higher than the fall survey. Clearly Twitter users want to engage with their brands. We are accustomed to communicating with companies on Twitter.

2)    The majority also have a better impression of brands that use Twitter for customer service (88%). This is 7 percentage points higher than the original survey.

3)    Proper usage of Twitter however, is paramount as 90% of users would frown upon poor or inappropriate brand use of Twitter. This is equivalent to the results found in the original survey.

4)    The power of a relationship is extremely strong on Twitter. 80% of respondents would recommend a company based on their presence on Twitter, a huge 20 percentage point increase from the prior survey and 84% of Twitter users will reward those brands they have key relationships by being more willing to purchase from them. This was a 5 percentage point increase from the original survey.

5)    Influencers: More than 80% of respondents have 100+ followers and almost 35% of respondents have posted more than 1000 Tweets since they signed up for the service. 

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What if something you thought you knew to be true, turned out to be exactly the opposite? What if an approach you imagined was working for you was actually working against you?

Imagine if it were true, for example, that almost nobody buys a product or service anymore simply because they need it, or because its price is the right price? That, even in an economic downturn, they have to want it as much as need it before they buy?

It’s a difficult concept to grasp because, at the end of the day, it’s not about rational thought. That notion is a wake-up call for products and brands who have built their businesses on pure reason.

Ask Gerald Zaltman, a Harvard scholar who suggests in his seminal book How Customers Think that only 5% of consumer purchasing behavior is based on rational thought processes, suggesting that 95% is due to subconscious motivation. I know it’s a hard statistic to swallow, but consider this: what if he’s only even half right?

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A new way of printing organic electronics is more reliable and yields higher performance.

It’s possible to print large, flexible arrays of cheap, plastic transistors to drive displays. But the performance of these organic electronics is still not consistent enough for commercial devices.

A new method for printing a wide variety of semiconducting organic compounds such as polymers is much more reliable–and on top of that, it improves the performance of a wide variety of these materials by a few orders of magnitude.

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First Sharp announced the development of the world’s first waterproof solar-powered cell phone, and now the company has done the world one better by developing the thinnest solar module for mobile devices ever. The LROCGO2 Solar Module measures just 0.8 mm thick–the width of eight human hairs.

The Solar Module’s polycrystalline solar cells only provides 300 mW of power, so the device won’t replace traditional batteries any time soon. But it can act as a supplement for emergency situations or any time when a traditional cell phone charger is MIA. And since the module is fitted onto cell phones in the manufacturing process,it eliminates the need to carry around extra emergency solar chargers.

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Last year in November we ran a survey with @warrenss among Twitter users about their perception of Brands using Twitter.

We just launched the follow-up study, so please take 2 minutes to complete these 11 questions.

Much appreciated:

Survey