Social Media's Influence in the Consumer Buying Process

Not only is social media rocking the marketing world in terms of brand building and growing awareness, but according to a recent report by eMarketer, social media has a strong influence on consumers in the purchase funnel.

74% of consumers agree or strongly agree that they choose a product based on information they found online; specifically, customer service anecdotes.


The source of this information varies from search engines to blogs and discussion forums, among other user-generated content web sites.


Even more interesting is the data showing exactly when consumers are looking for this information. The majority are doing social media research during early shopping research or when trying to decide between a few different products. This information shows how important brand building in the social media marketplace really is, especially for consumer brands looking to drive sales and e-commerce.


Source: eMarketer Report, 2008

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posted by Harry Gold @ Tuesday, April 29, 2008 - 7:57 AM
 

Keyword Search and Beyond?

According to the slide (pictured below) by Nova Spivack, CEO and founder of semantic Web startup Radar Networks, keyword search is diminishing in favor of new Web search functions, including social search, tagging and semantic search, among others.


It remains to be seen whether this bell curve depicted by Spivack will become a reality for keyword search, or whether users will remain loyal to this tried and true searching method.

Spivack says the bottom line is this: "Keyword search engines return haystacks, but what we really are looking for are the needles. The problem with keyword search such as Google’s approach is that only highly cited pages make it into the top results. You get a huge pile of results, but the page you want—the “needle” you are looking for—may not be highly cited by other pages and so it does not appear on the first page. This is because keyword search engines don’t understand your question, they just find pages that match the words in your question."

Only time will tell what eventually prevails.

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posted by Harry Gold @ Monday, April 28, 2008 - 10:33 AM
 

Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: March 2008

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 6:41 AM
 

Worldwide Podcast Listeners

According to eMarketer, the number of Internet users who download podcasts is on the rise worldwide, with a worldwide average of 48.8% in 2008, an increase of 27%!

In the U.S., 29.5% of Internet users download podcasts in 2008, up 15.2% from last year.

Source: eMarketer

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posted by Harry Gold @ Friday, April 25, 2008 - 6:24 AM
 

Where to Find Video Consumers with Household Incomes $100,000+ Online

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 6:13 AM
 

Anatomy of a Blogger

According to the BIGresearch Simultaneous Media Survey, the typical blogger is:
  • Male (53.7%)
  • Average age of 37
  • Slightly lower than average income ($55,819 vs. $56,811)
  • Better than average education (14.3 years of education vs. 14.2)
  • Ethnically:
  • Using more forms of new media than the average person
All data is based on the 26% of all adults who say they regularly or occasionally blog.

Source: BIGresearch, Center for Media Research

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Forrester Predicts Surge in Global Enterprise Web 2.0 Spending by 2013

According to Forrester Research, enterprise spending on Web 2.0 technologies is rapidly growing and expected to continue this upward trend. With an anticipated compound annual growth rate of 43%, enterprise Web 2.0 spending is expected to reach $4.6 billion globally by the year 2013.

The graphic above breaks down business spending on social networking, RSS, blogs, wikis, mashups, podcasting, and widgets, the current popular growing technologies of Web 2.0.

The full Forrester report includes an analysis of enterprise Web 2.0 spending across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific as well as an analysis of the challenges facing vendors, particularly in the IT space, with Web 2.0. Check out the full report here.

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

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posted by Harry Gold @ Tuesday, April 22, 2008 - 5:29 PM
 

Top 10 Blog Sites

According to Nielsen Online, Blogger (a Google site) is the #1 blogging site as of March 2008. WordPress, not too far behind, is experiencing rapid growth, with an approximately 162% increase in unique visitors over the past year **, compared with Blogger's 51%.

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 1:29 PM
 

Top 10 Social Networking Sites

According to Nielsen, MySpace is still the #1 social networking site. While Facebook maintains its second-place position, its audience grew 98% in one year, compared with only 8% growth of MySpace. Similarly, networking site LinkedIn increased its audience by 319%, becoming the fourth-most-popular social networking site.

Source: Nielsen Online

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 1:05 PM
 

Expected Growth in User-Generated Video

According to Screen Digest, streams of user-generated video are expected to increase by 25% in the next four years. The ad revenues from these videos are expected to increase over 85%.

Source: eMarketer Report, 2008

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 12:49 PM
 

80% of Web Search Queries are Informational

A recent Penn State study found that most Web search queries can be classified into one of three categories: informational, navigational or transactional. According to PSU, "Informational searching involves looking for a specific fact or topic, navigational searching seeks to locate a specific Web site and transactional searching looks for information related to buying a particular product or service."

Results of the survey showed that based on more than 1.5 million queries, about 80 percent of queries were informational, with about 10 percent each for navigational and transactional searches.

The study was performed by Jim Jansen, assistant professor in Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology, along with IST undergraduate Danielle Booth and Amanda Spink, Queensland University of Technology.

Source: PSU

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Marketers Embracing Social Media

According to a recent report issued by the Society for New Communications Research, marketers are beginning to embrace social marketing.


The report explained that while standard metrics for online marketing, such as search engine ranking and web traffic, are still useful in evaluating social media, the most important and useful metric is simple awareness and engagement of users.

Specifically, blogs and online media were cited by marketers as more effective to younger (18-25) audiences. As far as blogs and podcasts, some important points in determining how to become influential included frequency of posting, page visits and site meter rankings.

Source
: "Social Marketing Makes Marketers Warm and Fuzzy," Marisa Peacock, CMSWire

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 9:22 AM
 

International Online Video Watching

According to a recent eMarketer report, some elements of social media are experiencing rapid growth in other countries, especially online video in Western Europe.

A JupiterResearch study showed that the percentage of UK Internet users watching online video jumped from 8% in 2006 to almost 30% in 2007.


Even more interestingly, a survey by Isobar found that while 90% of the French online audience ages 15 to 49 had seen at least one video ad in May of 2007, about 55% of these people went on to visit the Web site of the brand that was being advertised. About 33% searched online for information about the advertised product, and over 22% requested more information. A whopping 20% of these online video viewers then actually went on to buy the product!

Source: eMarketer Report, April 2008.

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 9:00 AM
 

U.S. Online Marketers'* Planned Spending in the Next Year

Note: *ad:tech attendees

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posted by Harry Gold @ Tuesday, April 8, 2008 - 12:50 PM
 

US Online Video Viewers As a Percent of Internet Users and Total Population

Growth and projected future growth of US online video viewers


Source: eMarketer Report, 2008

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 12:06 PM
 

The Growing Influences of Online Social Shoppers





Source: B to B magazine

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 11:53 AM
 

U.S. Podcast Advertising Spending, 2007-2012

Note: *Includes advertising and sponsorship spending
Source: B to B magazine

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 11:51 AM
 

Change in Search Marketing Spending



Source: B to B magazine

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 11:39 AM
 

U.S. Online Video Advertising Spending, 2006-2011 (% of total ad spending)



Source: B to B magazine

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 11:30 AM
 

Online Marketing Tactics Used by Companies Worldwide

*Note: Respondents are marketing executives. *Blogs, online games, social networks, virtual worlds, widgets and wikis.
Source: B to B magazine

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 10:31 AM
 

U.S. Online Social Network Advertising Spending



Source: B to B magazine

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 10:30 AM
 

Change In E-mail Marketing Use 2007-2008



Source: B to B magazine

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 10:27 AM
 

Reasons That U.S. Markets Use E-mail Marketing


Source: B to B magazine

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 10:10 AM
 

Best* Performing Online Advertising Tactics According to U.S. Online Marketers

Note: *Great ROI, outperforms other tactics;**ad:tech attendees
Source: eMarketer

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 10:06 AM
 

Google Universal Search

According to a recent iProspect study, more people click on News items within blended search results than after conducting a specific News search; and News items overall experience the most clicks within blended search results, over image and video. Image ads, however, experience the most clicks after an image-specific search.

Source: iProspect

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 9:40 AM
 

U.S. Online Advertising Spending 2006-2011




Source: eMarketer

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 9:09 AM
 

Year-over-year trends of B2B Advertising





Source: eMarketer

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posted by Harry Gold @ - 8:47 AM

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