Tag: Social marketing

The social media space continues to evolve. Pinterest, a site launched in March 2010 that describes itself as an online pinboard to organize and share things you love, recently emerged as one of the top 10 websites within the Hitwise Social Networking & Forums category. The invitation only site received nearly 11 million total visits during the week ending December 17, 2011, almost 40 times the number of total visits versus just six months ago (week ending June 18, 2011). Pinterest content has something for everyone, but the site is dominated by images featuring home décor, crafts, fashion, and food. Not surprisingly, visitors to the site in the 12 rolling weeks ending December 17th skewed female (58%) and between the ages of 25 and 44 (59%). Pinterest and the Social Networking & Forums category both receive their highest share of visits from California and Texas. However, the Social Networking category as a whole over-indexes on share of visits from Northeastern states while Pinterest over-indexes on visits from the states in the Northwest and Southeast. This data indicates that Pinterest visitors have a different profile versus their counterparts visiting other social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube. In fact, nine of the top ten over-indexed states for Pinterest visitors also over-index for the Hobbies and Crafts category (versus the online population) which is expected given the abundance of crafts content on the website. When comparing the Mosaic USA 2011 types that visit both Pinterest.com and Hobbies and Crafts websites during the 12 weeks ending December 17, 2011, the data shows that Boomers and Boomerangs are the group most likely to visit, particularly the Pinterest website (comprising over 10% of visits). This group of consumers is characterized as baby boomers and young adults who are heavy web users who spend time on house and garden, sports and fitness, and family-oriented websites. This information is useful to companies who wish to target their content to be “pinned” by Pinterest users. Thanks to Lauren Rice, an Analyst with the Strategic Services team at Experian Hitwise for today's analysis.

Social media continues to be one of the fastest growing industries online. Between September 2010 and September 2011 visits to Social Networks and Forums have increased by nearly 11% and, if you saw my Internet clock blog last month, social media accounts for nearly a quarter of all time spent online. But when are people engaging with social media the most?

Forward thinking marketers leverage the power of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and more to connect to consumers in a more personal and meaningful way. That's why Experian Simmons is focusing on social networking in this issue of Consumer Insights, featuring the freshest insights available from the latest Simmons New Media Study. The 2010 Social Networking Report provides the hard data behind this consumer revolution, including the fact that fully 66% of online Americans use social networking sites today, up from just 20% in 2007. Social networking is an increasingly addictive activity, with nearly half of those who access such sites (43%) reporting that they visit them multiple times per day. While users of social networking sites may have initially signed up to better keep in touch with friends, a growing number say they now use sites like Facebook to connect with family members. An astounding 70% of social networkers keep in touch with family via their various online networks, up from 61% a year ago. Fully two-thirds of all online adults today have visited a social networking site in the last 30 days, up from 53% in 2008 and 20% in 2007. Social networks have most thoroughly penetrated the young adult market, as nearly 9-in-10 online 18-to 34-year-olds visit such sites today. But even older Americans are tapping into social networks, with 41% of online adults age 50 and older making monthly visits to sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. The rise of social networking tracks closely with that of Facebook. As of April 26, 2010, 46% of the U.S. online adult population reported having visited Facebook in the past 30 days. While keeping in touch with others is an important part of social networking, the popularity of games like Farmville and Mafia Wars illustrate that fun is a big part of the appeal of social networking. Whether it’s keeping in touch with others, playing games, debating politics or any of the other reasons people use social networking sites, it cannot be denied that there’s a sense of addictiveness to it all. Visiting social networking sites multiple times a day is up 28% over last year, while less frequent visits are down across the board. As social networking sites extend their reach across generations, Americans are increasingly using such sites to connect with more than just their friends. Today, 17% of social networkers communicate with their parents via those sites and 22% connect with their kids, up from 9% and 15%, respectively, a year ago. An astounding two-thirds of social networking site visitors (68%) say they have shown their support of a product, service, company or musical group by becoming a “fan” or a “friend” on a social networking site. One year earlier, only 57% of social networkers had publicly declared their “like” for a product, service, company or musical group. Knowing that social networkers are comfortable connecting with products and brands they support, it's important to understand which brands have the best opportunity to connect with this group. Top retail brands among Facebook users, for instance, include H&M, Hot Topc and Forever 21. Specifically, Facebook users are full twice as likely as the average American adult to shop at H&M. Twitter visitors are 3.7 times more likely to shop at Nordstrom. Heavy users of social networking sites are primarily concentrated in the Northwest and markets that are heavily influenced by major colleges or universities.

The Simmons Multi-Media Engagement Study is a unique syndicated research program that measures – across multiple dimensions – the relationship between media vehicles and their audiences. This strategic tool provides measures of the cognitive and emotional engagement consumers have with major media properties, which includes broadcast, cable, and syndicated television, major magazines, and Internet sites. The Fall 2009 release of the Simmons Multi-Media Engagement Study utilizes a patented behavioral integration model to map the engagement levels of nearly 800 media vehicle users back to the respondents in the Experian Simmons National Consumer Study, allowing the analysis of media engagement to be filtered by consumer behaviors including users of over 8,000 brands in over 460 product categories. The following slides will demonstrate some powerful examples leveraging the Spring 2009 MME study. Among all U.S. adults, Consumer Reports magazine is the most Trustworthy media vehicle. In fact, 6 of the top 10 Trustworthy media vehicles are print magazines. The other top vehicles include 3 websites and 1 cable television network. When broken down by gender, there are 4 vehicles that remain consistent across the gender breaks, although their rank orders do change. Among media properties that index at 110 or higher for new car intenders*, we can determine which are best for communicating a message of trust. Below are the top vehicles ranked by the percent of new car intenders saying “I trust this to tell the truth.” When ranking print magazines by Ad Attention/Receptivity – the dimension that measures how likely consumers are to notice and pay attention to ads as well as buy advertised products – we find that the top of the list is dominated by niche publications, whose audiences are focused and whose ads are typically targeted. In a similar vein, those magazines that focus on a mass-market audience tend to have the lowest Ad Attention/Receptivity scores. Looking at the statement, “I get valuable information from the ads in this magazine,” we can see some interesting differences between consumers by region. For instance, while American Baby is tops in 3 of the 4 census regions, it is fourth in the Midwest. Smart Money magazine makes the list only in the Northeast and House Beautiful only in the West. Likewise, Family Handyman appears in both the Midwest and South, but not in the Northeast or West. Among print magazines that index at 110 or higher for readers planning to retire in the next year, we can determine which magazines would be ideal for placing ads promoting plans and hobbies for their future free time. The following magazines rank top for future retirees who say “This magazine has ads for things I care about.” The Personal Time Out dimension helps identify vehicles that people like to relax with and to spend their free time using. While there are similarities across users of all ages, these top websites for each age group show that younger users prefer social media and entertainment-oriented sites, while more mature users lean towards lifestyle sites when they just want to kick back. Of the Facebook.com users who say, “I like to kick back and wind down with Facebook.com,” we can look at what retailers they are most likely to shop compared to other online adults. Facebook.com users who like to kick back and wind down on the site are 172% more likely to shop at Express and 130% more likely to shop at Victoria’s Secret or Banana Republic. Should these retailers advertise on Facebook, they could benefit by including messages of escape and time-out. When it comes to word of mouth, synergy is a powerful tool. While 69% of all viewers of The Oprah Winfrey Show say, “This program gives me something to talk about,” this number increases to 81% among those viewers who either read O, The Oprah Magazine or visit Oprah.com. Incredibly, when looking at Oprah viewers who visit her website and also read her magazine, fully 96% say The Oprah Winfrey Show gives them something to talk about, an increase of 39% over all program viewers.

I’ve had several requests to provide some numbers on finance.google.com in light of their redesign this week. Here are some quick daily stats from this week: On Wednesday 12/13/06, Google Finance ranked 16th in our Business & Finance – Business Information category with .78% market share of visits for the category up from last Wednesday’s 22nd position with .68% market share. Still the industry leader, Yahoo! Finance with 37.3% market share for the category, has over 50x the market share of Google Finance. Here’s a daily marketshare of visits chart for Google Finance: With a clearly compelling set of features and slick design, why is the gap between Google Finance and Yahoo! Finance so large? Aside for brand and switching cost issues, One possible explanation is the differences in distribution channels for the two finance sites. For 12/13/06, Google received 57% of its traffic from the Google homepage (www.google.com) primarily from search on stock ticker symbols. Yahoo! Finance in contrast received only 1.7% of its traffic from search with over 55% of its traffic coming from the Yahoo! front page and My Yahoo! pages.