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While the runways boast couture and fashions that you rarely see walking down the street, some of the top cities in the U.S. are keeping comfortable in their sweats. For the second year in a row, the nation’s top per capita consumer of sweats is Philadelphia, PA while New York was seventh, Los Angeles ranked eighth, and Chicago was twentieth. The top 10 cities for sweats consumption:  Philadelphia, PA Hartford, CT Pittsburgh, PA Lafayette, LA Laredo, TX Boston, MA New York, NY Los Angeles, CA Victoria, TX Scranton, PA Perhaps these purchases are travel-related.  Spirit Airlines passengers are the biggest buyers of sweats, followed by Jet Blue, Continental and US Air. Foreign airlines have really high sweat purchase numbers too – especially Asian carriers. On the flip side, Southwest Airlines passengers buy the fewest number of sweat apparel items. Source: Experian Marketing Services Simmons Photo: Shutterstock

According to a new study by Experian Marketing Services, niche social networks significantly increased their market share of all visits to social sites, with Instagram and Pinterest leading the pack. The following graph illustrates the global growth between July 2011 and July 2012, based on share of visits to all sites by country: Other niche social networks that have experienced significant gain include Stock Twits in the US, Redidt in Australia, and FanPop in the UK. According to Bill Tancer, head of Global Research at Experian Marketing Services, the growth of Instagram and Pinterest over the past year has been successful because they haven’t tried to be ‘another Facebook.’ Both networks are image based – something people love and relate to better than just words. For retail brands, sites like Pinterest present a great opportunity to promote products in a compelling and organized way to a wide group of people, globally. Deeper functionally, combined with a lower technical barrier to entry, will result in new leaders in social media being created, accepted and used within a matter of days – compared to the rate of adoption happening now over the course of weeks and months. Also included in the study for July 2011 to July 2012: What social networks do you use most frequently? Do the results of this study surprise you at all? Feel free to share your thoughts with our readers in the comments section below.

Experian Marketing Services is hosting its annual Digital Summit (today through Friday) at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas. This premier digital marketing event, with the theme, “Customer Obsession: Empowering Meaningful Relationships,” features highly engaging and inspiring learning sessions, providing marketers with key insights and best practices for keeping their customers at the heart and center of everything they do. Attendees are learning from marketing experts about the latest trends in digital marketing across email, mobile, social, search and display. In addition, content from the event delves deep into understanding the new American consumer and the latest in cross-channel marketing. Here are a few highlights from today’s Digital Summit main stage and breakout sessions: And here are some of our favorite tweets:   Learn more about the 2012 Digital Summit and follow along on twitter #CMSummit and view photos on our Pinterest board.  View this blog tomorrow for updates.