Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Social Networking Trends in Q3 of 2011

Q3 2011 Social Media report from Nielsen shows that its popularity continues to grow, allowing people to connect with just everything which they can watch and buy. Like always, tools like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook played a key role in expanding its popularity and concept.

The latest report from Nielsen shows how powerful this influence is on consumer behavior and how they are educating consumers with various options both offline and online.

The value of the time consumers spend online and on social networks and blogs continues to grow, most visible through the influence on purchase decisions. For instance, 60 percent of people who use three or more digital means of research for product purchases learned about a specific brand or retailer from a social networking site. Forty-eight percent of these consumers responded to a retailer’s offer posted on Facebook or Twitter.

The Key Findings from the report are:
Social Media Around the World
  1. Social networks and blogs continue to dominate Americans’ time online, now accounting for nearly a quarter of total time spent on the Internet.
  2. Social media has grown rapidly – today nearly 4 in 5 active Internet users visit social networks and blogs.
  3. Americans spend more time on Facebook than they do on any other U.S. website
  4. Close to 40 percent of social media users access social media content from their mobile phone
  5. Social networking apps are the third most-used among U.S. smart phone owners
  6. Internet users over the age of 55 are driving the growth of social networking through the Mobile Internet
  7. Although a larger number of women view online video on social networks and blogs, men are the heaviest online video users overall streaming more videos and watching them longer
  8. 70 percent of active online adult social networkers shop online, 12 percent more likely than the average adult Internet user
  9. 53 percent of active adult social networkers follow a brand, while 32 percent follow a celebrity
  10. Across a snapshot of 10 major global markets, social networks and blogs reach over three-quarters of active Internet users
  11. Tumblr is an emerging player in social media, nearly tripling its audience from a year ago

Few other interesting facts from the reports are:

Social Networking is a global phenomenon and in Nielsen reports which collected samples from 10 countries/markets shows that social network and blogs are the top online destination in each country accounting for majority of the time spent.
 
Social Networking blogs are the top online destination where most of the users spend time. They attract almost 22.5% of traffic compare to online games who does only 10%. 

U.S. Internet Users Spend More Time on Facebook than Any Other Web Brand. Almost 53% users are on Facebook, followed by 17% on yahoo. Facebook became a synonym not only with Social media but also with Web use for general use.
 
 
Females and 18-34-Year-Olds are most Active Social Networkers.

There is rise in number of users who are accessing Social media through mobile for different purposes.
Men are more likely to Visit LinkedIn and Wikia compare to females, check one image from the report.

Influence of Social Media
Report shows that out of 5, nearly 2 users access services from their mobile which can be for either downloading Music, Social networking or just for browsing.

Active Social Media Users are Influential Offline. Consumers trust the reviews or recommendation from peers on these sites. Almost 60% social media users create reviews of products and services.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Get New Clients with Social Networking...

Recent global survey of business from Regus business shows that more and more number of companies, brands are relying on social media practices for their expansion, new client acquisitions and winning new businesses.

Results shows that companies worldwide are achieving greater success with social networking compared to traditional practices.

Few of the key findings from Marketing Profs site are:
  • 69% of US businesses (74% worldwide) say social networking is an essential activity for business success.
  • Single-channel campaigns are less successful: 64% of US businesses (61% worldwide) say companies that only use social networking and online campaigns, and ignore traditional media/techniques, will be unsuccessful.
  • 50% of US businesses (52% of businesses worldwide) use social networks to interact with and to inform existing customers, virtually unchanged since 2010.

Few interesting facts:

1) Experienced profit increased in past year:

2) Countries using successfully to find new customers: China, India are supposedly using social networking in a better way and are attracting lot of new business. Check the facts below:


I believe this study and facts will help companies to think about how they are targeting to get new clients and what extra value they can offer to maintain relationships. No wonder, there is a huge scope in market for social marketing and networking.


Friday, March 4, 2011

Top Technologies which will define Year 2011

Year 2011 started with lots of speculations related to new technologies. Everyone company, individual is exploring options related to it and trying to bring something new to the market which can define and shape this year. We have seen Hybrid cars, blossoming of 4G, new mobile technologies, PS3 on mobiles, Android etc. I believe it’s worth looking for the technologies which are in market and are in demand. Below is a quick synopsis on different new technologies:

Copyright © 2011 Apple Inc.
1) Tablets: With the start of year 2011, different new and unknown players came to the market and tried to eat the share of Apple – which is ruling entire market in this category, especially with the launch of their iPad2 with iOS 4 (The world’s most advanced mobile operating system). HP, Samsung, Olive were trying hard to capture this market, but they are too small (except HP) to compete with Apple when it comes to innovation. After all you don’t want to spend your money on something which can’t pay you back.

2) 4G: We heard lot about it during the end of year 2010 when 3G was exciting users about its advantages, but 4G is something which is now taking over discussions related to this technology. I don’t have any doubts that 4G technology which is fourth generation of cellular wireless standards will provide far better experience. 4G system is expected to provide a comprehensive and secure all-IP based mobile broadband solution to laptop computer wireless modems, smart phones, and other mobile devices.

Cloud Computing
3) Personal Clouds: One of the best thing happened in the world of software industry. Highly demanded by everyone, Cloud is a natural evolution of the widespread adoption of virtualization, service-oriented architecture providing Agility, reliability, scalability, security and last but not least improving ROI. Who cares about the physical location and configuration of the system, all we want is our stuff is available to us when we want and wherever we required.

4) Windows 8: Fear of Chrome OS and iPhone has made Microsoft to launch Windows 8. We know about windows 7, which has saved Microsoft brand image when they goofed up with the launch of Vista. I hope there will be something real there in Windows 8, except UI changes and non user friendly updates/logics. Hype is good for product promotion, but it kills the brand if there is an overdose of it – let’s see what Windows 8 comes up with.

5) IE9: IE9 which is currently in development is already making news about its features with its beta launch. It has been claimed that this browser will support several CSS 3 properties, loads faster JavaScript’s and supports new HTML 5 video and audio tags. It is also claimed that IE9 browser is a first fully hardware accelerated browser for graphics and text rendering. I can bet, Mozilla and Google Chrome are going to have tough competition from this.

Hybrid Future
6) Electric and Hybrid Cars: Best thing which can happen to human race where they can save natural resources, reduce negative impact on environment and make the earth more favorable for coming generations. There are several models in the market, including Pirus, REVA however as per news in the market – few better brands are coming in which will remove the fear of dead batteries etc. Hopefully, with the help of these innovations our ecosystem will recover from the loss which we created!!

7) APP Stores: Few months back I only remembered using iTunes and Apple stores, however now we have different stores for different companies. Google got its own, Microsoft started and now different mobile players like Samsung opening their own. This is a revolution in the market and is definitely going to change our shopping behavior.

8) AMD Fusion: AMD makes a comeback with Fusion reducing the difference between CPU’s and GPU’s. We have seen and reviewed many blogs, comments sharing the fact that Fusion Laptops provide long battery life and high definition graphics at reasonable cost.