A new Forrester report titled "The Purchase Path of Online Buyers In 2012" analyzes conversion paths on 77,000 orders to determine what sources returned the most revenue. While the report found a handful of high revenue sources (paid search, organic search, email) one clear cut source fell behind the rest: social media. The data showed that fewer than 1% of transactions could be traced back to social links. Forrester suggests that the low numbers could be due to measurement periods required (a 30-day attribution model was used in this report) and company sizes. It should be noted that t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Retail | E-Commerce | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

Walmart's launch of 3,500 Facebook Pages last year for its local stores has had "very low consumer impact," and the pages aren't as popular as the Facebook pages of competing small businesses in similar local areas. Those are some of the findings from a new study by Recommend.ly, a social media tools/analytics company. Walmart launched the "My Local Walmart" campaign last October, which involves a Facebook app that stores can use to communicate sales, specials and other updates with fans in the local area. But, according to the study, local stores haven't been using their pages effective [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Pages | Facebook: Statistics | Features & Analysis | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

Research firm Gartner has released a report predicting the importance of online reviews and social media "Likes" will result in Fortune 500 brands and large enterprises increasingly "astroturfing" and paying for positive mentions. Specifically the percentage of paid-for mentions, Likes and reviews will reach 10 to 15 percent of the total by 2014. Gartner goes on to assert that there will be at least two high-profile FTC actions against Fortune 500 companies during the same time frame. The FTC published and updated guidelines in 2009 about the use of testimonials and endorsements in advertis [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Social Media

Yesterday, Google announced that it had 400 million people who had "upgraded" to Google+, a statistic we've had updated over time. But many have wanted to know how many people actually use Google+ itself, not just have accounts enabled for it. That's finally been revealed: 100 million. Below, a guide to how this figure fits in with past ones Google has given. Google+ Accounts Both figures were in a Google+ post from Vic Gundotra, Senior Vice President, Engineering at Google: This week we also hit an important milestone--over 400,000,000 people have upgraded to Google+. It was only a year [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features & Analysis | Google | Google: Google+ | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Social Media

There are stereotypes attached to certain social networks about the makeup of their user base. LinkedIn is for business people. Facebook has a lot of older Americans. Pinterest is for girls. That's the conventional wisdom. (And just this week, a local friend of mine -- a guy -- gave me a hard time when he found that I have a Pinterest account. I'm very comfortable with that.) But are the stereotypes true? In a report issued this week that's ostensibly about social photo/video sharing activities, the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project also shared its latest social n [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Content Marketing | Facebook: Statistics | Features & Analysis | LinkedIn | Pinterest | Pinterest: Statistics | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media | Top News | Tumblr | Twitter: Statistics

When it comes to political activity online, Democrats are more likely than Republicans and Independents to say that social networking sites are important. And they're also more likely to say that they've become more active politically because of their interactions on social media sites. Those are some of the findings in Politics on Social Networking Sites, a new study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project. Overall, 74 percent of those who call themselves liberal are using social networking sites, compared to 70 percent of moderates and only 60 percent of conservatives. And thos [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Features & Analysis | Politics | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Online Behavior | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

A new survey shows that when it comes to generating leads and sales, Facebook gets top marks among business-to-consumer marketers while LinkedIn does well for the business-to-business marketer. Twitter comes in as a strong second place winner for B2C leads. The data comes from the 2012 State Of Digital Marketing report from WebMarketing123, a California-based digital marketing agency. It's the second year for the report, which surveys over 500 US marketers, including companies like Sony, GE, Bose and FedEx. Sales & Leads From Social Media Sites Part of the survey asked which social [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Features & Analysis | Google: Google+ | LinkedIn | Pinterest | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Social Media | Top News | Twitter: Statistics

If you're planning a campaign to stimulate word of mouth discussion of a product or a brand, one question likely keeps arising -- how influential is a particular person online? Is it worth reaching out to them? If you've been pondering how to measure or benchmark social media influence, several companies, including Klout, PeerIndex and Kred, are clamoring to assist you in identifying and connecting with influencers with high social capital ranking scores. Even if connecting with influencers isn't an immediate need, the boss might be asking for explanations of your brand's Klout score, [...]

Related Topics: Analytics | Channel: Industry | Klout | Marketing Tools: Social Media | Social Media Marketing Column | Statistics: Social Media | Twitter: Marketing | Word Of Mouth Marketing

In an effort to tout its advertising programs, Facebook is sharing some of its current worldwide activity statistics. Among the most interesting: Facebook users create 3.2 billion likes and comments every day. Facebook users spend an average of 6 hours, 35 minutes per month on the site, almost double Google's 3:20. (These are desktop-only hours.) Of Facebook's 955 million monthly active users, 58 percent visit the site daily. Facebook's 543 million monthly active mobile users represents 67 percent y-o-y growth. There are also a lot of ad-related stats included, all of which [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Statistics | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Social Media

In a new report, market research firm eMarketer estimates that 88 percent of U.S. companies will be marketing on Facebook by 2014. That's more than double the estimated 43 percent that were using Facebook in 2009, and would be up from the 83 percent that are estimated to be marketing on Facebook this year. (And significantly higher than the 17 percent of marketers using or planning to use Pinterest that we reported earlier today.) Here's the eMarketer growth estimate for Facebook marketing adoption: Facebook has been offering free Pages for businesses since 2007, but needing to i [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Statistics | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

Interest in Instagram rose significantly in July, enough to make it the top gaining web property in comScore's monthly tracking of traffic to U.S. websites. ComScore's July 2012 Top 50 shows a 38 percent traffic gain for Instagram between June and July, with unique visitors rising from 16.5 million to 22.7 million. Overall, that puts Instagram just outside the Top 50 at No. 56. The numbers appear to coincide with Instagram's self-reported growth. In late July, Instagram announced that its community had surpassed 80 million users and nearly four billion photos shared. Meanwhile, in ano [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Instagram | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

Just as many are beginning to bulk up their wardrobes for fall and back-to-school, a new study shows the surprising, and growing, influence of mobile and video for apparel purchases. The research, put together by Compete on behalf of Google, found that more than 1 in 5 apparel consumers use their tablets or mobile devices daily for shopping, and 4 in 10 visited a store or retailer website as a result of watching apparel videos. [caption id="attachment_18931" align="aligncenter" width="591" caption="Percentage of people who used devices every day for shopping."][/caption] The study was ba [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Online Advertising | Statistics: Online Behavior | Statistics: Social Media

The 2012 London games are officially over with the Americans topping the medal count at 104. But which athletes and countries had the most success on Facebook once the games where officially over? Wildfire created and tracked the growth of fan bases across Facebook to help determine just who exactly won the Facebook Gold. The biggest winners were the championship U.S. Women's Gymnastics team. Of the top 10 athletes by Facebook Fan Base Growth the U.S. Gymnasts took 4 places. The number one growth leader across all the games as Gabrielle Douglas who increased her fan base growth from 14,358 [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Pages | Facebook: Statistics | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

It seems like the underlying social media chatter of the 2012 Olympics has revolved around NBC's tape-delayed coverage. With the broadcasting giant saving the highest rated programming for primetime, many folks are downright outraged that they can't watch live on their televisions. So just what effect has this had on the ratings and sentiment around the games? Well, not much actually. In a recent poll by Pew Research Center, 76% of Olympic watchers labeled the Olympic coverage either 'good' (47%) or 'excellent' (29%.) You can't transmit the Olympics live, but NASA can transmit a feed from Ma [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Social Media Marketing | Statistics | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

Social data and analytics provider General Sentiment released its Q1 2012 Global Brands report. The ranking of brands in the study is based on the firm's use of sentiment analysis ("frequency and exposure of news mentions and social dialogue"). Brands are then valued on the basis of General Sentiment's related scoring methodology. The top/most valuable brand in the study was Apple, followed by Google and Microsoft. Yahoo was ninth. The report says that Google was marginally harmed by the introduction of its new privacy policy in March, which generated a "backlash" and negative social [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Business Issues | Statistics: General | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media

Fewer "top brands" are using Facebook and Google+ today than eight months ago. But it's not a huge decline and may just represent the normal coming and going of online brand activities. In its latest Social Share Report, BrightEdge says that 90 of the world's top brands have Facebook pages and 75 have Google+ pages. That's as of July 2012. Eight months ago, in its SocialShare Report from last December, BrightEdge reported that 93 top brands were on Facebook and 77 were on Google+. Not shown in the chart is that BrightEdge says 80 of the top 100 worldwide brands have a Twitter pre [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Pages | Facebook: Statistics | Features & Analysis | Google | Google: Google+ | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

Facebook now claims 543 million monthly active mobile users. The good news for Facebook is that mobile users are "more active" than PC users. The bad news is that mobile users are much harder for the social site to make money from. This challenge has been widely discussed and was the subject of several questions on the recent Q2 Facebook earnings call. Facebook executives repeated several times during the call that they were being cautious about monetizing mobile so as to not disrupt the user experience. Source: Facebook Facebook is going to need to do something different with its [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Mobile | Facebook: Statistics | Facebook: User Interface | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

Facebook continues to be web users' preferred option when it comes to social login, and has now seen two consecutive years of quarterly growth in that area. According to Janrain's latest quarterly report, Facebook now accounts for 48 percent of all social logins as of Q2 2012. That's up from 45 percent in Q1 of this year, and represents eight straight quarters that Facebook's share has risen -- dating back to Q1 of 2010. Google remains second at 30 percent in Q2, which is consistent with where it's been over the last six quarters. Twitter has moved into third place with nine percent, th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Open Graph | Facebook: Statistics | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Market Share | Statistics: Online Behavior | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

Traffic to Google+ has grown by 66 percent worldwide since November, and is up 82 percent in the US in the same time period. The numbers were posted yesterday on Google+ by Morten Myrstad, an Oslo-based communications consultant, citing comScore as the source. ComScore confirmed the numbers with us this afternoon, and shared the following charts showing US and worldwide traffic to Google+ since the company began tracking Google+ last November. The figures are desktop traffic only; no mobile/tablet visitors are included. These are positive signs for Google, but the numbers reflect [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Google: Google+ | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Popularity & Usage | Statistics: Social Media | Top News

As the industry engages in back-and-forth about the efficacy and relevance of Facebook advertising, agency TBG, which specializes in social media marketing, has released a report showing that CPMs and clicks have increased on the social network over the past year, though CPCs vary across geographies. The stats, aggregated from more than 275 of TBG's clients, bolster the argument that Facebook's product developments have provided value for advertisers, at least in some places. In its analysis of more than 406 billion impressions of Facebook ads globally, TBG found CPMs (cost-per-thousand-imp [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Advertising | Social Media Marketing: Advertising | Statistics: Social Media | Top News