by MC Marketing Charts

US online retail (non-travel) spending reached $44.3 billion during Q1 2012, representing a 17% increase from $38 billion in Q1 2011, according to estimates from comScore. This marks the 10th consecutive quarter of positive year-over-year growth and 6th consecutive quarter of double-digit growth rates. The 17% year-over-year growth rate is also the largest for any quarter since Q4 2007.

According to the comScore data, the top-performing online product categories in Q1 were: digital content and subscriptions; computer software; consumer electronics; jewelry and watches; and event tickets.

by Chantal Tode

Email opens on smartphones and tablets grew by 82.4 percent in the past year and such mobile devices are on track to become the dominant email platform by the end of the year, according to a new report from Return Path.

As mobile penetration continues to grow, more consumers are using smartphones and tablets to access email and moving away from PCs and desktop. While mobile readership accounted for only 10 percent of email views just a few years ago, it now accounts for nearly 30 percent of all opens, according to the report.

“The big news is that mobile will surpass both Web mail and email desktop clients as the platform of choice to view emails — and we think this will happen as early as the end of this June, definitely by end of 2012,” said Tom Sather, senior director of email research at Return Path, New York. “For email marketers the implications are huge.

“Many marketers still are not tracking how many emails are read on mobile devices, and have yet to implement a mobile strategy,” he said. “For those that are not tracking which device their subscribers are reading their emails on, or if they are not optimizing their emails or Web sites for mobile devices, they are already missing out on opportunities.

“A poor user experience translates into no response, no action, or no ROI.”

Missed opportunities
Despite the significant growth in mobile readership of email, 48 percent of marketers still do not know how many mobile subscribers they have, according to the report, Email in Motion: Mobile is Leading the Email Revolution .

The implications of the findings are significant for email marketers, with those who are not optimizing their emails or Web sites for mobile devices standing to lose out. Mobile users who have a poor experience reading a marketer’s email on a mobile device may end up not responding.

The report found that 63 percent of Americans and 41 percent of Europeans would close or delete an email not optimized for mobile. Additionally, 41 percent of Europeans would delete or forget about the email.

iPad grows quickly
Other key findings include that Apple devices dominate mobile email opens, accounting for 85 percent of email readership.

Additionally, the iPad is quickly becoming a popular device for reading email, with iPad email opens increasing 53.6 percent year over year.

While both the iPhone and iPad are growing quickly, the report found that iPad readership grew by 5 percent in the past six months while iPhone readership shrank by the same amount.

The report also found that the time of day influences which device people read emails on, with mobile being more popular during the weekend while desktop email is the most popular during the weekday.

“Marketers should first figure out the numbers for their program,” Mr. Sather said. “They should know if their customers/subscribers are reading on mobile before diving head first.

“But the overwhelming data shows that mobile is the way the world is headed, so moving now to get that data and start strategizing is smart,” he said.

by MC Marketing Charts

Hispanics are growing their adoption of social media, and are more likely than the average online US adult to be socially connected in a number of ways, says Nielsen in an April 2012 blog post. In fact, they are 25% more likely than the average US online adult to follow a brand, and 18% more likely to follow a celebrity. They are also 21% more likely to post links, articles, videos, and websites, and 17% more likely to build or update a personal blog.

Facebook Most Visited SocNet

Facebook was the top US social network or blog accessed by Hispanics from their home and work computers in February, with 16.7 million unique Hispanic visitors, representing an 8% year-over-year increase. Blogger was next, at 5.6 million, growing 10% year-over-year, while LinkedIn was the least-visited of the the identified sites, at 1.8 million, though that represented 52% year-over-year growth.

Overall, Hispanics adults are 7% more likely than the average US online adult to have one or more social networking profiles. According to April 2012 survey results from uSamp, about 7 in 10 Hispanic adults said they visit social media sites daily, with Facebook (90%) the most popular.

Other Findings:

• According to the Nielsen report, Hispanics are the fastest-growing ethnic group to Facebook and WordPress, on a year-over-year basis.
• Hispanics are less likely to have internet access at home than the average US adult (62% vs. 76%), but have increased their home broadband use by 14% in the past year, compared to the 6% growth rate of the general market.
• Hispanic video viewers are 68% more likely than non-Hispanic white viewers to watch video on the internet, and 20% more likely to watch video on a mobile phone.
• Hispanics are more likely than all other ethnic groups to download music and pictures on their mobiles.

by MC Marketing Charts

Internet advertising revenues reached a record $31.74 billion in 2011, representing a 21.9% increase from $26.04 billion in 2010, according to figures released in April 2012 by the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. This was the most rapid year-over-year growth since 2007 (26%), and drove online ad revenues past cable TV ad revenues (including national networks and local cable TV), which were $30 billion. Looking back over the past 10 years, the report notes that online ad revenues have a compound annual growth rate of 20.3%, with 29 of 36 quarters since 2003 seeing positive growth.

Q4 revenues rose 20.4% year-over-year to $8.97 billion, also up almost 15% quarter-over-quarter, while H2 revenues accounted for 53% of the 2011 total. The year-over-year growth in Q4 revenues was the fastest since Q4 2007.

By Phil Mershon

Do you know where your customers and prospects spend time online?

Marketers have long relied on market research to determine where to spend their advertising dollars on television, radio and print advertisements.

In the last few years, research organizations have begun providing intelligence on how consumers behave on social networks.

The following article is based on new social media research studies.

These findings will help you better strategize your company’s social efforts to match your customers’ behaviors.

#1: Know Where Your Customers Spend Their Time

Three recent research studies show active Internet users spend anywhere from 16% to nearly 25% of their online time on social networks.

In comScore’s 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report, researchers found that 90% of all U.S. Internet users visited social networking sites in December 2011. Additionally, consumers are spending 1 out of every 6 online minutes on social networks (16.6%). That’s up from less than 15% at the end of 2010.

If trends continue, social networks will soon surpass Internet portals like AOL and Yahoo!

Nielsen recently released the State of the Media: U.S. Digital Consumption Report, Q3-Q4 2011. The study found Internet users spend 21.3% of their time on social networking sites. This report shows a much smaller percentage of time spent on Internet portals like Yahoo!

Note the significant differences between this Nielsen study and comScore’s.

PQ Media found the average U.S. Internet user spends around 33 hours per month on the Internet and about 8 of those hours on social media.

These researchers didn’t disclose their methodologies, so we can’t explain why the results differ so dramatically, though I imagine it’s due to how they defined some of their terms. That said, all three reports show an upward trend in the volume and percentage of time spent on social networks.

#2: Find Content That Will Resonate Deeply With Your Audience

The comScore graphic above shows an upward trend in online entertainment consumption. Given the growing numbers of consumers ages 18-34 who watch videos and engage on social networks simultaneously, it is important for marketers to become skilled at engaging in conversations about hot cultural topics seen in the entertainment industry.

Nielsen’s study revealed that owners of mobile devices are increasingly multi-tasking while watching a TV program. While the majority of people check their email, a significant 44% also visit social sites.

Nielsen shows what people do on their mobile devices during a TV program.

The top two sites visited while watching TV are the social sites Facebook and YouTube. This paints an interesting picture of people watching YouTube videos while also watching a TV program. It suggests that people want to be engaged.

Nielsen also revealed the top 10 sites mobile users visit while watching TV.

What if your brand could engage people in conversations about popular TV shows, movies or sporting events while they are watching it? What if your brand became a trusted thought leader on a hot cultural topic?

I’d like to introduce you to someone who did just that. While he stumbled upon this, maybe you could proactively learn from his experience.

Case Study

Meet Cliff Ravenscraft, also known as the Podcast Answer Man. In 2006, Cliff decided to start a podcast about the TV show Lost. He did this as a personal hobby, but quickly discovered the enormous social power of podcasting when he had over 15,000 subscribers after his third episode.

As the Podcast Answer Man, Cliff provides training and assistance to podcasters of all experience levels.

Cliff has learned to match his personal interests in technology, television, books and faith with things that attract his growing audience.

For instance, he started a podcast on the popular young-adult books series, The Hunger Games, which has grown an audience of over 15,000 subscribers. He expects that number to double or triple now that the movie is released.

Now that he has built a massive audience listening to his more than 20 weekly podcasts, he can promote the products and services he has for sale. Some of his audience members make purchases, but most keep coming back just because they care about the content he is sharing.

What if you could build a massive audience by tapping into the things you and your target audience both care about? That’s what can happen as you become a student of culture and your audience’s preferences and interests.

TIP: Your employees and friends may be some of your best research assistants in this quest.

#3: Focus on Facebook—It’s Where Consumers Spend Most of Their Online Social Time

We’ve known Facebook is the biggest social media site in terms of monthly active users (last published as 845 million). But comScore’s study shows Facebook dominates in two other ways.

First, Facebook is the premier player among all web properties in terms of time spent—and that means engagement.

Google exceeds Facebook for monthly unique visitors, but Facebook wins the engagement game.

Second, when compared with other social media platforms, Facebook has achieved an even more impressive percentage of mindshare. Facebook captures 14.6% of Internet users’ time compared to a combined 2% for all other social networking sites. Facebook also captures 16% of all page views.

Facebook’s level of engagement has progressively exceeded all other social platforms.

The rise of Twitter and LinkedIn as the second and third most visited social networking sites is evidenced by another comScore graphic. Equally revealing are the rapid decline of MySpace and the ascendance of Google+ and Pinterest. (It should be noted that social sites like Twitter and Google+ likely get significant engagement through mobile devices, third-party apps and other forms of content.)

In just 12 months, MySpace fell from second place to fourth and appears on a further decline.

To highlight the engagement issue even more, comScore shows how Facebook keeps the average user onsite for 7 hours each month. Tumblr and Pinterest have also successfully engaged their users by keeping them onsite for more than an hour each.

Tumblr and Pinterest are the only second-tier sites to successfully keep users onsite for more than 60 minutes each month.

A final sign that Facebook is getting more eyeballs comes through comScore’s findings about display advertising.

Facebook ads receive more than twice as many impressions as Yahoo! sites and eight times more than Google sites.

#4: It’s Time to Take Video Seriously

Americans are watching increasing numbers of videos online. According to comScore, this number has jumped over 43% to 100 million daily views (that’s roughly one-third of the U.S. population watching a video online each day).

More Americans are watching a growing number of videos online.

Of the 43.5 billion videos viewed in December 2011, over half of those were on Google properties (21.9 billion), primarily YouTube.

With the advent of long-form video content online through vendors like Netflix and Hulu, there’s been an increase in how long users will watch a video from 5 minutes to nearly 6 minutes. This may open the door for marketers looking to produce edutainment videos (combining education and entertainment to produce engaging videos that keep people watching).

The way people watch videos is changing with the advent of mobile phones, notebooks and gaming systems. These differences are especially pronounced in Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.

For example, Nielsen found that someone from the Asia/Pacific region is more than twice as likely to watch a video on a mobile device as a North American. However, a European is half as likely to watch on a mobile device as the average global consumer.

Nielsen found users from the Asia/Pacific region exceed global averages in all four categories of video consumption.

Learn From the Best

Many companies are using video channels well, but many small- and medium-sized businesses have yet to embrace this powerful platform.

I like what Whole Foods has done by creating over 500 videos that have been seen by over 2.8 million people. They provide a wide variety of videos including how-to’s and a funny organic love story series. None of these require professional videography skills. All you need is just a bit of training on how to use YouTube to drive traffic to your website.

Be sure to watch the funny Organic Love Story video from Valentine’s Day (already their most popular video after only 3 weeks).

#5: Consider the Role of Mobile

PQ Media found that 100 million U.S. users access the Internet through smartphones, with 60% of those being business end-users. comScore determined that 8% of all Internet traffic comes from mobile devices.

The time spent on social networks through mobile devices is relatively low (around 5%), but the numbers are still significant. For example, Facebook found that 423 million unique visitors accessed their site in December 2011 through mobile devices.

Nielsen compared how men and women differ in how they access social networking sites. Aside from the obvious choice of computers, mobile phones take second place with women being 10% more likely to access social sites on their phones.

The impact of gender on how users access social sites.

Mobile devices are changing the landscape of retail sales. Shoppers can compare prices, read reviews and get real-time opinions from their friends through social media channels all while on their smartphones. Smart marketers will take this into account when creating content and finding ways to engage customers.

By Shelly Watson

Unless there’s a very compelling reason why you need to send a text-only email, HTML emails are certainly the better option.  However, you can do one important thing to improve the performance of HTML emails when compared with text-only emails, in terms of deliverability and display.

Limit the Use of Images: Marketers love images, but using too many of them in an email can backfire. Not only can it trigger spam filters, but it can also cause display issues and broken templates. Additionally, if you have too many images, your email may end up simply looking like a blank white screen if your subscriber’s email service provider does not enable images.

by Justyn Howard

Facebook has some powerful community management components that are often overlooked by marketing pros:

1. Activity Log

Facebook’s activity log is like a Facebook Timeline for every interaction that fans have with your page. It also includes updates you’ve made, like comments or Facebook Questions. What makes this tool unique and powerful is that it offers an archive of your Facebook interactions that you can review at any time. This is useful for tracking how well you’re following up and engaging with fans, and what kind of feedback you’re getting from them during specific events.

2. Demographic Targeting

The manage tab in Facebook Page’s Admin Panel allows you to publish updates to specific demographic groups. The feature isn’t as robust as it should be, but it lets you reach out to people who, for example, speak a certain language. This is useful if your page serves audiences in different countries.

Netflix is a prime example. Due to the nature of its content licensing deals, the site offers different movie and TV-show libraries in the United States than it does in Canada. If the Netflix page administrator wants to announce a new movie that’s only available in one country, he or she can hide that update from fans in the other. Other options include making a post completely invisible to people outside of a certain location, or to people under a certain age.

3.Twitter Linking

Cross-promoting between social networks is a critical component of any social media marketing strategy. Facebook recognizes this, which is why it offers the ability to link your Facebook page to Twitter for the purpose of publishing updates to both sites.

The one caveat is that the implementation here is slanted pretty heavily towards promoting Facebook. This means tweets that originate from your Facebook page always have a link back to Facebook. If that’s not your thing, you can supplement with a third-party tool.

4. Smart Moderation

You probably already know how to moderate individual comments on Facebook, but you can also dive into your Facebook Page’s settings and add specific terms you want to automatically block. While it’s better to allow open conversation on your Facebook page — customers don’t like to be censored — there will be specific situations that call for more control. This tool will give you that.

by MC Marketing Charts

The most socially engaged enterprises are experiencing business value returns 4 times higher than those who have the least social engagement presence, finds PulsePoint Group in March 2012 survey results.

Respondents were asked about the impact social media is having on a range of areas including sales effectiveness, operating margins, revenue growth, and product innovation. Extensively engaged businesses reported a 7.7% business impact on these key areas specifically from their social engagement, compared to 3.9% for those with limited social engagement presence, and 1.9% among those with the lowest social engagement presence.

The report defines socially engaged enterprises as those that actively engage customers in meaningful conversations enabled by social technologies, to the benefit of both parties.

by MC Marketing Charts

59% of senior marketers either agree (39%) or strongly agree (20%) that companies that do not fully embrace social media will not survive, according to a recently-released study commissioned by Facebook and conducted by Forrester Consulting.

The survey of 101 VP- and C-level marketing professionals found 71% of senior marketers agreeing that companies can gain competitive advantage by leveraging social media, and 60% also agreeing that social media enables businesses to be more successful.

Social Media Integration Still Immature

Despite a majority of respondents believing that their level of social media adoption could put their survival at stake, integration remains at relatively low levels. Just 37% said they started fully integrated social media into their marketing organization some time ago, while an additional 17% said they had begun doing so this year (the survey was conducted in December 2011). This means that close to half have not begun fully integrating social media into their marketing organization, including 16% of the respondents who have no plan to do so. This same trend was found in a survey of CMOs by Duke’s Fuqua School of Business, released in February 2012. Although CMOs responding to that survey expected to increase their spending on social media, they admitted that the channel remains poorly integrated with their firm’s overall marketing strategy. In fact, 18.4% of respondents rated the extent of their integration of social media a 1 on a 7-point scale, where 1 represents no integration at all. And only 21.1% of the CMOs rated their firm’s integration of social media efforts a top 2 box score.

Meanwhile, the Facebook survey indicates that levels of integration throughout entire companies are even less mature. Only 12% said they had started some time ago to fully integrate social media throughout their company, while 29% had started this year. By comparison, 20% had no plans to do so. Responses were similar when it came to social media integration into sales force enablement: 23% had begun doing so some time ago, while one-quarter had no plans to do so.

Most Lack Long-Term Strategy

Data from “Organize for Success in The Connected World” indicates that almost 3 in 10 senior marketers have no long-term (at least 3 years out) strategy for becoming a social business, and have no plans to begin implementing one. In fact, just one-third said they had started a long-term strategy either some time ago (17%) or this year (16%).

Social Strategy Highly Distributed

When asked to what degree various parties owned the social strategy for their business, respondents reported a wide array of partial owners, including sales (45%), corporate communications (41%), marketing (39%), PR agency (39%), the office of the CEO (38%), and a brand agency (35%). Marketing (39%) was most often tabbed for full ownership of the social strategy, followed by corporate communications (30%).