Data junkies, stats addicts, web trivia buffs rejoice - here are a deluge of social media, search and other marketing research facts and figures from 50 articles and blog posts published so far in 2010.
How are marketers planning to allocate budgets this year? What percentage of Fortune 100 companies are on Twitter? Which social networking site is used by 92% of senior marketing executives? What social media tool helps small business double their reach on Twitter? How do B2B social media marketing practices differ from B2C companies? What percentage of web searches stop after page one of the results? How much do small businesses spend on search engine marketing? How many journalists also maintain blogs?
Find the answers to these questions and many, many more here.
Social Media Statistics
Study: Spending On Email, Social And Search Rising by MediaPost Online Media Daily
Despite the fact that more than half of marketers responding to an ExactTarget survey planned to to either reduce their overall marketing budget for 2010 or keep it flat, 54% planned to increase spending on email marketing and 66% planned to increase expenditures for social media "even though about 80% of those acknowledged the difficulty in tracking ROI in the medium."
National Survey Finds Majority of Journalists Now Depend on Social Media for Story Research by Cision
A national survey of reporters and editors revealed that 89% use blogs for story research, 65% turn to social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and 52% utilize microblogging services such as Twitter. While the use of social media sources by journalists is growing rapidly, the reliability of such information remains an issue, as "the survey also made it clear that reporters and editors are acutely aware of the need to verify information they get from social media."
Social Media Not Preferred Recommendation Resource by MediaPost Online Media Daily
In a study asking consumers to rate the most influential sources of information for their purchase decisions, 59% said "personal advice from friends or family members," followed by 39% search engines, 36% articles in newspapers or magazines, online articles 28%, email 20% and social media 19%. Three caveats: first, though low, the influence of social media is growing. Second, social media and search are rated more influential by younger buyers and high-income consumers than by other groups. Third, the survey was heavily consumer-oriented; b2b figures would be different. The key takeaway - companies can't put all of their marketing eggs in one basket, but need to balance budgets across several areas including email, social media, organic SEO, paid search and offline campaigns.
Social Media: Everybody's Doing It, But For Different Reasons [Charts] by Pamorama
While 28% of U.S. adults say they give advice about purchases on social networking sites, only 17% say they seek out such advice when making buying decisions. "70% of social media users between the ages of 18-34 regularly use Facebook more than other sites such as MySpace, Twitter, and Classmates.com," and women use Facebook more than men.
Senior marketing execs see their companies moving to social media in 2010 by The Viral Garden
In a recent study of high-level marketing executives, 70% plan new social media initiatives in 2010. 92% said they personally use LinkedIn, versus 56% on Facebook. While 28% planned to use internal resources to launch new initiatives, 25% turn to social media consultants. The two most important criteria when hiring a social media consultant are examples of previous work and recommendations; number of Twitter followers is the 12th-most important factor.
Social Media Users' Interests and Expectations Vary by Network [Stats] by Pamorama
Another notable Pam Dyer post, this one summarizing a study from online advertising network Chitika which shows that Twitter is the best place to share news: 47% of the outbound traffic from Twitter goes to news sites, vs. 28% from Facebook, 18% from Digg and an imperceptable share from MySpace. Digg is the most technical; 12% of its outbound traffic goes to technology sites, vs. 10% from Twitter and 7% from Facebook. And for what it's worth, Pam points out that "celebrity/entertainment is the only genre in the top 5 of all sites."
What Type Of Social Media Ads Are The Most Effective? by MediaPost Online Media Daily
According to a recent study from Psychster, "Among the seven most common formats, sponsored content ads - in which consumers viewed a page that was "brought to you by" a leading brand - are the most engaging, but produced the least purchase intent. Corporate profiles on social-networking sites produce greater purchase intent and more recommendations when users can become a 'fan,' and add the logo to their own profiles, than when they can't. And 'give and get' widgets are more engaging than traditional banner ads, but no more likely to produce an intent to purchase."
Study: Americans' Social Net Use On The Rise, But Services Not Entirely Wasted On The Young by MediaPost Online Media Daily
Nearly half of all Americans are now members of at least one social network, double the proportion of just two years ago. While social network use is highest among the young, it's not exclusively their club: two-thirds of 25- to 34-year-olds and half of those aged 35 to 44 also now have personal profile pages. 30% of social media users access a social media site "several times a day," up from 18% in 2009. Also, nearly half (45%) of all mobile phone owners send text messages on a daily basis.
Deciphering Shady Social Media Stats by Social Implications
Yes, Facebook is a big deal, but there is no way it "controls 41% of social media traffic" as was reported in a post on Mashable back in April. Jennifer Mattern rips the statistical methodology behind this reporting to shreds and reminds us all of why it's important to be skeptical of social media statistics that don't sound quite right.
Social Media Revolution by YouTube
Social media stats in video form. Some of the numbers shown here lend themselves to the skepticism recommended in the post above, but all are documented so take `em for what they're worth. There are more Gen Y'ers than Baby Boomers, and 96% of them have joined a social network. 80% of companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees. 80% of Twitter use is on mobile devices. YouTube now hosts more than 100 million videos and is the second largest search engine. 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations when making purchase decisions; just 14% trust advertising. More than 1.5 million pieces of content (videos, photos, blog posts, links etc.) are shared on Facebook daily.
New Chart: Survey Says Inbound Marketing Budgets on the Rise by HubSpot Blog
In a study of 231 (likely a bit more social media-savvy than average) companies, 88% planned to maintain or increase inbound marketing busgets in 2010. 85% view company blogs as "useful," while 71% said the same for Twitter (up from just 39% in 2009). More than 40% of respondents reported acquiring at least one new customer from Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or their company blog in the past year.
Social Media: What a Difference a Year Makes by ClickZ
Erik Qualman updates some statistics from 2009, showing how rapidly this landscape is changing. If it were a country, Facebook would the third-largest on earth, up from fourth-largest in 2009. 80% of companies use social media in some manner for recruiting; of those, 95% use LinkedIn. 50% of mobile Internet traffic in the U.K goes to Facebook. And my favorite: "The ROI of social media is that your business will still exist in five years."
Look Ma, No Hands: More Than Half Of Companies Say They Are Using Social Media With No Strategy by MediaPost Online Media Daily
Among companies who say they are using social media in a recent Digital Brand Expressions survey, only 41% said they had a strategic plan in place to guide activities, and only 69% of those (28% of all social media-using companies) have set up metrics to measure the ROI of social media activities. Worse, on 29% of firms with a plan in place (12% of the total) had written social media policies in place for employees.
52 Cool Facts About Social Media by Danny Brown
Two-thirds of comScore's U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore's Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook. Twitter adds 300,000 new users and gets 600 million searches daily. LinkedIn has more than 70 million members worldwide - including executives from every Fortune 500 company. More than half of YouTube users are under 20 years old, and let's hope they live long lives: it would take 1,000 years to watch every video currently posted on the site. 77% of Internet users read blogs, but only 14% of blogs are published by corporations.
Twitter Statistics
Twitter Demographic Report - Who Is Really On Twitter? by PalatnikFactor.com
Who's really using Twitter? According to this report, 44% are between 18 and 34 years old. A slight majority (53% to 47%) are female. Just over a quarter of tweeters qualify as regular users, accounting for 41% of all traffic, but the 1% classified as "addicts" account for a third of all tweets. Twitter users tend to be readers of TechCrunch, Wired magazine and CNN.com, but also (ugh) PerezHilton.com - so make what you will of that.
2009 Twitter Demographics and Statistics Report by iStrategyLabs
The largest cohort of Twitter users (47%) are in the 18-34 age bracket - but the second largest (31%) are 35-49 years old. 74% of twitterers have no kids at home. Almost half are college graduates and 17% have post-grad degrees.
Twitter Usage In America: 2010 Statistics and Ad Agency New Business by Social Media Today
While many executives still dismiss Twitter as a waste of time, recent researcy suggests it is one of the most valuable social networks for business. Awareness of Twitter has explded; 87% of Americans said they were "familiar with" Twitter in a poll taken earlier this year, versus just 5% in 2008. Although only 7% of Americans maintain an active Twitter account (vs. 41% who are on Facebook), Twitter users "are far more likely to follow Brands/ Companies than social networkers in general. 51% of active Twitter users follow companies, brands or products on social networks. Twitter users frequently exchange information about products and services."
Facebook Statistics
Facebook: Facts & Figures For 2010 by Digital Buzz Blog
Interesting, though slightly out of date (Lady Gaga's page is listed as 9th-most popular) Facebook infographic. Half of all Facebook users log in on any given day, and more than 35 million update their status. More than 100 million users access Facebook through their mobile phones. The US and UK have the highest number of Facebook users, but the #3 country? Indonesia.
Report: 6.8% Of Business Internet Traffic Goes To Facebook by All Facebook
How are employees using the Internet at work? A recent study concluded that almost 7% of all business web traffic goes to Facebook, twice as much as Google (3.4%) and well ahead of Yahoo! at 2.4 percent. DoubleClick got 1.7% of all business traffic due to its massive online banner advertising network. In terms of bandwidth use, YouTube takes the single biggest share at 10%, followed by Facebook at 4.5% and Windows Update at 3.3%.
The Ultimate List: 100+ Facebook Statistics [Infographics] by HubSpot Blog
Men and women both average about 130 friends on Facebook, but men there are more likely to be (or least claim to be) single (33% to 26%) while women using Facebook are more likely to be (or at least say they are) married, engaged or in a relationship (47% to 41%). The three most "liked" types of food pages are about ice cream, milk or chocolate. Facebook pages that use the words "collaboration" or "blogger" have on average three times as many fans as pages about SEO or optimization. Pages about movies and TV shows generally get the highest number of "likes" while those devoted to government and public service get the least. Within the U.S., Washington DC and South Dakota have the highest percentage of residents with Facebook accounts (one of the very few phenomena they have in common), while New Mexico has the smallest percentage of its population (10.3%) on Facebook.
Social Media Use in Large Enterprises
Social Media Trends at Fortune 100 Companies [STATS] by Mashable
Among the world's 100 largest companies, two-thirds are using Twitter, 54% have a Facebook page, 50% manage at least one corporate YouTube channel and 33% have created company blogs. Overall, 79% of Fortune 100 companies are using at least one social media channel, with the highest use in European (88%) and U.S-based (86%) companies. However, only 20% of these companies (28% in the U.S.) are using all four major social media platforms. 69% of U.S.-based firms in the study have a Facebook page, but just 32% have posts with comments from fans.
Fortune 500 favors Twitter over blogging by iMedia Connection
Among the world's largest 500 companies, 35% had Twitter accounts in 2009, but only 22% maintained company blogs. Less than half effectively used SEO.
Twitter Moves Ahead of Blogs in Fortune 500 by Social Media Today
Among Fortune 500 companies, 108 (22%) have an active, public-facing corporate blog. 93 (86%) of those blogs are linked directly to a corporate Twitter account. 173 (35%) of the Fortune 500 firms maintain an active Twitter account, including 47 of the top 100 companies on the list.
How Fortune 100 Companies Leverage Social Media [INFOGRAPHIC] by Penn Olson
Social media use by the Fortune 100 in visual Infographic form: the average Fortune 100 company follows 731 people on Twitter and is followed by about 1,500 (seems like small numbers for big companies). However, the average socially active Fortune 100 company has almost 41,000 Facebook fans and 39,000 YouTube channel subscribers.
Social Media in Business: Fortune 100 Statistics by iStrategy
According to a Burson-Marsteller study, 79% of the Fortune 100 are "present and listening" on at least one social networking plaform. 20% of these corporate giants are using all four of the main social technologies (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Blogs), and 82% of the Fortune 100 companies on Twitter actively engage with customers there at least once per week.
The State of Social Media Jobs 2010 - A Special Report by Social Media Influence
Although "the importance of social media certainly is resonating through many big companies," just 59 of the Fortune Global 100 firms have hired staff specifically to perform core social media tasks such as customer outreach, PR, marketing and internal communications. The most social media "active" industry sectors include healthcare, telecomm, retail and automotive, while companies in heavily regulated industries such as financial services, insurance, energy and utilities are among the social media laggards.
Social Media Use in Small to Midsized Businesses (SMBs)
Small Businesses That Blog Have 102% More Twitter Followers by HubSpot Blog
Still wondering if your business should have a blog? A HubSpot study of more than 2,000 companies showed that, for businesses of all sizes, companies that have blogs have 79% more Twitter followers than those that don't. Blogging "increases Twitter reach by 113% for B2B companies and 30% for B2C companies."
Where SMB Spend their Marketing and Advert Money? [Infograph] by Thoughtpick
At the other end of the scale, for small to midsized businesses, marketing budget allocations are changing. Traditionally, small business marketers have favored email and search, and spent the majority of their marketing dollars offline. In 2009, only one-third of SMB marketers viewed Faebook as "very" or "somewhat" beneficial. But for 2010, 74% planned to increase their use of email marketing and 68% planned larger expenditures for social media. Over the next five years, social media budgets are expected to grow at a 34% annual rate - twice as fast as all other forms of online marketing. By 2014, Forrester predicts that social media spending will be higher than that for both email and mobile, though still much smaller than search and online display advertising.
Small Biz Lead Gen Surges with Social by eMarketer
According to a HubSpot study, "not only can inbound marketing bring leads for less money but it can also double average monthly leads for small and medium-sized businesses." Twitter reach is critical for increased lead generation: "Companies with 100 to 500 followers generated 146% more median monthly leads than those with 21 to 100 followers. Beyond the 500-follower mark, though, there was no further gain," as is blogging - but the study noted that "Businesses must produce enough content for their blog to kick off growth in leads, which starts with about 24 to 51 posts...more indexed pages on Google also translates to more leads. Every 50 to 100 incremental indexed pages can mean double-digit lead growth."
Social Media in Small Business is Anything But Small by Social Media Today
The prolific Brian Solis reports on recent research showing that social media adoption by small business doubled from 2009 to 2010. 61% of small business owners now use social media to helpf identify and attract new customers, 75% have a company page on a social networking site, and 45% expect their social media activities to be profitable within the next 12 months. 58% say that social media has met their expectations to date, and only 9% expect to lose money on social media efforts for the next year.
B2B Social Media Marketing Statistics
B2B Marketers Severely Lag B2C Players in Social Media by My Venture Pad
Andy Beal reminds us that "It's a pretty well known fact that B2B marketers have been slower on the adoption curve of social media (than B2C marketers." But why? One reason is executive buy-in (or lack thereof); in a recent study, one-third of claimed low executive level acceptance of social media was holding back efforts, while only 9% of B2C marketers said the same thing. Another is that 45% of B2B marketers said their company had a basic social media presence but didn't use it as an active marketing tool; only 26% of B2B marketers concurred. Finally, "46% of B2B respondents said social media was perceived as irrelevant to their company, while only 12% of consumer-oriented marketers had the same problem." If you're one of those 46%, hopefully you'll find facts and statistics in the following posts to help build a business case for social media in your company.
The Business of Social Media: B2B and B2C Engagement by the Numbers by Social Media Today
***** 5 stars
Brian Solis breaks down B2B vs. B2C use of social media marketing. B2B companies are more likely to maintain a company blog (74% to 55%), participate on Twitter (75% to 49%) and monitor brand mentions (73% to 55%) while B2C firms more often advertise on social networks (54% to 42%) and use Facebook (83% to 77%) and MySpace (23% to 14%) as part of their social media strategy than their B2B counterparts.
Will B2B Companies Embrace Social Media in 2010? by MediaPost Online Media Daily
B2C companies led their B2B counterparts in adoption of social media marketing because more people are active in social networks for personal use than business, making it easier to target someone who is interested in golf than, say, machine tools. However, B2B use of social media is on the rise, with 6 of 10 companies planning to increase their spending on social media initiatives in 2010.
Creating Engagement in B2B Marketing by Buzz Marketing for Technology
93 percent of participants in a social media in business study believe that all companies should have a presence in social media. And 85 percent believe "companies should not just present information via social media, but use it to interact and become more engaged with them," according to Paul Dunay.
Vital statistics for every B2B marketer by Earnest about B2B
75% of B2B marketers use microblogging tools such as Twitter vs. 49% of B2C marketers. The biggest barrier to adoption may be CIOs; 54% of CIOs block social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, in the work environment. 93% of B2B buyers "use search to begin the buying process," and 9 out of 10 say that when they are ready to buy, they will find vendors. Plus much more.
B2B Spending on Social Media to Explode by eMarketer
B2B marketing on social networks is expected to grow 43.3% this year, and Forrester Research B2B spending on social media marketing to reach $54 million in 2014, up from only $11 million in 2009. Paid advertising is expected to account for only a small portion of spending, but "when companies budget for social media marketing in 2010 and beyond, a substantial portion of their expenses will go toward other initiatives, such as creating and maintaining a branded profile page, managing promotions or public relations outreach within a social network, and measuring the effect of a social network presence on brand health and sales."
Vital statistics for B2B Marketers by EarnestAgency's Channel (YouTube)
An entertaining and creative presentation which makes the case that B2B actually leads B2C in social media marketing - because that's where their buyers are. 37% of b2b buyers have posted questions on social networking sites, 48% follow industry conversations on key topics of interest, and 59% "engage with buyers who have done it before." 53% of C-level executives prefer to find information themselves rather than tasking subordinates with this, and 63% turn to search engines for their research. Many of the statistics used in this video can be found elsewhere, but not in such an engaging fashion.
What B2B Marketing Tactics Are Up, Down, Flat? (Survey Sneak Peek) by Everything Technology Marketing
Holger Schulze shares results from a study showing how b2b use of various marketing tactics have changed over the past three years. Social media saw the biggest jump in activity, with 81% of respondents doing more of it (as Holger points out, "not surprising considering social media use in B2B was still nascent 3 years ago"). Content creation (68%) and website marketing (56%) are also increasing, while direct mail and print advertising saw the biggest drops.
SEO Statistics
First Page Or Bust: 95% of Non-Branded Natural Clicks Come From Page One by MediaPost Search Insider
***** 5 stars
In SEO, how important is a page one ranking? This post tells you: according to a recent study from iCrossing, across the three major search engines, 95% of the clicks came from page one. While Rob Garner notes that this figure is higher than in other studies, the clear implication is that doing some extra optimization to move your site to page one from page two or three can pay off in dramatic traffic gains.
Organic Search Still Reigns by eMarketer
Diving deeper into the iCrossing study referenced above, Google accounts for 74% of non-branded search traffic, with Bing and Yahoo tied at 13%.
Small businesses spending more on search by iMedia Connection
The average small business spent $2,149 on search engine advertising in the fourth quarter of 2009, up 30% from 3Q09 and 111% from the final quarter of 2008. Also, video is taking off in this segment: at the end of last year, 19% of small businesses were using video on their websites, up from just 5% the previous quarter.
Content Marketing
Most Valuable Content and Offers for IT Buyers by High-Tech Communicator
***** 5 stars
If you're trying to sell to technology buyers, note that a recent study shows the types of content they are most likely to click on are "news and articles (84%), competitive comparisons and buying guides (73%), and promotional content (70%)." These decision makers are about equally to click on offers for promotional content, online tutorials and demonstrations, competitive comparisons and buying guides, free research, and educational content.
Search Engine Marketing
SEMPO Report Suggests Measuring ROI Still Challenging by MediaPost Online Media Daily
The share of North American companies using paid-search marketing increased from 70% in 2008 to 78% in 2009 and 81% in 2010. 97% of these companies use Google AdWords; 56% advertise on Google's content network. 59% of firms anticipate spending more on search marketing in 2010; 37% say budget3 will remain the same, while just 4% planned to cut spending in this area.
Study: Three-Word Queries Drive Most SEO Traffic by Search Engine Land
Three-word search queries are the most common, at 26% of all searches; 19% are two-word queries, and 17% use four words. Yet for paid [italics] clicks, keywords of 4-6 words in length drive the highest average CTR at 1.1-1.2%. The overall average CTR for paid search ads was 0.91%.
Other Online Marketing Statistics
What's Changed This Decade (1999-2009) by Virtual Video Map
An enlightening, graphic guide to many of the changes seen over the past 10 years, from the growth of the U.S. economy and national debt to the incredible expansion of Internet use. Examples: The number of Internet users worldwide grew from 350 million a decade ago to 1.7 million today. One out of five (actually now almost one of three) of those users has a Facebook account. Cell phone use increased from one of out of 10 people in 1999 to two out of three in 2009.
Did You Know? (video) by EducoPark
The top 10 in-demand jobs in 2010 didn't exist in 2004. Half of all workers have been with their current employer for less than five years. There are roughly one billion searches performed on Google every day - more than ten times the number just four years ago. It took radio 38 years to reach a total audience of 50 million people; it took the Internet just four years to reach that number, the iPod three years, and Facebook only two years. There will be more pages of unique information published this year than in the last 5,000 years combined.
SuperPower: Visualising the internet by BBC News
This slick tool visually illustrates the growth of Internet penetration, by country, from 1998 through 2008.
Small-Biz Success from Deeper Online Interaction by eMarketer
Ye shall reap what ye sow online, apparently: a study by American City Business Journals concluded that small businesses who were most active online achieved higher sales than those who made less use of the Internet. The study concluded that "'Interactors,' the most active participants online in almost all respects, accounted for only 15% of businesses but 24% of sales. 'Transactors,' somewhat less active online but the group most involved in online selling, also overindexed in sales. The least involved groups, 'viewers' and 'commentators,' also exhibited the worst business performance."
Here's What's Really Going On In Online Media Consumption by Business Insider
Of the four largest daily print newspaper websites (the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and USA Today), only the New York Times has gained visitors in the past 12 months - and that growth has been modest. Among weekly news magazine websites, The Week (focused on multi-source aggregation) has shown dramatic 170% growth in the last 12 months as Newsweek.com, once the leader in this segment, has seen a 17.5% decrease in traffic. Visits to the Huffington Compost are up 86% in the past year.
And Finally...
The Ultimate List: 300+ Social Media Statistics by HubSpot Blog
If this post hasn't satisified your data fix, knock yourself out with this extensive collection of videos, infographics and presentations compiled by HubSpot with still more social media stats and figures like: Twitter has 50% more activity on weekdays than on weekend days. Facebook is the most popular way to share information, followed by email, then Twitter. More than twice the amount of information is shared on Twitter as on Digg. 48% of bloggers are US-based, 2/3 are male, and 75% are college graduates. 35% of traditional journalists also blog. Social networks Bebo, MySpace and Xanga attract the youngest audience; Delicious, LinkedIn and Classmates.com have, on average, the oldest demographics. More than 210 billion emails are sent daily, which exceeds the number of "snail mail" letters sent each year. Etc.