A Statistical Analysis of Marketing Trends – Part 2

08 2012 Thursday

Part 1 of this article can be found at: http://www.sitepronews.com/2012/08/02/a-statistical-analysis-of-marketing-trends-part-1/

Statistics

- 3.5 billion pieces of content are shared each week on Facebook.
- Every day 2,300 new Wikipedia articles are created, adding to its 17,000,000 articles with contributions from 91,000 members.
- There are 5 billion photos on Flickr.
- 1.4 million new blog posts are created every day.
- 200 million Facebook users access the service from a mobile device.
- For the first time in history, tablets outsold desktop computers in 2010.
- $3.08 billion was spent on social network advertising in 2011, a 55% increase from 2010.

Sources: banking.com, econsultancy, ecademy, websuccessteam blog

What It All Means

The idea that the universe is constantly expanding has always overwhelmed me. Knowing how large the solar system is, it’s difficult to comprehend that even our vast solar system occupies a minuscule corner of a much larger space (for lack of a better word).

However, I’m beginning to think that the Internet is expanding faster than the universe. The amount of time, resources, and dollars going into creating, monetizing, promoting, analyzing, and any other -ing you can think of, being spent on Internet content every day is staggering. The statistics above show not only an astonishing amount of existing content out there, but point to massive growth and expansion, on a near constant basis.

How do we make sense of it all? First we need to eliminate some outliers. The majority of the statistics listed above exist in places on the web that are personal or private, part of social networks that companies cannot and should not have access too.

Even the private content tells us a few things. First, these sites are incredibly popular. Even if people are going on Facebook and Flickr to look at wedding photos or interact with their friends, we can capitalize on that presence. Targeted advertising on social media sites is effective, but not enough.

The other thing that these statistics tell us is that people are engaging with content on the internet. Commenting, reposting, sharing, creating, people are involved in the discussion. By creating marketing strategies that contain calls to action and offer consumers rewards if they do so accomplishes many things. We extend the amount of time that marketing material stays in front of our target. We create brand loyalty, and we turn each consumer into an advocate of our brand. If I buy a Groupon, it gets posted on my Facebook page and Twitter feed. I’m simultaneously a customer and a promoter.

We now know that social media sites are massive, constantly expanding, accessible from mobile devices, and being heavily advertised on. We also know that the demand for mobile internet access has pushed mobile device sales ahead of desktop computer sales. It no longer matters if targeted consumers are sitting at a desk in an office in Manhattan, riding in a truck in a cornfield in Iowa, or on a train crossing the Swiss Alps, we can reach them.

Marketing strategies need to utilize these vehicles and find targets like smart bombs. We know where people are, so how do we get there. Banner advertising, Facebook campaigns, Twitter hashtags, YouTube video campaigns, they all piggyback on the websites we know people will visit.

However, if we can take that a step further, and provide incentives for our customers to advocate us, our marketing and our customers are swept up in the massive ocean of social media, bouncing between sites and devices, and work for us, 24 hours a day, at a fraction of the cost of traditional targeted media buys.

Instead of being overwhelmed by the explosive growth of internet content, let’s make it work for us.

Mike Burke is Head of Business Development at redcmedia .