Posted by Cristina Lucero & Christina Mannarino, Performics Research & Insights Team
United States
Channel Insights
Mobile
-Pew Internet Report: Just-in-time Information through Mobile Connections
- Some 70% of all cell phone owners and 86% of smartphone owners have used their phones in the previous 30 days to perform at least one of the following activities:
- Decide whether to visit a business, such as a restaurant–30% have used their phone to do this in the past 30 days
- Find information to help settle an argument they were having–27% have used their phone to get information for that reason in the past 30 days
- Get up-to-the-minute traffic or public transit information to find the fastest way to get somewhere–20% have used their phone to get that kind of information in the past 30 days
- Read the full report here
-comScore: Google Sites Top Facebook On Mobile, But 4 Out of 5 Mobile Media Minutes Spent In Apps
- Google sites led as the top property on iOS, Android and RIM devices, reaching 96.9% of the U.S. mobile audience, followed by Facebook, Yahoo sites and Amazon sites
- On the iPhone, iTunes was the top app, with 99.9% reach (what, did someone figure out how to delete iTunes off of their iPhone?), and was followed by Google Maps, at 91.2% reach
- On Android, Google Android Market App was #1 (93.2% reach), followed by the Google Search app (84.1%), Maps (74.5%), Gmail (71.4%), and then Facebook (68.9%)
- The newly hot image pinboarding site Pinterest reached 7.5 million smartphone visitors who engaged with the brand for nearly an hour
- Read the full article here
Social
-New Study Finds 95 Million Americans Use Social Media To Shop (Leo Burnett)
- 42% of Americans are using social media to shop–this equates to nearly 95 million social shoppers in the U.S.
- 42% of social shoppers are using Facebook more than they were a year ago, while 55% of shoppers are utilizing daily deals more and 46% of shoppers have increased engagement on review sites and forums
- Six shopper archetypes reflecting the needs and habits of today’s social shoppers:
- “Savvy Passionista”: The Social Trendsetter; “Opportunistic Adventurer”: The Daily Dealaholic; “Quality Devotee”: The High Maintenance, High Standards Shopper; “Strategic Saver”: The Black Belted Negotiator; “Efficient Sprinter”: The Few Dollars Shorter, Several Minutes Richer Shopper; “Dollar Defaulter”: The Dollar Sign Connoisseur
- Read about the study here
-Tumblr Boasts Rapid Growth and New Advertising Opportunities (eMarketer)
- In March, the number of blogs Tumblr hosted passed the 50-million mark
- Last month, Google released search results forecasting that the search term “Tumblr” would overtake “blog” by the end of the year, meaning the platform could become the brand name stand-in for the generic web term
- According to a February report from comScore, web users worldwide who visited Tumblr spent, on average, 89 minutes on the site during January 2012
- This, of course, pales in comparison to Facebook’s 405 minutes
- Although Awareness surveyed marketers before Tumblr announced its new advertising opportunities, the results still demonstrate that marketers may be less familiar with Tumblr than other social media platforms
-Facebook Ads Strike Chord With Participants (MediaPost)
- The percentage of Facebook budgets allocated toward social ads rose to 23%–up from 5% in the past 12 months
- Marin Software predicts that by the end of this year social ads, or Marketplace Ads supported by Sponsored Stories, will account for nearly half of brands’ Facebook ad budgets
- Participant engagement with Facebook ads–as measured by click-through rates–rose 50% compared with the last 12 months, implying a boost in overall ad relevance
- Read the full article here
-Participants Expect More Social Engagement (MediaPost)
- A Lithium Technologies survey reports that big brands are often falling short of participant expectations when it comes to social media engagement
- Participants expect to hear back from a company when they tweet about its brand or product, only 9% said they have actually received a response–meaning about two-thirds are left disappointed
- 35% of participants said they expect to hear something from a brand or company after “liking” them on Facebook, but 58% said they never hear anything at all
- 42% of marketers said they are very aware of the need to demonstrate social media ROI to top execs at their companies–but only 4% rated their ability to measure the impact of social media as “excellent”
- Read the full article here
Search
-Research Shows “Tail Answers” Improve Search Results (MediaPost)
- A group of researchers from Microsoft and MIT found that crowdsourcing queries could return better results
- Researchers found in a survey that search engines could improve user perceptions of search quality by providing more direct answers to queries through crowdsourcing to identify the answers to simple but frequently asked questions
- The team created a custom version of the Bing search engine that inserted Tail Answers at the top of the search results whenever the user issued a matching query
- Overall, adding Tail Answers had a positive effect on users’ search experience, as reflected by their ratings
- The impact of Tail Answers was nearly half as much as result rankings, where search engines focus much of their effort
- That positive effect was more than doubled when participants were asked whether they needed to click through to a URL
- Read the full article here
-The New Bing: Microsoft Tries Again With Search Meets Social (Search Engine Land)
- The new Bing is a three-column design with Core Search, Snapshot & Sidebar panes
- Core Search loses many of the social annotations that Bing has added over the years
- Snapshot provides additional information about a particular search listing, without having to leave Bing
- Sidebar serves as a new home for social integration with search
- Read the full article here
Video
-Google, Microsoft Develop Separate Video Technology (MediaPost)
- Google has developed a technique that mimics professional camera movement and applied it to videos recorded by handheld devices, such as smartphones
- The technology supports an algorithm that automatically determines the best camera path and recasts the video as if it were filmed using stabilization equipment
- Microsoft Research also continues to work with video, but the work points to mobile gaming
- Read the full article here
-Flurry: Photo/Video Fastest-Growing App Category (MediaPost)
- The photo and video category as a whole has been the fastest-growing in apps time spent per active user between October and March, up 89% to 231 minutes
- That year-over-year growth rate is twice the 71% increase in time spent watching YouTube on the desktop Web. Actual minutes spent viewing video online is still well ahead of apps, at 425 total minutes versus 231 in March.
- It’s not quite time to write off games, considering that they still dominate the top 10 app charts in iTunes and Google Play
- Read the full article here
Industry
Retail
-Hybris Study: U.S. Consumers Want Retailers to Integrate Channels
- The study found the importance of online and mobile strategies continue to increase with more than a third of consumers (39%) reporting that they make more purchases online than in-store
- Even while shopping in a brick-and-mortar store, participants continue to turn to digital channels with 19% reporting that they browse their mobile device while in-store
- The vast majority do so to compare prices (66%), with others using mobile to compare product choices (27%) and read online recommendations (7%)
- Forty-five percent of respondents indicated in-store pickup options for online purchases were most important
- The most important factors for following through with an online purchase are easy navigation (59%) followed by simple checkout process (57%)
- Read the summary of the study here and the full study here
