Social Media Marketing: Consumer Trends

A recent Nielsen Online study notes that people have tripled their time on social media networking sites, with nearly 17% of their online activity based on social media marketing platforms! That’s a 6% increase since this time last year. Major social media networking platforms (Twitter, Facebook, blogs) have seen an increase in time spent on their platforms, with users communicating with everyone from friends and family to co-workers.

This trend hasn’t gone unnoticed, as you can tell from our recent flurry of social media marketing posts. As consumers spend more time on these social media platforms, so are marketers. Nielsen statistics show that marketers increased their budget allocation to social media marketing by 110% since this time last year. In terms of dollars, that’s $108 million spent last month on these social media platforms alone!

“While video and text content remain central to the Web experience –the desire of online consumers to connect, communicate and share is increasingly driving the medium’s growth,” said Jon Gibs, vice president of media and agency insights at Nielsen’s online division.

So, if you haven’t begun your venture into social media marketing, we suggest you put it on your task list. Even if you think social media marketing is just a fad, take note of the momentum it’s gained! User behaviors are changing, and marketers should be adapting. As we stated with our long tail of search post yesterday, the benefits of social media marketing have a high probability of outweighing the negatives you may run into.



Written by Daisy K.