perspectives
Changing Media Habits
Most of us would agree that it is a good idea to step outside your day-to-day routine in business and observe what is happening in the world. Whether at home, in the office, school or car, coffee shop or ballgame, or even in such far away places as Egypt, we all know how we get our information and how we communicate has changed more in the last ten years than perhaps all of modern history combined. We can study the global adoption rate of the printing press, radio, television and telephone and realize that in the context of their time they were revolutionary, yet none had such a significant impact as the computer and now the internet does today. Each of those once revolutionary communications vehicles are being challenged and attempting to adapt to a new world order.
While history is always open to interpretation, some would hypothesize that in the mid-1980s Apple noticed that IBM [International Business Machines] was not interested in marketing computers to individuals for home use or small business markets. IBM was a highly successful company that was quite satisfied with their focus on large and mid-sized businesses. Apple’s initial marketing success in bringing the computer to both the home and the small business market, which many other computer manufacturers soon followed, changed the way we live and work.
As for the internet, while Apple continues to provide us with truly revolutionary tools such as the iPhone and iPad, Google has given us all instant access to information to live our lives and run our businesses. In 2011 we are all living in this media and communications revolution and from time-to-time it is helpful to put the facts, as opposed to the hype, in context.
So, in the tradition of David Letterman, here are ten things that you should know about changing media habits:
1. Internet Penetration
77.3% of the U.S. population has access to the internet, while only 28.8% of the world population have access. Among the U.S., the top 5 states that have the highest internet penetration are:
1. New Hampshire: 90%
2. New Jersey: 87.8%
3. Utah: 87.6%
4. Connecticut: 86.5%
5. Massachusetts: 86.2%
Source: Internetworldstats.com
2. Media
For the first time, U.S. advertisers are spending more advertising dollars on the Internet than on ads in newspapers. In 2010, U.S. online advertising spending totaled $26 billion, whereas print newspaper advertising totaled less than $23 billion. It is important to note that out of the $26 billion spent for online advertising, paid search accounted for 48%, while banner ads accounted for 23%.
Source: eMarketer.com
3. Email
When considering an email campaign, did you know that 247 billion emails are sent every single day? Nearly 81% – 200 billion emails – that are sent daily are considered spam. That means that in a world of nearly 7 billion of which 28.8% have internet access each of us on average receives 24 emails per day, not including spam.
Source: Techspot.com
4. Facebook
When it comes to maintaining a company or brand Facebook page, less is more. In the U.S. approximately 43% of the population have access to this social network. In a recent study, Facebook pages that posted content more than once a day tended to have fewer ‘likes’, especially once they got past a 3 posts per day level. However, Facebook pages that posted articles or content once every other day had the highest number of ‘likes’.
Source: Mashable.com, danzarella.com
5. LinkedIn
There are more than 90 million users worldwide with profiles on LinkedIn – with U.S. users accounting for slightly less than half of site traffic. Among those U.S. profiles, here are some of the most overused and some would say meaningless buzzwords:
1. Extensive experience
2. Innovative
3. Motivated
4. Results-oriented
5. Dynamic
6. Proven track record
7. Team player
8. Fast-paced
9. Problem solver
10. Entrepreneurial
Source: LinkedIn
6. Blogging
While there are more than 234 million websites on the internet, there are approximately 133 million total blogs in the blogosphere. It is interesting to note that more than half of blog users are ages 21-35 and about one-third update more than 3-4x per week.
Source: Technorati
7. Mobile Internet
Since 2008, the number of U.S. mobile internet users have more than doubled – from 39.9 million active users to 90.2 million. Of these mobile users, 87% access the mobile internet more than once a day and 81% of users access it for more than 15 minutes a day. 60% of those who use mobile internet access it for social networking.
Source: Nielson, AdAge
8. Tablet Usage
In 2010, there were approximately 10.3 million tablet users in the U.S. – and it is forecasted that by the year 2015 tablet users will reach more than 82.1 million.
Source: Forrester Research
9. Google
Among other search engines like Bing, Yahoo, and AOL, 64.3% of internet searches are conducted using Google. In December 2010, there were 18.2 billion searches – 11.7 billion of those searches were done using Google. This means the average American conducts one to two searches per day using the Google search engine.
Source: ComScore
10. Media Multitasking
A growing majority of Americans are using both Internet and television at the same time. It has been estimated that approximately 59% of Americans use the Internet and television simultaneously – in the U.S. the average person watches 35 hours of TV per week and uses the Internet for 32 hours per week.
Source: Nielson
Please let us know how you feel at at dlogan@trinitynet.com or at 617.292.7399.