4 facts about Social Media and Internet Marketing Today

• Twitter doubles in size every 90 days. It is estimated that there will be 50 million people by December 2009

• Facebook has 350 million users and adds 350 thousand new ones per day

• You Tube has over 75 million videos which is more than ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX Combined

• People aged 18-34 spend 40% of their free time in social media

Relying less on print ( numbers and report comes from webpronews )

The majority (92%) of advertisers are using Internet advertising in their media campaigns followed by print advertising at 88 percent, according to a new LinkedIn Research Network/Harris Poll.

At the same time, less than half are using radio advertising (46%), television advertising (46%) and mobile advertising (39%).

Among those advertisers who are using each of these types of media, there is a difference in the level of usage since last year. Three-quarters of those who use Internet advertising (74%) say they are incorporating it more often while 69 percent of those who use mobile advertising are using it more often compared to a year ago. Unsurprisingly, the largest drop is with print advertising as half (49%) of those who use it are using it less often compared to a year ago while 41 percent are using it the same amount.

Of those who use Internet advertising just 14 percent say they use it in a standalone campaign, while 54 percent say the use it in an integrated campaign with other media and 33 percent use Internet advertising in both types of campaigns equally.

Four out of five advertisers who use Internet advertising use it as a branding device (79%) and two- thirds use it to drive information gathering for an offline transaction (65%). Slightly less than three in five advertisers (58%) use Internet advertising to drive online transactions while 57 percent say the use it to promote community around their brand.

source: webpronews

With all this online advertising – we need to be creative

As advertisers, we desperately need to find creative ways to represent our brand online. We should, for the most part, rely on no-interruption based advertising and viral marketing, but when we need to place online ads – we should keep a look out at the below stats:

80% of internet users say they find ads that expand on the page and cover the content very frustrating while 79 percent say ads where they can’t find the close or skip button are frustrating. Three-quarters of consumers (76%) find Internet ads that automatically pop up very frustrating while two-thirds (66%) say ads that open if they are “moused over” are very frustrating. Three in five consumers find both animated ads that automatically start playing and ads that play music and/or have loud soundtracks to be very frustrating (60% for both).  For us to be successful, we will need to come up with more creative and engaging ways to connect with the consumers.