The State of Social Media: 3rd Quarter, 2011

Listen to the full interview with Coy Barefoot.

State of Social Media on Charlottesville Right Now

Nielsen has published its third quarter, 2011 report on social media usage in the United States. While may of the results are unsurprising to those of us working in media or communications, there are highlights from the report worth mentioning and worth the particular attention of certain industries.

The study, and the overall results are of interest to any marketer or business owner as they dramatically impact the way we do business, attract and keep customers. Some highlights to consider:

More women view video on social networks, but men watch longer.

If you’re using video in your marketing, how does this change the way you’re creating and sharing video? Are men or women your primary audience?

You can scoff at online games all you want; the figures speak for themselves. Internet users are spending more time playing social games than they are spending on e-mail. 

If you’re a marketer or responsible for the marketing success of your business, paying attention to the significance of gaming is important. It may be more effective to gamify your content than continue sending e-mails to your customer base. What does that mean for your promotional structure? How do you make a game of your customer interaction? Have you ordered Domino’s Pizza online? Buy a pizza and experience what a successful social gaming promotional campaign looks like. (The pizza’s gotten a lot better recently, too.)

Another particular point of interest to marketers and business owners:

When compared to the average adult internet user, active adult social networkers are 47% more likely to be heavy spenders on shoes, clothing and accessories.

If this is what you sell, knowing who the social networkers are in your community is critical.  We also know that social networkers are influential offline as well as on; creating value for this audience is important to your business as its revenue.

If your business is a late adopter, or still dabbling without a specific online strategy, get in this game now, before you’re left in the dust.

What highlights from the Nielsen report resonate the most for your business?