I’m on a plane again, which means I have takeoff and landing time to catch up on reading.
In the bundle I packed with me this trip is the April issue of Inc. (you’re welcome, Margie…now you don’t have to read this one either).
In the “Crunching the Numbers” section, they take a look at how many of us use Google to find local businesses.
What do you think is the number?
I think you’ll be surprised.
Only 14% said they do every day…and 24% said never.
I’m kind of shocked. It certainly explains how things such as Siri are moving us toward apps vs. the web, but it’s still shocking it’s that low.
As well, Social Media Examiner released their Social Media Marketing Industry Report and there are some interesting findings in it.
They looked at:
- Value of social media
- Strategy vs. measurement
- Use of video
- Google+
- Top benefits of use
- Top networks of use
- Outsourcing
- B2B vs. B2C
- Use based on the size of companies
One of the things I find most interesting is, of the top 10 questions marketers ask about social media, measurement is number one. Yet, when we talk about how and what to measure, there may as well be crickets reading the posts. My Marketing in the Round co-author, Geoff Livingston, discusses this very topic today.
We want to know how to measure, but (based on our collective experience) no one seemingly wants to do the hard work to get there.
Other things of interest include 83% said social media is important to their businesses, but that’s down from 90% last year.
As well, smaller businesses (those with 10 or less employees) spend more time on the social networks than that of their larger peers.
And they cited increased exposure and traffic as the top reasons they continue to use the sites.
As for plans to increasing efforts this year, 70% said they are going to add video. Not surprising, as so many of us are visual learners, yet many companies use only text.
There are also some things that won’t surprise you such as Facebook is the number one tool for more than 80% of respondents and the younger generation is using it more effectively. But Google+ and photo sharing sites, such as Instagram (wonder if that will change now that Facebook owns them?) made the top 10 lists for most…and they weren’t on the list last year.
The report is free through April 19, if you want to take a gander yourself.