Smartphones are helping to drive users to Facebook. Through the marriage of social and mobiletechnology, those who take advantage have instant, everywhere access to all their profiles. Smartphone users between ages 18 to 44 take full advantage of their smartphones and use them from the early morning right to the end of the day. 62% of all respondents said they reach for their device immediately after waking up, whereas 79% of users did the same within 15 minutes of waking up. This statistic is even higher for the younger demographic. Most of smartphone users' time on mobile Facebook is spent checking their newsfeed, messaging, posting photos, and even playing games. This worked out to just above an average of 30 minutes being spent on mobile Facebook every single day. This goes without being said that investing time on social mobile media is going to be a wise decision. 

Contact Us for more information on Mobile Website Design or any other Internet Marketing services. The full article can be read here: "Smartphones Help Drive Users to Facebook"

More than 77% of the Canadian population will use the internet at least monthly, which includes more than three-quarters of the total population with broadband connections. Small businesses on the other hand, having dedicated online websites is less common. Around 46% of small businesses mentioned they had a website and fewer than half advertised or sold their business online. Along with this statistic, social media use was even less common for small businesses. Nearly four in 10 small business owners said they promoted their businesses through social media sites. This makes both websites and social just as unpopular for smaller business owners. This strategy may want to be reconsidered seeing as the value of a company website is crucial to the business's success. RBC found that of all the small business's revenue, at least 38% comes from ecommerce, which is a very substantial amount.

For more information on Mobile Website Design or any Internet Marketing Services, please contact us. To read the full article click here: "Canada's Smallest Businesses Struggle to Get Online"

Over the last few years, the average daily time spent on mobile devices (excluding talk time) by US adults has increased dramatically.  In 2012, the average will grow to 82 minutes per day, an increase of 51.9% from 2011, and an increase of 141% from 2010.  Time spent online on other major media platforms is also increasing, but at a significantly slower rate, as seen by the table to the right.  Almost 3 hours of time spent with media on a daily average is online, and it is highly unlikely that the growth rate of this number will reach double digits even as consumers continue to spend more time on their computers.  On the other hand, smartphones and tablets have only penetrated a minority of all consumers when compared to laptops and desktops.  As more acquire smartphones and tablets, and current owners shift more of their online activities to these devices, mobile is taking an ever-increasing share of time with all media.

While time spent on mobile is increasing at a rapid rate, advertising spending has been slow to follow suit.  As can be seen by the graph to the left, mobile time share has increased from 3.5% in 2009 to 11.7% in 2012, but ad spending share has only increased from 0.3% in 2009 to 1.6% in 2012.  Advertising for mobile is expected to increase rapidly over the next few years (reaching an estimated $12 billion in 2016) as the popularity of smartphones and tablets continues to grow.

Contact Us for more information on Mobile Website Design or any other Internet Marketing services.  Alternatively, read the full article: "Consumers Spend More Time with Mobile as Online Growth Slows".

Email is a highly effective tool for marketers in North America.  More than nine in ten adult internet users will send an email at least once per month in 2012.  We can see the importance of email marketing from the performance metrics to the right.  The non-bounce rate measures the percentage of emails that do not bounce, and are thus considered delivered.  The non-bounce rate has increased slightly from 2010 to 2012.  Email open rates have increased steadily in the last two years, while the clickthrough rate has been decreasing.  The clickthrough rate is the number of times a link in an email is clicked, divided by the number of times the email is opened, expressed as a percentage.  This graph shows that consumers are being more responsive to marketing emails, opening them more often.  While they do not click the links included in the emails as often as in previous years, there is a higher non-bounce rate, meaning more people explore further than the landing page the link takes them to.

 

 

 

Contact Us for more information on E-mail Marketing or any other Internet Marketing services. Alternatively, read the full article: "Digital Coupons Rival Print Counterparts in Effectiveness".

Contact Us for more information on E-mail Marketing or any other Internet Marketing services. Alternatively, read the full article: "When it Comes to Sharing, Email Still Rules" or refer to "The 2012 Channel Preference Survey" for full results.  

With recent advancements in technology, the internet has become a hand-held commodity via smart-phone browsers.  The mobile web user market is vast and rapidly expanding.  These days, when building a website and performing Search Engine Optimization (SEO), one must also take into consideration Mobile Website Design and SEO for mobile websites.

Mobile Website Design is about more than just having an aesthetically pleasing template.  Mobile search engines take into greater consideration a site’s speed and its ability to be rendered than regular search engines do.  Compatibility is an important factor when creating a mobile website.  With the growing number of mobile devices, mobile websites must be versatile in order to be accessible by the wide range of mobile browsers and smart phones.  Ideally, successful mobile websites are in XHTML or Basic XHTML format.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for mobile websites must be approached differently than regular websites.  One of the things to consider when doing SEO for mobile websites is keywords.  Mobile users prefer to search for shorter keywords than laptop/desktop users due to the relative difficulty of typing on mobile devices. As the mobile web market continues to boom, mobile websites and Mobile Website Design will become increasingly valuable to businesses.  Mobile websites must be properly optimized in order to ensure success in the mobile market.

Contact Us for more information on Mobile Website Design, or any other Internet Marketing services. Alternatively, read the full article: "SEO for Mobile Websites - A SPN Exclusive Article".

The effectiveness of Search Engine Marketing appears to extend beyond the Internet, and the benefits that can be expressed through web analytics, as there is evidence it may impact in-store behaviour as well. According to the results of a GroupM Search and Compete survey, 93% of responding internet users perform an online search at some point during their shopping process, regardless of the purchase channel they plan to exercise.
Results also suggest that in most cases prospective shoppers do not have a specific brand in mind at the onset of the search process. This is evidenced by the fact that 73% of retail website visitors arrived through non-branded search terms. These "nonbranded" shoppers were also found to be 2.6 times more likely to click Organic Search results, than the average shopper.

It is evident that a business' website plays an important role in the shopping process, regardless of whether the shopper is making an in-store purchase or e-commerce transaction.

Contact Us for more information on Organic Search Marketing, or any other Internet Marketing services. Alternatively, read the full article: "In-Store Buyers Influenced by Online Search

An eMarketer estimate claims that global ad revenues generated on social networks will reach $10 billion in 2013, while this year's projected number is $5.54 billion. It is expected that nearly half that amount, $2.74 billion, will come from the United States. Despite optimistic speculation, there remains a sentiment within the Internet Marketing community that a business’ social media presence is still more important than advertising on social media networks.

2011 Social Network Ad Revenue Estimates

• Facebook - $3.8 Billion
• LinkedIn - $140.8 million
• Twitter - $139.5 million

A survey conducted in July 2011, by Microsoft Advertising and Advertiser Perceptions, which questioned social media marketers from six countries, found that 74% of respondents considered it ‘very important’ to have a presence on Facebook, while only 57% believed it was equally important to advertise there. The disparity between the two figures was less significant when applied to Twitter, where 47% thought a twitter presence was very important, while only 42% believed it was very important to advertise there.

Some common social media marketer complaints included: difficulty measuring the effectiveness of Social Media Marketing (largely due to a lack of adequate analytics tools) and difficulty in reaching appropriate audiences, as social media fans often do not represent an ideal marketing audience. It is also reported that on average nearly ½ of social media marketer’s budgets are going towards attracting new visitors, while about ⅕ is spent on trying to keep social media users engaged, in an effort to reduce the substantial turnover that exists on social networks.

Contact Us to Develop a Social Media Marketing strategy now! Or for more information on the topic of social media marketing trends, read the full articles, Social Media Presence More Important Than Social Media Ads and Social Network Ad Revenues to Reach $10 Billion Worldwide in 2013.