Posts Tagged ‘stats’
CMI B2B Content marketing report review
December 6th, 2011
The B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Budgets, Benchmarks and Trends report, was published yesterday by the Content Marketing Institute in the U.S., led by its founder Joe Pulizzi.
We usually try to focus on UK/Euro stats on this blog, but I found the data in this piece to be particularly interesting. You can see the full findings here, and the sample of 1,092 marketers was taken in August 2011, and focused on how well B2B marketers are achieving their goals when it comes to content marketing, and how much has changed in the past year.
The 2011 study follows the 2010 piece of the same name and therefore allows for comparison between this year and last year.
In brief, the report shows:
Usage and effectiveness
• 9 out of 10 organisations market with content marketing
• On average, B2B marketers employ eight different content marketing tactics to achieve their goals. The most popular tactics are: (see graph below for full breakdown)
- Article posting (79%)
- Social media (excluding blogs) (74%)
- Blogs (65%)
- eNewsletters (63%)
- case studies (58%)
- in-person events (56%)
• Marketers are using content marketing to support multiple business goals, led by:
- brand awareness (69%)
- customer acquisition (68%)
- lead generation (67%)
- customer retention/loyalty (62%)
The least widely employed goal for content marketing is lead management/nurturing.
Measurement
• Web traffic is the most widely used success metric (58%). However, this year, sales lead
quality (49%) is the second-highest used metric (versus direct sales in the previous study).
Budget
• Marketers, on average, spend over a quarter of their marketing budget on content marketing
• 60% report that they plan to increase their spend on content marketing over the next 12 months.
Challenges
The greatest reported challenge is “producing the kind of content that engages prospects
and customers” (41% of respondents). And nearly the same percentage of respondents in 2011 as in 2010 reported that “producing enough content” (20%) and “budget to produce content” (18%) are their greatest challenges in content marketing.
While in-person events and webinars are still seen as the most effective tactics, on average, the following ranked notably higher in perceived effectiveness compared to the 2010 report:
• Blogs: 45% increase
• Case studies: 32% increase
• Videos: 36% increase
• Webinars/webcasts: 25% increase
The challenges section will resonate with many marketers, identifying points that will continue to test brands of all types, specifically: producing the kind of content that engages prospects and customers, producing enough content, and budgeting to produce content, which is difficult enough without considering those organisations that have little or no experience of the resource required to produce high quality and engaging content in a consistent way.
Of the tactics, it was a bit of a shock to see blogs coming out highest in terms of perceived effectiveness compared to 2010. The general trend has been away from blogs, but perhaps this is a reflection of quality beginning to tell over quantity, as those that have actually put the effort into B2B blogs are now seeing the return over the ‘me too’ blogs that see very little in either response or effort.
Measurement is always a prickly subject, and it was no surprise to see web traffic ranking as the most popular, although sales lead quality is beginning to show a little more relevance for those B2B businesses putting the time in to identify metrics and better understand opportunities and outcomes.
Which age ranges are the most prolific users of social networks?
March 17th, 2011
We’re all fond of a good stat in the worlds of social and communications, so when a stat conversation breaks out about demographics on some of the leading social networks, you’re bound to get a whole range of different answers to the same question.
Earlier today, i was discussing the question that forms the title of this post: Which age ranges are the most prolific users of social networks? More specifically we were talking about Twitter and Facebook, and the assertion that the most prolific users of social networks are pushing towards the 35 and over age range. I spoke to a number of different people and each had a slightly different take on what the basic make up of age ranges would be. Each also had the stats to back up their argument, so which should we believe?
First off, we have to take into consideration where the stats come from, both in terms of a reliable source and the geographic region the stats are sourced from. Most stats are skewed towards U.S users, so if we are considering UK-specific or European users we have to dig a little deeper.
This is all fairly obvious stuff, but it’s worth pointing out because of the many sources that i’ve looked at today, the vast majority, even when they say they use the same sources, come up with separate answers.
Therefore, i thought it might be helpful to reference a few of the stats that i’ve uncovered and the differences between them.
In terms of infographics, these versions from Kiss Metrics and Digital Surgeons are easy to understand at a glance, and use reputable sources, but in terms of age ranges for Facebook there is quite a difference.
The infographic from Kiss Metrics shows a clear rundown of demographics, this was posted last month using Google Ad Planner and Twitter sources, among others:
Facebook - 57% - 35 or older
Twitter - 56% - 35 or older
Here’s the Digital Surgeons infographic using a range of Google and Facebook sources:
Facebook - 37% - 35 or older
Twitter - 53% - 35 or older
As for European research, the latest data from ComScore is a good guide, and the 2010 Europe Digital Year in Review, launched last month, is an excellent resource. See the overview here and below
ComScore say: “The profile of social networking users in Europe reveals an audience that generally skews younger, with 15-24 year olds representing 25.3 percent of users, followed closely by 25-34 year olds at 24.3 percent. While the breakdown of European visitors to Facebook and Twitter mirrors that of social networking site users in general, LinkedIn has an older age profile. Only 10.4 percent of its visitors are under 25 years old, while half of the site’s audience is between the ages of 35-54. This older age profile is understandable given the site’s orientation toward professional networking.”
Breaking down the figures for Twitter and Facebook in Europe, ComScore say:
Facebook
15 - 24: 27.1%
25 - 34: 24.6%
35 - 44: 20.4%
45 - 54: 15.6%
55+: 12.4%
Twitter
15 - 24: 28.1%
25 - 34: 22.5%
35 - 44: 19.9%
45 - 54: 15.9%
55+: 13.5%
So you could say the largest segment is 15-24 years old, but equally more than 60% of users are over 25; or about half of all social users are 35 or older. More specifically:
Facebook - 48.4% 35 or older
Twitter - 49.3% 35 or older
So, yes, most of the stats agree, social network users are older than many might expect, but it’s not quite fair to say the younger age ranges are disappearing. We should also be aware that the degree to which the age range is present depends on geographic location, and the source.
Twitter stats don’t tell the whole story
March 11th, 2010
As you might have seen, an interesting Twitter stat has been doing the rounds recently: ‘21% of Twitter users are active users’ ,a stat that you’re likely to see regularly from now on.
This originated from the Barracuda Labs 2009 Annual Report, which was released earlier this week, revealing data from Twitter trends and tracking, as well as Web threats and trends, and email spam and viruses. The report is also available at the company’s portal.
The study looked at around 19 million Twitter accounts, and started with one assumption: an active or “True” Twitter user has at least 10 followers, follows at least 10 people, and had tweeted at least 10 times.
Looking back, the data shows interesting usage trends and reveals that 26% of Twitter users had 10 followers or more by December 2009, while only 40% were following 10 people or more, in fact 51% of users were following less than five people.
The report also confirms that 34% of Twitter users hadn’t tweeted once, while 73% had tweeted less than 10 times. That means nearly all of the tweets on the social network were coming from about 1/4 of the user base, and it is these users that the report refers to as ‘power users’.
So, are these revealing stats going to spell the end of the myth that Twitter is going to be the new communications platform for all? Hopefully, because i doubt even the quarter of Twitter users that are using it consistently thought it was going ever to be that.
If you’re not trying to make money out of Twitter, the importance attached to the amount or frequency of Twitter’s usage should not be as important as one might first assume.
The most important element of Twitter is the conversation, not the brand, not the technology and not the potential, but the conversation. That conversation doesn’t just happen on Twitter, it happens across many social networks, messaging platforms, via SMS, even in email and person-to-person, and Twitter allows part of that conversation, bringing communities together that choose to share information with each other.
If Twitter stopped tomorrow, the conversation would still continue, and my bet is the majority of Twitter’s ‘power user’ base, that Tweet the majority of the conversation, use other platforms to continue the conversation in other ways.
So is this the end of Twitter and the Twitter success story? No, Twitter is a massive success story, but it has been blown out of proportion in some ways. It is, as the research says, a valuable tool for ‘power users’, but in the world of social media we all have freedom of choice, we all communicate in different ways and some of us will find our preferred community on Twitter while others will look elsewhere for a better fit in terms of relevance. However, the one common theme is the conversation, and the ability to share; knowledge, content, news, excitement, sorrow, whatever.
We’ve seen the ‘no-one reads blogs’ headlines before, which again i don’t believe to be the case. Of the millions of blogs only a small percentage are useful and interesting, and those blogs are well utilised, the others quite simply are not. Does that make blogs any less useful though?
What we are seeing is Twitter maturing, as the study says, Twitter recently reported it had reached approximately 50 million tweets per day.
In the beginning of 2008, Twitter was growing approximately 0.31% per month. By November 2008, that growth increased to 1.95% per month.
After December 2008, Twitter’s growth exploded from nearly 2% per month, rising to approximately 4% per month, before finally peaking at nearly 20% per month in April 2009. Growth appears to have normalised, dropping back to 0.34% in December 2009.
We can also see more evidence of Twitter users finding their feet. A full 79% of users had less than ten tweets in June 2009, but that number dropped to 73% by December. 80% of users had less than 10 followers in June 2009, but that percentage dropped to 74% by December.
So, little by little, Twitter is finding its place in the role of conversation. It’s not going to change the way we communicate radically, but it is helping us to communicate more effectively, with those in our chosen community.
February 5th, 2010
I’ve always appreciated any effort to make the complex networked nature of the Web a bit easier to understand, and this week Focus (the online resource for business and IT professionals) did just that by giving us the ‘State of the Internet‘ Infographic below.
It offers more detail on who is using the Internet the most, how they are using it and by how much the amount of usage is increasing. It’s a great fact-filled beast of a graphic, but as a reference piece on the Internet it’s one of the best around.
I think the graphic explains all, so enjoy.
