Marketing Pilgrim

Hate is a pretty strong word, but according to a recent survey by email and social media marketing company iContact, it’s a word one out of four respondents had no trouble using.

The biggest offender? Groupon.

Says iContact, 70% of small businesses hate Groupon. They received particularly low marks from those in the financial industry (80%) but only 45% of those in the salon and spa biz had bad things to say.

Surprisingly, Facebook had few haters. 76% of respondents gave the social network a thumbs up. Non-profits were among their biggest fans (87%) as is education (82%) and that last statistic frightens me.

LinkedIn also fared well, which isn’t surprising given that it’s a business-oriented social network. 63% of respondents gave the site a thumbs up, with most of the love coming from businesses with fewer than 50 employees.

It’s time for another Millennial Media MobileMix report. This time it’s all about Q3 of 2011 and again, I give thumbs up to the cover art. They slay me every time.

It all begins with the smartphone. Ownership is up 7% over last quarter, 37% year-over-year. And since every other commercial on TV is about the iPhone, you probably think they’re leading the way for impressions, but they’re not.

Android still takes the top spot with 56% of all smartphone impressions. The MobileMix says this is due to largely to the fact that Android technology is being used by a variety of manufacturers, and more importantly, being offered at a wider variety of price points.

There are a lot of studies out there about social media. One that recently came out comes from Covario and it’s about Facebook and how well brands are doing with regard to how people like them. I’ll spoil that part for you by saying that Coca-Cola wins the great Facebook brand like shootout.

While that’s nice and makes for interesting fluff to pass around the Internet as if it’s going to help people do business. What I saw ,however, was something a little more practical in the findings that seems to need more investigation. The chart below shows what the goals are of social media programs and leading the pack is increasing sales.

News drives content more than anything else on the Internet. You can see 5000 barley different variations of “5 Easy Steps to X” or “The Top 10 Ways to X” but news is ever changing, new each day and the opinions attached to it are what make it an interesting read. It is the king of content in many ways.

It doesn’t only have to be news around events that should be considered. If you think about it, all sharing in social media is about news. Whether you are telling relatives about what the kids did, you are announcing where you are, have been or will be or any other update, in essence you are reporting about things. It’s all news.

So we were happy to see the people at the Pew Research Center Project for Excellence in Journalism put together an infographic based on a study that examines the impact of the tablet on the news space. Enjoy and let us know what your take is on their findings. (please excuse some of the picture distortion which was necessary to fit the infographic into the Marketing Pilgrim format).

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Online sellers and shoppers are both optimistic about the upcoming holiday season. According to Shop.org’s eHoliday survey 68% of online retailers say they expect to see growth of at least 15% over last year.

On the consumer side, data from the National Retail Federation, shows that consumers plan to do 36% of their holiday shopping online. This is an increase from 32.7% in 2010.

Fiona Swedlow of Shop.org says,

“There’s no question consumers are eager to hit the Web this holiday season, and online retailers are prepping by optimizing their sites, beginning their marketing and promotions early, and planning plenty of free shipping promotions as they aim to provide value and convenience for their shoppers. Online retailers will also leverage their social media and mobile platforms for savvy shoppers on the go, knowing how important customer reviews and comparison shopping applications are to holiday shoppers.”

This past weekend, I took the plunge and upgraded my iPhone and iPad2 to iOS 5. I should have waited for Halloween, as it was a frightening, nightmarish experience but when it was over, I had treats galore!

iOS 5 is a huge update with more than 200 new features. After only a week, it was estimated that 1 in 3 eligible customers had the download and you can bet it will be 2 out of 3 very soon. This is good news for you, because iOS 5 has several features that are great for online marketers.