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Online Influences Almost Two-Thirds of Toy Purchases

posted on January 5, 2012

When I was a kid, holiday toy shopping for my mom meant cracking open the Sears Wish Book. She’d chose the items from our lists, call in the order and everything would arrive on the doorstep a few days later. No need to step inside a toy store at all.

Times haven’t changed all that much. Today, parents are still avoiding the aisles by doing a large amount of toy shopping online. Even when they don’t buy online, the internet is influencing their decisions on what to buy. Check out this chart from the new Google study “The Role of Digital in the Toy Shopper’s Journey.”

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New Year, New Job?

posted on January 5, 2012

The jobs report yesterday was pretty good according to the pundits. If you work in the Internet and social media marketing space (and you are worth your salt as opposed to a guru, maven or ninja :-) ) the jobs report is going to be bright for quite some time to come.

So if you are looking for a new job in the Internet and social media marketing industry the Marketing Pilgrim Internet marketing job board is a great place for you to look for that next great opportunity.

If you are looking to hire that next great employee for your Internet and social media marketing needs then what better place to find that person than from our incredibly talented readers! Oh and the fact that it is only $27 /month / per listing to find that person makes it all the better.

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Social Media Marketing’s Purchasing Influence Greater in Emerging Markets

posted on January 5, 2012

It looks like out of the gate 2012 may very well be the year of global social media awareness. Yesterday we looked at a Forrester study that told of how the use of social media varies from country to country. Today the conversation is about the impact on ecommerce that social media has in various parts of the world.

Our conversation around social media are often focused on developed nations. First, let’s define developed here. For the purposes of discussing social media, developed means where social media growth has plateaued not necessarily the economic situation of the region. Emerging markets are those that are experiencing considerable growth in social media usage overall which may or may not correlate with economic variables (although it often does).

A study reported by eMarketer that was done by TNS shows just how influential social media is on purchasing decisions in countries around the world. Take a look.

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YouTube and Netflix Share Top Honors in November 2011

posted on January 4, 2012

Today we ponder the question, if people stopped loading videos on the internet right now, how long would it take to watch everything that’s already been submitted?

These are the kinds of things that keep me up at night. It’s like calculating how long it would take me to watch every minute of every DVD I own. I don’t know that either feat could be accomplished in the time we have on this earth.

According to Nielsen, 166.9 million unique US viewers watched nearly 22 billion videos in November 2011. In January of 2011, the unique viewer number was 143,930 watching almost 15 billion videos. That’s quite a jump in only ten months.

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Everything Old is New Again: the Comeback Kids of 2012

posted on January 4, 2012

People say they want something new and different, but the truth is, we gravitate toward old, familiar images and brands. Sometimes these brands return with a clever, modern update (Can you say, “Old Spice.”) Other times, it’s just the mere reminder of why we loved them in the first place that makes us a fan all over again.

Forbes has just released their list of brands they expect to make a comeback in 2012. Let’s take a look and see if you agree.

The Muppets

This one is a no-brainer, since they’re already on the upswing. Back in November, The Muppets released a new movie which, ironically, was all about them making a comeback. Since then, Kermit and friends have been popping up everywhere, reigniting original fans and bringing in a new, teen audience.

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Google Demotes Chrome Browser in Search Results After “Unintentional” Paid Link Campaign

posted on January 4, 2012

This post comes from our Search News Channel sponsor WebiMax.

It appears Google does, in fact, hold themselves accountable (to some degree) for their own policies and guidelines. News broke late on Monday by Aaron Wall (an internet marketer who founded SeoBook.com), when his community discovered a “This post is sponsored by Google” sponsored post.

Search marketers know very well that Google has a strict stance against paid links and states in their guidelines that “some SEOs and webmasters engage in the practice of buying and selling links that pass PageRank, disregarding the quality of the links”, noting that “buying and selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site’s ranking in search results.”

Google’s official statement was:

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Report Shows Global Social Media Differences

posted on January 4, 2012

Forrester has released its report “Global Social Media Adoption in 2011“. The full report is available to Forrester clients only but we can help hit a few of the high points for those who aren’t there yet ;-) .

In a nutshell, there is no clean definition of a social media user that crosses geographical boundaries. It would actually be shocking if it were reported that there was some kind of international social media profile. Social media is very personal and it will be driven by the social mores of users as much as anything else. The chart below is a quick look at the US v EU-7 (UK, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden) that shows the differences in the two regions.