Ketchum Perspectives

Overview by Ketchum CEO Ray Kotcher

Lessons from the Obama campaign by Ketchum's digital media director, a video interview with a best-selling social media book author, insights from Kodak's chief marketing officer, and a Q&A with an Advertising Age magazine editor

Viewpoints

Do's and don'ts of social media at work, and challenges and solutions to measuring social media

What's Clicking

How Kimberly-Clark used digital media to reach Millennial Moms

Roundtable

Digital lessons from Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Spain, the U.A.E. and the U.S.

Street Smarts

Latest facts and figures on digital media

STREET SMARTS

Facts About Digital Media
The ongoing, rapid evolvement of digital media means that facts about what consumers are doing online can change quickly. But one constant is that use of online media is dynamic and growing. Here are some recent stats that provide a snapshot of how consumers are spending time online and how they view certain digital media sources.

More and more people are spending time on social networking sites and blogs.

At the end of 2008, "member communities' reached 66.8 percent of online consumers around the globe, outpacing e-mail, which reached 65.1 percent. Member communities are now the fourth most popular activity online, after search, general-interest portals and communities and software manufacturers. And in the U.S. alone, total minutes spent on social networks sites increased 83 percent from April 2008 to April 2009, according to Nielsen Online.
Nielsen, Global Faces and Networked Places, March 2009. Nielsen Online Global Index, December 2007-December 2008

Consumers trust each other more than they trust corporate messages.

Only 16 percent of U.S. consumers say they trust information on company blogs, and just 18 percent trust information on social networking site profiles from a company or brand. Twenty-eight percent trust e-mail from a company or brand.
By comparison, 21 percent trust message board posts and 60 percent trust consumer product ratings and reviews.
Forrester Research Inc., North American Technographics Media and Marketing Online Survey, Q2 2008

Consumers over age 35 are major users of social networking sites.

Nearly 42 percent of Twitter users are ages 35 — 49, making it the largest age group on the site.
Nielsen NetView, February 2009, U.S., Home and Work

Almost one-third of Facebook's global audience is between the ages of 35 and 49, and nearly 25 percent is over 50 years old.
Nielsen, Global Faces and Networked Places, 2009

Every minute, 10 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
YouTube Web site

Four in five bloggers post brand or product reviews, with 37 percent posting them frequently. One-third of bloggers say they have been approached to be brand advocates.
Technorati, State of the Blogosphere 2008

Seventy-three percent of active Internet users read blogs.
Universal McCann, Power to the People Social Media Tracker, March 2008

Perspectives Staff