Google, Facebook Users Skew Young, Affluent, and Educated

 

Both Google and Facebook attract young, affluent, and educated Americans in large numbers, according to results of a new USA Today/Gallup poll. Each counts more than half of those under 50, those with college degrees, and those making more than $90,000 a year among their users.

Men, Women Use Facebook Equally, Men Use Google More

 

Gallup data indicates men (42%) are about as likely as women (45%) to have a Facebook page. However, men (63%) are 12.5% more likely than women (56%) to say they visit Google in a given week. Overall, 40% more US adults say they use Google in a typical week (60%) than have a Facebook page (43%).

However, as mentioned above, both sites have substantially higher usage rates with younger, wealthier and educated Americans. For example, among 18-to-29-year-olds, 83% use Google in a typical week and 73% have a Facebook page. Those respective figures drop to 34% and 17% among Americans age 65 and older.

Similar trends can be observed when looking at disparities in income and education. Among Americans earning $90,000 or more annually, 85% use Google in a typical week and 55% have a Facebook page. Those respective figures are 56% and 41% for Americans earning less than $90,000 annually.

 

Usage rates among postgraduates (87% for Google and 53% for Facebook) and college graduates (85% and 58%, respectively) do not greatly differ. However, among those with a high school degree or less, the respective figures drop to 35% and 28%.

All Demographics More Likely to Use Google

Currently, US adults in all key demographic groups are more likely to visit Google in a given week than to say they have a Facebook page. Google attracts a significantly larger share of college graduates, postgraduates, and those making at least $90,000 per year. Both sites have yet to reach a majority of those with a high school education or less, or those who are at least 65 years old.

Facebook Users More Concerned about Privacy

The majority of users of both sites say they are very or somewhat concerned about invasion of privacy and internet viruses, and about half are concerned about spam e-mail. Facebook users about 20% more likely than Google users to say they are concerned about invasion of privacy and internet viruses, and about 10% more likely to say they are concerned about spam.

Gallup data indicates older and less affluent users of these sites are in some cases more concerned about these issues than other groups, but Gallup says the patterns are not uniform and because of small sample sizes, the results by group are too small to report.

Facebook Surges in 2010

Social networking category leader Facebook continued its momentum as it amassed millions of new users and people spent more and more of their time on the site, according to a new white paper from comScore. “The 2010 US Digital Year in Review” indicates that Facebook accounted for 10% of US page views in 2010, while three out of every 10 US internet sessions included a visit to the site.

Targeting Boosts Low Facebook Click Rates

How much do low average clickthroughs matter for marketers?

 

eMarketer estimates marketers around the world will spend $6 billion advertising on social networks this year, and the return on that investment will be a bigger question than ever.

Many ad performance metrics have long been low on social networking sites, suggesting internet users simply do not want to click on ads while they’re socializing with friends and family. But how useful are measures of average performance to real-world marketers when so many variables can affect ad performance?

According to a widely reported Webtrends study, Facebook ad performance metrics are dismally low—and getting worse. Between 2009 and 2010, worldwide clickthrough rates dropped while costs per click and per thousand increased. What that means is that Facebook users are clicking less, and costing marketers more money to put ads in front of them.

Clickthrough rates for ads targeted to the US were lower than for other countries: Webtrends reported US-targeted ads were clicked on just 0.065% of the time, compared to 0.087% for ads targeted to other countries. Both rates are higher than the overall average, which includes ads not targeted by geography.

A Chitika study compared clicks on Facebook to those on Google and found the social network’s rates were significantly lower. The ad network reported clickthrough rates of 0.08% on Facebook for January 2011, substantially higher than those reported by Webtrends for the US.

That difference points to one significant problem when discussing clickthrough rates and similar performance metrics for ads on any site: The idea of an “average” clickthrough rate might be meaningless. Marketers crave this type of statistic, but the confounding variables are numerous.

For example, different advertisers can have vastly different click rates and costs per click. The Webtrends study found that ads for tabloids and blogs had an average click rate of 0.165%, the highest of any industry, vs. 0.011% for healthcare ads—the worst-performing industry. But even within a single industry, not all brands are created equal. Within the travel category, which had an average click rate of 0.086%, the performance of ads for name-brand airlines would be averaged against those for lesser-known travel search affiliates.

In addition, the different advertisers would likely have different objectives and different measures for success in their campaigns.

”The airline would most likely want to generate new Facebook ‘likes’; the travel search affiliate would want to refer people to buy travel from a third-party site,” said eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson. “There's no way an average clickthrough rate for the travel industry would be meaningful to all players in that industry.”

Just as not all advertisers are created equal, neither are all ads. Facebook’s self-serve ad targeting platform provides marketers with a wide variety of options for narrowing down the audience for their campaigns and targeting them appropriately. And according to data from BLiNQ Media, targeting can provide a dramatic increase in ad effectiveness. Clickthrough rates for campaigns run through the company’s platform were 7.5 times higher for ads targeted with demographic characteristics or interest information gleaned from profiles than for ads that were not targeted.

“Ads that have social features, such as the names or pictures of friends that like a brand, can also perform well,” Williamson said. “Marketers can add this kind of targeting on top of other targeting tactics on Facebook.”

Who Gives the Most Trusted Recommendations?

Social media has put power in the hands of the consumer, giving everyone a publishing platform to push out their thoughts and feelings to the world at large. This has given great power to word-of-mouth, typically considered the most trustworthy form of marketing. But social behavior is changing as it matures.

The GlobalWebIndex “Annual Report 2011,” which includes data from Trendstream and Lightspeed Research, outlines a shift in consumer behavior on social media. As usage of social sites increases around the world, the landscape is maturing.

According to the report, usage is shifting to focus on distributing content rather than creating it. Social media users disseminate and share professionally created content more often on microblogs, social networks and video-sharing platforms.

But the human element remains key to engendering trust. Internet users worldwide reported a nearly 50% increase in their trust of social network contacts giving product recommendations, and a 21% increase for microblog contacts.

Even though many of those contacts are likely sharing some professional content with or alongside their personal recommendations, professional sources of information like newspapers and TV barely gained any trust over the same period.

But Edelman’s “Trust Barometer” report for 2011 shows, for the second year in a row, an apparent decline in trust of a “person like me” (from 47% in 2009 to 43% in 2011) and a concomitant rise in trust for experts.

That survey polled college-educated consumers ages 25 to 64 who are in the top 25% of household income relative to age group in their home country and who follow business news and public policy. The opinions of such an affluent, highly educated, highly informed group cannot be extended to the general population.

Further, Edelman asked about trust in “information about a company,” a different query than product or brand recommendations. The inclusion of answer choices like “a financial or industry analyst” or “government official” orients the question more toward investor than consumer issues.

Other research tends to support the traditional view that word-of-mouth from friends, family and other peers is still the most trustworthy way of getting information about products and services. Teen influencers told Ketchum in May that friends with their top source of information. The importance and trustworthiness of customer reviews has grown, especially when shoppers feel they are authentic peer opinions. And social media users say dialogue and comment quality are key to trust on social sites.

They’re also even more likely than the average consumer to place trust in friend and family product recommendations.

Social Networking Accounts for 1 of Every 5 Minutes Spent Online in Australia

comScore, today released The State of the Internet in Australia, which looks at the latest trends in digital consumer behavior in the market.

The findings of the report were also recently presented at a comScore-hosted industry event in Sydney. Among the report’s key findings was that Social Networking now accounts for the largest amount of total time spent online at 22 percent, an increase of 5.3 percentage points from the previous year, as social media plays an increasingly prominent role in Australians’ digital lives.

A complimentary copy of The State of the Internet in Australia can be downloaded at the following link: http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Presentations_Whitepapers/2011/State_of_the_Internet_in_Australia

“2010 was dynamic year for the digital media industry in Australia,” said Will Hodgman, comScore executive vice president for the Asia Pacific region. “Consumers are turning to the Internet with increasing frequency for a vast array of activities including entertainment, commerce, news & information and communication, as digital media becomes embedded in the daily lives of Australians. Look for 2011 to be another year of continued innovation and increased competition as brands vie for consumers’ attention in this rapidly fragmenting digital environment.”

Social Networking Accounts for Nearly 22 Percent of Time Spent

Social Networking accounted for 21.9 percent of Australians’ time online in December 2010, up 5.3 percentage points versus the previous year, and leading as the top online activity. Portals accounted for 19.7 percent, down nearly 10 percentage points from the previous year, while Instant Messengers accounted for 11.6 percent of time, down 7.7 percentage points, as both categories lost share to Social Networking throughout the year. Entertainment which accounted for 9.1 percent of time in 2009, increased 2 percentage points to 11.1 percent.

Additional key insights from the report include:

• In December 2010, Microsoft Sites led as the most-visited Internet property in Australia, followed by Google Sites and Facebook.com. When looking at the top sites by total minutes spent, Facebook.com assumed the #1 spot followed by Microsoft Sites and Google Sites.
• More Australians visited Retail sites compared to last year, outpacing increases in the global average. Amazon and Apple led as the most-visited retail destinations.
• Group-buying sites continued to gain traction over the past year. Cudo, an MSN property, currently leads the space with 418,000 unique visitors in December 2010.
• 3 out of 4 online users in Australia watched online video in December 2010, with an average viewer watching more than 7 hours of video during the month.
• Nearly 12 million Australians conducted an online search query in December, with an average searcher performing 115 queries. Google Sites accounted for 80 percent of searches in December.

Facebook Surges, Other SocNets Gain Traction

Social networking category leader Facebook continued its momentum as it amassed millions of new users and people spent more and more of their time on the site, according to a new white paper from comScore. “The 2010 US Digital Year in Review” indicates that Facebook accounted for 10% of US page views in 2010, while three out of every 10 US internet sessions included a visit to the site.

 

MySpace Weakens Hold on Second Place

 

Although MySpace currently maintains its hold on the number two ranking in the social networking category with 50 million visitors in December 2010, its audience declined 27% and total time spent on the site declined 50%.

Business-oriented social networking site LinkedIn emerged as the third-largest site in the category with 26.6 million visitors in December 2010 Meanwhile, number four Twitter climbed to 18% to 23.6 million visitors in December 2010 (not counting third-party app or mobile usage).

In addition, a couple of surprise sites emerged as players in the social networking space this year, as Tumblr.com surged 168% to 6.7 million monthly visitors, while Formspring.me rose in popularity among younger social networkers and grew more than 1,000% year-over-year.

Facebook Gains Across Dimensions

In addition to its snowballing user base, Facebook grew significantly across nearly every performance metric in 2010. Facebook’s US audience grew to 153.9 million in December 2010, an increase of 38%, as it became the fourth-most visited web property, reaching nearly three out of every four US web users each month. Engagement metrics fared even better, with Facebook’s total time spent surging 79% year-over-year to 49.4 billion minutes and total page views growing 71% to 76.8 billion.

comScore analysis indicates Facebook’s overall growth in 2010 can be attributed to a growing number of people using Facebook, visiting more frequently, and viewing more content on each visit.

Facebook Gains Younger, Older Users

comScore analysis of the composition of visitors to Facebook and Twitter revealed shifting user demographics during the past year. Facebook saw its 35-54 year old share of visitors decline 9% from 39% to 35.4%, while the younger than 18 segment increased 12% from 9.9% to 11.1%, while users 55 and older about 17% from 11.3% to 13.2%.

Twitter.com, meanwhile, saw a roughly 24% gain in the share of 18-34 year olds visiting the site, but those younger than 18 declined 46% from 17.5% to 9.5%. comScore analysis suggests this shifting composition may partially reflect a shift among younger Twitter users towards other communication vehicles and third-party Twitter apps.

9 in 10 Web Users Visit SocNet Sites

 

comScore data indicates nine of 10 US online users visited a social networking site each month in 2010. Social networking sites accounted for 12% of all time spent online in 2010, with the average internet user spending more than 4.5 hours on social networking sites each month.

Globally, social networking accounts for 15.6% of online time among those age 15 and older. Among this same age population, social networking accounts for 14.4% of Americans’ online time.

Women Lead Men in SocNet Use

One demographic trend that continued in 2010 was women extending their lead on men in the share of their online time spent on social networking sites. Specifically, women spent 16.8% of their online time on social networking sites, up 36.5% from 12.3% of their online time a a year earlier.

By comparison, men spent 12% of their time on social networking sites in December 2010, up 32% from 9.1% a year earlier. So comScore data shows women not only use these sites more than men, but they are also accelerating their usage at a faster rate.

Facebook Only Top 5 Site to Boost Engagement

 

Facebook is the only one of the top five US internet sites by audience to significantly increase its share of total US internet time between December 2009 and December 2010, according to other comScore analysis. Microsoft remained roughly flat at around 6%, while AOL slightly dropped from a little more than 4% to a little less than 4%.

Meanwhile, Google Sites slightly increased its internet time share to wind up accounting for close to 10%, and Yahoo went from a little more to a little less than the 10% mark.

Skies Brighten for Cloud Storage

Access to mobile devices and broadband have made the average consumer more connected to the internet than ever and new cloud computing-based online storage models have become real options for the mass market, according to a new study from Deloitte. Data from “State of the Media Democracy” indicates that most Americans own a device that allows them to easily connect to the Web; 85% of US consumers own a desktop computer, 68% own a laptop/netbook computer and 41% access the internet on their mobile phone.

 

In addition, 44% of US households subscribe to cable broadband internet access and 39% subscribe to broadband DSL.

Consumers Need, Want Accessible Online Storage

The survey further reveals that 51% of Americans have experienced a computer or hard drive failure that caused them to lose photos, movies, or other digital content. Moreover, Deloitte data indicates that 32% of respondents stated a desire to have an online media storage service they could access from any device. In addition, 43% of respondents said they want the ability to move content to any device and platform easily and effectively.

Cloud Storage May Hold Answer

 

Deloitte analysis indicates that given these statistics, cloud storage, which stores data in a web-based “cloud” that does not rely on any physical hardware or software, could provide an avenue for greater consumer access to content and greater portability. Cloud computing has been recently growing in popularity among business users but is still relatively rare for consumer use.

“With the majority of consumers aware of the risk of permanently losing their content due to hard drive failures, new methods to both store and gain greater access to digital content are beginning to take shape,” said Phil Asmundson, vice chairman and technology, media and telecommunications industry leader, Deloitte LLP.

“And, while consumers may not fully understand cloud computing, their concern about storing digital content on their PCs is raising awareness and opening up new opportunities for cloud-based storage models aimed at the consumer.”

Millennials More Likely to Own Portable Gadgets

 

Millennial consumers (age 18-34) are more likely to own laptop computers and other portable gadgets than older consumers, according to a recent study from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. Data from “Generations and Their Gadgets” indicates that Millennials in particular have driven recent overall growth in laptop ownership.

Apple developing cheaper iPhones

Apple is developing a new line of smaller, cheaper iPhones and overhauling its software to facilitate users' access to entertainment, photos and video.

The new device -- code-named 'N97' -- will be about half the size of the iPhone4 and cost about half as much as Apple's main line of iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said on Sunday, citing a person who saw a prototype of the new gadget several months ago.

Meanwhile, the computer and electronics giant is also revamping its MobileMe online storage service, which currently requires users to pay between $US99 ($A98.73) and $US149 ($A148.60) per year, and possibly making it a free service so users could upload photos and videos there instead of on devices, according to the report.

The move would free up memory space on the smartphones and MobileMe could also serve as a platform for a new online music service which has been in the works for over a year.

Despite taking medical leave in January, Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs has been closely involved in the developments, one of his top priorities, the newspaper said.

The new devices and software are due out this summer, but the Journal noted that those plans may change.