For those looking for hard numbers about the importance of social media in a business' marketing plan, one needs merely to look at a report from Experian Marketing Services, Schaumburg, Ill.
Among the findings of the report are that the number of Americans making visits to social networking web sites increased by 4% when comparing February 2009 with the same month one year earlier.
It also found that consumers are increasing using brand names and terms to navigate search engines, increasing by 18% from the first quarter 2005 through the fourth quarter of 2008.
And it is not just young folk who use Facebook. In a comparison of site visits from February 2008 to February 2009, visitors to Facebook who are 35 or older increased 11%. However, the visitors from the same age group to MySpace declined 2%.
"The marketing landscape has changed, as has the way in which consumers and marketers interact with one another," said Mark Zablan, president of Experian Marketing Services. "The proliferation of new media channels, coupled with the growth, diversity and mass adoption of the Internet, has left marketers with a daunting task - maximizing their investment across a wide range of channels to engage customers who have more options than ever before."
Among the other findings of the report is that retailers who increased the frequency of sending e-mails in order to counter the competition, generally were able to gain more market share.
A company which has said it has used Twitter very successfully is business solutions provider Taskus.com.
"Twitter is an excellent form of social media that enables us to provide current and potential clients with a quick snapshot of our services. By avoiding self-promotion, and focusing on newsworthy information, we engage our followers in an ongoing discussion about productivity and the value of outsourcing" says Bryce Maddock, co-founder of TaskUs.com.
The other co-founder, Jaspar Weir, said the company gained 50 current clients because it uses Twitter. "I know that this figure will expand over time because of our commitment to linking to concise, useful data with a respectful tone for our followers," he said.
To learn more about Experian Marketing Services' 2009 digital marketer: benchmark and trend report, go to
