Digital Marketing and Technological Insight

ComScore, a leading provider of digital metrics, released their latest statistics covering global internet usage the other day. So what stands out? First the Global Internet Audience surpassed 1 billion (1,007,730,000 to be exact) for the first time ever. Of those 1 billion internet users 41.3% came from the Asia / Pacific region, Europe has a 28% share and coming in third was North America with 18.4%.  These numbers shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone as India and China are growth monsters and will be for some time. Also, it should be noted that ComScore data EXCLUDES traffic from public computers and mobile devices - 2 areas used heavily in Asia.

Based on the above information it should come as no surprise to anyone that the country with the most internet users is China with almost 180 million unique internet users. Following China is the United States, Japan, Germany the United Kingdom. India, with its massive population ranks only 7th on the list with 32 million internet users - I would have to say if mobile devices and public computers were factored in their number would be much higher…same thing goes for Japan and South Korea.

The other part of the information ComScore put together is the top 15 worldwide internet properties based on unique visitors. The list is dominated by the usual cast of characters: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, Wikimedia, eBay, Facebook, etc. However the list now includes China’s largest ISP (TenCent) and internet portal (Baidu). Slowly, these Chinese monsters are gaining ground on the more widely known and popular websites.

So what does the latest ComScore data show us? If you are looking for true growth markets you can pass on all of the North American and European countries, Asia /Pacific is still the place to be for internet companies looking to make a mark.

The true value of Social Media properties like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and millions of other websites & services dedicated to connecting people has been a question lingering out there since the term “Social Media” was created. Yes some of these websites drive millions upon million of visitors on a daily basis, but very few actually have put together a comprehensive (and successful) monetization strategy. I have wrote a few blog posts on this topic and have had numerous conversations that usually end up with people agreeing to disagree.  However, over the past couple months I have seen the power (and value) of Social Media first hand - starting with an ad on Facebook.com.

What I have listed below in chronological order is how Social Media has directly impacted a music band and how a cheap click on Facebook resulted in countless new fans.

• A few months ago I saw a Facebook ad for a band called “One Day as a Lion” - the Facebook Ad was targeted directly based on me listing Rage Against the Machine as one of my favorite bands in my profile…the lead singer of ODaaL is Zack de la Rocha the former / current lead singer of RATM. Having never heard of ODaaL I clicked on the ad - which probably cost the advertiser $.10 as Facebook ads are dirt cheap.
• After finding out more info on the band and listening to a couple of their songs I went to iTunes and bought all 5 songs on their new album ( 5 x $.99 = $4.95 - $.10 CPC =  $4.85 “profit” on click).
• The day I bought the songs I mentioned what I was listening to on both Twitter and Facebook. I freely promoted the band with a link to their site and my approval to a direct audience of 1,200+ people (# based on Twitter followers and Facebook friends). The tweet / update was also seen on a various other blogs / RSS feeds.
• Based off of that Social Media messaging I received 15 Twitter replies, 5 Twitter direct messages, 8  Facebook comments, 4 Facebook emails and 6 emails. 1 click on a $.10 ad resulted in the band being part of a social conversation consisting of at least 38 people who never heard of them before.
• Of the people I talked to about the band through Social Media methods, 6 of them subscribed to the bands mailing list and 54 total songs were purchased.
• So do the math - that one click resulted in an unknown (but decent) amount of people being exposed to the band, at least 7 people who are now directly engaged with the band through email and a total of 59 song purchases on iTunes. This example also only takes into account my one tweet / status update but I mentioned that I was listening to the band on numerous occasions and I know of other Social Media conversations that took place based on my “approval”.

Granted the above example works very well for the music genre, however there are many elements that companies of all shapes and sizes could take advantage of. At its core Social Media is about connecting with people and in the end isn’t that the goal?