This week's Wednesday update including ... - Useful Social Media

Hi all,

Hope everyone is well?

Plenty of activity across the social web this week?

Now in its 15^th year, the 2013 Technology and Retailer Spending Outlook Benchmarking Study surveys the technology spending habits, industry trends and future outlook from a sample of cross-industry, cross-vertical retail executives.

Even with the social media phenomenon continuing to develop at breakneck speed, companies are still putting most of their marketing spend into traditional technologies such as SEO enhancements, but video is making large inroads into the budgets of leading marketing departments. And focusing on social media itself, respondents state that they use social media primarily as a means of engagement, followed by PR, customer services and lastly sales.

Social media is all about interacting with your business? customers. In their latest ad Mercedes-Benz have taken this literally and give viewers of their ad the chance to influence its outcome. The #YOUDRIVE campaign is a three-part story where viewers decide what decisions the characters make. The voting for the decisions was made via Twitter. And of course watchers can also be in with a chance to win a new A Class by spotting a data embedded in the videos.

Over on the Simply Zesty blog you can see a group of the best in social media campaign that have aired over recent weeks. Mercedes-Benz of course features, but so does work from a number of agencies that are using the leading social media platforms as a way for their brands to interact with consumers. Orange for instance used voiceovers to enhance the tweets of their users who gave details of their travel plans. Social media now delivers the link that ad developers want to make between brand owners and their products or services.

Is this the world?s most interactive print ad?

Print publications have been experimenting with various types of media, as the tablet PC has gained in popularity. The latest issue of Sport Illustrated features the latest ad from Lexus. Readers who have an iPad can see the ad in its full glory by placing their tablet behind the page. Lexus call the technology ?CinePrint? and could be the future of more immersive print ads in the future. Entertainment Weekly has also recently included a small mobile phone embedded in an ad page that displayed live tweets about the advertiser.

Search delivers lion?s share of ad revenue

As we reported above, brand owners understand the impact that social media is having, but are still putting most of their money into SEO. This seems to be working, as the latest figures from the IAB show that search still accounts for nearly half of all the ad revenue from online commerce. Search revenues in the first half of the year totalled $8.1 billion, up 19 percent from nearly $6.8 billion.

?This report establishes that marketers increasingly embrace mobile and digital video, as well as the entire panoply of interactive platforms, to reach consumers in innovative and creative ways,? said Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO, IAB. ?These half-year figures come on the heels of a study from Harvard Business School researchers that points to the ad-supported internet ecosystem as a critical driver of the U.S. economy. Clearly, the digital marketing industry is on a positive trajectory that will propel the entire American business landscape forward.?

UK digital ad spend grows 12.6% to ?2.6 billion in first half of 2012

Despite the difficult UK economy, advertising on the internet and mobile phones increased, like-for-like, by 12.6% to a record six-month high of ?2.59 billion in the first half of 2012? up by over ?294 million from ?2.30 billion in the first half of 2011, according to the latest Internet Advertising Bureau UK (IAB) advertising expenditure report, conducted by PwC.

Tim Elkington, Director of Research & Strategy at the Internet Advertising Bureau, says: ?Almost 60% of people in the UK have a smart phone, average UK household broadband speed is now 9MB and social media accounts for one fifth of all Internet time. As digital technology and services evolve to make consumers? lives easier, more connected and more fun, it?s no surprise that advertisers are coming to the digital party with bigger budgets, despite the challenging economic times elsewhere.

?However, there?s still plenty of room for growth. Take mobile; 60% of the UK?s 100 biggest advertisers still don?t have a mobile-optimised website yet consumers spend almost 70% longer on sites which are. If all advertisers get wise to this, we?re likely to see significant mobile growth for some time yet.?

Until next time?.

The Useful Social Media team.

Source: http://usefulsocialmedia.com/blog/wednesday-update/this-weeks-wednesday-update-including-interactive-video-ads-online-ad-spending-and-top-social-media-campaigns/

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