Time display correlated with link activity and traffic peaks on Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook. Data by BitLy.

via Retronator // Social Network Clock.

If Twitter-launched video app Vine is any indication, mobile video content seems to be moving in the direction of short and social. On January 24, Twitter announced Vine, an iPhone app that enables users to record videos of up to 6 seconds and then easily share them with their Twitter followers. The app reached No. 1 among free apps in the Apple social app store the day after its release.

Still, Vine is new to the market, and awareness remains low overall, according to an AYTM Market Research survey of US internet users conducted a few days after the app’s launch. Just under 2% of US internet users surveyed said they had signed up for a Vine account.

via Will Vine for Twitter Make Brands Rethink Video Creation? – eMarketer.

73% of online shoppers agree that their path to purchase is more complex and less direct than it used to be, according to [pdf] an About.com study. As the traditional purchase funnel has been upended and turned into more of a “loop,” per the study, shoppers indicate that shopping has taken on a more personal nature. That is, 79% agree that their relationship with brands is much more personal than ever before, and 68% agree that shopping today is less about the brands/products themselves and more about them what they’re feeling or needing.

via Online Shoppers Say Their Path to Purchase is Becoming More Complex, Personal.

Martin Oetting – LeWeb Paris 2012 – Social Business Track – YouTube.

As social media tears down the walls between brands and consumers—and puts a premium on visibility and engagement—companies are finding that getting their CEOs out in front of online channels is becoming a more essential part of a brand’s business strategy.

via Social CEOs Drive Company Visibility – eMarketer.

Long considered a helpful tool for consumers to make informed decisions, online user reviews have become a subject of scrutiny, according to a new eMarketer report, “Online User Reviews: Building Trust and Boosting Sales.” Reports abound of fake reviews and the dramatic countersteps taken to prevent them. The question is whether consumers can see past bogus reviews as isolated incidents or if such reviews are pervasive enough to threaten the confidence of shoppers.

via Users Seek Out the Truth in Online Reviews – eMarketer.

Professional reviewers are often seen as having the last word on consumer electronics, but their influence on purchase decisions may actually be weaker than the recommendations of fellow consumers.

A study of consumers who had recently made an electronics purchase, conducted by Weber Shandwick and KRC Research in September 2012, found that shoppers were more likely to pay attention to consumer reviews than professional reviews across every product category. Respondents favored consumer reviews by the greatest margin when buying headphones or earbuds, at 79%. Shoppers were most likely to take a professional critic’s advice when buying a tablet, but still only 39% preferred “official” advice on such a purchase.

via For Driving Purchases, Customer Reviews Trump Pro Critics – eMarketer.

The Pew Research Center released a survey on Facebook Tuesday, and it’s causing quite a stir. The reason? It found 61% of Facebook users have at some point “taken a break” from the world’s top social network. Facebook is leaking users! Sound the alarm!

Nah, not really. The closer you look at the study, the less of a big deal this statistic seems. First of all, it’s a fairly small sample size. Pew reached 1,006 adults in the continental U.S. by phone during three days in December. Some 860 of them use the Internet, and 525 use Facebook.

via Most of Us Take Facebook Breaks, Then We Come Back.

Digital marketing channels have been viewed as better than traditional media for their measurability, but new research from Econsultancy and Responsys [download page] suggests that marketers are having a harder time measuring their ROI from digital channels. Among company marketers surveyed – primarily from the UK (46%) and other European countries (19%) – just 50% rated their understanding of ROI from digital marketing channels as “good” (33%) or “very good” (17%), down from 55% last year. By contrast, the proportion rating their understanding as “okay” or “poor” rose from 42% to 48%. The remaining 2% this year rated their understanding as “very poor.”

via More Marketers Having Trouble Understanding ROI From Digital Channels.

Any illusions that marketers have gotten this whole social media thing down pat will be blown away by the latest findings from Technorati Media’s 2013 Digital Influence Report, which suggests that for everything the media spends across social platforms, the most desired influencers aren’t even being reached.

The new report points out a huge disconnect: only 11% of corporate social media budgets are devoted to advertising on blogs and influencer sites. But fully 86% of the influencers these corporate brands are trying to reach are using blogs as their primary publishing platform.

via Brand Marketers Totally Miss Social Media Influencers – ReadWrite.