Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram are popular with differing demographics

eMarketer estimates that by the end of 2013 there will be 163.5 million social network users in the US, and unsurprisingly they are a diverse group.

A December 2012 study of social networking demographics from the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that Hispanic internet users were most likely to identify themselves as social network users, at 72% penetration, vs. 68% of black and 65% of white internet users. Pew also found that higher concentrations of women than men were social networkers by a margin of nearly 10 percentage points: 71% vs. 62%.

Social networks such as Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest seem to be attracting a particularly diverse coalition of users. Black internet users, for instance, were significantly more likely than average to use Twitter—while 16% of internet users overall said they used the service, 26% of black internet users said they did so. Hispanic internet users were also slightly overrepresented: 19% reported using the service.

via Demographics Vary Across Social Networks – eMarketer.

For 91% of UK internet users, privacy policies affect business decisionsCompanies that lose the trust of UK consumers on online privacy issues do so at their own peril, a study has found.According to a January 2013 survey of over 2,000 internet users in Great Britain conducted by Ipsos MORI for TRUSTe, 46% of respondents strongly avoided doing business with companies they believed were not doing an adequate job of protecting their privacy online. Another 45% had a tendency to avoid doing so, leaving just 9% saying that privacy concerns didn’t have much of an impact on their online commerce behavior.

via UK Consumers Say Privacy Concerns Can Be a Deal Breaker – eMarketer.

Most US internet users across all age groups are aware that businesses frequently listen to what they say online. According to a December 2012 study conducted by J.D. Power & Associates for NetBase, US internet users between the ages of 45 to 54 were most cognizant of this phenomenon, at 72% of respondents. Millennials between 18 to 24 years old were least likely to be aware of companies listening in, although still over three in five knew this went on.

What’s more, most consumers reported that they actually wanted companies to listen to online conversations. A majority of respondents in every age group except for those 55 and over reported this preference.

via Brand Social Outreach Must Walk a Fine Line – eMarketer.

While 61% of large companies (with more than 1,000 employees) agree that their social strategy is connected to business goals and outcomes, just 34% say there are clear metrics used throughout the organization that associate social activities with business outcomes, finds Altimeter Group [pdf] in a new research study. The research was limited to large companies currently with social media initiatives in place, 36% of whom began their programs within the past 2 years, suggesting that the market is still growing.

via Few Large Companies Use Clear Metrics to Link Social Activities With Biz Outcomes.

Man, I feel everyone on how scary it is to be in journalism. When I made the transition from a would-be fiction career paired with writing research reports into full-time journalism, I nearly drowned in a sea of debt and self-doubt. I was writing posts on my own blog, which almost nobody read, but it did, with an assist from my now-wife, get me a couple gigs writing for some known websites. I got paid $12 a post by one. The other was generous, and I got $50. I was grateful as hell to have this toehold in the world. I remember walking down Bartlett Street in the Mission and saying to myself, out loud, “I’m a writer. I’m a writer! I’M A WRITER!” It was all I’d wanted to be since I was 16 years old. And I was making it.

via A Day in the Life of a Digital Editor, 2013 – Alexis C. Madrigal – The Atlantic.

Seemingly dozens of startups exist which try to make sense of Twitter sentiment, and Twitter itself has been trying hard to portray its sentiment data as an accurate reflection of public opinion. However, Pew Research Center — among the gold standards of public research polling — says it might be all for naught.

Pew compared traditional public poll results with Twitter sentiment data around eight of the most significant political events over the last year, often finding significantly divergent results.

via Pew: Twitter Not a Reliable Indicator of Public Opinion.

55% of marketers from around the world plan to increase their digital marketing budgets this year, according to results from a Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) survey conducted by Econsultancy. Notably, the majority of those marketers (39% overall) plan to increase their digital budgets without increasing overall marketing spend, effectively reallocating existing budgets into digital channels. This continues a trend noted in last year’s survey. The results come on the heels of a survey showing a similar shift in spend in the US.

via 4 in 10 Global Marketers Reallocating Budgets to Digital.

Today’s “modern marketer” has moved from outbound, advertising and intuition-based marketing to a new inbound model that emphasizes digital channels, multiple touchpoints, and data analytics, according to [download page] a study from BtoB magazine, sponsored by Eloqua. Respondents to the survey overwhelmingly pointed to the ability to track marketing ROI due to technology (60%) and the use of social media in marketing (58%) as the forces that have contributed most to this change.

via Modern B2B Marketing Said Most Influenced by Tech-Tracked ROI, Social Media.

Marketers rank strategic insights as their most important criterion when reviewing new agencies, according to results from an RSW/US survey, placing more emphasis on an agency’s strategic capabilities than on its creative ideas, chemistry, and cost. The RSW/US survey is one of several to share that result (see here and here for examples). It also finds that marketers’ top criteria line up with how agencies believe they should be evaluated.

via Marketers Say Strategic Insights Are Crucial to Agency Selection.

In an environment in which consumers’ attention is increasingly fragmented, the idea of using content to capture interest and engagement is catching on among marketers.

Compelling content can help marketers tell a story, but it can also be cumbersome—and expensive—to create. So which content strategies are generating attractive return on investment (ROI) for marketers? The most cost-effective content types are articles, video and white papers, according to a January 2013 study of marketing decision-makers worldwide conducted by CopyPress, a software company specializing in content marketing tools.

via Which Content Marketing Tactics Get the Best ROI? – eMarketer.