61% of online consumers from 31 countries around the world agree that they would like their favorite brands or companies to play a bigger role in their local community, suggesting that consumers are looking for businesses to be more integrated into societal interests, according to survey results from Havas Worldwide. Across the survey sample, 64% of 18-34-year-olds, 61% of 35-54-year-olds, and 51% of the 55+ group would like to see a stronger commitment from brands to their local communities.

via Consumers Look for Brands to Take A More Active Role in Local Communities.

72% of US internet users said they have looked online for health information in the past 12 months, mostly to search for a specific disease or medical problem (55%) or a certain medical treatment or procedure (43%), according to [pdf] results from a Pew Internet & American Life Project survey. Among these online health-seekers (who represent an estimated 59% of the total US population), 77% started at a search engine the last time they went online to look for health information, while 13% went to a site that specializes in health information.

via 7 in 10 US Internet Users Go Online for Health Info; Most Start With Search.

IOs should spend less time managing internal IT and more time looking at what is happening outside their organisation, according to Gartner.In a global survey of CIOs, Gartner found that IT leaders are continuing to run the IT department, but are not focused on the outside world.“CIOs recognise mobile, social and big data as disruptive technology trends, but only a minority are doing something about them. There is still pressure from the business on budget and compliance,” said Dave Aron, vice-president and Gartner fellow.

via CIOs must hunt and harvest digital opportunities.

Ipsos-US-Average-SocNet-Time-Spend-Per-Day-Jan2013Americans aged 18-64 who use social networks say they spend an average of 3.2 hours per day doing so, according to new research released by Ipsos Open Thinking Exchange OTX. Factoring in survey respondents who don’t use social networks, the survey finds that the average online American spends 2 hours a day social networking from a computer, tablet and/or mobile phone. Unsurprisingly, American social networkers aged 18-34 self-report spending more time than their older counterparts, and women outpace men in consumption, also.

via Social Networking Eats Up 3+ Hours Per Day For The Average American User.

Branch cofounder Josh Miller’s recent post about how his 15 year old sister uses the Internet blew me away with its observations the other week. I’m 31, so young enough to remember what it was like to be young, but old enough to be out of touch with the youngest millenials and those even younger. To be honest, it’s a sobering notion that there’s some piece of technology out there that you and your peer group doesn’t use and doesn’t understand. As far as I can tell, it might be a first for me and my geezer friends.

via Tenth Grade Tech Trends: My survey data says says rumors of Facebook demise exaggerated, but Snapchat and Instagram real – garry’s posterous.

Learn how much efforts businesses are putting in their social media campaigns. How many people they have employed for their social media campaigns, what qualities employers look for in social media experts by our detailed infographic on How Organizations Structure their social media teams.

via How Organizations Structure Social Media Teams [Infographic].

When it comes to purchasing consumer electronics (CE), the vast majority (94%) of buyers conduct at least a single activity to form an opinion about a product, and searching for reviews online is the primary way they seek out product opinions, reading an average of 11 reviews before choosing a product. As it turns out, according to survey results from Weber Shandwick [pdf], buyers tend to focus more on consumer reviews than professional reviews in this all-important process.

via Consumer Electronics Buyers Rely More on Consumer Reviews Than Professional Reviews.

Consumer electronics buyers heavily rely on reviews when making purchase decisions, finds Weber Shandwick [pdf] in January survey results. But that doesn’t mean they’re not cautious about those reviews. In fact, 8 in 10 claim to be concerned about the authenticity of consumer reviews, and buyers demonstrate that a variety of elements impact their evaluation of a review. First among those, whether the review seems fair and reasonable, cited by one-third of respondents.

via CE Buyers Look at Various Elements When Evaluating Consumer Reviews.

Brands are spending more time—and money—engaging with consumers outside of their brand sites on the likes of YouTube, Tumblr, Facebook and many other channels. As marketing efforts move to social networks and to content sites such as BuzzFeed, what happens to the brand’s dot-com?

Brand pages, although they are not very heavily trafficked as a rule, are still a primary resource for consumers seeking information about products and the companies that make them, according to a new eMarketer report, “What’s a Brand Site For? Engaging Consumers Across Multiple Channels.” An October study by nRelate found that 48% of online shoppers said they trusted content from brand websites. No other content type approached the trustworthiness of corporate sites, according to this survey—not even mainstream news sites.

via Whither the Brand Website? – eMarketer.

A November 2012 study by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) found that video viewing on mobile devices is very closely related to video-sharing. In the survey of 200 mobile video viewers, 92% said that they share mobile video content with others.

The most popular method of sharing listed by respondents was through posts on Facebook or similar social sites (56%). But a lower-tech method of sharing was also quite popular with respondents: 44% said they share videos simply by passing their mobile device off to a friend.

via Nearly All Mobile Video Viewers Are Mobile Video Sharers – eMarketer.