naa-newspaper-advertising-revenue-q12010-q22012-sept2012.pngUS newspaper advertising expenditures continue to decline, according to the latest figures from the Newspaper Association of America (NAA). In Q2, total expenditures stood at $5.61 billion, down 6.4% from roughly $6 billion a year earlier. Online revenues grew by 2.9%, to $826.7 million, representing 15% share of overall revenues. Print revenues dropped by 7.85% year-over-year to $4.8 billion. The overall 6.4% drop year-over-year in Q2 follows a 6.9% drop in Q1, but this year’s Q2 drop is the smallest year-over-year fall for any quarter since Q2 2010 (-5.55%).

via US Newspaper Ad Revenues Fall 6.4% Y-O-Y in Q2.

econsultancy-measuring-social-media-impact-sept2012.pngWhile roughly three-quarters of companies agree that measuring the impact of social media activity is very important, more than 7 in 10 also agree that measuring the impact of social media marketing is very difficult. Indeed, just over one-third of companies report having clear objectives for their social media activity, and only a minority measure performance against social media objectives, according to [download page] a September 2012 report from Econsultancy, produced in partnership with Adobe.

via Most Companies Say Social Media’s Impact Tough to Measure.

More than two-thirds of mothers consider blogs to be a reliable resource for parenting informationAnxious mothers show a tendency to go online in search of answers to an endless litany of questions about raising and caring for their kids. And mothers who looked to the web for parenting advice considered blogs to be the most trustworthy social media platform, according to a July 2012 survey of US online mothers by blog company BlogHer.

via Blogs Are a Trusted Source for Moms – eMarketer.

If social media sites ceased to exist, you would miss them — unless you’re a man living in the U.K., according to a recent survey by British Telecom.More than 2,000 Brits were questioned for a survey commissioned by BT about the social media habits of men and women. The results showed that more than half of the women surveyed 54% use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, compared to 34% of men.And of those social media users, more women than men reported they would miss those sites if the Internet ceased to exist.

via Women Are Bigger Fans of Social Media than Men, Survey Says.

Marketers are abuzz over “Big Data” for its promise to deliver a more complete understanding of each customer, who can then be targeted with advertising tailored exactly to the individual.

But according to February 2012 research from Columbia Business School’s Center on Global Brand Leadership and the New York American Marketing Association (NYAMA), organizational hurdles and barriers to data implementation were some of the biggest challenges to Big Data integration.

via Marketers Struggle to Link Digital Data to ‘Big Data’ Picture – eMarketer.

Social media has opened countless new avenues for promotion of all kinds. As a result of blogs, Twitter, Facebook and more, it’s as if we all have access to a bullhorn, and thus, the ability to promote ourselves whenever and to whomever we choose.

Within your company, surely you’ve grappled with the use, disuse and even misuse of social media. But have you thought about using it for employee recognition? Communicate your staff appreciation by employing social media as a positive acknowledgement tool. It’s a highly visible and yet low-cost way to show your support.

Zoomerang interviewed 1,180 small to mid-sized business decision makers and 500 consumers for its study, “Marketing in a Digital World.”

via Why Recognizing Your Employees on Social Media Is Great for Business.

In a single minute there are over 695,000 status updates on Facebook. That’s just one example of the mind boggling scale of online activity.

The following infographics show a bunch of other incredible things that happen in 60 seconds (via Barry Ritholtz).

via Incredible Things That Happen Every 60 Seconds On The Internet.

Sixty-five percent of all U.S. adults now use social-networking sites, up from 61% a year ago and just 5% in 2005, reports Pew Research Center. The findings are based on telephone interviews conducted in April and May by Princeton Survey Research Associates International.

via Adult Use of Social Media Soars – In Charge – WSJ.

TwentyFeet – Social Media Monitoring & Ego tracking.

If you are like me and use social media on a regular basis you are probably obsessed with stats from your various different networks, sites, blogs and sharing tools. Finding out all those stats is usually quite a manual process of logging in and out of several accounts and most people I know check their Google Analytics account about 10 times a day. I’ve always craved a dashboard that would pull in all that information in to one central hub where I could get a quick overview of all the my activity online and Twenty Feet has just launched that tool.

You’ll need to do a little bit of manual work at the start connecting up all your various accounts but that should only take about 10 minutes and once done you’ll have simplified your life significantly and you can kiss goodbye to all the logging in and out of accounts again. It’s a great new service and the level of functionality and customization for a site still in beta is very impressive…

via