27% of CIOs say their companies already offer a mobile application, while a further 22% plan to offer one this year, according to a survey released in February 2012 by Robert Half Technology, which polled CIOs from companies across the US with 100 or more employees. This means that by the end of the year, 49% of the respondents expect their companies to have released a mobile app, compared to 43% who currently do not have one and do not plan to offer one this year.
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Women are significantly more cautious than men when it comes to sharing a variety of personal information on social media sites, according to a uSamp survey released in January 2012. Women are 33% more likely than men to say they are definitely not willing to share their physical address (78.8% vs. 59.1%), 39% more likely to definitely not share their location (52.4% vs. 37.7%), and 36% more likely to definitely not share their phone number (77.3% vs. 56.7%).

According to a National Cyber Security Alliance and McAfee study released in November 2011, 51% of Americans are not sharing more information on social media today than the previous year, and almost half have changed the way they use social networks because of safety and security concerns. Read More »

Content creation (23%), is the most time consuming task for community managers, beating out Facebook engagement (19%) and customer service (13%), according to a survey released in January 2012 by Social Fresh. Another content-related task, managing an editorial calendar, came in fourth on the list, on par with comment moderation and Twitter engagement (all at 10%). Community engagement (5%) and analytics/reporting (3%) also appeared on the list, but were voted the most time consuming task by a much smaller proportion. Read More »

When reviewing and evaluating agency relationships, the majority of multi-national client marketers look at strategic contributions (57%) and business value created (56%), according to [download page] a CMO Council survey released in January 2012. Other key considerations include agency efficiency and effectiveness (50%), market impact and success of campaigns (42%), and creative excellence (42%). Yet although senior marketers appear to have an array of methods by which to evaluate their relationships, slightly more than two-thirds do no have solutions or hosted services that improve the agency benchmarking and evaluation process. Read More »

A “one-staff-fits-all” strategy may not be the best approach for local media companies, according to a January 2012 report from Borrell Associates, which finds that sites with dedicated digital account executives (AEs) outperform those without by a factor of 2.5. In fact, gross online revenue per sales representative (online dollars divided by all representatives selling digital products) is roughly $186,000 for sites with digital AEs, compared to $73,300 for those without any dedicated AEs. Read More »

Three-quarters of marketers rank specific sector experience between a 7 and 10 on a 10-point scale of importance (with 10 being the most important) when looking for a new agency, according to [download page] a survey released in January 2012 by RSW/US. In fact, the highest proportions of respondents rank sector focus a 10, 9, or 7 (all at 20%) in importance when looking for a new agency, compared to only 8% combined ranking it a 4 or lower.
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A greater proportion of marketers than agencies believe that spending on traditional media such as direct mail (25% vs. 17%), print (22% vs. 8%), and radio (18% vs. 3%) will increase this year as compared to 2011, with the proportions expecting spend to increase on TV relatively on par, according to [download page] a survey released in January 2012 by RSW/US. Read More »

82% of Gen Y (aged 18-29) Facebook users have at least 1 work friend, while 53% have more than 5 work friends and 40% have more than 10, according to a study released in January 2012 by Millennial Branding.

The study, which analyzed 4 million Gen Y Facebook profiles from Identified.com’s database, found that even though these users are friending co-workers, their professional friends still make up a small proportion of their total network: the average work friend count was 16, compared to the average total friend count of 696.
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Google Chrome passed Firefox in November 2011 to become the second-ranked browser by volume of shares, according to a December 2011 infographic from AddThis. While sharing via Google Chrome increased steadily throughout the year, Internet Explorer produced a steadily declining volume, although it remains the top-ranked browser. Safari and Opera round out the top 5 browsers by volume of shares, with both remaining steady throughout the year.

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The top 3 ways SMBs plan to attract customers in 2012 are word-of-mouth (25%), repeat business (25%), and advertising and marketing (22%), while social media will be the primary source of customer attraction to only 11%, according to [pdf] a survey released in December 2011 by Zoomerang in partnership with GrowBizMedia. Data from “SMB Business Perspectives: 2011 Results and 2012 Projections” indicates that SMBs are evenly split on whether or not they will use social media tools in 2012. Read More »