comScore Lists Top 10 Digital Media Trends of 2010

It’s time for the comScore, U.S. Digital Year in Review report 2010! I know you’ve been waiting breathlessly for this, preparing for the moment when you can put these marketing secrets into action and ramp up your sales 200%!

Well, here’s the real secret. There are no secrets. We’ve seen these trends coming right at us for the past year and then some. Still, a little validation is always helpful, so let’s see what made the list of the Top 10 Digital Media Trends of 2010.

E-commerce is back, but is morphing:

The report states that US e-commerce grew 10% to $142.5 billion. A big chunk of that went to online only sites such as Amazon, but many brick and mortar stores with an online component saw sales skyrocket this past holiday season.

Digital couponing comes alive:

This is what comScore calls the “morphing” part. Group buying and flash sales sites have made the art of the deal less of an art. Couponing is no longer just for the mom trying to make ends meet. Everyone wants a deal on everything and it’s driving sales like never before.

Facebook now leading the mindshare battle:

“Three out of every 10 internet sessions includes a Facebook visit, and Facebook accounts now accounts for 10% of all pageviews in the US.” It’s not going away any time soon, so you better learn to make it work.

Web-based email is waning:

The days where we were excited by the prospect of a free email address are over. Our society is on the move, so texting and social media updates — both of which can easily be handled with a phone — are the preferred means of communication, particularly among teens.

The Search battle gets bigger and wages on:

comScore says the search market is up 12%. Google gets more than 2 out of every 3 searches and Yahoo! is still coming on strong. With all search engines working to refine their results, eliminate spam and make responses more relevant, search is going to continue to climb.

Display ad growth continues, and more big brands join in:

Display is up 23%, says comScore, more than a trillion of those impressions coming at you from Facebook. We’re not just talking banner ads here. The big boys have found ways to make ads talk and interact with consumers in ways we’ve never seen before. We hit a record 4.9 trillion display impressions in 2010. What will 2011 bring?

Video adoption continues to climb, and online TV is now mainstream:
Video ad market takes shape, but still pales in comparison to TV:

We’ll combine these two and say three cheers for online video. It’s kind of the little engine that could, plugging along making small strides and slowly changing the way we view moving images. TV networks don’t have to worry about losing their sponsors to the web anytime soon, but we’ve definitely become more open about accepting ads on our favorite funny web shows.

Mobile market getting ‘smarter’:
Android vs. iPhone battle heats up:

Here’s another pair of trends that you should be thinking about. 25% of all mobile phones are now smartphones and that number is growing fast. With the shift came the ability to market to a captive audience using video, music, downloads and interactive features. People not only understand what you mean when you say “apps,” but they’re scooping them up like pennies from heaven.

And it doesn’t matter if Android or iPhone wins the race, either way, it’s good news for marketers. There are people who have their phones tethered to their body 24/7 which means you can reach them with your message at exactly the right time and in the right place. (Thanks GPS!)

Summary

Looking at these trends as a whole you can see that they’re all about doing things faster and smarter. Why rearrange your schedule around your favorite TV shows when you can watch them online anytime you want. Need lunch in a hurry? Let Foursquare help you find a place nearby and get a digital coupon so you don’t pay full price.

Do you have a marketing plan that fits in with these trends? If not, it’s time to get to work.

You can download the whole U.S. Digital Year in Review Report when you click here.

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Home Depot Personalizes Gift Cards with Video

A gift card may seem like the last act of a desperate gift giver, but Home Depot is determined to change that feeling by adding video to their cards.

When sending a Home Depot e-card, you can now upload a video up to 3 minutes long, or, you can use a webcam to record a message. Then, the recipient uses the code they receive in their email to access the video and voila, it’s now more than just virtual money!

Want to spread the love? With one click, you can send e-gift cards to your friends on Facebook, even if you don’t know their email address.

Pretty simple, except for their website, which is confusing. When you hit the site you have a choice of “I’m giving a gift card” or “I received a gift card.” Which would you push if you wanted to buy a gift card to give? Neither one. That link is hidden in the bottom left corner. “I’m giving a gift card” appears to be a tool that allows you to add a video to a card you purchased at a store. I think. . .it’s not very clear, even when you click through.

From all this, there are two takeaways. One, everything old can be made new again with just a little creative thought. Adding video to a gift card isn’t a huge leap but it’s a nice touch that makes this card a little more appealing than the competitor’s card. What can you do to add that extra special touch this holiday season. Maybe it’s about adding a mystery item to all orders over $50 or the ability to send a treat to yourself when you buy a gift for someone else. How about offering a free song or ebook download with gift card purchase.

Takeaway two is, be clear. Leave nothing to chance. Make sure every inch of your website, Facebook page, every Twitter message makes sense to a first time visitor. Check those links and keep an eye on servers for downtime issues. Don’t lose customers because they don’t know what to do next. Your product may sell itself but it won’t be going anywhere if consumers can’t figure out which link to click in order to buy it.

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Digital Primetime Arrives Just in Time to Crush the Net

The following is also my column in next week's Advertising Age.

Digital Primetime Arrives Just in Time to Crush the Net

All of the social media hype has, to some degree, diverted attention from the bigger storyline to emerge over the last few years - the meteoric rise of long-form, streaming video viewing.

Unlike Twitter and YouTube, which propelled ordinary geeks and moms to cult-like status, the Hollywood content community here has been the runaway winner. There's more demand than ever for professionally created and curated content.

However, a new dynamic is emerging that could completely upend the economics - that is if it doesn't break the Internet first.

First, a look at the trend lines.

For years streaming video was a two-foot viewing experience that took place largely at desks via PCs. While YouTube's user-generated and viral clips dominate short fare, long-form streaming video is coming into its own and on different platforms.

The entertainment community - with the help of partners and in a race against piracy - has been aggressive in making their content available as on-demand streams rather than solely as downloads. This means that studio content is now far more widely available than ever before - and it's "couch friendly" too. Online video has become a seamless archipelago that spans a one-foot experience on smartphones and tablets to a ten-foot experience on set-top-enabled TVs.

Consider Netflix, for example. The company's on-demand video rental service is available on dozens of connected devices. This includes everything from the Roku set-top box to the iPhone and iPad. By one measure, Americans are eating it up.

Sandvine reported last week that Netflix alone represents a staggering 20 percent of all downstream US Internet traffic during what's normally primetime (between eight and 10 p.m.) This is remarkable given that the overwhelming majority of Netflix subscribers - 98% according to Sandvine - are not streaming content yet.

XBox Live, which carries Netflix and other content, is seeing a similar pattern. Larry Hryb (aka Major Nelson), Xbox Live's Director of Programming, blogged last week that 42 percent of XBox Live's more active 25 million US users are streaming an average of an hour of television and movies per day. (Disclosure: Edelman, my employer, handles Xbox's PR needs.)

Digital primetime is here. Madison Avenue should be giddy with excitement. Hulu served nearly 800,000 ads in July, comScore reports. What's more, the proliferation of interruptions are not stopping Hulu users from watching an average of 2.6 hours of video per month.

But there are potential challenges ahead as Xbox, Netlfix and Hulu supplant the TV nets as the new kings of primetime.

For starters, as more Americans become "cord cutters" we may opt for ad-free on-demand rentals or all-you-can eat subscriptions. The appeal is interruption-free viewing. Some 13% of Americans intend to cut the cord in the next 12 months, according to Strategy Analytics - a market research firm.

However, the more scary scenario is that all of this video consumption and cord cutting could push the Internet to a breaking point.

Nielsen reports that 64 million people watched at least part of the World Cup online. That's a drop in the bucket by what we'll see in 2014 when Brazil hosts the event. The Internet may not be ready for it.

Akamai President David Kenny says that in five years the average user will consume two hours a day of HD video. To accommodate this insatiable demand, the Internet will need to increase capacity 548 times from where it is today. Factor in net neutrality debates, cable companies squaring off with TV networks and it's easy to be pessimistic that there's enough "shovel-ready" broadband projects underway to pave the way.

Advertisers, not just the content community and distributors, have a significant stake in the future of Internet video. However, the debates around net neutrality and capacity aren't front page concerns for most us. They need to be.

The danger is that the ad community will be left out of the debate. Even worse it may not have a voice in creating viable ad-supported ways for the providers to invest in infrastructure, just as millions of cord cutters flee cable TV for ad-free content and push the Net to the limit.

Photo credit: jeffgunn

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StumbleUpon Video: This Time It’s Personal

Nothing on TV tonight? Fear not, StumbleUpon can fill your evening with personally selected videos covering everything from cats playing the piano to entire episodes of The Dresden Files, to cooking lessons by a master chef. It’s all here – accessible from one “theater-like interface.”

What’s really new about StumbleUpon Video is that it’s not all about the most popular videos. The idea here is to present a custom list of videos perfectly suited to each person who logs on.

The system begins by connecting you to videos that fit into your chosen list of topics. From there, you can refine your stumbling to a particular source, or take only videos that were favorited by your friends.

The engine pulls videos from YouTube, Hulu, Vimeo, CollegeHumor and TED. By choosing your favorite topics from a long list, you can narrow down the choices that are offered you in any given round. For example, using my current settings, I can flip through a series of marketing videos  or switch to TV where I might get classic TV shows from Hulu.

Tip: Use the upper bar to choose video and the lower bar to choose the subject if you want to see only videos in a particular subject.

As with StumbleUpon, the interface depends on you giving a thumbs up or down to the videos as they scroll by. The more your rate, the more the suggestions will match your likes and dislikes. The dashboard bar also gives you the ability to instantly share the video with your Stumble-Friends, send a link to Facebook or Twitter, or email the clip to everyone you’ve ever met.

Like regular StumbleUpon, the video feature is designed to find gems you’ll love but may have missed.

If you’re a marketer who has been thinking about getting into video, spend some time on StumbleUpon Video (http://video.stumbleupon.com). Flip through videos in your category and get inspired by what’s out there. There’s a lot, but it’s still an open enough market that you can make an impact if you come up with something fresh and different.

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Video Chatting Gains Ground, Can Product Placement Be Far Behind?

Almost a fifth of American adults have tried video calling either online or via their cell phones. That’s one of the findings from the first study from Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. 17% of adults have made a video or teleconferencing call of some kind, 6% have made them with their cell phone. Since this is the first time they’ve studied video usage, particularly through a cell phone, they don’t have a benchmark, but you don’t need a study to see that video chatting is on the rise.

Several times a week, I see commercials on TV with people video chatting by cell or by laptop. A deaf woman uses it to sign to her boyfriend. Kids use it to connect with daddy who is miles away on business. A soldier sees his new born baby for the first time. Communications companies hawk the idea in the way chemical companies hawked plastic back in the 50’s. It’s space age technology in the hands of the everyday person. How cool is that?

Let’s look at a few more findings:

• Video calling online is especially appealing to upscale users. A third of internet users (34%) living in households earning $75,000 or above have participated in such calls or chats, compared with 18% of those earning less than $75,000.
• Younger internet users are considerably more likely to conduct video calls. Some 29% of the internet users ages 18-29 have participated in video calls or chats or teleconferences, compared with 15% of internet users age 65 or older.
• Online men are more likely than online women to participate in online video calls (26% vs. 20%).
• Urban internet users (27%) and suburban users (23%) are significantly more likely than rural users (12%) to have participated in video calls, chats, or teleconferences.

Here’s what I’m thinking. We know that mobile is a growing force in marketing. We also know that social sharing and recommendations from peers helps when selling a product or service. So how about product placement in video chats? Think about it. In the same way we hire mommy bloggers to write a post, we pay a teen to put a Dr. Pepper on his desk as he chats with friends, or hang a Nike poster on the wall behind him. Urban, young men are the primary users, so why not play the latest rap tunes while talking with your bros. KaChing! That’s money in the pocket for both the chatter and the brand.

I ran this idea by my teenage son who instantly replied that he’d never sell out that way, but if one of his favorite psychobilly bands offered him a hundred dollars to play their music while talking with his friends. . . that’s a devil he might be willing to deal with.

What do you think? Could video chat product placements be the next big marketing push? And how long do you think it will be before half of all Americans are chatting face-to-virtual-face on a daily basis?

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Play Connect-the-Dots to Win at Online Marketing

Remember those puzzles you used to do when you were six or seven?

That mass of dots and numbers on a page just looked like a mess.

But when you went through and connected dot 1 to dot 2, moving on through dots 100 and 101, you wound up with a picture of a pony.

You might think you’ve outgrown connect-the-dots. But actually, it’s one of the most important strategies for online entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to build profits with online marketing.

Learn to connect the dots in a smart and strategic way, and you could very well paint yourself a real pony. It’s not quite as easy as it was when you were six, but it’s still well within your grasp.

Connect the dots from the best free content

Content marketing is a massive trend that’s only getting stronger. And in the best content marketing, smart marketers will give you free material you can use right away to start creating great results.

If your goal is to market your business, don’t overlook the value you can get from free information. Some terrific businesses have been built by acting on the advice found in free content.

Benefiting from free content is all about connecting the dots. Take the great lead generation strategy from one source, connect it with the solid headline and conversion tactics from another, and wrap it up with some good social media sharing you learn on a third.

It’s a bit like playing connect-the-dots without numbers. Challenging, but if you put the work in, it works.

The real trick, though, isn’t finding great free stuff. It’s sifting out all the junk.

The most important dot

The most important dot to connect is this: Be sure you’re studying someone who’s worth your time. And there are very few marketing teachers out there who have changed more lives than Jeff Walker.

Jeff’s the creator of a program called Product Launch Formula, which helped Brian connect his own dots, way back in 2005.

Brian knew a lot about copywriting and marketing from his previous ventures, but it was PLF that showed him how to string everything together — to create not just great content, but also a great business powered by content.

You owe it to yourself to watch Jeff’s free instructional videos. Jeff’s a teacher at heart, and he loves to give out quality information you can use to start improving your own marketing, even if you never spend a penny with him. You’ll do particularly well if you combine Jeff’s approach with what you learn here on Copyblogger.

Click here to watch Jeff’s tutorial video, which he just posted today.

About the Author: Sonia Simone is Senior Editor of Copyblogger and co-founder of Inside the Third Tribe.

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