Social media costs UK business £1.35billion…. but accounts for 25% of ad impressions

Two fascinating statistic forced their way into the news agenda this week relating to Social Media. Firstly, IT Services business Morse announced that Social Media use in business is costing the economy £1.38 billion. The report suggests more than half of office workers are using sites such as Twitter and Facebook for their own personal use during working hours wasting an average of 40 minutes a week. Whilst no-one advocates wasting their employer’s time on personal business you’ve got ask how much business benefit is also being generated by this time? I certainly believe that in my own business it is positively productive for my team to be actively participating in new social media.

 

The second stat that appeared was that it is now estimated that social networking sites account for 25% of online display ad impressions . Media research consultancy comscore.com estimate that social media sites accounted for 13.8billion impressions in August 2009 in the UK. This amounts to some 25% of all UK online display ad impressions! Telecoms providers were the heaviest users but retailers similarly have woken up to the value of social media sites for targeting customers. As Mike Read, comScores’ MD says “….these data suggest that every demographic segment is reached via social networking sites and that no particular age segment accounts for an overwhelming percentage of ads delivered. Given the overall reach and volume of ads delivered on social networking sites, brand advertisers who ignore this channel may be missing a significant opportunity and enabling their competitors to gain a dominant share of voice in the channel.”

 

Posted by Geraint

27th October 2009

Short plank to nowhere

As the famous Stella Artois ad used to say ‘Reassuringly expensive’. And further evidence, if further evidence were needed, that cutting prices is a short plank to nowhere came last week with the news that Carluccios eschew price cutting . Their MD, Simon Kossoff, explains that they had been successful through this last year of recession because they had remained faithful to their pricing policy. He explained “We want to avoid damaging our brand equity. Rather than pursuing short-term discounts, we prefer to adopt a long-term view of protecting the brand.” The notion that pricing forms a key component of brand equity isn’t new, but maintaining a price position, even in these trying times, can be as important for customers as a round of wanton price cuts.

And, as I always rant to anyone foolish enough to stand still and listen to me, if you cut your prices now there’s only one way for your prices to go in the future……..and it isn’t up.

Courage mes braves, courage.

Posted by Geraint