Marketers Continuing the Shift from Traditional to Digital

Forrester just released a survey about the continuing growth of digital media at the expense of traditional marketing channels, with 6 out of ten marketers surveyed planning an increase in there digital marketing budgets, taking money out of traditional.

In the survey, the increase in digital over the next 5 years, by media:

• Social media (34%)
• Mobile Marketing (27%)
• Online Display Ads (17%)
• Search Marketing (15%)
• email (11%)

This research fits with another recent Nielsen monthly report from June, showing that Facebook, probably the biggest site in social media, had the highest time spent of all web brands, including AOL, MSN, Google, Yahoo!, etc. Twitter is also having an incredible rise, with millions of 140-character updates being posted daily. Marketers are scrambling to develop campaigns to implement the two into current media plans.

Women Put Trust in Social Media

According to The 2009 Women in Social Media Study of the 79 Million women online, over half are taking part in social media on a weekly basis. This study by BlogHer, iVillage and Compass Partners also showed that 64% of women are nearly twice as likely to use blogs than social networking sites as a source of information. 43% Use social media for advice and recommendations and 55% for opinion-sharing.

Social Media Activities include:

• Social networks (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn)
• Blogging
• Reading blogs
• Posting to blogs
• Message boards & forums
• Status Updating (e.g.Twitter)

Companies looking to tap into women for product advertising shouldn't question whether or not to enter social media. The real questions should involve "How to connect with my target audience?" and "What can I offer them via social media".