In its bi-annual The Curve Report, NBCUniversal Integrated Media reveals marketing trends and insights for consumers, popular culture, social media, and more. All of these trends and insights matter to brand marketers, particularly since the 150-page report focuses primarily on the digital world.
The report data was gathered using an online survey to 2,000 nationally representative consumers and 500 digital trendsetters as well as qualitative focus groups, in-depth interviews with experts, ongoing proprietary research, and the monitoring of influential blogs, websites and industry events.
The Curve Report identified the following shifts and trends that marketers should understand:
- Indie Women: The growing demographic of single mothers
- Personal Grid: A new version of local that is personal, flexible, and transportable
- Pop-upreneurs: Entreprenuers who leverage digital platforms to bypass the middleman and redefine startup culture.
- Popular ‘Click’: The diverse “hyper-connected in crowd” that is growing to include influencers, bloggers, celebrities, stylists, and others who “impart their opinions” to engaged audiences
- Group Think: The growing trend to harness collective intelligence thinking that casts a wide net to find the best talent and ideas rather than crowdsourcing for the purpose of reaching a larger audience.
AdWeek shared some more data from The Curve Report specifically related to brands and Facebook. According to the report, the average consumer has 29 brand friends on Facebook while digital trendsetters have 76 brand friends. As you’d expect, digital trendsetters are much more likely to interact with brands on social networks than average consumers. Just 10% of digital trendsetters claim that they never or hardly ever interact with brands on social networks compared to 28% of average consumers.
While one out of two average consumers believe that brands do a good job of getting their attention through social media, that number is significantly lower than the 4 out of 5 digital trendsetters who believe brands do a good job of getting their attention through social media. On the flip side, when asked why brands’ social media marketing efforts were ineffective, the responses were varied with a couple of problems standing out:
- I just follow a brand so I can get a deal that was offered = 24%
- Brands try to get as many followers as possible but don’t do anything to build a real community = 21%
- Brands’ efforts on social sites don’t seem authentic = 18%
- Brands are constantly trying to interact with me on social sites and it’s become a turn off = 17%
- A lot of brands on social sites aren’t the type of brands I want to talk about with my friends = 9%
- Brands don’t update their pages or interact with their communities enough = 8%
There is no doubt that consumers are willing to follow brands on social networks, but it’s up to the brand to build a relationship beyond the initial “follow” and engage audiences with quality content and brand experiences rather than turning them off by inundating them with “interruptive” updates and interactions. What do you think?
You can follow the link to The Curve Report at the top of this article to get more details and request a copy of the full report.
Image: NBCUniversal Integrated Media
Susan Gunelius is the author of 10 marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and technology books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, an award-wining blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com and Forbes.com, and her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, BusinessWeek.com, TodayShow.com, and more.
She has over 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Today, her clients include large and small companies around the world and household brands like Citigroup, Cox Communications, Intuit, and more. Susan is frequently interviewed about marketing and branding by television, radio, print, and online media organizations, and she speaks about these topics at events around the world. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Google+.
