Tuesday, January 10, 2012

BLOGGERS BRING IN THE BIG BUCKS

BLOGGERS BRING IN THE BIG BUCKS

How a personal obsession can turn into a popular favorite and maybe even a full-time job.

From cat pictures and celebrity gossip to tech news and politics, the stars of the blogosphere earn plenty of dough, regardless of subject. Some bloggers start their sites intending to make big profits. But most of the bloggers we talked to had more modest expectations, and saw their blogs unexpectedly turn into businesses as traffic picked up and ad dollars rolled in. Here's a look at how some of the most popular blogs make their money.

1. BoingBoing

Launched: January, 2000
Revenue: Over $1 million a year

BoingBoing, a "directory of wonderful things," might be the king of moneymaking blogs. Always at the top of Technorati, in June the site garnered 22 million page views from 2.6 million unique visitors. Advertising costs range from $350 to display a small button ad for one week to between $2,000 and $3,000 for the minimum 170,000 impressions on banner ads, all sold exclusively through Federated Media. Frequent posting—the four authors update the site 20 to 40 times each day—drives high traffic to the blog, which Mark Frauenfelder and his wife, Carla Sinclair, started as a print zine in 1988, to write about comics, science fiction, computers, and technology. "BoingBoing's viewers just continued to grow and grow and grow, for reasons we still don't completely understand," Frauenfelder says. "Now it's at the point where it actually becomes a business." And a good one at that: BoingBoing's ad sales top $1 million a year.



2. I Can Has Cheezburger

Launched: January, 2007
Revenue: Estimated $5,600 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

This blog, consisting of silly photos of cats, and even sillier captions, rocketed to the top of the blogosphere a few months after a Hawaii-based pair started it on a lark. Since its launch in January, Cheezburger's traffic has doubled each month, and the blog now gets half a million page views a day, accounting for a third of the traffic on the WordPress blogging platform, according to Eric Nakagawa, aka Cheezburger. "If you hit a niche and you can build a community, you might not have a $1 million idea, but you might have a $10,000 or a $100,000 idea," says Nakagawa, who gave up his job as a software developer to play Cheezburger full-time. (His partner, "Tofuburger," still has a day job.) A week of ads on Cheezburger, via Blogads, starts at $500 and tops out at $5,400 for a premium position. The site also sells through Google AdSense and AdBrite platforms. It recently ranked No. 26 on the most-linked-to blogs list on Technorati.



3. ShoeMoney

Launched: October, 2005
Revenue: $12,000 a month

What better way to make money online than to write a blog about making money online? Jeremy Schoemaker, a 33-year-old Web entrepreneur, did just that. The half hour he spends each day writing ShoeMoney attracts 20,000 unique visitors daily, brings in $12,000 a month, and gives him a platform from which to launch his own Web products. His other Web businesses—AuctionAds, which displays ads for live eBay auctions on relevant sites, and NextPimp.com, which sells ringtones—are his main ventures; the blog accounts for only 3% of his company's revenue. Other companies selling to businesses find a ripe audience of aspiring Web entrepreneurs reading ShoeMoney, which consistently ranks among the 100 top blogs on Technorati. Schoemaker had no ads on the blog until January, 2007, and the five spots sell out quickly. "We've never had an open advertising spot," he says. "We have a waiting list."



4. Overheard in New York

Launched: July, 2003
Revenue: Estimated $8,100 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

Software developer Morgan Friedman and five editors work part-time, running Overheard in New York, a collection of anonymous comments submitted by readers that range from the hilarious to the outrageous. Started in 2003, the blog is profitable, but Friedman says revenues can fluctuate by a factor of 10 over six months. A small one-week buy on Blogads costs $375, and an ad with Flash in a prime space costs up to $6,000. Overheard draws 6 million page views a month and gets 100 submissions from readers each day, says Friedman. A book was published last year, and four more blogs in the same vein now make up the Overheard network: Overheard at the Office, Overheard at the Beach, Overheard Everywhere, and Celebrity Wit. The site's core audience, Friedman says, is young women and gay men—tastemaking groups that advertisers covet. Although Overheard brings in cash, he says, "I’ve always approached it more as a community than a business. I want to make enough so we can invest more to grow. I’m not trying to build a Web 2.0 company that I can sell for millions of dollars."



5. Kottke.org

Launched: March, 1998
Revenue: Estimated $5,300 a month based on ad rate

Self-taught Web designer Jason Kottke hosts a single ad on his design blog, which he bills as the "home of fine hypertext products." The ad is sold through the Deck, an ad network that offers limited buys on 18 premier design-oriented sites. Kottke began blogging in 1998, on 0sil8, a site he built to profile his design work. The blog moved to its current domain in 1999, and now gets 250,000 to 300,000 unique visits a month—enough to pay him a monthly salary of around $5,300 before the ad network's cut. He ranks in the middle of the 100 most-linked-to blogs on Technorati. As one of the earliest blogs, with a committed audience interested in design, Kottke attracts advertisers looking to reach Web professionals and creative types. And he wants to keep his niche appeal, rather than try to maximize profits by littering the site with ads, and changing the content to boost traffic. "I'm doing a lot of things to deliberately limit my income," he says. "Providing a good site and a good service for a smaller group of readers is really what I'm shooting for."



6. TalkingPointsMemo

Launched: November, 2000
Revenue: Estimated $45,000 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

Political reporter Josh Marshall grew his blog, which he started during the 2000 election recount, into a small media company with a Manhattan office, three spin-off sites, an editorial staff of six, and a reputation for digging up stories that major papers ignore. The shift from a blog of mostly commentary and analysis to a network of sites more focused on original reporting began after the 2004 election, Marshall says. He started accepting ads at the end of 2003, when Blogads approached him. Now ad sales are a mix of site-specific direct buys and mass buys through third-party bureaus. (All political ad sales are through third parties, to avoid conflicts of interest.) Sales bring in tens of thousands of dollars a month. "The challenge for a very small business like ours is to be able to monetize and support our original reporting, to make it work in business terms," he says. High traffic—weekday page views approach 500,000—combined with a desirable audience helps. "If someone advertises with us, I guarantee you that a substantial number of people in every big-city newsroom around the country are going to see it," Marshall says.



7. Perez Hilton

Launched: September, 2004
Revenue: Estimated $111,000 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

Celebrity gossip wag Perez Hilton revels in his role as one of the most-hated figures in Hollywood. He may also be the hardest-working blogger making fun of show business, with 24 posts on an average day—and as many as 40 on a day with talk of a Britney Spears meltdown. "Advertisers come to me because I get a lot of traffic. I get a lot of traffic because I work hard," says Mario Lavandeira, Perez's creator. By "a lot" he means as many as 4 million unique visits a day, according to Lavandeira, although independent estimates put his traffic much lower. How much does that translate into cash from the Blogads on his site? Lavandeira stays uncharacteristically mum on the subject of exactly how much cash he rakes in, but Blogads lists a one-day "takeover" (all three banner ads on the site, plus a custom wallpaper) for $40,000.



8. Gothamist

Launched: January, 2003
Revenue: Monthly average of $50,000 to $60,000 over the past 12 months

Gothamist, with estimated monthly revenues of $250,000, evolved from two friends writing about New York City to a full-time news operation and a network of local blogs across 14 cities on four continents. Publisher and co-founder Jake Dobkin, who owns the company with co-founder and editor Jen Chung, sells ads direct to maximize revenue. They're on the verge of hiring a full-time ad sales director to complement their team of five full-time editors in five cities, part-time associate editors, and paid contributors. Together they generate 20 to 25 posts daily on their most popular sites, and draw 7 million page views a month. Advertisers like the demographics: young, educated, and often wealthy readers. A real draw for the city-based sites is the ability to target online ads geographically: "It's a benefit that some of the other independent publishers or blog networks can't offer," Dobkin says.



9. TechCrunch

Launched: June, 2005
Revenue: $200,000 a month

Another blog that always tops the Technorati list, TechCrunch became Michael Arrington's full-time business in 2006, with $200,000 in monthly revenue from job boards and ads. Arrington began blogging about startups two years ago. The blog has since spawned a network of spin-offs for gear, mobile technology, and sites for Britain, France, and Japan. Federated Media handles ad sales for the sites, which get a total of about 5 million page views a month: $300 buys a small text ad for a week; banners start in the thousands. "Our advertisers are people who want to reach a tech audience and an early-adopter audience," Arrington says. "It's a targeted audience that spends a lot of money." In addition to ad revenue, the company has sponsored parties, and in September plans to host TechCrunch 20, a conference in San Francisco, where 20 startups will launch their products and a panel of judges will pick one to receive a $50,000 prize.



10. Go Fug Yourself

Launched: July, 2004
Revenue: Estimated $6,240 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

Last year, this blog, devoted to ridiculing celebrity fashion, made enough money through ad sales that its two authors, Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, quit their television industry jobs so they could mock full-time. The Los Angeles-based duo insists that the blog's title uses the verb form of "fantastically ugly," their term of art for stars' over-the-top outfits. The mechanics are simple: They take celebrity photos from a wire service, add snarky comments about the getups, and click "publish." The result? Some 3.5 million unique visitors a month, a book coming out in February, and two full-time jobs. All the ads are sold through Blogads. One week of a bare-bones text ad starts at $60, and deluxe banners top $3,000. Cocks says what started as a goofy joke between friends three years ago has become a successful company: "Suddenly our inside joke was turning into a business, and it caught us completely by surprise."



11. Mashable

Launched: July, 2005
Revenue: Estimated $166,000 a month based on ad rates and self-reported traffic data

Pete Cashmore started Mashable two years ago, to write about the emerging trend of mashups, which he defines as "the fusing of multiple Web services." Now it's more than a full-time job. "Bloggers don't get much sleep," he says. Mashable, a Technorati favorite that ranks in its top 15, focuses on social networking and other online trends. With 4 million monthly page views, Cashmore says it's the most-trafficked blog on the subject. But he didn't expect to make a living from it when he began. "The idea that top bloggers would be making large sums was laughable," Cashmore says. "The folks who held on, however, are doing pretty well these days." Mashable uses Federated Media for its ad sales. Text ads start at $100 per week, banners at $2,000.



12. Problogger

Launched: November, 2004
Revenue: Over $100,000 a year

The top question people ask Problogger author Darren Rowse is how much money he makes from blogging. He doesn’t disclose the details, but across the many blogs he writes, he clears six figures a year from a mix of private ads, affiliate deals, and ads sold through platforms such as Chitika, Google AdSense, Text Link Ads, and Amazon Associates. An Australian minister who discovered blogging in 2002, he has written sites devoted to religion, digital photography, camera phones, the Athens Olympics in 2004, and, of course, blogging. “Like most small business operators, I fall into the temptation of doing more than a full-time load from time to time (it’s tempting when you love your work, and when you work from home),” he writes in a FAQ on his site.



13. Michelle Malkin and Hot Air

MichelleMalkin.com launched: June, 2004
Hot Air launched: April, 2006
Revenue: N.A

Between her eponymous blog and her video blog, Hot Air, conservative author and columnist Michelle Malkin gets more than 220,000 visits per day, but says her sites still operate at a slight loss. “We’re doing what few other blogs can do. We serve up terabytes of bandwidth,” Malkin says. “I’m shelling out for gold-plated servers. That’s expensive, and we want to be able to withstand huge traffic surges.” Hot Air, a group video-blog, in particular needs the bandwidth to stream videos. The rest of her ad revenue, which Malkin declines to detail, supports a small staff and a basement studio to produce original video clips. Malkin also sees the blogs as promoting her print media, and vice-versa. “Blogs have been the most recent development in my career, but my bread and butter has been the newspaper column that I’ve had since 1992. The integration has been really interesting, and I think that attracts people as well.”



The idea of building a community around content supplied by users sustains several top blogs, and most put the idea of community ahead of making money. Part of it has to do with the nature of the medium: Blogging creates a direct connection between authors and readers, a conversation with distinct voices carried out in comments and e-mails and other blogs.


(Source: Business Week)
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SHOULD I DO BUSINESS ON FACEBOOK?

By: Shell Harris

This is a question I get on a consistent basis and while the answer is often the same, there are some things to consider before making your final decision. Can you do business on Facebook? Should you be "on" Facebook? Is Facebook good for my business? The answer is yes and no.

The reason is that Facebook is being viewed as something "new" when in fact, basic business principles should be used to ascertain whether the application can be used to further business objectives or not. Once we start applying basic business concepts, it quickly becomes apparent whether Facebook is a suitable investment of resources or whether it is a waste of time. Which it will be is going to depend on your individual business objectives and how well you use the tools around you, in this case Facebook.

First of all, understand what Facebook is - it is not a business tool per se, it is an online social network.  Be clear about this, the primary word here is "social" - bringing your business into these networks is like a car salesman gatecrashing a party with the deal of the day. Online social networks allow individuals to share information and keep themselves abreast of developments within their social circle, which may be a social circle dedicated purely to family and friends, or may be a circle of contacts which have a common interest or may be a network of business and professional connections. Primarily, Facebook is a social rather than a business networking tool (for a business online social network look at LinkedIn), and as a business active on the social networks you need to act carefully in order to not upset the indigenous users.

To answer whether Facebook is good for your business, ask yourself whether there are target audiences and interest groups which will help you acquire business? You may be looking at acquiring business directly by selling to Facebook users themselves, or indirectly, by raising your brand awareness or using the network to provide market feedback on you and your products. If the answer is yes you can achieve your business objectives of sales, marketing, consumer testing or whatever you have stipulated, then the answer to the original question is still not complete because Facebook is not the only tool available.

There are more online social networking sites than just Facebook; how does Facebook compare to other sites and should you be concentrating on just one site or spreading your efforts across multiple networking sites?

Facebook dominates demographics in the older age ranges, from the early-twenties upwards, and has assumed a dominant role in the amount of time surfers are spending on the internet. In this regard, Facebook dominates the social networking scene with only comparable competition emanating from MySpace.  MySpace is geared towards the younger age range and has greater emphasis on social media channels such as video, music and has a more pop culture outlook. Facebook is more about sharing life events, photographs, maintaining contact with family members of all age ranges, friends and for reconnecting with lost contacts. Business circles and connections do exist and are quite popular but Facebook is not primarily established for this and this can lead to some very damaging Facebook mistakes. For purely professional and business networking, LinkedIn is the leader in this field though the membership numbers are significantly lower than the social networking sites.

FORRESTER RESEARCH CONSUMER PRODUCT STRATEGY

Here are informations about consumer product strategy we should know for today business:

  1. Most consumer product and services companies work from the assumption that multichannel customers are the most valuable. All the evidence indicates that this is true. They also assume that mobile consumers are a subset of online consumers. This is mostly, but not always, true. Mobile has emerged as both its own unique experience as well as a complement to other channels. Yahoo!'s Fantasy Football product offers insight into a company that is profiting from the multichannel consumer who is both online and on mobile. Consumer product strategists designing similar interactive, multimedia products should weave mobile into the mix — but not just as a shrunken PC desktop. Instead, they should take into account the contextual usage cases best suited to mobile devices.
  2. The iPad is a new kind of PC. It ushers in a new era of Curated Computing — a mode of computing in which choice is constrained to deliver more relevant, less complex experiences. Curated Computing is necessary to empower alternative form factors, such as touchscreen tablets, wearable and ambient devices, game consoles, and connected TVs. The iPad's Curated Computing experience makes the tablet form factor viable for the first time since it was introduced commercially more than two decades ago. The time is right to promote tablets as a fourth form factor for the multiple-PC-owning consumer, but the tablet's success beyond the iPad is not a given. Product strategists hoping to build a market for tablets will have to reshape consumers' expectations of what a PC can be and how it fits into their lives alongside desktops, laptops, and smartphones.
  3. Balancing competing product design demands through a series of tradeoffs is a critical part of the process of building a mobile device like a phone. Why did smartphones not enjoy mainstream success in the late 1990s and early 2000s, given their numerous features? The tradeoff decisions were wrong: The features did not deliver sufficient real benefits, and the corresponding barriers were overwhelming. Why is it still so hard to design a great mobile handset? Because knowing which tradeoffs to make on a new, innovative phone design is still more of an art than a science. Based on Forrester's decade of surveying millions of consumers across multiple geographies, Forrester has concluded that the solution to both questions is the comprehensive concept of convenience. Firms that utilize the Convenience Quotient will be able to increase their mobile product's benefits while reducing the barriers to success.
  4. Too often, product strategies are built around the concept of the "smartphone" as an ideal target for mobile products. But unlike men, all smartphones are not created equal. Modern smartphones created in the post-iPhone era demonstrate much greater consumer usage of advanced data features, the mobile Internet, and apps than do older models. In Europe, this is particularly important due to the large installed base of Nokia Nseries and Eseries smartphones based on Symbian that are pre-iPhone-era designs. Before deciding upon a target mobile platform, product strategists must carefully weigh up the overall opportunity presented by each smartphone. To do this, firms must evaluate each smartphone brand based both on its current adoption and abilities and, equally importantly, an analysis of its likely future evolution and future consumer adoption.
  5. For years, telecom operators have bet on mobile marketing and advertising as a way to generate new revenue streams. Neither has fulfilled their initially high revenue expectations yet. Now that this niche market is gaining momentum and Google and Apple have invested more than $1 billion in acquiring mobile advertising networks, the nascent mobile marketing value chain is maturing — and will continue to evolve. Forrester believes that revenues will grow quickly but will remain low in absolute terms for the next few years. Operators need to close the cultural gap with agencies and advertisers, make the most of their consumer data gold mine, and, in the longer term, become trusted wholesale enablers instead of trying to play a key, integrated role in monetizing their (likely) shrinking audiences.
  6. While traditional media companies agonize about how to charge consumers for expensively produced content, other providers are approaching the challenge of the post-Media Meltdown content market differently. Demand Media's disruptive model uses technology to ascertain what consumers want to read or watch. It then calculates the potential revenue each piece of content can generate before tapping into a network of writers and filmmakers to create large volumes of cheap and, theoretically, profitable content. Other companies can learn from Demand Media's model, which also relies on and exploits the changing concept of what online content is for. When content is commoditized, it needs to be cheap, useful, and targeted to an existing audience. Companies should explore how technology can bring new efficiencies to their content creation and distribution.
  7. The introduction of services such as Pandora and Slacker in Internet-connected TVs, Blu-ray players, and standalone DVRs are starting the inevitable trend of audio/video convergence on the HDTV. Standalone audio devices, such as network music players, will have a hard time justifying their existence. Done right, however, providing audio as a feature of the connected TV or set-top box could help digital music finally claim its rightful place in the living room.
  8. Online video piracy is still a minority behavior. Just 7% of US online adults regularly engage in peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, and less than half of them use it for video files. Meanwhile, casual video piracy — a newer phenomenon involving largely offshore video streaming sites that don't require users to download an app or files — has arrived in full force, only to have its attack blunted by the widespread availability of legal video streaming sites. The battle between content owners and pirates is now on, as they both have an interest in making access to their content as simple as possible. If video-related product strategists keep convenience foremost in mind, they can prevent consumers from sailing into pirate-infested waters.
  9. The media meltdown has fundamentally changed the way consumers access content. As traditional media companies struggle with their business models, their content is now just a component of a more fragmented and interactive landscape — one in which social media and content are, for many users, increasingly intertwined. For non-media companies using content directly to engage consumers, the barriers to entry have never been lower, but with so many Web sites competing for eyeballs, the competition has never been fiercer. While "paid" media remains vital to marketers and strategists, "owned" media — content created to engage directly with their consumers — is an increasingly important tool and part of a wider content strategy. For many marketers and product strategists, this is pioneer territory.
  10. At every new product launch, Apple secures enormous attention, in part due to Apple's cultivated mystique. Forrester advises firms to see through the magic by using threat analysis to predict what competitors and peers will do next by evaluating their capabilities and intent together. When Apple launches products, such as the iPad, into a new market, every competitor rightly re-evaluates its product strategy. But there's more substance than magic to Apple's success than either its fans or its critics credit. For competitors, this is reassuring: It's easier to replicate substance than magic. Companies must now offer software and hardware that's compatible with Apple products and services. In essence, they must compete with — or compete using — Apple products to succeed in numerous markets due to the rising significance of Apple's customer base. Product managers must learn from Apple and closely tie longer-term strategy to immediate tactics. They must ensure that their products always deliver a high-quality and convenient set of benefits, regardless of price point. If not, they must take the hard decision to delay launch until such time that they do.
  11. Digital cameras and camcorders have enjoyed a boom as consumers have transitioned from film and replaced all of their cameras. Most digital cameras are examples of a transition technology that is still closely modeled on the film era. This has to change. The digital camera market is becoming an increasingly crowded space as numerous devices gain camera features. Consumers now routinely own multiple devices with cameras that compete for pocket and bag space. Camera makers must make a final break with their film past and look to steal the best practices of the most successful camera phones to continue to succeed in the post-film world. Increasingly, a photo print is no longer "the final product," and consumers are active in social media, both at home and while mobile. In future, all cameras will have a core set of abilities that includes connectivity, video capture, and location tagging. The trick will be to work out how best to deliver a differentiated experience that is highly convenient.
  12. This year's Mobile World Congress (MWC) was truly global yet was much more than purely a mobile event. Three of the key smartphone players making waves this year — Google, Intel, and Microsoft — come from the North American Internet and PC world. Smartphones are no longer mere mobile plays but a core part of wider Internet and consumer electronics product strategies. Now that smartphones are becoming small and cheaper, two of the key barriers to their adoption are vanishing. Long live the "smart phone": Smartphones will in time become synonymous with the phone. And, as the pace of smartphone innovation continues — with solar-powered handsets, multitouch interfaces, and smartphone-software-powered tablets — innovation from smartphones will increasingly flow back onto the PC. As smartphones become smarter, they are increasingly delivering the whole Internet, not just a part of it. If anything, due to their location and 24x7 Social Computing capabilities, they will offer a superset of the PC Internet — not a subset.
  13. The mobile industry is in full swing. Its center of gravity is shifting from hardware to software, from voice to data and services, and from traditional telecom stakeholders to new entrants. Google's "mobile first" approach and the shadow that Apple cast over the show are forcing mobile operators in particular to redefine their position in the value chain. The traditional focus on infrastructure and this year's debate on operators' congested networks need to be put in the context of nontelecom players' willingness to monetize mobile. Mobile World Congress is a unique opportunity to witness how mobile is reinventing itself and to see how it will become even more disruptive in consumers' daily lives in the future. Consumer product strategists who want to define or refine their mobile road map for the coming months and years need to understand the tectonic shifts affecting the industry. They shouldn't be seduced by overhyped trends, such as augmented reality, and they should avoid putting all their eggs in one basket: It is far too risky to bet on a single player or a single technology.
  14. As the effects of the music industry meltdown bite, record labels and artists alike are turning to brands and product companies for new revenue opportunities. 2009 saw music tapped more heavily than ever before as a tool for differentiating products and brands, and this trend will accelerate in 2010: 65% of brands and product companies that Forrester interviewed stated that they will spend more on their digital music strategies in 2010 than they did in 2009. But marketing professionals must subjugate their job titles in favor of their role as media product professionals when working on music strategy. Failure to do so will result in poor execution that will damage the profile and perception of both the artist and the brand.
  15. Brands and companies are not the only ones that should tap into mobile opportunities. Public authorities can use mobile to improve the quality of life of their citizens and to develop their region's attractiveness. Many local councils, regional and national governments, and transport authorities are launching mobile initiatives, creating new value-added services for citizens, and trying to use mobile to connect with the least connected. They need to anticipate the arrival of NFC technology and make the most of more mature mobile ecosystems. They should balance their mobile investments with the constant need to avoid discriminating against particular groups of citizens and to allocate funds to projects with critical mass.
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HOW SOCIAL MEDIA OPTIMIZATION BOOST TARGETED TRAFFIC AND SALES


Social media optimization is an effective strategy of promoting your blog or website through social media networking websites. Social media optimization has been become an effective strategy to get back-links, brand exposure, and targeted website traffic.

When it is social media optimization, only quality counts and not the quantity! The power of word-of-mouth analytics and optimization has on the earlier accounts have helped the marketers to measure, manage, and monetize earned media.

Holding thousands of twitter followers or Facebook fans doesn’t mean that your social media marketing campaigns are paying off well. Researches have shown that close to 1% of the website’s audience is helpful in producing majority of the relevant web traffic, either through link exchange or content posting on other websites.

It is important to consider here that influencers influence the most valuable audience. Further, the ultimate purpose of influencers is not to amass audience in the social media websites and traffic inflow to your website. Another aspect to see is how one should engage the influencers with special offers and other unique content so that their social sphere helps you generate quality traffic and meaningful conversions.

Listed below are some of the effective tips that brands can utilize to head off marketing campaigns with the help of influencers:

Who is your Target Traffic: It is important to understand the nature of target traffic.. To find target traffic there is need to use social media tracking and measurement tool. These social media tracking and measurement tools help to save valuable time as we know social media marketing might be a time consuming process if it is not plan effectively.

What Your Audience Likes: After identifying targeted audience, use social media analytics to expose what’s your targeted audience most often likes to share. So you can divide your audience who love your post related to discount offers, latest research etc.

Where to connect & Share: Now, identify important social networking websites where your valuable audience active. These important social networking websites could be Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin etc.

What Motivates Your Traffic: Again you need to carefully analyse, what motivates your audience. It is very crucial to know because more the quality audience following the campaign, higher will be the success rate.

Hence, chatting with your valuable target audience will help you to boost your website popularity. Driving more valuable traffic towards your website will help you to increase your website’s conversion rate as well.


E-BUSINESS FACTS 2009 - 2014

According to Forrester Research:

  1. When Barnes and Noble (B and N) launched its Nook eReader at the aggressive price of $259 — a full $140 cheaper than other eReaders on the market with similar features — it drew attention to its long-term strategy: to profit on a lifetime of content sales to eBook consumers. Consumers don't own digital libraries of books, as they did with music: When MP3 players came out, most consumers owned CDs that they could easily burn to a computer and download to a device. Not so with books. While catalyzed by single-function eReaders like the Kindle, eBook content sales will occur across multiple devices, including desktops, laptops, netbooks, and smartphones, as well as tablet PCs, MIDs, and portable gaming devices. In this report, we look at data from a mail survey of 4,711 US consumers to understand consumer eReading behavior across devices. We also examine the consumer followings of six companies — Amazon.com, Apple, B and N, Sony, Target, and Wal-Mart — to understand which company might be best positioned to compete for the loyalties of the eBook consumer.
  2. Despite widespread gloom, it appears that European Internet users are willing to pay for certain kinds of online content, including music, movies, and eBooks, although none of these markets is anywhere near maturity. Understanding how and where current and potential buyers of movies, for example, consume media online will help consumer product strategists build a successful premium service in what is set to be a crowded marketplace in 2010. The popularity of multitasking among online movie buyers indicates the importance of integrating both social tools and a coherent multiplatform approach to maximize the paying audience in the future.
  3. The mobile revolution is only just getting started. Consumers will continue to shift their attitudes toward mobile phones — perceiving them not only as communication tools but also increasingly as entertaining and productive devices that can help them in their daily lives. More than 40% of European consumers are beginning to demonstrate sophisticated usage of mobile services. Do you know the mobile profile of your own customers and target audiences? If not, you should — as this is the first step in developing your mobile strategy.
  4. The iPod heralded a new paradigm in music consumption, but it has done little to counter the impact of the CD's terminal decline; it may even have helped accelerate it. Although mobile music now looks set to start delivering on some of its promises, it shares a core failing with MP3 players: They both deliver individual experiences and largely fail to address the decline of music technology in the home.
  5. Mobile phones and networks have reached near-ubiquity in the US. Despite a paucity of new subscribers to sell service to, mobile operators will continue to reap the benefits of the advance of their technology over the coming five years. Postpaid subscriptions will continue to dominate, though slightly less so than today as an expanding range of prepaid options appeal to both new and existing subscribers. The inexorable shift in operator revenues from voice to data will continue as the number of mobile Net users more than doubles by 2014. Third-generation (3G) phones will form the majority of phones, comprising more than 80% of the installed base by 2014.
  6. Nearly 16 million new US broadband subscribers will emerge over the next five years, but more than half of those will come in the next two years. Due to slowing organic growth, the Internet access market will be characterized by shifts across platforms. Over the next five years, xDSL subscriptions will fall as subscriptions to fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband rise from 4% to 10% of US online households. Cable modem subscribership will remain steady, with only very modest overall broadband market share loss compared with telco broadband (fiber and xDSL combined). Consumers will continue to migrate away from dial-up, for which steady losses will continue over the next two years. Shifts will also occur relative to the speed tiers to which consumers subscribe, with both supply and demand factors encouraging more consumers to buy higher-speed service. Broadband consumer product strategists must implement product enhancements that encourage current customers to upgrade and potential new customers to leave their existing provider.
  7. Newspaper and magazine publishers' current monetization models are broken: They are overly reliant on the "free" model of having advertisers subsidize consumer usage. But shifting more of the burden of payment to consumers is no easy task. In this report, Forrester identifies key data insights from a mail survey of 4,711 US consumers for publishers rethinking their monetization strategies. We find that there is a minority of consumers that's willing to pay for content access, but those consumers can't be identified by demographic segmentation alone; publishers must use engagement metrics to target the right consumers with the right offer. And what that offer is will vary: While some consumers say they'd prefer a multichannel subscription bundle, others say they'd consider a single-channel subscription or micropayments. While some consumers voice a preference for Web delivery, others prefer access via mobile devices like phones, eReaders, and netbooks. This leaves publishers with a mandate: Invest in the organizational and technological backbone to execute a cohesive, cross-channel product and pricing strategy — or watch your business dwindle.
  8. Connected TVs offer a huge advantage compared with legacy interactive TV and Internet TV platforms; they will also be in more than one-third of European TV households by 2014. With more than 150 million potential European users in 2014, connected TVs will attract new digital content providers and advertisers and will contribute to a transformation of the TV experience. However, connected TVs could still fail here: Consumer electronics (CE) manufacturers currently face challenges around the value proposition, standardization, and business roles and models, as well as competition from traditional pay-TV offerings. To win, TV product strategists at CE manufacturers should first opt for connected-TV systems that really blend broadcast and broadband. They should also focus on over-the-top (OTT) video services delivery and involve advertisers in the ongoing debate.
  9. The amount of time that US adults spend listening to radio has been on the decline. The trend is especially marked among young adults, who have taken to other audio platforms at a much greater rate. But radio as a format continues to be popular even as radio as a platform wanes. Radio stations have responded by making content available online and on mobile devices, but they have yet to reap the rewards of their efforts. Stations need to become more than just "radio online" while improving their core experience.
  10. The pay-TV category is a nearly fully penetrated market, reaching 82% of US households today. With little room to increase the market, cable, satellite, and telecom TV providers are fighting an intense battle for market share. Forrester expects telecom TV providers to lead the way, while cable loses share and satellite holds onto its base. However, all of the pay-TV technology providers should be concerned about competing not only with each other but also with over-the-top (OTT) TV solutions, which will begin to eat into the category over the next five years.
  11. Mobile is rapidly expanding as a medium for interacting with consumers, and it will only continue to do so. Many of Forrester's nontelecommunications clients — from the travel industry to consumer product goods to automotive companies to financial firms — ask us about the mobile landscape. Over time, these conversations range from high-level strategy questions to choosing specific vendors. The most important step for companies in this space is to learn how to ask the right questions. With those questions, consumer product strategists can readily tackle the challenges they face when interacting with their own consumers on one of the world's most adopted technologies — cell phones.
  12. Credit card usage is a hot topic these days as consumers change the way they use credit cards and the amount of credit they use. To better understand the state of credit in the US, Forrester surveyed US online consumers who had recently opened a credit card. Results show that traditional measures like annual fees and rewards continue to be important, but card shoppers also value a provider that will protect them from fraudulent transactions, rewards tenure, and has a brand name they know and trust.
  13. Understanding teenage behavior is an eternal challenge, not only for parents but also for content providers and product managers trying to engage them. In terms of their media consumption, teens are not only interesting as a demographic, but they also give us a glimpse of a post-media-meltdown future, where loyalties to old forms of media no longer exist. What is striking about European teens is how they combine two great passions — enjoying content such as music, video, and video gaming and communicating with friends — so that social interaction is at the heart of much of their media consumption. Without the means or opportunity to travel around or go out much, teens typically like to consume media at the same times each day, peaking in the early evening. The vast majority of European teens are comfortable with multitasking across different platforms. Companies seeking to engage these users need to offer a multiplatform proposition, with social interaction at the center. They must, however, understand the significant differences in behavior between teens in different countries: Localization, as well as the prioritization, is vital.
  14. Travel is inherently mobile. Now that the promise of location-enhanced services is beginning to be fulfilled on mobile phones, travelers are starting to use their devices as personal travel assistants. More than 10% of European Internet travelers use their mobile phones to look up flight or train schedules. Frequent business travelers are the ideal target group, as they are more likely to be regular users of the mobile Internet and are more likely to spend while traveling. More than 30% of them are interested in booking train tickets or checking in for a flight via their mobile phones. Product managers at hotel groups, airline companies, airports, rail companies, car rental companies, and travel-related brands need to tap into existing mobile opportunities and build mobile products that meet this burgeoning customer demand.
  15. Fundamental shifts in consumers' perceptions of value underpin the current period of crisis in which the media industries find themselves. Consumers are not falling out of love with media but instead with its 20th-century product iterations. Those consumers who currently spend extensively but consume modestly will be most exposed as the media distribution paradigm is superseded by the consumption era. A new framework for media product innovation is required to align media industry content assets with 21st-century consumer behavior and demand. The exhaustive process of product innovation and rebuilding that this entails will be media businesses' ticket out of the media meltdown.
  16. The adoption of digital music differs greatly in different regions across the globe, presenting unique sets of challenges and opportunities. Europeans, for instance, are more active than Americans in both PC- and mobile-based music activities but are less likely to purchase digital music. Asia Pacific countries boost some of the highest rates of both mobile music adoption and peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. In the US, digital music adoption is starting to stabilize. The music industry needs both overall product innovation and region-specific solutions to boost digital sales globally.
  17. Digital rights lockers — the ability for consumers to pay once for a movie and have access to that movie on any platform of their choosing, whether mobile, PC, or on the TV screen — are just about to land in US consumers’ laps from at least three different providers. These solutions can succeed if executed correctly: Our survey data points to 12% of US online consumers who are prime targets for this kind of solution because they’re watching more video on more platforms than anyone out there — and they pay for online video today. But this “buy once/play anywhere” solution has to be more convenient than the alternatives that consumers have or this effort to keep people buying movies will fade out with the DVD.
  18. Sybase 365 and Netsize were Leaders due to the breadth of their offerings, while mBlox and Ericsson IPX were also Leaders due to a tighter strategic focus that compensated for a narrower offering. All four leading vendors demonstrated international scale and the ability to support large volumes of messages, but each had particular countries or regions of the world where they were particularly strong. MX Telecom differentiated its services through a focus on technical engagement and in-house development, making it a Strong Performer and suited to “just do it” clients. 2ergo’s strategic shift away from low-margin businesses has resulted in a weaker messaging offering but is still worth consideration due to its wide mix of other services, such as smartphone app development, where some clients will find synergies.
  19. As 2009 drew to a close, many in the press were keen to label it "the year of the smartphone." That's true, but it's not the whole story: The past year saw massive growth in mobile phones that carry a richer set of features and enable a better data experience. While smartphone growth maintained the pace set in 2008, the category of quick messaging devices (QMDs) — QWERTY and/or touchscreen devices powered by lower-end proprietary software — continued to outpace the growth of smartphones. These two categories combined rose from 20% of mobile subscribers to nearly one in three. Despite Apple's iPhone growing its share of the smartphone market at a 20% clip, RIM's BlackBerry maintained its dominant share.
  20. With 4 billion cell phones and 1 billion PCs in the world, cell phones are clearly the next digital frontier for companies looking to engage with their customers in a more persistent and personalized way. Designing and developing excellent experiences is a precursor to high levels of consumer satisfaction and engagement. A potent mix of intuitive user interfaces, data access, and — most importantly — applications makes smartphones a natural place to find a convenient customer experience. In this report, we use US data about consumer usage of and satisfaction with social networking activities as an example of how a well-designed and convenient experience leads to high engagement. Forrester recommends using the Convenience Quotient framework to assess the convenience of your mobile services and predict the likelihood of high levels of engagement.
  21. As in the US, recent Blu-ray uptake in Europe has been encouraging: Thanks to the PlayStation 3, Blu-ray players are now in 10% of European homes, and the Blu-ray Disc Association expected that more than 30 million Blu-ray discs would be sold during 2009. However, because of consumer confusion about high-definition (HD) in general and the intensification of competition that Blu-ray will face in the medium term, Blu-ray will not be as successful as DVD once was — especially if consumer electronics (CE) makers continue to focus exclusively on HD. With this in mind, CE makers should not wait to push new Blu-ray features. Access to over-the-top video content should be at the top of their priority list.
  22. 2010 represents a watershed for European online video, with the majority of Internet users now watching it regularly. Consumer product strategists looking to use video to engage an audience must understand and respond to the key dynamics and trends shaping the market, including the confluence of video with social media and the mainstream integration of video into consumer-facing Web sites. While focus on the consumer experience will be vital, the importance of great content can't be underestimated. But in a rapidly evolving — and crowded — marketplace, "me-too" video sites and services will struggle, especially in terms of what will be the key imperative — monetization.
  23. The first 10 years of the 21st century may have been the decade in which music went digital, but it was also a truly horrible decade for the music industry. By the end of 2009, US and European recorded music revenues were just 42% of what they had been at the start of the decade — down from €25.6 billion to €10.8 billion. The digital experience of the "noughties" was a rocky one, but the next 10 years will be characterized by the innovation and experimentation that has risen to prominence during the past few years. Brands and product strategists expect to invest more money in digital music in 2010 than they did in 2009. Such investment will bring a welcome impetus to the music industry, but it will also continue the value chain changes that will ultimately reshape the balance of power and recast the mold of the music business.
  24. No corner of the media industry is safe from the media meltdown caused by the digitization of content, and 2010 will be a very difficult year for the news media industry. While the proliferation of diverse online news outlets has empowered European consumers, consumer product strategists at traditional news providers have seen their pricing model turned upside down and their market share eroded by low-cost and nimble competitors, such as aggregators, blogs, and social networks. While product strategists must adapt to serve the current audience of news consumers in order to stay relevant, Forrester's data shows that the unique media habits of Europe's youth will allow traditional media outlets to soon begin to capitalize on new media investments in the online and mobile channels.
  25. 2009 was the year that many consumer brands (and our clients) began to think seriously about engaging with their customers on cell phones. Media companies were already doing so. Our clients moved beyond one-off tactics to begin creating strategies for developing, funding, and rolling out mobile services. In 2010, we'll see consumer brands continue to add depth in terms of offerings and reach to the more holistic mobile strategies they began work on in 2009. They will continue to be hampered by too little funding in an economy struggling to recover but will dedicate more resources in 2010 than in 2009.
  26. In 2009, we saw the mighty four broadcasters undertaking drastic cost-cutting measures, once sure-growth cable companies losing market share, and Internet TV portals collapsing thanks to faulty business models. As we enter 2010, we believe that the TV industry's three biggest markets — broadcast, pay TV, and the Internet — are in for another year of dynamic changes. We expect a broadcaster victory on retransmission (retrans) fees, the short-term stymieing of the cord-cutting threat, and a shakeout for online video platforms.
  27. Residential broadband telephone lines will grow by 10.8 million, or 46%, over the next five years; this forecast includes managed voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services offered by cable multiple system operators (MSOs) and telcos, as well as over-the-top VoIP services offered by companies like Vonage. Bundle offers, unified communications services, and integrated features will enhance the appeal of these types of VoIP lines. However, voice is now a commodity, and there are ample ways for people to communicate these days without the use of a fixed landline phone — cell phone, SMS, PC-enabled voice chat, email, and social networking sites like Facebook, to name but a few. Given that, consumer product strategy professionals must be prepared for price reductions — and the resulting lower ARPU — in order to prevent existing customers from defecting to a competitor or eliminating their fixed voice service altogether.
  28. "How do I justify the cost of building out our mobile services?" This is a question that Forrester is fielding with increasing frequency. With offline and online revenues dwarfing the revenues derived from mobile services outside of mobile media today, consumer product and service companies must look to attribute and quantify the broader set of benefits that mobile services generate rather than simply revenues. There are three general categories of benefits: increased revenues, lower costs, and higher performance on key performance indicators driven by consumer delight with convenient services. With an emerging medium like mobile, it is difficult to forecast consumer adoption and usage — two key elements for assessing the return on investment (ROI) of mobile services. Forrester breaks down the process of calculating the ROI of your mobile initiatives into four key steps — identifying benefits, estimating the value of the benefits, calculating costs, and building a model — to help justify the resources you need for mobile without getting lost in the details.
  29. 2010 will be a key transition year at the start of the mobile decade — not only will we start moving toward more mainstream mobile services audiences but a strategic shift will also take place. Companies of all shapes and sizes as well as governments and local authorities will start integrating mobile into their overall approach, rather than simply launching a few mobile initiatives. Expect new application stores and mobile payment solutions, significant innovation in the mobile social and location spaces, and another round of interest in mobile TV for the FIFA World Cup 2010. One big question will remain: Will fragmentation be reduced? Unfortunately, the answer is no: It is here to stay. That's why everyone needs a mobile strategy in 2010.
  30. Recorded music revenues declined by more than half in the past decade. The downward trend will continue for the next few years, with revenues stabilizing at around $5.5 billion in 2014. The primary reason for this is that CDs will decline at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14%, while revenues from digital music will grow at a CAGR of 13%. Forrester has also included a projection for digital music licensing revenues this year. The growth in digital music licensing will be modest and won't offset the decline in recorded music revenues.
  31. While smartphones like Apple's iPhone, the BlackBerry Storm, and T-Mobile's Android-based MyTouch get all the attention, another category of mobile phones has quietly been accelerating its market share: the quick messaging device. These keyboard and/or touchscreen devices have much of the functionality of a smartphone but lack the high-level (and in some cases costly) operating system. Quick messaging device owners are valuable subscribers who deliver above-average revenue and offer multiple growth prospects in the future for consumer product strategists at mobile operators, handset makers, and application developers.
  32. Earlier this year, Forrester predicted that, while a growing number of consumers would embrace navigation solutions, the phone would be the most widely used tool for navigation by 2013. Our most recent data reinforces this claim, as phone-based solutions grew at a more rapid rate than either standalone navigation devices or those built into cars. Gen Y is the most rapidly growing segment for navigation overall, and this youngest group of adults shows the greatest affinity for the phone-based solution.
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