Companies that blog have far better marketing results. Specifically, the average company that blogs has: 55% more visitors 97% more inbound links 434% more indexed pages

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Sponsored posts that appear in targeted online forums, clearly marked as advertisements, appear to actually increase in their ability to drive response over time - by more than 100% one year after a paid campaign has ended, according to a recent analysis released by PostRelease.

The study also showed that 60 days after a typical sponsored forum post’s appearance, the total number of click-throughs increase by an average of 40%. After 180 days they increase by an average of 77%.

After 60 days the reads increased 28.8% After 60 days the click-throughs increased 40.7% After 180 days the reads increased 49.2% After 180 days the click-throughs increased 77.1% After 360 days the reads increased 60.6% After 360 days the click-throughs increased 103.6% Read more at www.marketingcharts.com

Several comScore studies have confirmed that online campaigns drive offline sales, according to Fulgoni. In the first study, comScore took four categories, 53 brands and 200 of the most trafficked sites. The company looked at people exposed to display advertising and what they did in the month following. Findings reveal that 18% searched on the brand advertised and 29% went to the advertisers’ sites. Consumers who were exposed to the display advertising spent 55% more time than the average visitors to these sites the next month. The rise in time spent is matched by a similar increase in page views — about 51%.

Then, comScore analyzed the impact that online campaigns have on retail sales by matching the name and the address of consumers to retail loyalty card databases. The supermarket Kroger, for example, has issued about 60 million loyalty cards, which provide a massive data set to understand the degree that online search and display campaigns drive retail sales. The findings suggest a lift that is five times stronger when people are exposed to search ads alone, compared with display. Search alone produces an 82% lift, compared with display at 16%, and 119% when search and display are combined. About 82% of online ad campaigns measured by comScore have generated an average lift of 22% in CPG brand sales in retail stores. Read more at www.mediapost.com

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According to the latest Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries, recommendations from personal acquaintances or opinions posted by consumers online are the most trusted forms of advertising worldwide. 90% of consumers surveyed said that they trust recommendations from people they know, while 70% trusted consumer opinions posted online.

Read more at www.mediapost.com

Forms of Advertising in Which Consumers Trust “Somewhat” or “Completely” (April, 2009)
Advertising	Percent of Respondents Trusting
Recommendations from people known	90%
Consumer opinions posted online	70%
Brand websites	70%
Editorial content (e.g. newspaper article)	69%
Brand sponsorships	64%
TV	62%
Newspaper	61%
Magazines	59%
Billboards / outdoor advertising	55%
Radio	55%
Emails signed up for	54%
Ads before movies	52%
Search engine results ads	41%
Online video ads	37%
Online banner ads	33%
Text ads on mobile phones	24%
Source: Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey, April 2009

With 77% of U.S. Internet users watching online video and 43% viewing weekly, the medium has hit critical mass, according to a new study by Frank N. Magid Associates. The research commissioned by video site Metacafe also found that more one-third (37%) of consumers who watch professionally produced video clips online — including TV clips, movie trailers, sports highlights and music videos — found them equally or more entertaining than watching full-length shows on their TV sets. Forty-one percent found them “somewhat” as entertaining. The findings were based on an online survey of 1,927 people between the ages of 12 and 64 conducted in April as part of the Magid Media futures practice. Not surprisingly, young males between the ages of 18 and 24 were found to the heaviest video consumers, with 70% of that age group watching weekly. Read more at www.mediapost.com

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Growth in Time Spent Viewing per Viewer over the Past 6-Months (Demographic Group U.S., Home and Work)
	Nov-08 Time per Viewer (minutes)	Apr-09 Time per Viewer (minutes)	% Change Over 6 Months
Total	178	206	16%
Male	209	249	19%
Female	151	170	12%
2 - 11	113	116	3%
12 - 17	178	190	7%
18 - 24	303	349	15%
25 - 34	253	296	17%
35 - 49	187	243	29%
50 - 64	122	139	14%
65+	67	81	21%
Source: Nielsen Online VideoCensus, May 2009

Read more at www.mediapost.com

Top Online Video Brands by Total Streams (April 2009 U.S., Home and Work)
Video Brand	Apr-09 Total Streams (000)	Month-over-Month % Change	Year-over-Year % Change	Share of Streams
Overall Online Video Usage	9,452,996	-2.3%	24.2%	100.0%
YouTube	5,490,204	0.2%	35.5%	58.1%
Hulu	373,290	7.1%	490.4%	3.9%
Yahoo!	203,628	-12.2%	-8.1%	2.2%
Fox Interactive Media	201,362	-3.0%	-38.8%	2.1%
Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network	175,917	-10.3%	15.9%	1.9%
MSN/Windows Live	164,422	-2.7%	9.8%	1.7%
ABC.COM	148,830	-15.9%	144.8%	1.6%
MTV Networks Music	143,356	15.7%	359.6%	1.5%
Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network	130,559	-5.1%	60.0%	1.4%
CNN Digital Network	112,469	8.7%	32.7%	1.2%
Source: Nielsen Online VideoCensus May 2009 Note: Includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising.

- London, LA, and Chicago are the top 3 Twitter locations respectively

- 1.44% of all tweets are retweets

- The average users tweets .97 times per day

- The average user has tweeted 119.34 times in total

- 79.79% failed to provide a homepage URL - 75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile - 68.68% have not specified a location -  55.50% are not following anyone - 54.88% have never tweeted -  52.71% have no followers Read more at www.webpronews.com

Over one-half of consumers believed that word-of-mouth influenced the restaurants they went to. Fewer were influenced on electronics purchases (44%) and groceries (41%), and slightly more than one-third felt word-of-mouth had some impact on home improvement and apparel purchases.

See more at www.emarketer.com