Krishna De: Insights From Ireland On Digital Marketing, Social Media And Entrepreneurship

Ireland has made significant progress in improving levels of broadband coverage and take-up in the last two years, however we are still behind competitor countries in terms of rolling out high speed next generation networks (NGN), according to a new broadband benchmarking report published by Forfás today.

Broadband connections now account for 90 percent of internet connections, compared to 58 percent in Q1 2007, which represents a significant transition from dial-up. Ireland has 21.4 broadband subscribers per 100 inhabitants compared to the OECD average of 22.4 (excluding mobile broadband and leading countries such as the Netherlands (38.1) and Denmark (37).

The download speeds available in Ireland are greatly improved on recent years, but remain below the fastest speeds available to customers in other OECD countries. In Ireland 0.6 percent of total broadband connections are fibre connections. This compares to 11.3 percent of subscribers on average in OECD-28 countries.

Further documentation about Ireland's Broadband Performance and policy actions are available at: http://www.forfas.ie/publications/2010/title,5376,en.php

The Forfás Annual Business Survey of Economic Impact provides aggregated estimates for agency assisted Irish-owned and Foreign-owned firms for variables such as sales, exports, expenditure on wages / salaries and related costs, purchases of raw materials and services.

It provides an overview of the evolution of manufacturing and internationally-traded services sectors in recent years. The ABSEI 2008 Appendix gives nine years of trend data for these variables from 2000-2008.

Publication Files

Annual Business Survey Of Economic Impact 2008 (web only) (PDF, 25 pages, 207KB)
Appendices - Annual Business Survey Of Economic Impact 2008 (web only) (PDF, 57 pages, 362KB)

• Publication: Annual Business Survey of Economic Impact 2007

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• Publication: Annual Business Survey of Economic Impact 2007

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This publication was made available on 20 January 2010

Percent of global online consumers who have paid OR would consider paying for various types of content online – Fall 2009
Content
Music	57%
Theatrical movies	57%
Games	51%
Professional produced video (including current television shows)	50%
Magazines	49%
Newspapers	42%
Internet-only news sources	36%
Radio (Music)	32%
Podcasts	28%
Social communities	28%
Radio (News/Talk)	26%
Consumer-generated video	24%
Blogs	20%
Source: The Nielsen Company.  n=27,548

This is an interesting survey by Nielsen - will consumers pay for your content online?

The survey was undertaken across 54 companies and with 27,548 consumers.

Interestingly many consumers will pay for content online though Nielsen reports that this differs by geography, demographics and the type of content.

We are more likely to pay for music, games and professionally produced video versus podcasts, blogs or consumer generated video - that's not really a surprise is it? Though I have personally paid for programmes delivered by podcast where it has been a training programme.

Almost 47% of respondents said that they would put up with ads to subsidise free content - though this again differs by region according to the survey:
- 57% of people in the Middle East, Africa and Pakistan would accept advertising
- 55% of people in Asia Pacific would accept advertising
- 40% of people in North America would accept advertising
- 39% of people in Europe would accept advertising.

I know I have paid for content to be free of ads - even on an application on the Blackberry as the ads were obtrusive.

Have you and would you pay for content online?

Are you tolerant of ads supporting you accessing free content?

The Marketers' Internet Ad Barometer, forecasts that online ad spend across Europe will grow even more rapidly in 2011 with budgets expected to grow by 15% year-on-year.

 

This forecast by the European Interactive Advertising Association - which counts AOL, BBC, MTV, eBay and Conde Nast as members - will raise hopes that marketers are beginning to regain confidence and increase their budgets across the board.

 

EIAA also found that while TV ad spend may be under pressure, websites such as ITV.com that offer programmes online are starting to catch on with marketers.

The Guardian goes on to report that in 2010 there is a predicted 7.6% year-on-year increase across Europe.

The research, conducted with senior marketing executives across nine European markets.

Some 33% of the advertisers reported that they are increasing spending on online video advertising and about 20% of respondents stated that their spend on mobile advertising was increasing.

I can not find the current research posted on the website of the European Interactive Advertising Association online at the time of writing this article. You can however find their previous research here.

What are your plans for 2010 - will you be increasing money spent or other resources with online advertising?

Is that with Facebook ads, Google pay per click, online video or banner advertising?

When do you Tweet? When driving, at work or on vacation?

A recent Gadgetology study by consumer electronics shopping site, Retrevo.com found that most people check Facebook and Twitter a couple of times a day.

27% of respondents to the survey who are under 35 years of age however are checking Facebook more than 10 times a day.

The survey also found that that 36% of people under the age of 35 often use Facebook or Twitter after sex - men being more likely to do this than women - and iPhone users are three times more likely to do so than Blackberry owners.

The Retrevo.com Gadgetology study indicates that only 19% of the over 35 year olds use a phone as the preferred device for social media services with 81% preferring instead a desktop or laptop computer. However 46% of the under 35 year old survey respondents prefer to use a mobile devise to engage with social media..

Among the survey respondents under age 35, 27% of Facebook users check it more than 10 times a day compared to 39% of Twitter users checking in on Twitter more than 10 times a day.

When do you Tweet? And how addicted to Facebook and Twitter are you?

ABOUT THE RESEARCH

The Retrevo Gadgetology Report is an ongoing study of people and electronics from Retrevo, the consumer electronics shopping site.

The survey was an online study of individuals (non-Retrevo customers) conducted by an independent panel. The sample size was 771 distributed across gender, age, income and location in the United States.

I cite the Edelman Trust Barometer research in just about every workshop or speech where I am talking about marketing or social media marketing. In my opinion this is recommended reading for every communications, marketing or PR professional.

I noted today that Piaras Kelly of the Edelman office in Ireland had just posted the Irish of the 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer to Slideshare, and while this data was released some 8 months ago it is still relevant reading today, despite the shifting economy and the fast moving world of online marketing and social media.

Of note in the Irish results is that of the 20 countries surveyed, in Ireland at the time of the research, companies were trusted less than when the survey was completed a year ago.The most trusted source of corporate information was employees - one good reason that we should invest in internal communications and employer branding and engagement as our people are ambassadors for our brand.

You can also see on slide 22 that overall trust for all communication sources in Ireland decreased in relation to the previous years research with stock or industry analysis reports being the most trusted and articles in newspapers being the least trusted.

The 2009 Edelman Trust Barometer survey sampled 4,475 opinion leaders in two age groups (25-34 and 35-64) in 20 countries. All opinion leaders met the following criteria:

* College educated
* Household income in the top quartile for their age in their country
* Read or watch business/news media at least several times a week
* Follow public policy issues in the news at least several times a week.

The study was a 30-minute telephone survey conducted using the fielding services of World One from November 5 - December 14 2008.

Access the full results of the Edelman Trust Barometer research for 2009 and many additional resources online at http://www.edelman.com/trust/2009

While this research may be disheartening to some, it offers great opportunity to companies and executives who see the value in building trust with their stakeholders both online and offline.

I do business with people I trust not 'brands' or 'organisations' who I feel 'spin' the media and their message. What do you think?

I am looking forward to reading the 2010 results which will be published in early in the New Year. In the meantime if you have not read, reviewed and considered the implications for your business and the opportunities it presents, why not spend 30 minutes today taking a look at the results of the Edelman Trust Barometer in your country and then considering what you can do in your business to increase how people feel about doing business with your organisation.