Summary – Digital Influence
The article states that blogs are more influential than social media platforms. Despite the fact, brands invest most of their time and resources on said social media sites. Blogs rank higher as being more influential than social media as per survey conducted by TechnoratiMedia. Despite this, seven social networking sites still appeared in the results. This proves that regardless of the claim that blogs are more influential, social networking sites still have a large influence among consumers. Consumers engage with brands over social media for a variety of reasons. To clarify, the top three reasons are to keep up with activities, to learn about a product or service and to look into sweepstakes and promotions. This understanding comes from another survey that attempted to determine why consumers follow brands.
Smaller communities tend to have a larger influence when sharing information in comparison to larger communities. This is often due to a more trusted word-of-mouth in a smaller community.
After investigating a marketing budget, it was found that only 10% of it is spent on social media marketing. 41% is spent on display advertising.
Out of all the digital influencers surveyed, 86% publish a blog. 88% publish a blog on their own accord. 59% publish a blog for the purpose of content distribution. Among social media platforms, the strongest influence appears over Facebook and Twitter. These are the main platforms for generating shares, revenue and referrals. To measure the success of a blog, influencers typically look at the number of page views that their blog receives. On social media platforms, likes, comments and followers are equally important.
Thoughts
The article expresses how blogs are more influential than social media and according to survey results, this is true. However, according to survey results, blogs are more influential than Facebook by a mere 0.3%. Also, if the percentages of all social media platforms were added, the number will exceed the the 31.1% blog influence. This article makes an excellent point that blogs should not be neglected and given more thought in the marketing community. Even so, social media platforms are still very important, especially when combined. Since consumers often use more than one type of social media, and since blogs are slightly more influential than one social media platform, to achieve the best results, it is in a marketer’s best interest to invest an almost equal amount of time and effort into both mediums. By doing so, there will be an increase in consumer loyalty and possibly sales.
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