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5 Key Digital Trends That Matter to Your Business

March 6th, 2013 ::

By Rieva Lesonsky

How will smartphones, tablets, social media and other digital trends affect the way you interact with your customers, market your business to consumers and sell your products and services in the coming year? comScore’s new 2013 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report took a closer look at what trends will influence business in 2013 and beyond. Here’s what the study found:

  1. Social media matures: Social networking in the U.S. is still dominated by Facebook; consumers spent 5 out of every 6 minutes spent online on social media. In addition to Facebook, which is maturing by focusing on new ways to monetize, smaller social media players making waves in 2013 will include LinkedIn, Yelp, Zynga, Groupon, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and Instagram (which is now part of Facebook).
  2. Search flattens out: Although Google is still the strong leader in search engines, Bing gained some ground in 2012. That was also the year when more and more searches began taking place on mobile platforms, signaling a possible flattening of the desktop search market.
  3. Online video matures: comScore says the U.S. online video market is beginning to mature in terms of consumption, but still has a ways to go in terms of monetization. There is more demand for online video advertising space than there is inventory available, so comScore believes this advertising channel will continue to grow, and will become better at precisely targeting viewers.
  4. Smartphone and tablets gain traction: In 2012, smartphones finally surpassed 50 percent market penetration, and Android phones surpassed 50 percent of the smartphone market. Tablet use also surged; as of December 2012, some 52.4 million Americans owned tablets.
  5. Ecommerce and mcommerce grow: Despite continued economic uncertainty, retail ecommerce grew in 2012, outpacing the growth of brick-and-mortar retail by fourfold. Overall, U.S. retail and travel-related ecommerce rose 13 percent from 2011 to 2012, reaching $289 billion. In addition, mcommerce is starting to emerge, with comScore estimating that mcommerce transactions (both on smartphones and tablets) accounted for approximately 11 percent of ecommerce sales.

Is your business taking advantage of trends in social media, mobile device use, online video viewing and online commerce? If not, 2013 is the year to make your move. You can learn more about all of these trends by downloading a free copy of the 2013 U.S. Digital Future in Focusreport.

Image by Flickr user Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com (Creative Commons)

The views expressed here are the author's alone and not those of Network Solutions or its partners.

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Posted in Innovation, Marketing, Small Business, small business, Technology, Thought Leadership, Web Design | 4 Comments »

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 6th, 2013 at 6:00 am and is filed under Innovation, Marketing, Small Business, small business, Technology, Thought Leadership, Web Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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  • http://about.me/Lindeskog lyceum1776

    Rieva: I think that we will do search in several different ways in the future. In the past it was AltaVista, then Google search engine, maybe Google+ / Twitter + specialized searches like WolframAlpha, integrity based with DuckDuckGo, etc in the future.

  • http://about.me/Lindeskog lyceum1776

    Rieva: I think that we will do search in several different ways in the future. In the past it was AltaVista, then Google search engine, maybe Google+ / Twitter + specialized searches like WolframAlpha, integrity based with DuckDuckGo, etc in the future.

  • Juliana Marcello

    Another interesting segment to study is the Engineer turned Entrepreneur. Often times, engineers have wonderful creativity and product execution, but lack the basic skills to promote, sell or even explain their value proposition. Digital marketing, however, seems to be changing that dynamic in general for people without natural marketing skills, but in particular, for the engineering community who embrace the techniques. I know a group of engineers who set out to revolutionize the standard conference bridge service by creating a service that addresses the annoying, but minor pains of bridge services. Their product, a branded conference call service called Branded Bridge Line (http://www.brandedbridgeline.com), was created with an outstanding feature set, but wasn’t getting traction until the team took to digital means for marketing their product. It was perfect for them to be able to sit at a computer and figure out scientifically the best means for reaching their audience without having to get up and shave in the morning. I point this out because of the dramatic difference it made to their business compared to ventures I’ve known in the past that died on the runway. A great case study in how to educate the Engineer Entrepreneur.

  • Juliana Marcello

    Another interesting segment to study is the Engineer turned Entrepreneur. Often times, engineers have wonderful creativity and product execution, but lack the basic skills to promote, sell or even explain their value proposition. Digital marketing, however, seems to be changing that dynamic in general for people without natural marketing skills, but in particular, for the engineering community who embrace the techniques. I know a group of engineers who set out to revolutionize the standard conference bridge service by creating a service that addresses the annoying, but minor pains of bridge services. Their product, a branded conference call service called Branded Bridge Line (http://www.brandedbridgeline.com), was created with an outstanding feature set, but wasn’t getting traction until the team took to digital means for marketing their product. It was perfect for them to be able to sit at a computer and figure out scientifically the best means for reaching their audience without having to get up and shave in the morning. I point this out because of the dramatic difference it made to their business compared to ventures I’ve known in the past that died on the runway. A great case study in how to educate the Engineer Entrepreneur.