The Digital Future as Told by 2011 Digital Trends

February 14, 2012

If the digital future is shaped by the digital past of 2011, then a new report from comScore paints an interesting picture of what’s on the horizon. In the 2012 U.S. Digital Future in Focus report, comScore outlines the trends in online search, online video, online advertising, social media, e-commerce and mobile, and predicts how those trends will affect digital media in 2012.

Consumer Behavior Shifts to Social Media for Communications

Telephones and email are so 2010. The world now turns to social media, particularly Facebook, for communication. In 2011, Facebook accounted for the largest share of online minutes across the entire Internet — 16.6% share.

Google Starts to See Its Stronghold Slip

Thanks to Microsoft’s social search partnership with Facebook, the company’s search engine, Bing, successfully surpassed Yahoo! as the #2 search engine in 2011 and has become a real potential threat for the all-powerful Google. Of course, Google is still far in the lead in the search market, but consumers are realizing there are other viable options.

The World of Video Will Never Look the Same

As more people purchase smartphones and tablet devices, they are consuming more video content on those mobile devices. In 2011, on an average day, over 100 million people in the United States watched online video content via mobile devices. That’s a 43% increase over the prior year. You can bet that number will grow significantly again in 2012. There is simply no going back now.

Digital Access Has Far-Reaching Effects

As more people get digital access, particularly through smartphones and tablet devices, content consumption habits, shopping behaviors, and advertising budgets are changing. Companies need to adapt quickly.

In 2011, 4.8 trillion display ad impressions were delivered to Americans. Companies expect to invest even more heavily in digital advertising in 2012 as well as in social media and content marketing initiatives. This shift in advertising budgets is in direct response to consumer content consumption habits — both online and via mobile devices. At the end of 2011, 8% of digital activity occurred via mobile devices rather than through traditional web channels.

The number of people turning to the web and mobile web for shopping is also growing faster than brick-and-mortar shopping. E-commerce growth rates increased by double-digits in 2011 despite the faltering economy.

What do you think? Are you investing enough and doing the right things to market your brand successfully in the digital future?

Image: stock.xchng

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Susan Gunelius

President & CEO at KeySplash Creative, Inc.

Susan Gunelius is the author of multiple marketing, social media, branding, copywriting, and blogging books, and she is President & CEO of KeySplash Creative, Inc., a marketing communications company. She also owns Women on Business, a leading blog for business women. She is a featured columnist for Entrepreneur.com, a featured writer for Forbes.com, and the Guide to Blogging for About.com. Additionally, her marketing-related articles have appeared on websites such as MSNBC.com, FoxBusiness.com, WashingtonPost.com, TheStreet.com, SmartMoney.com, TodayShow.com, BusinessWeek.com, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Small Business, and more. She has nearly 20 years of experience in the marketing field having spent the first decade of her career directing marketing programs for some of the largest companies in the world, including divisions of AT&T and HSBC. Susan also appears at in-person and virtual events where she speaks about marketing, branding, social media, and more (visit www.SusanGunelius.com for more information). You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.