Konwersja jest moim zdaniem najważniejszym parametrem opisującym serwis internetowy. Najpierw, dla pełnej jasności, krótka definicja:

Jest to działanie wykonane przez użytkownika za pośrednictwem serwisu internetowego. Może to być bezpośredni zakup produktów na witrynie internetowej, rezerwacja wycieczki, zapisanie się na newsletter, kontakt telefoniczny z infolinią, zapoznanie się z ofertą promocyjną, etc.

A odpowiedź na tytułowe pytanie jest prosta: testując i analizując. Takie wnioski wypływają z badania “Conversion report” przeprowadzonego przez Econsultancy w lecie 2009r.

Oczywiście najważniejszym parametrem dla badanych serwisów była sprzedaż. Tuż po niej rejestracja w serwisie oraz wypełnienie profilu [podanie danych o sobie] . Wiele z badanych firm – 39% – nie było zadowolonych z konwersji i pracowało nad poprawą. W efekcie 70% stwierdziło, że w ciągu ostatnich 12 miesięcy udało się im osiągnąć poprawę.

Jakie metody zostały uznane za najbardziej wartościowe:

Najbardziej efektywne metody poprawy konwersji

Metody, które zostały ocenione najwyżej to:

1. testy A/B,
2. analiza ścieżek użytkowników na serwisie,
3. testy wielu zmiennych,
4. badania z użytkownikami,
5. analiza porzuconych koszyków.

Badanie to potwierdza kilka ważnych zasad:

1. niezbędne jest ciągłe analizowanie statystyk serwisu;
2. nie wolno zapominać o swoich użytkownikach, ich user experience i użyteczności jaką oferuje serwis;
3. konieczne jest testowanie architektury informacji, projektów graficznych, by nie utknąć w pułapce projekcji własnych preferencji – serwis ma trafiać w gusta odbiorców, a nie autorów, czy właścicieli.
   

źródło: eMarketer

We do have rush hour in Florida but your view looks like this.

The annual migration of the snow birds has begun here in Florida. I am by no means an ornathologist. I am referring to the folks who come down here to enjoy our balmy breezes while the sludgy, gray, cold envelopes the rest of the country. I can’t speak for all Floridians but I love to see them. Come spend money; buy houses. Lots of them.

Anyway, I was on my way to work this morning, sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic. I think it surprises the snowbirds and tourists that people actually live in Florida year-round. Most of them believe that as soon as the north begins to defrost, we shut down the borders and close up for the season. This was evident by the surprised look on the man’s face as he sat in the driveway of his condo complex looking up and down the road at the rush-hour traffic. I could almost hear his thoughts, “When did all this happen? How am I going to get in there?” His face was painted with an equal combination of eagerness and fear. The only way he was going to be able to accomplish his goal of joining the masses was to either squeeze himself in with no regard to the frightening things that could happen or he’d have to rely on the kindness of a stranger.

Social media may feel that way to some of you. You’re sitting on the sidelines watching others in this teeming, frantic virtual community. (To give you some perspective, the web has undergone a 40,000-fold increase, to 200 million plus, in the number of websites since 1994’s approximated 5000. Now that’s traffic!) You want to be a part but frankly, entering the fray kind of scares you. 

You’ve heard the arguments about how you can’t afford NOT to but let’s explore the why behind it.

3 reasons to get involved in social media now:

eMarketer

2. Becoming part of the routine — our members’ schedules fill up fast. So do their Internet habits. People surf the same old sites on a weekly or daily basis. They check email, they visit a favorite social networking site. The longer you wait to develop your online community, the less time and interest your members will have. Becoming part of their daily Internet routine is what you want. Most people go where they are comfortable and can get worthwhile content. If you’re not providing it, you’re not meeting their expectations and they’ll find it elsewhere (See chart on consumer web attitudes. Customers’ views on what they expect from corporations may not be that far removed from what they expect from your organization. Can you afford to wait around and see?). Once consumers or members have a routine established, there’s even greater competition for their limited time.  Getting them interested in adding something may mean prooving that you are more valuable to them then their other sites. Are you up for the challenge? Don’t get me wrong — the occasional drop-by users are nice but wouldn’t you rather have core people who check your site religiously? They’re out there so make sure you are too. 

 3. The technology is ripe — most people shy away from buying technology until the price comes down and the “bugs” are worked out. Social media and its peripherals are now well over a decade old (if you count email as social media, it’s older than that). The processes may still be malleable but the technology is there and very intuitive. Offering your members a private online community isn’t cutting edge anymore, it’s just smart business. Choosing an option that includes membership management software means you are doing something for them and something for you. If you wait any longer for the technology to ripen, you might just find that your competition has had the pick of the harvest.

My dear snowbird did finally make it out into the teeming activity of the morning commute. He just needed someone to take the time and make some room. If you want someone who can help you establish a private online community and membership management software, we’d be glad to let you in.

Razorfish / eMarketer

From awareness to consideration, purchase and recommendation

The power of online brand interaction is not to be denied: A solid majority of connected consumers have had their opinion of a brand swayed, either positively or negatively, by an online experience.

More than 97% said that experience influenced whether they purchased a product or service from that brand.

Razorfish’s “2009 FEED” survey polled US broadband users who had visited a community site, consumed or created digital media, and spent at least USD 150 online in the past six months.

These connected consumers were also connected to brands. About one-quarter had produced content to participate in a contest held by a brand, and close to the same amount had followed a brand on Twitter. Two-fifths had friended a brand on Facebook or MySpace.

Brand followship and friendship

The main reason to follow or friend a brand was to get exclusive deals or offers, followed by general fandom—because the user was a current customer, or because of interesting or entertaining content.

An impressive 64% of connected consumers told Razorfish they had made their first purchase from a brand because of a digital experience—be it a Website, microsite, mobile coupon or e-mail.

And friending, following and content creation spurred upticks across the marketing funnel—from raising awareness to consideration, purchase and recommendations to friends.


“Digital experiences not only build a brand, they can also make or break it. For those brand marketers still neglecting (or underestimating) digital, it’s as if they’ve shown up to a cocktail party in sweatpants,” according to the report. “Invariably, consumers will choose to converse with a savvier—and hopefully more stylish—partner.”

Razorfish FEED Digital Brand Experience Report 2009
Download (2.8 Mb .pdf)

Los portales de noticias están comenzando a parecerse más a la televisión que a un periódico, asegura un artículo de The New York Times, en el que se afirma que medios on line como CNN.com, ESPN.com y WSJ.com (The Wall Street Journal) están dando cada vez más importancia a los vídeos en sus páginas de inicio por razones comerciales.

Pero el vídeo es el segmento que más crece en el mercado publicitario online estadounidense, con unos ingresos de 477 millones de dólares en al primera mitad de 2009, un 38% más que el año anterior en el mismo periodo, según el IAB. Con unos ingresos estimados en 5.000 millones de dólares, las búsquedas continúan liderando el mercado.

Al tiempo que otros formatos publicitarios están decayendo, los anuncios en formato de vídeo están viviendo un boom.

Los sitios informativos están añadiendo a su inventario los vídeos para avanzar al mismo tiempo que las demandas de los anunciantes y beneficiándose de su más alto coste por mil (CPM). Además
este boom ha venido acompañado de nuevos usuarios que se han acostumbrado a ver vídeos on line, gracias a eventos como las elecciones presidenciales o la muerte de Michael Jackson.

“Con la cada vez mayor penetración de la banda ancha, más y más sitios tienen capacidad y los usuarios esperan que tengan vídeos”, ha asegurado en este diario Charles W. Tillinghast, presidente de MSNBC.com, una joint venture entre la NBC y Microsoft.

Además del crecimiento de la inversión en vídeos, crece la aceptación del pre-roll. “Realmente funciona muy bien ahora mismo”, ha afirmado Brian Quinn, vicepresidente de la red The Journal. “Un pre-roll de 14 segundos seguido de dos o cinco minutos de contenido de alta calidad es un intercambio de valor justo”, asegura.

Según The New York Times, los analistas esperan que la inversión en vídeos siga creciendo. Emarketer pronostica que haya un crecimiento entre el 35 y el 45% en los próximos cinco años, hasta llegar a los 5.200 millones de dólares en 2012.

“Más y más anunciantes están entrando en espacio del vídeo on line“, confirma Jermy Steinberg, vicepresidente de ventas digitales de Fox News Channel.

Los sitios de noticias acaparan una pequeña porción de los 25.000 millones de descargas de vídeos que ComScore determina que existen de media al mes.

Recently, the agency I work for built a microsite for a client’s campaign.

The client, not the friendliest even in good times, was full of questions about how ‘effective’ the microsite (and the entire campaign) is. To add to the mess, it was an ‘engagement’ campaign, designed to generate thought about the brand, and an awareness of the impact the brand has had on it’s customers. No loud calls-to-action, no sales push.

If you ask me, it’s a great campaign. I can not tell you more about the details because I’m bound by confidentiality. But the buzz, whatever little, is very positive. It’s a B2B service and not the sort of thing that website or microsite visitors will sign up for immediately. It’s not Amazon or eBay.

Naturally, being the Data Monkey here, I was dragged into heated discussions on the campaign and it’s impact. The client wasn’t in a position to share ANY internal data with us. Nor is there any brand health tracking.

While the battle is ongoing, and I’m continuously coming up with different metrics to ‘prove that the campaign works’, which is the most annoying task, I found this eMarketer post on Deep Brand Engagement very useful. It essentially gives benchmarks from a study about how people who interacted with a brand online either buy it, or recommend it.

Fortunately, my client bought the stats (I don’t, completely, without seeing the data and the methodology). I’m posting because someone else might find it useful, too.

Sorry for the ‘Rant’ish nature of the post, it’s been a hard week so far.

“But from BlackBerry to the iPhone, the next level of engagement and connecting to your customers won’t come from a fancy website; it’s going to happen in the palm of our hands.”

-Mitch Joel, Six Pixels of Separation

The quote above is from a great book I recently finished titled Six Pixels of Separation. In his book, author Mitch Joel discusses the future of mobile advertising or “mobile marketing” as he refers to it and how its importance will only continue to grow over the next several years.

But why is mobile marketing going to play such a critical role in a brand’s business?

In a recent Adweek article, eMarketer published a study that predicted Mobile Content Demand Set to Soar. Their findings estimate that 68.6 million users will log onto the mobile Web at least once per month in 2009. By 2013, that number will increase to 126.2 million people.

Why such a large increase in mobile Internet usage?

First, networking and interacting online through social media channels is one of the fastest-growing activities among mobile users and is a large reason why Internet usage on mobile devices has increased so rapidly. Second, the introduction of the iPhone platform and the rising popularity of mobile apps has also contributed significantly to the higher number of mobile Internet users. Brands such as Nationwide, Dunkin’ Donuts and most recently Volkswagen, have already recognized the need for a mobile strategy and have created iPhone apps that promote their brand, engage users and address the needs of their customers.

The rising number of people accessing the Web from their mobile devices and the increasing popularity of mobile apps means several things:

1. Opportunity to Connect
There is a huge opportunity for brands to connect and share with customers like never before. We’ve started to see this already with social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and blogs but mobile channels and apps will take things to the next level.

2. Potential for Growth
There is huge growth potential in mobile channels for brands that are looking to increase brand awareness and overall sales. So pretty much every brand that wants to make a profit.

3. Mobile Strategy Necessary for Conversation
Brands looking to connect with customers and have personal conversations through online channels will have no choice but to create and implement some sort of mobile communications strategy. Not having a mobile strategy will make it difficult to stay in the overall conversation.

With new Internet ready mobile devices coming out every month and new apps being introduced it seems every week, there’s no better time than now to start thinking about and preparing your brands mobile strategy. Brands that wait too long or don’t recognize the importance of a mobile strategy will struggle to keep costumers and risk becoming lost in other brands mobile shadows. Don’t let that happen to your brand. Start thinking about your mobile future today.

So what’s your plan for a mobile strategy? Come across any interesting mobile campaign strategies lately?

After reading an eMarketer article, “Americans Want Brands That Inform, But Don’t Get Too Friendly” I realized how important it is for businesses to utilize their marketing strategy to provide their audience with news. If your brand can be a reliable source of information, you will succeed in winning your clients’ trust and loyalty.

So what makes news? As a journalism degree holder, I can tell you that news incorporates seven different qualifiers: timeliness, impact, proximity, controversy, prominence, currency and oddity. You can read more about each qualifier here, an article from the Handbook of Independent Journalism.

You may be saying to yourself, my business doesn’t have enough content to enlighten consumers on a regular basis*. But never fear! I decided to offer a free, all-encompassing brainstorming session of content ideas applicable to a wide range of industries:

How can a brand inform its consumers?

1. (Timeliness) What’s going on in the news in relation to your industry? Relate that back to what your company is doing! How are your employees reacting? How will your company be impacted? How can your consumers affect change? Do your employees have a fun tradition that they enjoy the same time each year – Monday Night Football happy hour, Halloween costume contest or a New Year’s potluck? You get the idea!

2. (Impact) Think about your customers. How is their life affected by your industry? How does your day-to-day business affect them or their neighborhood? Does your company have a green policy that keeps energy costs low, allowing you to pass the savings on to your customers? Does your company have a volunteer program? Explain how your employees are a part of change.

3. (Proximity) What’s going on in your community that involves your industry? Is your company participating in a local event? Will you be sponsoring a fundraiser? Do you support a local/national charity? Are any of your employees volunteers? You could share their account of giving back to the community!

4. (Controversy) Have you or your competitors faced a conflict? What is your reaction? Could that happen to you? What does your company do to prevent situations like that? How are you assuring your customers that your company is strong in the face of the controversy?

5. (Prominence) Has your business seen a celebrity lately? Has a local official or well-known community member endorsed your business? Sure, we don’t all live in Hollywood, where star-sightings are more frequent, but maybe a well-known executive buys coffee and a newspaper each morning from your shop. You can highlight this (with his or her permission of course) and even ask for them to write a blog article for you!

6. (Currency) What is important to your customers? What are they talking about? Are they concerned about the current state of the economy? Listen to what they are saying and you will find a topic that is affecting your business!

7. (Oddity) What makes your brand worth knowing? Everyone loves a good “believe-it-or-not” story. What has your company done lately that is unique or different from your competitors? What service that you offer amazes your customers? Incorporate that in your brand whenever possible!

Finally, as you plan your newsletters, blogs, email blasts and marketing collateral with informative material, do not forget to include photos and videos to make your message stickier! With consistently educational and revealing content, your brand will earn the trust and loyalty of consumers. They will look to you to stay current on the industry. What more could you ask for?

*If after reading this article, you still think your company/brand cannot inform consumers, I challenge you to comment. We, at Serendipit Consulting, will respond will additional brainstorming ideas. There is no industry for which we cannot develop content!

According to an eMarketer article new research has shown that more young people are using Twitter. Pew Internet and American Life Project results show 33% of online adults aged 18-29 use a status updating service such as Twitter.

The 30 – 49 age group, who had previously been considered the core group for Twitter were at 22%.  This coincides with a previous survey from Sysomos that showed 66% if users who disclosed their ages on Twitter were under 25.

Perhaps this is because Twitter and Facebook etc have become part of pop culture with regular mentions on hit TV shows in the US and Australia such as Ellen and Rove as well as being used increasingly by young celebrities such as Miley Cyrus and Taylor Swift.

Personally I have also found there to be an increasing number of younger people using Facebook. My sisters at 18 and 20 are now heavy users of Facebook, as are their friends, where as before they would only use MySpace. Again this probably has something to do with the increased profile amongst celebrities their age and on TV shows aimed at them. But it also shows an increase in the statistics too.

Check Facebook shows that the highest age demographics using Facebook is 18 – 34. Previously the fastest growing demographic was 35+.

Have seen a shift with MySpace and Facebook as well. Before MySpace was the place to be if you were young now it seems that Facebook is taking over. My sisters at 18 and 20 and all there friends have now embraced Facebook and are regular users. Which is prved in tthenumbers. CheckFacebook.com shows that in Australia that the highest users are the ages between 18 and 34.

eMarketer has published predictions for the online advertising industry over the next five years from two sources with conflicting points of view.

Piper Jaffrey predicts a compound annual growth rate of 9% for local online ad dollars compared to 4% for national internet advertising spending.

Local Online Spending

Borrell Associates on the other hand predicts a much smaller 2.9% compound annual growth rate over the next five years for the local internet advertising market.

From eMarketer:

While Borrell believes the local online market is approaching saturation, Piper Jaffray indicates in its report that small businesses will begin to catch up with consumers online, bringing significant growth to the local online sector and moving local dollars from offline to the Web.

Piper Jaffray considers lead generation the primary goal of local advertising, and suggests that mobile presents a major opportunity on that front. With online search the preferred method to find local business info, and consumers highly connected to their mobile phones, especially during the weekends, the research firm predicts huge growth in mobile search spending through 2012.

US Mobile Paid Search Spending

“Local lead gen companies will play a key role in bringing small businesses into mobile advertising,” according to the report. “Small businesses need to understand that mobile can be as valuable a channel as online and lead gen players be the educators.”

While each analyst has well thought out and reasoned positions, I think both of their predictions will be proven wrong!

La idea del presente post me surgió a partir de escuchar un programa de radio en el cual estaban regalando boletos para concierto en la ciudad de México a cambio de responder una pregunta formulada por la conductora sobre la banda en cuestión. Como estaba atorado en el tráfico (raro) puse más atención de lo normal al concurso. Pasaron un par de concursantes sin acertar, cuando el tercero al ser apurado por la conductora comentó:

“…no lo estoy encontrando en internet.”

En ese momento, perdió su turno para darle lugar a un siguiente concursante al cual le perdí la pista ya que me quedé analizando la respuesta. Ahora todo era claro. Hace 15 años, solo los verdaderos fans ganaban los concursos para firma de autógrafos, acceso a primera fila, sesión de fotos, etc. Eran los que compraban todas las revistas en donde salían sus ídolos y compraban todos los viniles/cassettes/cds aprendiendose religiosamente las letras y el órden de las canciones. Se juntaban de manera presencial con otros fans de corazón a intercambiar experiencias, apreciaciones, audio/video/imágenes, etc. Era un hecho prácticamente que los que ganaban esos concursos en su mayoría eran los fans de corazón (obvio hay excepciones como hijos de ex presidentes como algunos recordarán).

Hoy en día, cualquier fan de ocasión con algún dispositivo con acceso a internet (computadora, smartphone, etc.) puede acceder a páginas no oficiales del artista, foros de discusión o wiki de la banda y extraer en cuestión de minutos o tal vez segundos (si eres hábil para buscar) la pregunta más exigida y compleja del artista para ganar el respectivo concurso. Si son ávidos de conciertos como lo soy yo, se podrán dar cuenta. Una reciente prueba de ello, es el disgusto de uno de mis ídolos gracias a los indiferentes y apáticos “fans” que se encontraban en la zona V.I.P. de un festival por haber ganado un concurso.

Ahora, ¿Ésto cómo lo conecto con el entorno empresarial de las PyMEs?

Sencillo, la convergencia y democratización tecnológica ha transformado la forma de hacer negocios hoy en día. Cómo nos informamos, cómo comunicamos, cómo entregamos nuestro producto/servicio, cómo cobramos por nuestro producto/servicio, como nos gestionamos interna/externamente, etc.

Hace algunos años, obtener información de mercado solo podía considerase como trabajo para un tercero con alto grado de especialización (agencias de investigación) y con un muy elevado costo (quedando fuera de las posibilidades de una pyme). Hoy en día gracias a los medios tecnológicos tenemos acceso a una cantidad exhorbitante de información tanto local como internacional. La tendencia de liberación de los contenidos nos permite tener acceso libre a material premium de universidades como Stanford y el MIT por poner un ejemplo. Bases de  información empresas de Tecnologías de la Información como lo es CrunchBase o empresas en general como lo es Capital IQ. Buscadores de conocimiento como Wolfram|Alpha, directorios escpecializados como el dedicado a fundaciones Foundation Center, estudios sobre mercadotecnia en línea como eMarketer o contenido almacenado en formato de presentación en Slideshare. Hoy en día el poder pasa de las organizaciones a los individuos que son los que crean, reaccionan, catalogan, se unen u observan en el mundo en línea.

Como empresarios de una PyME debemos de considerar TODOS los potenciales insumos de información que tenemos en el mundo en línea para comparar nuestra empresa con empresas de la misma industria tanto locales como internacionales, realcionarnos con empresarios en comunidades que posiblemente compartan experiencias y situaciones similares con los que se pueda intercambiar ideas y recibir retroalimentación de alguien externo a nuestra compañia, obtener información de mercados potenciales para dimensionar la oportunidad de negocio y tomar decisiones. El enfoque de debe de tomar nuestra empresa debe ser dirigido única y exclusivamente por el mercado, no por nuestros productos actuales, no por las cuotas de venta sino por el mercado.

“El mercado es su Director General” 1.

Pierdan el miedo a buscar en línea. El acervo de información es incalculable. Estoy seguro que encontrarán información relevante para su negocio. En caso de que necesiten información más especializada y acotada a sus necesidades, existen herramientas para levantamiento de información como cuestionarios en línea libres de costo o aplicaciones accesibles como Eloqua o Vertical Response que cuentan con una intefaz amigable y de uso sencillo tanto para nosotros como empresa como para nuestros clientes actuales/potenciales permitiéndonos obtener información de manera práctica y conveniente que nos ayude a direccionar nuestro negocio y sincronizarnos con el mercado.

En la economía del conocimiento dónde el reto no solo radica en la captación de la información sino en el procesamiento y análisis de la misma, debemos de tomar una postura de generar “inteligencia de negocio” sobre la información que fluye de las interacciones con nuestra cadena de valor (proveedores, distribuidores, clientes, instancias de gobierno, instancias educativas, centros de investigación, etc.) y capitalizarla con las herramientas tecnológicas que tenemos a nuestro alcance con el fin de dar soporte a la toma de decisiones de negocio y direccionamiento de mercado.

1 Cita de Joel Cano – Socio y Fundador de Axeleratum & Visionaria.

Si tienen duda con alguno de mis posts no duden en contactarme por cualquiera de los siguientes medios.

http://twitter.com/jcdbilbao

http://www.linkedin.com/in/jcdbilbao

http://jcdbilbao.myplaxo.com

http://delicious.com/jcdbilbao

jcdbilbao@gmail.com

 Un estudio realizado en septiembre del 2009 por parte de la agencia Retrevo encontro que los usuarios de redes sociales menores a 35 añosde edad acostumbran a revisar sus cuentas en Twitter ( 39%) y Facebook (27 %) al menos 10 veces en el dia. El 27% de los usuarios de Twitter postean  diariamente y el 46% revisa los updates todos los dias.

el 60% de los usuarios de redes sociales utilizan una laptop o pc para accesar a los servicios, los bloggers utilizan herramientass moviles para accesar a Twitter y Facebook y lo hacen desde el baño, el carro, teatro y tambien es servicios religiosos.

Los usuarios de Twitter tienden mas a compartir sus post en esta comunidad desde cualquier ubicación como escuelas, hoteles, librerias. transporte público y restaurants.

I’m not ready to call Twitter overhyped. But 1.84% of Social Media marketshare? That means this blog has only 1.80% less marketshare than Twitter! I smell smoke, I see mirrors!

Twitter only 1.84% of market

Eine neue US-Studie von The Diffusion Group (durchgeführt im Auftrag von Digitalsmiths) beschäftigt sich mit der Zahlungsbereitschaft für Online-Video bzw. für Video “überall”, also auch mobil. Dabei geht es um TV in Sinne von Live-Programm wie auch um On-Demnad-Abrufe.

Es wurden Nutzer von Online-Video gefragt, ob sie bereit wären, für die genannten Angebote auch eine Gebühr zu bezahlen. Der Trend geht bei On-Demand und TV in die gleiche Richtung: eher nicht. Nur 5 bzw. 7 Prozent würden für solche Angebote auf jeden Fall bezahlen. Dagegen sagen über 50 Prozent, dass sie wahrscheinlich/definitiv nicht für “TV everywhere” bezahlen würden. Bei On-Demand-Video ist die Ablehnung etwas geringer. Dennoch sagt auch hier die Mehrheit Nein zu Gebühren.

Das Ergebnis überrascht nicht wirklich. Die Bereitschaft, für Content zu bezahlen, ist im Internet insgesamt gering ausgeprägt.

Quelle: eMarketer

Social media as a whole continues to surpass growth estimates. eMarketer reported earlier this month that Twitter has over 18 million adults who access on at least a monthly basis. That’s a 200% increase over last year.

Universal McCann’s “Power to the people-social media tracker” also sees social networking continuing to increase. eMarketer estimates that 44.2% of all Internet users in the U.S. are social network users. Worldwide, 62.5% of active users ages 16-54 have a social networking profile in 2009. Worldwide, 62.5% of active Internet users ages 16-54 have a social network profile.

  

Users are looking to social networking sites that can consolidate multiple social media into one place. As noted above, despite consolidation, social media is not a one-stop shop. Universal McCann advises marketers to give consumers options when engaging them through social media. Allowing individuals to share and discuss on their platform of choice remains important.