stats

Another good plugin: Google Analyticator

Here’s another good plugin that I’ve come across, installed and already have found it to be a very useful addition: Google Analyticator. It’s an incredibly useful plugin for WordPress, especially if you’re trialling different themes, building multiple blogs or managing multiple sites. It does all the hard work or you of adding the necessary code so that Google Analytics can start tracking your site. It also ncludes a handy dashboard feature for displaying visitor and site stats right there on your blog’s dashboard. Of particular interest to me is the ability of hiding Administrator visits from the stats to give a truer representation of visitor numbers – and there are a host of other features that build on this invaluable Google tool.

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Social media statistics

There are all sorts of facts and figures flying around concerning social media and, on the surface of it, the numbers are quite significant:

Facebook

  • Over 18m active Facebook users in the UK
  • 50% of users return to the site on a daily basis 
  • The average user visits twice a day 
  • The average visit length is 25 minutes

YouTube 

  • It is now the UK’s 2nd biggest search engine 
  • An outstanding 15m unique visits clocked up every month
  • Every minute, 15 hours of YouTube video is uploaded

Twitter 

  • Estimated 6 million users 
  • Subscriber base is 63% male
  • Largest age demographic is 35-44 year olds 
  • 14% are considered as ‘stable career’ types
  • A quarter of users are high earners

LinkedIn 

  • Over 2.5 million users in the UK 
  • This is growing at an estimated 80,000 per month 
  • 60 million users worldwide
  • Spans 200 countries 
  • Average user age 41

It has also been reported that spend on social media marketing will reach $3.1 billion by 2014.

Clearly it’s an important (new) media channel, but developing a suitable strategy to engage with these users requires a different mindset altogether from the traditional marketing approaches that have been used over the years.

The question is, how should a strategy be developed that integrates with current activities, aligns with business objectives and delivers tangible or quantifiable returns on investment? That’s the key – and that’s what I plan on addressing in subsequent posts.