Trends from Neilsen’s online usage survey, and what we need to do as hotel marketers

Nielsen’s July 2010 report on internet usage in the United States revealed some interesting trends:

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Okay, these numbers are not going to shock savvy digital marketers, but it’s nice to have research behind the trends we talk about. This report confirms the following:

Social networks are more important than ever

It doesn’t really impress me that Facebook reaches 500 million users. Without context, huge numbers have very little meaning.

But seeing average time spent on social networking jump 43% in one year does impress me. If this is where people spend their time, it’s where I want to hang out as well.

Social communication is the new email

Increasingly, people are using Facebook and Twitter to talk with each other. Your digital messaging should reflect this fact.

Email is not dead by any means, but we’re spending less time on it. Mobile email is actually on the rise, so think about how to format your messages to reach and serve this audience.

Gaming and virtual worlds increase in importance

I’ve been analyzing communication opportunities in Second Life and elsewhere, and you should be as well. What’s your gaming strategy?

Video is growing….slowly

There’s an incremental growth in time spent watching video, but it’s not exploding like some would indicate.

I would suggest that video usage is becoming more and more expected by web browsers, with pages containing video as one element becoming the norm.

Search engine use is not increasing, but…

If you listen to search marketing professionals who study search query trends, you’ll find people are becoming more sophisticated with searches. Steady usage in this category tells me:

1. Search engines are getting better at delivering the right information right away
2. We’re learning how to find what we’re looking for faster

70-90% of travel decisions still begin with a web search, so we need to make this a priority.