eMarketer: Key digital media trends for 2012

The Key Digital Trends for 2012 report, jointly released by eMarketer's three major analysts Noah Elkin, David Hallerman, and Debra Aho Williamson, provides analysis and forecasts for digital media in 2012, including social media, mobile media, online video, mobile commerce, and online advertising.

1. Consumers’ acceptance of new technologies is growing rapidly, and the demand for digital content is also increasing.

■ The number of smartphone users in the United States will grow from 38% in 2011 to 44% in 2012; the number of e-reader users will grow from 18% in 2011 to 24% in 2012; and the number of tablet users will grow from 15% in 2011 to 23% in 2012.

■ The number of people viewing online videos in the United States will grow from 68% in 2011 to 71% in 2012; the number of people viewing mobile videos will grow from 29% in 2011 to 32% in 2012; and online advertising spending will grow from US$2.2 billion in 2011 to US$3.1 billion in 2012.

2. Consumer behavior in emerging markets is changing at an unprecedented rate, especially in the BRIC countries.

3. The cloud market brings new opportunities to the music industry.

■ 2012 will be the year of cloud streaming. New technologies will be fully tested. Industry players need to step up their efforts to find new business opportunities in new technologies, new platforms, new devices, and new interactions.

■ According to a survey conducted in September 2011, the majority of consumers prefer to buy music online (53%), buy physical records (51%), listen to streaming music for free (49%), and download free digital music from the Internet (42%).

4. Consumers are becoming more and more familiar with LBS technology, but LBS services are not yet mainstream.

■ Most consumers use LBS services to obtain information about merchants’ offers (55%) rather than to display their own geographic location (12%). In the future, LBS will be more closely integrated with e-commerce, such as instant transactions, user loyalty, etc., and the proportion of advertising will also increase accordingly.

5. With the popularity of smartphones, the number of mobile users using coupons has also increased.

■ Although the number of users is not large now, the growth rate is quite fast.

■ Consumers are beginning to take an interest in mobile wallets, but they don’t yet fully understand them. The mobile payment market is expected to grow in size.

6. Four major trends in advertising and marketing

■ Magnetic content: Attract consumers across platforms through brand videos, interactive games, mobile applications, digital competitions, etc., thereby achieving promotion goals.

■ Video: Next year’s online video advertising spending will exceed $3 billion, a growth rate greater than any other type of online advertising. The main reason is that video advertising is effective and has a high reach.

■ A more effective online advertising purchasing solution: Regardless of whether advertisers contact the media directly or purchase online advertising through networks, ad exchanges, ad demand platforms, real-time bidding, etc., as NBC Senior Vice President Nick Johnson said, advertisers are attracted by our network. We do not sell online advertising space, but rather "popularity."

■ Privacy concerns: Internet users are very concerned about privacy issues, which is also a big challenge for Internet companies when placing advertisements. In particular, they are worried about whether their information is tracked and manipulated by Internet companies to place advertisements. Advertisers should transparently and openly show what they are doing and why they are doing it, and then provide useful content to attract consumers' viewing time, attention, and personal information.

7. Social Media Trends

■ Next year, social network users will account for more than two-thirds of American Internet users

■ Social network advertising continues to grow: Global social network advertising revenue is expected to exceed US$8 billion in 2012. Facebook alone is as high as US$5.8 billion.

■ Facebook's privacy issues will receive more attention; in order to maintain the growth of advertising revenue, Facebook will spend more time increasing advertising profits; and continue to improve its mobile platform to attract more overseas users, especially since Facebook is lagging behind in mobile advertising.

8. Effectiveness evaluation of social media

■ Marketing chiefs of various companies need a more practical method to evaluate the cost of social media. Marketers are most concerned about the likes (60%) pressed by fans on social media. Debra Aho Williamson believes that fans should be paid attention to first, and then performance benefits should be considered. She also proposed four steps for evaluation: measurement and evaluation, confirmation of goals, do not wait for a fatal blow, and have a broad vision and do not only focus on brand performance.

9. Google+ attracts more marketers’ attention

■ Google+ opened brand pages in November this year. Currently, 61% of the world's top 100 brands have set up Google+ brand fan pages. Although there is still some distance compared to Facebook's 93%, eMarketer analysts are still optimistic about the development potential of Google+ next year.

10. The 2012 London Olympics will bring new business opportunities to a variety of screen products (TVs, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, etc.). Coupled with the US presidential election, there will definitely be a big battle in the digital media in 2012.