• All Analyst Weblogs
• North America
  • Bill Tancer
  • Heather Hopkins
  • Heather Dougherty
• United Kingdom
  • Robin Goad
• Asia Pacific
  • Alan Long
  • Sandra Hanchard
  • Hitwise To Go
• Insider
  • Client
  • Company
  • Industry
  • Product

Hitwise Intelligence - Heather Dougherty - North America

Analyst Weblog

« The Gap brings all of their brands together online | Shopping traffic up – but is it the tax rebates? »

School's out! Social networks on the rise

June 10, 2008

Today I am speaking at the Internet Retailer conference at a session called 'New Frontiers: Marketing and Merchandising on Social Media'. Since the discussion could never be complete without a look at the traffic on social networks, I checked to see how everyone's favorite category is doing (c'mon you love it or hate it). When traffic levels began to decline in January & February, many naysayers were the first to jump on the 'social networks are dying' bandwagon (or something like that). Good news for those who were not so quick to knock them - school is out for the summer & the traffic is on the rise.

The weekly market share of visits for a custom category of Social Networking websites reached 6.82% for the week ending June 6, 2008. This is still lower than the traffic peak in June of last year, but is the highest level since the Christmas holidays.

Since this is a retail conference & all, let's also see what the direct impact of social networks is on various product categories:

Overall, the share of upstream traffic coming from social networks to each of the product categories is small, but it does show that people are visiting retail websites afterwards. Its no surprise that online music & ticketing stores are the most frequently visited since entertainment is one of the most popular character traits & profile mentions on social networks. Apparel is also a great example as many people also view their personal style as an important component of their personalities - highlighting a great opportunity for the coming back to school selling season. It should also be noted that these categories tend to be more active with social networks in terms of applications and fan groups.

Is your category at the bottom? What can be done to change that???

Posted by Heather Dougherty at 09:58 AM | (1) | (1)

TrackBack

TrackBack URL:
http://weblogs.hitwise.com/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/832.

Links to weblogs that reference this entry:

• iPhone Market is Saturated: Affiliate Marketer, Target The Music Fans ((it)gossips)
  School is out for the summer, and this is a high chance for affiliate marketer to target music market. According to Hitwise Intelligence report, the weekly market share of visits for a custom category of Social Networking websites reached 6.82% for the... [Read More]

Comments