â–¶ Midsize Business Up: A survey of midsize, independent PR agencies by Worldcom Group finds that new business opportunities at the end of 2009 increased, and the agencies are cautiously optimistic for a positive year. Findings include:
• 63% of respondents report an increase in volume and intensity of new business during the last quarter of 2009.
• Agencies report that they are seeing the most new business activities from the technology, professional services and healthcare sectors.
• 66% of respondents say that the proposed budget size for these opportunities were about the same, while 22% report lower than usual budgets.
• 41% say the primary reason given for the end-of-year agency search is the need to get back in the marketplace after reduced PR activities in 2009; 37% say they have something new to announce in 2010.
Source: Worldcom Group
▶ Fast-Growing Firms Are Social Climbers: America’s fastest-growing private companies are adopting social media marketing initiatives at high rates, according to a study conducted by the Center for Marketing Research at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Polling members of Inc. Magazine’s 500 fastest-growing companies for a third straight year, the study found that 45% of the companies are blogging compared to 19% in 2007. Other 2009 findings include:
• 91% of companies report that they use at least one social media tool, compared with 77% of companies surveyed in 2008.
• Of six types of social media tools, including blogging, podcasting, online video, social networking, message boards, and wikis, 75% of companies say they’re most familiar with social networking.
• Twitter is the most widely deployed social networking tool, with 52% of the respondents using it.
• 68% of respondents say they are monitoring mentions of their company name or brands on social media sites, compared to 50% in 2007.
Source: Center for Marketing Research, University of Massachusetts Dartmouth
▶ Corporate Citizenship: The world’s best corporate citizens differ in their social responsibility emphasis depending on the location of their headquarters, says new study fielded by the Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication at Penn State University.
Seventy-five percent of Japanese firms, for example, give to arts, sports or music programs, while only one-third of U.S. companies support those initiatives. Other findings show:
• 62% of Japanese companies and 61% of U.S. companies support education programs, yet fewer than 7% of European firms do.
• More than 60% percent of Japanese companies have programs to help conserve natural resources, while only 13% of companies in the U.K., Australia and Canada have enacted those programs.
• While natural resource program support is low among companies in the U.K., Australia and Canada, these countries do support their own local communities; 95% of them were directly involved in funding various community programs.
• Corporations from Japan are the least supportive of community programs.
Source: Arthur W. Page Center for Integrity in Public Communication
â–¶ Smartphone M-Commerce Play: According to the Compete quarterly Smartphone Intelligence survey, mobile commerce is ready to explode in 2010, Study findings include:
• 37% of smartphone owners have purchased something non-mobile with their handset in the past six months.
• 19% of smartphone owners have purchased music from their device, 14% have purchased books, DVDs or video games and 12% have purchased movie tickets.
• 40% of Google Android owners and 51% of BlackBerry owners would spend $500 or more to buy a product from their mobile phone, compared to 9% of Apple iPhone owners. PRN
Source: Compete