Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Successful retailers and Facebook: A disconnect?

Interesting report that half of the most successful online retailers have little or no Facebook presence (25 percent with none). As usual, it suggests those lacking should beef up their Facebook presence.

I'm not an advertising expert, but it seems to me that "the most successful online retailers" do have such people. Maybe they think adding to the glut on Facebook walls isn't effective -- or might even be counterproductive. I know that I really resent all the commercial entities pushing their products on my Twitter account, and maybe I represent a larger number of consumers than many of the social media "gurus" realize.

It's all in how you look at it (magazine circulation division)

Once again, we read of declining circulation of print products -- this time it's magazine newsstand sales that are off 10 percent over a year ago. Ad pages are off nearly 26 percent. Paid circulations are flat.

So is the sky falling? Let's turn it around a bit and state the news this way: Despite the worst economy since the Great Depression, unemployment more than 10 percent and much less content (26 percent cut in ad pages means a whopping hit in editorial content as well), AND lots of free content (including on the magazines' own websites), 90 percent of readers are still purchasing magazines on newsstands while paid circulation holds steady.

Sounds a lot better this way, aina?