US based social media ad network, Technorati Media, recently released their 2013 Digital Influence Report, which replaces their previous State of the Blogoshere report to now include the realm of social media.

Their data has been gathered from over 6,000 influencers, 5,000 consumers and 150 brand marketers, and the key theme from the report is that the majority of online marketing spend isn’t being used on blogs and influencers where it would have most impact, but on display, search and video advertising, and then the other social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Below is a quick overview of the report, broken down into the key findings for brands, consumers and influencers.

Brands

The report finds that more than 90% of surveyed brands have a Facebook presence, closely followed by Twitter and YouTube, with Google Plus being least popular.  When it comes to digital spend brands are spending the majority of their budget on display advertising, followed by search and video. Social spend, which includes influencer outreach, is allocated 10% of the overall budget, and of this 10% Facebook is allocated the majority share of 57%, with Twitter and YouTube getting an equal 13% each. Blogs and influencers are allocated a mere 11% between them. Brands indicate that they measure their social media campaign success mainly by page likes, gaining fans or landing page visits, and use comScore/Nielsen as social media analytics tools.  

Consumers

Looking to consumer behavior the report finds that the online services most frequently used by consumers are YouTube at 80%, followed by Facebook at 74%, with blogs coming in 5th at 45%.  When we look at the online services which consumers trust the most, News Sites tops the polls, but interestingly blogs come in 5th again with 29%.  Perhaps one of the most interesting finds within the survey is the data on online services that are most likely to influence the consumers purchase decision. Retail sites tops the list here, followed by branding sites, and blogs and Facebook at 31 % as the top sources that influence consumer buying behavior.  

Influencers

The survey then takes an in depth look at the top influencers in digital marketing, finding that they are most active on blogs, with 86% having a blog, 88% blogging for themselves and mainly publishing their content via text. Similar to the findings of where brands are social, Facebook and Twitter are the most popular platforms for bloggers, and remain in the top two spots for bloggers to generate referrals, revenue and shares. When it comes to measuring campaign success however bloggers rank website page/blog views highest (52%), with social following and user interactions on Facebook and Twitter also ranking fairly high. This highlights a disparity in the way brands and influencers measure earned media success, with influencers placing more value on generating traffic than obtaining likes or fans.  With digital marketing spend predicted to increase in 2013 this report provides some interesting insights into the opportunity for brands to become more active where consumers are being influenced, and highlights the current disconnect between brands and influencers, due to an information gap and metric platforms which underrepresent the weight of digital influencers and bloggers. This report certainly offers food for thought for marketers planning their next digital strategy.

To view the full report click here. What are your thoughts on these findings? Let us know in the comments below.