| How will the growth of Facebook impact online retailers? |
This time last year Facebook membership was reserved exclusively for students, and it was the 138th most visited website in the UK. Then in September it opened itself up so that anyone could join, and its membership started to grow exponentially.
Facebook, which attracts an older and more affluent audience than the other big social networks, is now the 10th most visited website in the UK. In fact, 3 of the top 10 most visited websites in the UK in July were social networks, with Bebo at number 6 and MySpace at number 8.
Advertisers are well aware of the risks when working with websites that contain so much user-generated content. Recently, Vodafone, Virgin Media, The AA and other brands were reminded of these risks when they withdrew from Facebook after their adverts appeared alongside a British National Party profile.
Facebook is about keeping in touch with friends and meeting new people by creating and joining groups based around common interests. The largest of these are currently university or location-based (the 'London' network, for example, has 890,000 members), but many new and interesting networks spring up every day. Vodafone et al were concerned about being associated with the wrong type of group, and Facebook has responded by allowing advertisers to opt out of certain groups.
Unlike MySpace, companies cannot have their own page on Facebook, but communities can be, and often are, created around brands. A good example is 'Addicted to River Island', a Facebook group with over 600 members dedicated to the apparel retailer. This represents a group of loyal customers sharing their thoughts on new products and sale bargains, but what is the impact on the brand?
One good way to understand this is to measure the amount of traffic that Facebook sends to the River Island website. As a benchmark, Facebook ranks 20th in terms of delivering traffic to retail websites for the week ending 18 August. 4% of people leaving Facebook go to a retailer, and this number has doubled during 2007. In contrast, Facebook is the 10th most popular website visited before the River Island website for the week ending 18 August , and the amount of traffic it sends has increased 5-fold during 2007.
Facebook is also catching up with the more established Bebo and MySpace, not just in terms of visitors but also in traffic sent to retailers. Retailers in the Auctions, Department Stores, Books, Apparel & Accessories, and Music industries in particular should be on the look out for advertising opportunities and ways to take advantage of groups such as 'Addicted to River Island'.
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| Hitwise To Go |
Hitwise To Go shows that UK Internet visits to the Mattel website skyrocketed after news of the mass product recall was released, with visits increasing 32 times compared to the same day last week. 40% of traffic from the Mattel website went to the NASDAQ owned website Shareholder.com with investors checking the impact of the recall on share prices. The top website sending traffic to Mattel was BBC News. Now You Know.
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| Industry search term report for Shopping & Classifieds – Apparel & Accessories |
The following report lists the most popular terms typed into a search engine over the 4 weeks ending 18/08/2007 that resulted in traffic to websites classified by Hitwise within the 'Shopping and Classifieds - Apparel and Accessories' industry. For example, the most popular search term was 'next' representing 3.59% of all search terms that delivered users to websites classified by Hitwise in the 'Shopping and Classifieds - Apparel and Accessories' industry.
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| 1. |
next |
3.59% |
| 2. |
topshop |
1.45% |
| 3. |
asos |
1.12% |
| 4. |
mothercare |
1.07% |
| 5. |
river island |
0.87% |
| 6. |
dorothy perkins |
0.85% |
| 7. |
ann summers |
0.85% |
| 8. |
monsoon |
0.79% |
| 9. |
matalan |
0.62% |
| 10. |
boden |
0.60% |
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| Next.co.uk - www.next.co.uk |
Position for week ending 14th July: 14 (within Shopping & Classifieds)
Position for week ending 21st July: 7
Positions jumped: 7
The day, "the Next summer" sale began on Saturday 21st July, Next.co.uk climbed to rank 3rd among retail websites, behind eBay UK and Amazon UK and ahead of retail giants Tesco and Argos. Traffic to the Next.co.uk website doubled, with Next.co.uk ranking at #7 for the week ending 21st July up from #14 the week before.
Online enthusiasm for Next's summer sale has been building over the past two years. Share of UK Internet searches for "next sale" were up 40% year-on-year and have nearly doubled (up 93%) over the past two years.
The Next sale appears to have been promoted via email, with 11% of the website's visits coming from Email Services for the week ending 21st July. Shoppers are invited to sign up for advance VIP access to sales on the Next website and Hitwise data reveals an 8% gain in the share of visits from Email Services year-on-year.
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| Liverpool most supported Premier League club on the Internet |
Liverpool Football Club was the most popular Premier League football club on the Internet ahead of the start to the season on Saturday 11th August. Among a custom category of the top 20 Premier League clubs official websites, Liverpool (www.liverpoolfc.tv) received 17% of all UK Internet visits for the week ending 4th August.
The Manchester United website was the second most popular with 15% of visits, while Arsenal was third with 11%. However, the official Chelsea website received just 4% of visits, making it only the 11th most popular Premier League club online, behind smaller clubs such as Everton, Sunderland, and Aston Villa. Liverpool has held its position as the most popular Premier League club on the Internet for two years. During this time it has only once slipped behind Manchester United - for a week in April this year as the current Premiership champions closed in on their first title since 2003.
The two most popular clubs on the Internet in the UK receive the majority of their support from outside of their home towns, with 73% of Manchester United fans and 72% of Liverpool fans based outside of the North West. Manchester City fans are twice as likely to live in the North West as Manchester United fans. However, due to the size of its overall fan base, there are still 33% more Manchester United fans in the North West than Manchester City Fans. There are also 82% more Liverpool fans than Everton fans in the North West.
Football fans in the North East are the most loyal to their local clubs, with Sunderland, Middlesbrough and Newcastle ranking first, second and fourth in terms of localised support. Of the Premiership clubs based in the Midlands, Aston Villa is the most popular overall, but Derby County has the most localised support. Of the London clubs, Fulham has the highest proportion of fans living in London, while West Ham has the least.
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| News and Media |
The News and Media category includes websites of magazines and newspapers, and news relating to the computer and IT industry. The category includes e-zines of a general nature, covering a variety of subject areas.
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| 81.7% |
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of traffic to this category was directed at domestic sites.
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| 1. |
Computers and Internet |
45.95% |
| 2. |
Search Engines |
28.46% |
| 3. |
News and Media |
23.72% |
| 4. |
Entertainment |
17.26% |
| 5. |
Sports |
6.62% |
| 6. |
Print |
5.95% |
| 7. |
Net Communities and Chat |
4.70% |
| 8. |
Business and Finance |
4.38% |
| 9. |
Shopping and Classifieds |
4.14% |
| 10. |
Television |
4.04% |
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| 1. |
News and Media |
28.35% |
| 2. |
Computers and Internet |
23.70% |
| 3. |
Entertainment |
18.44% |
| 4. |
Sports |
11.60% |
| 5. |
Search Engines |
10.25% |
| 6. |
Print |
8.72% |
| 7. |
Business and Finance |
7.85% |
| 8. |
Television |
7.77% |
| 9. |
Weather |
6.66% |
| 10. |
Shopping and Classifieds |
5.81% |
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