Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Twitter, which has struggled to grow its user base to the size of some of its social networking rivals, is reporting earnings this week not long after news that companies including Disney would not be moving to acquire the service.

This year, eMarketer estimates, more than 52 million people in the US will use Twitter on a monthly basis, and just shy of half will use the service on both PCs and mobile devices. Mobile-only Twitter use is becoming more common in the US as desktop- based usage shrinks, and will account for a majority of US users in 2018 for the first time.

Currently, just 19.5% of internet users and 16.1% of the population of the US uses Twitter, compared with 51.5% of the population using Facebook. On a worldwide basis, Twitter penetration is even lower: Only 3.9% of people around the world use Twitter this year, and by 2020 the figure is only expected to rise to 4.8%....

Each year we publish a series of core research reports that highlights the state of content marketing:

• B2B marketers in North America
  
• B2C marketers in North America
• Nonprofit marketers in North America
  
• For-profit marketers in Australia
• For-profit marketers in the United Kingdom

While you can read the individual findings at the links above, it’s useful to look at the trends and differences across each of these markets....

Forrester scored companies according to various factors, including the appeal of their website content and use of video. The companies had the potential to score a perfect 30, or obtain a passing score of 20 or above. Only four companies successfully passed Forrester’s test; the average score was 12.8. Forrester did not reveal the names of the four companies that passed its test.

“The biggest problem is that the majority of content talks about the company, what its products and services do and how many awards they’ve won, but doesn’t speak to the issues their prospective buyers are trying to solve,” said Laura Ramos, Forrester analyst, according to Ad Age.

Telling stories, writing in narrative and shooting video were identified as key ways that companies can help their messages stand out among the rest....