I came across a great series of slides by Tom Smith, the founder & director of Trendstream, based on research from the Global Web Index. The results are based on research of 32,000 consumers in 16 countries around the globe. The results are particularly interesting in terms of focusing what the primary motivators and satisfiers are for consumers related to their web activity.
What follows is an excerpt of some of the slides that most vividly paint a portrait of the online consumer.
First: the three most important drivers of going online are to learn things, to find things and to connect.
To find and learn, we all turn to search.
Increasingly, we look to information from our peers to find the information we want.
How we define our peers is broadening. Our network of digital connections is larger than our network of in-person connections.
We “know” people differently online: we will communicate and trust the digital content of our digital connections, but we’re only willing to pick up the phone to talk with a small percentage of the group.
Brands that want to influence our perception and our actions will be more successful if they penetrate our social graph and offer us information on a web site that keeps us engaged.
And if a brand wants to engage with us online, they need to think in terms of new information, new ideas and new utility. That’s the key to making a connection with the post-digital web consumer.
The entire slide show can be accessed here.
