Behavioral Insider this month reports on where surfers are spending their time. “The disconnect is that consumers spend only about 15% of their time actually searching, and the other 85% of the time surfing or in email,” says Brett Brewer from AdKnowledge.

Last week, Eat Media VP Ian Alexander documented his surfing habits and found out he trusts who he knows and wants to know what they know.

7:30am

The Social Network
-Read email from Facebook, click to Facebook.
-2 friend requests–approve the friends.
-There are no ads on Facebook (which I like).

The General Content
-Surf direct to CNN.
-Browse the content. Get my daily world news fix.
-An advertisement for Lifelock catches my eye.
-Surf to Lifelock.

Relevant Content/Relevant Advertising
-Lifelock is an interesting site promising to secure my identity against hackers and identity thieves. I’m not in the market for it, but I’ll remember it.

The Content Connection
-Surf back to CNN and click on a story about bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed last August. (My partner attended a client conference nearby just few days before the bridge collapsed.

The Coterie
-Read email from Junta42.
-The interesting headlines on Joe’s newsletter always get me to bite.
-Click on Junta blog link–great content as always.
-Joe’s blog gets me thinking of other folks in the industry I like to check in on.

-I surf directly to Webinknow.
-Webinknow, David Meerman Scott’s blog, is edgy and knowledgeable. A great resource.

-Surf directly to Web-strategist, Jeremiah Owyang’s blog. The web-strategist is slanted more towards social networking and sharing information. I always learn something here.

-Surf directly to Church of the Customer.
-Ben McConell and Jackie Huba’s blog is updated frequently and full of great industry insight.

The Customer (Dis)Service
-Read email from hosting provider (about a complaint I lodged).
-Surf to hosting provider to look for another contact address (they only have a form).
-Surf Google and start searching for a new hosting provider.
-Write down a few hosting providers to research later.
-Read email from a Local Professional Group I am a member of. The newsletter is poorly designed, has pixilated images, and no unsubscribe. Very unprofessional.
-Send them an email to point out these problems.

The Content Connection
-Read email from LinkedIn.
-Click on advertisement for Booksurge.com (they want my email before they tell me what they do; I click away from the site). A second check today shows a new homepage. Booksurge is owned by Amazon who also owns Alexa.
-Surf directly to Alexa. I want to know how many sites an average individual looks at per day. They don’t have the information on their site. I email them.

The Content Connection
-Read email from Biz Report.
-Surf to the site. Content is very report-centric, new apps, studies, etc.
-I follow a link to a free whitepaper on Social Marketing, they want my name, address and answers to a few questions before I get to see the whitepaper. In a few seconds I am reading the whitepaper. It is a tad pedestrian but well designed. This proves why I don’t normally like squeeze marketing ploys—the payoff is rarely worth my email address.

The Social Network
-Read email blast from a friend’s little brother’s band.
-Surf to their MySpace page.
-Surf to Google, search for “We the Kings.”
-Select YouTube link, which features over 30 videos of the band (the most viewed video had over 700,000 hits). If you think the kids are on to something, you are correct. If you think this social networking is a fad, chew on this. The lead songwriter of We The Kings just got a big check and procured the majority of his fans online. Thanks to YouTube, MySpace and exposure on other social networking sites, you can now hear their songs on the television show One Tree Hill. Talent + web presence and content marketing = success.

8:03am

Morning Surfing Summary
-Email is a launch pad for my web surfing.
-I go back to sites with content that interests or informs me.
-I am apt to follow links off sites that have content which interests or informs me.
-Bad customer service (via email) leads to lack of confidence.
-Your customers aren’t randomly searching for you.
-Getting your customers to trust you and your content is key.
-Social Network sites generate buzz, create business and make 24-year-olds rich.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 28th, 2008 at 12:06 pm and is filed under News, Uncategorized, content marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.