Last year, web analytics company compete.com ranked the top 25 social networking sites by monthly visits.  A year later, they re-ranked those same sites to see how the positions had changed.  Facebook.com took the number one position, pushing myspace.com into second place.  Third in the list was Twitter.com, which jumped up a remarkable 19 places in 12 months.  Another high climber, was the business networking site and one of my favourites, Linked In.

In January 2009, in the US alone, facebook.com had nearly 69 million unique visitors to the site.  Worldwide, it has over 175 million active users and the fastest growing demographic is the over 30’s.  For marketers, the growth of social networks simply can’t be ignored.

This week, the Beechwood team went to a Russian restaurant to celebrate Russia’s “Old New Year” (a tradition celebrating New Year according to the Julian calendar).

My colleague Alina used the Internet to search for Russian restaurants in London. Browsing through several social media sites, she read restaurant reviews, looked at photos of restaurants and browsed through menus online, before she chose our venue. The restaurant was in the basement of a London hotel. Off the beaten track, the hotel itself was tricky to find. The restaurant within was even harder to locate, infact, there were no signs to indicate its existence.

Yet, we found ourselve in this busy basement restaurant, where every table was in use. As one of the team commented, “you wouldn’t just stumble upon this place; you would have to know about it”. My point is that the Internet has turned marketing on its head. In their 2008 benchmark survey for technology marketers, Marketing Sherpa found that 93% of those involved in the purchase of technology begin the sales cycle with an online search. Furthermore, 80% of those technology purchasers said that they found the vendor, that’s just 20% who were found by the vendor.

With the explosion of social media in the B2B world, marketers need to identify the online directories, forums and blogs most visited by their target audiences. Contribute to social networks and make sure your business and its solutions are highly visible online…you might not find the buyers, but they will find you.

Surviving the economic downturn will be high on the list of priorities for most businesses in 2009. However, in addition to the challenges, Beechwood believe that there will be some opportunities too.

Many independent studies have shown that in previous recessions, those businesses that continued to invest in marketing and advertising during a downturn went on to outperform those that didn’t. Now is not the time for across the board cuts in the marketing budget, but the time to take a considered approach to allocating the marketing spend.

Looking back at historical success stories, you are unlikely to find the answers for beating this recession. The marketing landscape has changed dramatically; during the last recession did blogging, social marketing, email campaigns and viral marketing even feature on the marketing plan?

With the rapid evolution of marketing over the past decade, traditional media has declined and digital marketing has grown in importance and effectiveness. Across Europe and the US, online behaviour patterns have changed considerably and we spend more time online and less time exposed to traditional marketing channels like the television. Therefore, we have to reassess our channels of communication and select the most appropriate marketing tools.

Technological innovation has broken down traditional national market boundaries and the global marketplace is well and truly open for business. There are opportunities for business, the challenge is making sure you can keep pace with economic change and quickly deploy marketing solutions to convert them.

McKinsey & Company recommend in their report “The downturn’s new rules for marketers”, that marketers regularly reprioritise geographies and target customers to ensure they pursue those with the greatest profit potential.

Finally, I would like to wish all of our clients a prosperous 2009, happy new year!

I’m new to gaming and game culture but this struck a chord when I saw it yesterday. Here’s something I found on the BBC’s Click, and it’s purportedly an example of Web 2.0 gaming, with enhanced control for gamers including character and world building on a completely new level. The BBC’s Spencer Kelly takes a look at LittleBigPlanet, the latest online multi-player game for PlayStation 3 and creates his own level, with help from one of the game’s creators Kareem Ettouney.

View the BBC clip here and also if you have time; have a look at the Sony official website.

After a ground-breaking win in the US Presidential Election I went onto YouTube this morning and typed ‘Barack Obama’ into the search facility; 373,000 videos, 1,070 channels and 123,000 playlists; confirmation that to fully engage with your audience, social media is the new channel - traditional media is feeling the heat!