A new post from eMarketer, Americans Want Brands that Inform, highlights the results of a recent Lightspeed Research study, The Global Web Index.

Some great nuggets in this data.  None of this info is Earth-shattering, but it should come as great encouragement for marketers that are pushing for consumer engagement through social media, quality content development and authentic consumer relationship building.

A few salient take-aways:

1. People want brands to enrich them with knowledge, not just provide a product or service.
2. People want (and expect) brands to be present in places other than the place of purchase.
3. Social media engagement fosters trust. When it comes to making purchasing decisions we trust bloggers we read regularly and contacts within our social networks more than we trust mainstream media sources.

For your additional reference, I've embedded a presentation from Anita Caras, Head of Research EMEA from Microsoft, that uses the GWI data.

Future Web, Global Web Index 23rd September 2009. The New Role For Brands

... as if there was any question. 

Oh, you mean the question in the title of my last post, Does Social Media Impede Sales?  That was rhetorical, and the answer, in case you missed the tongue planted firmly in cheek, is, only if you're not participating.

eMarketer released some market research from PQ Media, entitled Word-of-Mouth Posts Big Gains, reporting a 26.6% increase in US word of mouth marketing expenditure in 2008, in an economy that showed media sales dropping by 3.6% for the same year.  Seems like the C-Level are finally seeing the value and return from investing in the conversation.

These numbers aren't that shocking, nor is it surprising to see that the CPG and Food and Beverage categories lead the spending.  Look for the Health Care and Pharma segment to significantly increase their social media budgets in the two years to come as social media usage become seven more mainstream and regulations ease in the face of a new communications landscape.

TNS and The Conference Board just released the “Consumer Internet Barometer”, in which they try to answeer the question that I am so often asked, "Why do you tweet?".

According to their data, the primary reason Internet users use Twitter is to keep in touch with friends.

There was one other interesting nugget in the numbers. The second most popular reason for using Twitter among male users was to find news and keep updated, while females indicated that updating their status was the second most popular reason to use Twitter.

Check out the eMarketer article, Why People Use Twitter.