A nifty infographic compiled with data from Econsultancy’s recent Social Media and Online PR Report:

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FACT: One in five Irish Enterprises fail according to the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association. In many instances they fail due to a lack of understanding of their customers and market place.

Post-recession shoppers are a completely different breed when compared to what has gone before. They’ve been profoundly impacted by a feeling of deprivation the recession caused and the way in which they’ve coped with it. Now they are more demanding than ever and their expectations are increasingly high. We all know shoppers are fickle and the days of being completely loyal to one brand or company are gone. Shoppers have been conditioned to search out the best price and value during these recessionary times yet they can be swayed at the point of purchase to make very different decisions. Other factors like emotions also come into play, hence the contradiction in terms, when you hear that more than one in two customers claim to be cutting down on treats but sales of premium products such as ice cream and chocolates are on the rise. How can that be?

Business consultancy Deloitte released an interesting research report just this week in New York where they talked about a ‘paradigm shift’ in consumer purchasing habits in the US. It found that a whopping 84% of households were examining their spending in every category to try and save money while 79% believed they were ‘smarter’ shoppers than they were two years ago. But it also found that 75% believed that the financial crisis had caused them to realise ‘which brands I really care about and which ones are less important to me’ and that there were only two or three brands which they ‘could not live without’.

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London based Econsultancy recently published research which looks at the extent to which companies are gearing up internally to deal with the paradigm shift brought about by social media and the ever increasing power of the customer. The research was based on a survey of more than 1000 companies and agencies. It shows how social media is more than just a marketing tactic -and that  it has far reaching implications on internal organisational structures, processes and communication as they support customer service.

Headline findings from the Online Customer Engagement Report show: Read the rest of this entry »