New Oneupweb Social Media Eye Tracking Study: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - Search is Going Social

A new eye tracking study conducted on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube by digital
marketing leader Oneupweb reveals some surprising trends, including the way
users interact with paid ads in social media.
TRAVERSE CITY, Mich.--(Business Wire)--
Social media is all the rage. But can marketers take advantage of this growing
online trend, and garner actual business for the company? According to a new eye
tracking study conducted by Oneupweb, the answer is yes.

"We wanted to know if people actually look at ads when they are on social sites
like Facebook and YouTube. Or in the case of Twitter, where will they likely
look for those ads when they do begin to appear," explains Oneupweb CEO and
Founder Lisa Wehr. "We found that not only do users spend time viewing paid ads
on social networking sites, they often look at these ads before actual search
results."

And that`s not all. Oneupweb`s social media eye tracking study revealed some
other surprising statistics about searches conducted on social media sites,
including:

* A whopping 65% of participants engaged with sponsored ads within the first 10
seconds of their search.
* Scan paths do not follow the order of the search result positions. Often,
sponsored ads were looked at before the third or fourth result.
* There is not a significant difference in fixation duration across the first
four results or sponsored ads on both Facebook and YouTube.
* 50% of participants were satisfied with their brand search on Twitter. Many
liked that they could find the most current opinions about a product.

So what does it all mean?

"Since search engines became the main way that people conduct searches for
businesses, products and information, we`ve been under an assumption that people
search a certain way. On search engines, a viewer`s eye starts at the top left
hand side of the page, moving downward and slightly to the right," explains
Wehr. "Therefore, they are likely to click on just the first few search results
that appear at the top of the page. But this just isn`t the case on social
networking sites."

She goes on to explain that people enter social networking sites with different
expectations, and search results are socially generated.

"Search is changing," says Wehr. "As more people engage with social media, the
way they are interacting with brands is being affected and their behavior
changes. This eye tracking study proves this."

To download a copy of the study, entitled Seeing Search Go Social: An Eye
Tracking Study on Social Networking Sites, please visit http://bit.ly/zrvlX.

About Oneupweb

Oneupweb has been an innovator in digital marketing for more than a decade,
creating integrated online marketing plans that incorporate natural search
engine optimization (SEO), paid search marketing (PPC), conversion improvement
and analytics, podcast production, social media marketing, online media planning
and placement and search marketing consultation for in-house marketing teams.
Heralded by an independent research firm for their leadership team, Midwestern
work ethic and solid experience in optimizing complicated sites, Oneupweb has
been named a Top 20 Search Marketing Agency by Advertising Age for three
consecutive years, and CEO Lisa Wehr is recognized as an Ernst & Young
Entrepreneur of the Year. The company publishes an award-winning blog entitled
StraightUpSearch. Oneupweb is a privately held company located in Traverse City,
Michigan. For more information on Oneupweb, please call 231.922.9977, visit
OneUpWeb.com or follow them on Twitter @Oneupweb and @LisaWehr.

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Oneupweb
Maureen Michaels, 231-922-9977
pr@oneupweb.com

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