December 16, 2021 — We saw this wake-up call from IHL and agree with it. Audience growth factor seems to be the priority for the bad news “the sky is falling” bunch. How many twitter followers you get is a higher priority than how many actionable facts you provide your readers. Nowadays you have to apply an automatic fudge factor to reported news factoring the default exaggeration level they will inject.
Periodically we wonder if we spend enough time on Twitter and Facebook audience. We do due diligence and the automatic posts so that we cover the bases so to speak. Looking at traffic sources though for websites we don’t see a rationale or ROI for focusing on those channels. They might be good for a brand like Pepsi or Coke or Nike, but we are technology niche.
Numbers for 2021 quick check and percent of audience
- Facebook — 0.46%
- Twitter — 0.65%
- LinkedIn — 3.81%
- Search engines — 95.1%
Which audience would you focus on? The news outlets tell us we need to focus on Facebook and Twitter for example.
Bigger numbers, bigger numbers — we must have bigger numbers….
Retail Kiosk Research Numbers
From IHL Services — The headlines were ominous…just see below. Retail Sales Slowing. Hogwash. I don’t know why this raises my blood pressure so much, but it is lies, damn lies and government statistics I guess. What’s the truth?
Headlines from Google News
US Retail has added more sales in 2021 than the entire retail economy for India…read that again. The growth…in 2021 through 11 months…the growth – only the growth…is $831b USD….for 2020, the entire retail economy for nearly 1.4b people was $814b USD for the year! The growth for November alone?…$91.1b USD…. That’s the total revenue for 2020 for Lowe’s…and just short of Target’s 2020 revenues just north of $93b.
Total retail growth year to year is 18.2%…that’s a $5.5 trillion market growing at 18.2% for the year. And for the month…20.3%. Even taking out C-stores and Gas Stations… the growth was 16.5%. The growth last month?…16.1%…so the growth is accelerating, not slowing. The detail is below so you can see for yourself.
Add to this that Gift Cards are up 414% for the holiday season and consumers generally spend 25% more than their gift card value when redeemed thus extending the holiday season.
I get it…bad news sells better than good news. But at some point reality has to come into play. And that’s all I got to say about that!
More information
As part of Industry Group, the kiosk association can offer discount on latest IHL Report. If interested in ISVs then this report is recommended.