There have been little signs starting in Q4 of last year that the economy is taking baby steps towards recovery, and part of that is showing in consumer confidence.
Top “necessities” for consumers last year included: haircuts and color; a casual dinner out; cell phones, smartphones, tablets and e-readers; and that daily cup of morning coffee from your local barista.
Not surprisingly, internet service showed the largest number of consumers unwilling to cut that cost – but is internet service still in the “luxury” category? Has the paradigm shifted to include the internet as a true necessity? According to this recent study, no, but it would be surprising to hear otherwise from a large segment of the American population.
In addition to the luxurious statistics found recently, an interesting social media twist is still developing for small business owners. Twitter is still growing and in a study of more than 1,000 small businesses, 12.4 percent are using Twitter – a larger percentage than the overall percentage of American individuals on the site.
Here’s the good news for those 12.4 percent: over 20 percent of Twitter users make purchases as a direct result of interactions on the site, so it looks like it pays to send out those tweets after all.
Source: AOL, March 2011
