More marketers are issuing surveys to examine consumer behavior trends. With a shift toward retail marketing online, study results and findings emerge almost daily. Among online stores, there has been a greater shift toward Search Engine Optimization or SEO and this has also been growing as a marketer’s tool at “selling” marketing to prospective clients.

Nearly all consumers (97 percent) now use online media when researching products or services in their local area, according to BIA/Kelsey’s User View Wave VII, an ongoing consumer tracking study conducted with research partner ConStat. Among consumers surveyed, 90 percent use search engines, 48 percent use Internet Yellow Pages, 24 percent use vertical sites, and 42 percent use comparison-shopping sites.

According to the study, on average, consumers are using 7.9 different media sources when shopping for products or services in their local area, up from 6.5 sources in 2009 and 5.8 in 2008, revealing a noteworthy increase in audience fragmentation. Additional findings include:
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The problem with trying to determine Return Of Investment (ROI) for social media is you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable. Surveys are somewhat subjective especially when you discount who would answer the survey over those who didn’t. Nonetheless, every major business has set up accounts on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites frequented on the Internet.

According to a recent study done by based in Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Foresee Results, fans of the social networking site Facebook now look forward to seeing news about retail sales and promotions on their Facebook pages.

Everyone is talking about social media, and there are lots of opinions about how to do it right. The researchers thought it was important to check in with customers to get their thoughts. How do they interact with retailers via social media? How would they prefer to interact? What value are they seeking from their interactions with retailers via social media?
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Monster Beats by Dr. Dre were a big hit last year. We previously blogged about it here. They are superb headphones that deliver unrivaled performance at their price level. Now, these fantastic headphones are available in white.

So…would you like to win a pair of these amazing headphones? Well, if you follow us on Twitter, you could!
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In celebration of J&R offering Same Day Delivery in NYC (and metro area), J&R Bike Messengers are hitting Manhattan! If you spot one of these bikers in Manhattan (as pictured above), take a pic and @jrblog it to us on Twitter. Or, if you don’t have a Twitter account, you can upload the pic to our Facebook Fan Page (see our Fan Page). Please also tell us where you spotted the messenger, as well. The first 10 people per day to do so will win a $50 J&R gift card! If you don’t have a Twitter account, sign up for one here www.twitter.com and then follow J&R here twitter.com/jrblog. If you don’t have a Facebook account, you can sign up for one here.

To give you a few hints, the bikers will be in the following areas on these days:

Tuesday: Times Square / Upper West Side
Wednesday: Upper East Side
Tuesday, December 8th: Wall Street, Union Square, East Village, Chelsea
Saturday, December 12th Union Square area

How simple is that?
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This Contest Is Over. Thanks To All That Entered. Winner Will Be Announced Soon!
Ok Tweeple, it’s time for another contest!

This time, we have a 32″ Coby LCD HDTV Monitor with Slot-Loading DVD Player aching for a new home.

So how do you enter?

Just log into your Twitter account and answer this question:

Which TV Character Would You Want to Be Stranded With On a Desert Island?

Would it be Homer Simpson? Jack Bauer? Put on your thinking cap and get creative!
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The morning of July 4th, this twitter conversation began:

smo84: @JRblog Stopping down to pickup 100mm f/2.8 Macro Lens today- i hear its the one to get! wondering how it is for all around photos…

JRblog: @smo84 I hope you got the 100mm f/2.8 Macro Lens yesterday. It should be crazy versatile. You can do almost any shot with it. Let us know.

smo84: @JRblog I sure did…amazing lens- photos from the fireworks I took turned out unreal- show andre in photo dept!
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CONTEST IS NOW OVER. THANKS TO ALL THAT ENTERED. WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON!
Hey Tweeple! Tweet Your Way to $100.

We recently launched a new ad campaign here at J&R. You might have seen our new commercials on TV, floating around on the web, or plastered around the city. (Check em out below, if you haven’t yet.) Well, we’re looking for some new slogans to add to our site and we want you to help! There’s a swanky $100 J&R giftcard for the person that submits the slogan that we choose as the winner.

So what do you need to do? It’s simple. Just come up with a witty slogan about J&R ending with “….since 1971″ and Tweet it! Make it a reply to us with @JRblog and include the Hashtag, #JRSloganContest. That’s it!

Check out a few examples of slogans we are currently using after the jump.

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