Google search trends are not only for content marketers but valuable insights into consumer interest and potentially, business trends. The Google global search trend data on crowdfunding is pretty amazing. For one, it shows an impressive growth curve starting at the lowest end of the scale in January 2011 ranking 4 to November 2014 reaching the highest possible trend threshold of 100. But also impressive in these global trend indicators are the countries and regions with the lion’s share of the market. It is not the United States or the United Kingdom that lead in search trends but rather Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Germany, Portugal and Switzerland.
See chart here.
This is not to say these countries and regions are the most active, most advanced or actually conducting the largest amount of crowdfunding but it certainly points to interest. In a recent post I wrote about Brazil as being perfect for crowdfunding, some comments questioned my logic so possibly I did not make my point accurately: the current economic climate and the current crowdfunding activity are not by far long term indicators. In Brazil’s case, it is much more about the macroeconomic state of small-and-medium size enterprises (SMEs) that will flock to an alternative capital market because they have no choice. Based on the Google search trends statistics it may very well be that crowdfunding in European economies will flourish based on interest
But certainly there is proof that trend is truly global. On June 17 – 18 Moscow will host CrowdMap ’15, The Second International Forum of Crowd Technologies with an impressive lineup of speakers and partners from Russian and Europe. A simple Google search for global crowdfunding conferences returns a large list of events focused on everything from Real Estate to Fintech to bets practices and over crowdfunding.
But going back to Google search trends and looking at the United States the information is interesting as well. In November of 2010 U.S. Google searches for crowdfunding where at the lowest point ranked at 3 and in July 2014 reached the highest ranking at 100. Considering that the absolute number of searches in the U.S. is so high, this means that in real terms the actual number of people searching the subject grew substantially. This actually is in line with the estimated growth in campaign numbers and dollars raised. The states leading the Google searches where Utah, New York, California, District of Columbia, Colorado, Nevada and Massachusetts in this order. I wonder why Utah?
And again, all of us hope and wait for the SEC Regulation D Title III and other legislation that will open the doors to what is estimated to be the largest growth segment, equity crowdfunding which has the potential to change the way SMEs access capital in the US and have a profound effect on the employment engine of our economy.