A follow-up to Deloitte's "State of the Media Democracy," published last spring, shows that consumers are moving their media consumption online at a growing rate. This phenomenon has strong implications for companies' PR strategies, as focus on media placements should reflect the target audience's preferred channels.

According to the study, approximately 38 percent of consumers are watching TV shows online, 36 percent use their cell phones as entertainment devices and 45 percent are creating online content such as Web sites, music, videos and blogs for others, according to the update. In the previous survey, only 24 percent used their cell phones for entertainment - a 50 percent jump in only eight months.

Other findings revealed that:

• Fifty four percent of consumers said they socialize via social networking sites, chat rooms or message boards, and 45 percent said they maintain a profile on a social networking site.

• Eighty five percent of consumers still find TV advertising to have the most impact on their buying habits, but online ads are second best, with 65 percent of consumers saying they have the most impact, beating out magazines at 63 percent.

• On the Internet, search engine result ads are the most effective with 78 percent of those surveyed, followed by interactive ads (62 percent), banner ads (60 percent), pre-roll ads (31 percent), post-roll ads (19 percent) and embedded ads (17 percent).

• Sixty seven percent of consumers said they would willingly be exposed to more online ads if it meant they could receive free content they found valuable, and 65 percent said they found any type of Internet ad to be more intrusive than ads in newspapers and magazines.

• Thirty seven percent of consumers said they would rather pay for online content than be exposed to advertisements.

• Fifty nine percent of consumers said they pay greater attention to magazine ads than any type of Internet advertising, and 55 percent said they pay greater attention to newspaper ads.

Companies that are looking to attract the attention of a particular audience will find the greatest success when they create a strategy that mates the message with the optimum media channels.