• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 2, 2013

Marketers building audience segments or search strategies to target or retarget specific consumers should know who and what Americans searched for in 2013, and the engines they used. Year-end lists from Bing, Google and Yahoo provide insight.

The top 10 most-searched social-media sites from Bing in 2013 were Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram, Tumblr, Reddit, Vimeo, Vine, and Google+. The most-searched entertainment electronics were Xbox, iPhone, Android, iPad, Windows Phone, Surface, PlayStation, Nintendo, BlackBerry and Kindle Fire, respectively.

The most-searched food brands on Bing were Pizza Hut, Domino's, Papa John's, Subway, Burger King, McDonald's, Wendy's, Taco Bell, Panera Bread and Sonic. The most-searched news stories were Royal Baby Born, Boston Marathon Bombing, Cleveland Kidnapping, George Zimmerman Trial, Gun Rights, Tesla, Syria, Anthony Weiner, Oil Prices and Fiscal Cliff.

With the government shutdown and budget cuts across federal programs, Fiscal Cliff became the most-searched financial story of 2013, followed by Federal Reserve, Detroit Goes Bankrupt, Student Loans Interest Rate and Toyota Outsells Chevy.

Consumers used their laptops, smartphones and tablets to hunt for this year's Black Friday deals on Google. In fact, Google's research shows that on Black Friday, 18 out of the top 20 hottest trending searches on Google were related to retailers. The top 10 trending gifts on Google Shopping this Black Friday were video game consoles -- such as the Sony PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, Nexus and iPad tablets, Minecraft Legos, UGG boots, Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, Fitbit, The North Face, Rainbow Loom, Barbie Dreamhouse, and Nike Air Jordan retro sneakers.

Yahoo's most-searched words and phrases in 2013 were Apple iPhone, Amazon Kindle, Samsung Galaxy, Apple iPad, Sony PlayStation 4, Microsoft Xbox One, BlackBerry, Apple iPod, Nokia Lumia and Sony Xperia.