Social Media statistics

Social Media statistics astound us every minute with their findings and numbers!

Picture this -
Social Media Networks and Blogs consume nearly 25% of peoples time online (one in every four and half minutes online)

Brazil is the top nation when it comes to internet consumers with 86% visiting a social media network (74% of USA internet users visit a social media network)

Facebook is the world’s most visited social media brand with 54% of the worlds internet population visiting the brand

Japan has the lowest reach of Facebook active users at 3%

More than 35m Facebook users update their status each day

Photo uploads to Facebook have increased by more than 100%. Currently, there are around 2.5bn uploads to the site each month

There are more than 70 translations available on Facebook

There are more than 3.5bn pieces of content shared each week on Facebook

India is currently the fastest-growing country to use LinkedIn, with around 3m total users

70% of bloggers are organically talking about brands on their blog

Twitter received 180 million unique visitors a month to its website

Total number of Twitter users at 105 million (12 months ago that number was 8 million)


More can be found at:

Jeffbullas.com

Econsultancy.com

An introduction to LinkedIn

It's not just the Social Networking Sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Orkut making waves across the globe and among various demographics, it's also the PNS or the Professional Networking Site - LinkedIn. Launched in 2003, LinkedIn is a business-oriented platform that helps individuals and organizations network with people across the globe.

Its growth has been amazing with more than 70 million registered users, spanning more than 200 countries and territories worldwide as of June 2010. The features of LinkedIn give you plenty of opportunities to expand and grow your network. LinkedIn helps businesses and organizations acquire new customers, buy & sell various products, recruit suitable hires, and make you sell yourself and your company for better prospects.

The advantages of LinkedIn cannot be ignored... One can know and learn more about one's own organization and other organizations receive updates on company information, get news and announcements and many more. Adding connections not only expands your network but makes your profile credible. Following people and companies is another way to keep-up-to-date with the discussions and news around.

Joining various groups depending on your industry and area of interest is a great way to share knowledge. Participating in polls, discussions, answering and posting questions make you gain visibility and more importantly gives you a whole lot of information needed to make your job easy.

Various applications like incorporating the Twitter account to LinkedIn, adding in SlideShare, polls, blogs etc makes your profile look interesting. If you do not have a LinkedIn profile yet, do create one right away and get the most of it!

Tips to make your blog interactive

Blog is one of the interactive channels in Social Media Marketing. This is a two-way communication channel as it creates interest in the target audience/readers to respond and become part of the blog communication.

Here are few routes to make your blog interactive.

Commenting: Allow users to comment on the blog post, this way user become part of your blog & they get to interact with each other apart from the interaction between the blogger and commenter.
Interact with comments: Blogger has to respond to comments posted, which shows the readers that their comments are valued. This would ensure in users revisiting the blog.
Drawing attention of the readers: Acknowledging and rewarding good comments by “Liking” the comment, would draw the attention of the other readers & make good use of the comments section.
Ask Questions: Asking open ended questions as a blog post would encourage users to share their knowledge by respodng to the posts. This should be done on the later stages when your blog has a good number of followers.
Add a forum: If the content of you blog is B2B oriented, adding a discussion forum to the blog for interaction among the users will also help.
RSS Feeds: Allow users to subscribe to your blog through rss feeds.If you own a Facebook Like page link the blog to the page through Social RSS app, similarly you can do it to your Twitter profile & LinkedIn group.
Share widget: Add Social bookmarking, Facebook &Twitter buttons for users to share the blog post on the social media channels.
Blog followers gadget: Show off your followers by adding the “FOLLOWERS” gadget to your blog.

Social Media Optimization

Online marketing has changed the strategies of traditional marketing, paving the way for new found marketing techniques. As we know online marketing is pull marketing, that is, it directly speaks to consumers. Social Media Optimization does just that. It creates buzz around a brand and increases visibility and creates awareness.

Social Media is a buzz word in today's day and age. The level of interaction among consumers is great in the social media space. But how does one optimize social media?
Social Media like SEO, drives traffic to the website. It is done through various channels and platforms like blogs, communities, podcasts, social networking sites, and microblogging sites among others.

Social Media Optimization is possible when one interacts with the consumers and brings about a two-way conversation. Encouraging consumers to participate is the key. Many brands fail to excite their consumers online. Hence, it is important to know your target audience well. “Who is your target audience?” “Who are you talking to?” and “what are you talking about?” must be paid attention to.

Content is another major factor that gets consumers back to you. Keeping it short and simple is a must. Customizing content and messages for each channel helps. One cannot have the same tone and messaging for both Facebook and LinkedIn. Content creation, thus is an important part of Social Media Optimization. Also, overdoing the marketing strategies online, kills the purpose and goal of the particular brand. Consumers do not like to be told what to do; it has to be done subtly. It is vital to choose the right marketing platform that can help you meet your goals and objectives. Letting others use your content such as subscribing to RSS feeds helps. Letting users bookmark the content and tagging is another way.

Marketers today are seeking to optimize social media in more ways than one. So, don’t just use social media to create buzz, optimize it to your best advantage! And get the brand talking to your consumers, so that they keep coming back for more!

Source:rohitbhargava

What makes a Facebook Official Page work?

This post is for all Facebook enthusiasts who love to market their brand and organization online. As more and more companies jump into the social media bandwagon, Facebook is one channel, marketers cannot afford to miss, let alone avoid.

Every brand wants to create an Official Page or previously called a Fan Page for more visibility and interaction among fans. Social Media Today talks about creation of these Pages. Having an Official Page lets customers and potential customers discuss and offer feedback to the brand/company. It is an excellent method to build conversations and retain the network of people that the brand has built. Facebook Pages have immense business potential and lets brands reap maximum benefits. Though it sounds simple and easy to market on Facebook, it isn't so nor is it rocket science. Strategies must be laid out and followed... There are millions of people out there talking a zillion things! So what is it that gets you the most number of 'likes' and 'friends'?

It is important to talk to your customers with a personal touch. Having many updates can confuse and irritate people. Hence it is advisable to post a minimum of three messages a day. Starting discussions, creating a poll, updating fans about the industry trends, new and upcoming products, announcements, uploading photos and videos of events, interviews, and demos is a great start. Having compelling content that gets readers attention must be given importance. Facebook gives one the advantage of adding FBML tabs that are customized and interactive for the user. There are many more things that can work wonders on Facebook. With Facebook changing the way the world looks at the online world, marketers are making the best use of this amazing platform!

Share your thoughts on marketing on Facebook.

Exploring Twitter!

Twitter is creating waves worldwide, as people today want to share every piece of information. And with such easy access, we have Twitter being used to share what one's pet doggie does, to celebrities' narcissistic behavior to businesses bagging the biggest deals and Twitter being used for humanity and spreading world peace among others.

Discovered in 2006, this micro blogging platform lets users share information in less than 140 characters. Twitter Applications are out there, letting users tap its potential to the fullest. We all love to have a conversation and get it going. With Twitter, one can interact and learn in the simplest and easiest way. We are sure many of you have used some of the Twitter tools to the best of your advantage. Here's some of the Twitter tools that we love!

Twitter monitoring tools
Tweetscan - Allows one to search conversations on varied topics. It also gives a list of popular searches. Also, helps to search people you want to follow by the topic. It offers specific keywords, phrases, and timeframes.

TweetDeck – It’s an easy tool to use and manage conversations on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to name a few. Manage conversations with @replies and direct messages. Follow topics in real-time with saved searches, and see who's following you...

TweetGrid – TweetGrid allows to monitor conversations, hash tags, phrases, people, groups etc. One can participate in conversations and search in real time.

Scheduling tweets
HootSuite - Allows one to schedule tweets through the day. It has loads of interactive features. It is a Twitter interface providing tools that you need.

Twaitter – Lets one schedule tweets, send messages from calendar, reply, send DM, integrates with ping. fm helps send recurring tweets on a daily, weekly, monthly basis translate and tweet in any language, manage multiple Twitter accounts. Soon to be called GremIn.

Twuffer – Compose tweets and schedule for future...

Other Applications you'll love
Tweepler – Enables you to process new followers and categorize them into 'Follow' and 'Ignore. This makes it simple and reduces clutter. This application helps to manage followers and categorize them accordingly, thus saving time. It also gives you Avg Tweets, Total Tweets, Number of Followers, Number Following, and the Followers to Following Ratio.

TwtPoll – Companies such as Vodafone, Yahoo are engaging customer on Twitter via TwtPoll by asking questions on various topics. This helps them receive immediate feedback and acts as a method to showcase value and loyalty among customer and potential customers.

TwitPic – A picture speaks a thousand words! Sharing photos on Twitter is no rocket science. TwitPic lets you share photos with ease.

These are only a few Twitter Applications in the myriad sea of Twitter tools. Go ahead, share with us Twitter tools that you have explored!

Social media statistic for B2B marketers - Video

B2B companies take a lead on adopting social media as compared to B2C companies. " This is mainly because the fundamentals of buying process is changing for B2B companies "

Watch the video to know where B2B marketers has fit in social media ecosystem.



Source:Earnestagency