Who Is Using What In Social Media?

Some interesting findings from a recent Pew Research survey.  Five key revelations:

1. Facebook remains that most preferred site although its growth has slowed quite dramtically.
2.  Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn saw significant increases over the past year in the proportion of online adults who now use their sites
3. Men now use Twitter more than women.  The reverse was true in 2013.
4. More women (77%) than Men (66%) use Facebook
5. While LinkedIn is showing strong growth more than 60% use it infrequently

Related articles

• Pew: Facebook User Growth Slowed As Others Gained, But Still Has Most Engaged Users
• Pinterest Passes Twitter in Popularity

Going Down The 'Googla' - Bottom of the List For Sharing Stories

Google claims 170m Google+ users but other reports have said it is a ghost town, so what is the truth?

Findings released appear to confirm the latter – despite its large number of accounts the platform is bottom of the list of social network users’ favoured channels.

Social media agency Umpf analysed 100 random online entertainment, health, business, technology and general news stories and looked at how many times each story was shared by Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter users.

The findings show Twitter as the most active social network for sharing stories, followed by Facebook in second, LinkedIn third and Google+ last:

1. For every 100million users of Twitter, 197.3 people were likely to share an online story
2. For every 100million users of Facebook, 41.8 people were likely to share an online story
3. For every 100million users of LinkedIn, 15.2 people were likely to share an online story
4. For every 100million users of Google+, 6.0 people were likely to share an online story

Whilst Google+ is the second largest of the four in terms of official users*, and despite it arguably being the best placed of all four to succeed – it was created by Google post-Twitter, post-Facebook and post-LinkedIn, and designed to be the most socially-integrated network (“Online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it.”) – it performs the worst.

Jon Priestley, of PR and Social Media agency Umpf, said: “Our findings clearly show a gulf between Google+ user numbers and their willingness to share online content, particularly when compared to rival platforms such as Facebook and Twitter".

Visualising with Vizify

We live in a visual world as the recent and rapid success of Pinterest has demonstrated. Now three Geeks (their term, not mine) have come up with something after a coffee-fueled frenzy that has all the juice of a good interactive infographic.

Zuckerberg's Law states that the amount of online data about an individual doubles each year so they gathered their own data and tried to make sense of it all. They found the data disjointed and overwhelming: career history here, tweets there, check-in data everywhere.  Boring and incoherent is not a good look!

Enter Vizify, a network  acknowledging the fact  that you are more than the sum of your parts. Vizify creates one definitive, multidimensional, graphical biography.

Overview Screen

Twitter visualisation with sliding time scale

While it is early days and the network is by invitation only, getting an invite proved really easy.  The result of my 'dabbling' can be see here.

The other thing that impressed me about Vizify was its simplicity.  It is a simple matter to change the privacy settings, drag and drop content, colour your world or add new services

Easy to use editing panel

So if like me you like the idea of an interactive infographic for prospective employers and clients that presents your online biography in an exciting way, then Vizify is for you.

And while we are talking about new social media tools try out Skylines, which organises the world’s real-time photos. The platform indexes over 5 million photos a day sent through services Twitter, Instagram, Twitpic, Yfrog and Lockerz.

Skyline - real-time images as they happen

Related articles

• Put your business card online with Vizify
• Does Vizify Help or Hinder your Personal Brand?

Why LinkedIn And Pinterest Should Be Part Of Your Mix

While Pinterest's rise has been meteoric, LinkedIn has been the 'slow burner'. Both have their place in the marketing mix. I have noted that Pinterest has become increasingly effective in driving referral traffic to a corporate site and LinkedIn has a similar effect, especially when the posts have been made to targeted interest groups that content directly relates to.

In the first month of this year there were147 million users on LinkedIn and Pinterest reached the 10 million unique active users mark. LinkedIn has the highest penetration rates in the USA, the Gulf States and the Netherlands. Pinterest currently has 13. 6 million users according to AppData.

Higher referral traffic, better quality leads and ultimately increased sales result from using both of these platforms. (Awareness).

Interest in Pinterest has slackened slightly in the past year as this chart from Google Trends search results demonstrates.

By comparison, LinkedIn's search trends have remained fairly constant expect for a huge spike in June, no doubt related to the security breach that network experienced.

For the past couple of months LinkedIn  has been running a beta test for new targeting options and fifty brands have been taking part.

Companies will now be able to direct  posts to target  groups of followers with status updates based on company size, industry, function, seniority, employee tenure and geography. So for example, if your product or service is related to farming you can now segment by agriculture, the country profile and level of corporate seniority to get to the right decision maker.

Mike Grishaver of LinkedIn says that in a recent study they discovered that 67% of their members follow a company to gain industry insights, 61% for company news, while 49% are attracted by the peer community. LinkedIn's aim is to enable more relevant conversations between companies and followers.




Awareness recently produced a white paper 'Beyond The Big Three - 5 Killer Strategies to Dominate LinkedIn and Pinterest".  Here are their seven tips for increasing social reach using Pinterest:

1. Create pinboards and populate the boards with your own pins and by repinning from other users.•  Create topic-specific boards that resonate with your target audience to encourage following ofyour brand’s profile. Focus board topics on the lifestyle, history, causes, and interests relatedto your customers.•  When creating boards, use keywords developed for SEO to refine your boards and integrateyour Pinterest brand profile with your marketing initiatives.
2. Publicize your Pinterest account on all other social platforms.
3. Embed Pinterest buttons or widgets on your company website.
4. Register your profile in Pinterest directories to grow your followership:• WePin.org is a directory based on specific interests.• Repinly lists stats about Pinterest users and the most popular pinners / boards based on topic.
5. Consider connecting your Pinterest account with your brand’s Twitter profile to effectively use hashtags.Note: Carefully consider connecting with Facebook - the hashtags on Pinterest are only appropriate for Twitter and may clutter your Facebook timeline.
6. Once you've built a following, encourage users to create their own pins and repin items from your boards and your website. This will ensure that your boards are shared with your followers’ followers, increasing your brand reach on the platform.
7. Post consistently to retain and grow your social reach.

Related articles

• Everybody needs both Pinterest and LinkedIn

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• Why Google+ and Pinterest Matter to Nonprofits

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• Buying Power Of Pinterest Users 2nd Only To LinkedIn, Says ComScore [CHARTS]

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Social Log-Ins Improve E-Commerce

Using a social login and social sharing will increase engagement and conversion.

According to a recent study by Monetate just under a half of all US consumers prefer to use a social log-in when creating a new or guest account on an e-commerce site.

Facebook was by far the most popular with 60% of US consumers preferring to log in through this platform. LinkedIn was the least popular at 7%

Product reviews figure highly on social media habits with 68% of consumers preferring to use social media for this purpose.

Being able to comment after signing on using social media also increases the time exposure a site has. Consumers who can't sign on and comment or share spend two thirds less time on a site compared to those that can.

One of the big attraction of a social log-in is that it is rapid and this increases user adoption. Spamming is also reduced as social networks are rigorous in eliminating duplicate accounts and auhtenticating people who sign up.

If you are not sure how to integrate social log-ins into your site you might consider using a third party service such as Gigya.

Related articles

• How do social logins and sharing affect e-commerce: infographic (econsultancy.com)

The Planets Are In Alignment

See a larger version here

More on Facebook's Dominance

Source: Vincenzo Cosenza 

This recent map from Vincenso Cosenza graphically shows the dominance of Facebook in the social media world. Facebook is ranked #1in 127 countries out of a total 136 listed.

Equally interesting is how this landscape has changed in the past three years.

Note how Twitter and LinkedIn are contesting for second place.

Vincenzo Cosenza has also mapped the the connections between Italy’s blogs and their Influence.  His aim is to understand the bloggers relationship and how blogosphere is evolving into a complex information ecosystem.

Attack Of The 'Munchies'. How Businesses Devour Content

This infographic based on the Buyersphere report provides a mouthwatering sample of B2B practice. The 'content fillings' are revealing with the importance of the company web site being reinforced.

Click on the image to see the larger version

LinkedIn has doubled in importance in the space of the year and even for those who shy away from onion rings, pressing the flesh at offline events and seminars remains important.  That said, online events and seminars (webinars) have shown the greatest gain in business content interest, up 17% on 2010.

Whichever way you look at it, the B2B content burger just got bigger.

The survey was conducted in the UK and Europe with a range of companies, varying in size and profile. IT and manufacturing equipment were the most common types of purchase made recently but the Italians were purchasing more consultancy services, property/land and support services than other countries

Source - Buyersphere report

40% of buyers used social media at some point in the buying process

The Growth of Social Media

A couple of interesting observations can be made from this chart, recently release by Search Engine Journal:

• 75% of brand “likes” are coming from advertisements 
• Mobile access to Facebook accounts has grown 200% in a year.
• The 50-64 Age demographic have recorded the sharpest rise in growth over two years
• 80% of companies use social media for recruitment and 95% of them use LinkedIn

Click on the Infographic to see the larger version

Professional Networking - Why It Matters

TheDigitalConsultant LinkedIn Network
(Associates named removed)
Click in image then click again for the larger chart

The Tools and Links section of this blog contains links to many programmes that can create visualisations of your networks.

One of the more interesting is LinkedIn Maps which maps your professional network and demonstratesthe relationships between you and your connections.

In today's world where skills are increasingly being traded as much as money, your personal brand is all important.

Visualising your professional networks will enable you to see the areas where you can and need to build associations. Restricting your associations to school friends and employees is not going to get you far.

As LinkedIn's Ali Imam says. "With it you can better leverage your professional network to help pass along job opportunities, seek professional advice, gather insights, and more."

Joining LinkedIn groups allied to your brand also provides a great marketing opportunity for the products and services you provide. In the case of this blog for example,  referrals from LinkedIn outnumber those from Facebook 2-1.






 DJ Patil is the Chief Scientist at LinkedIn and in the above video he is explaining his network on large sheets of paper. Clearly I have a lot of networking still to do!

Related articles

• Professional Social Network LinkedIn Prices IPO At $45 Per Share, High End Of Range (techcrunch.com)

The GeoSocial Universe - May 2011

Click on chart then click again to see large image

Note the importance of Skype in relation to its once wannabe owner, Facebook.

Email remains a dominant force with 830 million users signed up to the top three providers.  The chart also provides some context to the recent LinkedIn IPO.

77% of the world's population are now using mobile devices and almost 22% of these mobile devices are smartphones.

China's version of Facebook (QZone) has experienced enormous growth and now has 480 million users.

40% of users tweet using their mobile.

Click on chart then click again to see large image

Click on chart then click again to see large image

Source: JESS3 - a creative interactive agency that specializes in visual storytelling

Related articles

• LinkedIn's IPO: A proxy for an eventual Facebook IPO (zdnet.com)

What A Difference A Year Makes

Click on the chart to see the larger version

A year on year analysis of social media from January 2010 clearly demonstrates the rapid growth of the major networks.

While Wikipedia is chugging along with 5,000 new contributors Facebook continues to blitz the opposition, signing up 290 million new accounts over the same period.

Note also that users accessing Facebook on their mobile device has grown by over 200 percent to 200 million.  This growth trend will continue

Another significant mover has been the professional network, LinkedIn with a 100% growth and Flickr has now features 5 billion images, which represents a 25% increase in their activity.

Related articles

• 2011 social media statistics show huge growth (browsermedia.co.uk)

Network Based Papers

paper.li

The use of social media aggregation to publication has been around for some time.  One such example is the Swiss company Small River, whose Paper.Li  which takes your daily tweets and creates an online publication from them.

I have used this platform to segment thedigitalconsultant tweets into three distinct publications.  Paper.li also has edition control - daily, weekly or morning & evening.. With the rapid growth in tablets such as the iPAD, this format has many attractions for spreading your content still further.

There are four types of Twitter account based papers a user can create, and one Facebook account based:

1. Account Based Paper - a paper created on your Twitter account
2. Hashtag based Paper - a paper based on a #tag you want to follow
3. User List Paper - a paper based from a twitter user list
4. Create a Custom Newspaper - advanced options for customized Twitter newspapers
5. Facebook based papers - giving you the ability to create a paper based on simple search terms. These papers are created on public posts.

All of the above offer ample opportunities for event marketing and target segmentation.

LinkedIn Today

News today that another social network, LinkedIn, is taking this 'entry to journal' principal a step further. As it prepares to list publically, the company has upgraded its web site with a new feature, LinkedIn Today.

With more than 90 million professionals using its network it is certainly time to try and broaden the companies public appeal and try and boost user activity.

LinkedIn Today allows the user to tap into articles that are being shared by their connections or by people in their industries.

According to the company's media release LinkedIn Today informs you of the following:
1. What your connections and coworkers – people you know – are sharing.
2. What your industry peers are sharing
3. What stories are interesting to a wider audience, outside of your industry

Offering users a personalised news stream is seen as a way of encouraging users to spend more time on the site. Only time will tell if this is so.

Being able to see who followed a topic headline provides insight into LinkedIn users who share a link publicly.

This content distribution also points to the advantage of having your content propagated and shared, as opposed to spending money on online advertising.  Your messaging is not diluted and the reach potential is as great, or greater, for less cost.




So will LinkedIn Today prompt me to use the social network more often?  To be honest, I doubt it. I find Paper.li's functionality far more engaging with greater editorial control over what I wish to publish or view.

LinkedIn's niche is professional networking and while job seekers make full use of it, most of them will still get their news from other media sources, Facebook and the more immediate source Twitter.

Related articles

• LinkedIn launches social news product (reuters.com)
• LinkedIn launches personal news service (news.cnet.com)

2011 Crystal Ball Gazing

The reality is that there will be so much happening in 2011 and at a faster pace than ever before.

Top picks:


3D-enabled television sets will contiue to be pushed by manufacturers but the 'imminent 3D revolution' will remain on the horizon

Gaming will continue to grow with Sony's Move and Microsoft's Kinect motion control gazumping the older platforms

Home computer and television convergence will continue with Apple and Google leading the way

Rupert Murdoch's content paywall will make more profit but continue to shed publication subscribers

iPad2 will be released with mounted cameras and Face-time video-callingsoftware

Devices that can anticipate our needs by using intelligent accelerometers and provide personalised content, advice or services, will become more prevalent

A bigger Cloud and smaller devices with solid state hard drives

There will be more Android, Nokia, Apple, Blackberry and Windows Apps than ever before, generating close to $10 billion of revenue in 2011

And here are the predictions from a variety of digital pundits:

Social Media

Gary Halliwell of Venturebeat:

• Social customer service will drive revenue
  Smart companies will do more of this in 2011.
  
  
• Social marketing will move beyond Facebook and LinkedIn
  In our connected world of Tweets, blogs, emails and posts, this information transmission is captured in electronic form, and what we know as “word-of-mouth” in face to face interaction has become “word-of-digital”, and it’s incredibly track-able and useful.
  
  
• Socially adept companies will align the needs of employees and customers
  In 2011, we’ll see more companies embrace Zappos’ approach to social as integral, and large corporations relying on their inertia will feel the hot breath of excitement from fully motivated competition.
  
  
• Millennials will take another step forward into the breach
  The shift to greater social connectedness will continue to move forward in 2011
  
  
• Social will penetrate deeper into company structures
  Not surprisingly, marketing decision makers had the heaviest use of social media. This is a trend that will hopefully reverse, as more CEOs see the power of social media to network and to amplify their thought leadership
  
  
• Go live or go home
  Going “real time” means preparing an organization to react to what’s happening in their world, cohesively and adeptly. It requires planning for the future with room for ambiguity and change, and the flexibility to react from the top to the bottom of a company.

New Products




DigitalTrends predictions for products and trends to be seen in Las Vegas this year include:

• Unfinished tablets
• iPad accessories
• 3D content
• Superphones
• AMD Fusion
• Intel Sandy Bridge
• Smart TVs
• Automotive media extravaganzas
• Next-generation e-readers
• All-in-one PCs as an art form

E Marketing

Predictions from EMarketer.com

• Apps invade all platforms - mobile, desktop, tv
  
  
• Content consumption convergence - consumers engage seamlessly with content across multiple platforms
  
  
• Location, location, location - mobile social network usage will more than double by 2015 and location based services have yet to reach the mainstream
  
  
• Social gets its share of marketing dollars -  4 out of 5 marketers will use social media tools in 2011and changing consumer usage patterns will make social media a must. 80% of companies are planning increased spending in this area in 2011. Traditional advertising spend is falling as budget is funnelled to social media. Return On Investment remains difficult to quantify.
  
  
• Targeting audiences vs content -  Audience segmentation and targeting will remain key factors driving the shift to digital marketing
  
  
• Online privacy debate heats up -  50% of users remain concerned about privacy issues. More people trust the government than advertisers, but most don't trust either.

Click Here's 2011 Digital Trends:

• Digital will be everywhere in 2011
  In 2011, we’ll see digital engagement as an everywhere medium
  
  
• The brand web site is under threat from social media
  Despite the rise in buzz around Facebook pages, brand websites are every bit as relevant as they’ve ever been. They remain the only true digital channel that can be completely and wholly owned by you, the brand
  
  
• The jury is out as to who will win the HMTL5 vs Flash battle
  Should we continue to invest in Flash and business as usual, or do we abandon the platform altogether and fix our sights on the promise of HTML5
  
  
• Mobile Advertising
  In 2011, mobile advertising will provide more opportunities for advertisers with rich technology, a unique daypart, more customization and more tracking.
  
  
• User Generated Content and the emerging power of the status update
  Brands need to focus more on building an advocate base through the delivery of a consistent brand message
  
  
• There will be more fun and games
  Consider how multitouch and mobile apps transformed the mobile device into an opportunity for meaningful engagement with audiences away from computers and TV screens. GPS functionality transformed social networks into a local experience. Even the humble webcam has evolved well beyond its original function as it has been repurposed to serve up face recognition and augmented reality experiences. The Kinect’s technology is positioned to lead a transformation of similar magnitude
  
  
• The constant evolution of Search Engine Marketing
  First and foremost in 2011 will be the necessity to build a website that lends itself to successful search engine indexing and that, with the all-important keyword-rich content and linking efforts, can return high rankings on SERPs
  
  
• The future of shopping is social
  Recommendation engines and group buying sites are becoming increasing popular and integrated into social networks such as Facebook. You may not even recognize them, but these shopping tools are showing up all over the place and will give shoppers a lot of power in 2011.
  
  
• The Rise of the Demand-side platform
   Marketers will look to DSPs to expand their product offerings and become much more than a technology company that merely lends out its bidding platform. In 2011, look for these companies to go to market with turnkey and unique products that will further drive efficiency and attract large marketers
  
  
• It will be the year of the mobile website
  In 2011, the net result of the increase in smart phones will be a drastic increase in mobile web usage and more brands will begin to create mobile websites instead of applications

Meeting and Events

2011 will mark significant change for the global meetings and events industry, driven in part by the ongoing adoption of mobile, the increase in popularity of social networks and the pressure to make meetings and events more transparent, predictable and aligned to the business - Certain Software

• More and more events will be organised and managed via handheld devices
• Smart phones and social networks will provide expanded ways to engage attendees

  PaidContent

• It Will Be The Year Of ‘Interactive TV’
  Growing broadband penetration and a face-off in the booming race among over-the-top box maker - Robert Andrews
  
  
• Netflix Will Be Acquired
  Think of what iTunes is for Apple—that’s what Neflix could be for its acquirer - Andrew Wallenstein
  
  
• The ‘Ad Network’ Name Will R.I.P.
  The term “ad network” will fall even further into disuse by ad-tech firms - David Kaplan
  
  
• Local Deals And Check-Ins Will Converge
  Would it really be that much of a surprise to see, for example, a Groupon or LivingSocial deal at a nearby hair salon when you load a check-in app on your phone?  - Amanda Natividad
  
  
• The E-Reader Will Reach Critical Mass
  This is the year the standalone e-reader shifted from luxury to near-commodity, from a $250-$350 planned purchase to a $140-and-below basic buy. - Staci D. Kramer
  
  
• We’ll Finally See Some Big Name Digital Media IPOs
  The year will be then capped off by a record-breaking filing from Facebook, which will value the company at a staggering $100 billion - Joseph Tartakoff
  
  
• Microsoft Will Keep Trying In Mobile With Limited Success
  In the year ahead, we will see more attempts by Microsoft to take that new OS, put it in more devices—and, yes, roll them out to more carriers and other retail channels. - Ingrid Lunden
  
  
• Google Will Win Its Intellectual Property Lawsuits
  On its own, Google has been footing a big chunk of Silicon Valley’s legal bill for several years now. The company has created important case law that benefits its competitors too - Joe Mullin

JWT
Ann Mack, Global Director of Trendspotting for J Walter Thomson (JWT) 2011 “watch” list.



 Happy New Year to all readers of The DigitalConsultant. May your 2011 be a social and profitable one!

Related articles

• Five trends all marketers should watch in social media in 2011 (freshnetworks.com)
• 2010 in review: What our 10 most popular posts say about the year in social media (smartblogs.com)
• 11 Marketing Predictions for 2011 (samirbalwani.com)
• New Social Media Business Trends for 2011 (jenningssocialmedia.com)
• What will happen in digital advertising in 2011? - Quora (quora.com)

A GeoSocial and GeoCultural World

Without doubt we are living in a geosocial universe as the above graphically demonstrates.  The omnipresent hump that represents the mobile market should be a pointer that all marketers should follow.

Equally interesting is the global share that Skype occupies.  As an enabling technology it may have been around for a while but is still a key player.

JESS3, who produced this infographic,  have been trying to accurately depict the size of the key players in the geo / social space.

Source:JESS3

See JESS3's charts on Flickr.  The rise of the professional networking platform LinkedIn is also a trend of note.

As well as our social method of communication, those bound by cultural and religious conventions have been making their own presence felt online.

Members of the Muslim faith are celebrating Ramadan and Muxlim.com, a Muslim lifestyle site has a vision of connecting the world's Muslim communities to each other, and to the wider world, through shared online experiences.

There are a number of Ramadan apps that they promote online including the Ramadan Daily Dua which offers a prayer of supplication specific to each day during the holy month.  Another is the Ramadan Booster Pro offers "tips and recommended good deeds to help organise your Ramadan".

Finally this week comes updated data from Nielsen, that shows a continuing decline in search.

 The only exception is the rise of MSN/Windows Live/Bing which has risen 28%.  The effectiveness of placing advertising with search engines would appear to be even more in doubt.  Geo Social and Geo Cultural sites would be a better bet.

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• The State of the GeoSocial Universe [INFOGRAPHIC] (mashable.com)
• Infographic: The Geosocial Universe (gigaom.com)
• 9 location-based infographics showing how and why the mobile world is checking in (socialwayne.com)
• New smartphone apps help Muslims during Ramadan (newstatesman.com)
• Ramadan goes hi-tech with phone apps to remind the devout to pray (guardian.co.uk)