'Net Features : wm-social

20 Terrific Tumblr Themes

Michael Garrity — Thu, 23 May 2013 18:00:00 GMT

The biggest Internet news this week was unquestionably Yahoo’s massive purchase of the popular microblogging website/platform known as Tumblr.

Once considered nothing more than a haven for angsty teenagers and aficionados of unmentionable content, the site has quickly become an effective marketing platform for numerous major brands over the last couple of years, particularly content providers, although many e-commerce companies and service providers are slowly getting on board as well. In some cases, Tumblr blogs even serve as the primary websites for writers, artists and other creative professionals.

A big part of the appeal of Tumblr is the wide variety of available themes and looks that people can incorporate on their blogs that are visually appealing and conducive to sharing all types of content. The website itself hosts a number of great free and paid themes that users can put on their blogs, but other websites, such as ThemeForest, also have additional themes that users can implement if they don’t like what Tumblr has to offer.

So if you’re looking to get started tumbling, or you have been and just want to change things up, maybe you should consider one of these 20 terrific Tumblr themes.

The Squared Magazine

Timeline

Effector Theme

Rapture

Observer

Incorporated

Optic

UltraMnml

Pixelated

Vision

Pop Gallery

Inkhorn

Squared Folio

Tumbl News

Heterotelic

Polaroid

Elegantem

POPCASE

Tumblair

Create Your Own

Did you know that you can basically create your very own Tumblr theme by simply clicking on the “Edit HTML” button in the left-hand sidebar of your blog’s customization page? Once you’re in there, you can customize anything about the theme you’re currently using, or you can insert your own HTML/CSS and – tah-dah – you’ve just made your very own, totally unique Tumblr theme. Of course, doing this requires pretty extensive knowledge of both HTML and CSS, as well as the Tumblr format, but for experienced designers, this can be a great way to get a little extra mileage out of their Tumblr blogs.

Surprise! Teens Love Using Social Media to Share Things

Michael Garrity — Wed, 22 May 2013 17:10:00 GMT

It looks like teenagers love to share things more than we thought – it just so happens that they prefer to do it on the Internet.

According to a new study from Pew Internet, teens are more than willing to share a bunch of information about themselves on social media sites, although most (wisely) attempt to restrain themselves by taking steps to restrict and prune their profiles.

In studying 802 teens, Pew found that teen Twitter growth has grown by eight percent since 2011, and that the average teenage Twitter users typically have about 79 followers (and Facebook users have about 300 friends). Most teens (64 percent) also prefer to have public Twitter accounts.

Facebook, however, is waning in popularity amongst young adults, with many teens claiming adult presence, excessive sharing and “drama” as reasons for growing disinterest in the social network. Currently, about 60 percent of Facebook-using teens keep their profiles private.

Mostly, they’re all just worried about their reputations, which is why 74 percent of teens have admitted to deleting someone from their network or friend’s lists. However, just nine percent said they were “very concerned” about third-parties using social media sites to access their data.

In addition, the study found that 91 percent of teens post pictures of themselves online, while 71 percent post their school names, another 71 percent post the names of their cities or towns, 53 percent post their email addresses and curiously, 20 percent post their phone numbers. Pew also found that 92 percent of teens use their real names online, 84 percent post about their interests (movies, music, books, etc.), 82 percent share their birth dates, 62 percent share their relationship statuses and 24 percent are posting videos about themselves.

Also not surprisingly, the study found that older teens are much more likely to share certain types of information, such as photos, school names and cell phone numbers, than younger teenagers, and that boys are for more likely to share personal information than girls.

There is an upside to all of this sharing, though, as the study found that teens are much more likely to report about positive, rather than negative, online experiences. A surprising 52 percent said they have had an “online experience” that made them feel good about themselves, while 33 percent reported online experiences that made them feel closer to another person (a number that increases to 37 percent for social media users).

Echo Helps Publishers Wrestling with Real-Time Content Moderation

Michael Garrity — Thu, 09 May 2013 15:00:00 GMT

Conversations are constantly taking place all over the Web, from websites to applications to mobile devices that are always on the go. And although this presents brands with more opportunities to spread their messages and create awareness, it also makes it far more difficult to monitor everything that is being said about them online.

But moderating those conversations just got easier thanks to the real-time Web platform provider Echo, which recently just announced the availability of DiscussIt Moderator, a new application designed for high-volume environments that allows publishers to moderate real-time conversations about their brands across multiple applications and websites.

As part of the Echo App Ecosystem, DiscussIt Moderator works as a centralized moderation tool that will augment the Echo StreamServer’s built-in standard moderation features, which include “bad word” filtering, spam detection and community flagging. However, DiscussIt Moderator will also let publisher teams co-moderate content from any Echo Enabled application, such as Comments, Media Galleries, Forums, Social Chattter or Lifestreams, and all from within a single, centralized interface.

Using configurable rules, DiscussIt Moderator is able to automatically flag any questionable content for review, and then insert said content into a live message stream that can be split into various sub-streams that allow individual moderators to collaborate on different sections simultaneously. This means they can approve, deny, edit or directly respond to items through the user interface and remove any inappropriate material.

The tool also features the ability to moderate multiple websites/domains, advanced real-time search functionality, the ability to “deputize” standout community members as moderators and in-depth usage analytics. Plus, it’s made to be quick and easy to configure and launch.

One of the biggest brands already on board with DiscussIt Moderator is the global professional wrestling corporation WWE, a company that has openly embraced social media as part of its recent marketing efforts.

“WWE fans are passionate and generate thousands of comments during each live event, both on social networks, as well as directly on WWE.com,” said the company’s EVP of Digital Media, Perkins Miller. “DiscussIt Moderator enables our team to easily co-moderate real-time content across all of our properties, which makes it easier for our fans to feel connected to our content and our WWE Superstars.”

Social Media Solution Uses Twitter to Drive Traffic to Partner Channels

Michael Garrity — Wed, 08 May 2013 20:15:00 GMT

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company TIE Kinetix has added a new social element to its Content Syndication Platform with the launch of the Social Media Syndication Solution that is designed to make delivering dynamic marketing messages to a partner community on Twitter more accurate and effective.

This solution was created to allow vendors that sell through partners to connect their Twitter messages with the “right” content and lead capturing tools that will use syndication to drive conversions on their partners’ websites, and when that happens, it boosts sales and benefits both parties.

“Twitter is an extremely powerful tool in today’s business world,” said TIE Kinetix CEO Jan Sundelin. “We’re excited to be offering our customers a unique solution that enhances their marketing efforts and helps them better utilize these key social avenues.”

So, companies leveraging Twitter in their sales cycles can use the Social Media Syndication Solution to send messages from multiple partner Twitter handles, and users will not be able to detect the involvement of the original company at all. Plus, since it’s integrated into the Content Syndication Platform, when tweets include a PDF attachment, it will automatically be co-branded for each partner, and other links in tweets will direct traffic to the website of the partner that originally posted the message.

“This solution allows companies to not only tap into their own Twitter base, but also effectively access their partners’ Twitter followers,” explained Sundelin, “Which increases the number of eyeballs on their marketing material exponentially, in turn boosting sales and revenue for all.”

The first company to utilize this new solution is the longtime TIE Kinetix customer Siemens Enterprise Communications, which partners with a number of small resellers that have few marketing resources. Through the Social Media Syndication Solution, however, Siemens is able to help its partners cultivate their Twitter presence by automatically posting its own content to its partners’ followers, which helps them “find, engage and nurture new potential sales opportunities.”

Predicting Facebook Post Popularity

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 19:05:00 GMT

The role that social citations play in the search marketing landscape is increasing dramatically. And don't think for a moment that smart software solution developers are not fully aware of that fact.

Adobe, for example, recently announced new predictive capabilities for its social media optimization platform Adobe Social (part of the Adobe Digital Marketing Suite).

What makes the development so interesting is that Adobe uses historical data — in aggregate and at the customer-specific level — to predict engagement levels (as well as sentiment) around a specific type of Facebook post. The platform can recommend keywords, content types and even timing that could lead to a better response (deeper engagement et al).

Adobe Social users can see the estimated range for the amount of Likes, comments, and shares a post will receive, as well as identify other metrics that matter to them (which Adobe will then track and predict in the future). Before posts are published, the service will notify users if post elements exist that could be improved — for example, perhaps there is a better time to schedule a post.

Rumor has it that Adobe will quickly expand beyond Facebook (and that's good news as, apparently, Google+ is gaining ground on Facebook which is (also apparently) losing millions of users.

Big List of Personal Branding Solutions

Michael Garrity — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 19:00:00 GMT

The Web has made the “personal brand” more of an actual thing than ever before. These days, individuals can have their own websites, online portfolios, social media profiles and other online spaces where they can share work, market themselves or connect with their audiences or customers.

Personal branding is a useful tool for freelancers and individuals who own their own businesses, but it also has numerous benefits and presents marketing opportunities for people who work for larger organizations, as it allows them to share company news and information (although you have to be careful to follow SEC guidelines), personally interact with their customers and generally humanize their organizations a bit.

Luckily, the Internet won’t just leave you hanging. There are a number of useful tools available online that can help you simplify, automate and improve your personal branding efforts around the Web. Check out Website Magazine’s big list of personal branding solutions by clicking "Read More" below.

Social Gets Early Warning Alerts

Amberly Dressler — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 17:15:00 GMT

If your business is looking for a way to stay on top of its social activity and get early warning alerts when news or trends are about to hit, Topsy Pro Analytics may be the way to go.

The social analytics company recently launched its new real-time alerting tools that instantly analyze billions of social conversations and delivers insights.

“A consistent request that we’ve heard from these organizations is the ability to monitor all conversations and be proactively alerted with the most important information to their business,” said Jamie de Guerre, vice president of product at Topsy. “Topsy Alerts and Reports deliver on what our customers have been asking for by putting the most important insights in their inbox on a regular basis and at the outset of breaking news or trends.”

Here’s a closer look at the new tools:

• Topsy Alerts: instantly analyzes millions of social conversations and sends users an early warning when news or trends are about to break. A media organization might identify breaking news by tracking accelerating conversations around key topics (such as “earthquakes” or “baseball”), while a brand might monitor for product issues by watching for a large drop in brand sentiment.

• Topsy Reports: regular email digests of particular topics that are relevant to senior executives and managers. For example, a marketing executive might want to receive a daily summary report comparing the social activity for their brand to their competitors’ so they can get a daily heartbeat of conversation and any important competitor news first thing every morning. A report would arrive at a scheduled time each day including the most important Tweets and Links and a comparison of overall activity and sentiment for each brand.

SimplyMeasured Tracks Vines; Social Analytics Grows

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 14:05:00 GMT

When it comes to social media, there’s always some edgy new tactic and opportunity emerging. Those brands that act swiftly to address and capitalize on them are those that benefit most.

Such will likely be the case with Twitter's Vines, whose newness may have worn off a little but is still generating some impressive engagement metrics, making the need to measure Vines increasingly important. Social analytics vendors are more than happy to provide some support.

Simply Measured announced the release of a new report within their social media analytics solution which enables users to see how their Vine Tweets are engaging follows (which are being shared the most for example), and analyze how vine content compares to Instagram, YouTube and other visual media on Twitter.

Simply Measured showed off the report for the account of Chris Brogan. In one week, Brogan tweeted nine vines with 79 unique people (with retweets and replies it reached 89). But the real power of Twitter of course is in the potential reach. Brogan’s Vines reached almost 370,000 (combined followers of people interacting with tweeted vines) and 4.7 million potential impressions. The report also showed that Vine tweets performed better than video link (Youtube, Vimeo) shares and image link shares (Instagram/Path).

Search, Social, or Both?

Pete Prestipino — Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:00:00 GMT

Search engines and social media platforms are for many Web workers the primary sources of user traffic to their digital properties. Over the past few years however, these two very different mechanisms used to drive awareness, engagement and conversion have become intermingled as search engines increasingly leverage the data provided by users on social networks including Facebook, Twitter and Google+.

To help navigate these complex virtual waters, Website Magazine interviewed Rob Garner, author of the book Search & Social about what it all means to today's enterprise. Garner is an idenpendent consultant, author, speaker and strategist, and is a widely recognized expert on the topic of interdependent search and social strategies and real-time content marketing.

WM: Why the need for a book about this topic – search and social? Aren’t today’s brands and Web businesses already leveraging these channels?

RG: Most businesses are engaging in each of these in some form, but they largely do not understand how the two are integrated, and how they can be better leveraging them together to gain more from their efforts. It is this intersection between the two where a new discipline has emerged. Search engines integrated social elements into the algorithms many years ago, and social has become more algorithmic. The two constantly play of each other, and the difference between being a good digital marketer and a great one is in understanding this intersection from a strategic, tactical, and logistical level. I believe that “Search and Social” is the first book to address both the intellectual case for a combined search and social discipline, and the tactical and day-to-day needs as well. This trend towards interdependency will only continue to increase its impact on the strategic and tactical aspects of a business, and the book shows how it all fits together, and how marketers can action.

WM: Are search and social complimentary marketing channels? What is the value of approaching social with a search frame of mind?

RG: Search and social are totally complementary. The game to watch in all of digital marketing is which entity combines the best technology with the best human social layer. For marketers, this means putting on your SEO hat to view your social presence, and vice versa. The fundamental way that Twitter looks at authoritative accounts is parallel to the way that Google looks at website domains for its search results. They look for theme, keyword triggers, freshness of content, external signals (links, followers, etc.). The same goes for Facebook. Google has the most robust network analysis technology, and the social networks are waking up to the fact that they need this same approach to provide a better social experience for their users. Social marketers are now finding themselves as reverse engineers to get their message across. This is a big shift from the days when social marketing was largely conversational.

WM: What role does the real-time Web play in digital success today? What “basics” of a real-time strategy can you share with WM readers?

RG: A real-time marketing presence is the new optimization, and the crux of social customer relationship management. Over the last 3 years, consumers have become almost totally networked in the United States and Europe, and these individual Internet users are comfortable interacting fluidly, and “highly addressable” by businesses. When they act fluidly and in-the-moment, they expect businesses to do the same. Real-time marketing is not a new concept, and was first written about by Regis McKenna back in 1995, and touted by many other brilliant marketers at the time. The Internet has always been real-time, but the difference between now in then is that real-time is now a daily reality for marketers. Real-time requires a human presence – an ubiquitous digital existence, if you will – in addition to a technical presence. Being present in real-time doesn’t mean that marketers should go about in a harried manner, but rather that they are prepared and simply present. Being present is the new optimization, and will guarantee more visibility in search and social spaces than a passive approach.

The basics also include understanding of the evolving language of your audience, being a trusted source for content by both algorithms and audience, active conversation with your audience, real-time curation, and understanding the real-time user experience of your audience.

WM: What role does preliminary research play in the execution of search and social marketing campaigns? How should brands prepare?

RG: Preliminary research is critical to an effective search and social strategy. Even if businesses are already engaged in search and social, they should go back and assess their audience – who they are, how they communicate, and where they congregate. Stepping back and asking the question of “why?” helps to provide key focus for your strategy as well, and I believe every business should thoroughly consider this question in preliminary research. Businesses should also study the history of language used by their audience (keyword research and content popularity), but also study how language evolves in real-time as well.

WM: Any guidance for engaging in online communities? What drives response from today’s digital consumer?

RG: Of course there are all the standard considerations – be transparent, non-salesy, helpful, and sincere. One key area is being present as conversations are happening, and try to strike like lightning when someone is seeking information. Consumers like a fast and knowledgeable response, and this is one of the toughest challenges for businesses. To be fast, you must prepare well in advance by knowing the keyword language of your audience in order to active listening tools that will help you find them. For example, if you sell laptop computers and support via social CRM, then it would be wise to monitor forums, social networks, and answer sites for questions related to the term “laptop computers.” As questions arise, you are able to quickly jump in because you are already listening. Again, response from digital consumers comes from being knowledgeable, authoritative, and being fluid in your responses.

WM: If you were to advise WM readers on one metric/measurement to determine a combined search/social success, what would it be?

RG: If a robust content, SEO, and social strategies are in place, I would recommend looking at the network reach of your efforts. This is found in a variety of ways in different social networks (Ripples in G+, network reach in Facebook, retweets in Twitter, etc.). The core of this philosophy is to get out of the “one-to-many” approach to communication, and extending it to “many-to-many.” Network reach metrics help you gain a sense of how your efforts are working.

Paid Social Ads To Increase in 2013

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 19:10:00 GMT

Most, if not all, digital brands invest in non-paid social media marketing efforts today, but a new report from Nielsen-owned Vizu indicates that many online marketers are planning on spending more on paid social media ads.

The Vizu/Nielsen report indicates that 64 percent of online marketers say their budgets for paid social advertising will increase this year, while 34 percent said their budgets will remain the same. Just 2 percent will decrease their budget.

There were some other rather interesting insights from the study, including that the majority of respondents (advertisers and agencies) had been using paid social media advertising for less than three years. That alone isn't terribly surprising, but what is interesting is that 20 percent said they'd only started in the past year. While social media advertising receives quite a bit of discussion in new media and digital marketing circles, a whopping 70 percent of respondents dedicated just 10 percent or less of their 2012 online ad budget to paid social media.

Is there a future in paid social media advertising?

Rio SEO Integrates Social and Search Tools for Digital Marketers

Michael Garrity — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:15:00 GMT

The line between social and search is getting blurrier by the day, which have left many SEO professionals scrambling to find a way to incorporate this hot new marketing avenue into their work. Rio SEO, a company that provides software tools for SEO automation and reporting, is trying to make that process easier with the release of a new suite of social media marketing products.

This release, known as the Rio SEO Social Media Suite, follows the company’s acquisition of Meteor Solutions. Rio SEO set about integrating the Meteor’s social advertising solutions into its SEO software, and the result is a set of three tools that help digital marketers with social-sharing campaign analysis, social advertising and digital-influencer activation programs.

Rio SEO Social Analyze is an on-demand social analytics platform that helps marketers measure and optimize their social marketing initiatives for scalable and repeatable results in real-time. The Rio SEO Social Advertise software will help marketers deliver digital advertising directly to their “most influential” brand advocates and users. Finally, Rio SEO Social Activate provides an automatic solution for establishing and building upon social engagement.

All of these new features are available in addition to the automation tools already available from Rio SEO, which help SEO pros with website and mobile optimization, as well as keyword discovery and a suite of local search solutions.

“Our aim is to help digital marketers catch the wave of content and discovery marketing by leveraging social marketing activation and measurement tools,” says Rio SEO Vice President of Social Technologies, Ben Straley, who was also the co-founder of Meteor Solutions. “As part of Rio SEO, we are now extremely well positioned to integrate these social tools with search marketing strategies and technologies for a complete discovery marketing solution that delivers maximum consumer engagement and ROI to leading brands.”

Measure & Monitor Customer Reviews

Amberly Dressler — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 17:00:00 GMT

Study after study proves to Web workers the importance of customer ratings and reviews in terms of directly impacting sales. And companies are looking for an easy way to manage and integrate this high-value content into their social program.

That’s the idea behind a new partnership that integrates Bazaarvoice technology into the Spredfast SMMS platform.

“With our Bazaarvoice integration, we’re giving our customers the ability to not only monitor and leverage this content in their social programs, but also to target the content based on a consumer’s social connections, interests and location to further boost engagement,” said Rod Favaron, CEO of Spredfast.

According to Spredfast, the new functionality this integration brings includes:

• Real-Time Monitoring of Ratings and Reviews: pull ratings and reviews directly into the Spredfast Social Inbox to get a more holistic view of conversations, and build custom search streams to focus on specific products, ratings and review feedback.

• Streamlined Ratings and Reviews Management: take actions on a review by routing it to the correct team and identify positive ratings and reviews to use as social content.

• Social Amplification: easily leverage positive reviews in social content, campaigns and ads. Spredfast prepopulates amplified posts with key components of the review, including product, location, rating and a link to the product page, and customers can then customize and target the messages to increase the likelihood of engagement.

• Measurement: tag review content when it is published to social networks to measure the content’s effectiveness.

“The tighter integration between Spredfast and Bazaarvoice helps increase the opportunity for organizations to quickly and easily engage their communities with authentic ratings and reviews content that can build both brand awareness and affinity,” said Jim Petty, vice president, technology partnerships at Bazaarvoice.

Life in the Fast Lane – Social Predictions for 2013

Administrator — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 16:30:00 GMT

By Richard Pasewark, CEO, Visible Technologies

This past year the social media and marketing world saw many evolutionary changes including the IPO of Facebook, market consolidation and increased adoption of social media sites like Pinterest and Instagram. As we move forward into 2013, companies of all sizes will realize the necessity of utilizing social media data and analytics to better serve, engage and help their customers. Simply participating in social media is no longer enough. Companies need a well thought-out social media strategy to stay ahead of the competition. Below is a snapshot of what the industry can expect to see this year and which areas companies should focus on when developing their marketing plans.

“If you build it, they will come”

As more and more of the large enterprise technology companies acquire social marketing tools and stitch together social media “suites”, clients are increasingly assessing if these toolkits meet their needs. 2013 will be the year that marketing leaders determine what type of software and solutions they can count on – whether it’s delivered from an independent vendor or the result of acquisitions. Many marketers need clear and clean solutions that meet immediate needs – as social media analytics and engagement continuously play a prominent role in their actions and effectiveness, they will need agile vendors to address their dynamic needs.

English isn’t the only language spoken in the world

The growth of social media in English speaking channels is enormous; yet we need to acknowledge the same rapid ascension of the social global movement, driven by mobile in many parts of the world. In 2013 it will be imperative for global brands to establish a multi-region, multi-language footprint in social channels to reach customers in all markets. Even though Facebook has been banned in countries like China, there is still a major adoption of social media use on homegrown sites such as Sino Wiebo. According to eMarketer, 54 percent of Internet users in China would make a purchase because a friend “liked” or follows the brand on a social network. That’s too big of a figure for companies to ignore. In order to be successful it will be important for companies to monitor their activity on international social channels as well as in non-English speaking channels in order to penetrate new markets. In turn, software companies will need to focus their efforts on developing solutions that can accurately understand and measure the sentiment expressed in languages beyond English. With nearly 20 percent of the world’s population speaking Mandarin or Arabic, both character-based languages, companies will also need to focus on identifying and reading these characters as well.

The rise of Pinterest will foster new technology that tracks the sharing of images (vs. text only)

The rise of visual social media like Pinterest will create a need for businesses to track the sharing of images versus just text. With the proliferation of images, videos and infographics going viral over the last few years, enterprises will begin to demand software to track these mainstream marketing and advertising methods. A fun example is the smiley face ;-), which is one of the most tweeted terms, making it imperative for companies to shift their technologies in this direction. With this will come new abilities added to search engines allowing users to copy and paste images to find a match versus relying on text-only options. This will open the gates of opportunity for other search engines to flourish if Google and Bing don’t evolve with these changes. It will also open new avenues for analytics as data sharing and influence will have new dimensions of insight.

Social media analytics will become the de facto source of customer input

Social media has already begun to pave the way of transformation in the customer service sector. As more and more customers voice their opinions online, companies have been forced to engage with consumers on their medium of choice. In 2013 we can expect this to continue and establish itself as the primary means of gaining customer feedback to improve customer experience. Data analyzed from social media sources will become a de facto way for companies to measure customer sentiment and satisfaction and be an essential channel to identify problem areas. Companies will no longer rely on surveys to gauge the success of their products and service, and will increasingly use social media analysis and community engagement to solicit and respond to customer input.

Product development will begin to lean on social channels

Much as customer service teams began addressing customer issues via social channels this year, product development teams will begin to look to social media to determine their next move. In order to meet consumer needs in a constantly changing marketplace, product development teams will begin sourcing ideas and preferences from social chatter when determining which capabilities or enhancements to focus on. This in turn will give the customer more power, allowing them to have a say in what innovations they see next.

About Richard Pasewark

As Chief Executive Officer of Visible Technologies, Rich provides strategic leadership to bring value to clients and partners. Prior to this role, Rich was President of Cymfony, where he scaled the organization to meet the growing demand for insights delivered from Cymfony’s technology and analyst services. Rich brings more than two decades of experience as a business leader, strategist, and software visionary for industry leaders such as Quark, Adobe and EDS. Rich values the opportunity to create new solutions in the emerging and continually evolving social media analytics market.

LinkedIn Milestone - 200 Million Members

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:00:00 GMT

You might be a Twitterholic, a Facebook Junkie or a Google+ Maven, but if you're not tapping into the power of LinkedIn, you're likely missing out on some important career building and networking opportunities.

LinkedIn, really the original business/social network, announced that it just passed an important milestone - 200 million members are now part of its networks. What's amazing is that the network actually double its membership since March 2011 - adding a whopping 13 million since November 1st, 2012. LinkedIn's rise to in the past few years has been phenomenal. It's now so big, in fact, that if it were a actual country it would have the fifth largest popular population in the world. That's impressive. Some other immensely interesting LinkedIn data points include:

- Countries With the Most LinkedIn Members (in millions): United States (74), India (18), United Kingdom (11), Brazil (11), Canada (7)
- Fastest Growing Countries: Turkey, Columbia, Indonesia
- 2 members per second join the network, equaling just over 172,000 registrations per day
- The largest industries include information technology and services, financial services, and higher education

A Lack of Social Media Cohesion

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 02 Jan 2013 19:50:00 GMT

New research from eCommerce and digital marketing company Acquity Group reveals that more than 75 percent of brands lacked a cohesive social media presence across the major platforms.

Results from the agency’s 2012 Brand eCommerce Audit, which evaluated Interbrand’s 2012 Best Retail Brands on customer engagement across major digital channels, indicated that while every brand on the list (except one) had a Facebook page, and 45 out of 50 are on Twitter, only 12 of the brands had a cohesive presence across all five of the major social networks that were analyzed ( Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube.

Twitter had the largest gap between usage and interaction according to the study. Less than 27 percent of brands analyzed actively participated in Twitter conversations with consumers, even though 90 percent of those brands had a presence.

Other highlights from the Acquity study include:

- 80 percent of the brands analyzed leveraged YouTube with an impressive 85 percent engagement rate.
- 56 percent of brands do not yet utilize Instagram, but there is a high level of interaction at 79 percent.
- 60 percent of the brands had adopted Pinterest and interaction rates on the social pin-board were 70 percent.

Acquity Group also profiled 10 brands that scored best overall in social interaction including Target, Home Depot, RadioShack, Bath and Body Works, Nordstrom, Gap, eBay, Coach, American Eagle Outfitters and Banana Republic (in the order of their ranking).

"Although most brands are signed up for the major social networks, many struggle to understand how they fit into their overarching business strategy. As a result, our audit revealed several critical areas of improvement when it comes to actually connecting with consumers across social channels," said Jay Dettling, Executive Vice President at Acquity Group.

"The important take away for brands is to avoid haphazard or sporadic use of social media. When a new social media channel is introduced, brands need to take the time to analyze the potential impact and return, and develop a solid strategy from there."