Social Media

Greg Linnemanstons, Weidert Group, discussed how social media is the most popular online activity - accounting for 19% of total time online. Facebook has 845 million active users – 80% outside of the US/Canada. There are 30 billion pieces of content shared on Facebook each month. Twitter claims 190-200 million users. Linkedin has 135 million users - 59% outside the US. Eighty two percent of online users are reached on social media. Social media is affecting businesses – 69% of business to business marketers are shifting budgets toward online marketing. Sixty-three percent of companies using social media say it increased marketing effectiveness, among other benefits. Social media is a web technology that turns communication into real time 2 way dialogue. It is a way for people to connect with people using countless platforms to share all forms of content. Social media has 7 categories: social and professional networks (Facebook and Linkedin); multimedia sharing (YouTube); blogs; microblogs (Twitter); RSS feeds and aggregators; forums, message boards and reviews (TripAdvisor); and tagging and bookmarking. Facebook is a social networking website. Fifty percent of active users log on in any given day and the average user has 130 friends. Linkedin is the largest professional networking site with more than 120 million users worldwide. More than 2 million companies have a Linkedin page. Linkedin is the #1 platform for employers looking for new employees. YouTube is a video sharing site with more one day visits than Google – 3 billion views per day. There is 48 hours of video uploaded every minute. Blogger and WordPress are free self publishing platforms allowing simple and easy content creations, promotion and distribution. It is searchable and interactive. Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets". It is searchable and highly interactive. There are 6 steps to greater social media effectiveness: start with a blog; publish an e-newsletter to promote your blog content; use e-newsetter to highlight involvement in Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and blog; use Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, etc. to promote and accelerate the dissemination of your content; share your blog with as many people as you can; and always position yourself as a resource for your target.