Social Media Statistics: Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Linkedin and more…

The way we communicate online has gone through a sea-change over last few years – Infact, majority of netizens spend most of their time on social Media / Networking  sites. Even though India Software companies are lagging behind in adoption of social media, others are flocking them in large numbers.

Twitter has been a rage over past 1 year, Facebook has become one of the most visited sites on the web, Professionals are flocking Linkedin and keep their profiles updated. Do you want to know the numbers behind these uber-popular social media sites?

EConsultancy recently published following mind-boggling statistics on their blog – Here is a peek into the numbers

Social Media Statistics

• Facebook claims that 50% of active users log into the site each day. This would meanat least 175m users every 24 hours.
• Twitter now has 75m user accounts, but only around 15m are active users on a regular basis.
• LinkedIn has over 50m members worldwide..
• Facebook currently has in excess of 350 million active users on global basis.Six months ago, this was 250m…This means over 40% growth in less than 6 months.
• Flickr now hosts more than 4 billion images.
• More than 35m Facebook users update their status each day. 
• Wikipedia currently has in excess of 14m articles, meaning that it’s 85,000 contributors have written nearly a million new posts in six months.
• Photo uploads to Facebook have increased by more than 100%. Currently, there are around 2.5bn uploads to the site each month.
• Back in 2009, the average user had 120 friends within Facebook. This is now around 130.
• Mobile is even bigger than before for Facebook, with more than 65m users accessing the site through mobile-based devices. In six months, this is over 100% increase.
• There are more than 3.5bn pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, etc.) shared each week on Facebook.
• There are now 11m LinkedIn users across Europe.
• Towards the end of last year, the average number of tweets per day was over 27.3 million.
• The average number of tweets per hour was around 1.3m.
• 15% of bloggers spend 10 or more hours each week blogging, according to Technorati’s new State of the Blogosphere.
• At the current rate, Twitter will process almost 10 billion tweets in a single year.
• About 70% of Facebook users are outside the USA.
• India is currently the fastest-growing country to use LinkedIn, with around 3m total users.
• More than 250 Facebook applications have over a million combined users each month.
• 70% of bloggers are organically talking about brands on their blog.
• 38% of bloggers post brand or product reviews.
• More than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since December 2008 and more than 60m Facebook users engage with it across these external sites each month.

Mind-blogging statistics uhh…. Think how they will change in next 2-3 years ! We will literally be living our lives online rather than offline !

source: http://trak.in

How to Increase Your Friends, Fans, Likes and Followers

If you are a website or business that is really trying to make an impact in your industry in more ways than one at some point you might find that it is important to make friends with some of your industry professional colleagues online.

How can I get the attention of my colleagues?

One great way is to locate all of the high powered blogs in your industry and really start reading through some of regularly posted blog posts. Start by leaving tasteful and intelligent comments on some of the blog posts to get their attention. I wouldn’t necessarily do it every day but a few times per/week might be what you need to get the attention of not only your audience but also your colleagues.

How can I use Twitter to get their attention?

Twitter is great because many others will be able to see your marketing attempts and if they are done right it will allow your audience and other industry professionals to see that you are a team player. What I mean by this is that many people out there want to simply focus on only promoting their own material on the Twitter stream and the whole point of social media is to communicate all great content. Some of your colleagues might respond very well to re-tweeting their information online. Who knows, they might even take your post one day and push it out through their social network as well.

Get active on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is an amazing way to really become visible in front your industry. You might not even realize just how many of your industry colleagues are already bouncing around the pages of LinkedIn. Start by getting your profile nice and filled up with your business history and material and start becoming active within the walls of LinkedIn. Join some groups and start posting articles and leaving comments in a variety of targeted groups.

At some point if you really want to be an industry player you are going to have to get on others radar screens. The only way you are going to be able to do this effectively is by really putting yourself out there.

source: searchengineoptimizationjournal

Linkedin for Business USE

 

1. Fill out your profile completely to earn trust.
2. Establish a business account if you don’t already have one.
3. Stay out of trouble by reading the Facebook rules regarding business accounts.
4. Install appropriate applications to integrate feeds from your blog and other social media accounts into your Facebook profile. (Although you should be careful before integrating your Twitter feed into your Faceboook profile, as a stream of tweets can seem overwhelming to your contacts.)
5. Keep any personal parts of your profile private through Settings.
6. Create friends lists such as “Work,” “Family” and “Limited Profile” for finer-grained control over your profile privacy.
7. Post a professional or business casual photos of yourself to reinforce your brand.
8. Limit business contacts’ access to personal photos.
9. Post your newsletter subscription information and archives somewhere in your profile.

Connect and share with others

10. Obtain a Facebook vanity URL so that people can find you easily.
11. Add your Facebok URL to your email signature and any marketing collateral (business cards, etc.) so prospects can learn more about you.
12. Post business updates on your wall. Focus on business activities, such as “Working with ABC Company on web site redesign.”
13. Share useful articles and links to presentation and valuable resources that interest customers and prospects on your wall, to establish credibility.
14. Combine Facebook with other social media tools like Twitter. For example, when someone asks question on Twitter, you can respond in detail in a blog post and link to it from Facebook.
15. Before traveling, check contacts locations so you can meet with those in the city where you’re heading.
16. Research prospects before meeting or contacting them.
17. Upload your contacts from your email client to find more connections.
18. Use Find Friends for suggestions of other people you may know to expand your network even further.
19. Look for mutual contacts on your contacts’ friends lists.
20. Find experts in your field and invite them as a guest blogger on your blog or speaker at your event.
21. Market your products by posting discounts and package deals.
22. Share survey or research data to gain credibility.
23. Use Facebook Connect to add social networking features to your web site.
24. Suggest Friends to clients and colleagues — by helping them, you establish trust.
25. Buy Facebook ads to target your exact audience.
26. Read up on Facebook Beacon to see if it might be useful for you.

Use Network, Group and Fan Pages

27. Start a group or fan page for product, brand or business. Unless you or your business is already a household name, a group is usually the better choice.
28. Add basic information to the group or fan page such as links to company site, newsletter subscription information and newsletter archives.
29. Post upcoming events including webinars, conferences and other programs where you or someone from your company will be present.
30. Update your group or fan page on a regular basis with helpful information and answers to questions.
31. Join network, industry and alumni groups related to your business.
32. Use search to find groups and fan pages related to your business by industry, location and career.
    
    
    source:http://gigaom.com/collaboration/33-ways-to-use-linkedin-for-business/
    

Social Networks and Recruiting

According to a survey by recruiting platform Jobvite nearly three-quarters of companies surveyed are using social networks for recruiting, and 58.1% said they had successfully hired a candidate found through a social network.

LinkedIn was the top social network looked to for hiring, used by nearly 80% of companies recruiting through social media. It also provided the most success, with about 90% of companies who had hired through a social network reporting they found the candidate on LinkedIn. While Facebook and Twitter were used for recruiting by about 55% and 45% of companies, respectively, they led to far fewer hires: 27.5% for Facebook and 14.2% for Twitter.
Success in this area is leading almost half of employers to increase recruiting program spending on social media. At the same time, more than a third of companies were lowering spending on job boards and search firms.

“While the economy begins to recover, companies looking to make new hires are seeking the most cost-effective, efficient ways to find new talent. As our third annual survey shows, social network recruiting has become a mainstream channel for employers who need access to talent,“ said Dan Finnigan, President and Chief Executive Officer of Jobvite. “Job boards launched a revolution in recruiting more than 15 years ago. And now, social networks are doing the same – but in a targeted way. Through social recruiting, companies are learning they can find the best talent efficiently, without making a major investment.“

source:http://social-media-optimization.com/2010/08/social-networks-and-recruiting/

Internet Users Over 50 Prefer Facebook

More than a quarter (27%) of Americans age 50 and over use social media websites, with Facebook being the most popular, followed by MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, according to new research from the AARP.

"The latest data tells us that more and more, social networking is becoming a part of everyday life for Americans 50+, and boomers in particular," said AARP Chief Communications Officer Kevin Donnellan.

"AARP must deliver the same reliable information and first-rate resources we always have, but in a more interactive way, when and where AARP.org users and online community members want it."


Among those over 50 who use social media websites, nearly three-quarters (73%) are connected to relatives other than children and grandchildren, three-fifths are connected to their children (62 percent), and one-third (36 percent) are connected to grandchildren.

Eighty-three percent of those over 50 have heard of the iPad, and among those familiar with the device, 11 percent plan to purchase or want one and 2 percent already have. The number are higher for baby boomers aged 50 to 64, with 86 percent reporting they have heard of the iPad and 14 percent planning or wanting to purchase one.

Additional findings include:

*Forty-nine percent of those 50 to 64, and 40 percent of all adults 50+, consider themselves extremely or very comfortable using the Internet.

*Facebook is the most popular social networking site for Americans 50+, with 23 percent of survey participants reporting they prefer it-followed by MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter, all at about 4 percent.

*Forty-seven percent of adults 50+ originally heard about social networking from a family member other than their spouse, and of those, 70 percent heard about it from a child or grandchild.

Source: webpronews

How to Use LinkedIn for Marketing & SEO: 20 Resources

LinkedIn has been around for ages but finally the service matures. LinkedIn has gained critical mass and positions itself as an alternative or addition for both Facebook and Twitter. I’ve been on LinkedIn for several years but until recently I wasn’t serious about my LinkedIn presence. While I’m wary of social media and networking by now I will nevertheless use LinkedIn in a strategic way from now on.

At first I present you this LinkedIn marketing and SEO resources list. As a follow up I will write a post on how I do optimize my LinkedIn profile. Also take note that this list doesn’t not contain the typical LinkedIn SEO advice pieces where SEO is solely meant as Google SEO. In SEO 2.0 we deal with search holistically. Thus LinkedIn is treated as just another search “engine”.

How to Use LinkedIn & LinkedIn Profile Optimization

• How to Use LinkedIn
• Use LinkedIn Effectively
• How to Improve Your Linked ROI By Tweaking Your Profile
• How to Ensure Your LinkedIn Profile Is Effective
• 10 LinkedIn Tips to Optimise your Profile
• LinkedIn SEO tips
• Effective LinkedIn Positioning
• How To Rank Higher on LinkedIn in Your Niche
• How To Get More From LinkedIn
• How to be a LinkedIn superstar – Creating a profile for success

LinkedIn Marketing & Use Cases

• Ten Ways for Small Businesses to Use LinkedIn
• Using Linkedin for online PR
• Effective Marketing on LinkedIn
• 100+ Smart Ways to Use LinkedIn
• 33 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business
• LinkedIn Marketing Tips
• 7 Ways to Get More Out of LinkedIn

Using Specific LinkedIn Features

• How to Successfully Manage a LinkedIn Group
• 5 Ways Small Businesses Can Leverage LinkedIn’s New Features
• How to Promote and Manage LinkedIn Group

Take note that I didn’t add all LinkedIn resources I know but selected them very carefully of the course of several months. There are not that many serious LinkedIn marketing resources out there. Most LinkedIn SEO posts are just short and often outdated tidbits. So it took me considerable research to pick these resources.

Do you want to know more about me? Well, you can view my LinkedIn profile. In case you want to connect with me make sure to tell me why. I don’t just collect “friends” for the sake of numbers.

Last but not least consider reading my social media hopping post on how you shouldn’t waste your time with social media and networking but use is to propel your business to new heights instead. I will explain how a balanced social media strategy should be implemented in a future post. You can’t abandon social media as a business person but you can’t work for social sites as a user generated content slave for free either.

source: seo2.0