Twitter has finally caught up with Facebook – at least in terms of popularity. In terms of usage, however, Facebook – with over 400 million active users – is still leading over the massively popular social networking / microblogging site. These are among the most important findings from a new report released by Edison Research and Arbitron Internet and Multimedia Series. Conducted last February and entitled “Twitter Usage in America: 2010”, the research study presents three years of tracking data from a nationally representative group of 1,753 Americans ages 12 and above. Results show that 87 percent of Americans – compared to 5 percent in 2008 – are now aware of the microblogging platform, which is virtually equal to the percentage of the population – 88 percent – who are aware of Facebook, the world’s most popular social networking site. However, Twitter still trails Facebook in terms of usage, as only 7 percent of Americans actively use Twitter, compared to – Read the full article
intern Genevieve’s first day introduction*
Rising along with the popularity of Twitter as well as other instant messaging services with character limits are services for URL shortening. There are hundreds of services on the Web for this, letting people use the smallest space possible for sharing and linking to content. Some of them generate shorter links; some come with bars at the top of the application; some are content to let their links expire. Standing out among all these URL shorteners, however, is Bit.ly, created by John Borthwick of Betaworks. After serving as the default URL shortener for Twitter during the most part of last year, Bit.ly grew to become a web-wide tool. In December, Twitter stopped using Bit.ly, but this breaking of ties hasn’t stopped the URL shortening service from continuing to scale and serving as a useful tool for users, publishers, Internet marketers and eCommerce providers. Still need convincing that Bit.ly is the URL shortener for you? Here are the top 6 reasons – Read the full article
As a small business owner, you may find yourself going crazy over the number of things you have to do for work. But don’t worry: if you own an Apple iPhone, you’ll at least have some apps at your disposal – apps which can truly help you stay connected to your business and hang on to a little bit of sanity. While the iPhone is a fun device, it can also make for a great business tool – especially if you’re always on the go. Here are several Apple iPhone apps with which you, as a small business owner, cannot go wrong. Money matters A number of apps let you keep track of your expenses and finances. These include BalanceDo, a productivity app through which you can send customer invoices, track receivables or billings, and manage payments through PayPal. If you want to perform credit card transactions with your iPhone, check out MerchantWare Mobile. (You’ll need a Merchant Warehouse account.) – Read the full article
It’s one thing to get a lot of followers on Twitter; it’s another to be able to retain them and keep them engaged and interested. To be followed is not enough, especially if you’re a small business owner looking to maximize the long-term value of the social microblogging site for your company or brand. You’ll want people to eagerly await your tweets, and to have them “retweet” whatever you have to say. You’ll want them to keep asking you for more. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should suffer from tiny little panic attacks whenever someone decides to un-follow you. But retaining followers on Twitter can be one of the most crucial parts of your social media strategy. So here are the top 7 tips on how to keep them once you have them: 1. Quality over quantity Twitter users follow you not because they want their home page cluttered with meaningless minute-by-minute updates, but because they assume they’re going – Read the full article
Remember the Marshall McLuhan phrase, “The medium is the message”? Well, in the era of social web and social media, that might undergo a slight modification. It might be more appropriate to say instead, “The audience is the message” – that is, if we’re to describe the findings published in a recent data study by 360i. According to “The State of Search”, the whitepaper released this November by the company, most of the social media search listings that appear for brand-related queries are actually created by individuals not affiliated with the brand. This includes customers. Fans. Advocates. Maybe a few haters, too. They – and not the brand marketers – control or publish a staggering 77% of YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook listings that appear for brand searches. What this means is that when someone searches for “Insert Brand Name Here” on social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, then chances are that the results that come up were published – Read the full article
In recent times we’ve seen social media grow exponentially fast. Thanks to quick Internet adoption and the advancement of mobile technologies, hundreds of millions of people are now part of social networks like Facebook and Twitter. These two sites in particular have enjoyed an incredible amount of attention, but we must understand that they form but a part of a continually evolving social media landscape. That’s why it’s important to take a wider perspective and check out which new social media and social networking sites may soon become the Internet’s new darling. Foursquare Foursquare is a location-based social networking site that’s lately been getting a tremendous amount of hype. A number of its features are parallel to Twitter (like the ability to post quick status updates wherever you are), but Foursquare sets itself apart by encouraging – and rewarding – users to explore their own cities. Here’s how it works: users “check in” by posting updates through a messaging service. – Read the full article
A viral marketing campaign is one of today’s best (and most cost-effective) ways to let people know about your business. It can take on many forms, like videos, pictures, interactive Flash games, e-books, and even text messages. If done properly and executed creatively, your viral marketing campaign can excite immediate word-of-mouth enthusiasm from people. It can be viewed, read, “liked”, and bookmarked countless times, spark memes, remixes, and spoofs, generate tons of links, and shared on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Digg, etc. With viral marketing, your campaigns will suddenly get a life of its own – and you won’t have to spend so much money for advertising placements. But how do you do it properly? Is there a formula to achieving a million hits on YouTube? How do you make sure your viral content gets passed around by friends and strangers on Facebook? Because of the wide variety of viral campaigns found on the Internet these days, – Read the full article
