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20+ mind-blowing social media statistics revisited

It’s around six months since I last threw out some truly mindboggling pieces of data surrounding social media. So, what’s happened between then and now?

I try to put as much information as I can into Econsultancy’s Social Media Statistics, which is part of our Stats Compendium (a truly awesome resource) but I find it’s always interesting to go back and review the old against the new.

So, I’ve collected as much as I can from my previous insane snippets of data and benchmarked it against the here and now, alongside rooting out some new stuff for you to mull over.

by Jake Hird 29 January 2010 10:07am 72 comments

Brands, agencies and vanity URLs: where's the common sense?

Imagine that your name is Harman Bajwa. Your Facebook profile is located at the vanity URL facebook.com/harman. You log into your Facebook account one day only to receive a message indicating that your vanity URL has been "removed for violating Facebook’s policies". This message implies that your vanity URL is unrelated to who you are, and that you've been impersonating someone or something.

That's exactly what happened to Facebook user Harman Bajwa. What gave? A message from a new Facebook 'friend' who works for agency giant Carat provided a hint.

by Patricio Robles 25 January 2010 11:02am 6 comments

Social media takes the field in 2010

2010 is a big year for the world of sport. Later this month, the Super Bowl will air, next month the Winter Olympics will begin and in June, the World Cup kicks off.

One player will be taking part in all of these events: social media.

by Patricio Robles 19 January 2010 12:12pm 5 comments

Where and when to reply online

The internet is filled with opinions and marketing. Well, opinions, marketing and porn, if you want to be exact, but those three cover pretty much everything!

Many companies would much rather prospective clients read their marketing and avoid any opinions about their products or services. After all, although some of that feedback may be good, it’s beyond corporate control. For any business that isn’t used to the online environment, that’s a scary thing.

by Kevin Gibbons 14 January 2010 10:49am 1 comment

Social media you can drink. But will you want to?

In the all-encompassing world of social media, a growing number of brands are turning to consumers to help design new products. And for good reason: the internet and social media have given brands new ways to solicit feedback from their consumers and to involve them in product design and marketing.

There are a lot of things to like about consumer crowdsourcing but one of them unlikely to be the new 'Connect' VitaminWater from Coca-Cola subsidiary Glacéau.

by Patricio Robles 13 January 2010 12:12pm 3 comments

Five success factors for branded online communities

Most major brands are hip to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. And many have built up an impressive presence on the web's most popular social hangouts.

But some of the more adventurous brands have also experimented with self-hosted communities of their own. Unfortunately, a large portion of them fail. Amongst the causalities are communities started by some of the world's biggest brands, such as Coca-Cola and Wal-Mart.

by Patricio Robles 13 January 2010 10:37am 2 comments

Online privacy has never been guaranteed: why so surprised?

I've been following the debate recently caused by Facebook's latest change to their privacy policy, which seems to have got everyone talking about just how much privacy people should expect when they're 'living' in a social world.

Whilst I agree that people need to be clear on exactly which bits of their information is being shared and which is private, I don't think this is worth the furore that it's currently causing. Here's why...

by Henry Elliss 13 January 2010 09:29am 0 comments

A fat-free guide to Facebook for brands

For consumer brands that want to harness - and feel the group hugs from - their community, there’s nothing quite like Facebook.

With hundreds of millions of unique users, Facebook offers a ready-made platform for companies to communicate with customers and fans, to support and extend marketing campaigns and to move some of those key brand metrics.

I have collated a few of the best presentations and videos to help you understand exactly why Facebook matters, and what it can do for your business (and how to do it).

by Chris Lake 11 January 2010 14:09pm 10 comments

Video views for virtual currency: are video offers really a good bet for brands?

Despite the controversy over the use of CPA offers in the virtual goods market, the business of offers continues to grow.

In an effort to innovate and differentiate itself, relative newcomer gWallet is combining offers with online video. With success, it claims.

by Patricio Robles 08 January 2010 12:32pm 1 comment

Rogue marketers on Facebook can steal consumer data. Just like before Facebook existed.

Thanks to recent changes to Facebook's privacy settings, marketers are now able to mine data from Facebook profiles that have limited their shared information to the least amount possible. Blogger Max Klein has found a loophole that allows marketers to compile consumers' name, age, and other personal data with the simple help of an email address.

According to Wired: "Given Facebook’s ubiquity and most people’s reliance on a single e-mail address, the harvest could be quite rich." But marketers have long been able to compile such data, and they don't necessarily need Facebook to do it.

by Meghan Keane 06 January 2010 21:58pm 4 comments