MediaPost: Social Media Growing As An Important Marketing Tool - Key is Listening and Engaging

When asked if the use of social media has been successful for their business, Twitter users report an 82% success rate while every other tool studied enjoys at least an 87% success level.

Measuring success was investigated and most respondents report using hits, comments, leads or sales as primary indicators of success.

The key is listening and engaging, says Weber, but the study indicates that companies are not engaging effectively. Among the Fortune 100 companies examined by Weber Shandwick, only:

• 26% of their Twitter accounts were primarily used as a one-way flow of information that offered no engagement with followers.
• 24% of the Twitter accounts were primarily used for brand awareness. Many appeared to be on Twitter simply to have an online presence.
• 16% were used mainly as sales vehicles for company products and services.
• 9% were directed primarily to customer service
• 8% focused on Thought leadership it.
• 14% of accounts were used for other reasons such as recruitment or employee-specific information, or their accounts were locked and not visible.

MediaPost Publications Social Media Growing As An Important Marketing Tool

full article here > http://bit.ly/6CiTeK

35-54 year-old demo on Facebook is up 276+% over the past 6 months

Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with platform applications.

Keep that in mind as you check out these Facebook Insights:

1)  The 35-54 year old demo is growing fastest, with a 276.4% growth rate in over the approximate 6 months since we last produced this report

2) The 55+ demo is not far behind with a 194.3% growth rate

3) The 25-34 year population on Facebook is doubling every 6 months

4) For those interested in advertising alcohol on Facebook, there are 27,912,480 users 21+, representing 66.3% of all users

5) Miami is the fastest growing metropolitan area (88.5%) and Atlanta (6.4%) is the slowest

6) There are more females (55.7%) than males (42.2%) on Facebook – 2.2% are of unknown gender.

7) The largest demographic concentration remains the college crowd of 18-24 year olds (40.8%) which is down from (53.8%) six months ago.

Take away? Parents and professionals are rapidly adopting Facebook.

Additionally, Facebook Pages now have an age restriction feature and with a 70% concentration of legal drinking aged users rapidly approaching alcohol brands should get ready to throw one back!

full article > http://bit.ly/7aZzMn

Apps took Facebook from 35 million to 350 million

10x growth in unique users is the dream of every platform - ask twitter. ask foursquare. ask boxee.

Facebook had 35 million unique users before opening their API to developers June 1st 2007.  There are now more than 500,000 active applications on Facebook.

check out the stats below and let me know how apps have changed your life.

comments welcome and appreciated.

Statistics

• More than 350 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• More than 35 million users update their status each day
• More than 55 million status updates posted each day
• More than 2.5 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 3.5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
• More than 3.5 million events created each month
• More than 1.6 million active Pages on Facebook
• More than 700,000 local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
• Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans

• Average user has 130 friends on the site
• Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
• Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
• Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month
• Average user becomes a fan of 2 Pages each month
• Average user is invited to 3 events per month
• Average user is a member of 12 groups

• More than 70 translations available on the site
• About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States
• Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application

• More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries
• Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications
• More than 500,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform
• More than 250 applications have more than one million monthly active users
• More than 80,000 websites have implemented Facebook Connect since its general availability in December 2008
• More than 60 million Facebook users engage with Facebook Connect on external websites every month
• Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have implemented Facebook Connect

• There are more than 65 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
• People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are almost 50% more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
• There are more than 180 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products