10 surprising social media statistics that might make you rethink your social strategy

Think you know all about social media? Think again. Check out the ten facts below, but make sure to click through and read the whole article.


10 surprising social media statistics that might make you rethink your social strategy - TNW



1. The fastest growing demographic on Twitter is the 55–64 year age bracket.
2. 189 million of Facebook’s users are ‘mobile only’
3. YouTube reaches more U.S. adults aged 18–34 than any cable network
4. Every second 2 new members join LinkedIn
5. Social Media has overtaken porn as the #1 activity on the Web
6. LinkedIn has a lower percentage of active users than Pinterest, Google+, Twitter and Facebook
7. 93% of marketers use social media for business
8. 25% of smartphone owners ages 18–44 say they can’t recall the last time their smartphone wasn’t next to them
9. Even though 62% of marketers blog or plan to blog in 2013, only 9% of US marketing companies employ a full-time blogger
10. 25% of Facebook users don’t bother with privacy settings

Five B2B Marketing Trends to Watch

MarketingProfs, always a good source of innovative essays on marketing, posted a good article that reviewed the coming trends in marketing.

Here is a link to the post along with a quick outline...

http://www.marketingprofs.com/articles/2013/11767/five-b2b-marketing-trends-to-watch?adref=nlt100113

Trend No. 1: Employee Advocacy and Social Selling

Trend No. 2: Content Marketing

Trend No. 3: Mobile and Consumerization

Trend No. 4: Big Data

Trend No. 5: Agile Marketing

This last trend is something that I think marketers have been wrestling with. Many companies are having trouble dealing with a faster business tempo.

Being an agile B2B marketer means that you still need to adhere to the same core principles of strategic marketing, but you also need to act in a faster, more collaborative and responsive way. New and adaptive automation technologies are essential to acting fast, being responsive, and scaling. Social marketing is essential to staying informed and being relevant to your target audience. Be flexible, understand your customers, and act quickly!

Go and read the whole article...it's worth your time.

Reading List for the Dog Days of August- Mark Cuban Edition

I've just returned from vacation and I'm catching up on some reading. Here are a few articles that have caught my eye...

Which USA do you work in?, by Mark Cuban
Mark says there is are two Americas: one is having the intelligence sucked out it (brick and mortar) and one is is desperate for intelligence (cloud). His advice? Learn to code.

5 Ways To Learn Code From The Comfort Of Your Own Browser, by Klint Finley, TechCrunch
Taking Marc's advice? Start here...

Amazon Web Services
And here...

Freelancer.com
And here...

Henry Rollins’ 3 Rules For Success As An Artist/Entrepreneur by Jason Gots, Big Think Blog
Still a big fan of Henry...I think I first heard a Black Flag song in 1985.

Groupon Visits the Bargain Basement, Marketing Pilgrim
Whoever said that Groupon/Livingsocial, etc were social media companies was seriously smoking something.

10 B2B Companies That Create Exceptional Content, by Meghan Keaney Anderson, Hubspot
Hubspot writes up some great, informational posts on marketing. Truly succeeding by drinking the content marketing kool-aid.

Copyspace
Ever wonder if someone is plagiarizing your website, or someone else's, this is the site for you.

MarketingBuzz: 5 steps for building a content marketing strategy, by Irving Frydman, ChannelBuzz.ca
Nice, quick highlights...

Content Marketing Checklist: 13 Things You Must Do Before You Publish Content, by Heidi Cohen, Business 2 Community
Another good take on how to set up and run a content marketing program.

The Marketer's Simple Guide to Creating Infographics in PowerPoint, by Anum Hussain, Hubspot
Hubspot scores again...and with a handy template.

Links for May 1: LinkedIn B2B Leads, The Next Big Thing, China

LinkedIn 4x Better for B2B Leads than Facebook or Twitter - David Meerman Scott, socialmediatoday.com

In a study of 3,128 HubSpot B2B customers, LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.60%, four times higher than Twitter (.67%) and seven times better than Facebook (.39%). 

 
Seven Ways to Spot the Next Big Thing - Thomas Goetz, CNBC.com
1. Look for cross-pollinators
2. Surf the exponentials
3. Favor the liberators
4. Give points for audacity
5. Bank on openness
6. Demand deep design
7. Spend time with time wasters

Read the whole, original article here: How to Spot the Future 

Four Shocks That Could Change China - Paul Gregory, Forbes
1. More local revolts like the Wukan Uprising
2. A faltering economy is leading to some to call for the government to step back and allow more free enterprise and financial freedom
3. The whole Bo Xilai fiasco
4. The escape of blind dissident Chen Guangcheng from house arrest and his ability to travel across China to the US Embasssy in Beijing. (Again, he is blind.)

Interview with Matt Langan- Social Media and Content Marketing

Last week, I interviewed marketing consultant Matt Langan on the Straight to the Point podcast series. Matt is the CEO of L&R Communications and is also the editor-in-chief of GotGeoInt.com, the nations preeminent geospatial intelligence blog.  

Two years ago, as social media was starting to be adopted by marketers targeting the government customer, Matt and I had a great discussion about how companies needed to adopt a more aggressive content marketing approach in order to successfully grow their government business.


What has changed since then? Did our predictions turn out to be accurate? 

You can listen to the podcast here: Interview with Matt Langan

What did we cover?

• How the slow economic recovery is influencing marketing budgets?
• Are marketing executives rotating funds into social media and content marketing?
• How important is social media to achieving marketing objectives now? 
• How important is mobile marketing to the marketing mix? 
• What marketing trends do you see that are going to impact the industry most over the next few years?

Interview with James O'Brien- Part 1: How to Get Started with Mobile Marketing

Last week, in the first of a two part series, I interviewed mobile marketing consultant James O'Brien on the Straight to the Point podcast series about how companies can get a mobile strategy started and where mobile marketing is headed.

I've known James for twenty years and admire the expertise he gained from working with commercial, political and government clients in his career. An expert in online marketing, email compliance and privacy regulations, James is the founder of J Obrien Global and is currently a partner with MobiMKT, a mobile application development agency.

You can listen to the podcast here: Interview with James O'Brien- Part 1: How to Get Started

What did we cover?

• How marketing is being transformed by mobile technology and the movement of the audience onto mobile devices
• How important is social media to achieving marketing objectives now? 
• How important is mobile marketing to the marketing mix? 
• For a firm without a mobile strategy, what is a good first step? 
• What marketing trends do you see that are going to impact the industry most over the next few years?

All Companies are Publishers Now- Are You Making News?

Have you really taken to heart the idea that social media channels require new kinds of content? Are you really making an effort to create stories that people will value, or are you still just tweeting your press releases?

You (and your company) are a publisher now...don't believe me? Do you believe the New York Times?

Read, Blogging Site Tumblr Makes Itself the News, by Brian Stelter.

The takeaway?

By creating in-house content, social Web sites can increase the amount of time that users spend on their sites, thereby increasing their value to advertisers.

Andrew McLaughlin, a vice president at Tumblr, said that in telling stories about its users, the company wanted Mr. Mohney and Ms. Bennett, the only two hires for the time being, to “do real journalism and analysis, not P.R. fluff.”

“Of course, it’s obviously in our self-interest as a company to surface more compelling stories about creators on Tumblr; at the same time, though, we think Chris and Jessica will be able to do so in ways that embody professional rigor and first-rate writing,” he said in an e-mail message.

In the savage battle for mindshare, web traffic and influence, do you have ex-journalists and editors crafting professional stories, or did you assign that job to the twenty-something who is on Facebook all day?

Something to think about...

Good News! Honeycomb Consulting is Born!

The good news here? I'm very proud to announce the birth of a new company.

After standing up the marketing infrastructure for a division of the largest privately held management consulting company earlier this year, I have started my own firm. Honeycomb Consulting brings to you the expertise and best practices I’ve learned from fifteen years of building and executing business development, social media, mobile, public relations, marketing and advertising campaigns.

Faced with an uncertain economic environment, senior executives I speak with can’t or won’t bring on new employees or full service agencies. However, the need remains to find prospects, close clients and strengthen relationships.

That is where I come in…

I founded Honeycomb to address the projects sales and marketing leaders have not been able to get to.  

Think about these questions…

• Are you generating enough leads?
• Is your social media strategy suffering from a lack of good content?
• Does your website copy need refreshing?
• Do you have a mobile app?
• Are there prospects that haven’t received phone or email outreach?
• Do you have projects that you have just not been able to kick-off?

Interested? Email me and let’s schedule an initial phone call and walk through your to-do list... and talk about whether you have the right or enough resources to achieve your goals. If it makes sense, we will work together to develop a project that addresses any neglected or under-resourced priorities.

Overview of B2B Social Media Applications- Marc Hausman

If you haven't already read the post, Marc Hausman, CEO of Strategic Communications Group, lays out the three main B2B applications for social media.

They are:

1. Social Media for PR
2. Social Media for Corporate Positioning
3. Social Media for Sales

"During the past four years, Strategic Communications Group (Strategic) has designed, executed and evaluated nearly 40 social media campaigns for the world’s largest, fastest growing and most successful technology companies.  Our clients have included global brands such as Microsoft, Cisco Systems, EMC, Sun Microsystems, British Telecom, NeuStar, Monster and BearingPoint, as well as emerging vendors like Merchant Link, Cimcor, ePok and govWin.

While the practice and influence of social media can be applied across the organization, our experience teaches us there are primarily three high-value viable applications of social in a B2B environment."

Compelling Content is the New Advertising

As more and more companies adopt and incorporate social media into their overall marketing structure, understanding of what makes social media marketing effective is spreading. Back in the day, most companies would consider the "social media box" checked if they found a young, college graduate to set up a Twitter account. Now, a more sophisticated, strategic approach is being rolled out in many places...

We at Strategic have always said that creating and aggregating compelling, value added content was one of the keys to successfully building and engaging with a targeted audience. You company has just as much right to a computer screen as the New York Times, but if your content stinks, guess who is going to get the traffic. Your content has to be the Three E's: engaging, education and entertaining. And it has to be distributed to the right folks in the appropriate way. Tweeting your latest press release is a waste of time.

More and more people are getting on board with this approach. Check out this latest post from Copyblogger, "3 Steps to Foolish Online Advertising" (I highly suggest reading the whole thing...)

Remember this first and foremost – educate first and foremost. Give people something they can use, and they’re primed for more value. And that’s exactly what the Motley Fool report does.
While delivering on its promise and providing value, it becomes clear that this information is just the tip of the iceberg, and clearer that deeper analysis is valuable and worth paying for. That’s the natural point to make an offer – when people have been educated enough to do business with you.

Do You Have to Pay for Advertising?

Absolutely not. We’ve been preaching for almost five years that compelling content is the new advertising, thanks to the fact that compelling content spreads for free via social media.
People actually want content.

Compelling content is the new advertising. Compelling content is the new marketing. Compelling content is the new...everything.

22 Social Media Marketing Management Tools

I read a fine listing of powerful social media marketing tools last week at Top Rank Online Marketing Blog. I didn't have a chance to repost the list then, so here goes... (please click above to read the whole article)

Shoutlet – Manages social media marketing communications with one platform for building, engaging and measuring social media. Includes multiple account and platform support, social CRM and ecommerce for Facebook, email marketing and mobile features.

Direct Message Lab – Provides consulting, implementation and a platform (REACH) for centralized management of social media promotions & contests, advertising and measurement.

Objective Marketer - Offers social media marketing and analytics with integrated campaign management (Twitter, Blogs, Facebook, YouTube), multi-channel execution, engagement reports and user management.

Wildfire Interactive - Platform for easy creation, implementation and management of branded interactive campaigns including: sweepstakes, contests and give-aways.

StrongMail Social Studio – Comprehensive social media marketing platform with a referral marketing platform, social sharing tool and campaign management application. (Disclosure: StrongMail is a TopRank client)

Sprout - Cloud-based visual authoring software used to build interactive Engage Ads and Engage Apps that deliver rich, interactive, and social content across the web and mobile devices.

Spredfast - Enterprise social media management system that allows an organization to manage, monitor, and measure its voices across multiple social media channels. Also offers a white label option for agencies.

socialTALK – allows brands to create (text, photos, videos), manage (customize workflow & approval process), publish (single source, scheduled publishing to multiple platforms) and measure (aggregated analytics dashboard) their content strategy and posting schedule.

Crowd Factory – Suite of social media marketing tools include Social Campaign, that enables marketers to acquire new customers through simple social gestures and custom social marketing campaigns while easily tracking ROI.

Awareness - Social marketing hub that centralizes social media content publishing, management, measurement and engagement. Also includes access to 7 white-labeled, best practice social networking applications.

@this moment – Built on the @this moment platform, DEC is a system for managing a brand’s presence across multiple online environments combining multimedia UGC, and a variety of real-time inputs which are distributed across social platforms including YouTube Brand Channels, Facebook Fan Pages, MySpace Brand Communities & the iPhone.

MediaFunnel – Offers a Business Social Media platform for Facebook and Twitter supporting multiple users per profile and editorial review. Includes monitoring and integrates with Salesforce.com.

Virtue – Works with clients and agencies through a Social Relationship Management (SEM) platform offering Facebook tabs & applications, a publishing feature for Facebook & Twitter and mobile solutions.

Sprinklr – Social media marketing platform and consulting services for consumer & B2B marketers as well as agencies. Provides social media audience research, acquisition, content promotion and measurement tools.

Janrain – Web based platform of tools including: Engage to make it easy for users to connect a site with their social networks, Federate to facilitate navigation across multiple web properties & partner sites with a single log-in (currently supports 16 networks), Capture to leverage user data for personalized experiences.

Sprout Social – Affordable social media dashboard, monitoring, team workflow, influencer and contact management, performance metrics and daily or weekly email summaries. Supports Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yelp and Foursquare.

Sendible – Social media marketing platform that supports 30+ networks & services offering management of: accounts/profiles, messages & content, social contacts, content discovery, engagement, blog content & promotion, monitoring and analytics. Also offers a white label version for agencies.

KickApps – Self service social media web site authoring and social content management system system supporting video, social networking, social graph & activity streams, apps & analytics. Enables web publishers and marketers to develop branded communities, social applications and interactive widgets on their websites and across the social web. Solutions for small and large business.

Postling – Local business social media marketing platform to create content, stay organized and reach customers. Currently free for small business or personal use.

pop.to Social Marketing –  A social marketing suite, including feed-enabled social gestures and widgets, social dashboard, segmentation tools, influencer identification, conversion tracking and built-in friend casting.

HootSuite - Social media dashboard for managing social content and engagement on multiple networks with team workflow and statistics.

Seesmic – Web and desktop tools to manage social marketing activity on Twitter, Facebook, FourSquare, Google Buzz and Linkedin plus a plug-in marketplace for more social management options.