Social Media 2010, The Fastest Growth Ever

January 30, 2011 By 42 Comments

2010 will be remembered as the year that business professionals took Social Media seriously.  For more than 5 years, social media growth was fueled by personal users and businesses that were early adopters.  This past year, the “Tipping Point” was reached and businesses got on board the social media train.

Here are some of the mind boggling metrics we witnessed this year:

  • Facebook has over 600 million members and is heading towards the 1 Billion mark
  • The average Facebook user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
  • 20 million Facebook users become fans of Pages per day
  • 60 million status updates are made per day on Facebook
  • Twitter has 190 million users, generating 65 million tweets a day and handling over 800,000 search queries per day
  • LinkedIn now has almost 100 million professionals on board
  • Over 2 billion videos are streamed every day on YouTube
  • Foursquare, the mobile social network, is up to 5 million users with 25,000 new recruits every day. Foursquare is averaging 2 million check-ins daily, as the average user checks in three to four times daily.
  • Nearly 4 out of 5 web users visit a social networking site on a monthly basis
  • 73% of US companies use social media tools for marketing purposes
  • Internet users worldwide spend more hours per week with social media than any other online activity
  • 46% of Internet users worldwide interact with social media on a daily basis

The killer question in 2010 was “Where are you?” and this is evidenced by the amazing growth of rivals Foursquare and Gowalla.  The process of checking in at your favorite restaurant or retail store is rewriting the rulebook of marketing for small businesses.  They can leverage customer’s friends, followers and network connections by providing incentives for people to check in at their location.  2011 will surely bring some national players off the fence and into the location based social networking services.

Your personal brand and influence is easier to build than ever before.  Purchasing behaviors are changing, as are the ways people find and take in content.  The way we use the Internet has changed, and social media is simply a reflection of these changes.  In 2011, be sure that you are educated as the social media frenzy picks up additional speed and that you are taking part in the social media revolution or you’ll get left behind.

Sources:  Wikipedia, PEW Charitable Trust, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare

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How To Get Results with Content Headlines

December 28, 2010 By 3 Comments

The Top 5 Winning Headline Strategies That Deliver Results

Nobody will read your content if your headlines are not compelling.  The average attention span these days will give you 3-5 seconds to catch your reader.  On average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest.  With all of the new social media platforms, the competition for your customer’s time is intense.  You need to grab the reader’s attention to draw them in or you will be wasting your time writing.  In order to accomplish this, you’ll need to communicate that your content will be relevant and helpful to the reader (quickly).  Do this and your readers will dive right in and devour your work.

Here are the Top 5 Winning Headline Strategies:

Ask a Killer Question Questions have a way of capturing the readers’ attention because they hit a nerve and personalize the content.  It can stop them in their tracks and draw them in.  EXAMPLE  When your customers search for your products on Google, will you be found first or your competition?

Top Ten List Or Top 3, 5, 7, you get the idea.  With a list, you automatically communicate to the reader that you’ll save them time because the information will be easy to absorb and well organized.  EXAMPLE   Top 5 reasons people buy Mercedes Benz automobiles.

Appeal to Emotion People react to emotions.  Strong feelings cause interest so stir up the pot and you’ll draw them in.  EXAMPLE   Is your fear of public speaking killing your career?

Paint a Picture You can pique your reader’s interest by referring to something that cannot be communicated by text alone.  Photos or videos are a great way to draw them into your content.  EXAMPLE   Video of the new Blackberry tablet on YouTube, before the wire.

How to Always Wins My personal favorite is the How To strategy where you are explicitly stating to the reader that you will offer up answers that they need with little effort on their part.  You have done all of the research for them so this too saves them time.  EXAMPLE   How to increase your Twitter followers overnight.

By mastering the art of writing compelling headlines, you will be light years ahead of your competition and you’ll beat the odds that are heavily stacked against you.  Many people breeze past most of the content out there but instead, you will command a bigger audience by writing show-stopping headlines.

Learn how to get results with Social Media for your business, Join Us for our next “Business Case for Social Media” Webinar every Thursday at 1pm Eastern.

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Give Your Social Profile the Power of Magnetic Attraction

December 16, 2010 By 1 Comment

The difference between success and failure when using social media starts with your profile.  2011 is predicted to be The Year of Social Search.  The growth of social search (searching on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) has eclipsed the projections in size and speed.  This means you need to ensure that you build a strong foundation.  Your profile is the basis of how people get to know you in the social media circles.  By doing this, it will ensure that you are found when your prospects are looking for you, your business or what your business has to offer.

Think about this for just a moment: Twitter search gets more than 1 billion queries per day — roughly 31 billion per month. That’s more search queries in a month than Yahoo and Bing combined. Oct. 2010

 

What is a magnetic profile? First you need get found so your profile must be optimized for your keywords and then you need to have a compelling profile that engages prospects and brings them in to get to know you.  The ultimate goal is to have these prospects reach out to connect with you so don’t forget to make sure it is easy to connect with you.

Follow These 3 Critical Steps:

First Add your keywords.  There are very important locations on the different platforms to add keywords.  On LinkedIn in particular, make sure your job titles and specialties include your keywords.

Second You never get a second chance to make a first impression so think twice on which photo to upload.  Make it a memorable picture capturing the essence of who you are.

Third Draft an engaging headline.  This will be the first thing people see when you are found in social search and will make a huge difference on whether you get offers to connect and do business.

Why is it so important to optimize your profile? Without optimization, you won’t get found.  You’ll be just like the hundreds of millions of people out there that do not see the return on investment from their social media activity.  Everyone is so busy these days and we are all on overload so it becomes even more important to be found at the top of social search and to stand out with an engaging profile.  Building a strong foundation allows you to achieve many other social media goals so invest wisely and get optimized.  Then and only then will you have the Power of Magnetic Attraction.

Learn More This Thursday 1 pm Eastern FREE Webinar “The Business Case for Social Media” Grab Your Spot.

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