Social Media Optimization News | Social Media Marketing Tips

Reports have shown that YouTube was the fastest growing social media site in the month of April for the second consecutive month. This online video sharing website now accounts for nearly 1 out of 5 visits to a social networking site. YouTube is now established as the third biggest site, overtaking Hotmail recently. However, Facebook on the other hand has lost market share of the number of visits for the second consecutive month in a row, dropping to below 55% of market share for the first time since last year. The fastest climbing social networking sites were Twitter, Yahoo!, Tumblr and Answers. MySpace and Club Penguin have noticeably dropped in market share.

Social networking sites have taken the world by storm and are all set to change the way that traditional media works. Today, social media has now started giving traditional media a direct link into what targeted audiences actually want instead of depending on assumptions made that are based on various demographics. Because of the rise in popularity of social networking sites, it has been proposed that there will be a drastic change in way media companies target audiences in the next 5 years. Social media has a very big impact on traditional media and is going to help free all of us of the assumptions that we make in traditional media. Traditional media basically targets audiences on the basis of age and gender demographics, which rarely gives an accurate depiction of what people actually want. Social media on the other hand, provides marketers with the opportunity to find out what people really want.

Today, organizations have started to think different and have taken to social media to increase revenues. Social media contributes to millions of dollars worth of business annually. This is why many businesses have started using innovative and cutting-edge approaches to further their aims through social media. Surveys have shown that more than two thirds of companies are now using social media to handle their day-to-day business activities, and have received some very important results that contribute to their success. Most small businesses do not have the kind of budgets that larger corporate’s have for communications and marketing, which is why social media channels are now considered to be encouraging as far as generating value is concerned. Effectively using social networking sites, forums and blogs is a great way to increase annual sales. Such a boost can help companies expand and grow and invest in more businesses or hire more staff. Surveys have also shown that as many as 9 out ...

Social networking can seem very complicated to most of us, especially if you’ve got nothing but an empty Facebook or Twitter page with no friends and no followers. Building a loyal following takes a tremendous amount of time, but by taking a few simple steps, you’ll see your social media presence expand faster than you can imagine. Here are a few ways to attract more followers on your social networking site: Start by putting all your social media buttons and links on your website or blog. Make sure that all the Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn networks are clearly visible on your web pages with links to those pages. Add all of your social media links at the end of your emails, newsletters and any kind of electronic media. Invite people to become a “Fan” on Facebook or to “Follow” you on Twitter. Expand your followers through social media. Post a message on your Facebook page and invite people to follow you on Twitter. On LinkedIn, add all of your social networking links to your profile p...

Larry Page, Google’s new CEO, is passionate about social networking, and so is Google! And he’s immensely interested in getting Google onto the social networking platform. Google has been repeatedly saying that Facebook is not a real competitor to them, in spite of many of the Google employees shifting to Facebook. Does Google get intimidated by Facebook? It seem this way, what with the whole frenzy of social networking tests and activities going on in Google. Google has been making several attempts to get it right as far as social networking is concerned. They’ve tried to buy out Friendster, but couldn’t do so, and now they are encouraging their employees to work harder in this area. Google had launched Orkut a month before Facebook came on to the scene and was the biggest social networking site at the time. But with the emergence of Facebook, Google has lost its top spot. Google feels that its future success largely depends on its social networking capabilities and not on email or se...

Senior citizens has increasingly started turning towards social networking sites like Facebook to keep in touch with friends and family. Social networking amongst seniors has become so popular that many of the North Shore senior centers and councils are holding workshops to teach senior citizens about how to use Facebook. Many of these workshops are booked out! Many senior citizens are now creating their own Facebook profile pages and using it on a regular basis. Most senior citizens confess to using Facebook more than actually watching television! Social networking is a great way for senior citizens to keep in touch with their friends and family. What with more and more people going social, the only thing left to happen was the seniors joining up. And now that this seems to be the case can anyone argue that social network is not a phenomenon?

Studies have shown that most students head straight for Facebook the first thing in the morning; the minute they wake up. Surveys have shown that Facebook is the most popular social media platform that students go to for their daily social media fix; the first thing in the morning. Nearly 84% of students use this site before they go to any other site and nearly 96% of students say that they have to visit Facebook every day. These findings have established that Facebook is still the leading social networking site used by students, followed by YouTube, Twitter and then the other rivals. The biggest reason why students prefer to use Facebook as the leading social networking site is because: 83% of them use social media because their friends use it too. 3 in 5 students use social media because it is fun or provides them with knowledge. Half use social media to make their lives easier.

Many organizations and public bodies have shown concerns over allowing their staff members access to social networking sites. But are they right or wrong? Many people believe that organizations that use social media gain certain benefits by using these internal systems to generate a sense of loyalty or a sense of community within the organization, but still others believe that embracing social networking in the organization can result in breach of practices, especially with privacy. This leads us to the question that does allowing your staff to access social networking sites from work impair productivity or breach privacy? Or does granting access to social networking sites provide for more useful communications and demonstrating to your staff that you, as the organization, trust them to use this technology in a healthy manner?

The biggest threat to your online activities would come from the lack of adequate security measures taken on mobile web browsers and social networking sites, and from high targeted attacks against organizations. This is a conclusion made by an Internet security threat report recently. Today, hackers are banking on gaining trust from their colleagues and are using this to launch online attacks. The biggest online attack came in 2010 and was known as Stuxnet. It largely targeted all the industrial control systems and has been dubbed as the most sophisticated malware to ever exist. It proved that malware can even be used to disrupt any vital infrastructure, such as the water pipelines, electrical power supply grids and financial trading systems. In 2010, targeted attacks were not only restricted to large multinational companies, but also included a number of smaller organizations as well. With smaller companies attempting to reduce the number of helpdesk calls being made, attackers are in...

In the days gone by, kids and teenagers used to have to tackle bullies in schools and colleges by enduring taunts and being pushed about. But kids could escape this nightmare after school; in the warm comfort of their homes. Not anymore! Bullying has reached new levels and has grown beyond school playgrounds. Bullying is now reaching our homes. Even in the safety of their bedrooms, kids are no longer free of the threats and taunts that cruel bullies like to dish out. And this has been made possible through social networking sites and online gaming sites. Cyber-bullying is latest way to be mean online and harangue other kids and teens your own age. From cell phones and computers to social networking sites, cyber-bullies use any medium to harass, threaten or humiliate people. Apart from making people absolutely miserable, cyber-bullies can hide behind their anonymity and don’t really have to face their victims. Yet, the impact is just as traumatic, as sending messages through social netw...

The latest warning to be issued by doctors is Facebook Depression! This is the latest in a series of disadvantages that social networking sites have been presenting off late, and it poses as a serious emotional danger for troubled teens especially. Although there are many debates about whether the depression already exists in these vulnerable children and just gets worse or is triggered off by negative influences; it is still being recognized as a condition that is triggered off by social networking sites. Facebook is no place for emotionally vulnerable teenagers. Social media sites present a false reality to youngsters through friends, contacts, status updates and happy pictures of popular contacts. To emotionally vulnerable youngsters who are yearning for popularity, this may make them more depressed. Most youngsters do not realize that the image created on social networking sites is far from the truth. Texting, emails and spending time on social networking sites can increase mood sw...

MySpace is a troubled company and is sinking very quickly. According to recent reports, the social networking site witnessed a drastic decline in traffic by a whopping 10 million visitors in just one month! From the start of this year right till now, MySpace’s web traffic has dropped by nearly 14.4 percent, from a total of 73 million users to 63 million. In addition, the traffic to this site has been halved by what it used to receive nearly a year ago. This news comes as the company’s owner is desperately trying to sell the company. MySpace’s troubles have been reported widely and there have been rumors that the company’s owners are looking to sell the site. At the start of the year, the company began laying-off nearly half of its staff. Many different companies could be interested in MySpace. The social gaming site Zynga has been mentioned a few times. News Corp., the company that bought MySpace is steadily losing money on the site.

Facebook is no more only about interacting with friend, updating status messages and posting photos. Now, more and more users are taking to Facebook to gather more health information. Statistics have shown that 41 percent of the people, who use social media, use it as a healthcare resource. Many people confess to using Facebook for the medical content contained in it right from diet plans and exercise tips to the health education videos. The information gleaned from these social networking sites does have an impact on most people’s future health decisions. Yes, many responsible citizens are now turning to social networking sites for their health care decisions, thus ensuring that many hospitals and health care providers are also ramping up their social media presence. Patients use social media sites for a number of health care needs, including: Watching health education videos. Getting diet plans and exercise tips. Learning about future health events. Studying various diseases. Health ...

You bet! It doesn’t matter whether you are into fashion or not! It is still very difficult to escape the clutches of social media, what the information on the latest fashion trends doing its rounds every day. From live streaming videos of catwalk shows to fashion blogs and social shopping sites where you get all sorts of tips and opinions, social media plays a very big role in the fashion industry. Facebook, Twitter and many other social networking sites have made a very big impact on the fashion industry, and why not? Yes, with the Internet, the fashion industry has definitely become a lot more accessible to the general public. Brands and retailers are now resorting to using social media in order to communicate with customers and listen to them. The Shopping Forecast is a new social site that provides fashion enthusiasts and bloggers with a platform on which to vote and participate in fashion competitions. The fashion voter’s opinion does really count in this site! The information tha...

Today, many people are being employed in companies as community managers. You may ask what a community manager is. Community managers are basically the social media voice of the specific company on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and other such social networking sites. Jobs like this were practically nonexistent a decade ago, but are now helping to fuel a company’s popularity. Just last week, California reported in spite of the job losses taking place, the San Jose metropolitan area had at least 8,000 tech-related jobs in IT and manufacturing. Reports show that nearly 40 percent of the 130,000 job openings in Silicon Valley are for engineering positions. But there are many types of positions in social media, mobile applications and cloud computing that are now becoming key job drivers.

Social networking sites have taken the world by storm! Most people will confess that they cannot even go a day without accessing their Facebook or Twitter accounts. Most people prefer socializing and networking over the Internet than in reality. And like most things, this can pose as a problem as it tends to take away the sense of privacy that is shared by people. And secondly, social networks are not as safe and secure as they claim to be. For Matthew Foster, a Junior Computer Science major, these are precisely the same reasons for why he created worlpal.com. The site comes as a pleasant surprise to those who wish to communicate in a more private way online. Foster says that he wanted to create a full private platform where students can meet one another from anywhere in the world. The whole idea was to sort of meet someone at random, like at a store or a mall, and become friends. Worlpal.com is similar to other social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, but a lot more private....

If you spend hours on end logged into Facebook, just updating your profile, making new contacts or fussing over your status updates – there’s news for you now! This is no longer considered to be a waste of time! Recent studies have shown that the time you spend on social networks may not be as detrimental as you thought it would be; or as you’ve been led to believe. Spending time online and trying to perfect your online identity by making changes to your profile can go a long way in boosting your self-esteem. As opposed to how a mirror keeps reminding us of our flaws, Facebook on the other hand helps by showing us a positive version of ourselves. A mirror just reminds us of who we really are; which in most cases can’t be perfect right? Facebook does a whole lot of good for us, but this doesn’t mean it deceives of us of who we really are. It just gives us a positive portrayal of ourselves. When you post anything on any social media site, you will be able to filter out all the negative a...

JPMorgan Chase & Co. has reportedly raised a whopping $1.22billion for a new fund that will invest in social media. This comes as a shock, as the company was expected to raise anywhere between $500 million to $750 million. Talk about exceeding expectations! The $1.22 billion figure was released on Wednesday in a regulatory filing for the J.P. Morgan Digital Growth Fund LP. This represented the total amount sold. This Digital Growth Fund has been described in the regulatory filing as a Venture Capital Fund that offers only pooled investment fund interests, and no sales will be made after December 31st, 2011. The Digital growth Fund is basically the company’s social media fund. The launch of this social media fund follows the January $1.5 billion fundraising attempts of Facebook, the biggest social networking site in the world. These attempts were mainly made by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and its clients.

Social networking sites have become extremely popular and are the sole cause for the steadily increasing share of users who spend money on advertising online. eMarketer has recently sent out a report that shows that of the $69 billion that marketers spend on advertising, 8.7% of this will be spent on online advertising. This figure is expected to rise to 10.2% by 2012. This rise in popularity has of course been attributed to Facebook. It is said that by the end of 2012, more than half of the spending will take place in countries outside the United States, which is where most of the social media market campaigns are concentrated. Facebook is expected to have global ad revenues of $4 billion, while Twitter is expected to attract $150 million. So, Facebook will receive nearly 70% of all the social media ad revenues worldwide. Reports have shown that marketers today are taking towards integrating social media in their overall platforms. Advertising in social networking sites is bec...

What with everything going virtual, why leave Valentine’s Day behind? On this special day, some of the biggest brands like Mattel, Victoria’s Secret and CBS are turning to social media to market their products on Valentine’s Day. Many brands have been pushing the Valentine’s Day hype on many of the social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, as well as YouTube. Companies are vying to get the best and most exposure for Valentine’s Day. On an average, a person would usually spend about &116 on Valentine’s merchandise. These estimates show an approximately 12.8% increase since last year. Valentine’s Day is about being social. So, let your loved know you love them and let your entire network know about a Valentine’s Day gift on Facebook and Twitter. This creates a lot of brand resonance.