Each week, I compose a newsletter for our team that includes a series of links about current events and trends in the worlds of technology, social media, mobile, communications and marketing in order to keep our wider team up to date on changes, newsworthy items and content that might be useful in their jobs. These are those links.
If you have additional links, sources or ideas that might be helpful, I'd encourage you to add some via a comment below or tag me in Google+. And if you’re on Flipboard, you can get these links in the This Week in Social Media Magazine.
Industry
- Viewing habits of television continue to change: 19% of TV homes are now broadcast-only (up from15% just two years ago) , meaning that homes are dropping cable subscriptions. At the same time, some 12% of millennials are accessing TV content only via broadband, and that number is growing.
- One of the most underrated correlations with social is search. Searchmetrics just released a study that demonstrates the connection between web content and the social web - with Google+, backlinks, Facebook shares and total Facebook actions being the strongest ranking factors, respectively.
- Similarly half of all internet users ages 18-23 and 43% of users ages 24-32 used social networks as their primary discovery source for information. From the article: "Although consumers are rapidly changing their habits and behavior, marketers still haven't caught up, prioritizing SEO and paid search efforts above engagement over social media."
- And consumers are more trusting of customer reviews online - trusting them as much as personal recommendations.
- In the UK, social and mobile continue to dominate: UK moms gravitate to social and mobile first (Facebook and YouTube, overwhelmingly) and social networking is set to reach half of the UK population this year.
- The 10 most innovative companies in Asia (according to Forbes) include online/mobile/social powerhouses Baidu, Rakuten and Tencent Holdings.
- Among digitally connected consumers, social media usage is occupying more time spent connecting with others on more platforms and more often.
- Recent studies show as many as 8 out of 10 CEOs are skeptical of social media, seeing is as an indulgence, or simply not understanding it. Perhaps they should take a look at these 10 questions.
- Images are beginning to form a new language online.
Platforms
- The social media landscape has changed dramatically in a short time. Here's a chart to help visualize exactly how complex it has become. [IMAGE]
- Here are the top 50 brands on Instagram.
- A week after Instagram launched video functionality, sharing video on Twitter via Vine has dropped significantly.
- You can now embed Instagram videos and photos directly to your blog or website.
- And yet, some think that Facebook should let Instagram users pay to remove videos.
- Is Facebook's advertising beginning to spiral out of control?
- Stellar set of interactive infographics on how Asia uses Facebook and how Africa uses Facebook.
- Speaking of Asia, here are some other stats worth noting:
- Messaging platform WeChat now has over 70 million users outside of China
- Korean social messaging platform KakaoTalk now boasts over 100 million users, likely due in part to its social gaming features.
- If you want to reach young males, you've got an excellent chance of doing so on Reddit, where six percent of online adults can be found and 15% of males 18-29 are.
- In an effort to reduce spoilers for live TV viewing, Twitter is experimenting with a new live events platform that includes "DVR mode."
- Twitter is also planning to start targeting its ads in the US market by exposing them to consumers who have shown an interest in those brands.
- Storify is adding more tools for brands with new collaboration and export features.
- According to users in the UK, US and Canada, social networks have different characteristics: for example, Pinterest is most useful for ideas and projects, while Facebook makes them feel most connected with their friends.
Legal/Regulatory
- Social media snark has flowed from Facebook straight into the courtroom. Bottom line: what you say online can affect offline situations as well.
Metrics/Measurement/Big Data
- A study by the Internet Advertising Bureau has determined that 90% of customers will recommend brands after social media interactions with them. Of course, a key to this is the interaction - a two-way dialog, not another advertising medium.
- According to a recent study, LinkedIn may be positioned to become the first global economic graph with the ability to mine the transactions of an emerging data economy.
Content
- Good writers are hard to find. If you're staffing your content efforts with underpaid writers, you're going to get what you pay for.
- A contrarian view from AdAge (but not really): Why the 'Newsroom' Tactic Can Be Hurtful to Brands explores how it's important to do more than just hop on a trend for the trend's sake: "When a brand swiftly publishes creative and tasteful content tied to the latest news headlines, it dramatically maximizes the impact and ultimately the success of that content. But that success can be fleeting and actually hurt you if you're not laser-focused on telling the bigger brand story."
Bookmarks/Read-Watch-Listen Later
- While marketing, IT and communications get a lot of credit and are pushed into the arena of social media, human resources generally lags. But 2013 is shaping up to be the year of social HR.
- We've seen much ado lately about the role of social media in breaking news situations. This Fast Company article "Twitter vs. Mainstream Media: Science Proves Which Breaks News Faster") takes a deeper dive into the issue. You might be surprised at the results.
- A new study by the Oriella PR network looks at trends in digital space and how it affects the making and breaking of news worldwide. Some topics include: journalists as publishers, a shift away from pre-packaged stories in press releases, digital being thought of before print, unique views being seen as important for measured success, and interactions on Twitter. Definitely worth a look, whether you're in marketing or communications.
Image credit: malloreigh (Flickr)
