Aspiring Outliers

Social Media is not just a method only being utilized by big brands anymore. Small businesses are starting to embrace and implement social techniques on a grander scale.

A 2012 SMB Group Study found that 20% of small businesses use social in an ad hoc, informal way- to generate leads and drive traffic to websites. The study also revealed that 24% of small businesses are using social in strategic and structured way, including data analysis of market trends and customer driven product ideas.

The businesses practicing strategic social media enjoyed a higher level of integration amongst their departments. The largest disparity between the two groups was uncovered in Customer Service. Only 8% of the companies with an informal social media environment had integrated into Customer Service, while an impressive 43% of the strategic social group integrated Customer Service.

That's quite a difference and food for though if your small business just kicking the tire with little or no social presence.

"Habits of Mind are dispositions that are skillfully and mindfully employed by characteristically intelligent, successful people when they are confronted with problems, the solutions to which are not immediately apparent.  When we draw upon these mental resources, the results are more powerful, of higher quality, and of greater significance than if we fail to employ those habits."

Did you know that since Twitter first opened its doors back in 2006, more than 163 billion tweets have been sent on the micro-blogging social network?

What if we told you that 25 percent of Facebook users don’t bother with any kind of privacysettings?

Or that Google+’s +1 button is used 5 million times per day?

The past year was a wonderful world of social media. Infographics also were a huge hit in 2012. This infographic from the Huffington Post and content below offer more details.

Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook come with a pretty steep learning curve – certainly when used for business marketing – and to maximize return on investment it’s essential that you implement a winning strategy.

It's important for businesses to select the right individuals to manage social channels and to use specific metrics to analyze feedback and success.

Learn more about social media strategies from this infographic, which presents an 8-step strategy for successful social media marketing...

If your impression of social media is limited to your friends posting cat videos and teenagers glued to their iPhones – think again.

Social media possesses incredible influential power, and since the advent of the Internet it's evolved from a simple way for people to keep in touch into a massive global network connecting organizations, communities and people.Social media is the easiest, fastest and most explosive way to transmit and receive information! And best of all – absolutely anyone can take advantage of it.

Check out the infographic to learn how to embrace the ubiquity of social media and use its power to better yourself, your business, or cause, and find a host of statistics and facts that may surprise you about the influence of social media...

The number of social media followers are growing. But how do they all make a profit? This infographic indicates which websites make money with ads, paying customers, mobile apps or affiliates.

Take a look at which revenue streams help major social networking companies go from social service to successful business.

Maps showing the most popular social networking sites by country according to Alexa and Google Trends for Websites traffic data...

A new infographic based on statistics published by the Huffington Post lists 100 of the most fascinating figures from 2012, focusing on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram & Google+.

More than 1 million websites integrated with Facebook since the beginning of 2012. with a reported 80% of users preferring to connect with brands via the social site. With 23% of people checking their accounts five or more times a day, it's hard to miss an advertising opportunity.

Rival social network Google+ could become real competition, garnering 625,000 new members every day of last year. Of those millions of people, active users reportedly spend more than 60 minutes a day across Google products, averaging 12 minutes per day with Google+.

Meanwhile, micro-blogging site Twitter held its own last year. The average user tweeted 307 times over the course of 2012...

See more social media statistics and figures at the infographic.

2012 has been one crazy year for social media. Pinterest was named Best New Startup, Facebook bought Instagram, Facebook went public, Psy's 'Gangnam Style' became the most viewed video in history, and the list goes on...

Want to see just how eventful 2012 has been for social media? Check out this infographic.

While the origins of social media can be traced back to the late 1970s, the medium didn’t really begin to develop until 1993, with the world wide web.

From here, we never looked back. But even as far as 2006 social media was predominately a text-based pursuit. So what’s changed since?

The global domination of YouTube, the rise of Pinterest and the success of Instagram has made social media an increasingly visual platform. And with good reason: users are far more likely to engage with brands who post images and video, and, subsequently, both Facebook and Twitter have taken steps to better-incorporate this content into their channels over the past twelve months.

This infographic takes a closer look at how the shift to a visual social world has developed, and includes six tips for brands on how to use these tools to bolster their marketing strategy.

It is hard to believe that in a digital world where people are so connected, it still seems to be completely difficult for businesses to use that to their advantage to more efficiently maximize their ROI. Companies continue to spend on banner ads instead of on the people who can really make a difference in the way people purchase.

This infographic should help researchers and advertisers see what great potential there is in the power of social media and general online influence. Bloggers, tweeters, and Facebook champions really can be wise investments; read more at the article link.

Want your website to look great on smartphones, tablets, PCs and even TVs? Learn how to go fully responsive.

The Web and the mobile browsers remain one of the top ways that users interact with websites and if they have trouble on their smartphone, there is a good chance they are not coming back.

That’s where responsive design can help.

Responsive design is a concept where you build your website once and then format it so it can adapt to any screen size that accesses it. Designers use HTML5 and CSS to build the sites and set parameters so the content will resize itself whether the user is in vertical or horizontal viewing mode, on a tablet, desktop or smartphone or even a screen as large as a television...

A massive survey of internet users reveals trends in social media usage across numerous platforms, ages, races, genders, population density and more...

The Pew Research Center has released the results of a comprehensive survey, conducted over several years to evaluate which demographics were using social media, and on which platforms. Which social networking sites emerged on top?

Of the online adults surveyed at the end of 2012:

Find more statistics, findings and takeaways on how Americans appear to be using social media, based on this recent study.

The infographic from VividWireless.com.au shows the key figures such as mobile penetration, number of mobile services in Australia, mobile internet usage and other helpful stats on mobile data usage in Australia. 

Someone should do a similar infographic for Brunei. Or is there one I'm not aware of?

Ask anyone to name the most popular social media tools used by students, and it’s a safe bet everybody could name the top two: Facebook and Twitter.

But those are far from the only online applications making inroads. As administrators warm to engaging students through social media, the list of potential resources at their disposal grows longer by the day.

Facebook and Twitter are the obvious choices. But there are other options- Tumblr, YouTube and Google+, to name three.

Of course, if naming the latest social media tools seems tough, learning how to use them all is harder still. In an attempt to shorten the learning curve, Flowtown and Column Five published this Social Media Cheat Sheet for your reference...

Often, the best way to reach a huge goal is to break it down into small, less intimidating goals.

To help small businesses tackle the daunting task of developing a social media presence (without feeling overwhelmed), Intuit has created a "Path to Social Success in 2013" infographic.

The 12-month plan divides the goal of achieving social success into quarters, each focusing on a specific goal:

For each quarter, Intuit then lists big ideas for each month to reach that goal.

For example, the first quarter is about taking social media inventory, so January is dedicated to assessing your social fitness; February, to revisiting your social goals; and March, to establishing ways to measure success, such as number of followers and fans, traffic to website, social mentions across platforms, share of social conversations, and social influence.

As we begin a new year, BBC Future has compiled 40 intriguing predictions made by scientists, politicians, journalists, bloggers and other assorted pundits in recent years about the shape of the world from 2013 to 2150.

They range from the serious to the fanciful, from the exciting to the petrifying.

And to get a gauge on how likely they are to happen, we asked the special bets department at British betting firm Ladbrokes to give us their odds on each prediction coming true.

[View more at the link]

Presenting the FWD IRL FAQ: quick links to your most pressing Internet- and phone-related concerns.

Click the questions to be linked to the column where this question was originally answered. We've selected MANY, but not all, of the original questions answered, representing the 122 questions answered over the past year. (You may have to scroll down a question or two, but it'll be there!)