social media and digital marketing

Chas Begley: An infographic showing the distribution of the top internet retailers on social media.

Lots of stats here sure to be useful for pepole targeting the retail industry

There’s a huge focus on the big-picture aspect of understanding how businesses can best develop a social media plan and guidelines, let’s not overlook some basic and practical fundamentals that people will encounter day to day, like writing blog posts and making comments on posts.

You’d think it was pretty straightforward, right? Actually it is – your common sense will guide you best – but there are some key aspects to consider when posting online on a professional basis.

With that in mind, Dell has developed this handy Infographic for small to medium-size businesses to help their employees assess how to comment and respond effectively on behalf of their company, whether this is on a blog post, a tweet, a Facebook wall post, or anywhere else.

Original Post: http://dell.to/JyFWvT ;

You may also download Dell's Social Media Toolkit - A guide to how small and medium businesses can make the most of social media - http://bit.ly/JyGAcy ;

The 2012 Social Media Marketing Industry Report Infographic depicts how marketers across different industries are using social media to promote and grow their businesses.

Based on Michael Stelzner - Social Media Examiner's fourth annual social media study, more than 3800 marketers reveal where they focus their social media activities, how much time they invest and what the rewards are.

This 42-page Report is one that you absolutely need to download and study.

You will want to examine all the research and charts and discover some of the ‘not-so-obvious’ findings which are also contained within the Report.

Key Takeaway:

"They're not going anywhere," says Peter E. Doolittle, director of Virginia Tech's Center for Instructional Development and Educational Research. "We're better off learning how to teach well in large classes, rather than trying to avoid them."

College was designed to prepare students for a 20th-century economy, and it’s not catching up fast enough to the realities of the modern world. How can we overhaul the entire system?

Consumers are increasingly demanding that websites allow them to use their Facebook/Twitter/Google+ social login details and how it is likely to be a major impact in influencing social transactions going forward.

Here in this Infographic - http://bit.ly/IN1F1K - is evidence that utilising social log-in could very well translate to increased sales, or, at least fewer “shopping cart disruptions.”

As Monetate - http://bit.ly/GBXWkG - reminds us: “Social commerce is much more than a Facebook store or attributing a sale to an inbound channel like Twitter, Google+, or Pinterest.

Consider social login and social sharing to increase conversion, engagement and other metrics.”

The term social media refers to a set of web-based and mobile tools, technologies and platforms that enable connection, communication and collaboration in ways never before possible

The problem is that this definition doesn’t encompass the undeniable impact social media has had on society and business. Social media is not about tools, but about people.

However, we have employees with an information age mindset trying to flourish in industrial age organisations; Square pegs in round holes.

Countless organisations still ban their staff from using social media during office hours.

Instead of banning use, why not incentivise the correct (or most constructive use) of social media during office hours?

The organisation should emulate a microcosm of the social web.

Business needs to change.

Business is changing and you either keep up or become redundant in the minds of your existing employees, your prospective employees and your customers.

Social media is changing human communication at the most fundamental levels, it touches all aspects of business.

We need to start thinking about social business as the term that could address the way rapidly evolving consumers and employees are challenging the way we do finance, legal, human resourcing, strategy, governance and more.

Recent research confirms that we are living in the digital information age. Nearly half of all Americans get some form of local news on a mobile device, and 46% of people get their news online at least three times a week. What's more, online news sources officially surpassed print newspapers in ad revenue in 2010.

Thanks to online news, we're getting more breaking news than ever. And thanks to social media, we're getting news as it happens—sometimes even before news organizations have a chance to report it.

Are more people turning to social media for breaking news?

And can we trust the news that social media delivers to be accurate and factual?

Check out this Infographic - http://bit.ly/IxXSoJ - to learn more about the changing face of news delivery and how social media may end up leading the charge.

From GPAs to letters of recommendation, it can be overwhelming for college applicants to get everything together. Learn about what really matters when it comes to admissions.

This Infographic from Pagemodo, incorporates 2011 data on how small business owners feel about social media and how they measure what they perceive as success via these marketing channels.

Specifically, focusing on whether small businesses' are utilizing social media properly and know on how to measure ROI correctly.

Download: http://bit.ly/IIcIbz ;

"Chasing the past, I stumbled into the future". - T A Sachs I've always been a firm believer that in order to look to the future, we must look back to and fully grasp the past (and the present)."

David Armano discusses in this post the merits of looking back on the social computing trends of the last decade, before looking forward:

#1. Digital: The Interactive Revolution

The digital revolution initially begun by replacing the analogue world. Digital began seeping into personal and professional lives and organizations, businesses and industries had to evolve along with it

#2. Digital Media: Information Goes Online

The "corporate" Website was born—essentially a glorified brochure for your organization however the business world began to wake up to the fact that not being on the Web was perhaps risking being irrelevant.

#3. Digital Business: The Transactional Era

Digital had become not only interactive and informational, but it became transactional—offering organizations new ways to connect with customers or even employees (intranets).

#4. Social: The Human Web

The word social becomes key during this era, because we begin to shift behavior during this phase. No longer are we just interfacing with digital systems (human to computer) but we begin to interface directly with each other (human to human).

#5. Social Media: Global, Local, Mobile Connectivity At Scale

Today, we live and interact with a digital world which is not only about finding information but is about being "connected".

Networks now drive much of the Web's traffic as billions of people share links and opinions about the world around them.

#6. Social Business: Connected, Adaptive & Intelligent

The reality is that most organizations are currently dealing with the realities of social media and only a few truly recognize the potential of social business. Not unlike how digital media evolved into digital business—social business takes the foundation of social media and begins to build new economic models on top of it.

Business models where new connections are formed to the benefit of both the business, customer and even employee and shareholders are a core tenet of "social business".

#7. Winners & Losers: Navigating Today And Tomorrow's World

Today digital has become embedded into the lives of millions of people and a generation who has never known life before it pours into our workforce and gradually rises in the ranks.

We are now in a social-digital environment where things increasingly move in real time.

Tomorrow's business models must not only be able to adapt to change, they must help drive that change.

Amanda Lenhart spoke to the “Media and the Well-Being of Children and Adolescents” conference at the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pen...

Amanda focused on bringing together data that highlights the demographic differences among groups of youth in their adoption, use and experiences with technology and social media. While such data may have illustrated what was called a “digital divide” in the past, it now highlights a variety of digital differences among groups of youth. This talk brings together data previously shared in a variety of reports on youth as well as some new analysis.

After felling global media conqueror Rupert Murdoch and making world history with Wikileaks, The Guardian faces its biggest challenge yet: being the good media folks who actually make money. By MANDY DE WAAL.

USIP's Theo Dolan and Michael Dwyer recently returned from Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they are looking at ways to harness the power of social media to prevent or reduce violence and how to use a new radio program to educate rural Afghans on "rule of law concepts in attempt to strengthen security in those areas.

Dolan is senior program officer for USIP's Center of Innovation for Media, Conflict and Peacebuilding. Dwyer is a senior program officer for the COI.

Read the Interview here: http://bit.ly/K0RrJS ;

While the number of Americans who go online has increased substantially over the years, about one-in-five adults still do not use the internet. About half of non-users don’t go online because they don’t think the internet is relevant to them.