Social Media (network, technology, blog, community, virtual reality, etc...)

A massive survey of internet users reveals trends in social media usage across numerous platforms, ages, races, genders, population density and which social media sites do they frequently visit. 

The Pew Research Center has released the results of a comprehensive social media 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:

67% use Facebook

20% use LinkedIn

16% use Twitter

15% use Pinterest

13% use Instagram

6% use Tumblr

A decent amount of Americans appear to be using social media, but which demographics use social media in greater numbers?

It appears that women use social media 9% more than men do, at a whopping rate of 71%. Other frontrunners with the highest social network activity in their demographic include city dwellers(70%), Hispanics (72%) and adults with a household income below $30,000 annually (72%).

The most pervasive and consistent divider amongst social media users remains, unsurprisingly, their age. 83% of the young adult demographic (18-29 year olds) use social media, which is well over double the activity of online adults over 65 years old (32%).

Infographics have become more popular with the rise of social media, fuelling the need for instant results by providing content in bite-size chunks.

Two infographics provide data and tips to explain why brands must leverage visual social media in 2013 to stay relevant and grow.

Today, the marketing world is still hot on the social media marketing trail, but the trail has diverged. There are different paths with cheerleaders along the way no matter which path a marketer follows.

Ideally, marketers should find the path down the middle that marries all of the elements of social media marketing, but most are not there yet. Many of today’s marketers are still choosing a single path to focus on or jumping back and forth.

For example, those paths include the data and metrics focus, the storytelling focus, the visual focus, and more. This article hones in on the visual focus with the help of two great infographics that visually share the data and tell the story of visual storytelling...

There are many reasons we use social media. From the basic to the more advanced, the tool is simply ubiquitous and addictive. This infographic sheds some light for us all.

We're all already using Twitter it seems. But should we? This flowchart answers the big question: should you use Twitter?

Business-to-business social media marketing has always been a harder nut to crack than its business to consumer counterpart. A new study suggests that a refusal to embrace new social channels might be one reason why.

While more B2B marketers are using social media sites than ever before, Facebook (83 percent), Twitter (80 percent) and LinkedIn (80 percent) are far and away the platforms of choice for the majority of brands, with YouTube (61 percent) and Google+ (39 percent) rounding out the top five.

Pinterest is used by just one in four B2B marketers (26 percent), and Instagram less than one in ten (7 percent).