The Current Pulse of the Social Media Revolution

July 18, 2010

 “Social Media isn’t a fad; it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.” This quote is from a YouTube video entitled Social Media Revolution 2.

It has been estimated that social networking accounts for more than 22% of all time spent online in the U.S. The average visitor spends 66% more time on these sites than a year ago. Two-thirds of Americans now use Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and other social media sites. This is up about 230% from the 20% penetration in 2007. In addition, 43% are visiting these sites more than once a day. 

We have discussed many social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Foursquare, Ustream, 12seconds, Flickr, Dailybooth, FriendFeed and Tumblr in The Keaton Chronicles.  These new media platforms are evolving so rapidly that it is difficult to keep up with their statistics. I have compiled some interesting facts and trends that I wanted to share. Some of the most popular social networking sites include: Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

Facebook   

Facebook currently has more than 400 million active users. Fifty percent of the active users log on to Facebook in any given day. The average user has 130 friends and is connected to 60 pages, groups and events. The data show that Facebook has come to dominate social networking in the U.S.

There are more than 100 million active users who access Facebook through their mobile devices. These mobile users are twice as active on Facebook as their non-mobile user counterparts. There are more than 550,000 active applications on the Facebook Platform and more than one million Web sites have integrated with the Facebook platform.

This platform has a global reach with about 70% of Facebook users residing outside of the U.S. There are over 70 translations available on the site.

The Social Network, a movie about the history of Facebook, will appear in theaters this October.  Check out the trailer.

MySpace   

The number of Facebook users has greatly surpassed MySpace users in the past year. However, MySpace’s 57 million U.S. users are highly engaged. The user composition of MySpace has shifted to younger people. Nearly half of the site’s users are 24 years old or younger. MySpace users want games and entertainment (Facebook users want both news and community and Twitter users mostly consume news). 

Twitter     

This micro-blogging social network only allows for a maximum length of 140 characters per Tweet. Twitter users are sending 55 million Tweets per day. The site reaches approximately 10% of all Internet users and has a user retention rate of 40%.

Twitter has more than 106 million registered users and gets 300,000 new users a day. It receives 600 million search queries a day and more than 3 billion requests each day.

Since the inception of Twitter in March 2006, there have been over 10 billion tweets. One percent of Twitter visitors are addicts and account for 35% of the visits to Twitter. That is an astonishing figure! Regular Twitter visitors account for 27% of the visitors and 41% of the visits to Twitter. The remaining 72% of Twitter visitors are considered to be passers-by.

What does this data tell us? Twitter users are not active and the growth rate of new users is slowing. Despite these numbers, Twitter remains as one of the top social networking sites and should be utilized by marketers.

What do Social Media Users Want?

The chart below shows the varied interests of the unique visitors to specific social networking sites. This information is important for marketers, advertisers, public relations specialists and other communications professionals to be able to effectively leverage each site.

My thanks go out to Chitika.com, HubSpot.com, Mashable.com, Web-strategist.com, Facebook.com, MySpace.com and Twitter.com for compiling and sharing their statistical data.

The Power of YouTube

July 11, 2010

Whether it is a comedic satire, an animated impression or a narrative documentary, there is nothing like the power of video to portray an event or tell a story.

YouTube, video-sharing Web site, was started in 2005 by three former PayPal employees. It was sold to Google for $1.65 billion in 2006.   

YouTube has more than 2 billion views per day and can be viewed in 22 countries in 24 different languages. The average person spends 15 minutes a day on YouTube.

Currently, there are nearly 100,000 videos on YouTube about the BP oil spill. The following video is the most popular and my personal favorite. This is what happens when BP spills coffee . . .

Here is a BP Parody: Press Conference Ends Awkwardly.

Thank goodness for honest, empathetic and heart-felt apologies . . .

Sometimes it is very hard to find out the real truth. This short film shows interviews of fishermen and other coastal residents talking about the effects of the BP oil spill on their livelihood as well as their lifestyle.

Good Morning America sent Weatherman Sam Champion to Louisiana to show the underwater perspective of this disaster.

YouTube is also a vehicle to share good solutions to this Beyond Pathetic (BP) crisis. This informational film shows how a material of switch grass and other natural matter can be used to clean up the oil.

As you can view, YouTube is much more than a way to “Broadcast Yourself.” The videos can be for entertainment, informational or biographical purposes. I am hoping they can also be used to solve this country’s worst man-made disaster.

#1 Viral Campaign of the Past Decade was an Accident

June 28, 2010

What happens when you combine 200 liters of Diet Coke and over 500 Mentos? I say it is pure symphony! Check it out!

This cultural phenomenon started as a backyard experiment. Two “scientists,” Fritz Grobe and Stephen Voltz had heard about the Diet Coke and Mentos explosions and decided to try it out in their backyard. The first test only used one bottle of Diet Coke and a handful of Mentos. The chemical reaction of the two edible products created a spray of six to eight feet. 

The two men instantly decided they had to do something with this reaction and the very next night, they presented their very first choreographed show at the Early Evening Show, a live theater, in their hometown of Buckfield, Maine. The live audience loved it, so they decided to take their geyser show a step further.

After six months of experimenting with various geyser effects by drilling holes in the bottle tops, swinging the bottles on ropes, rolling them down hills, etc., they created their first  three-minute video (shown above).

The rest . . . is all viral!

The video went online at EepyBird.com on Saturday, June 3, 2006. Within hours, thousands of people had watched the video. Just two days later, the Late Show with David Letterman called and the following day, Late Night with Conan O’Brien called to get the act on their comedy shows. Their act went all the way to Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas then around the world to Paris, Istanbul, Holland and Belgium.

What’s next?