According to Facebook’s SEC filings this week, the site now has over 845 million active monthly users. Analysts are estimating that the company’s IPO could value the social network at between $75 and $100 billion. At the high end, that means the market would place the value of the content and other interactions produced by the average Facebook user at $118. Read →
There’s a lot of talk about first-mover advantage among social media pioneers. But sometimes it’s better to take your time, according to the folks at Vestas, the big Danish wind energy company. Read →
It’s difficult to move quickly in social media when every post must first be vetted by an international bureaucracy and then translated into six languages. But that hasn’t fazed the United Nations, which maintains a very active presence on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Tumblr and YouTube. The UN is committed to social media as a way of engaging its diverse constituencies and raising awareness and gaining support for a variety of causes. We outline a number of ways in which the organization is using social media to drive its business goals. Read →
Social media now accounts for 22% of all the time that we spend online. So how did we spend that time in 2011? And how will that change in the next year? The top stories on social media in 2011 include the Arab Spring, Weinergate and social TV… Read →
Monthly active users of Facebook’s mobile apps have recently passed 300 million, meaning that 37.5% of Facebook’s 800 million user base are now accessing the social network via mobile apps. Read →
Swinging for the fences, a recent one-day promotion boosted Louisville Slugger’s Facebook likes by 143%, its Twitter followers by 161% and its Facebook “talking about this” number by 834%. Read →
Social networking is close to saturation in Europe, where nearly 93% of the population is using social networking sites in October 2011. The vast majority – 68% – of the population uses Facebook for part or all of their social networking. Facebook’s dominance holds strong through the 5 leading European Union markets of France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK. Read →
Last week, Klout began creating new user profiles and scores based on data pulled from Facebook. This means that, if you have your Facebook account linked to your Klout profile, you will start seeing your Facebook friends and family (including kids as young as 13) appear in your Klout influence network, with Klout scores assigned to them–something which has raised major privacy concerns. But there’s another issue, and one that is very serious for any company that is using Klout scores to inform business decisions (like hotel perks, customer service triage, blogger outreach, hiring or grading decisions decisions (video at 3:17)): the new system is creating duplicate accounts for the same individual — with different Klout scores. Read →
Social media has transformed communication in many industries, turning the traditional one-way model into two-way interactivity. Lately, many television broadcasters are finding innovative ways to create buzz and enhance the second screen relationship with their fans. Read →
Social elements figured prominently in the launch of many television shows this fall, and now the USA Network is going further by launching #HashTagKiller, an ‘interactive social media mystery game’ to go along with the hit show ‘Psych’. The goal? To provide a new outlet for engaging Psych’s highly active social media fans – the show’s Facebook page already has nearly 2 million ‘likes’. Read →