The following infographic showcases some recent and interesting findings on how corporations are tackling social media. Initially skeptical of its use for business purposes, it appears many have adopted the two-way communication mindset during this modern age of information and relationship building.

Below are some of the more interesting highlights from the infographic:

• 94% of corporates use social media in some capacity.
• 75% saw an increase in website traffic.
• 58% use it for lead generation.
• Favorite social sites are Facebook (92%), Twitter (82%), LinkedIn (73%) and blogs (61%).
• 58% of Fortune 500 companies had Facebook pages in 2011, 62% had Twitter accounts.
• Companies with blogs dropped from 50% to 37%. Speculated due to content requirements. [I’m not sure about this statistic. My experience shows that more companies are seeing value in Inbound Marketing and blogging their thought leadership]
• Blog best practices: schedule posts on a regular basis, plan ahead, use a casual tone, interact with customers, and enable social sharing.

Courtesy of: MBA Programs

There are many factors to consider when you’re choosing the social media platform that is right for your brand or company profile. First off, you have to decide on the resources you’re willing to allocate every day, week, and month to maintaining the account. A state social media profile can sometimes do more harm than not having one at all. If you’re going to engage with prospects and customers, then first commit to keeping it up-to-date.

Below is a helpful infographic from Infographics.sg, a data visualization and design agency. This infographic outlines some of the major factors to consider when deciding where to showcase your content. It also dives into the demographics of each social media account and you can determine if that matches your customer profile.

Below is a Quick Summary of the Infographic:

• Facebook and Google+ have the widest range of media types including: photo, video, article, and text.
• StumbleUpon, Youtube, and Google+ are the most effective platforms for SEO goals.
• Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter are the most effective platforms for generating traffic goals.
• Slideshare, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube, Pinterest, and Instagram are all good platforms for brand exposure goals.
• Slideshare, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are great platforms for customer engagement goals.
• Facebook has the most users. It’s followed by YouTube, Twitter, and Google+.
• If you’re targeting users under 18, then Google+ and Pinterest will be effective.
• If you’re targeting users between 18 and 24, then you’ll find them on Google+ and Reddit.
• If you’re targeting users between 25 and 34, then you should look to Google+ and YouTube.
• If you’re targeting users between 34 and 44, then LinkedIn and Slideshare will be your best bet.
• If you’re targeting users between 45 and 54, then you probably want to look at Facebook, Linkedin, and Pinterest.
• If you’re targeting users between 55 and 64, then Facebook, Linkedin, and Pinterest are still the way to go.
• If you’re targeting users above 65, then Linkedin and Facebook will work.
• Facebook and Reddit has a majority of men on the network.
• Pinterest and Twitter skews more heavily towards women.

Choosing the Right Social Media Platform Infographic:

It’s easy for technology start-ups and web service companies to understand the importance of communicating with customers through channels such as social media and mobile technology. They have it ingrained in their DNA. It’s more difficult for companies that have a long-standing culture of face to face or direct mail interaction, to adopt these methods.

It’s not that face to face interaction with customers is unimportant. I believe that it is still the single best method for building relationships and getting a true understanding of your customers’ needs. The problem is that it takes time and your customers aren’t always willing to give it. With a myriad of choices, customers opt for the quickest and most painless way of learning, providing feedback, complimenting, or complaining.

Avaya, a global provider of business collaboration and communications solutions, has created the infographic below titled “How Social Media and Mobile Technology Impact the Customer Experience.” This great research identifies and ranks the channels that consumers prefer when interacting with brands.

Preferred Channels to Interact with Businesses (in order of most preferred to least preferred)

• Phone Direct - 84%
• Email - 80%
• Company Website - 72%
• Face to Face - 64%
• Website FAQ - 54%
• Post/direct Mail - 41%
• Phone Call - 37%
• Text/SMS - 34%
• Company Online Forum - 30%
• Web Chat - 29%
• External Online Forum - 25%
• Skype - 22%
• Facebook/Other Social Network - 16%
• Mobile Apps - 12%
• Video Conferencing 11%

If you’re a business owner or brand marketer, it’s important to recognize that your customers have a preference to how they’d like to engage with you. Are you adopting the right channels?

How Social Media and Mobile Technology Impact the Customer Experience Infographic:

Infographic by: Avaya

Consistent branding across your website, print, video, website, and social media accounts is essential in a modern world where consumers are hit with countless advertisements in a single day. It becomes even more difficult when each of those medium’s creative require different sizes, color, software, time, and expertise to produce. Take just publishing your logo on different social media profiles for example. You have to design different creative at a wide variety of sizes for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, and Google+.

Original Ginger, a “Digital Agency located in the heart of historic Fort Langley, a hip and artistic suburb of Vancouver BC”, created an infographic that quickly communicates the image sizes of each of the popular social media companies. Use this to work with your agency or have your design team prepare your creative so that you can have one look and feel to your brand across them all.

Quick Summary:

• Facebook Cover: 851 x 315
• Facebook Profile: 200 x 200
• Facebook App Boxes: 111 x 74
• Twitter Background: 2000 x 1200
• Twitter Profile: 128 x 128
• Twitter Company Header: 1200 x 600
• LinkedIn Profile: 200 x 200
• LinkedIn Company Banner: 640 x 220
• YouTube Avatar: 1600 x 1600
• YouTube Channel Background: 1500 x 2000 or 1200 x 2500
• Pinterest Avatar: 180 x 180
• Pinterest Image Max Width & Height: 554 & 5000
• Google+ Banner: 2120 x 1192 *UPDATED!
• Google+ Profile: 250 x 250
• Google+ Company Banner: 110 x 110

Social Media Image Sizing Guide Infographic:

Infographic by OriginalGinger.com

Small businesses face challenges of small budgets and scarce resources, causing them to be even more selective of their decisions in growing their top line. They often don’t have the luxury of celebrity sponsorship or mass media ads such as Super Bowl commercials. Small businesses therefore test, pivot, and analyze to recognize where their dollars would be best spent. They execute outbound and inbound marketing strategies until they find one that hits it big.

Bolt Insurance Agency compiled an interesting infographic that compiles research and data from Constant Contact, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, e-Dialog, ExactTarget, and the U.S. Postal Service. This infographic outlines some of the tactics and observations that help small businesses advertise.

What are the most used marketing tactics used by small businesses?

1. Website Marketing
2. Email Marketing
3. Print Advertising
4. Social Media
5. Online Advertising
6. Event Marketing

What are the most used social media sites used by small businesses?

1. Facebook
2. YouTube
3. Twitter & LinkedIn (Tie)

Other interesting facts pulled from the infographic:

• 67% of customers give their email addresses to companies to receive discounts and promotions.
• 57% of customers say they are more apt to buy a product in a store after receiving an email.
• 52% of small businesses are challenged to get current customers to refer new business.
• 80% of small businesses are challenged to attract new customers.
• 36% of small businesses think consumers value direct mail.
• 65% of Millennials prefer to read something on paper.

View the Small Business, Big Impact marketing infographic below:

Via: Bolt Insurance

If you’re looking for a quick and easy Marketing 100 class then look no further than this great infographic created by HubSpot and designed by BlueGlass.

Quick summary:

It’s amazing to see how marketing has transformed over the years and even more impressive is the rate in which a single message is distributed instantly to millions or billions of people. Starting with mass printing, the infographic moves you through the different mediums of posters, magazines, newspapers, and billboards. In 1922 radio advertising kicks in, followed a few decades later by television commercials in 1941. With the rise of telephones in most American’s homes, telemarketing becomes a common tactic. New technologies give rise to new means of communications with the personal computers and mobile phones but older mediums such as newspaper advertising still dominates. It’s not until 1990s that television overtakes newspapers as the largest ad spend. SMS messaging on mobile phones gets introduced in 1992 and twenty years later is still at it’s infancy. Internet advertising spikes in 1995-2002 as the dot-com bubble grows. Search engines jump onto the scene in 1995 and 1997. Do you remember AltaVista? Anyone? Search engine optimization (SEO) naturally follows, mostly defined by keyword stuffing and other on-page tweaks.  Google launches in 1998 and launches paid search marketing through Adwords. Blogging comes onto the scene in 1998 just before the bubble bursts in 2000. Email marketing becomes heavily abused by spammers and in 2003 the CAN-SPAM act is passed into law. Social media spreads in 2003 and 2004 with Myspace, LinkedIn, and Facebook. SEO becomes a common key-phrase claimed by every webmaster and developer in 2005 and on. Twitter launches in 2007 and doesn’t stop growing. Email marketing struggles to push through the spam filters and text message marketing begins to take shape. The shift starts to happen from batch blasts to creating valuable content that drives people to your business. Google launches G+ and continues to adjust it’s algorithm in 2011. Mobile, tablets, and hand-held devices are skyrocketing as computer towers and laptops sales drop. E-commerce becomes more personalized and marketers are able to target smarter and faster. According to the infographic online shoppers will reach 184.3 million, up 3.3% from 2011. What do you think will come next?

The History of Marketing

From: HubSpot Marketing Software

For the London 2012 Olympics, the organizers and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has recognized that people want to receive their event news in different ways. They have therefore responded by embracing and focusing on social media, in addition to more traditional media such as print and television. This is a change from even the last Olympics four years ago as Twitter was banned in China during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and there was no official Facebook integration.

For the London 2012 Olympics, the IOC created a website to become the hub of all digital media. Named appropriately, the website is HUB.OLYMPIC.ORG. It automatically pulls in Olympic Twitter posts and allows you to connect with Facebook. It also shows interesting facts such as the “Top Followed Athletes”, led by LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

Social media has been a great success so far as viewers, athletes, and countries fully engage with each other throughout the games. You have the opportunity to follow most of the popular athletes or a particular event of your interest. The primary Twitter account is @London2012 but you can also follow every event.

Each event has it’s own Twitter account:
@L2012Archery, @L2012Athletics, @L2012Badminton, @L2012Basketball, @L2012BeachVball, @L2012Boxing, @L2012CanoeSLA, @L2012CanoeSPR, @L2012BMX, @L2012MTB, @L2012RdCycling, @L2012TrkCycling, @L2012Diving, @L2012Equestrian, @L2012Fencing, @L2012Football, @L2012ArtGym, @L2012RhyGym, @L2012Trampoline, @L2012Handball, @L2012Hockey, @L2012Judo, @L2012ModPent, @L2012Rowing, @L2012Sailing, @L2012Shooting, @L2012Swimming, @L2012Synchro, @L2012TT, @L2012Taekwondo, @L2012Tennis, @L2012Triathlon, @L2012Volleyball, @L2012WaterPolo, @L2012Weightlift, @L2012Wrestling

Below are some interesting infographics that also show social media rocking at the London 2012 Olympic games.

INFOGRAPHIC #1 - The Olympics: Following the world’s most prestigious sporting event, from TV to Twitter

Quick stats:

• Over 1,000 athletes joined the Olympic Hub
• From 2008 to 2012, Twitter increased from 6 million to 140 million users
• From 2008 to 2012, Facebook increased from 100 million to 845 million users
• 4.3 billion viewers tuned into the 2008 Olympic games

INFOGRAPHIC #2 - Socialympics and the Twitter Games

This infographic by ExactTarget, a global Software as a Service leader was shared in a blog post titled “Facts and Figures Behind Social Media and the Olympics #Infographic“.

Quick stats:

• Equestrian, Swimming, and Volleyball have the most followers leading up to the games.
• LeBron James and Kobe Bryant are the most popular athletes, measured on Twitter and Facebook.
• Not all athletes are embracing social media when you compare followers to medals won.
• Twitter was banned in China in 2008, so it played a little role. That has changed with London hosting the games and embracing it by creating an account for every event.

This infographic is brought to you by ExactTarget, a leader in social media marketing.

Bonus Infographics:

INFOGRAPHIC #3 - Which Olympic Event is Winning on Social Media?

Mashable also released a pretty cool infographic in their post titled Which Olympic Event is Winning on Social Media? [INFOGRAPHIC]. Including stats revealing the top 10 Olympic sports being discussed. Here they are in order of most popular to least popular: basketball, soccer, aquatics, gymnastics, track & field, tennis, cycling, equestrian, volleyball, and field hockey.

INFOGRAPHIC #4 - Econolympics: The Economic Impact of Hosting the Olympic Games (Infographic)

Although it’s not directly related to marketing, I thought I’d share this interesting infographic by Credit Season. They’re a UK financial solutions provider Credit Season and they put together an infographic showing the rising cost and economic growth resulting from hosting the games. They dub the infographic “ECONOLYMPICS”.

According to a recent infographic and article by online store platform Shopify.com…

Pinterest is now the 3rd most popular social network site in the world, and ecommerce stores can leverage its popularity to significantly increase traffic and sales.

How did they determine this? Shopify analyzed 25,000 of their stores to see where the referral traffic was coming from. What’s amazing is visitors from Pinterest  are 10% more likely to make a purchase over other major social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Also, the orders tend to be higher, almost double in fact, than Facebook referral orders.

Are you using Pinterest to generate sales for your business? It might be worth a look.

See below as this infographic compares Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn.

Infograhic created by Shopify.com

 

 

 

It’s no surprise that advertising professionals are advocates of social media. We research, test, and execute marketing campaigns on a daily basis and they design these campaigns with the purpose of delivering a message to a targeted group of prospects. Social media not only allows for highly targeted messaging but it’s extremely scalable. The message can be sent and re-sent by the recipients. This inherently viral component, along with the ability to measure it, makes it very appealing for use.

But are “Normal” or non-advertising professionals using it the same way? Are they as engaged on Twitter, Facebook, or Pinterest? Do they log the same amount of hours as the marketing managers?

This infographic by SF Heat provides some interesting insight into the difference.

Some interesting highlights:

• 92% of Ad Pros follow brands they like versus 33% of normal people.
• 61% of Ad Pros have a Google+ account versus 23% of normal people.
• 63% of Ad Pros “Strongly Agree” that companies should invest in social media with their customers versus 23% of normal people.

View the full infographic below, click to enlarge:

As introduced to us by Business Insider, Buddy Media’s Social Enterprise Software is a suite of products is “designed to help brands build and maintain relationships with consumers to accelerate their business.”

Why do brands need help with this? Well, it’s complicated.

To demonstrate that complexity Buddy Media created this image that shows all of the brands/companies involved including: analytics, social scoring, ad networks, facebook apps, content curation, twitter apps, photo sharing, social TV, and URL shorteners… to name a few.

Click the image below to enlarge.

So what does this mean to companies and marketers who want to break into the social media space and start utilizing this industry without getting overwhelmed?

• Start small - if you’re just starting to test social media and determine if it’s appropriate for your clients or business then pick a few partners and go from there. Start sharing content and use social media as another channel to amplify it. Remember, social media is a conversation used to build relationships. It’s not a shouting match between competitors.
• Stay informed - as you can see there are a lot of moving parts and companies that are either becoming a social media network themselves or helping enhance the use of those sites. Stay productive, but also stay up-to-date on the latest case studies of companies that are doing a great job in social media - Zappos, American Express, Allstate, Oreo, NBC #TheVoice, Xbox… to name a few.
• Jump In - stop wondering if you can benefit from social media and just do it. Follow the leaders in your industry or blaze your own trail. Build champions in your company and get them on-board. Show them how they can distribute content, connect with fans, and measure results.