Media One Pro's Blog » Social Media Marketing

Time spent on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube grows

admin — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 21:11:15 +0000

Social networking is a social phenomenon.

For further proof, just take a gander at new Nielsen research out today. It says Americans spend nearly a quarter of the time they’re on the Internet from their PC, or about six hours a month, on social-networking sites and blogs. That’s a quantum leap from a year ago and underscores the growing power of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

The new research also reveals U.S. consumers spend the plurality of their time online, or 36% of it, communicating and networking across social networks, blogs, personal e-mail and instant messaging.

The rise of social networks has enhanced consumption of videos, movies and news and sports articles. “Friends and family are endorsing content to others,” says Dave Martin, vice president of primary research at Nielsen.

And the face of that audience is getting older: Twice as many Americans over 50 visited social networks than kids under 18, Nielsen says.

The newfound zeal for the digital lifestyle is epitomized by folks like Dee Jones, 63, who works at a utility company in New Jersey. She says she uses Facebook to connect with co-workers and friends, and Caring.com, a website to exchange viewpoints.

A year ago, she wasn’t part of Facebook, which has more than 500 million members. Now, she uses it every other day. “It’s a new way for me to socialize,” she says. “And I definitely e-mail a lot.”

The research on fixed Internet (PC) use, for June, also revealed:

•Online games, led by Zynga’s wildly popular FarmVille, overtook personal e-mail to become the second most popular activity. Games accounted for 10% of time spent — eclipsing e-mail, which dropped to 8% from 11.5%.

Half of all Americans online spend some time playing games.

•Videos or movies are another favorite:U.S. consumers, on average, streamed such content three hours, 15 minutes, in June.

•Predictions of the demise of e-mail and instant messaging are premature, the study says. Though both declined in use, e-mail remains the third heaviest activity online (8%) while instant messaging was fifth, at 4%.

“Despite the almost unlimited nature of what you can do on the Web, nearly half of U.S. online time is spent on three activities — social networking, playing games and e-mailing,” says Dave Martin, vice president of primary research at Nielsen.

As social networking gains in popularity, its newer members tend to be older, more racially diverse and more varied by social class, says Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Still, Americans use the Internet differently from their smartphones and other mobile devices.

Despite a double-digit increase (28%) in time devoted to social-networking services, e-mail activity remained dominant on mobile devices — up to 42% from 37%. Portals such as Yahoo and AOL remain the second heaviest activity (12% of time).

Smartphone sales are expected to account for a majority of phones in the U.S. by the end of 2011, Nielsen predicts.

By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY

Small firms dive into social media

admin — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 21:57:56 +0000

A surge in social-media use by small businesses reflects a shift in how they operate and their comfort with increasingly easy-to-use technology.

In growing numbers, small-business owners are adopting social-networking services, location-based services, Twitter and online video to promote products and services, according to a new study by MerchantCircle, a social network for small businesses. It polled a fraction of its more than 1.3 million members.

The survey results are the strongest evidence yet that small businesses — which account for more than 90% of all U.S. companies and fuel the economy — are accelerating their use of social media at the expense of traditional media such as newspapers, the Yellow Pages and radio. Even e-mail messages have taken a beating.

Businesses with fewer than five employees “see Facebook and others as a way to reach targeted consumers” while saving marketing expenditures during a rough economy, says Darren Waddell, vice president of marketing at MerchantCircle.

For the first time, social media has become the most visible way for small businesses to promote their products and services. More than half of nearly 10,000 respondents nationwide say they plan to create or maintain a social-networking presence in the next three months, compared with 41% in the first three months of this year.

That is the highest figure since the survey started a year ago.

At the same time, adoption of location-based services has grown rapidly — 32% of merchants familiar with Foursquare use it, compared with 25% in March. Twitter is gaining favor, too: 8% more merchants intend to use it now than in the first three months of the year. The University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business says social technology adoption rates in the U.S. doubled in the past year, to 24% from 12%.

Still, business’ embrace of social media does not necessarily translate into profits, says HipChat, a group chat and messaging service for companies. More than 90% of the 2,000 small businesses it works with use social media, but few have seen a business benefit. A Compete Online Shopper Intelligence study suggests some consumers are slow to accept social media as a shopping resource.

Yet tens of thousands of small businesses advertise on Facebook, up three times from a year ago. More than 1 million small businesses have Facebook profiles reaching hundreds of millions of customers. Many small-business owners used Facebook for personal use before they started their companies, according to Facebook.

“People are familiar and comfortable with Facebook,” says Tim Kendall, director of monetization at Facebook. “Regardless of your business, many of your customers probably are already on Facebook.”

“We’re seeing a (recent surge) in the use of Facebook by local businesses,” Kendall says.

Small-business owners are gravitating to social networks in large part because technology has evolved to the point where anyone — no matter what age or tech background — can turn their personal passion into a thriving online business.

Alice and Donald Murray acquired Over the Moon Ribbons, a maker of discount ribbons, in 2004 after Alice retired. The tech newbies, who have been married for 49 years, initially sold ribbons at flea markets before their daughter Sharyn persuaded them to sell online.

They began using Facebook, Twitter and software from e-commerce company BigCommerce this year. In six months, they’ve grown the business to more than $1,000 a month. The software they use makes it easy to design and run an e-commerce site, with built-in search engine optimization and marketing functionality. The program will soon let small merchants integrate Facebook “Like” buttons and other functions. “The online stuff has a far reach without losing the personal touch,” Alice Murray says. “We do a lot of communication, still, on regular e-mail.”

Online sales at Southern Jewlz have doubled in six months since recent college grad Randa Yezak, 23, started using Twitter and e-commerce software. Her 2-year-old business also has 8,000 fans on Facebook.

“The value of Facebook is that it gives you efficient ways to retain current customers and reach out to and find new customers,” Kendall says. “It is happening on a scalable, digital way among you and your friends.”

By Jon Swartz
USA TODAY

Social Networking Sites – Why it's important to have your very own

Steven — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 12:26:13 +0000

So on the Web, more and more social networking sites are sprouting up every day. But the majority of popularity has fallen upon Facebook and secondly, Myspace.

These social networking sites have the advantage of early entry to the marketplace and have established themselves as the leaders in this group. Myspace is generally for a younger audience who enjoys music and videos more than updates on there friends.

Facebook has become the practical site where people are more interested in updates from their friends list. Also there is an endless supply of web applications that have made Facebook fun and useful.

But where is this social networking trend taking us? Well, with Facebook, you can have “Fan” or “Company” Pages to help promote your group/business. You can also set up groups where people can gather online to share and discuss certain topics.

But the one weakness that Facebook has is that it is too general. Meaning, it is an online meeting place with no certain genre or niche. So on Facebook, you can meet anyone of any type, shape, ethnicity, age, location, etc. There isn’t a focus or requirement to join this global community.

And this is where a small start-up social networking site can have an advantage. By creating a site that specializes in a certain genre (say for example, young people who are fans of baseball), you can create a specific community that like-minded people can join and meet other similar people. So how is this done you may ask?

Media One Pro has the skills to produce a social networking site in a short amount of time (1-4 weeks). We can design and develop your site with any specific niche in mind!

What are the costs you may now ask? Well, to hire a developer to create the code and build your site, you would be looking at an upwards of $20-30,000. This does not include monthly hosting costs or monthly maintenance.

So now is a social networking site out of your league? Not with us! For a limited time, we can take on new projects and create your social network for less than $1,000 to setup and only $150/month for hosting and maintenance!

Here’s what you get in details:
1) Domain Name Registration
2) 1 Template Creation
3) 1 Template Revision
4) Setup of Social Networking Application
5) 1 Content Management System installed and setup
6) 1 hour Social Media consultation (a $200 value!)
7) 1 month free hosting

After your initial setup fee ($1,000), you only pay $150/month. This includes hosting, support, and 1 article or 1 video optimization and submission.

You not only save yourself the $20-30,000 in developer costs, but you pay one flat monthly fee to maintain your own site (and dont’ forget, you can make this money back with simple ad placements, such as Google and Adbrite!).

So what are you waiting for? Contact us today for your FREE consultation and let’s get your business online with social media and ahead of the pack!

A gathering of useful tools for Flickr fanatics

Lyndsay — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 21:00:29 +0000

Desktop Applications

1001 for Mac OS X – Allows batch uploading and can notify you of new photos uploaded by your friends.

Background Switcher – Will auto-change your desktop background on a Windows machine at intervals of your choosing from a pool of photos you pick.

Desktop Flickr Organizer for Gnome – Desktop organizer for Linux that allows online and offline work on your photos and tagging.

Flickr and Webimager – Lets you capture your entire screen, or just a portion, and auto-upload it to your account.

Flickr Exporter for Aperture – Tag and upload your photos, store ID and URL for your photos in the Aperture program.

Flickr Exporter for iPhoto -Edit photos, add tags, resize before loading and several other useful options.

Flickr Finder – Mac OS X application for browsing your photos.

Flickr Notifier – An RSS reader that displays photos on your desktop from your friends’ accounts as they are uploaded.

Flickr Screensaver v3 – Turns your screensaver into a slideshow of your Flickr photos.

FlickrDown – A program that eases saving photos from Flickr to your hard drive.

FlickrFaves – Java based downloader to retrieve high-res images for your use.

FlickrUploadr – A bulk uploader for Linux.

jUploader – Runs on Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Gives you batch uploading and tagging.

Nostalgia – Lets you search Flickr, create new photo sets and synchronize your desktop with your account.

OS X uploader – Uploader for Mac OS X 10.3 and above.

PictureSync – Application for Macs that allows you to upload to Flickr and several other services all at once.

Slickr – A combination download and high-res slideshow in one. Windows compatible.

Upload to Flickr via Windows XP Explorer – Allows you to upload directly from Windows Explorer.

Windows uploader – Drag and drop interface to upload pictures from your Windows desktop. Versions available for Windows 98, ME, 2000, and XP.

Firefox Extensions

Better Flickr – Adds a menu of optional extra features to Flickr.

Fireflix – Sidebar extension to upload, manage and search photos on Flickr.

Flickr Sidebar – Sidebar that lets you search and browse photo lists.

FlickrFox – Lets you browse and search Flickr photos in a sidebar.

flickrgethighrez – Allows you to get a Flickr photo in the highest resolution possible.

Fotofox – Lets you pick and tag photos from your computer and upload them to Flickr and several other image hosts.

OakFlickr4PFF – Adds a Flickr uploader to your browser.

PicLens – Turns your screen into a full size image viewer.

Uploadr for Flickr – Lets you load an image directly from a website to your Flickr account.

Fun & Games

Big Huge Labs – Tons of little games to play with Flickr photos like making badges and motivational posters.

Bubblr – Add comicbook-like word balloons to Flickr photos.

Fastr – Presents you with random photos from Flickr; you have to guess the tag they have in common.

Flickr Chia Pet – Grow Chia hair on any photo.

FlickrLogoMakr – Turn any words into a Flickr-type logo with their font.

Flicktionary – Play a compound word game against it until you can guess what it’s thinking.

Hamster Sudoku – Uses images of hamsters from Flickr for you to play a picture version of the popular game.

Matchr – A Flickr puzzle game.

Memry – Play the classic game of Concenntration, but with pictures from Flic

Mosaickr – Creates a mosaic of your master photo using your other photos.

Printr Killr – Lets you make a calendar with your photos.

Spell With Flickr – Spell any word you want, this site grabs pictures of letters to spell it out.

Tag Man – Play the classic game of hangman by guessing the letters in a random photo tag.

The Internet Inferno – As you scroll through Dante’s levels of Hell, this page finds matching photos to the theme of each layer.

Greasemonkey Scripts

Ajax Photo Blogging in Flickr – Post a story about the photo you are looking at to your blog.

Flickr 5 Stars Ratings – Adds star ratings to your photos.

Flickr Ad Removal – Hides the text ads on the site.

Flickr All Sizes Menu – Adds a menu to select which size to see when hovering on the All Sizes button.

Flickr AllSizes+ – Allows you to access all sizes for a Flickr photo, copy the code and download the image.

Flickr Auto Page – Removes the need to click on the page numbers to go to another page, adds more to the page as you scroll.

Flickr Auto Tag – Lets you save and reuse tags you use frequently.

Flickr BBCode Generator – Automatically gives you the code to post the image on BBCode sites.

Flickr Contacts Organiser – You can tag each contact, giving you more search options.

Flickr EXIF Decorator – Lets you hover over a photo and puts a translucent overlay in the top left corner which shows you information about the camera.

Flickr GeoRadar – Shows you nearby geotagged images on a radar screen.

Flickr Group Display – Easier group management.

Flickr Image Src Exposer – Adds an “IMG LINK” tag making it so you can download any photo.

Flickr Keyboard Navigation – Adds keyboard shortcuts to some of the most common navigation moves on Flickr.

Flickr Mail To – Adds a “mailto” button above photos and also adds a “send page” link on every page.

Flickr More Home – Add more content to your home page.

Flickr Photo Magnifier – Adds a magnifier to the toolbar to see details in photos.

Flickr Photostream Graphr – Lets you graph how many times your stream has been viewed.

Flickr Quick Comment – Allows you to save commonly used feedback comments and choose the one you want leave.

Flickr Q u i c k r v0.3.3 – Add thumbnail/buddys & NavBar. Also removes all Yahoo ads and bloacked images.

Flickr remove spaceball – Removes the download deterrent image that appears over some photos.

Flickr Rich Edit – Gives you more options in the comments box when it comes to the font.

Flickr Search for Creative Commons – Will allow you to search only on Creative Commons licensed pics.

Flickr Show Licenses – Tell at a glance what the copyright status is of a photo.

Flickr Titles + Descriptions Batch Tools – Adds tools for batch editing titles and descriptions.

Flickr/Shutterfly Integrator – Gives you the ability to order prints of Flickr photos via Shutterfly.

FlickrCommentTools – Allows you to edit HTML into your comments and include your own photos.

FlickrMailManager – Add more options to your Flickr mailbox. Features such as mark all as read, delete all, send notification emails.

FlickrPM – Adds icons for mail, profile, favorites, Scout next to user names, allows you to send messages without leaving the page you’re on.

FlickRate – Adds a rating panel under a current photo in an effort to give Flickr a better ratings system.

Geotag Flickr with Multimap – Adds a “add geotags” link to photo pages so you can add geographical data.

Miscellaneous Plugins

Flickr4Writer – Plugin for Windows Live Writer blogging software that allows you to insert Flickr photos into your posts.

FlickUrPic – Module to let you add your Flickr photos, including private ones, to your Joomla powered site.

Flickengr – Adds Flickr pictures to the bottom of your Yahoo Messenger chats.

Flickr Sets – Enables you to display your photo sets on your Textpattern-powered weblog.

Galleryr – Adds a Flickr gallery to your Blojsom powered blog.

Google Maps in Flickr – Adds a Google map to check the geotagging on the photos without leaving the site.

WordPress Plugins and Tools

FAlbum – Allows you to display your Flickr photos and photosets on your site.

Flickr Comment Importer – Imports comments from your Flickr account into your WordPress blog.

Flickr Photo Album – Allows you to add your Flickr photos to your blog as galleries, also gives you access in the admin area to add them easily to posts.

Flickr Tag Cloud Widget – A sidebar widget for WordPress that shows your Flickr tags in a tag cloud.

Flickr Widget – Display up to 10 photos from Flickr with this widget.

FlickrFaves – WordPress plugin that allows you to display your favorites on your site.

Kubrickr – Replace the “blue blob” at the top of the basic WordPress theme, Kubrick, with any image of your choosing from Flickr.

SimpleFlickr – Allows you to embed a Flickr-integrated simpleviewer into your WordPress site.

Website Tools

Chasr – A mini-application that lets you display your Flickr photos on your website.

‘Color Fields’ Color Picker – Choose a color from the color picker, pictures featuring that color pop up. Good if you are trying to design a website with a certain color scheme. And it’s oddly addictive to play with!

Flickr Anywhere – Allows you to display all your public photos on sites such as MySpace.

Flickr Color Selectr – Use a color picker and search only images that are Creative Commons Licensed and match the colors you need.

Flickr Module for CMS – Add Flickr pictures to your CMS Made Simple site.

Flickr Slideshow Generator – Allows you to generate the HTML you need to embed a Flickr slideshow in your website.

FlickrLilli – Search only for Creative Commons License tagged photos.

flickrSLiDR – Allows you to embed Flickr slideshows on your website or blog.

Gickr – Creates animated GIFs from your photos to use on your website.

PictoBrowsr – A photo set viewer to put on your website or MySpace.

Travelr – Free photo gallery you put on your site that allows you to display your photos geographically

Yahoo Widgets

FD Flickr Uploader – Background uploading, multiple photo drag and drop. Able to title, tag, enter descriptions, edit privacy settings on each photo. For Mac and Windows.

FlickrNotFrisk – Search photos on Flickr by tags and display the results. You can save images by clicking on search results. For Mac and Windows.

Flickr Upload – Drag and drop interface, allows you to tag before upload. For Mac and Windows.

Flickr Widget – Official Flickr upload widget by Yahoo. For Mac and Windows.

Magic Lantern – Desktop background image changing widget. Windows only.