Four Basics of Twitter Visiblity

From Danielle Leitch, on Social Media Today:

Twitter has exploded onto the social media circuit in recent years. More and more companies are creating accounts and establishing a Twitter presence – to the point where it’s become a standard marketing practice. But, just like any other social media account you initiate, a Twitter account is not something you just create and forget about. To reap any benefit, it should be cultivated properly, starting with these basics:

• Optimize your page and Tweets
• Optimize your Twitter bio
• Link
• Link back

Facebook Dominates - in Size and Stickiness - Rapidly Expanding Social Media Universe

From ComScore: Social Universe Still Quickly Expanding | ClickZ

A wide-ranging report from comScore found that while leader Facebook continues its impressive growth - reaching three out of four U.S. users - relative newcomers like Tumblr, Pinterest, and Google+ are evolving and growing at a steady clip.

Facebook, as everyone knows, is the category leader, but its audience size only tells half the story. "The more significant growth trend…was in average user engagement, which jumped 32 percent in the past year to just over 7 hours per visitor in December," said comScore.

And, finally, ClickZ adds:

The U.S. online video audience cracked 100 million in December, 43 percent higher than one year ago. The number of video streams grew as fast, rising 44 percent to 43.5 billion in December.

Only About a Third of Tweets Are Worth Reading

Shared by the great folks at Mashable:

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon, MIT and Georgia Tech joined forces to get a sense of how most tweets go over. They created a website called Who Gives a Tweet? that was sort of like a Hot or Not for tweets: Users were promised feedback on their tweets if they agreed to anonymously rate tweets for people they already follow.

Plus, suggestions from the study authors on "What Not to Tweet."

Understanding Social Media in Terms of Donuts

A few months back, I posted Social Media Explained So Your Mom Would Get It, a well-shared image that explains social media in terms of, well, peeing.

Here's another that's more socially acceptable and covers even more social media platforms. (Just wish I knew to whom I could credit it).

Top 10 Need-to-Knows About Social Networking and Where It’s Headed

Excellent white paper from the good folks at comScore, Inc

The importance of social networking in today’s online experience cannot be overstated. Social networking is the most popular online activity worldwide accounting for nearly 1 in every 5 minutes spent online in October 2011, and reaches 82 percent of the world’s Internet population, representing 1.2 billion users around the globe.

Facebook refers 1,000 times more traffic than Google+

The good folks at PR Daily report on a new study from Net Applications that finds Facebook is "responsible for two-thirds of all Web traffic referred by social media sites."

Facebook referred 0.66 percent of all Web traffic from social networks, which means that out of every 10,000 times someone clicked on a link, 66 were links posted on Facebook, according to Net Applications.

Nos. 2 and 3, according to the report, are StumbleUpon and YouTube. The remaining social networks—including big players like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google+—barely make a blip compared with the traffic that Facebook drives.

Do You Have What it Takes to Be a Social Media Thought Leader?

Thought Leadership 2.0 by Marla Tabaka, writing in Inc. magazine:

Medical societies of all size -- and our members -- have many of the credentials to be thought leaders on medical and health care issues: we're respected and (generally) know what we're talking about. I've long advocated that social media provides some great platforms for us to become thought leaders. Here's a great article from Inc. magazine on how to do it.

A thought-leader is someone who is willing to step into the spotlight and voice their points of view, innovative ideas, and potentially controversial opinions. He drives conversation and pepeprs the Internet and other outlets with his insights, ideas, and expertise. She inspires others to follow their dreams and teaches them to think big, solve problems, and face their fears.

Here's a the presentation I made in October to the scholars in the TMA Leadership College on social media and thought leadership.

Tmalc social media presentation 2011

View more presentations from Steve Levine