Businesses spend small fortunes on making their brands presentable.?
They polish their message; media train the CEO; and give their website a shiny new look and feel.
Everything’s very nice; very safe; very presentable. Ready to be the poster child for Industry X.
And then they open their mouths.
Polishing is great; training is great; shiny is great. But culture is where the real beauty lies.
How beautiful is yours?
?
We’re a funny bunch in social media.
We bitch and complain that the medium we’re practicing in doesn’t get taken seriously as a medium, and that many businesses are still way behind when it comes to adopting.
We call brands out – companies and individuals – because they don’t do something the way we feel it should or could have been done.
We regale folks with the notion that social media will change the way we do things forever, but then cloud the issue by not explaining in any kind of talk our customers and clients understand.
And then we wonder why social media – for all its great statistics and success stories – is still the baby when it comes to other forms of media.
So let’s loosen up. Let’s agree that we’re not in a perfect world where everyone will “do the right thing”. Let’s quit the bitching and the pointing fingers, and instead point ideas in the same direction instead. Let’s give things a chance before we lynch mob them into submission.
Let’s see opinions for what they are and stop calling critics haters. Let’s move from the same soundbites to actually making sounds through actions.
I’ve been guilty of it in the past. I possibly still am on the odd occasion. But I’m trying not to be.
If you’re guilty of it too, want to try and not be with me?
photo credit: steve-and-diane
As social media continues to gain acceptance as a bona-fide communications platform, I thought it might be fun to have a cool fact about it for every week of the year.
So, here are ten facts about the five most well-known social media outlets – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and blogging – with two more bonus facts thrown in just for fun. (And to get to the figure of a fact a week for a year).
Enjoy!
Facebook1. The average Facebook user has 130 friends.
2. More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) is shared each month.
3. Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application.
4. More than 150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month.
5. Two-thirds of comScore?s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore?s Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook.
6. There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
7. People that access Facebook via mobile are twice as active than non-mobile users (think about that when designing your Facebook page).
8. The average Facebook user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events.
9. People spend over 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.
10. There are more than 1 million entrepreneurs and developers from 180 countries on Facebook.
Statistics from Facebook press office.
Twitter11. Twitter’s web platform only accounts for a quarter of its users – 75% use third-party apps.
12. Twitter gets more than 300,000 new users every day.
13. There are currently 110 million users of Twitter’s services.
14. Twitter receives 180 million unique visits each month.
15. There are more than 600 million searches on Twitter every day.
16. Twitter started as a simple SMS-text service.
17. Over 60% of Twitter use is outside the U.S.
18. There are more than 50,000 third-party apps for Twitter.
19. Twitter has donated access to all of its tweets to the Library of Congress for research and preservation.
20. More than a third of users access Twitter via their mobile phone.
Statistics from Twitter and the Chirp Conference.
LinkedIn21. LinkedIn is the oldest of the four sites in this post, having been created on May 5 2003.
22. There are more than 70 million users worldwide.
23. Members of LinkedIn come from more than 200 countries from every continent.
24. LinkedIn is available in six native languages – English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.
25. Oracle’s Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Epstein, was headhunted for the position via his LinkedIn profile.
26. 80% of companies use LinkedIn as a recruitment tool.
27. A new member joins LinkedIn every second.
28. LinkedIn receives almost 12 million unique visitors per day.
29. Executives from all Fortune 500 companies are on LinkedIn.
30. Recruiters account for 1-in-20 LinkedIn profiles.
Statistics from LinkedIn press centre and SysComm International.
YouTube31. The very first video uploaded was called “Me at the Zoo”, on 23rd April 2005.
32. By June 2006, more than 65,000 videos were being uploaded every day.
33. YouTube receives more than 2 billion viewers per day.
34. Every minute, 24 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube.
35. The U.S. accounts for 70% of YouTube users.
36. Over half of YouTube’s users are under 20 years old.
37. You would need to live for around 1,000 years to watch all the videos currently on YouTube.
38. YouTube is available in 19 countries and 12 languages.
39. Music videos account for 20% of uploads.
40. YouTube uses the same amount of bandwidth as the entire Internet used in 2000.
Statistics from YouTube press centre.
Blogging41. 77% of Internet users read blogs.
42. There are currently 133 million blogs listed on leading blog directory Technorati.
43. 60% of bloggers are between the ages 18-44.
44. One in five bloggers update their blogs daily.
45. Two thirds of bloggers are male.
46. Corporate blogging accounts for 14% of blogs.
47. 15% of bloggers spend 10 hours a week blogging.
48. More than half of all bloggers are married and/or parents.
49. More than 50% of bloggers have more than one blog.
50. Bloggers use an average of five different social sites to drive traffic to their blog.
Statistics from Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2009.
51. 90% of Internet users know at least one social network.
52. The average social user has 195 friends.
Statistics from Online Media Gazette.
So there you have it – a fact for every week of the year, just in case you need it for your next presentation or tweet-up, and want to let folks know why social media isn’t so dorky after all. And as an added bonus, here are some ways you can use these stats for your business’s strategy.
Cheers!
I very rarely watch TV, and when I do it’s not to watch reality shows or similar. But this video from So You Think You Can Dance stopped and made me think (and thanks to my wife for the heads-up).
The Asian contestant, Alex Wong, is a ballet dancer. Yet for his challenge, he had to do a hip-hop routine with all-star hip-hop dancer Twitch. Something completely out of Alex’s comfort zone, but as you can see from the video and crowd/judges reaction, he nailed it. He took a chance, knew what had to be done, and nailed it.
Now think of you and your business, and how this can relate to you.
Comfort zones are funny things. On the one hand, they keep us safe because we don’t expect any surprises. On the other, they stunt our growth because they keep us safe.
Staying within our comfort zone means we don’t have to worry about taking chances; we’ve found our niche and success level and we’re happy to stick to it. That’s fine, and if you just need a certain level of success to achieve the results you first started your business for, then comfort zones will absolutely work for you.
But if you’re looking to really push your business buttons and stand out in your niche or industry, comfort zones will only take you so far. The real success only comes from taking risks.
Push yourself mentally and creatively. Look at everyday things and see how you can take that to the next level. See beyond the simple.
There’ll be a lot of stumbles along the way, and it won’t be easy to take off your comforter blanket and take the steps into new directions. But think of it this way – your customers aren’t standing still. They’re always looking for the best for them, not just the best full stop.
Comfort zones might make you the best; but they don’t necessarily make you the best for your customers. There’s a difference – step outside your zone and you’ll have a better view of what that is.
