Check our Infographic “Social Networking Statistics and Trends” to understand how social networking grew in 2011. How much time social networking users spent on social media sites? Which countries have to most active social networking users? What were the most shared social media stories of 2011 and Lot more.

Infographic by- Conversion Rate Optimization Company Invesp

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<a href="http://www.invesp.com/socialnetworking.jpg"><img src="http://www.invesp.com/socialnetworking.jpg" alt="Social Networking - Statistics and Trends" width="500"></a> <p>Infographic by – <a href="http://www.invesp.com/">Conversion Rate Optimization</a> Company Invesp

There are more than 1.2 Billion Social Networking users in the World.

82% of World’s online population is on Social networking sites

Nearly 20% of overall time spent online is spent on Social Networking Sites – i.e. Nearly 1 in every 5 minutes

Israel has the World’s most active social networking users in world.

Top 10 Countries with most active Social Networking users

Women Spend more time on Social Networking Sites than Men

Social Networking Engagement by Age Group

Countries with Highest Mobile Social Networking Penetration

© 2006-20010 Invesp

Social media has exploded as an industry and changed the way businesses interact with their customers. Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace are drawing millions of people into active participation—and when you find millions of engaged people, you’ll find plenty of businesses trying to convince them to part with their money. For all the altruistic talk of companies connecting with human beings (that’s the social) the endgame is always going to be revenue (that’s the marketing).

Sometimes, however, the marketing and the social aspects fail in colossal fashion. And when that happens, we can all learn from and laugh at their mistakes. Here are six of the biggest crash-and-burns in the last 10 years of social media marketing.

1. Motrin’s Mommy Marketing Headache

Motrin thought they could capitalize on International Baby Wearing Week in 2008 with a YouTube video singing the praises of safe-for-nursing Motrin for alleviating the pains of toting a tiny tot. In other words—and this is how the mommy bloggers saw it—wearing your baby is bad for you, but Motrin is good for you. The reaction was exactly what you would expect from a mother who feels criticized by a company trying to sell drugs to her baby: explosive. Personally, we don’t find anything wrong with the ad itself. But if the core market finds it wrong, there has to be something wrong. The company should know their target market better and in this case, Motrin jumped in the social media bandwagon without really doing the due research.

The lesson: do your homework and don’t insult your customers.

2. The Big Fake RV Wal-Mart Tour

Long before the people of Wal-Mart blog (which is real), the marketing brains at Wal-Mart thought their image would be better served with a fake blog called “Wal-Marting Across America.” What was supposed to be a home-cooked, feel-good story of American folklore about a couple that toured the nation’s Wal-Marts with glee, turned into a steaming pile of bad publicity(PDF).

What we learned: Dishonesty isn’t really the second-best policy.

3. Sony’s Straight-up Frontin’, Yo!

It shouldn’t be that hard to make teenagers want to play video games. Yet Sony created a contrived blog called “All I Want for Christmas Is a PSP” all the same. The blog was supposed to be the efforts of a hip, street-talking techno-punk who just wanted his homie to get a PSP for Christmas. Because that’s what the hip kids do: start blogs to help their friends get Playstations. After engaging in arguments with the throngs of commenters who saw through the gimmick, Sony finally admitted to being nothing but a poser.

Here’s the statement Sony posted once their dirty deeds were exposed,

Busted. Nailed. Snagged. As many of you have figured out (maybe our speech was a little too funky fresh???), Peter isn’t a real hip-hop maven and this site was actually developed by Sony. Guess we were trying to be just a little too clever. From this point forward, we will just stick to making cool products, and use this site to give you nothing but the facts on the PSP.
-Sony Computer Entertainment America.

Apparently, we didn’t learn the lesson about honesty all that well. Which is especially ludicrous given the fact that the target audience was already in love with the product.

4. Wal-Martbook. Wal Space. Wal-Fail

Remember The Hub? You know, the big social media forum for teens who really love hanging out at Wal-Mart? Wait, you don’t remember? Maybe that’s because their attempt at duplicating MySpace only lasted 10 weeks. Trying to convince the youth of America to talk about how much they love Wal-Mart might be the most unlikely scenario ever dreamed up by corporate America. The fact that it got approved is a testament to the chutzpah of whoever dreamed up the idea.

When you engage in social media, at least try to look like your serving the needs of you’re customers just a little bit.

5. T-Mobile, Magenta Overlords

In 2008, T-Mobile issued a cease-and-desist notice demanding that Engadget Mobile remove the color magenta from their website and logo. They, in fact, carried a trademark on the color magenta, however putrid it may look on-screen. The blogging community responded with an enormous backlash against the cell giant with thousands of poetic magenta site badges that read: “T-Mobile Sucks.” Not the most eloquent phrasing, but it sums up the social-media awareness of the company quite nicely.

The lesson: when you go public with a petty gripe, you’ll face the wrath of the masses.

6. Dirty Dominoes

The link is NSFW, and the stuff those Domino’s Pizza employees were doing is not safe for food. What possessed two teen to videotape themselves sneezing on food and wiping sponges on their a** and then uploading the videos to YouTube? We don’t even want to guess. That’s all kinds of wrong. But here’s where Domino’s failed: they let someone else discover and promote the videos before they found it. The image below shows the “Dirty Dominoes” crew after being charged in 2009.

You can watch a collection of dirty Domino’s video here.

After finding out about the incident this is what the corporate office had to say,

Thank you for bringing these to our attention. I don’t have the words to say how repulsed I am by this – other than to say that these two individuals do not represent that 125,000 people in 60 countries who work hard every day to make good food and provide great customer service. I’ve turned this over to our security department. We will find them. There are far too many clues that will allow us to determine their location quite easily.

Regards,
Tim McIntyre
Vice President, Communications
Domino’s Pizza, LLC

Note to all: you better keep a constant eye on the Web for anything related to your company so you can squash the bombs before everyone else has seen them.

These were some of the brands that pinched the wrong nerve this past decade. We are sure there are more to come. Which one among these do you think were the dumbest?

© 2006-20010 Invesp

As marketers we often get excited about any way we can generate more exposure, interest and visibility to our messages. No surprise then that the social bookmarking services have been rushed by an influx of commercial messages, “gaming” and reciprocal voting.

Of course the services have reacted with their algorithms and measures to counter marketing tactics. Could your account get caught up in the crossfire?

What all the services want is a varied list of interesting sites. Most marketers claim that because their content is good then any kind of promotion is fair game. After all, the social bookmarking services want great information, and the marketers think they are creating it. Everyone wins, right?

But as a way to get traction and momentum marketers are voting up each other, regardless of quality. Or even in some cases voting up their own sites. Members of services then complain about spam, and accuse marketers of poisoning the well for everyone.

Recently as a way to combat this type of activity, StumbleUpon has been handing out “Ghost Bans”

Ghost Banned on StumbleUpon: You can thumb up, thumb down, discover… pretty much anything a regular user can do. The only thing is, your efforts don’t count. You can tell if you’re “ghost banned” by discovering a page, opening up a different browser, and visiting the review page of the site you just discovered. If it says “Discovered by someone” and not you, you’re a ghost. No word yet on how to reverse this.

The only solution is to keep your activity natural:

• Do not vote just because you are asked to
• Actually read before you vote
• Use send and share tools sparingly
• Keep on topic, and tag ethically
• Avoid “echo chamber” voting where everyone in your social group votes on the same stuff

If you find your accounts are not sending the traffic they once did, then you might have been penalized or silently banned. Watch out!

© 2006-20010 Invesp

Small businesses have the most to gain by using social media because

1. They tend to have smaller advertising budgets
2. The owner tends to be more engaged in the business
3. Larger companies are moving slowly and have more bureaucracy

With this in mind I can only think the main thing holding small business back is either fear of the unknown or lack of ideas for what to do. Fact is social media need not take up a great deal of resources if you are careful. Here are some social media tactics anyone can do in an hour or less …

Research

• Do keyword research to find what people are looking for
• Research Social Bookmarking sites to see what has been popular in the past
• Browse Q&A sites for good questions that you can answer
• Find forums where they discuss your subject

Content and Links

• Blog about the wants, needs and interests that you unearth
• Guest post and comment on blogs to create connections and links back
• Use flickr and YouTube and create topic-relevant media and video conversations

Traffic

• Create content to promote in social bookmarking sites to get awareness, links and traffic
• Advertise on Facebook and StumbleUpon
• Create video responses to YouTube videos

Network

• Search twitter to find people discussing the subject and also to drive people to your blog
• Ask and answer questions at LinkedIn
• Join Facebook groups or start your own
• Connect up all your Social Media profiles

What other social media tactics can you think of that a small business should try?

© 2006-20010 Invesp

Social Media is a growing business fascination, and determining a strategy is fast becoming a critical element of any marketing  plan. I am in favor of strategy as much as the next person. In fact, helping people with their social media strategy is one of the ways I make a living. Problem is, much of the time I feel focusing on “Social Media” is missing the point, could it be we are elevating a tactic higher than it should go?

As someone said, it might have been Chris Brogan,

Do you have a strategy for your telephone? No?

The point being social media is a bunch of tools, some tactics, but not a business plan, or marketing plan for that matter.

It’s important to keep any approach in perspective and context.

Even more dangerous is considering social media marketing as just something else that you can buy. As I often say, social media marketing is not “check book marketing” – you need to be involved, and make “social” part of the ability and operating practices of every public facing (and some not) staff member, colleague and role.

So many companies think it is yet another channel to “get our message out” (and when they say message read “offer”). But just as important, or perhaps more so, is the other aspect of any communication – listening!

Many of the social media goofs have been caused by not monitoring the communication that so often goes on without you, and becoming a responsible and authentic part of that conversation. It’s all too easy to bury our corporate heads in the old media sands, but time is coming where if you are not involved in your markets discussions then you are irrelevant, or worse an easy target.

It’s going to take some big, and possibly painful changes for big corporations, but change they must. This is where the little companies have the advantage as they are closer to customers anyway, and do not have the layers of bureaucracy holding them back.

Find ways to interact with your prospects and customers in real two way discussions. Listen first, help out as much as you can, with no thought to what you might get in return, other than some highly valuable feedback.

• Where do your audience gather?
• What do your prospects care about?
• What are they talking about?
• What do they say about you?
• What do they say about your market, industry or niche?
• How can you help them?

Your first step is to find the conversations, and you can start today.

So what is the problem? Seems like a useful Social Media Strategy, right?

Fact is, your business should be doing this anyway – just it is easier and faster with social media tools! Social Media is exposing which companies have their customer first and foremost in the priorities and those that prioritize profits or their own self interest.

If social media is difficult to sell internally it might not be your strategy at fault, more likely your culture.

© 2006-20010 Invesp

A few months ago, you probably heard rumblings about what I like to call The Great Twitter Authority Debate, in which bloggers from all spheres argued everything from the merits of an authority-based search to even what “authority” means.

I haven’t come across a more divisive marketing issue in a long time.

And I won’t lie. It’s been entertaining.

But mostly, it’s been interesting.

Discussions were brought up, played out and laid back to rest. The ones that have stuck in my mind since then are the ones that tried to clearly define what authority, popularity, influence and other important marketing factors are- at least, within the context of a relatively new channel.

I think that Twitter is too young of an entity to really base any definitions on, even the ones that seem universal regardless of the context or medium. Don’t get me wrong- Twitter isn’t the Wild West of the Internet. But it’s similar in that it’s simultaneously recognizable and nebulous region comprised of unknown and anxiety-inducing rules and inhabitants.

The Twitter authority debate has shown us one thing, though- almost everyone wants a shot at being sheriff.

Authority and Twitter

The idea of authority-based searches essentially puts a leash on Twitter’s unwritten democratic pledge. You know it, I know it and Loic Le Meur (the originator of the debate) knows it, as his infamous quote

We’re not equal on Twitter, as we’re not equal on blogs and on the web

has taught us (his call to have “authority” defined as “popularity” may have also clued us in).

Almost as soon as he uttered those words came Twitority and Twithority, ostensibly providing those who desired an authority-based search what they wanted.

However, there were problems. Both search engines seemed to use very different algorithms with which to rank results. That meant that popularity was only one of the factors that the search engines considered or- even more interesting- that “authority” meant different things to each.

The debate rages on to this day, though probably with a little less fervor.

I welcome it…not because I enjoy arguments, but because I think it brings new issues to light. It may even send everyone right back to sifting through 1000s of tweets that they once so quick to dismiss.

Why? Because this debate has shown us that the big dogs run with the big dogs, even when they’re not sure of their surroundings. Maybe especially when they don’t know their surroundings. People and companies of influence and power protect each other’s stakes in those things…when they’re not competing for shares. It’s the good ol’ boy network, sans the racial and regional connotations.

My take on this isn’t very simple and probably deserves more than a few hundred words for a proper explanation. But, basically, I think that authority-based searches will eventually dissolve into the background and become another footnote in the Internet marketing world. How?

Because, sometimes, authority can come in all shapes and forms and dismissing the value of what someone has to say without knowing their backstory is really bad move for anyone, but especially for businesses. The result could be an unwitting shrugging off of competitors or individual customers. Those practices never get a business very far.

Democracy and Twitter

There have been proposals to counter the “authority equals popularity” charge. The most popular ones have a democratic feel to them, involving users deciding the value of individual tweets.

A few people out there propose that instead of having an all-inclusive authority measure within Twitter, topical searches should instead be performed on followers or friends. That way, users can find out what people they value have to say. This would leave the popularity contest at the backdoor.

I could go on. But I won’t. I’ll just add that Virginia Miracle probably has my favorite take on the whole fiasco, while giving us a few funny scenarios and asking some interesting questions.

Evolution and Twitter

Twitter might still be considered the Wild West by some, but that will have to change soon. Very soon. Regardless of all the infighting going on, Twitter is reaching a level of “authority” on its own. The general public is starting to look to Twitter for breaking news updates more than ever before.

The purpose of this post isn’t meant to rehash the thousands of things that have already been said about this debate, but rather, to get feedback from you as business owners. And not just the usual feedback, either.

Taking into account that Twitter’s now becoming a popular go-to source for information, I want to know what you think defines “authority” on Twitter. Then “influence.” And then “popularity.” Maybe even “reach.” These are the things that have to be universally defined in the Twitter-sphere before a third-party search engine can even come close to being of any use to anyone. But more importantly, these are the things that need to be defined before you can get the most out of Twitter for your business.

How do you approach Twitter with your marketing efforts?

© 2006-20010 Invesp

Thank you for all of last week’s twitter contest 2009 entries. The winners will be announced on Wednesday, January 21st, 2009. And for all of those who did not get a chance to enter last week, no worries, because this week you have an opportunity to win more great prizes including a 1 month FREE membership to SEOBook training program, an iPod Touch, and Landing Page Optimization: The Complete Guide. You have until January 30th to enter this phase of the contest:

How to Enter:

1. Follow either @khalidh or @ayat.

2. Tweet the best business decision YOU MADE in 2008 with hashtag #best08.

3. Tweet this contest to others, because the more entries we get, the more prizes will be added (last week mid way through the contest we added a guest post from Chris Garrett on a winners blog and 1 month free membership to the SEOBook training program).

We are privileged to have some great judges for this contest. The judges include:

• Chris Garrett – of chrisg.com, and a frequent blogger at The Invesp blog
• Ann Handley – of Marketing Profs
• Mack Collier – SMO guru
• Anita Campbell – of Small Business Trends

For the next two weeks you have the opportunity to win 1 of 3 excellent prizes. The deadline for this contest is January 30th, 2009 Feb 13th.

Prizes:

1. iPod Touch.
2. Aaron Wall from SEOBook is sponsoring the contest and giving away one month free subscription to the SEOBook training program. In my opinion, this is absolutely the best SEO training program available. So, a 2nd winner will receive a free one month subscription to the SEOBook training program.
3. Receive a free copy of the highly acclaimed Landing Page Optimization: The complete guide.

You can read the contest rules by going here.

So, now it is your turn! Follow @khalidh or @ayat and tweet either of us YOUR #1 Best BUSINESS decision OF 2008 with the hashtag #best08.

Best of Luck to all of you!

Update #1: We extended the deadline of the contest to Feb 13, 2009 to allow more participate!

© 2006-20010 Invesp

It’s been a month since I’ve taken initiative to become an active member of the twitter community; otherwise known as twitterville or tweeplevilee, or whatever else you’ve dubbed it.

A few revelations:

1. About myself on twitter: I’m a timid, quiet person in a public environment I’m generally unfamiliar with. On Twitter though, I can bring out my more social side and become more interactive. The big question is: will I interact the same with tweeples outside of twitter? I’m guessing I won’t be AS quiet and timid, but I certainly won’t be my twitter-self. But isn’t it true that many people have two faces when it comes to social media? Is everyone always acting according to how they really are, or wish they are? In terms of my own social handicap and bipolar true self and twitter self actions, I guess you’ll have to wait to find out.

2. Chris Brogan had an interesting piece about webcelebs. In my last post, I noted that twitter was extremely cliquesh, and I’m still struggling to make my way into certain “circles.” The interesting point Chris, who happens to be pretty popular himself, makes in his post is that we shouldn’t put these webcelebs on pedestals and really talk to them like they are “real people.” I can agree with this whole-heartedly, but I really don’t think too many people put these so-called webcelebs on pedestals, they put THEMSELVES on pedestals. Khalid recently went to CES and met up with a few “webcelebs.” As he hung out with the very down-to-earth Sarah Perez, a lady passes by them expecting Khalid “to gravel at her feet” (just exaggerating a bit). He didn’t, because he could care less about her. Apparently she’s “really big” and totally didn’t appreciate the snub she got from him and stormed away from the scene. Get off the pedestal so we can have a “real” conversation.

And the most interesting thing about this webceleb thing is that, although many have deservingly earned the title, some really great minds continue to plug along virtually “unknown” to the mass public. You don’t have to be so famous, to be amazing at what you do. That’s what I loved about our list of top 100 online marketers, it really gathered the well-known, and not so well-known great minds in marketing.

3. So, as I mentioned about myself, people don’t usually act according to who they really are on twitter, or other social media outlets. What I’ve noticed about some tweeples is that in another life before gaining fame on Social Media, they were normal and not really fabulous at all. Social Media gave them a chance to gain a lot of popularity they missed out on in high school and college. Is that wrong? Not at all, all power to them, but my advice: remember your more “simple days” before all the fame when you deal with others.

4. Many “experts” and webcelebs (love saying it, leave me alone!) have a set of rules on how one should conduct him/herself on twitter. Well, I agree there are some guidelines, but is at all business or play, or can it be a bit of both? Mack Collier says let your personality shine through, but what if you’re passionate about a topic that not all tweeples care about? For instance, with the horrific conditions in Gaza, I’ve been tweeting articles and information about the terror that has inflicted the Palestinian people. Is it much, or is that part of my “personality shining through?” The upside of this (if there is an upside to the crisis) I’ve met many passionate anti-war, anti-terrorism tweeples that have great insights and do great humanitarian work. My take, if I can’t express myself when I actually have a “voice,” a podium; then when will I ever do that?

5. Twitter has proven to be an awesome tool to meet locals in Detroit. I never knew there was such a strong Social Media group in the vicinity. HEY, Detroit isn’t THAT bad after all! That alone has encouraged me to continue plugging along on this twittercapades adventure. Until Next time, what has your twittercapade experience taught you?

© 2006-20010 Invesp

Wow, it’s crazy to think how long it’s been since I’ve written a decent post. Well a lot has been going on with work so I’ve been swamped with no time to scratch my head and reveal my gems of wisdom to y’all. It’s not a slow day today, but I’m burnt out and I need an outlet, so I figure blogging may help (especially before I have to head home and enter the grind of kids, cooking, and the likes).

First off, I’ve been twittering regularly now. I hesitated to start a few months back, but have been inspired to take it on. I wanted to share with you a few things I noticed:

1. Boy are people “clique-ish” on twitter! Wow, I mean, knowing the SEO, SMO, SEM communities, I’ve realized they’re extremely clique-ish, but on twitter it’s even worse! Don’t get me wrong, there are a few really great people that respond and follow you if you follow them, etc. but the majority really can care less if you follow and comment on anything that has to do with them. Do they have too many followers? Possibly. Is that a reason to continually ignore someone who is trying to establish a connection? Not really.

2. Follow at your own risk: don’t expect a hello: Errr…I’m guilty of this too actually, so I’m a bit embarrassed to mention it. I like to follow those who follow me, but do I introduce myself to everyone who decides to become a follower? Not really. Maybe I should, and I’ve actually really appreciated people who welcomed me to their following.

3. Apparently there’s a “twitter code of law,” that everyone has to follow: So I’m twittering along when I hear a comment from a co-worker: “oh that’s against the twitter code of ethics. You’re completely breaking twitter etiquette.” HUH? Are you serious? Who made up the rules of twitter etiquette? Well, if you have more clout on twitter, you can apparently establish all these rules, and people will blindly follow. Nice, eh? If I don’t follow these rules, I guess people start unfollowing me. It’s pretty funny. But some twitter rules, especially for ecommerce companies, can impact their marketing strategies, so it may not be such a bad idea to look into it.

4. Twitter is not for ads! Okay, I’m naive apparently, because everyone who follows me, I follow back without really checking their activity. BAD IDEA as Liz Strauss pointed out! You need to ensure that anyone you follow is reputable by the number of “followers” and the number of “updates” they have. I guess people wouldn’t really want to follow me since I’m still a week into this and trying to build up my repertoire . What happened as a result of my naiveté? I get bombarded by ads and meaningless tweets!

5. It’s frickin’ time consuming: The reason behind twitter is to network and really expand you reach to people you otherwise may have never connected to. Well, I mentioned earlier that the communities and friends on twitter are already so clique-ish, so in order to break through, make progress, and establish yourself, you have to dedicate a whole lot of time (that honestly I don’t really have). Is it worth it? Many swear by twitter, I have yet to “believe.” Just limit your twitter times and have a process when it comes to SMO and how much time you believe you need to dedicate to it in general.

I have a few other ideas, but I’ll share my findings when I have more “meaningful” results after this experience. Happy Holidays! oh and btw, follow me on twitter @ashukairy

© 2006-20010 Invesp

“Why am I not getting any traffic from stumbleupon?”

I hear this a lot, and most urgently from people who were previously doing very well with StumbleUpon traffic. So what is the answer?

There are two main reasons why someone who previously received a healthy amount of Stumble visits might no longer be doing quite as well:

1. Their account is weak
2. Spam control measures

To understand how this works you need to look at things from StumbleUpon’s perspective. What do they want in a membership and in terms of submissions they receive?

• Good quality submissions
• On a variety of sites and domains
• That are viewed and voted up naturally
• Leading to organic distribution of stories and friendships

Is that what you are doing? If the answer is “no”, then you know what you need to do.

Here is what most people who are promoting their own sites do:

1. Write a so-so story
2. “Discover” the story in SU using the toolbar
3. Email and “send” the story to all their friends
4. Wait
5. Complain that SU is broken because it doesn’t send traffic any longer

If you look at my two main reasons above, you will see the pattern of behavior raises red flags for both reasons.

By only stumbling your own stuff, and not particularly red hot stuff at that, you weaken your account. Instead you should be looking for cool material to discover and vote on, with your own best stuff mingled in to the mix.

Plus don’t vote on your own domain more than once or twice a month. This is typical spam behavior.

What about all those lovely votes you begged for and received?

Well, it is a little known fact about StumbleUpon that if you get a strong account to discover your page then the overall effect will be far greater than using your own lame, flagged as spam, no-friends account. So build up your account and make influential friends. Oh, and when you ask for votes, use IM or email, and don’t always send folks directly to the page. SU can tell how your friends found the page.

Got any more stumbleupon tips? Disagree with anything I say here? Share in the comments …

© 2006-20010 Invesp