Third of companies block social media. IBM Study Suggests Twitter, Facebook Shape Consumer Buying Habits. A new survey has emerged suggesting that women are twice as likely to use "casual hacking" techniques to spy on the other half than men. A new study into European consumer shopping behaviour by IBM has reported findings suggesting social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook play a larger role in individuals buying habits than previously thought. The research paper suggested that social media plays an increasingly important role in the way consumers shop, affecting their purchasing decisions, even in store. "Consumers are using social networks in a sophisticated way, researching products, prices, promotions and other consumers' views, to validate their decision making.
This is then influencing sales across all procurement channels - not just online," read IBM's paper. The paper suggested that over 50 per cent of respondents with internet access between the ages of 16 and 64 currently use social networks to "assist with shopping decisions. " The Big Reason for Yahoo's Woes: Marketers Fleeing to Social Media. The New Social Network: Who’s Nearby, Not Who You Know. There’s a new concept for social networking services taking root, and it’s not about re-creating your offline social graph on the Web, like Facebook does today. It’s about discovering the people who are nearby you now – the ones you probably would like to meet. This type of discovery mechanism is already being made possible by a number of services, including the checkin apps like Foursquare and Gowalla, the automated discovery of nearby folks via Sonar and Banjo, the group chatting in Yobongo, and the micro-networks that emerge through LoKast.
All of these companies are playing with the idea of location-based social networks, attempting to connect you to others around you through varying means. At this week’s TechCrunch Disrupt conference in San Francisco, even more services emerged to compete in this space, too. The powerful capabilities of today’s mobile smartphones are allowing for a new kind of networking: social discovery services, not social networking services. Sean Parker: Facebook’s power users have gone to Twitter, Google+ At the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week, Napster co-founder Sean Parker, who at one point worked as Facebook's president (he owns 4 percent of the company), went on record to say that the social network's biggest problem is not privacy.
He wasn't there to just downplay Facebook's various obstacles and challenges. In fact, he offered his opinion of the bigger issue for the social networking giant: that some of its heaviest users have defected to other services because of a lack of decent controls. "I don't think privacy is an issue," Parker said. "Maybe that's controversial, but I don't think that's Facebook's biggest problem.
More specifically, Parker said: "Maybe the strategic threat to Facebook is that power users have gone to Twitter or power users have gone to Google+. " Let's go back to the power users. "The way to address the need of power users is to give them more tools," Parker said. 5 reasons companies are going social -- at light speed. By Eric Berridge Scientists at CERN recently announced they had tracked subatomic particles travelling faster than the speed of light, a discovery that -- if proven correct -- may unravel our understanding of physics. Similarly, the introduction of social media into the corporate world may undo everything we know about IT and business in general. If this sounds like an exaggeration, consider the effect social media has had on everyday life, particularly for young people, who take for granted that they'll be connected in real-time to everyone they now know, will know, or have known, for the rest of their lives.
It's reasonable to assume that, if enterprise technology indeed catches up with consumer technology, it'll have an equally profound effect on the business world. Since the ascendancy of the social web, consumers have shut down campaigns, moved millions of funds from banks, revolted against policy changes and tarnished brands. Social media use boosts companies' security risks. Virus and malware attacks against organizations have increased because of employees using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media in the workplace, according to a global study. Of the 4,640 organizations surveyed by research firm the Ponemon Institute, more than half said these computer attacks grew as a result of workers using social networks.
About a quarter of those respondents said the attacks rose by more than 50 percent. As social media services play a bigger role in businesses, many organizations find themselves ill-equipped to handle the accompanying security risks, according to the report. Researchers surveyed information-technology employees at organizations in the United States, India, Brazil, Germany and elsewhere, and found that only 35 percent had a policy on using social media at work.
"A lot of organizations still didn't have an acceptable-use policy," said Larry Ponemon, chairman and founder of the firm. A Look Back (And Ahead) At Social Media's Impact. How Is Social Media Growing. Social media breeds its own elites. Elites are alive and well in social media, and the experts are taking their measure. A tiny proportion of Twitter users generates the bulk of new content, and users tend to focus on messages in their field of interest, a new study has found. In fact, “20,000 elite users, comprising less than 0.05 per cent of the user population, attract almost 50 per cent of all attention within Twitter,” reads a study released last week by a team of researchers from Cornell University and Yahoo! Research. The study supports current intelligence on how social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn propagate information and opinions.
The Yahoo! Analysis of 260 million tweets containing URLs sent between July of 2009 and March of 2010 suggests that Twitter works more like a grapevine, reaching an ever wider audience with each re-tweet. Marketers benefit from getting into this zone. “Celebrities overwhelmingly pay attention to other celebrities. But sheer numbers don't tell the whole tale. Social Media: Evolving From Broadcasting To Conversation. How colleges use, misuse social media to reach students. Johns Hopkins University has an interactive site with blogs and videos by current students for prospective students. Universities are reaching out to engage with applicants on Facebook and TwitterExpert: Colleges should make their social media interactions personalStudent: "Why have a Twitter account if you only have four tweets in the past few months?
"Survey: 98% of colleges have a Facebook page; 84% have a Twitter account (CNN) -- It was a joyous day for Lucie Fink when she received her acceptance letter from Johns Hopkins University. Like most prospective students, she wanted to know exactly what she was getting into before she made her decision between schools. The shiny pamphlets were all fine, but Fink really needed to hear more about the school from the students.
So she went to the Web to get her answers. There she came across student-produced videos and blog entries, along with posts in a Facebook group for accepted students. Top social media colleges Engagement is key. Mobile social media audience up 37%: report. Social media is big. Mobile is big. So it shouldn't come as any surprise that the number of consumers using their mobile phones to interact with popular social media hubs like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn is growing rapidly. According to comScore, the number of mobile users in the United States ages 13 and up who accessed a social networking or blog website has grown a whopping 37% in the past year. What's more: nearly 50% of these users are social networking on a daily basis using their mobile devices.
Leading the charge is Facebook, which now has a mobile audience in the U.S. fast-approaching 60m monthly. So what are consumers doing when they're accessing social sites from their mobiles? The three-month average of those consumers reading posts from people they know was just over 58m. That engagement is potentially good news for marketers. The key takeaway for marketers: your social strategy is part of your mobile strategy, and your mobile strategy is part of your social strategy.