The Top 11 Colleges on 6 Social Media Sites [Infographics] Did you know that Harvard has 281 times as many Facebook likes as it does students? Schools are getting social and the latest statistics prove that administrators are branching out beyond Facebook and Twitter to do it. TopCollegesOnline.org tallied up the number of followers, likes, views, and scores for each school on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, YouTube, and Klout. Naturally, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s alma mater has the most followers on Facebook. (To see a larger version, click on the image.)
New Social Media Effect: The Dark Halo The Halo Effect is a term used to describe a favourable cognitive bias towards an individuals character based on an encompassing perception of him. The term has since been adapted and used throughout many different industries to mean a favourable result based on the success of another entity. (i.e. In movies "The Halo Effect" can cause a film to perform better because of the success of a different film. In marketing, it can cause one brand (or product) to perform better because of the success of a related brand.) This same line of thinking has been applied to social media, suggesting that a social media "The Halo Effect" can improve the results of communications based on related conversations. The Dark Halo Effect The Dark Halo Effect is caused by several factors, but manifests itself in one universal way: users are discouraged from sharing. FACTOR 1: Tolerance of Faking-it People don't like fakers. Here's what I found out: 1. 2. 3. (On average 25 tweets per article.) 4. 1. 2. 3. 1. 2.
Create And Track Pinterest Campaigns Using Pinerly Love Pinterest but skeptical of the traffic it may or may not be sending to you site? Eager to obtain a suite of tools to help you post and measure your visual content onto Pinterest? Well, the SUPER friendly folks at Pinerly have just the thing for you – the exact thing, really. What is Pinerly? Many brands post content without being able to measure its relevance to devise a good strategy. Here’s how you do it. Sign up for an account and eagerly await your acceptance email.Add the bookmarklet to your toolbar.Start pinning and reap the benefits of this tool! And once you have Pinerly access, the next time you want to share something on Pinterest you click the bookmarklet and this pops up and self-explanatory prompts follow: And then you get to the dashboard (which we won’t screenshot as it’s not open to the public yet, but trust us, you’ll love it) where you can: Want to see a bit more? Happy pinning! (Pin image from Shutterstock)
Social Sharing Best-Practices for B2Bs and B2Cs As might be expected, the best day and time of day to share content via social media depends on your target audience (business or consumer) and the specific social platform you're using, according to research by Compendium. Based on social sharing data from 300 companies using the Compendium content marketing platform, the research found the following: When sharing B2B content via LinkedIn, Sunday is the most effective day of the week (ranked by number of clicks generated), whereas Monday is the most effective day of the week for sharing B2C content with LinkedIn members.When sharing B2B content with Twitter followers, Wednesday is the most effective day of the week, whereas when sharing B2C tweets, Mondays and Wednesdays are more effective than any other day of the week. Below, other findings from Compendium. Timing of Social Shares Timing is important, too. Social-Sharing Practices: Punctuation and Symbols Use of question marks and exclamation points
The Best Times To Post To Facebook, Twitter, Google+ & Other Social Networks [Infographic] When it comes to social media marketing you want to make sure you get the most out of each and every single post you make in terms of reach. One of the best ways to maximize the reach of your social media posts is understanding the best (and worst) times of day to share content. Surprisingly, this time differs from site to site, but Social Caffeine’s got you covered with an infographic that lays out the best and worst times to post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and Pinterest. The infographic doesn’t get into time zone specifics, so it looks like if you’ve got a fan base in different parts of the country or world you’ll have to spread out your tweets and do a little reconnaissance work to see what works best. Check out the infographic below for more details and let us know how you usually time your social media posts! Megan O’Neill is the resident web video enthusiast here at Social Times.
Sensational Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics – 6 Infographics Social media is no longer just about Facebook. Social media is splintering and fragmenting as more users find increased activity about their interests and passions residing on other social networks. Facebook knows that it cannot evolve internally fast enough to keep up with this dispersion and so is resorting to identifying and buying fast emerging start-ups such as Instagram. Through the rapid rise of smart phones and mobile platforms globally such as tablets led by the surging iPad, the way we use and view media is changing business and marketing. Maintaining your business marketing momentum on a social web requires constant updates to identify and understand how and why users are using social networks. Here are some of the latest facts, figures and statistics to help keep you on top of the rapidly changing social media ecosystems. Related Resources from B2C» Free Webcast: The Future of Search: Drive Big Profits with Competitive Intelligence Facebook by Socialbakers Twitter Google+ LinkedIn
What to Look for When Hiring a Social Media Community Manager Many businesses know the buzz words or the basic functions of the community manager's role on social channels, many don’t have clarity as to what they actually need or what a community manager does beyond tweeting and posting. If you're looking to hire someone for this role, read this first. A community manager's role is often more broad than businesses suppose. So, what does a community manager actually do? At its most basic, a social media community manager’s job is to drive visibility and engagement of a brand via social media channels. Community managers also have to source and create consistent, reliable streams of content that are relevant to both the business and their audience for all of these channels. Reporting and analytics A community manager should have an excellent handle on engagement and visibility metrics. Stress management As most people in the industry will tell you, very few brands actually have large teams of community managers at the ready. Thinking beyond the tweet
Understanding EdgeRank, Facebook's 'Quality Score' for Wall Posts Just because you post a status update to your Facebook Wall doesn’t mean it gets syndicated to each of your Fans. Last year, Facebook created an algorithm called EdgeRank that determines which posts get shown to whom in the Newsfeed. Thanks to EdgeRank, every post that gets published to the Wall receives a quality score. If the score is low, not many people see it. Conversely, if the score is higher, it gets wider syndication and a greater place of prominence, including potential placement in the “Top News” category. EdgeRank Defined Below is the EdgeRank formula. Facebook EdgeRank formula is Affinity x Weight x Time Decay. Objects and Edges Start with the understanding that everything posted to Facebook — status updates, video, photos, links and questions – is an “object.” EdgeRank Formula The EdgeRank algorithm is: Affinity x Weight x Time Decay = EdgeRank EdgeRank Variables Affinity Score. These three variables are multiplied together for each edge. 5 Steps to Improve Your EdgeRank Score
Digitally Savvy Students Play Hide-and-Seek With Campus Messages - Technology By Katherine Mangan When Jerica Bennett, a senior at Frostburg State University, wants to know what's happening on the campus, she likes a message short and sweet. Ideally it would pop up on her cellphone as a tweet or a post on Facebook. A classmate, Tyler Mathews, would rather be reached by e-mail, which these days is seen as the old-fashioned way, so that he isn't distracted by his friends' spring-break photos when he's looking up the schedule for band practice. And that poses an interesting challenge for people like Rebecca E. Ramspott, a social-media specialist at the Maryland university. "You have to be nimble and not get emotionally invested in one approach," she says of the university's foray into Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest (which lets users "pin" images to an online discussion board), and a handful of other social-networking sites. "Say you want to put the word out about a string quartet playing on campus," Mr. "Social media is like a puppy. Like a Jazz Composition Mr.