Woah. That’s a lot.

My boyfriend isn’t falling for it though. He steadfastly believes that it just isn’t for him, despite my repeated attempts to get him to join.  But still, he is not fully without social media. His one and only golden jewel of social media is his Instagram account, a social media app for iPhone and iPad that allows you to take and share pictures with friends.

Regardless of the Kyle’s (aka: non-Facebookers) of the world, it’s hard to deny the power of social media for business and for pleasure.

Sarah Evans of AdAge.com collected an impressive array of social media stats that I found thoroughly impressive. I thought I’d share some of my favorites with you to start off your weekend of social media posting (You can see the article here for source info).

• Business to Consumer Facebook results are 30% higher than average on Sundays.
• 23% of overall internet usage is devoted to time spent on a social networks or blogs.
• What people are retweeting: 92% retweet interesting content, 84% retweet humor, 66% retweet personal connection, 21% retweet celebrity status, 32% of retweets offered incentive and 26% of retweets were because some asked them to “Please RT”.
• Auto-posting things to Facebook decreases likes and comments by 70%
• There are over 100 million active Twitter users. 40% of which aren’t actually Tweeting but simply reading what is going on in their feed.
• 95% of Facebook Wall posts by fans are not answered by the brands walls they post on (!!)
• Consumers who use social media apps (Twitter, Foursquare, Urban Spoon etc) dine out more often and are more likely to be return customers.
• 20% of Google searches made every day have been NEVER been searched for before.

As you can see people are really using their social media! And it helps to be aware of some of these statistics to better utilize social media for your business. The above statistic that states that 95% of wall posts by fans are not answered by brands (Source allfacebook.com) boggles my mind! I understand that some brands are huge and inundated with wall posts, but social media (and marketing) is all about relationships and sending someone a thanks or answering a question can be a great way to connect with a new or existing customer!

Paying attention to how and why people are using social media is the first step to creating and leveraging social media that works for your business or organization.

So keep reading!

To check out more interesting social media statistics visit the AdAge.com article Stats of the Day: 50 New Social-Media Stats to Kick-start Your Slide Deck.

For additional social media  fun you can follow me on Twitter @jenniejacobs or  Web Marketing Therapy @WebMarketing_RX

A key example of this was my relaxed browsing of the internet the other night. Sitting on the couch with the iPad I visited my favorite blogs; usually fashion, design and food related. It’s fun and inspiring and relaxing, but what struck me that night was how I stumbled upon content, created and posted in 2011, that I fell in love with; Kate Spade’s Year of Color campaign.

Kate Spade Website Homepage

The process of discovery was illuminating:

Starting on Part and Parcel’s (art production company) website, I found a video that was commissioned by Kate Spade, the clothing and accessories brand, on the theme of the color pink. My curiosity was so peaked that I wanted to know what other colors had been creatively conceptualized in films for Kate Spade.

Search via Google brought me a plethora of options including another blog (ATELIER TALLY) that shared more videos and directed me to the Kate Spade YouTube page. From there I watched every Year of Color video I could feast my eyes on (and then some)! They were fun, creative, inspiring and entertaining.

You can watch the Kate Spade Year of Color videos (and see the commissioned art prints as well) on their dedicated Special Projects pages. They describe the collaborations as this: “we’ve worked with a few of our favorite artists, creating a spirited series of limited edition prints and short films, designed to be released as each month’s color is revealed”.

Below you can see one of my favorites:

Blue by Celia Rowlson-Hall for Kate Spade New York

Although I loved the entire idea of the campaign and the sheer artsy fun of it all, the thing that really captured my attention (as a web marketer) was how the quality content that was created by Kate Spade was shared around the web, that I was able to find it through the magic of social media and further spread it to the masses (marketing multitasking® in full force!). In addition to that, this content was from a year ago! It goes to show that if you are providing your readers/clients/potential customers with quality web marketing content that educates, entertains or inspires it can continue to give back to your organization well past the release date.

I would love to know what types of content you provide for your clients and the types of content that you yourself enjoy reading/watching/listening to. Please share in the comments section!

Now that you’ve shared below, keep what you like in mind next time you create some web marketing content to live on the web!

To be creatively and educationally inspired by my favorite content follow me on Twitter @jenniejacobs!

#2. Blog Post First Sentence - Try to keep the blog title “matchy matchy” with the first sentence of the blog post.

#3. Anchor Link Text – When including hyperlinks try to keep the anchor link text to 3 or less key phrases.

#4. Hyperlink to Internal Pages –  I encourage you to link to perviously written blog posts that relate to your topic. Also link to other insightful sites to provide value to the your reader.

#5. Link to External Sites – When linking to external sites, I prefer to make the links “blank links” and have them open into a new window.

#6. Images and Videos – Try to include images and videos in your blog posts because not everyone learns the same way, some prefer audio or visuals to learn.  (Also include titles and alt-text for your images and videos.)

#7. Blog Categories and Tags – Always categorize and tag your blog posts.

#8. Blog Closer - And finally, include a blog closer or teaser to remind your blog reader to come back for more blog goodness.

• Add your favorite content: From leading publications, to blogs you follow, you can browse, read, and share favorite content, presented in a swipable magazine format.
• Follow trending stories: Let the breaking stories find you. Personalized “trends” pulls articles, photos and videos into living editions, surfacing new stories as they unfold.
• Designed for all your devices: Whether sitting on your couch, riding a train or plane, your Currents content is ready for high-speed reading on your Android or Apple phone or tablet.

There is a similar app called Flipboard which was released in 2010 and claims to be the first social magazine. It allows you to “flip” through content like it is a magazine and is available for the iPad and iPhone only. I LOVE this app and I use it on my iPad daily! My favorite Flipboard publications are: The Sartorialist, Rachel Zoe, and The Glamourai. Apple positively reviewed Flipboard and named it Apple’s iPad App of the Year in 2010.  I recently added Flipboard to my iPhone and now I have a “pocket-sized social magazine.”