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

Facebook
Outside of your Website, Facebook is the most  important resource for a non-profit; and worth your energy and time. It can be used as a tool to organize your supporters to further your cause, communicate your events and news, conduct research, launch fundraising campaigns and more.  Think of Facebook as an extension of your Website. The advantage of Facebook page is the ability to interact directly with supporters.

If you don’t have a Facebook page for your non-profit, setting one up is free and easy.  Facebook will walk you through the process in the step by step set up guide.

Once you have your page set up, follow these tips to give your page a boost:

1.Tell the entire world that you have a page.  Place a link to your Facebook page on your Website.  Give your page a custom url by going to facebook.com/username so you can easily direct supporters to your page by including the url on all printed materials, business cards, email signatures, signage, etc.

2. Design a large profile picture that shows who you are (logo, website)- it makes a great first impression. Profile pictures can be 200pix wide x 600pix high

3.  Include a sentence or two that clearly says who you are and what your non profit organization does in the “About” section. Keep it simple and to the point.

4. Make  your page relevant and current by making 2-3 updates a week:
-If you have a blog, all posts should be a part of your FB updates.
-Post photos and video
-Good to ask questions, encourages people to respond
-Communicate event information and fundraising initiatives

5. Interact with other organizations by tagging them in your posts. To do this, you must “Like” their business page, then place an @ symbol in front of their name in an update and it will create a live link to their Facebook page.  This is a great way to develop relationships with other businesses.  You can’t do this with personal profiles however.

6. Designate 2-3 people responsible to managing your Facebook content.

7. Use Facebook Insights! There is a lot of valuable information here, it helps you gage your audience, and the effectiveness of your posts!  Watch this video tutorial to learn how to use this free tool.

Twitter
Twitter can also be a useful way to gain support and spread awareness for your cause. Socialbrite has a great article with some valuable tips: 24 best practices for nonprofits using Twitter.

Here are some of the tips from the article that I found to be very helpful
-Don’t over think your Twitter entries. Use your own voice, not a detached, institutional one.
-Use the “60-30-10 rule” 60% retweets and pointers to promote items from other users or sites, 30% conversation and responses, 10% announcements and events.
-Use Twitter to conduct research, to solicit ideas, to identify experts, to thank donors
-Link to newsworthy events that people are already talking about and how they relate to your cause
-Be current/in the moment- “Live Tweet” from events
-Reach out to other influencersIf you have a blog, always tweet about an updated post

Want more info?  Here are some additional resources
How Non-Profits Use Social Media
How Non-Profits Can Use Social Media
Non-Profit Social Media Success

Video: Use social media to connect with donors

December 8, 2011

New Video Course Helps Business Professionals Learn Online Marketing Fundamentals

Online marketing course taught on video by web marketing expert Lorrie Thomas Ross is on lynda.com – a subscription-based online video tutorial website.

SANTA BARBARA, December 2011 — In the ever-changing world of online marketing, the options are endless, which is exciting, but sometimes can often leave professionals overwhelmed on where to begin, regardless of their level of marketing experience. New journeys often go better with a map and directions, so online marketing expert and author Lorrie Thomas Ross created a course to help professionals map their online marketing with the launch of the new Online Marketing Fundamentals video course on lynda.com.

Online Marketing Fundamentals, released December 7, 2011, introduces web marketers, web designers, business owners and executives to the world of online marketing, and reviews how the different aspects of a business’ web site can support its marketing goals. Online Marketing Fundamentals helps even the smallest businesses to get started with web marketing and allows more experienced professionals optimize the marketing collateral they have already built. Thomas Ross teaches viewers how to set themselves up for success by covering all the critical pieces of the online marketing puzzle. She shows how to create an effective website and incorporates the use of social media sites as some the ways business owners can interact with customers. Lorrie gives instruction on the world of blogging and search engine marketing, breaking each concept down into easy-to-digest lessons.

Lorrie Thomas Ross is known as The Marketing Therapist® as her “healthy marketing advice” expertise is frequently quoted by the media, giving advice on topics ranging from search engine marketing to developing web marketing strategy. Lorrie is CEO of the full-service online marketing agency, Web Marketing Therapy®. She is a nationally recognized public speaker and teaches customized web marketing workshops for businesses big and small. Thomas Ross is the author of the “36-Hour Course: Online Marketing” (published by McGraw-Hill), a top-rated guide teaching everything online marketing has to offer.

“Having a website does not mean that you are engaged in online marketing”, says Lorrie Thomas Ross, The Marketing Therapist®. “You have to know the fundamentals of online marketing. Whether you are a VP of Search Marketing, a webmaster or a professional looking to make the web work for you, this course can help get you ideas for optimization and new channels. Smart online marketing comes from having a plan, doing continual optimization, tracking success and being creative. This is an ongoing process, so it requires a commitment and work, but once you get the hang of it, it pays off! Offering the Online Marketing Fundamentals course on lynda.com is fantastic, it’s affordable and embodies the way we learn today – on the web! The final outcome is something that everyone can take away knowledge from no matter what level they are at experientially.”

The twelve chapter course is featured exclusively on lynda.com and outlines the fundamentals of online marketing in easy to understand and informational video tutorials. There are many pieces to a success-backed marketing puzzle and the Online Marketing Fundamentals course highlights the necessary topics including up-to-date information on social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), search engine marketing, online advertising, blogging and content marketing. Thomas Ross teaches a range of marketing lessons on business branding, creating a better user experience, how to create an email marketing campaign and finally how to properly promote your brand through online public relations. Lorrie Thomas Ross believes you can’t have a successful marketing plan without strategy and measurement so before viewers implement all of the teachings from this course into their business, Thomas Ross covers web marketing strategy.

The Online Marketing Fundamentals course by lynda.com officially launched Wednesday, December 7th, 2011 and is available at www.lynda.com

About Lorrie Thomas Ross:

Lorrie Thomas Ross, M.A., The Marketing Therapist® & Wild Web Woman®, is a marketing strategist, educator, writer, web marketing expert, and speaker. Thomas Ross is the CEO of Web Marketing Therapy, a marketing agency and online marketing education company. She is the author of top ranking “36-Hour Course to Online Marketing” available on Amazon.com. As a she-geek with super relationship savvy, Lorrie’s craft brings the heart of marketing into organizations that are “in it to win it”. Thomas Ross was recently recognized as an entrepreneurial leader in the Pacific Business Coast Times “40 Under 40” Awards. She has been featured in Forbes, Success, Inc., Entrepreneur and Fox Business. Thomas Ross lives in Santa Barbara with her husband, daughter and cat named Grumpy. For more information, please visit: www.lorriethomas.com and www.webmarketingtherapy.com

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In the article, 10 Words That Will Increase (or Decrease) Your Twitter CTR, Dan shared the result of his research on 200,000 link-containing Tweets. Some of his results might surprise you (it surprised me!)

Words and Phrases to Avoid

The following words and phrases were found to lower CTR in Tweets with links:

1. @addthis” which is a signature for the Tweets that come from the automated AddThis sharing functionality.
2. Tweets that mention the word “marketing” have a lower CTR than Tweets that don’t mention it.
3. @GetGlue system have a lower CTR than Tweets that don’t come from that system.

More words to avoid
Read The 20 Least ReTweetable Words by Dan Zarrella to find more words to avoid using in your Tweets.

Words or Phrases that help drive traffic to your site:

1. Tweets from the online newspaper paper.li that contain phrases such as “Daily is out” had much higher CTRs than Tweets that did not.
2.  Tweets using the word “via” had a higher CTR.
3.  Tweets specifically directed at a person tend to have a higher CTR
4.  Tweets with “RT” in them had a higher CTR than those that did not.
5.  Tweets with “Please”
6.  Tweets with a specific call-to-action (like “check out this link”)  seems to result in a higher CTR than not doing that.

Interesting, eh?  Thanks Dan for sharing your research with the rest of us!

After analyzing thousands of press releases, the study shows that while more press releases are shared on Facebook, each share on Twitter results in 30 percent more views.

Their findings also indicate adding multimedia elements to your press release such as photos and video can increase your engagement up to 3.5 times. See infographic from PR Newswire and Crowd Factory below