Thursday, April 26, 2012

How much time do you spend on social media?



I was thinking about how much I had to do today, and how little I had already gotten done. Wondering why (besides the fact that I am a huge procrastinator) I decided to go back and think about what I did all day

I woke up, made coffee, checked Facebook. 
Got ready, walked the dog, checked Instagram.
Got to work, checked Facebook and Twitter, checked in with Foursquare.
Worked, made a post on Facebook, and went to the gym.
Checked in on Foursquare at the gym, walked on the treadmill, checked Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and my emails.

Although this was only part of my day, I noticed that I was constantly on social media. Even more, I noticed, I hadn’t even been at a computer yet.  All of this today was done through the applications on my phone, making it relatively easy to access any social network at virtually any time. 

Checking social media has become such a habit for me, that it is just as much a part of my daily schedule as eating and sleeping is. I don’t think there has been a day in the past…. four years or so that I have not checked at least one social media outlet during the day. 

That’s kind of crazy. 

I decided to do some research on how often people spend on social media, and the results aren't very surprising after looking at my own life..
  • 44% of people check their social networking websites on their mobile device while watching a television program
  • Facebook captures 14.6% of a user's total internet time
  • Tumblr and Pinterest are the only second tier sites to capture a user's attention for more than 60 minutes each month.
  • 38.5% of females check their social networks through their mobile phone
  • 34.4% of males check their social networks through their mobile phone 
  • Source
 This just proves the fact how important social media is to marketing. People are constantly checking their Facebooks, Twitters, Youtubes, etc. If you aren't reaching out to them through these platforms, you're definitely missing out on a big opportunity!


Friday, April 6, 2012

I was in my English Class the other day and we were discussing social media. My professor told our class that we would be having a group paper for our next project. One group would be against Social Media and one group would be for Social Media. Obviously I chose to be for Social Media. I brought up the fact that Social Media is stimulating for our economy by creating more buzz for small and larger businesses. A lot of the students in my class had never really thought about that. I informed them that most Social Media Platforms are more business friendly today.

One student complained that he didn't like the new Timeline Profiles for Facebook. He said that he did not opt into anything that allowed his Facebook to be changed. I jumped in and told him that Facebook rolled out Timeline on March 30, 2012 for all personal and business pages. I told my class not to worry because Timeline is a cool new way to show everyone who you are and what you are all about because of the new Cover Photo feature.

My professor eventually said, "how do you know all this stuff?" I replied by mentioning that I work for a Social Media Marketing Company called Talking Finger. Then my group members got excited to have me on board. It felt good to teach the class something I was well educated in by working here. And as always I told them to LIKE us on Facebook and check out our post on Timeline Help and Support!

By the way, here is a graphic template and infographic to help you get the best out of your Timeline profile that I created.