Social media is completely changing the way we live and do business… but it may be difficult for everyone to visualize how fundamental this shift has been. The author of Socialnomics, Erik Qualman, has put together a remarkable video that proves how all-embracing the growth of social media has been. The video comprises some intriguing statistics for marketers, including the following:

• 25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content
• 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands
• If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest
• 80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices… people update anywhere, anytime… imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?
• % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees – 80%
• 90% of consumers trust peer recommendations
• Only 14% trust advertisements
• Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI

Qualman considers Social Media as “the biggest shift since the Industrial Revolution”. So how can YOUR business take advantage of this paradigm shift? Visit us at www.pisocialmedia.com and we will guide you on your way.

The downturn in the economy has increased pressure on the marketers to reduce waste and maximize Return on Investment on marketing efforts. To solve the problem of growing budgetary constraints and falling consumer demand, companies are increasingly turning to social media marketing, as indicated by Aberdeen Group’s report, “The ROI on Social Media Marketing: Why it Pays to Drive Word of Mouth”. According to the report, marketers are finding it “necessary to curtail or completely eliminate investments in traditional marketing channels” and are increasingly developing tools and methodologies to increase marketing ROI by listening to their prospects and customers and learning from them.

Companies are trying to leverage the power of social media by tapping into the rising tide of consumers flocking to blogs, social networking sites (like Facebook and Twitter) and wikis. Aberdeen’s research indicates that more than 60% of the companies surveyed (defined as best-in-class) had plans to increase their marketing spend through social media.

eMarketer, which published the report, have estimated that advertising on social networks alone will increase to $2.35 billion this year, a 17% increase compared to last year, in spite of the unfavorable economic conditions.

The Aberdeen research also shows that more than 20% of the companies surveyed plan to increase their social media marketing budget by 25% or more, whereas just a meager 3% have plans to actually reduce their budget.

Would you like to know more about how your company can benefit through social media marketing? Visit us at www.pisocialmedia.com and we’ll be glad to show you how.

Led by Rand Fishkin, one of search marketing field’s thought leaders, over 70 top SEO experts from across the world participated in a data gathering process to determine the core elements that comprise search engine rankings. After hours of discussions, their opinions were aggregated and averaged so that a clear consensus could emerge.

More than 100 search engine ranking factors were rated and the hot issues in the field debated. What emerged finally was the collective wisdom of the expert SEO practitioners, helping to determine what works (and what doesn’t). The ranking factors were determined primarily for Google, but the findings are expected to be more or less applicable to other major search engines like Yahoo!, Bing and Ask.

Here’s an overview of the results:

“Social media is not a fad, nor is it going away anytime soon. To ignore it, is to risk obsolescence and irrelevance in the marketplace.  Increasingly, social media will impact every role, every individual, at every kind of company, globally and exponentially.”

-  Todd Pitt, Social Media Strategist

Social media has caught the popular fancy and businesses across the world have gone into overdrive in order to establish their social media presence. The problem is that, as with every other phenomenon that catches the popular fancy, snake oil charmers across the globe have started peddling their social media wares as manna from heaven that would solve all your business woes.

Sorry. Social media can help transform your business and build lasting relationships with your customers, but it it’s not magic and won’t work overnight. Here’s a guideline of what social media is definitely not, so you have a clear idea of what you’re getting into before you pop the “social media pill”.

1. Social media is not a quick fix
2. Social media is not  a substitute for good products and services
3. Social media is not just another marketing channel
4. Social media is not going to solve all your business problems
5. Social media is not a substitute for SEO
6. Social media is not  a substitute for good PPC practices
7. Social media is not under your absolute control
8. Social media is not easy
9. Social media is not fast
10. Social media is not a fad
11. Social media is not something you can do without participation
12. Social media is not something you can do in disguise
13. Social media is not something you simply assign to an intern
14. Social media is not an experiment
15. Social media is not a one-shot deal
16. Social media is not a short-term project
17. Social media is not a get-rich-quick scheme
18. Social media is not something that requires a lot of time and effort
19. Social media is not something you simply throw money at
20. Social media is not a popularity and numbers contest

To know how social media can actually help you, please visit www.pisocialmedia.com. We’ll share our expertise and guide you on how you can fundamentally transform your business.

If you think Social Media is just a fad, we have news for you. What you believe is a fad is possibly the greatest revolution of our times… a fundamental shift in the way we communicate!

Hard to believe? Erik Qualman, the author of Socialnomics, brings us some startling facts and figures that will give you a clear idea how social media is fundamentally changing the way we live and do business:

1.       By 2010 Gen Y will outnumber Baby Boomers…96% of them have joined a social network

Source: Grunwald Associates National Study

2.       Social Media has become the #1 activity on the Web

Source: Huffington Post

3.       If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest

Source: Facebook

4.       1 in 6 higher education students are enrolled in online curriculum

Source:  Attempting to relocate

5.       % of companies using LinkedIn as a primary tool to find employees – 80%

Source: Jobvite Social Recruitment Survey

6.       Ashton Kutcher and Ellen Degeneres have more Twitter followers than the entire populations of Ireland, Norway and Panama

Source: Twitter & World Population Data

7.       80% of Twitter usage is on mobile devices… people update anywhere, anytime… imagine what that means for bad customer experiences?

Source: Attempting to relocate

8.       Generation Y and Z consider e-mail passé… In 2009 Boston College stopped distributing e-mail addresses to incoming freshmen

Source: Metro Newspaper

9.       The #2 largest search engine in the world is YouTube

Source: TGDaily

10.   Wikipedia has over 13 million articles… some studies show it’s more accurate than Encyclopedia Britannica

Source: www.wikipedia.org

11.   There are over 200,000,000 Blogs

Source: China Internet Information Center, Technorati, Wikipedia

12.   25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content

Source: Marketing Vox and Nielsen BuzzMetrics

13.   34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands

Source: Universal McCann’s Social Media Research Wave 3

14.   If you were paid a $1 for every time an article was posted on Wikipedia you would earn $156.23 per hour

Calculated based of Wikipedia article data found at www.wikipedia.org

15.   90% of consumers trust peer recommendations

Source: July 2009 Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey

16.   Only 14% trust advertisements

Source: “Marketing to the Social Web,” Larry Weber

17.   Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI

Source: “Marketing to the Social Web,” Larry Weber

18.   24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation because we no longer search for the news, the news finds us.

Source: Yahoo Finance

19.   In the near future we will no longer search for products and services they will find us via social media

Opinion from Socialnomics

20.   More than 1.5 million pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photos, etc.) are shared on Facebook… daily.

Source: Facebook

Convinced? We thought so. Social Media Marketing is a powerful but low-cost means of getting attention, links and massive amounts of traffic. It is extremely effective for building corporate branding, product evangelism and reputation management.

With minimum capital investment, Social Media tools like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are transforming businesses by providing incredible exposure, seamless communication, massive traffic and quality leads.

Want to know how you can transform you business using social media? Drop us a line at contact@pibusinessresearch.com; we’ll be glad to help you.