A study was conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) on the top news stories that are covered on blogs and social media sites. The study found differences in news coverage not only between social media sites and mainstream press but also between different social media sites too.

The study found that the stories that social media focused on did not generate much interest in mainstream press. In Twitter, only 5% of the top stories were on the top in the following week. In blogs, 13% of the top stories continued to be on the top on the next week. In mainstream press however, 50% of the stories continued to be among the top five stories in the following week. 99% of blog stories came from mainstream press like newspapers and TV. 80% of these links came from the BBC, CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

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Video measurement company TubeMogul has released new statistics that show Twitter emerging as a video-sharing tool. It also showed that users who clicked on the video through Twitter stayed around the website longer. These users will view the video for an average of over 2 minutes.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious. People use Twitter not only to connect to friends, but to their specific interests as well. Thus, they find content related to those interests more relevant to them, making it more watchable. Retweets are another reason that Twitter is more popular. Retweeted videos from friends have a higher chance of being viewed.

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Most organizations are not outsourcing their social media effort

Social media marketing if effectively used can be the best method for online marketing. That is because people log in much more to sites like Facebook or Twitter rather than visiting a company Website.

You might argue that creating a community on a social media network is a sheer waste of time. But recent studies have showed that investing your time in marketing via social media does ensure a favorable return.

Recent surveys have shown that at least 91% of the respondents are using social media for online marketing. 65% of the total respondents have been using it for just a few weeks. The time spent on social media networks ranges from 4-5 hours to more than 20 hours per week.

In spite of time and a good return on their investment being the two main issues for marketers, very few are actually outsourcing their social media efforts. The reason for this might be that social media outsourcing is a new concept and people are not aware of it. Another issue might be that people are not clear about what they should or should not be outsourcing.

The trend of today is that large organizations are the ones who are outsourcing their social media activities. But it has been predicted that smaller companies will also join this trend in the near future.

Staying in touch with its customers is very important, irrespective of the size of your company. Interacting with customers, taking their feedback, and handling their complaints are essential as it adds to the goodwill of your company.

Restaurants, grocery stores, and food marts are using social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to stay in touch with their consumers. Businesses have had amazing success when they have communicated directly with their customers.

Here are a few examples of their success:-

1. Geoff Tucker is an equine dentist who lives in Palm City. He opened a community on Facebook to interact with people as he thought that it would improve his business if they thought him to be a friend and trusted him. He is also writing his own blog and using other social networks like Twitter.
2. The steel building company SteelMaster was hesitant in using a social media network to reach out to people. But they were convinced when they saw the huge scope of the business applications offered by Facebook. They upload the latest pictures of their steel buildings. This helps in generating a huge customer database as the existing customers recommend their company to their friends and colleagues.

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If you know the right way to use social media marketing, it can give you a platform for brand awareness, networking, and a huge boost in traffic & sales. Here is a rundown of some tips to simplify your task.

Draft out a specific plan: It is necessary to understand the purpose of your social media strategy. You can accomplish a task, only when you set a clear goal for yourself.

Connect well: You must understand your target audience in order to deliver the right product or service. It is important to understand what they are looking for. This will help you set a clear goal.

Offer Consistent, Quality Content: The content that you post to social media accounts should be relevant to your work. You should update your accounts regularly with new posts which are consistent in terms of objective.

Do not focus on deliberate marketing: Try to focus on the quality and matter of content rather than pursuing marketing motives.

Add value: It is referred to as Social Media, and not Self-Promotional Media. Your endeavors should not be self oriented. It should have a good impact on social media. You will succeed in this field only if you add value.

Avoid over-optimizing: Be careful while optimizing your site to rank in search results. If you use the same set of anchor text too many times in order to optimize your site, your site leaves a ‘digital footprint’, signaling that you may be trying to manipulate the search results.

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