Olympics fans like sports. But what do they Like? Facebook — who else? — holds many interesting insights there.

Social media advertising company Compass Labs recently analyzed Facebook fans of the official Olympic Games and U.S. Olympic Team pages to compile some revealing profiles of how the two groups match up. And don’t worry about a small sample size — combined, the two pages have about 5.7 million fans.

Compass Labs cross-referenced Likers’ other favorited Facebook pages to find which sports, movies, brands and TV shows rate highest with each group.

Overall, the two pages corral similar demographics. Both the U.S. team and the Olympics at large have fan bases that are about 55% female, and each count the 18-25 age group as their biggest bloc. After that, though, things get pretty different.

U.S. fans list track and field as their top sport, but it’s just eighth among overall Olympics aficionados. Fans of the Games in general go for, in order: ice hockey, badminton, archery, rowing, field hockey and gymnastics. None of those crack the top 10 sports for U.S. fans. Among individual athletes, however, swimmer Michael Phelps rules with both groups.

When it comes to brand loyalty, fans of The Olympic Games tend to be a bit more worldly with their biggest favorites than fans of the U.S. Olympic Team do. National Geographic, Gucci and Air Canada take three of the top four brand spots among fans of the Games.

US Olympic Team fans’ most-like brand, according to Compass Labs? Dow Chemical Company. We’re not quite sure what to make of that either.

Check out the full Compass Labs report below. Does any of this data surprise you? Let us know in the comments.


Thumbnail image courtesy of iStockphoto, cmannphoto





































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Content is the foundation for blogs and websites. It is what makes your readers and viewers come back for more
.
The range and type of content that is available on a social web is extensive and includes multimedia such as videos, images and infographics and of course plain old simple text.

Content can achieve different objectives including
1. Educating (How To’s)
2. Informing (News)
3. Entertaining (eg. Funny Videos)
4. Inspiring (Provide motivation)

The challenge is to come up with the ideas and the content that people find valuable and want to share. This is something that all writers and bloggers struggle with. I have tried all sorts of content on this blog and sometimes I am surprised with what works and what doesn’t.

25 Content Creation Tips

Here are some ideas to help you create content that I have often applied myself. Don’t be afraid to try different ideas. The learning is in the action of “doing”.

1. Curation

Compile a list of 10 favourite blog posts from other blogs.

2. Brainstorming

Ask your friends and colleagues for ideas.

3. Ask your Readers

Don’t be afraid to ask your readers for ideas. You could even run a survey on Facebook.

4. Interview someone

I have often taken my video camera and interviewed someone that I believe my readers will find inspiring. One of those interviews was Greg Savage from Firebrand Talent.

5.  Ask for Guest Authors

I have been doing this over the last 12 months and it allows other experts and passionate bloggers to share their ideas which keeps your blog content fresh. eg Top 5 Mobile Apps for Online Marketers

6. Create Best Case Studies

One very successful article I did using this idea was an article I did on Coca Cola  5 Lessons from Coca Cola’s New Content Marketing Strategy

7. Worst Case Study Articles

I have often found that providing a great example of how not to do something drives more traffic than a positive story.

8. Review a Product or App

People love to hear about the latest products or apps. One of the most successful articles on this blog used this  approach. “10 Must Have WordPress Plugins Of 2012 Every Blogger Should Know About”

9. Share Success Stories

People like to hear what has worked for you. Example “How To Get 53,000 Twitter Followers: My Story”. It doesn’t have to be complex but a simple success that worked for you.

10. Share Failures

These can be stories about what hasn’t worked for you or someone else.

11. Revitalise Old Articles

This could be a compilation of  your 5 best articles on a particular topic.

12. Use Name Recognition from Movies

This involves mashing together two unrelated subjects into one post eg “What Batman can Teach you about Blogging”
Find more ideas in this Infographic from a favourite blog of mine that I read regularly – Copyblogger.
I have also included some other ideas below this infographic.

Like this infographic? Get more content marketing tips from Copyblogger.

23. Compile the latest Statistics about your Industry

People like to hear about the latest facts and figures. This can be done in a variety of ways including Infographics. Example: 48 Significant Social Media Facts, Figures and Statistics Plus 7 Infographics

24. Create a Blog post from a Powerpoint Presentation

This something that I do regularly and it achieves two objectives. Drives traffic to the presentation on slideshare and creates more blog content. eg “Winning with the Fantastic Four of Digital Marketing”

25. Turn your Article into a YouTube Video

Take a blog post that provides tips and make it into a short YouTube Video.

How About You?

How do you come up with ideas for creating content? Do you prefer video or text asa a blogger? What has worked for you?
Look forward to hearing your stories.



































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If you think that publishing is going through an evolution then photography is experiencing a revolution. 



There are happy snappers everywhere. The smart phone with the inbuilt high definition camera is turning everyone into a photgrapher. Add some software technology with Instagram filters and an ordinary photo is becoming a piece of art.
Sites such as Pinterest are also allowing us to share this visual art form in glorious color, creativity and ease just by pinning images from the screen with a couple of clicks.
Competitors such as The Fancy.com are  taking these concepts of visual pinning even further into the realm of social commerce and have announced that they have reached a whopping one million users already.

The Rise of Social Mobile Commerce

The Fancy has introduced a few new features into its mobile app offering, most notably the ability to buy products (they are reportedly making an average of $50,000 each week from users snapping up the products they fancy). Up until now users could only collect images they fancied, but now you can buy them with one-click purchasing directly from your iPhone or iPad.
This revolution is changing the way businesses perform commerce online.  Online vendors are realizing that the habits and practices of  buyers online are changing rapidly and that tablet and smartphone users are much more likely to impulse buy with the convenience of one click shopping.

Pinterest has the Numbers

When it is all said and done, Pinterest still has the mind share and the numbers (currently at over 20 million users) but it certainly needs to keep developing its platform rapidly.
Online boutiques such as Boticca have turned their product categories into boards on Pinterest and are generating up to 10% of their sales from clicks from Pinterest. (Read more about that here)
So how do you use Pinterest to market your business?

10 Tips for Marketing on Pinterest

As with all marketing you need to start with a plan to win and Pinterest is no different.

1. Plan for Pinning Success

When setting up your account make sure it is set up properly and branded with your logo. Create boards that suit your target customers and your industry niche. Also make sure that you have integrated your Pinterest platform with your other social media platforms.

2. Remember Copyright

I was attending an online retailer conference recently and ShopNBC pointed out that it is important to ensure that you are not pinning images that have copyright.   Also remember to attribute your source.

3. Pin Straegically

The mantra is Pin, Repin and follow. Build up a  loyal tribe and they will reward you with significant sharing. Remember when anyone repins the link still points back to your site. Think of Pinterest as a friendly virus.

4. Be a Social Pinner

Don’t forget to comment , like other pins and @tag other pinners by name. Also remember your manners and say thanks when you are repinned.

5. Produce Pinnable Content

The rise of a much more visual web requires you to create and share high quality images. Also remember that you can also pin video as well. For B2B businesses that work in knowledge industries you can also pin images that point to your presentations on Slideshare.

6. Create and Curate

Don’t just post your images curate other quality images and photos from others. Remember to share the love. The power of reciprocation is alive and well and if you share others content they will feel obliged to share yours.

7. Be a Creative Pinner

A lot of business have great images offline that could be placed online to add to your content. Run competitions and include call to action in your pins.

8. Keep Search Engines in Mind

Google notices fresh content and also social signals. So optimize your pins with hashtags, links, categories and keywords. It is very important to pin images and content from your website. Pinterest can drive a lot of traffic to your website if you do this correctly with compelling and contagious photos and images. Infographics work very well on Pinterest.

9. Don’t Forget your Tools

The most essential tool is the “Pin It” button on your browser. Also download the Pinterest app for your mobile devices.

10. Monitor and Measure your Traffic

This will assist you in finding out what works and what doesn’t. Do more of what works. Also monitor what your competitors and other brands are doing and you will be surprised by what you will learn.




Source: Donna Moritz of Socially Sorted on the AmyPorterfield Blog

What about You?

How are you using Pinterest? Is it working for you?
Is Pinterest a waste of time for your business. Should B2B businesses bother with Pinterest?
I look forward to hearing your stories.




































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If you’re looking to get better engagement out of your Facebook posts, add more pictures and start speaking in the first person.


Social media data expert Dan Zarrella — who tracked and analyzed more than 1.3 million posts from the 10,000 most-Liked Facebook pages — has released details about which posts get the most likes, shares and comments on Facebook, from post type and length to the best time of day to add updates.

Photos bring in the highest number of engagement across the board, followed by text and video, according to Zarrella. News links bring in the least numbers of likes, shares and comments.

Meanwhile, posts with a high number of self-referential words such as “I” and “me” get more likes — a tactic that doesn’t work well on Twitter.

“Overall, the best strategy for Facebook, as well as all kinds of social media marketing, is to create a lot of interesting content and share it,” Zarrella told Mashable. “On Facebook, visual content does especially well. It’s also important to be passionate, not neutral.”

This means that both positive and negative posts tend to do well with engagement.

Timing is also key. Updates posted later in the day (Eastern Time) bring in more shares and Likes, but they tend to peak around 8 p.m. Shares trickle off around the end of the work day (6 p.m.).

“Publish when others aren’t, such as later in the day and on the weekends,” Zarrella advised.

For example, Facebook posts that go up on Saturdays and Sundays tend to get more Likes than those during the week. Similar to Twitter engagement, Facebook posts do better earlier in the week than later: Thursday is the least active day for Likes.

People also tend to be active throughout the week in the early hours of the day (5 a.m. ET) and during lunchtime (12 p.m. ET).

For a full look at which posts do best, check out the infographic below or sign up for Zarrella’s free marketing webinar.

What seems to be working best for you? Let us know in the comments.











































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Recently the Pew Research Center found that 95% of teens ages 12-17 were using the Internet. But their statistics found that a significantly smaller percentage of teens were using video functions like chatting, uploading video and streaming live video footage.


The study did find that 80% of teens using the Internet used social networking sites, and video use by teens on sites like Facebook and Twitter was much more popular than teens who didn’t have social networking accounts.

Differences in household incomes played a factor into teens’ video habits; the study found teens from high-income families were more likely to video chat than those from low-income households.

OnlineCollege.org broke down the video use trends into an infographic below. Do you find the statistics surprising? Tell us in the comments.



Presented by: OnlineCollege.org


































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Steve Carrell may be seeking a friend for the end of the world, but here at Mashable, we’re more concerned with the end of the Internet.


Can you imagine it? Instead of an iPad, you’d be clutching a weighty $1,200 Encyclopedia Brittanica as you rock yourself to sleep. And instead of tweeting with pals halfway around the world, we’d be licking stamps that would total $6.3 trillion in the United States alone. We’re cringing at the thought.

Online Education created this graphic detailing the nightmare that would be the world without Internet. Sure, we’re grateful to the World Wide Web for giving us all the joy of narcoleptic cats and the controversy of @Sweden. But evidently, what we really have to be thankful for is how many jobs the Internet has created. Facebook alone has created 450,000 jobs, and the Internet establishes 2.6 jobs for every job it renders obsolete. And we all know that cat videos are that much more enjoyable to watch when you’re supposed to be working.

What would be your biggest nightmare in a world without Internet? Let us know in the comments.











































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Like to keep your love life under wraps? Be careful if you’re on Facebook.


The social network may be able to predict how happy you are in your relationships, how satisfied your boyfriend or girlfriend is, when you’re most likely to break up or make things official with someone new and even what songs you’re most likely to listen to when you’re on a hormone high or down in the dumps.

“It’s not official until it’s on Facebook,” goes the not-so-old maxim. If that saying holds true though, people are most ready to start going steady around Valentine’s Day and Christmas, with the beginning of April not far behind. On Feb. 14, new relationships outpace fresh breakups by 49%, according to data from the social network. On Dec. 25, the difference is 35%, and on Dec. 24 it’s 28%.

Warm weather and sunshine, meanwhile, seem to get people feeling restless — early spring and the summertime are two of the peak breakup seasons, according to people’s relationship status updates. And people are most likely to broadcast their breakups on Fridays and Saturdays.

University of Wisconsin researchers even found that profile pictures and the presence or absence of a declared relationship status can predict the level of harmony between two people. Men who post their status as “In a Relationship” rather than leave it blank were more satisfied with their relationships, the Wisconsin researchers found. Women whose profile pictures include their partners were similarly more satisfied.

The online education directory WorldWideLearn gathered all these findings and more from research by Facebook and a number of news outlets to produce the infographic below. Check it out for the full picture of how much Facebook can reasonably predict about your love life.

Do these findings match your own experiences in romance and Facebook? Share your stories in the comments below.











































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Planning to check in at New York’s American Museum of Natural History or Rome’s Trevi Fountain this summer? You’re not alone.


Facebook has pored over its check-in data and isolated the “most-social” spots in 25 cities. Among the patterns that Facebook has uncovered:

Malls and outdoor markets like Melbourne’s Queen Victoria market, Sao Paolo’s Mercado Municipal and Seoul’s Dongdaeum appear within the top 10 landmarks for 19 of 25 cities.Amusement parks like Moscow’s Gorky Park, Seoul’s Lotte World appear, Johannesburg’s Gold Reef City and Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens also score high.Chain restaurants like the Hard Rock Cafes in Buenos Aires, Delhi and Barcelona, TGI Fridays in Norway, and Bella Paulista Casa de Paes in Sao Paulo also appeared on the list.Not surprisingly, cities with warmer climates had more check-ins to outdoor spots, while indoor spots scored higher for colder cities.

The list of the top landmarks in all the cities can be found here.

Meanwhile, the infographic below highlights the most-social landmarks in eight top cities:










































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Yahoo Mail-subscribing-households use 11% more electricity per year than Gmail households, a recent study by Opower found. That adds up to nearly a whole extra month of electricity, about an extra $110 per year.


“It’s as if, relative to the average Yahoo household, the average Gmailer is strictly hang-drying their laundry, forgoing high-definition TV, and hand-washing their dishes with cold water for a year,” Opower writes in its’ blog.


So what makes for this drastic disparity in energy usage? Opower — a research company that unpacks and analyzes energy data to present to everyday consumers in an actionable way — found that the problem is one of “correlation not causation.” Meaning that the email domains aren’t driving the issue of energy usage. Instead, discrepancies are related to the core demographics of each site’s users.

“Yahoo subscribers tend to live in suburbs, be in longterm relationships, have a family,” says Barry Fischer, a head writer and a research for Opower. “Those types of lifestyle characteristics carry with them greater energy needs compared to Gmail household. [Gmailers] are found more in urban areas, are younger and are single.”

Ultimately, Opower found that even though Yahoo users live in larger residences than Gmail users, Yahoo subscribers need more electricity per square foot than Gmail users.

Opower matched up 2011 electricity rates with more than 1.5 million email addresses over 23 states to draw their conclusions — focusing on Gmail and Yahoo specifically because they were the top two email service providers of those surveyed, Fischer told Mashable.

Though Opower only analyzed 2011 data, Fischer says he believes similar patterns of higher Yahoo energy usage would have been found in previous years.

But Yahoo users can’t simply cut down on electricity charges now by signing up for a Gmail account. It’s all about lifestyle adjustments to cut back on overall energy costs, Opower says.
See more about the differences in Yahoo and Gmail users’ energy spending in the infographics below. Tell us how you cut down on energy costs in your home in the comments:









































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