INFOGRAOHIC: Key Statistics Of The Top 5 Social Media Sites

By Shea Bennett at MediaBistro:
In less than a decade, social media has grown from fairly humble beginnings to an integral and increasingly important part of the everyday lives of hundreds of millions of users around the world, as well as playing a vital role in the marketing and branding aspirations of businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Facebook alone is closing in on fast on the mind-blowing one billion users tally, and collectively the major social networks, which also includes Twitter and Google+, command the attention of a huge percentage of the global internet population.
A new infographic from the Graphic Design Blog takes a look at the key statistics of the top social media sites, which in this case includes Facebook, Twitter and Google+, plus Reddit and Stumbleupon.
Which, you’ll agree, is an interesting selection. Reddit is certainly a community, but it’s highly debatable that Stumbleupon is a social media site. Social bookmarking, perhaps, so I guess it kinda qualifies. Only a passing mention is given to LinkedIn, and rising star Pinterest could certainly warrant an appearance, perhaps at the expense of the flagging Google+. Still, however you feel about the networks included, this infographic is jam-packed full of data.

INFOGRAPHIC: Social Commerce: Fact or Fiction?

Social commerce is the next big ecommerce revolution, but it's not happening overnight. Both retailers and customers have been slow to adapt to the changing landscape.

This Infographic was published by Argyle Social and Designed by Joshua Smith

StumbleUpon Gets NFC Sharing & More On Android; Rolls Out New UI Across Platforms

By Rip Empson at TechCrunch:
At The Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, StumbleUpon, the veteran content discovery platform, will be announcing “its first major integration with Android,” says Co-founder Garrett Camp. What does that mean? Well, nearly as we can tell, Google is calling on a handful of apps at MWC to showcase the new integration possibilities (with Google+ and other Google products) that are part of Android 4.0 — otherwise known as Ice Cream Sandwich. Android will be featuring (promoting) StumbleUpon at MWC, thanks to some new updates to its Android app that go live today.
For some quick background, in October, StumbleUpon brought its tablet experience to Android, and then not long after, pushed a major redesign, in which it offered a new streamlined user experience, improvements to its recommendation algorithms, as well as the introduction of brand channels.
StumbleUpon is endeavoring to add a level of serendipity into the way people discover content on the Web, by way of its “Stumble” button, which takes users to random (yet personalized) articles, blog entries, etc. that can be specified by topic, like “Technology or “Arts,” for example. Introducing brand channels allows users to follow, say, ESPN so that when clicking “Stumble,” users begin seeing ESPN in their sports content.

Read the full article here

8 Strategies for Launching a Brand Presence on Pinterest

By Charles Nicholls at Mashable: 
Many marketers have heard of Pinterest, but despite this, most brands have yet to hop on the hottest new social network. In this article, we’ll look at why Pinterest is important to brands and provide seven simple steps for leveraging brand presence on Pinterest.
Pinterest has quickly become one of the top five referring traffic sources for several apparel retailers. A study by Shareaholic in January showed that Pinterest drove only a fraction less referral traffic than both Twitter and Google, and more than Google+, YouTube and LinkedIn combined.
Despite the powerful numbers, most brands and merchandisers are not present on Pinterest. There’s no DKNY, Macy’s, Walmart, Target, etc.
For those brands looking to develop a Pinterest presence, try these seven simple steps.

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1. Reserve Your Space

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Just like you would reserve a Twitter handle for your brand, secure a Pinterest user name. Some Pinterest members are already using brand names and logos for which they have no affiliation.
Some brands have jumped in to reserve their spaces without yet posting any content, including Karen Millen and Diane von Furstenberg. Registration only takes just a minute; plus you can use the graphics and profile information from your existing Twitter or Facebook page.

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2. Leverage Your Brand Values

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Think color, style and brand values. You’ve already invested in expensive photography to showcase your products. This is where you can leverage that investment and bring your brand alive.
Pinterest allows you to display big, high-quality images, like this full-page Nordstrom image. Don’t limit your pins to straight product shots, but leverage your entire catalog of photography.

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3. Themes, Not Product Promotion

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Pinterest is centered around interests, like weddings, baby showers, home décor, gifts, recipes, color, etc. Leverage these themes by creating mood boards relevant to your brand and its latest styles. These mood boards should convey a consistent image, not be a simple look book of your products. Scatter your products throughout the board, but be careful to make sure that you are also mixing external content which echoes your product themes.
For example, West Elm built an “aquamarine” mood board. There are only three West Elm products on this page; the others are images from around the web, each of which expands on the theme.

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4. Include Prices

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Prices help customers to identify particular items for sale. For example, Gap included a price banner by typing the dollar value in the pin description. Remember, however, to make price changes when items go on sale.

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5. Use Hashtags

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Many people are unaware that Pinterest supports hashtags, similar to Twitter. Because of the theme nature of Pinterest, hashtags can offer organization support. For example, tagging each of the pinned photographs “#aquamarine” increases the chances that the West Elm mood board be found in search. As Pinterest grows, this will become increasingly important.
Moreover, the sharing tools built into Pinterest will automatically pick up your hashtags, so when your pins are shared or repinned, they’ll carry your hashtags with them.

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6. Add the “Pin It” Button

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Add the Pinterest “Pin It” button to your ecommerce site, right next to your Facebook Like button. This makes it easy for your website visitors to add images from your product pages directly to their boards.

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7. Engage with the Community

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Like all other social networks, you need to listen and engage, not simply broadcast your message. Try allowing members of the community to post to your boards, but be sure to monitor activity for appropriate content. When users upload their own pins to your boards, your themed boards will grow and you’ll quickly become part of the community fabric.

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8. A Word of Caution

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When you are pinning your brand’s photographs, it’s clear you are not infringing anyone else’s copyright — they are your images. But when you add images from across the web, you don’t own that content. And as a brand, you are using it for commercial purposes. This is a legal gray area, and should be reviewed with your in-house counsel.
Do you think brands should jump on the Pinterest bandwagon, or wait to find out whether the social network makes it big? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.


Charles Nicholls is an expert in ecommerce, web analytics, social media marketing and online buyer behavior. He is also founder and chief strategy officer at shopping cart recovery company SeeWhy. You can follow Charles on Twitter @webconversion and read his blog.

Gmail can open mailto links in Google Chrome thanks to HTML5

By Jamie Keene TheVerge: 
A post on the Official Gmail Blog has announced that Google Chrome and Chrome OS users can now automatically open mailto links within Gmail, all thanks to HTML5. Content handlers are the web's way of dealing with non-webpage data — be it mailto, webcal, or even magnet links — and the former has a bugbear for Gmail web users. Up until now, they've needed to either install an extension or carefully avoid using the links to prevent the operating system's default mail app loading. It's also worth noting that for Internet Explorer and Firefox users this is nothing new, and it comes a surprise that it has taken Chrome this long to implement the feature.
Next time you visit Gmail in Google Chrome, you'll be prompted by a bar at the top of the page to "Allow Gmail to open all email links," which will then associate the Gmail web interface with any email link. The content handlers also open up the potential for more web apps to integrate throughout Chrome, though for now there's no way to make Gmail the default mail app throughout your system without installing additional software.

How Digg Works [The Marketer’s Guide to Digg]

By Kristi Hines at KISSmetrics: 
While Digg, formerly one of the top social voting sites on the Internet, lost a lot of its luster since their major update last year to version four, they still receive at least 2.5 million visitors per month in the US alone and have an Alexa rating of 167, PageRank of 8, and Domain Authority of 100.
Digg is also a little bit more marketing friendly than their main competition Reddit. The following guide will help you learn to use Digg for sharing your awesome content with a larger audience.

How Digg Works

 

Members of the Digg community can submit and share content to the Digg network under the main categories of Business, Entertainment, Gaming, Lifestyle, Offbeat, Politics, Science, Sports, Technology, and World News. These broad categories allow for almost any area of content to be submitted.
When content is voted upon by other members of the Digg community (also known as getting diggs or being dugg), it gets the chance to be discovered not only by your own followers, but also the community at large by making it to the Holy Grail – the Digg homepage (or when you’re logged in, the Top News section). While the exact formula to what gets on the homepage is a mystery, the general theory is that a submission which receives a high number of votes within a short amount of time will likely make it to the top of the list.

Setting Up Your Digg Profile

 

Once you create an account on Digg, you can add some information about yourself under your profile settings including:

• Full Name – If you want people to be able to find your Digg profile amongst search results for your name, you’ll want to put your real name here.
• About Yourself – Put in some details about who you are and your interests so people sharing the same interests will be more likely to follow you.
• Links – You can add up to five links to any website you choose on your profile. The exception is links to your Twitter or Facebook – these won’t show up. Google+ will though. Although the links are nofollow (meaning they get little SEO value), they are handy to have up in case someone wants to know more about you.

The other thing you can customize under your profile settings is your Viewing Digg options. You can set your default view to My News (the latest submissions made by people you are following) or Top News (the top submissions made by the entire Digg community), how to open external links (within a new window or the same window), how to order comments, and other details.

Getting Followers

 

If you want your submissions to get views and diggs, the best place to start is by having a strong Digg following. Getting followers on Digg is a bit more tricky than getting followers on Twitter. My best tips on the matter are as follows.

• Digg and comment on submissions in your area of interest. The more active you are, the more your profile will be seen by others and followed by people with similar interests.
• Link to your Digg profile everywhere. This includes your email signature, forum signature, website, blog, and social networks that allow you to have links to your other social profiles such as Google+ and Facebook. Give your Digg profile a tweet every now and again too so you can get new followers off of your Twitter connections.
• Follow people in hopes that they follow you back. If you want to find new people to follow on Digg, including the top users based on most promotions, rising stars, and top commenters, you will want to visit the Find People page. You can find people based on who you are currently connected with on Twitter, Google, and Facebook too.

Getting Diggs

Now, the part you’re probably the most interested in – how to get diggs for your submissions. From my experience, your best bets are the following:

• Add the Digg Button to your content. Digg offers a few styles to choose from – you can add the JavaScript code directly onto pages you want dugg or, for self-hosted WordPress and other CMS driven sites, you can add the JavaScript code into your theme’s template.
• Share your submission on Twitter. If you’re not sure people will get the hint by just directing them to your piece of content with the integrated Digg Button, your next option is to send them directly to the submission itself on Digg. To get a link to your submission, just click on the comments for the it and share the direct URL which usually looks like digg.com/news/category/your_submissions_title. I wouldn’t ask often, but it never hurts to throw out the occasional Digg request to your followers on Twitter.
• Reach out to people directly via Instant Messenger and email. Some of the most successful pieces of content (besides the ones that naturally get diggs) are the ones marketed by people with a network. Know who your connections are that use Digg and send them a friendly request to give your submission a vote if they like it.
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New: The Digg Newsroom

Your Digg Experience

What has your experience with Digg been since the last revamp of the system? Please share your tips and tricks in the comments!


About the Author: Kristi Hines is a freelance writer, blogger, and social media enthusiast. Her blog Kikolani focuses on blog marketing, including social networking strategies and blogging tips.

How to Turn Off Google Search Plus Your World Results [VIDEO]

By Joann Pan at Mashable: 
If you are tired of seeing the pileup of social content from Google+ friends every time you use Google, you can now do something about it. Here’s how to get old Google back and block the personalized results that Google Search, plus Your World spews up.

When the Google Search, plus Your World update debuted in January, the new Google feature didn’t gain many fans. Twitter and others criticized the enhancement for bumping up Google+ profile pages (images, videos and mentions in posts by the 62 million+ people on the social layer of Google) that relates to your search term.
Many thought the search giant was favoring its own links instead of bringing up the most relevant links, tainting the progress of the open web.
Follow the directions in the video to turn off Google’s new enhanced search feature.

Skype for Windows Phone beta now available

By Matthew Miller at ZDNet:
Skype for Windows Phone is one of the most anticipated apps for this new platform and today a beta version is available for you to try out for free.

One of the services people have been asking for on Windows Phone is Skype and there is good news coming out of Spain today as Skype and Microsoft announce the availability of a beta client that you can download and install from this link directly from your Windows Phone. I installed it on my HTC Radar 4G and it is running smoothly so far.
The final version will be available in April, but so far the beta seems quite stable. You need to have Windows Phone 7.5 on your device and the following have been tested and certified:

• Nokia Lumia 710
• Nokia Lumia 800
• HTC Titan
• HTC Radar
• Samsung Focus S
• Samsung Focus Flash

You can check out the YouTube video of the new application and service in action too.

iOS app SnapNest gives users access to realtime Twitter image search on the go

By Nancy Messieh at TheNextWeb:
You don’t often think of Twitter as a photo-sharing service, but that is certainly a major part of the features it offers, especially since rolling out pretty slick user galleries back in August. You can also search for images and videos shared on the social network directly on the site. But on the go, using your iPhone or iPad, the official Twitter accounts make it impossible to search for images, and that’s where the new app, SnapNest, comes in.

With the app, you can search for images using specific keywords, check out images related to trending topics or, by using the iPhone’s location awareness, you can also search for images in your vicinity.
On first loading the app, you’re met with a list of the trending topics and a space to search for images of your choice. Once you perform a search, images are displayed in a grid.

What’s really cool about how SnapNest works is that it performs searches in realtime. So if a new image is posted to Twitter associated with your search term, it will automatically be displayed in your search results. SnapNest also gives you the option to pause realtime search as you’re scrolling through your results.

Opening an image, the tweet it’s associated with is displayed beneath the picture. You can save the image to your camera roll or share it via email.

The app does have one odd little quirk. When you come to share an image, if you hit cancel, it automatically loads the iPhone Facebook app, with a link pasted into a new status update box. The image is then shared as a link on your Facebook profile, but the image itself isn’t displayed..

43% of all LinkedIn users are in the US, IBM is the company with the most followers

By Nancy Messieh at TheNextWeb: 
Zoomsphere, a site which provides statistics on major social networks including Twitter, Facebook and Google+, has just revealed some interesting information and statistics on LinkedIn users.
It’s not surprising to find that the US has the most registered users on LinkedIn, with well over 61 million to its name. India comes in a distant second with over 14 million registered users. The US and India are joined in the top 10 by the UK, Brazil, Canada, France, Netherlands, Italy, Australia and Spain.
Far more interesting, in the revealed statistics, is which companies have the most followers on the professional social media site. In the US, IBM comes in at the top of the list with over 580,000 followers.
In comparison, IBM only has just over 13,000 followers on its main Twitter account and 93,000 fans on Facebook. It is worth mentioning that the number of IBM employees on LinkedIn currently sits at over 280,000, Next in line on LinkedIn, in order of follower count are HP, Microsoft, Google and Oracle. Apple comes in at 7th place with only 251,000 followers.
Clearly, just as the nature of interactions on each social network differs, users follow a company on Twitter or Facebook for vastly different reasons than following a company on LinkedIn.
The most followed company does change by region, with Unilever topping the list in the UK, Research in Motion in Canada, Huawei in China, and Ferrari in Italy.
Despite the fact that the majority of the most followed companies are IT-related, the most common industry on LinkedIn is Higher Education, followed by Information Technology and Services, with Financial Services coming in third.

More than half of the companies list on LinkedIn have over 10,000 employees, with the number of companies decreasing as the number of employees decrease.

The most common age group on LinkedIn is, unsurprisingly, 35-44, followed closely by the 25-34 age group. There are more 18-24 year olds on LinkedIn than there are professionals over the age of 55.

Worldwide, LinkedIn has over 143 million registered users, 43% of which are in the US.

In almost all countries, there are more men registered on LinkedIn than women, with the exception of a few countries, mostly in Asia and Eastern Europe, including China, the Philippines, Romania, Finland, Vietnam, Bulgaria, Serbia and Jamaica, where female users outnumber their male counterparts, if even by a little. 

INFOGRAPHIC: The Science of Social Timing Part 3: Timing and Blogging

Via KISSmetrics:
Timing is everything, and maintaining a blog is no exception to the rule. Learning when your audience is tuning in, and therefore when to post, is mandatory for any successful blogger. In the third and final part of this series we’re going to explore how timing can affect your blog readership.
Data courtesy of Dan Zarrella (@danzarrella), searchengineland.com (@sengineland) and HubSpot. Content available as a webinar by Dan Zarrella here. Note: all of the data below is presented in Eastern Time (EST) unless otherwise noted.

by KISSmetrics.

INFOGRAPHIC: The Science of Social Timing Part 2: Timing & Email Marketing

Via KISSmetrics:
Are certain times better than others for sending your email campaigns? In the second part of this series we’re going to investigate how timing can impact your email marketing. Data suggests that there are distinct windows in which to send emails if you want to achieve the highest open rate and maximize your readership. When reading this infographic remember: your own email timing data is the best data you can get your hands on!
Data courtesy of Dan Zarrella (@danzarrella), Pure360 (@pure360) and HubSpot. Content available as a webinar by Dan Zarrella here.

by KISSmetrics.

INFOGRAPHIC: Every 60 seconds in social media

By Jennifer Van Grove  at VentureBeat: 
A single minute may be barely enough time to construct a rational thought, but it’s time enough for social media denizens to inundate the web with their status updates, tweets, checkins, and photos.
Every 60 seconds in social media, two million videos are viewed on YouTube, 700,000 messages are delivered by way of Facebook, 175,000 tweets are fired off into the ether, and 2,000 Foursquare check-ins tell the world where we are.
If the volume of all this social media activity doesn’t astound, perhaps a visual representation of the data will put things into prospective.
Social Jumpstart, a social media resource for small business, has created an infographic, to add color to the wealth of publicly available data on the hottest social networks and applications of our day.

Google Do Not Track extension for Chrome available now

Chris Burns, at SlashGear:
After much discussion today on how the Google Chrome web browser’s up and coming “Do Not Track” button would be applied to the browser in future versions, Google has gone ahead and released a preliminary extension to make it so. This extension is one that anyone can click to install on their Google Chrome browser with ease, the functionality of it very likely to simply be baked in to future Google Chrome releases. This extension acts to opt your web browser out of online ad personalization via cookies once and for all – permanently.

This extension offers you an one-step persistent opt-out, as they say, of the personalized advertising and data tracking that has landed Google in so much hot water as of late. Google is careful to note that such personalized advertising and the data tracking that’s involved in making it happen is still within the industry privacy standards for online advertising. Google is also careful to note that at no time will this extension ever track or keep any record related to the websites that you, the user, may visit.
You can view the self-regulatory program for online behavioral advertising that Google mentions above over at http://www.aboutads.info/, and not again that this is what’s spoken about earlier today in regards to Google adding a “Do Not Track” button to their Chrome browser, but more specifically you can take a peek at http://donottrack.us/ to see how Do Not Track is implemented. And you can use that site to enable Do Not Track for Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari.

Flickr disables Pinterest pins on all copyrighted images

 

By Jennifer Van Grove at VentureBeat: 
As the third most popular source of content on digital pin-board site Pinterest, Flickr and its photographers are subject to frequent acts of copyright infringement. But a site-wide update to Flickr promises to better protect members and their copyrighted works.
The Yahoo-owned photo-sharing site has just added Pinterest’s newly introduced do-not-pin code to all Flickr pages with copyrighted or protected images.
“Flickr has implemented the tag and it appears on all non-public/non-safe pages, as well as when a member has disabled sharing of their Flickr content,” a Flickr representative confirmed to VentureBeat Friday. “This means only content that is ‘safe,’ ‘public’ and has the sharing button enabled can be pinned to Pinterest.”
Pinterest, as a refresher, is the digital pin-board site that encourages members to “pin,” via bookmarklet, the products, recipes, clothes, photos, and other items they love to collections called boards. The private beta site has grown into one of the most-trafficked social networks online.
The site has also given birth to the most inherently viral variant of the status update yet. This new breed of update, however, often promotes piracy as pins including copyrighted works spread from person to person.
To protect itself from copyright lawsuits, and appease disgruntled photographers and publishers, the young social media company introduced a snippet of code Monday that website owners can now add to their sites to prevent unwanted pinning. If a person on Pinterest attempts to share something from a site with that code in place, she will see a message that reads: “This site doesn’t allow pinning to Pinterest. Please contact the owner with any questions. Thanks for visiting!”
Flickr can’t prevent all acts of photo piracy just by enabling the code — determined sharers will just work around the inconvenience and manually download and post images — but the act signals the site is proactively looking out for its photographers.

INFOGRAPHIC: Can Twitter And Facebook Predict The Oscar Winners?

By Shea Bennett at MediaBistro:
Social media can be a great predictor of many things, especially where sentiment plays a major role in deciding the outcome of an event that is shaped by the public. For example, the winner of The X Factor, or even who is most likely to be the next occupant of the White House. What Twitter and Facebook can’t do is predict the outcome of an event in which the people polled have no control or influence over whatsoever. At best, it’s just a guess.
Still, it’s always fun to see who and what social media users would like to win an Academy Award, and this latest study says it’s ensemble drama The Help that may well emerge as the surprise Best Picture winner on the night.
Which, of course, will be nothing more than a coincidence, as Twitter and Facebook users have absolutely no sway over the Academy. That aside, The Help has been nominated for just three awards, but is far and away the clear favourite to bag the Best Picture Oscar on both Twitter and Facebook.
The Help star Viola Davis is also a Twitter favourite to secure the Best Actress prize. Brad Pitt’s role in Moneyball has twice as many Best Actor Oscar Twitter mentions as George Clooney’s turn in The Descendants. Hugo, despite eleven nominations, and The Artist, with eight, hardly factor at all. And that probably tells you all you need to know.
This infographic from social media agency Banyan Branch takes a closer look at the social media frontrunners for the Oscars.

All the major browser makers plan to install a “Do Not Track” button this year, Except for one

By Todd Wasserman at Mashable: 
All the major browser makers plan to install a “Do Not Track” button this year — except for one, according to an attorney representing the Digital Advertising Alliance.
Stuart Ingis, counsel to the DAA, says that Apple, creator of the Safari browser, is “not engaged” in the process at this point. Of course, that doesn’t mean the company might not come on board later; the DAA is holding the door open.
Apple’s lack of an opt-out privacy option for consumers comes after a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that Google was overriding Safari’s privacy protection features to glean data from consumers. Apple is not a DAA member, and the company could not be reached for comment.
Update: An alert reader notes that a Do Not Track feature appeared last week in the standard preferences for Safari 5.2.
Apple’s stance contrasts with DAA members, who vowed to go the self-regulation route after the Obama Administration issued a “Consumer Bill of Rights” for online data tracking Thursday.
Perhaps the highest-profile DAA member to agree to a Do Not Track button is Google, which plans to offer the option on its Chrome browser.
The button, a proposal favored by the Federal Trade Commission, will be available in Chrome by the end of the year. “We’re pleased to join a broad industry agreement to respect the ‘do-not-track’ header in a consistent and meaningful way that offers users choice and clearly explained browser controls,” Google Senior Vice President of Advertising Susan Wojcicki said in a statement.
If you take the “Do Not Track” option, then Google and other DAA members have agreed to stop using web-based behavioral data to create so-called “interest-based ads” and won’t use the information for health care, employment, credit and insurance purposes, Ingus says.
However, the data will still be used for market research, product creation and to abet law enforcement.

How Brands Could Produce Eye-Catching Pinterest Layouts [Mock-Ups]

Via SimplyZest:
Ok, so I know what you’re probably thinking, “Not another news story about Pinterest”. But this isn’t another post debating whether or not the burgeoning social network is here to stay or just a fad – rather, we will show you how brands can take advantage of Pinterest’s image rich layout.
As you may be aware, Pinterest isn’t just a collection of lovely images (although it definitely is that too). It can be used as a massive online store for brands, something which is just beginning to take off and many more big brands will surely follow suit.
We’ve mocked up a few Pinterest pages (including our own) to see how brands can design their own pages to help highlight recent advertising campaigns, links to new products and anything that represents their brand visually.

Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola has a rich advertising history and are famed for their 50′s style print ads, some of which they still use today. Pinterest could showcase their advertising heritage while also showing their modern advertising aesthetic. New and classic products could also be pinned here, as well as having separate boards for products, vintage ads etc

Nike

Nike is a brand which could really take advantage of the product selling aspect of Pinterest. Everything from their latest sneakers to their massively growing Nike+ running products, all these could be pinned to the top of their page, depending on what they want to highlight. Nike is also a brand with a fantastic range of great ads, which could be pinned on their own boards, eg: Football, Basketball, Athletics.

Apple says iCloud and MobileMe push email down in Germany, due to Motorola lawsuit

By Sharif Sakr at EnGadget: 
Cupertino says it is has suspended push email via iCloud or MobileMe for users in Germany, due to "recent patent litigation by Motorola Mobility." Numerous disputes currently rage between the two companies, but this issue likely relates to a recent injunction Motorola won against iCloud. Push still works for Contacts and Calendars, but there's a page up on Apple's German support site telling people to use the Fetch settings on their iOS device to collect emails. There's a similar page on Apple's US site giving the same instructions to users who are traveling to Germany. Meanwhile, push email for OS X and via other service providers such as Microsoft Exchange Active Sync, is unaffected.

Tweeting Too Much Is “Unhealthy”, Says Twitter Co-Founder

By Shea Bennett at MediaBistro:
How many times a day do you tweet?
Once or twice? Five to ten times? More? Well, if you’re devoting hours and hours to Twitter each and every day you might want to think about cutting back, as spending too long on the network might not be too good for your health.
And those aren’t my words. They’re the words of Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone.
Stone, speaking Wednesday at the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal business conference, was responding to claims that some users are finding Twitter addictive, and spending up to 12 hours each day logged into the platform.
“To me, that sounds unhealthy,” he said.

Read the full article here

INFOGRAPHIC: Just How Big Is Twitter In 2012?

By Shea Bennett at MediaBistro:
Did you know that Twitter now has around half a billion registered profiles, with over 100 million in the USA alone?
What if I told that, collectively, Twitter users now send 175 million tweets every day? And that the most popular events on Twitter generate (literally) tens of thousands of tweets every second?
These statistics, and more, can be found in this Twitter visualization from Infographic Labs, which reminds us of the sheer size of the network in 2012.
Other key takeaways include:

• While the USA leads the way, Twitter is also massively popular in Brazil, Japan and the UK
• Twitter’s most-followed user, Lady Gaga, is rapidly closing in on 20 million followers
• 64 percent of users access Twitter via Twitter.com
• Tweets containing (the somewhat vague) ‘interesting content’ are most likely to be retweeted
• 69 percent of users follow others based on recommendations from friends

Some of this data is a little behind the times – Twitter moves really, really fast – but this is a great one-shot overview of Twitter in 2012.

The Most Important Online CRM and Social CRM Apps

Via GetApp.com: 

Trying to make a decision about which web-based CRM application or social CRM application to use for your business?

This infographic will help you determine what are the important decision factors when searching for CRM products. We hope this will help you decide which (social) CRM solution is the best fit for your business.
For a more comprehensive list of over 200 web-based social CRM and CRM apps, we encourage you to check GetApp.com's directory by clicking on the links provided in the infographic.

Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others sign up to the 'Privacy Bill of Rights,' will respect do-not-track instructions

By Vlad Savov at The Verge: 
US President Barack Obama has today unveiled a new framework for online privacy intended to ameliorate persistent concerns about the way web companies use their customers' personal data. This blueprint has been given the highfalutin title of a Privacy Bill of Rights and one of its first achievements has been to get the biggest online advertisers to accede to respect do-not-track instructions sent by their users. AOL, Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo have all joined in on this voluntarily, promising to give you the option of not having your browsing tracked, which is a technique commonly used for delivering targeted ads. There are multiple methods for signalling your non-consent to being tracked, and though a specific one isn't explicitly laid out, the White House statement makes it clear that advertisers are committed to working with the technology and respecting users' wishes.
The do-not-track agreement is part of a broader set of principles laid out in the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights, which are as a whole intended to give people more control of their information online and a greater sense of certainty when interacting with web services. The core tenets are transparency, so that you know what data is being kept about you and where, access to that data so that you may correct it, context awareness so that it's used for the intent with which you provided it, and of course, security. Ultimately, the Obama administration will look to enshrine these guidelines into law — we're told that it's already working with Congress to develop legislation for just that purpose — but until then the companies that sign up will be overseen by the Federal Trade Commission.

INFOGRAPHIC: The sad state of Social Media Privacy

By MDG Advertising:
The relationship between social media and privacy has long been a controversial one, but with recent privacy breaches, ever-changing privacy settings and an overall increase in the things we share in social media, there is now renewed attention to the troublesome topic. To shed some light on where consumers stand on social media privacy issues, MDG Advertising created an enlightening infographic that shows consumers’ levels of trust, feelings of control, and attitudes toward online privacy and protection. It also offers insight on what consumers ultimately want in terms of social media and privacy. With consumers becoming more and more concerned about protecting their privacy in the social media era, social networks must make privacy a priority in order to keep consumers as fans and followers.

INFOGRAPHIC: How to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your website or blog

By TheSocialMarketer:
Did you know Pinterest is generating more referral traffic to websites/blogs than YouTube, Google +, and LinkedIn combined? It is no question that marketers are increasingly turning to Pinterest to generate traffic to their sites and find new customers. This infographic explains how to use Pinterest as a marketing tool to promote your website/blog. If you would like to share this infographic on your site please feel free to do so

23 Brands Using Instagram And What They're Doing Right

By Jason Keath at SocialFresh: 
The brilliance behind the Polaroid camera was instant gratification. No wonder Instagram has adopted the nostalgic camera tech as it’s logo inspiration.
Instagram has indeed captured the childlike wonder of many iPhone users (yes we know, they NEED an android app). How many? Well, even though the 6 person company will be a year old in October 2011, they are on the verge of 10 million total users and have over 200 million photos uploaded so far.
That’s 15 photos uploaded per second.
Momentum? Check.
And along the way, more than a few brands have noticed the hottest photo sharing app out there.

Is Instagram worthwhile for businesses?

So the question is, can brands get real business value out of a photo sharing app that is not focused on link sharing or buying products or distributing specials to fans? The jury is still out, but there are some big brands testing the platform for spreading awareness and cultivating relationships with their biggest fans.
Of the 23 brands we looked at, the most active was fashion brand Bergdorfs with 652 photos. And the most followed was retailer, and social media early adopter, Starbucks with 92,916 followers.

Instagram For Business Best Practices

I researched and followed these 23 brands for about a week, checking in to the app a few times a day for updates. It has not been annoying as I thought. Which is good news. Brands are doing a lot of things right. Also, Instagram does not lend itself to over-promotional content.

Rule #1. Post interesting images: sounds simple, but focus less on your branded images and products and instead post lifestyle photos that are visually appealing. This is what thrives on Instagram. I love the photos from General Electric. They are, at the risk of contradicting myself, a lot of product shots, especially their jet engines. But they treat it more like art. Let’s be honest, most Instagram users are not in the market for jet engines, so it works. They clearly have an eye on the aesthetics of their content.

Rule #2. Post consistently: If I see no images from you and then I am flooded with photos from a brand crowding my stream, I get confused and might unfollow. Brisk is my example here. Although they held an innovative contest before SXSW back in March, more recently they have been inactive for a month on Instagram. And then a couple days ago posted 13 photos in a short time period. This can easily throw off your followers. Good Morning America however post a handful of photos each morning. I expect it. It makes sense for their show’s hours.

Rule #3. Post often: Yes I know I just complained about 13 photos from Brisk in one day. Again, it was not consistent. Bergdorfs, however, posts 5-10 photos a day on average. Throughout the day. And their photos are interesting (see rule #1).

Rule #4. Get the community involved: Nothing new here. Social networks work better when the brand gets conversations going. Specifically on Instagram brands that respond with @replies to their commenters and actively use hashtags generate more activity on their profiles. Instagram is perfect for user generated content competitions. Have followers submit photos to a themed hashtag, judge them, and repost to celebrate the winners. Boom, engagement.

Rule #5. Have a theme: Kate Spade NY uses the #popofcolor hashtag quite often to highlight their photos that have a splash of red in them. NH Hoteles consistently post great sunrises and morning shots tagged with #wakeuppics. Similar to being consistent, a theme throughout your photos helps followers know what to expect and keeps them wanting more.

Ok, enough dilly dallying, let’s jump to the list and give you some examples (in alphabetical order) of what these brands are doing. Follow a few and see for yourself. Instagram handles in parenthesis.

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1. ABC World News (abcworldnews)

Total photos: 280
Followers: 68,633
Following: 46
Welcome to the official Instagram account for ABC World News with Diane Sawyer.
http://www.abcnews.com/wn

2. Bergdorfs (bergdorfs)

Total photos: 652
Followers: 8,003
Following: 152
There’s only one Bergdorf Goodman. And this is where you’ll find our Fashion City adventures & New York City Secrets…
http://blog.bergdorfgoodman.com/bg-shoes/

3. Billboard (billboarddotcom)

Total photos: 93
Followers: 36,460
Following: 17
Images from the crew at Billboard.com and Billboard Magazine

4. Brisk (brisk)

Total photos: 30
Followers: 395
Following: 46

5. Burberry (burberry)

Total photos: 352
Followers: 87,901
Following: 57
A 155 year-old global brand with distinctly British attitude.
http://Burberry.com

6. Celtics (celtics)

Total photos: 70
Followers: 35,691
Following: 132
Official Instagram of the 17-time world champs
http://www.celtics.com

7. CNN (cnnpr)

Total photos: 42
Followers: 446
Following: 39
Photos from behind the scenes at CNN Worldwide captured by the publicists with CNN Public Relations.
http://cnnpressroom.com

8. CNN iReport (cnnireport)

Total photos: 200
Followers: 58,734
Following: 4994
iReport invites you to take part in the news with CNN. Send photos via CNN iPhone app or mail to ireport@cnn.com. Here on IG, use the #cnnireport tag.
http://cnnireport.com

9. General Electric (generalelectric)

Total photos: 54
Followers: 15,501
Following: 41
This feed features the groundbreaking research and technology that GE has been developing since the days of Edison.

10. Good Morning America (goodmorningamerica)

Total photos: 231
Followers: 20,180
Following: 32
The official Instagram account of Good Morning America
http://abcnews.com/gma

11. Gucci (gucci)

Total photos: 16
Followers: 5,051
Following: 12
World class luxury. Italian heritage. Modern style
http://www.gucci.com

12. Incase (goincase)

Total photos: 34
Followers: 2,772
Following: 1821
A better experience through good design.
http://goincase.com

13. MTV (mtv)

Total photos: 199
Followers: 10,4347
Following: 0

14. NBC News (nbcnews)

Total photos: 233
Followers: 55,669
Following: 86
The official account for NBC News. Our official tag is #NBCNews. Follow us for original photos taken by our news team. Also follow @todayshow
http://www.twitter.com/nbcnews

15. NH Hoteles (nh_hoteles)

Total photos: 171
Followers: 459
Following: 366
Wake up to a better world ;)
http://www.WakeUpPics.com

#wakeuppics

16. NPR (npr)

Total photos: 178
Followers: 66,526
Following: 218

17. Pepsi Max (pepsimax)

Total photos: 74
Followers: 976
Following: 20

18. Redbull (redbull)

Total photos: 260
Followers: 60,028
Following: 7205
@RedBull gives wings to F1, racing, skateboarding, surfing, snowboarding, skiing, motocross, snow, bmx, music, art, culture, flight. Tag pics #redbull

19. Sharpie (sharpie)

Total photos: 20
Followers: 1,171
Following: 497

20. The Situation Room (cnnsitroom)

Total photos: 37
Followers: 195
Following: 145
A behind-the-scenes look into “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer” airing weekdays 5-7 p.m. ET & Saturdays 6 p.m. ET on CNN

21. Starbucks (starbucks)

Total photos: 96
Followers: 92,916
Following: 105
Freshly brewed instagrams from Starbucks in Seattle, WA. Tag your coffee photos with #Starbucks!

22. Threadless (threadless)

Total photos: 139
Followers: 51,983
Following: 636
Threadless is a community-based company that prints awesome designs created and chosen by you!

23. The Today Show (todayshow)

Total photos: 104
Followers: 24,612
Following: 20
This is the official instagram account for the @todayshow. Share your photos with us with the tag #todayshow.



Jason Keath is the founder of Social Fresh, a social media education company. He is a social media speaker and analyst. He also consults with corporations and agencies on building community and influencer outreach.
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