Microsoft used Social Media Week to launch a new advertising platform aimed at incorporating user reviews and comments into social media sites.
The company said People Powered Stories will be the first of several social advertising products Microsoft plans to launch in the coming months. The product's release comes at a time when there is growing evidence that people are more likely to purchase a product recommended by a friend, while simultaneously showing a reluctance to purchase products directly marketed through social networks.
Today is Valentine's Day. If you're not coupled up, you're probably either lying low, thinking about flirting with someone, dropping witty one-liners all over the place, trying to figure out why your last relationship didn't work out or contemplating what "love" is, anyway. It's all pretty confusing, and the Internet doesn't help anyone figure out what it is - it just gives us more tools to try and make a connection happen.
Today, Nimble launches a missing piece of the Web. The 2.0 version of its relationship management software is now available, and it's free for individual users. Nimble consolidates your social network contacts and activity. It helps busy people stay in touch with contacts or customers wherever they're active.
The public beta launched in March 2011 and has racked up 30,000 registered users at 2,800 companies since then. But the most attention-grabbing number is that the average user spends nearly three hours per day using it. Those are hours Nimble users aren't spending jumping between disconnected inboxes across various networks. Nimble lets them manage their contact and customer relationships in one unified place.
SocialFlow, which exited its beta last week, is doing a very New York-esque campaign where people who use social media are sharing their "social media secret weapons" in one-minute video clips.
The campaign is tied into Social Media Week, and you can play along at home: the company is giving away a Kindle Fire to the best strategy shared via Twitter or Facebook by noon on Wednesday. But even if you don't play along at home, we've found the videos a good way to kill some time this morning. They range from the practical to the odd to the downright annoying.
Katy Perry's got nothing on Nicki Minaj.
At the 2012 Grammys, Perry rolled on-stage with a blue wig and her hit song "E.T.", then abruptly transitioned into "Part of Me," which pop news sources have attributed to her break-up with Russell Brand. (There are lines like "So you can keep the diamond ring," for example.) Things just haven't been the same since Perry's religious parents have tried to hook her up with Jesus-lovin' Tim Tebow.
Yet Perry was formerly the queen of cotton candy cloud sensuality, of references to sucking Snoop Dogg's lollipop and a hyperfemininity that only a white girl of pastor parents could muster. Sweet and adoring in her innocence, Perry doesn't stand a chance against hardcore female rapper Nicki Minaj, who stole the 2012 Grammys with "Roman Holiday." Both a tribute to and a pushback against the movie "The Exorcist," Minaj's performance engaged the short attention spans of social media users, compelling them to post their own thoughts on Minaj's "interpretation" of Catholicism, exorcism and the use of highly charged religious imagery in pop culture social media spectacle.
Employment agency OnWardSearch is kicking off Social Media Week by releasing an infographic that gives a snapshot of the state of salaries in the field.
The Salary Guide, which gives the top 20 markets as well as salary ranges for top job titles in each metro area, is coupled with a post on career advice from leading marketers. Not surprisingly, the left coast remains one of the better places to head to if you want to make a living blogging, tweeting or managing brands on social networks, but don't rule out the northeast - particularly New York (which tops the list) and Boston (which checks in at number five).
In the two weeks I have been using Wisdom, an iPad and iPhone app that gives you detailed demographic data about your Facebook friends, the number of users has gone from just over 4 million to just under 6 million. Part of that rapid growth is most likely attributable to an extensive advertising campaign on the iPad version of the New York Times (which is where I first heard about it).
Sometimes little things like a sweet comment on Facebook or a Twitter friend calling your tweet a "favorite" can really make a social networker bee's day.
A new study from Pew finds that for the most part, adults are kind to each other on social media sites. In fact, 85% of adults say that most of the people they come across on social media are rather kind; only 5% say that people are "mostly unkind," which would imply rude or mean. An additional 5% say that it's all situational. On the whole, adults have positive experiences on social networking sites. A total 68% of SNS users had an experience that "made them feel good about themselves," 61% said something on social networks "made them feel closer to another person." Of the generous and helpful variety, 39% of users said they saw acts of generosity and 36% said they see other user behaving in generous and helpful ways.
In ComScore's report on The State of Online and Mobile Banking, it cites social networks as a space where banks are creating a presence, and improving their capabilities. But do any of the banks' customers even know about this? Apparently not.
Even though financial institutes have increased social networking activity, ComScore says that only 18% of customers knew that their financial institutions had a presence on social networks. A total 59% had no idea, and 24% were unsure of what their financial institutions were doing on social media sites.
This year's Super Bowl will be more social than ever before.
With the rise of social TV and the first-ever 2,800-square-foot social media command center, fans who have trekked down to Indianapolis and people at Super Bowl parties across the country can now opt to have a super-connected experience.
This marks the first time that the NFL has partnered with a Super Bowl host city. Like a Midwestern truck stop that has a restaurant, convenience store, bathrooms, random coin-operated claw games (that you can't ever win) and gas, the Super Bowl social media command center seeks to be all things to all football fans. Receive mobile updates about navigating the city. The Super Bowl Social Media Command center will answer your Twitter (@superbowl2012) and Facebook questions. Follow the blog here. It's the customer service center of your Friday Night Lights dreams.
