An recent report 140 Proof found that the more someone uses Twitter, the more likely they are to click on ads within Twitter or the mobile apps they use to access Twitter. These numbers are the opposite of regular banner ad standards as some of the highest Twitter users were clicking ads as much as 13% of the time. 

72.2 million Americans accessed a social network or blog via mobile device in August, 2011 according to a new comScore study. This is yet another stat showing the big push toward mobile as a platform of choice for people today.

55% of streaming media traffic in September, 2011 did not go to computer. New data from Sandvine shows that the majority of streaming media is now being used via tablets, smartphones, game consoles, and smart TVs.

I don't think I've ever done two Improv Everywhere videos in a row on the video of the week, but this week's video from Improv Toronto is worth watching. The obvious lesson here is to never accept a fight with a ninja. Seems obvious but apparently there are some folks who didn't get that memo. Enjoy the Toronto street ninja video. 

 

I've been pretty vocal on my blog and in various conference or panel discussion settings about how I think QR codes are only valuable in print. Until recently I had no reason to think otherwise. Anytime I saw a QR code on a screen it wasn't being used well. I would usually see them on a website and the QR code was for something that would have been better served with a hyperlink. It just didn't make sense to use a QR code in those cases.

A few weeks ago, however, I was part of a panel discussion here in Nashville hosted by Pinnacle Financial Partners and the topic of QR codes came up. Nikki Klemmer, who was another panelist, noted how she had seen some good uses of QR codes on screens and even that Pinnacle was using one on their website so people could download their banking app to their smartphone. I noted that I still wasn't sure if I bought that QR codes should be used on a screen rather than in print. 

Could I Have Been Wrong All Along?
After the event I started thinking about that question. Perhaps the scenario Nikki talked about was better than I'd first thought. Providentially, I saw a really good use of a QR code on a large TV screen in an office building lobby soon after this event. The QR code had a digital directory so you could get it on your phone and then dial the office you wanted directly. Pretty smart. 

That sealed the deal for me: I was wrong about QR codes only being good in print. Nikki was right, there are some really good uses of QR codes on screens. Sorry for shooting the idea down so quickly Nikki.

When QR Codes On Screens Make Sense
As I've continued thinking about this I can see many uses of a QR code on a screen. When you're trying to get someone to access something that's specifically for a smartphone, it's possible that a QR code might be the best way to serve that up for them. For instance, it would be faster to pull up a link to an app if I was given a QR code for it than if I had to type the link into my smartphone's web browser or find it in the app store.

The bottom line is that I was too quick to dismiss QR codes being used strategically on screens. If the QR code is linking to something that's distinctly accessed by a smartphone, a QR code might be a great way to give that to them.

There are now estimates that Netflix has lost nearly 600,000 customers because of the price and service changes the company has rolled out in recent months. Netflix attempted to separate the DVDs by mail service from the online streaming service but after significant outcry the company backed off and put the services back together.

eMarketer just released some findings about the number of moms using Facebook. According to their study there are 23 million American moms using Facebook. These moms represent two thirds of the total moms in the United States who are online.

Twitter has been growing quite a bit over the last year but it appears that the average number of Tweets per day from users has remained fairly steady. The average Twitter user posts a Tweet once every two days (or half a Tweet per day.)

What happens when the guy who started Improv Everywhere gets married? Improv of course! Apparently when they said "everywhere" they meant it. Check out what happens in this week's video.

You may have noticed Facebook's new Insights (stats) roll out over the last week or so for those of you who manage a Facebook page. Personally I'm very excited about this because we are given a lot more information about the Fans than we've ever gotten from Facebook before.

Perhaps the most interesting thing to me is the new "Friends of Fans" category seen here. For the first time we actually get a sense of how broad our potential reach is when we engage fans on Facebook.

Why This Is Big
The promise of social media has always been this "social" aspect of it where you benefit from all these conversations happening in public. One of the big ideas (and hopes) has always been that you are able to get the attention of people who know the people you're talking to. In other words, we've always known there was a ripple effect to engaging people in social media but we never could really quantify that, until now. 

With the "Friends of Fan" category you now have an actual number of your potential reach if you could somehow get all of the attention of the friends you fans have. Clearly that's an impossible number but what this number communicates is a clear reason why you need to engage your fans. Each time your fans interact with your Facebook page they announce to their own friends that they just did that. The more engageable (is that a word?) you are the more your fans will be announcing to their friends that you exist and are giving a subtle endorsement for you. This new stat helps expand our focus from the fans to the people your fans know. 

Are Your Fans Above Average?
Equally interesting here is that you now can determine if your own fans are, as a whole, above average. Here's what I mean: the average Facebook user has 130 friends but now that we know how many friends your fans have we can calculate the average number of friends your fans have. For instance, in the example image above there are 46,806 fans. Those fans have a combined reach over 11 million friends. Therefore the average fan of this particular page has 251 friends. They're well above the 130 friend average.

This stat may be even more meaningful for pages with smaller numbers of fans. Here's another example: 

Clearly there is a much smaller number of fans for this page than the previous example. With only 154 fans it might not seem like much but then when you see their friends of fan number is over 60,000 it looks more promising. Further, their average fan has 390 friends! That's much better than the example above. Look at the potential reach this organization has if they can engage their 154 fans. You see how this expands the perspective of engaging. You're not just engaging your fans. You're engaging for the ripple effect too.

I already know of organizations using these stats to justify why they have a Facebook page. Perhaps that was part of the motivation behind giving us this data. Whatever the case, I think it's interesting and helpful to keep us on track with why we should be considering a social media marketing approach in the first place. We have the opportunity to earn attention from the right kind of people and who better to guide us to more of the right kind of people than the friends of our fans?

We still have some seats available for the social media and SEO boot camp that John Ellis and I are doing this Friday here in Nashville. If you're interested in attending you can get a $50 discount on your registration if you use the code "FriendofMEM" in the registration process.

There's more detail about the boot camp on the registration page and the original blog post announcement too.

The bottom line is that if you are looking for help developing a social media plan, you'll walk out of the session Friday with a plan already started. Likewise, if you're looking for a better understanding of how you can make your website more search engine friendly, you'll want to be at the boot camp.

Don't forget: $50 off the registration if you use the code "FriendofMEM" too!

A new study reveals that tablet owners (people with iPads, Nooks, Kindle Fires, and such) spend 48% more time online than other people. Whereas the average Internet users spends just under 3 hours online daily, tablet owners spend 4 hours and 19 minutes online each day.

Pew Research recently found out that local newspapers are still the leading source for people to get their local news. 25% of respondents to the survey rely most on newspaper whereas 17% said they rely most on the Internet. Local television came in at 12%. Most interesting, perhaps, is that 69% of Americans said that if newspapers went away it would not have a major impact in their ability to get local news.

With the release of the new iPhone 4S last week, Apple announced today that they sold 4 million units in the first three days! According to a Retrevo.com survey released prior to the new iPhone going on sale last Friday, 44% of iPhone 3/3GS owners, 42% were iPhone 4 owners, 12% of Android owners, and 24% of Blackberry owners were going to switch to the new iPhone. 

This is a surprisingly heart warming video of an Argentinian street performer who connects with a little girl through his dog puppet. Enjoy!

Google Chrome about to become second most popular web browser. According to this new StatCounter report, Chrome is set to pass Firefox by December this year. Internet Explorer is still the most popular web browser. Personally, I've been using Chrome more because it's noticeably faster than Firefox. Interesting to see other people are doing the same thing.

58% of Facebook users expect to get access to exclusive content, events or sales when they "like" a brand on Facebook. In this new report the focus was on why people choose to like (and not like) a brand on Facebook. Access to something exclusive was the number one reason given for liking the brand and tied with getting promotions and discounts.

91% of recruiters use social networks to screen applicants. Yes, it matters what you post to your social networks more than ever.

I guess it was time he learned the truth. As you'll see, it was a shocking revelation for this little guy:

I'm regularly asked what I think the next big thing in social media is going to be. The response most people want is something like, "Oh, there's this crazy new technology that reads your brainwaves and automatically posts your thoughts to Facebook."

Fortunately there's nothing like that (yet) and in actuality there really isn't any mind blowing, new, game changing technology out there right now. Instead, what we're seeing is a further adoption rate, refinement of use, and embedding into our daily lives of the things people are already doing.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and all the rest get a lot of attention but I think mobile technology was the sleeping giant that has fully been awakened. Here's why:

• More people have smartphones than ever.
• Smartphone users are using them more often.
• Smartphones are becoming the first computing options.

Here are some stats that show these trends to be true:

Mobile users are choosing to browse with their smartphone even when they're at home and have another computer they could be using.

58 million American mobile users are accessing social networking sites like Facebook every month.

Mobile video viewing is growing by double digits.

Mobile map usage is on a significant rise.

As interesting as this is, the marketing opportunity is huge too:

Mobile ads generate click-thru rates six times higher than standard banner ads.

Mobile search is growing like crazy for Google.

60% of mobile users click an advertisement on their smartphone weekly.

Moms love their smartphones (and 96% of them have the Facebook app).

But QR codes still haven't taken off. Only 6% of mobile phone users scan them.

The bottom line is this: mobile connectivity has not only changed the way people communicate and get information, it's also becoming a contender for advertising and getting content. I think this is as close as we can get to "the next big thing" but there's no doubt that it's here to stay and changing the way people give and get information. It's time for your business to be thinking about what these mean to you and the future of your work.

I'm excited to announce another social media and SEO bootcamp for Nashville. John Ellis and I are once again partnering to do this one day event to give you the tools to be able to use social media well, establish a strong SEO strategy, and develop a social media marketing plan for your organization.

I'm thankful for our friends at All-American Pest Control here in Nashville for allowing us to use their really nice conference facility for our event. Who knew a pest cotrol company could have such awesome conference space?

Early Bird Discount
Seating is limited to 50 people for this event so we want to encourage the people most eager for this kind of training. With that in mind, if you register and use the promo code "earlybird" you'll get $100 off your registration fee. Regular price for the event is $299 and includes lunch and free parking. This promo code is good through noon (Central time) on Monday, October 10.

If you want to attend and have special dietary needs for lunch just let us know and we'll accomodate as needed. Feel free to email me at: Bill@microexplosion.com to let me know.

What To Expect
John and I did this boot camp a year ago and had great feedback from it. Here's what you can plan to get from your social media boot camp day:

• Understand social media marketing fundamentals
• Discover marketing shifts and how social media fits in today's environment
• Learn how to create content people will want to pay attention to
• Understand the two keys to every social media action
• Learn how to get started on social media monitoring
• Learn how to measure social media success
• See several cases studies of good and bad social media uses
• Discover the six things every social media marketing plan needs
• Begin building your own social media marketing plan

I hope you'll join us for the social media and SEO boot camp on Friday, October 21. We're going to have a great time and you'll walk away with more insight into how to maximize your SEO efforts and create a social media plan as well. 

1269% - Google Plus finally opened up to the general public last week and their already strong growth jumped up like crazy. According to Experian Hitwise the site's web traffic jumped 1269%!

$400 Million - Twitter was criticized for a long time for not being able to make any money. In 2010 they made $40 million and this year will close out the year making almost $140 million. It's expected that Twitter will make close to $400 million by 2013. 

Mobile Ads Six Times Higher - A study shows that mobile banner ads get a click-through rate six times higher than banner ads on websites. Whereas the average CTR on a site is .10% the average CTR on mobile sites (and therefore viewed on mobile devices) is .64%. I can attest personally that I've seen this stat play out exactly like this study shows in recent campaigns for some clients. Mobile ads are certainly worth considering today.