Obscure movies from the 1970s combined with a modern bluegrass band's musical narration is bound to be Internet gold. As you'll see here it turns out to be a pretty catchy song too.

If you find yourself singing this little "guy on a buffalo" tune in our head this weekend, you're welcome...or I'm sorry. Whichever applies.

If this version isn't enough guy on a buffalo for you there's a second one out too.

You've undoubtedly seen and heard about the recent changes to Facebook along with Facebook timeline profile that's set to roll out soon, but with all the talk about the changes I only today learned that Facebook released an official PDF for marketers during their f8 conference last week. If you haven't seen the PDF, you can download "f8 for Marketers" here.

App-Based Facebook
The biggest takeaway from this document is that Facebook is making a distinct divide between the kinds of interactions people can have with brands. Whereas most businesses are only pushing "likes" today, Facebook is introducing new levels of engagement with people. These new types of engagements with customers are "read", "listen", "watch", "buy", etc. an they're going to happen through a new app-based Facebook.

The new Facebook profiles we're all going to be getting soon are going to look a lot different from the profiles we know today. They're going to be more widget-ish than the current pages and with that change, Facebook is sounding a change for businesses to start thinking about creating and implementing apps for people to engage the business beyond likes.

We won't know for sure what this is all going to look like until we see the full implementation of the new profiles, but Facebook's new push for an app-based Facebook world will make it necessary to add value to the people you want to reach more than ever before.

A new Pew Internet study shows that 73% of adult Americans are texting now. Interestingly, 31% of adults would prefer a text message over talking.

It's estimated that Facebook is going to make over $4 billion this year. No too shabby for a little company that started in a Harvard dorm room.

There were a host of mobile stats shared at a recent Shop.org conference. The one that stands out to me from this post is that the average American is never more than three feet away from their mobile phone. Another fascinating stat highlighted in this post show that the average users checks their mobile phone 40 times a day. Thanks to Ray Sadler for telling me about this post.

If you've ever wondered what it would sound like for a popular movie's soundtrack to be totally replaced by one guy's a capella singing, then I found exactly what you were looking for. For everyone else, just sit back and enjoy this classic scene from Back to the Future.

A few months ago I realized my kids really have no idea what I do. I asked them some questions about social media and got some funny responses so I thought I'd try to capture that on video. I finally sat them down and recorded this video recently. As you'll see, they have their own ideas of social media.

I might do another video with Kate and Audrey sometime. If they could answer one of your social media questions, what would it be?

Twitter announced recently that they have 100 million active users. They have 200 million registered users and half of their active user base check Twitter daily.

Bitly, the popular link shortening service, has an interesting blog post about how long the links we share "live" online. The half life of a link on Twitter is 2.8 hours and on Facebook is 3.2 hours. YouTube links, however, had a half life of 7.4 hours. This is pretty interesting stuff if you're interested in sharing links across platforms. 

Nielsen released an great social media report recently that states, among other things, that social media and networking websites account for almost a quarter of all time spent online.

I've seen a lot of online videos but this suspension bridge climb is the first one I can recall that actually made me break into a nervous sweat. These guys are crazy and this video is the closest I'd ever want to get to doing something like this. Does watching this make you nervous too?

One of the most significant mindset adjustments (and opportunities) within social media is that you don't have to ask for permission to do anything. I can recall several conversations where people asked about where they sign up their Twitter hashtags. They didn't understand that it's all there for the taking. There's no hashtag clearinghouse. You just find one that hasn't been used before and start using it. Being first is all the permission you need.

Here are 21 examples of social media opportunities that don't require permission and are all things you can begin today*:

1. Launch a Facebook page
2. Comment on blogs, Facebook pages,
3. Claim your Yelp page
4. Set up a Google Places page
5. Claim your business on Foursquare
6. Start a Twitter account
7. Set up a Twitter hashtag for your next event
8. Start a blog
9. Follow key people in your industry on Twitter
10. Complete your LinkedIn profile
11. Like the Facebook pages of organizations/businesses that support you
12. Ask questions on Twitter
13. Launch a YouTube page
14. Create a video every day for a month
15. Say thank you to someone who left a review
16. Share a link to a blog post that was excellent
17. Write a white paper that will be interesting to your customer
18. Leave a review for a business that exceeded your expectations
19. Share a video on Facebook that made you laugh really hard
20. Answer a question from a follower on Twitter
21. Change your mindset about how much freedom and power you get with social media tools today

*I should note that some organizations require their employees to get permission to post, create corporate accounts, etc. If that applies to you then all of the above opportunities obviously require that you go through the proper channels within your organization. If, however, you have the freedom to move without those restrictions, the only thing holding you back is you.

I skipped the Monday's Stats post last week due to Labor Day so I'm going to double up this week. Enjoy a wide array of stats this week:

People Talking On Phones Less: This new survey shows that people are talking over an hour less per month on their cell phones than they did in 2009. Texting, as you might imagine, is up and continues to prove itself to be a preferred means of communication for teens and adults.

Groupon Traffic Down 50%: It seems Groupon has been getting nothing but negative press lately. Between key staff members leaving and concerns about violating SEC guidelines leading up to their IPO, the tone has been overwhelmingly negative in Groupon circles. What should be concerning to them as much as anything is what these stats show: their traffic is down 50% since a peak they reached in June this year.

Email Most Successful On Sundays: This report has a ton of interesting email marketing information. Some of the things that stood out to me most were that Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays are the best days of the week to send email. Also, if you send email between 1am and 5am you're going to seem a higher rate of success than sending it during the middle of the day. Pretty interesting stuff here.

71% of Twitter Users Notice Promoted Tweets: In the early days of Twitter a lot of people wondered if they were ever going to make any money. It seems like they're doing quite well now and more encouraging for them is that the vast majority of Twitter users are paying attention to their promoted Tweets. Incidentally, it costs $120,000 a day to get that Promoted Tweet spot. Anyone interested?

Nobody Wants To Check In Anymore: This new study shows that only 12% of smartphone users use any checkin service like Foursquare or Gowalla. I've seen my personal use of Foursquare decline quite a bit so it's interesting to see how this type of activity is trending in general.

Mobile Users Like Coupons: There are some interesting numbers in this study about how quickly mobile couponing is growing. As more and more adults get smartphones the rise of mobile coupons is taking off like crazy. The study estimates that one in five adults will use a mobile coupon this year.

It's tough to remember exactly all of the things that were going through my head on September 11, 2001. I remember sitting in the office where I worked at the time here in Nashville and a coworker came back to our portion of the office and turned on the TV after hearing about the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center. A few minutes later we saw the second airplane hit the other tower. Nobody got any work done the rest of the day. Downtown Nashville was a ghost town by mid afternoon and there was an eerie, numbing disbelief about what happened.

As we approach the 10 year anniversary I'd encourage you to pause and reflect on where you were that day to remember the families directly impacted by these tragic events. Take a few minutes to watch this tribute video while you do so:

Last week I had the pleasure of joining a panel discussion hosted by the Nashville PRSA. During the question and answer time someone asked a question I've heard many times before: "How can I convince my boss to get on board with social media?"

I began to answer the question with a "here's how you build the business case" kind of response but it struck me in that moment that it really depends on the kind of person your boss happens to be. Leaders are motivated by very different things. I know some who are conservative and measured in every decision they make. Then there are others who are aggressive and have never seen an opportunity they didn't want to take. You must know what motivates the leader to effectively sell social media to them because what may work with one kind of leader won't necessarily motivate another.

Two Kinds Of Leaders
I propose two ways to go depending on which characteristics best describe your leader. Whether your leader looks more like Conservative Cathy or Aggressive Andy, I hope you'll find this helpful in thinking about positioning social media the most effective way for your boss:

Conservative Cathy: If your boss is a Conservative Cathy she doesn't want to do anything that will disrupt the current flow of business. Although she may be interested in new things, she will absolutely not go for anything that could hurt business as you know it today. Therefore you're going to take a start small approach:

• Give her tangible benefits that are small but meaningful and won't negatively impact the business.
• Present her with an outline for a social media policy. That will show that social media isn't going to be something that can get out of control.
• Show how social media can be done in small, incremental steps.
• Paint the big picture but break it down into several small phases with checkpoints along the way to do measurement and do course correction if needed.
• Show how it can be done now for little or no additional funding but tie that into a goal that, if met, builds a case for funding to achieve greater success.

Aggressive Andy: If your boss is an Aggressive Andy he doesn't want to miss an opportunity. He doesn't want to fall behind the competition and he certainly doesn't want to turn down a new revenue opportunity. Therefore build your case on going big with social media. Give Andy your best "I have a dream speech" for what social media could do for the company. Paint a big picture and show how it could happen so he can come to the same conclusion you did. Also consider the following:

• Present him with stats about social media growth, adoption, and use.
• Show him actual Tweets, Facebook updates, or blog posts from people talking about the things that matter to your company and show how, if at all, you are responding to the people. You may be able to show that these are all potential customers that you're simply not talking to yet.
• Give examples of how your competitors are doing better than your organization with their own social media efforts. Be sure to show him how many followers/fans they have if the number is impressive.
• Give him a realistic scenario about how the efforts could turn into actual revenue. How soon would it take to break even? When do you start making a profit?
• Present him with two scenarios to choose from moving forward: the first scenario is an "all in" approach that outlines what it would take to do everything you want. The second approach is a two-phase process. Give him the two phases on a time line and show how momentum can build from the first to the second phase.

If you've even seen Oprah you know she has a distinct way of introducing big name movie stars. Someone decided to put that together with a goat yell and the result is this: Oprah and the goat yell video. What did we ever do before the Internet?