Social media -- 2010 Update

Many things have evolved in the year 2010. Social Media is HUGE -- Facebook has more than 500 Million Users, and if users of Facebook were in a country, it would be the third most populous country in the world.

In terms of usage, Facebook Users spend a total of 500 BILLION minutes on Facebook monthly. (Compared to 150 BILLION least year)

24 Hours of Video is uploaded to YouTube every minute (More than double last year), 200 BILLION videos are viewed daily (More than double last year), 4 BILLION Photos Uploaded to Flickr last year, 95% of companies in US use LinkedIn to attract and hire employees, (59% use Facebook, and 42% use Twitter), 27 MILLION average number of tweets daily (8x increase from 2009).

Social media has changed the way how a lot of people communicate, especially those under the age of 30. Together with mobile devices, social media and text messaging is more popular form of communication than voice communication.

Social media is now mainstream. Businesses are realizing that social commerce is very important, and engaging with their customers and influencers is very important as many people use the Internet to find information on products before they make the purchase, and the decision is largely based on reviews and recommendations from friends.

"Social Media is like water. On its own, water does some cool things, but when combined with other compounds it enabled the evolution of all life forms.

Social media itself is nice, but when combined with other tools, it is enabling everything to evolve from communications to business to politics to marketing"

-- Mike Voipe, CEO Hubspot.

In engaging with customers, social media empowers the customers once again, and companies need to have strategies which focus on employees and customers. They are in control.

What the F**k is Social Media NOW?

View more presentations from Marta Kagan.

Social Media is not a fad, is an important way of communication.

-- Robin Low