A useful study here from the ‘Pew Research Center’ taking a look at the demographic make-up of US social media users across Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook. No data on LinkedIn of Google+, but great stats all the same.

It is no surprise how fast Twitter user numbers have grown, Pew says they have doubled since November 2010 and now has around 500 million in total with around 200 million who are active, but Pinterest is almost on a par with the percentage of internet users using it service.

Pinterest remains heavily skewed to women, it is also “whiter” and its users are better educated. Instagram also has more women users, as does Facebook. Twitter is the only network where there are more men (although LinkedIn if it were included would lead in this category). Read More »

On the same day Yahoo confirmed its acquisition of Tumblr, and promised not to “screw it up”, it announced an over haul of Flickr the photo sharing service it screwed up over a number of years.

Flickr, which has been overshadowed and overtaken by the likes of Instagram, gets a new look for the desktop and its Android app and users get a terabyte of storage.

The storage is a big move. It is more than anything else on offer, and will apparently hold more than 537,731 photos. Read More »

In the week that it was shown that users only visited the planet Google+ for less than 7 minutes a month it’s interesting to look at how a contemporary rock artist brand goes about using social media in their marketing and the different levels of interest on different platforms.

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UPDATE: Yahoo has officially confirmed its acquisition of Tumblr. In a blog post, Yahoo CEO, Marissa Mayer, reassured Tumblr users as she promised Yahoo would try “not to screw it up”.

She said that “Tumblr is incredibly special and has a great thing going” and that Yahoo would operate “Tumblr independently”. Read More »

A river knows where it is going – weaving its way across lands, around mountains, and through valleys, and a river is also dynamic, responding to its landscape, but never losing sight of its end goal – the sea.  And just like a river it is crucial that brands themselves become dynamic and fluid, sure of where they want to flow to, even if they must navigate a changing landscape to get there.

So – two big challenges lie ahead for brands, knowing exactly where the brand wants to go, but remaining dynamic and responsive to change.  The challenge for most is being able to cope with the multi-dimensionality of change – change in technology, society, buying habits etc. Read More »

It’s the ongoing question with social media – how do you make a big network earn money and how do you regulate celebrities bypassing regulations to promote products?

Nowhere is this issue more pertinent right now than on Facebook’s $1bn acquisition Instagram, which still does not feature advertising anywhere on the network.

In fact, the problem is even greater than that, as celebrities and brands seek to use the popular platform for their own ad deals, and cut out the Facebook middleman. Read More »

So last week we had an update to the Facebook newsfeed and today Facebook has announced it is rolling out improvements to the timeline to help people better express what’s important to them.

The changes, which will be rolled out to all users in the coming week, will usher in a cleaner timeline layout with posts nowing appearing on the right hand side of timeline, and recent activity, such as music, photos and other apps, will appear on the left.  Read More »

I came across the enclosed advert in Singapore’s Today newspaper and couldn’t stop laughing

Ikea Singapore have taken the horsemeat scare seriously but they have done it in a very funny way and turned into a sales opportunity as well as a record breaking social engagement.

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In services like Pinterest, Flickr, and Instagram (not to mention Facebook and Twitter,) photos have become a critical frontier in the battle for web dominance, particularly in the social  space.

While Instagram is dominating in mobile, an  interesting war is raging between Yahoo’s Flickr, and  online pinboard Pinterest. They may different style services, but fundamental comparisons can be made, and are very revealing about the directions the web is going in.
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Instagram has just announced that it has passed the 100 million active user landmark. That’s a huge achievement for the Facebook own photo app coming as it does after a bumpy few months. Back in December Instagram changed its terms and conditions, angering users who were worried about their pictures being sold without their consent and contributing to a string of events that led to the site losing 20 million users.

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