Last week we reported on women’s role in the ever-changing field of social media, and a recent report by comScore provides quantifiable evidence that women are making their presence felt through myriad social networks. “Women on the Web: How Women are Shaping the Internet” is a comprehensive report with statistics on social media usage, search activity and online shopping, among others.

Men have traditionally been the primary internet users, but women are now responsible for the lion’s share of internet usage, a trend which many attribute to the rise of social media. According to the report, over three-quarters of women visited social media sites during May, compared to less then 70 percent of men. And the trend holds true across all countries, not just the US. In Japan, South Korea and even Russia, women are the ones dominating social media sites. On average, women spend 30 percent, or 1.5 hours, more per month on social networks than their male counterparts.

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Despite the fact that social networking sites were originally created to facilitate communication between people around the globe, they have morphed into a powerful, free tool for business marketing. And since companies like Facebook and Twitter were founded in the United States, it’s natural to assume that Americans are the ones who are using these tools to the greatest advantage. But according to a new survey from Regus, the US actually is behind the global average when it comes to using social media to attract customers.

Just 35 percent of companies in the US say they have garnered new customers via social networking, compared to a global aver of 40 percent. The US ranks eighth behind established global players like Germany and China, as well as emerging economies like India and Spain. With 38 percent of small businesses and 27 percent of large corporations currently using social media, it certainly isn’t a secret here in the US, which begs the question: why are we so ineffective at using it?

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It’s been a slow week across the social media and search engine world.  Most of the online hype has been about the iPad, which came out over the weekend.  Other than that, nothing.

Mashable.com has been doing a great job of keeping their readers entertained with social media news with a few infographics.  Yesterday, I shared one of those with you, comparing Facebook’s American population to the actual countries population.  Today, I decided to share with you “The History of Location Technology.” (more…)

I always talk about how if Facebook were it’s own nation, it’s population would be larger than the United States. But obviously, not every American is on Facebook. So what would happen if we took just the American’s on Facebook and compared that to the actual US population.

This morning, Mashable published an interesting Infograph. Muhammad Saleem provided the graphic, which show that about a third of all American’s are on the social network. While of course, most of the numbers are estimates, it’s fun to take a look at. (more…)

We often here of studies that find consumers who follow or fan companies or brands on a social networking site, like Facebook or Twitter are more likely to purchase products or services from them.  Once again, the latest study from Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research Technologies confirms that.

Amazingly, the study found that consumers who follow companies or brands on Twitter are 67% more likely to buy from them, while 51% are more likely to buy from a brand that they follow on Facebook. And when it comes to recommending companies and brands to friends, 79% said they were more likely to recommend them if they were on Twitter and 60% if they were on Facebook.  (more…)

Occasionally, we talk about some of the latest Twitter facts to see how much the site is growing.  We have seen both the amount of users and the numbers of tweets each month continue to grow, with an occasional slow down.  But a new study from Barracuda Labs, a Web security company, shows that not even a third of the users are tweeting.

The study looked at an astonishing 19 million users, and defined a “True Twitter user” as someone who has at least 10 followers, is following 10 others, and has at least 10 tweets.  Seems simple, right? Surprisingly, only 21 % of the 19 million were defined at a true user.  So 79% of twitter users rarely even use their account! (more…)

A new report from comScore shows that online video views are up compared to the same time last year.  And in fact YouTube, the leader in online video, had views up 50% compared to January 2009.  

In January more than 32.4 billion videos were viewed in the US alone online.  YouTube, owned by Google, had 12.8 billion viewed videos, taking up roughly 39.5% of all viewed online videos.  ComScore reported that the average YouTube visitor watched an average of 94 videos throughout the month of January. That means there were about 136.2 million YouTube viewers in the US (that’s give or take 44% of the entire US population). (more…)

According to the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, the relationship between social media and small businesses  have doubled in the past year from 12% to 24% in the United States.

The study which was released earlier this week found that roughly one in five small businesses have embraced social media and are integrating those sites into their business strategy.  Among the favored sites in the survey, Facebook and LinkedIn made the list.  45% of those surveyed businesses have said they believe that within a year or less, they saw initiatives.  (more…)

It was just last week, I was explaining how some of my predictions for the next decade in the social media world were coming true.  This week, thanks to the latest study from Pew Internet, another prediction has become a reality. 

The study analyzed how American’s are now using social media and other variables to consume their news.  Just the other week, we watch the Austin plane crash unfold before our very eyes through the social networks.  In fact, based on a sample of 2,259 adults, 75% of them read news through social networks or e-mail, while about 52% of those continued to forward on the news to others. (more…)

Hubspot released an interesting survey Thursday, which stated that companies who blog more, have more consistent sales.  The survey consisted of 231 professionals who were either involved or familiar with their companies marketing strategy and plan. 

According to the report, “social media and blogs are becoming marketing powerhouses.  They are the fastest growing category in lead generation budgets and they continue to be ranked as the lowest cost lead- generation channel.” (more…)