When employees are allowed to access social media networks at work one to two times each day a new study has shown that they are more satisfied with their jobs and more likely to stick with an employer.
The study found that even employees who are simply offering the chance to check Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other networks on their lunch breaks were more satisfied with their employer.
Of all the available networks employees prefer to access Facebook is still the number one choice, although some employees also like to network using LinkedIn (20%) while 18% choose YouTube (likely to show a co-worker a funny video they found at home), and 14% choose Twitter. In some cases employees even prefer throwing up a blog at work with 3% of workers logging into their Blogger accounts.
Unfortunately not all company’s allow for social media access, in fact 28% of company’s blocked access completely while 40% had partial access and just 32% of employees worked at company’s with no blocking policy in place.
Nearly since it’s inception Twitter has been attempting to find new ways to generate revenue and now thanks to their “Promoted” products a new study suggests that the company’s revenues will grow from $45 million in 2010 to nearly $400 million by 2013.
According to tracking firm eMarketer Twitter in 2011 is on pace to earn $139.5 million, a 210% incrase over last years numbers.
According to Debra Aho Williamson, principal analyst at eMarketer:
“Since their debut in April 2010, Twitter’s Promoted Products have proven successful in the U.S.,” while she adds “Marketers have shown solid engagement rates with Twitter advertising — in some cases better than those on Facebook — despite Twitter’s relatively smaller audience.”
With a user base that currently sits at 100 million active users the estimated revenue stream growth from Twitter could increase over the $400 million estimate if Twitter finds new ways to engage users and grow their base. In comparison Facebook current serves more than 800 million users worldwide. read more
Private share trading at Facebook has pushed the company’s valuation to $87.5 billion. The company is currently trading private shareholder stock at a price of $32 on SharesPost.
The incredible rise of the Facebook system began in 2008 when an internal valuation sat at $4 billion, by 2009 an investment from Russian firm Digital Sky Technologies took the company to $6.5 billion.
Fast forward to 2010 and the company was quickly valued at $12 billion during the start of the year a number that quickly climbed to $34 billion by year end and then climbed again to $50 billion by the start of 2011. read more
Google’s Me social network, now rumored to be called Google +1 leaked several details about the upcoming platform on Saturday and no surprise here, it’s heavily surrounded by a mobile component.
According to newly released information, the network unlike Facebook will not focus on a specific website, but rather will be offered as an optional browser extension, while an iPhone app called Loop is expected to be prominently featured with an Android app no doubt arriving at a later time.
The name Loop refers to various Loops in which different social circles (loops) can share information independently of one another.
Loops addresses the issue many users have with their accounts in which they share all their information with all of their friends, not the best scenario if you’re complaining about your job and you have a bunch of co-workers on your account.
Some analysts are pointing out that the Loop feature does mimic some of Facebook’s own features, which could anger the social networking company, however it should be mentioned that Facebook Groups, which was hastly pushed out, mimics a feature that was already underway at Google for +1. read more
A recent study conducted by the Internet security firm AVG has discovered that nearly 92% of children in the U.S have some type of online presence by the time they reach just 2 years of age.
The study included 2,200 mothers who told the firm that 81% of their babies have photos uploaded to their accounts or have their very own social network accounts setup for keeping friends and family informed of their daily activities. The total number of toddlers (2 years and under) with accounts in the U.S. alone is a staggering 92% compared to 73% in Europe.
That same study states that nearly one in four children in the United States have an online presence before their even born, while that number increases to 37% in Canada and falls to just under 15% in western Europe. read more
It’s proved a busy week for opinionated people in the realm of social media. Two new sites have launched in the last week that afford users the ability to save and share their thoughts about products and places: Fablistic and SocialSmack.
Fablistic, geared towards social networking via ratings and reviews, aims to bring a more interpersonal touch to the format behind traditional opinion powerhouses like Amazon reviews. Fablistic has a five point approach: save, share, organize, remember, and explore. In essence, it provides users a way to remember what they thought about things like restaurants, books, movies, electronics, or other products and services. While they’re at it, they can let their voice be heard across the Fablistic site and discover other topics that might be of interest by viewing the opinions of others. read more
Transparency in reporting of major social network performance recently received a shot in the arm courtesy of WatchMouse. Using their Public Status Pages, WatchMouse now tracks 20 giant social networks’ uptime and other performance metrics at Social.DownorNot.com.
Specifically, users can view the performance speed and uptime of home pages, login pages, and APIs from Classmates, Del.icio.us, Digg, Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Friendster, Gowalla, Hi5, Hyves, LinkedIn, MySpace, Netlog, Orkut, Stumbleupon, Twitter, Xanga, Xing, Yelp, and YouTube. If upon automatic checking any site returns errors or takes longer than 8 seconds to respond, it’s marked as error and unavailable. The uptime percentage has its basis in the number of errors reported by such checks. read more
Ahead of the upcoming anniversary of the September 11th attacks, McCann Worldgroup has partnered with a motorcycle club called “Ride with the 40″ to raise money for a national memorial at the Flight 93 crash site. According to AgencySpy, 3 producers from McCann have joined Ride with the 40 on a cross-country road trip to generate funds by utilizing social media throughout the journey.
The concept is to encourage people to donate to the cause via their web site and via text message, but also to create a community effort by inviting people to participate in social networking with Ride with the 40 and fellow followers. Ride with the 40 are utilizing Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare to document their journey, which began in Newark, NJ last week and will end in San Francisco. read more
The much-discussed new version of the BBC’s iPlayer, which allows users to watch television shows and listen to radio programs up to a week after they’ve been broadcast, has finally been released. It’s been expected after a number of development blogs that this new version, iPlayer 3, would place greater emphasis on social interaction, and expectations have been met.
There’s been much (and much and much) ado about upcoming Facebook movie The Social Network, based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich, but relatively little buzz has descended upon another social media movie soon to debut: Catfish.
Catfish is a documentary tale about a photographer, Nev Schulman, who is contacted by an eight year old girl, asking permission to paint one of his photographs. Her ensuing painting draws Nev into a Facebook relationship with her and her family – and, ultimately, a romance with the girl’s older sister. According to the synopsis by Universal Pictures, unsettling information about Nev’s love interest prompts him, his brother Ariel, and Henry Joost – the latter two both filmmakers – to take a road trip to uncover the truth. read more
When employees are allowed to access social media networks at work one to two times each day a new study has shown that they are more satisfied with their jobs and more likely to stick with an employer.
