Welcome to your weekly round up of the biggest stories in social – grab yourself an Instagraham cracker and let’s get started…

1. Domino’s increases social media effort
Domino’s Australia are letting their Facebook fans decide what the next Domino’s pizza will be: from toppings to dough, the fans can decide what the “social” pizza will taste like. How the pizza will turn out is anyone’s guess, but it appears Domino’s may have another social hit on its hands. Who knew pizza could be so shareable…

2. Facebook’s global takeover
eMarketer predicts that there will be 1.43 billion social network users in 2012, which amounts to a substantial share of the world’s entire population. 1 out of 5 people will use a social network this year and Facebook is a key reason for this. Facebook has rapidly expanded into India, Indonesia and Brazil who now join the US and Mexico in the top 5 Facebook countries:

In fact, if Brazil maintains its current growth it could easily jump from fourth to second place, as soon as next month, having already taken over Google’s Orkut which had been leading in Brazil since 2004.

Facebook is also doing well in Japan, where they now have 10 million monthly active users. This figure has doubled in the last 6 months.

3. Blogs are not dead. There are 6.7m bloggers, half aged 18-34
NM Incite have released research that shows that consumer interest in blogs continues to grow with over 181 million blogs at the end of 2011, up from 36 million just 5 years ago. Not surprisingly this mirrors a growth in bloggers – 6.7 million of them publishing through blogging websites such as Blogger, WordPress and Tumblr whilst another 12 million write blogs using their social networks. The question is, who are these bloggers? Well, half are aged 18-34 and the majority are women, over 2/3 of which are mums.

4. Social media ads ‘justifying hype’
ZenithOptimedia have boosted their forecast for 2012 global internet adspend by 4.5%, now predicting a spend of £2.2bn. The sudden rise of social is evident in a revision to its US forecasts, which had pegged social media spend for 2012 at $1.33bn (£851m) in December, but now predicts $3.42bn (£2.2bn), partly due to $1bn (£640m) of display spend being recategorised as social media spend, and partly due to the medium growing faster than previously thought. Jonathan Barnard, head of forecasting at ZenithOptimedia, said:

Social is justifying its hype now. A third of all display impressions in the US are social. Advertisers are learning to be less interruptive.

5. Facebook updates Timeline Page ‘beginnings’, adds recommendations and launches Mobile app stats
Facebook has added the option to describe the beginning of a page as ‘created’ or ‘launched’. The original options ‘founded’, ‘started’ and ‘opened’ are still available but these new variations make a lot of sense for the different types of entities that run pages on Facebook.

Facebook have also introduced a recommendations feature for place pages that have switched to the new Timeline format. These are displayed in a box beneath friend activity and include a prompt for people to write their own recommendations. These are only available to pages that are associated with locations so if a brand wants to enable this function page owners have to provide an exact address in their About sections.

Another development from Facebook is the launch of a new Mobile Referrals dashboard in App Insights which helps understand the traffic an app receives from Facebook mobile sources. This features data on total mobile app clicks and source, demographic and device breakdown amongst other insights.

6. Facebook Timeline Apps and foursquare’s new Facebook look
In other Facebook news, 3,000 Timeline apps have spawned since Facebook launched the platform 3 months ago and last week Foursquare among others such as Nike and VEVO unveiled theirs. These new launches are likely to persuade more brands and startups that Timeline app development is worth their investment, meaning that soon there will be even more apps channelling user behaviour into Facebook’s content feeds and ad targeting engine. Pinterest is a key example of the success of Timeline apps as it has seen its Facebook userbase grow by 60% since it launched its Timeline app in January. The Onion definitely wins the award for the most amusing integration below:

Foursquare’s Timeline app has a new look for check-ins, badges and mayorships. This features check-in photos showing up full size, a summary of a user’s past month foursquare activity and if a person checks in a few times these will display as a story rather than separately. Neat!

7. The expert’s view on Twitter’s acquisition of Posterous
Twitter recently announced the acquisition of blogging platform Posterous. The exact details of the deal have been kept secret but Econsultancy have brought tohether various expert views to discuss the motivations behind the takeover and what it means for both Twitter and Posterous including those of our very own Mr Jordan Stone.

8. Pinterest is now a top 30 US website
As we all know, Pinterest has been the subject of much attention recently and this is set to continue with the news from Experian Hitwise that it is continuing to rapidly grow. After cracking the top 60 list of US websites six weeks ago they have now entered the top 30. The site received more than 103 million visits in the US this February, which was up 36% on January. With revelations the company is working on an iPad app, growth seems unlikely to slow soon.

9. Instagram announces news of Android App launch
The Instagram is gearing up to launch an Android app, which was flashed briefly at the SXSW Interactive conference in Texas last week, meaning their 27 million userbase is set to increase dramatically.

10. McDonalds #shamrocking has greater success than #McDStories
Following the #McDStories debacle where McDonalds’ own hashtag was hijacked by disgruntled customers, the company are back and seem to have learned a valuable lesson by creating a somewhat more successful meme. Taking its inspiration from Planking and Tebowing, customers share pictures of themselves doing a jig whilst holding a shamrock milkshake. See example below…

 The Week According To The Internet:

• Obama-thing Of The Week: Obama Loves You Back
• Tumblr Of The Week: Hipster Branding
• Viral Video Of the Week: Itchy & Scratchy: The Complete Saga

Welcome to the final Tune-Up of 2011, the illustrious number 19. Not quite as good as number 100, which the UK just celebrated (congrats!), but certainly not without merit…

Here are the Top 10 stories in social media this week;

1. Facebook announces top trends of 2011

Facebook Australia are hosting a nice metrics app which shows the top status trends (above), most popular people, brands, characters, movies and television shows from Australian Facebook users in 2011.

If you’re wondering what a Skrillex is, it’s a dubstep thing, apparently.

It all looks very nice, but where there’s smoke, there’s Google, and not one to miss out on a bit of stat action;

2. Google lists top Australian search terms for the year

Google have published their annual Zeitgeist – the hottest trends on Google.com.au over the past year.

Apparently, we’re a nation of cake-eating, mine-craft playing plankers. But no-one else is allowed to call us that.

“Siri, where’s my cake pop?”

3. Social networks used by over three quarters of consumers
A new study from Ofcom produced some interesting findings about the state of social:

Social networking is a global phenomenon, with over three quarters of consumers in the markets we surveyed saying that they have visited a social networking site, with the majority saying they visit them on a daily basis.

This is much higher among 18-24 year olds, with eight in ten (83 per cent) visiting on a daily basis.

Social networking sites are most popular in Italy, with 91 per cent ever having visited and a quarter visiting over five times a day (24 per cent), while in the UK eight out of ten (79 per cent) have ever visited with one in five visiting over five times a day.

UK consumers are more likely to access social networking sites on a mobile phone than other countries, with 43 per cent of those with social networking site profiles saying they do so compared to just 30 per cent in the US.

More widely, the UK is Europe’s most digitally aware nation (second only to America) and this is underlined by Britons spending more time online, owning more smartphones and even watching more TV online.

Nonetheless, perhaps the most interesting graph in the whole report is how different age groups use social media to share news. The graph underscores how young people are ‘always active’:

4. Companies look to expand social media spend in 2012
An interesting bit of research from Grant Thornton highlighting how although just 43% of companies worldwide currently use social media, 61% plan to increase their usage, with it breaking down by country as follows:

The quicker growth amongst BRIC countries is backed up by the latest research from KPMG, which suggests that brands are keen to use social media in those markets as a cheap and effective way to boost brand awareness.

Judging by another survey, it seems the increased spend will go – unsurprisingly – mainly on Facebook and Twitter campaigns:

5. Facebook hits 1 billion – and rolls out timeline worldwide
According to Gawker, Facebook will make one billion Dollars in profit in the calendar year 2011 – double its profits from the previous year.

More to the point, it’s limited outgoings means Facebook is swimming in cash.

These extraordinary profit figures mean that if and when a Facebook flotation does come, the social network will be valued at a least 100 billion Dollars. And that’s a lot of money.

In other FB-news, a long time after it was announced, Facebook Timeline is finally available worldwide.

Once users activate Timeline, they get a seven-day review period to check what goes on the Timeline before it goes public.

Timeline is also now available on iPhone, Android and Mobile Web.

6. New Google+ updates and changes to Hangouts
With the end of the year just a few days away, Google have decided to launch some new updates to Google+.

First up, they’ve added the option to ‘change the volume’ of Circles, so that the overall stream can be better weighted to your interests:

They’ve also updated Brand Pages in a really positive way: they can now have multiple admins with a notification flow to enhance Page management, and they also have launched an aggregated count of all users who have engaged with a Page:

They’ve also launched a whole range of updates for Hangouts including video Hangouts on mobile which are designed to make them more accessible. To whom is another matter…

7. Facebook considering new ad formats
AdAge reports that at the end of March, Facebook is planning its first push into mobile advertising – by putting Sponsored Stories into the mobile News Feed.

It’s an interesting development as Facebook believes its userbase will be growing on mobile, meaning that this is almost certainly the first of several steps.

Judging by a post on Inside Facebook, the social network has also launched a new premium ad unit, allowing brands to post Coupons on their Pages and then push these through traditional Facebook social ads.

8. KLM to introduce in-flight matchmaker zone
Dutch airline KLM’s latest social campaign is a deft touch: customers will be allowed to see fellow passengers’ social media profiles, and based on their interests can choose to sit together.

9. Heineken launch social Christmas tree – and hire We Are Social
Heineken have launched a Facebook campaign where fans can send a Merry Christmas message to 16 friends in a sendable graphic. These messages will then come alive on a real tree in Singapore.

In even more exciting news, Heineken have hired We Are Social (that’s us…) to work on Bulmers and Jacques, two of their cider brands. We’re looking forward to working together.

10. Sherlock Holmes film utilises Stephen Fry’s Twitter following
It’s not original using celebrities for endorsements, even in social, but this one caught our eye for its inventiveness: Stephen Fry has been posting Holmes-esque cryptic clues on his Twitter channel to promote the new Sherlock Holmes film, and the first person to crack them each day wins a prize.

A good campaign, well executed, without any elementary mistakes.

The Week According To The Internets:

• Push This Button Of The Week: Make Everything OK
• Viral Video Of The Week: How Santa Uses Siri
• Single-Serving Tumblr Of The Week: Comic Sans The World

1. The ARIA Awards all of a Twitter

On Sunday night We Are Social helped the Australian Recording Industry Association or ARIA celebrate their 25^th Annual Awards night. On the night the We Are Social production unit was on the red carpet pumping content live to Australian music lovers on Aria’s social channels. The Awards ignited passionate discussions on Twitter, with 9 out of 10 trending topics on the night being driven by the Awards. Aria was mentioned in 12,848 tweets with over 25% of tweets being conversational @replies or retweets.

In the lead up to the event, We Are Social created a Facebook public voting app to give the fans a voice on the night. The app attracted 5,000+ votes for Best International Artist, Best Australian Artist and Best Australian Live Artist.

2. Australian modern day love story takes social media by storm

GetUp, the Australian grassroots lobby group, launched a campaign to legalise same-sex marriage.

The campaign is spearheaded by a 2 minute YouTube video called ‘Love Story’. Within 48 hours of going live the video received over 1 million views. It has had over 1.8 million views to date.

The video caught the attention of key influencers, including Stephen Fry who tweeted it out to his 3.4 million followers. Subsequently, stories have been written about the campaign all over the world.

The campaign drives people to sign an online petition. The petition will be delivered to the ALP National Conference, where the Labor Party will decide on their stance on same sex marriage.

3. Is the news industry going down the toilet?

David Higgins, News Limited’s Innovations Editor, certainly thinks so.

It’s no secret that the print industry is scrambling to adapt their business model to ensure their survival. Recently at the Walkley Conference in Brisbane, Higgins told a packed room that the industry needs to go much further though and find new audiences in new places.

“I think we should be taking this more seriously and getting over to our correspondents the idea of telling stories in ways we are not used to doing, allowing us to go into environments and to markets, particularly young people who are not reading as much journalism as we would like.”

“There’s a shocking lack of innovation. We’re going down the toilet. Our lunch is being eaten by companies like Google and Apple… if we’re serious about having a secure future, we need to put investment into this technology, taking it more seriously.”

“We’re starting to see this sort of thing at News Ltd. We need to take our craft and our products out into the market.”

Watch this space.

4. Digital coming of age

According to a Digital Diaries survey, by the time most kids in the West turn eleven, they have already moved onto mainstream social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Japanese children have the lowest social network penetration out of the surveyed countries.

5. The Anatomy of Facebook

In collaboration with researchers at the Università degli Studi di Milano, Facebook have released a pretty impressive account of the social network’s digital anatomy. Their study covered all 721 million active Facebook users at the time – that’s more than 10% of the global population.

Using the ‘six degrees of separation’ model, which states that, on average, any two people are separated by no more than six intermediate connections, the study found that six degrees actually overstates the number of links between typical pairs of users; the average distance in Facebook between users is 4.74 hops. That’s down from 5.28 hops in 2008. Therefore, as Facebook has grown over the years, representing an ever larger fraction of the global population, it has become even more connected. How social is that.

6. Mobile social networking continues to grow

Research by comScore has found that the audience for mobile social networking in Europe’s five largest markets grew 44% in the last year. comScore Europe vice president for Mobile, Jeremy Copp, says that this growth has been “driven largely by the growth in smartphone adoption, making it easier than ever for users to stay connected and engage in social activities while on-the-go”. 46.8% of this audience access social networking sites daily, and Facebook remains the most popular site, with an average monthly audience of 39m mobile users in Europe during September.

Apps are pushing the growth of mobile social networking, with a doubling in the number of people using them for social networking compared the previous year. However, most mobile users still access social networking sites via a mobile browser. comScore’s study also reveals that 44.3% of mobile social networkers reading posts from brands. Furthermore, more than one quarter reported receiving coupons, offers, or deals on their phones.

7. Comments more valuable than likes

EdgeRank used Facebook metrics to figure out the value of comments and likes, finding that for every comment a post gets, it received an average of 15 clicks, compared to just 3 for every like. This means that a comment is roughly four times more valuable than a like, reinforcing the importance of creating engaging content that will stimulate discussion. Day of the week is also important, with posts on Wednesdays having the best shares and clicks ratios.

8. Google’s new organisation of a brand’s Facebook pages still a little off

Google algorithms now organise a brand’s Facebook pages by name, grouping together results as below:

Although this has resulted in a number of strange groupings, this is still great news for brands. If they have an overarching Facebook brand page, their smaller pages can now be found more easily by users. It also adds site links to individual pages as well, which should drive more traffic to these pages.

9. Google+’s big players

Another reason to dust off your Google+ account – Barack Obama is on the site now. This is big news for the social network, since Obama’s social media clout is pretty sound and is often touted as a major factor in his successful first presidential campaign. And yet the lack of excitement surrounding Obama’s arrival is rather disappointing – his first post had just 110 shares after 12 hours. Furthermore, Britney Spears is now the most followed person on Google+, with 773,805 followers. Obama has only 7,346. Come on, Barack, get your act together.

10. Hotel owners fear blackmail from Tripadvisor users

We all know the damage a bad review can do, and it seems that some Tripadvisor users are leveraging this to try and get free upgrades, refunds and extras from hotels, despite nothing being wrong with their experience. More than 80 hotel and bed-and breakfast owners have reported being subjected to such threats from customers, and thousands more have claimed fraudulent reviews. Tripadvisor have spoken out against such practices by its users.

In a week that saw social media again prove valuable in the Australian tourism effort, we’ve been busy dipping our toes in shark-infested waters to bring you a round up of the week’s biggest social-centric stories.

So without further adieu, here are the Top 10 stories in social media this week;

1. Australian Christmas shoppers go mobile
According to a Christmas-shopping related post on the Google Australia Blog, year over year, shopping-related searches are up 29%, while the number of shopping queries coming from mobile devices increased 220% year on year.

In fact, a staggering 25% of all Christmas shopping-related Google searches this year now come from mobile devices.

More motivation, if it was needed that Australian businesses need to be optimising their sites for mobile. After all, the proof is in the Christmas pudding…

2. US guidelines on Facebook ‘Like-gating’
Facebook’s ad revenue is projected to hit $7 billion in 2012, but this figure might be hit by the recent guidelines put in place by the Better Business Bureau’s National Advertising Division (NAD). Marketers need to be careful when requesting users ‘Like’ a page in order to receive some sort of reward in order to ensure they are not utilising “misleading or artificial means to inflate the number of Facebook ‘likes’.”

This move has come about after a case was made against eyewear supplier Coastal Contacts for deceptively offering free and discounted products to Facebook users who ‘liked’ the company’s page, and that the number of ‘likes’ presented to investors had been fraudulently obtained.

The NAD cannot itself enforce decisions, but it can refer cases to the Federal Trade Commission if a marketer does not comply with one of its decisions.

3. Commonwealth Bank stages Facebook heist

Comm Bank are celebrating their centenery by giving fans the chance to score $2000 a day with a treasure hunt app.

Players have 23 hours each day to uncover the correct answers to a series of questions and enter them into the time vault tab on the Commonwealth Bank Facebook page. Cracking stuff.

4. Facebook gives up on China, Spotify gains 4m Facebook users
It might have the most faces out of any country in the world, but China will still not have Facebook for a while yet. In an interview with Charlie Rose, Sandberg revealed how government policies were the main reason why expansion into China was not yet possible for Facebook; “it’s not really our choice. It’s the government’s choice, you know. We’re not available because they’ve chosen to make us not available.”

In other Facebook news, since f8 and the evolution the Open Graph, people have shared their listening activity more than 1.5 billion times, with Spotify alone gaining more than 4 million new users.

5. Read and Listen from the Ticker
Another Facebook baby birthed at f8, the Ticker has undergone a few changesrecently. Now news articles and songs in the Ticker include buttons that allow users to begin reading or listening as soon as they click on them.

Also announced by Facebook is the decision to turn off automatic RSS feed syndicationwithin Facebook Notes from 22 November onwards.

6. LinkedIn announce Group Statistics and improve Events
Taking a leaf out of Facebook’s success with Insights, LinkedIn have launched statistics for Groups through an easy-to-use dashboard, focusing on three areas: demographics, growth, and activity.

In the past year there have been over a million RSVPs to hundreds of thousands of professional events on LinkedIn. LinkedIn are now taking Events a step further, making it easier to find the right events to attend and connect with others attending those events.

7. When a bird leaves the nest, can it take the flock with it?

As a court picks over PhoneDog’s complaint that one of its former journalists, Noah Kravitz, failed to surrender the password and thus the fans to a Twitter account originally tied to the company name, it’s left everyone debating the rights to digital possessions.

In an era where journalists are encouraged to brand themselves, these type of disputes are becoming more frequent. Is leaving a job becoming more like a social media divorce?

8. Buzzword alert! The proliferation of ‘social television’
From X Factor to Glee, TV programmes are utilising social networks to improve engagement with and among fans.

A number of studies have discovered that up to 80% of television viewers now incorporate a ‘second screen’ into their viewing habits, and apps such as Zeebox – of which the UK’s Channel 4 have become the first broadcaster to trial – are facilitating this new intersected experience.

Media analysts believe that this development will continue to grow. Why? As our very own Robin Grant points out, stories are social:

We’ve moved on from a temporary aberration where, through the invention of the printing press all the way through to the invention of TV, communication became one-way for a few hundred years. That’s not the natural human state. Social media has brought us all back around the campfire and allowed us to talk to each other and to take part in the stories people are telling.

9. Chinese location-based app Jiepang, partners with Starbucks
Jiepang users who visit one or more than 200 Starbucks locations in Shanghai and other eastern China cities can check in with near-field communication enabled mobiles in store or via an app.

When 20,000 users have checked in by 17 December, those users will receive a free size upgrade on a drink during the following week.

With nearly 1.50 million users and over 300 brand partnerships in China since its launch in May 2010, Jiepang is a location-based app to watch.

10. Two-thirds support silencing social media during periods of social unrest
A poll has revealed that two-thirds of adults believe that shutting down social networks such as Twitter and BlackBerry Messenger during times of social unrest would help prevent it spreading and worsening.

Unsurprisingly, support for action against social networks was strongest among over-65s and weakest among 18 to 24-year-olds, who are the heaviest users these services.

But as news editor of Index of Censorship, Padraig Reidy, argues:

It’s very worrying that people would believe shutting down social networks would be in any way desirable. The vast majority of social network use during the unrest was people sreading information and helping each other get home safely.

The Week According To The Internet

• Infographic Of The Week: Tumblr is the internet
• Cat-Based Video Of The Week: Catvertising
• Funny 404 Page Of The Week: Herman Cain pities the fool

Google+ may have have launched their long-awaited pages, but brands shouldn’t necessarily rush to sign up.

It seems the search giant have jumped the proverbial gun, with pages currently having no option for multi-admin access, no way to transfer pages between owners, and no option to add a vanity URL.

Addressing concerns from users in the Google+ forums, Google+ Community Manager Toby S. gave an update on the status of branded pages;

First, there is no multi-admin functionality yet, but it is a priority for our team and coming very soon!

Second, our team is working on a way to transfer page ownership so that, if a page owner leaves his or her company, the brand page can be maintained. That’s also coming very soon.

Toby also weighed in on the subject of vanity URLs;

I can not speak to long-term plans for vanity URLs, but it is currently not a priority for our team and I would proceed under the assumption that they will not become available.

This seems to be something of a #fail for the Google+ team, who launched the pages to much fanfare yesterday.

Even brands that have embraced social are still nervous about the prospect of losing a page due to a staff member leaving the company or going rogue.

Having multi-admin access on social channels not only allows the whole team to take part in community and brand management, but also acts as a security blanket – brands know they won’t lose the page if they lose a staff member.

The way Google+ brand pages are currently set-up, there is no way to safeguard against this.

Brands are also increasingly pointing fans directly to branded social channels through traditional media, by including their Twitter handles and vanity Facebook URL on everything from television spots and billboards to magazines and digital banners.

Not having the option of a vanity URL will be a difficult sell for brands, leaving them with the choice of either including the long-form URL, complete with a 21-character number ID, or asking them to Google their name with a ‘+’ in front, i.e. +We Are Social Australia

While it may seem necessary to rush out and set-up a branded page to stay ahead of the curve, we’d advise proceeding with caution until at least multi-admin access is enabled.

With the success of the platform depending on Google’s ability to entice brands to use pages, they might not just be a case of jumping the gun, but of also shooting themselves in the foot.

What are your thoughts; major fail? Or too soon to tell? Leave us a comment below…

Welcome to Tuesday Tune-up #11, We Are Social Sydney’s weekly round-up of all things social.

Here are your Top 10 stories this week;

1. Australian shoppers swayed by social recommendation

According to search marketing agency Outrider, 1 in 3 Australian high earners have bought a product after a friend recommended it on Facebook.

In the same bracket, 1 in 4 have made an offline purchase after seeing a recommendation on Facebook.

Further proof, if it was needed, that targeting influencers is one of the most important tools in the strategist’s arsenal.

Count this as a recommendation, and buy it. Check out the rest of the Infographic here.

2. Social media continues to attract big investment
Research by Booz & Co. and Buddy Media has revealed that businesses are set to spend a higher percentage of total digital marketing spend on social over the next three years.

The survey also revealed that 65% of the managers already have plans in place to improve social media policies – 63% said these were to better integrate social into overall marketing strategies, and 59% plan to pay attention to social media monitoring and rapid response capabilities.

Yet only 15% already have plans for social revenue-generating platforms.

3. Mobile social media audience grows
A comScore study has found that 72.2 million US residents access social networking sites and blog on their mobiles – that’s 37% more than last year, and means that nearly one third of all US mobile users are going mobile with social.

Nearly 40 million US mobile users, more than half of the mobile social media audience, access these sites almost every day, demonstrating the importance of this activity to people’s daily routines.

69.5% of mobile social networkers posted status updates while on their mobile device, with 52.9% reading posts from organisations or brands.

The future of mobile social looks set for continued growth.

Garner analysts predict that by 2015, companies will generate 50 percent of Web sales via their social presence and mobile applications.

4. 10 biggest Facebook countries – Brazil continues to lead growth
Statistics from Socialbakers show that of the 10 countries with the largest Facebook populations, Brazil is the leading country in the world in terms of user growth:

Which bodes well for We Are Social São Paulo…

5. Kia Australia help fans show their friends a little Respect
To celebrate the launch of the Kia Rio Reborn – a car that demands serious respect – we created an app that allows fans to “respect” each other.

It’s a little bit of fun that also showcases the car’s design and personality. We’ll throw a fist bump for that – Respect!

6. Mums love Facebook
While this may come as an unwanted development for children across the world, Facebook marketers will no doubt be delighted by the latest statistics on the use of Facebook by mums.

According to research by eMarketer, an estimated 23 million US mums are on Facebook this year – more than two-thirds of all online mums in the country, and they’re logging onto the site at least once every month.

Word to your mother.

7. Shorter posts generate more engagement
By looking at over 11,000 posts made by the 150 largest Facebook pages, Virtue have demonstrated that the shorter the posts made by brands, the more engagement.

Although post length will depend on the type of post and its content, this study shows that there are measurable advantages to keeping Facebook posts as pithy as possible.

8. New developments for Facebook
Three significant developments for Facebook were released last week. Firstly is the news that Facebook Pages can now be opened in Facebook’s iOS Apps using the fb://page URL scheme.

This is welcome news for marketers, who can now direct users straight to their Page without them having to open and log in to the m.facebook.com site.

Facebook also released Facebook Messenger, it’s standalone mobile messaging app, for Blackberry users, as well as updating the iPhone and Android versions.

This improves greatly upon the initial release of Messenger that came out in August, with a slick new interface that allows users to see when their friends are typing to them and more easily find and sort their friends.

Finally, the news that Facebook is running a closed, limited test to allow websites – for the first time – to process sales transactions for virtual goods with Facebook’s currency, Facebook Credits.

9. New developments for LinkedIn
LinkedIn has also revealed a few new developments. It has begun its expansion into Asia with the launch of its first Asian language platform in Japanese.

Whether the professional social networking site will succeed in a digital culture where online anonymity is prevalent is yet to be seen.

LinkedIn have also announced Talent Pipeline, a recruiter platform built into the LinkedIn system which enables recruiters to more easily manage and keep record of their talent leads.

LinkedIn also unveiled Classmates, providing high-level insights about alumni and allowing access to more detailed professional profiles that they’ve shared, this tool looks to help users make the most of their school and university connections.

10. Twitter users tweeting more, iPhone integration drives sign-ups
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo announced that Twitter has gone from 100 million tweets at the beginning of this year to a quarter of a billion tweets per day – a 177% change since September 2010.

Over the course of this year, Twitter users have also become more engaged, from 30% of its users active every day in January 2011 to over 50% active daily users today.

He also noted that the recent iPhone Twitter integration has caused a 3x growth in sign-ups.

Was that more than 140 characters? Send us a tweet and let us know… preferably from an iOS5 device.

The Week According To The Internet:

• Misleading Trending Topic Of The Week: 1D HATERS GET OFF TWITTER
• Single Serving Tumblr Of The Week: F*** Yeah Cheese Statues
• Annoying Viral Video Of The Week: Like Mah Status

What say you, social stat fans? Leave us a comment below!

Hurricane Irene causes social media storm

(Above: Grand Central Station all but deserted. Photo via MTAPhotos on Flickr)

Hurricane Irene proved to be the biggest event of the past week, both in real life and in social media – a storm not even earthquakes or news of Steve Jobs’ resignation as Apple CEO could weather.

Authorities in the US closed down much of the Eastern Seaboard over the weekend and advised the public to stay indoors, flooding popular social networks with storm-related activity and updates.

There were an estimated 1.6 million Tweets about the hurricane, though Facebook naturally claimed a large chunk of the social pie (including a shameless affiliate scam).

The guys over at SocialBakers have cooked together some stats around the three most engaged Facebook pages during the crisis; Fox News, CNN and The Weather Channel.

Due to the national appetite for bite-size updates on the storm, The Weather Channel’s Facebook page jumped by 21,391 fans on Saturday alone, and Fox News managed a whopping (terrifying?) 30% Engagement Rating.

Those of you interested in the social media reaction to the East Coast Earthquake, keep reading below.

Those of you mortified by the Facebook dominance of Fox News can cheer yourselves up with some hilarious Twitter reactions to Steve Jobs resignation, courtesy of BuzzFeed.

Twitter: Faster Than Earthquakes
Of course, the hurricane wasn’t the only natural disaster the US East Coast was subjected to last week, it was just the biggest.

The 5.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Virginia last Tuesday (EST) was comapratively weak in light of other recent earthquakes, but it did demonstrate incredible power in one area; social media.

Twitter users in New York were able to learn about the earthquake from friends in Washington, D.C. before they felt the shockwave… a mere 30 seconds later.

Twitter were so taken by the story they made a short film to brag about being ‘faster than earthquakes’;

Take that Feebees.

Commonwealth Bank’s new CMO warns of the end of traditional advertising
In what is a further indicator that the establishment is embracing the revolution, new Commonwealth Bank Chief Marketing Officer Andrew Lark said marketing and IT will need to work more closely together in order to drive greater consumer participation.

Lark highlighted Commonwealth Bank’s recent tie-up with Facebook Deals offering two free movie tickets every months for a year to customers who opened a transactional account at the bank, liked the company on Facebook and checked in at a branch using Facebook Places, as an example of encouraging participation.

Facebook react to Google+ ‘Circles’ by introducing sharing options
Facebook users update their profiles almost as much as the Facebook developers do – the latest series of changes to the Effbees are a host of new privacy options that respond both to the functionality of Google+ Circles, and to calls to give users more control over the privacy of their content.

Luckily those nifty Facebook types are also pretty handy with iMovie, so here are the new updates explained via the medium of (slightly creepy) video walkthrough;

Facebook not killing Places and Deals
In a classic case of a myth wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a ‘wtf?’, confused users and news outlets responded to changes in Facebook’s privacy options by announcing the death of Places and Deals.

While the confusion may be warranted, the rumours are false – Facebook are in fact expanding location-focused features, while simultaneously de-emphasizing the mobile check-in.

To help the tired and confused, AllFacebook put together a quick graphic demonstrating the changes;

Websites with Google+ button get 3.5x the Google+ visits than sites without the button, but Google say; “We need to improve”
HubSpot compared referral traffic levels to their 5000+ customer websites from Google+ for websites that have Google’s +1 button installed and for those that don’t.

The result? Websites that use Google’s +1 button generated 3.5 times more traffic from Google+ than websites that don’t have the button installed.

Great news. No? Apparently not.

In what amounted to a “State of Google Plus” talk earlier this week, Google’s Bradley Horowitz said “we need to improve,” hinted at some features that may be in Google’s pipeline and called Facebook’s new sharing controls “familiar.”

Interactive marketing spending to hit $76 Billion by 2016

A new report by Forrester Research forecasts that U.S. interactive marketing spending will reach $76.6 billion by 2016, equal to TV spending this year and comprising 35% of all advertising-  a big leap from the current 19% spend.

“The highly measurable returns of digital marketing are driving these ever-increasing investments. It not only works, you can prove it works,” says Forrester Senior VP Josh Bernoff.

“Social media spending will already reach $1.6 billion this year. When spending passes a billion dollars, you can’t call it experimental.”

SEO makes a big difference to Facebook pages

Search makes up 34% of all external referral traffic to Facebook Pages, with Google 27.5% coming from Google, according to a six month study of 1,000 Pages by analytics provider PageLever.

Twitter launches User Galleries

In great news for fans of photos, galleries and photos in galleries, Twitter have responded to the lack of online photo galleries with a new photo gallery function.

User galleries aggregate the images you’ve uploaded in your Tweets into an organised page, where you can view up to 100 of your recent images, though images in Tweets will not be displayed if the Tweet was sent before January 1, 2010.

The images included in user galleries can come from Twitter, yFrog, TwitPic, Instagram and other image sharing services supported in Twitter’s details pane.

Ticketmaster teams with Facebook so you can sit with your friends

Ticketmaster is launching an add-on to their interactive seating map that allows users to connect to Facebook while browsing for seats, and see where friends have purchased tickets (the friends who have tagged their seats, that is).

The feature is now used in more than 300 venues (for 9,000 events and counting), says Debbie Hsu, Ticketmaster’s director of product management.

Top Gear launches Facebook Credits on demand video
Top Gear has become the second BBC Worldwide brand to launch video-on-demand content on Facebook, using Facebook Credits as payment.

PlayStation Home getting a redesign to focus on social games
Ever since PlayStation Home launched, Sony has been toying with different ways to incorporate games into its virtual world, with various levels of success.

Now the company has announced that the entire service will be completely redesigned, representing the change “from a social network to a social game platform,” according to Home director Jack Buser.

UK Government about-face on tighter social network controls
Prime Minister David Cameron’s plans to ban rioters from social media sites were dismissed by the Home Secretary at a meeting with social media bosses yesterday.

The news comes despite research from marketing agency MBA has found that 50% of those surveyed are in favour of shutting social networks when faced with extraordinary circumstances such as riots.

ESPN launches real-time digital outdoor campaign

ESPN claims the outdoor campaign will be the first UK campaign to integrate live, real-time content and debate, by featuring comments from ESPN football presenters Ray Stubbs and Kevin Keegan while they are on-air.

In the outdoor ads, Stubbs and Keegan will ask questions or raise subjects for debate across the weekend. Some of these topics will be discussed on air and passers-by will be encouraged to respond on Twitter, using the hashtag #espnuk.

The ESPN community managers will need to be on the ball, as any slips in moderation could result in a few own goals… and maybe even a red card (oh yes we did).

Fun fact of the week: Instagram was a happy accident

Blog of the week: F You Yelper

Fun nickname for Facebook of the week: Effbees