Millionaires Prefer Facebook

A new study shows that 46% of online users with investable assets of $1 million or more are members of Facebook, up from 26% a year ago. The survey, by Spectrem Group, showed that millionaire’s use of Twitter has declined, from 5% to 3%.

They also remained fairly cool to LinkedIn. Only 19% of millionaires used LinkedIn – unchanged from a year ago.

Plenty of earlier studies have shown that more than half of millionaires are on Facebook – even if they rarely have time to actually use it. But the Twitter and LinkedIn numbers are somewhat surprising, given that both would seem to appeal to a more business-minded, time-pressed elite.

Apparently not.  One reason may be that Twitter is a more open network, which makes it more difficult for control-freak millionaires to manage who follows them. On Facebook, you can more easily manage access to information.

Another is that Twitter is largely a broadcast tool, while Facebook is more of a network builder. The rich value personal networks more than online megaphones.

But age also plays a role. According to the study, among those with $5 million or more in investable assets, the boomers are slightly more likely to use Facebook than the youngest investors — 56% vs. 50%, respectively. (Warren Buffett is an exception, of course).  Twitter was generally more popular with the younger-millionaire crowd.

They also are split on where they get their financial news. Millionaires younger than 55 years old are at least twice as likely as those ages 55-64 to get their information from social media than from traditional media outlets.

Thankfully, blogs remain popular among all millionaires. Nearly one-third of investors worth $5 million or more say they either read or would read blogs by trusted financial advisers.

Turn Social Media Addiction Into Results

Social MediaEver had the feeling that the Web can be a waste of time? We start by reading some relevant information on a social media site. An hour later we are still on that site, but in our tenth different place. In fact, 65 percent of all streaming content is watched during the work day. YouTube reports that 2 billion videos are watched during this period of time. Black Monday started because of the faster Internet connections. A lot of the consumer buying on the Web happens at work.

Are you afflicted with a social media addiction? While it may not be contagious, is it affecting your work productivity. Do you feel any of these symptoms?

  • You spend too many hours using social media tools with no measurable results. Sure it’s fun, but from a business standard, what do you have to show for all of your valuable time?
  • Your day is filled with distractions from constant alerts. There is constant fear that you will miss something so you need to react right now. In fact, you work on a stimulus response model waiting for interruptions to delay business decisions or progress.
  • You are always looking at numbers as a reward: You need more followers, tweets, friends and views. You review these metrics more than your company’s financial statements.

Don’t despair. Here are five steps to the cure:

1. Learn that social media is promotion

What social media achieves best through its conversational style is making it easy to form trusting relationships over a long period of time. In the past, we may have done this over three martini lunches or trade shows, but these online tools really make it efficient. Focus on maintaining these relationships through online conversations with prospects, customers, and connectors.

2. Define how your social media activities assist in accomplishing your company’s critical success factor this month

Pick your area of expertise that addresses the pain your company solves and join the conversation on that subject. Identify the connectors and influencers in those conversations. Find your key prospects on social media and begin to follow them. Limit your time based on the ROI your company receives over the next three months.

3. Limit your focus to one just tool

It is impossible to be successful at connecting through all of the social media tools. They all fit just a bit differently. Find which tool your community uses and focus on becoming consistently effective at building relationships with that one. This will enable your company to build their social media expertise slowly instead of burning through a lot of resources that may not be a good investment.

4. Measure your social media results

It’s not just about followers, friends, or views. Track your company’s growing social media influence with such tools as Klout. Think of it as your social media balance sheet.

5. Separate out social media for business vs. just for fun

There is nothing wrong with surfing social media for fun for hours. It’s great connecting with people that you don’t often see in person. But never call that work or a “marketing investment.”

source: Open Forum/Barry Multz

Facebook Marries Skype (Again)?

skype-facebook-loveThe social media realm is about  to have a new sheriff in town.

The larger-than-life social network Facebook will reportedly be releasing a Skype-driven video chat platform.

Facebook’s Seattle-based tech team was behind the new feature, according to Techcrunch. Skype and Facebook were already in cahoots with a function that integrated Facebook social data directly into the Skype client. Now it looks like Skype will be coming to Facebook.

Rumors have circulated before about such a product, but it never materialized.

The report is sparse on details about how it will function. Will it require a software download? Will it support group video chat? No doubt it will be a major addition to the Facebook platform. Google+, the search engine giant’s answer to Facebook, launched with a group video chat feature, Google+ Hangouts. Google is seeing a lot of traction with the feature, but if Facebook can release a video chat product next week, Google+ Hangouts may not seem as revolutionary.

source: Mashable

Facebook Friends and Quality Likes That You Actually Want

social media

Facebook Friends and Quality Likes

As a business with a Facebook fan page, it’s natural to want to gather as many friends and Likes as possible. As always, though, it’s quality over quantity that will bring you the best return.

Take a few moments to see if you want them as a friend/Like. Check out their Info page and determine if they are interested in similar things, and check out their wall posts, if it is available, to see if they post offensive things, play Facebook games all day, or post gifts all over people’s profiles.

  1. Accept people who appear to have good morals, who post encouraging messages, inspirational quotes, and basic status updates. Pay attention if they cuss in every sentence, have poor grammar, and talk about things that make you uncomfortable — and don’t accept their friend request.
  2. Check their wall for several game posts. People who play a lot of Facebook games may send you lots of game invites or harass you with games status updates.
  3. Be careful allowing third-party applications to have access to your Facebook account. Sometimes these are people who are trying to get your personal information, attack, or hijack your account for your personal info. Just like with email, don’t click on any suspicious links that could be a virus.
  4. On their Info page, are they interested in activities and things that pertain to the content of your posts, products, or services? Those are the people you want to extend a friend invite to, or accept their request.
  5. If anyone becomes a nuisance, you can always unfriend them. The option is at the bottom of that person’s profile page on the left-hand side. They will not receive a notification that you have unfriended them.
  6. If you take out a paid ad on your page or group, make sure you filter it with people who have interests in what you provide, but with whom you do not already have a connection.
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