Elections prior to 2008 offered very little in terms of social media; after all, Facebook didn’t launch to a wide audience until approximately early-2005 (it took many months for Facebook to grow from its early Ivy League roots to the all-encompassing network that it is today). In case you had forgotten, the once en vogue teen hangout Myspace was the primary social networking site of the ’04 election year, but neither the Bush camp nor the Kerry camp made a bonafide effort to utilize social media to their advantage (probably couldn’t have hurt though, considering MySpace had over 5 million active by election day 2004).

It wasn’t until our last general election that the use of social media became rampant, and subsequently necessary. Barack Obama took the web by storm, absolutely dominating the much more well-known, more experienced John McCain. Often branded in the media as a “rock star,” due to his larger-than-life persona, that aura surrounding Mr. Obama surely stemmed, at least in part, from his overwhelming presence in all the major social media outlets (Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter). Historical data shows that at the time of the election, Obama had an advantage over McCain on all major social media related sites:

Obama                       McCain

Facebook Fans:            2,444,384                   627,459

Myspace Friends:          844,781                      219,463

Twitter Followers:          115,623                        4,911

Needless to say that Mr. Obama used these sites to his advantage, raising more money for his campaign (over half a BILLION dollars were raised online alone) than any candidate in history…straight to the White House.

Fast forward to 2012 and we have a tight race between GOP candidates and what appears to be a very volatile electorate (three different candidates won the first three states on the primary trail); social media’s role in determining the eventual Republican nominee will be pivotal. Not only do all candidates have their own websites, they each have constantly updated Facebook’s and Twitter’s, all of which are more than happy to accept your monetary contribution! On Facebook, these are the number of fans for each of the remaining GOP hopefuls:

Mitt Romney: 1.4 million

Ron Paul: 815,000

Newt Gingrich: 266,000

Rick Santorum: 96,000

With the exception of Ron Paul, the other three candidates stack up the same in terms of Facebook fans vs. national popularity (Romney is in the national lead at the moment, Gingrich in 2nd, and Santorum in 3rd). It is easy to understand why outlier Ron Paul’s numbers are so inflated, though; his ideas have strongly resonated with young voters and young voters are quite active on the web.

Oh, and just in case you were wondering how many fans President Obama has now…only 24.9 million. It will be quite interesting to see what happens come November!

PS- Be on the lookout this election year for MOBILE campaigning, where you will now have the ability to donate to your favorite candidate directly from your smartphone! Count on politicians to spare no expense when it comes to new technologies to ask for money.

1. ALWAYS have valuable and worthwhile content. If you have writer’s block, hold off on writing a day or two until you find the inspiration. Keep in mind the following things when you’re writing:

- What is in it for the reader?

- Use videos and photos when appropriate

- Use keywords, links and tags

2. Most people have HEARD of an RSS but don’t know what it means. To clarify, Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary is a function that gathers content (blogs) on a grouped site so that a user doesn’t have to go on different sites to read his/her favorite blogs.

3. Think outside the box. Example: MyStarbucksIdea

4. Optimize your blog! You’re already putting the time into writing it, so make sure to share it on social media sites and use tags!

5. Figure out what having a successful blog would mean to you. For some it’s unique visitors and for others it’s amount of comments, either way, reavaluate every few months and make sure you’re on the right track.

Happy Blogging!

Total Visits Over Time

So, what is this peculiar phenomenon spreading like wildfire? We decided to play around with the site and take a look for ourselves. Luckily, I was already a member, so inviting my officemates was painless and instant.

My Boards Need a Bit of Work

Upon beginning, you are given five blank boards, though you do not have to use any of them and they are all fully customizable, so if you don’t require a “Books Worth Reading” board, you could easily change it to “Funny Things We Find While Working,” etc.; your boards are as unique as you are. From this point, you are free to roam the internet, looking for any and all pertinent photos or videos that you enjoy or think others will enjoy. This is where we began having issues. In theory, you can install a “Pin It” button onto your browser, and as you find photos on the web you want to add to your boards you can simply click the “Pin It” button and the photo will automatically copy to your boards; however, this option did not work for us, and pinning became a semi-laborious chore of having to copy and paste image URLs directly into Pinterest. We expect this minor kink to be worked out by Pinterest’s wide release.

Another thing we found strange was how Pinterest impulsively starts you off with “friends” to follow, and continues to make you force follow other users (including complete strangers) as you go. You do have the option to un-follow anyone you are following, but having to do this was an unpleasant, superfluous chore.

After the initial confusion, the girls in the office were hooked, pinning photos of fancy interior design elements and corgis, waiting impatiently for other users to “like” or “repin” their pics. This makes sense though, because Hitwise data shows that 58% of current users are female and 59% are between the ages of 25 and 44. Within an hour or so, each of them had pinned at least one photo, and they were both already generating “likes” and “repins” from individuals totally unknown to them. Although we collectively found this odd, their newfound sense of popularity with their random followers was more than enough to overcome their unease.

Despite its quirks, Pinterest has proven to be a fairly addictive pastime, and a novel way for people to share images that are interesting, provocative, entertaining, and/or personal to them. Get on board and start pinning!

An example of a busy Pinterest profile

(click image for source)

It’s hard to resist, especially with companies like Zappos and Amazon offering fast and free shipping. One trend that is being talked about a lot is mobile. I predict more and more companies focusing on mobile as we become more comfortable using our cell phones to supplement or complete our shopping experience.

A Trend in Mobile

As the infographic states, Cyber Monday may become Mobile Monday (mobile week? month? November?) in the future. With so many apps available that help you compare prices inside the store and outside, the number of U.S. consumers that have engaged in shopping related activities on their smartphones is up to 33.3 million!

During this year’s November holiday season an unprecedented 15 percent of people in the U.S. logging onto a retailer’s Web site are expected to do so through a mobile device, according to cloud analytics-based findings by IBM.

(click image for source)

Fifteen percent may seem small now, but with the trend of mobile use for shopping on the rise, it’s only the beginning. Companies should make sure that user interface experience on their mobile device works well with their website.

Google Offers is the latest and greatest in the deal-of-the-day website business. Now supporting 25 of America’s largest cities, and looking to expand to 15 more in the next few months, you can be fairly certain that great deals will be coming your way (if they aren’t already)! For those of you who are already well-versed in Groupon, the transition to Google Offers will be painless. Google Offers interface is very similar to Groupon; however, Google Offers is different in that all offers are good for everyone the second the deal is released– no specific amount of people have to accept the offer in order to activate it!

For those of you who have never even heard of coupons being sent to your phone or email, I’ve found that Google Offers delivers the most user-friendly sign-up framework for incoming users, with simple instructions that actually yield a great deal of customization. Deal-of-the-day websites are becoming more and more popular and there has never been a better opportunity to hop on the bandwagon, so let’s start shopping and do our part to spur our economy!

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