Generation Nerd

It’s rare to recognize change while it’s happening. With the New Year fast approaching, it’s a great time to reminisce on the past year and see how things have progressed, or in some cases, regressed. So join me for a walk down memory lane, and let me show you what happened in 2010… in social media that is…

Facebook

Here are the top 10 most popular brands on Facebook. While fans clearly aren’t everything in Facebook, the important thing to note is the shift in fan numbers this year as compared to last year. This shift is an opportunity to challenge the notion that a page with one million fans is better than one with 100,000 fans. This clearly isn’t the case. When it comes to social media, especially Facebook, engagement is everything. I would much rather have more close-knit, engaged page than one with high population.
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There couldn’t be a topic more fitting for this blog – a story about the generational divide on Facebook, hatched by “The Social Network.” My inner geek is salivating…

Wired’s Ryan Singel eloquently summarizes, “The movie features no redeeming characters — depicting Facebook’s founding as a combination of backstabbing idea-borrowing, a way to get revenge on an ex-girlfriend and an attempt to vault Mark Zuckerberg into the upper echelon of Harvard society.”

The characters/real people come across as cutthroat and know-it-alls, but that seems to be this generation’s common thread. So when the movie was released and everyone and their grandma went to see it, radically different impressions emerged about Facebook.

Data generated by BrandIndex reports that ages 18-35 think higher of Facebook since seeing the (more…)

I was talking with a friend today who claimed he was “quitting” Facebook. I was inspired to tell him, “Don’t worry, I know you’ll be back, like the prodigal son returning home. Lucky for you, Facebook loves unconditionally.” While he’s still confident of never returning, I give it two months. This conversation inspired me to list the top 5 quotes about social media.

1. “Social media is like teen sex. Everybody wants to do it. Nobody knows how. When it’s finally done there is surprise it’s not better.” − Avinash Kaushik, Google

2. “If content is king, then conversion is queen.” – John Munsell, CEO of Bizzuka

3. “I hear YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are merging to form a super-social media site – YouTwitFace.” − Conan O’Brien, The Tonight Show, June 2nd, 2009.

4. “Marketing is no longer about the stuff that you make, but about the stories you tell.” − Seth Godin
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For those of you who thought Foursquare was annoying (including myself), you may want to hide for the next decade or so. The social media giant, Facebook (more than 400 million users strong), is launching a new application that will combine status updates with physical locations. The large nation of Facebook users will ultimately take geotagging to the next level.

Location updates have been an increasing trend among social media. Foursquare is everywhere and seems to be growing at a steady rate. Gowalla, Brightkite and Loopt are also jumping in on the success of location based messaging. Even Twitter has an option for sharing locations through tweets. So, what’s pushing this application? Is it the users or marketing?
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