Facebook vs Twitter :: A Breakdown of 2010 Social Demographics

A look at the breakdown...

2010 Social Demographics of:

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Image/Statistics by: digitalsurgeons

A Revolutionary Business Networking Mobile Application - UNSOCIAL

Multimedia Campaign Produced by: Mindshift Media in Association with STVP

Social networking is a fast growing field dominated by giants. Companies like Facebook, Linkedin and Foursquare have proven how important social networking can be. By connecting users to the people they know, these companies have supplemented the natural network of friends most people have. This proven formula has a challenger though. The appropriately named Unsocial just became the first social networking application that does not care who your friends are. 

Instead, it focuses on connecting users to people they should know. The idea is fairly simple. Unsocial is a smart phone app for Iphone, Android and Blackberry that broadcasts a users personal brand, who they are and what they do to the people around them. The goal is to connect people in related fields. In essence, it introduces you to all the people you should know but don’t. Unsocial launched their groundbreaking application on October 18 at this years Discovery Beat in San Francisco.

For those not in the know, Discovery Beat is an annual meeting of the biggest and most influential app developers. The goal is to find that secret recipe for app discovery and help make new contacts in the industry. Unsocial took discovery beat by storm. 

They were the official conference app of Discovery Beat, and they have been riding the wave of good press ever since. Their app has already garnered praise from the likes of Mashable.com, which said, “It makes locating people at the same event who share similar interests less of a hassle. You can also send notes via the app without having to give away any private info until you know you want to make a connection.”  

http://mashable.com/2010/10/18/unsocial-mobile/

Unsocial has also had favorable mentions from Tech Crunch, which said Unsocial is, “ideal for large conferences or similar events where attendees have a limited amount of time to identify high-value contacts”. The newly launched app even got a mention in The New York Times. All this good press is even more amazing, given that Unsocial is only currently available in San Francisco, New York and more cities soon to come! 

With the developers promising to bring more cities online soon people are almost certainly going to hear a lot more about Unsocial in the future. When this app becomes available globally, a morning commute could become the perfect networking opportunity. Packed trains, busses and subways will become something other than just an inconvenience, they will be the social networking equivalent of speed dating. With so many possibilities, Unsocial is poised to revolutionize the business world and bring a whole new dimension to the social network. 

www.unsocial.mobi

Blog Posting by: Tyler Griffin - Creative Director, Mindshift Media

Written By: Brad Girtz - Mindshift Media Blogger

Multimedia Production Provided by: www.Mindshift-Media.com 

Further information regarding Unsocial: www.unsocial.mobi

Social Media Marketing Campaign Helps 21 Year Old College Student Elected to the Oklahoma State House of Representatives

There are plenty of people out there advocating social media. It has been touted online and in the press as the next generation of communication. This very blog has dedicated many articles to the subject. Despite all that, some companies are still on the fence about social media.

After all, it can be hard to understand the true power of sites life Facebook or Twitter, when huge corporations like Apple or CNN are using them. Social networking may be good for them but it could also be that they are just so popular, that people will seek them out wherever they are. That being said, there is one example free from any corporate celebrity or huge budget, that example is a 21 year old college student named Elise Hall. Using a campaign based largely on Facebook and Twitter, she was just elected to the Oklahoma State House of Representatives. Needless to say, before her political campaign, Hall was a fairly ordinary college student. She had not political war-chest or fame to catapult her into public office, just a computer and the drive to succeed. Using Facebook and Twitter, Hall beat out her opponents.

She did all that while still studying and attending classes. By regularly tweeting and organizing her supporters via social networks, Hall was able to enlist an army of followers. In fact, her cunning use of social media not only got her elected, it got her on CNN, a feat any good business owner would love to replicate. This means two things, a promising political career for Hall, and another good reason for every business to get involved with social media.




Blog Posting By: Tyler Griffin, Creative Director - Mindshift Media
Written By: Brad Girtz - Mindshift Media Blogger

New Competition for Online Social Network Marketing Giant Facebook...Is this Hype or Truth?

In the world of social networking, one name stands above the rest. Facebook. It is the undisputed champion of the social scene, a monolith in the market. That makes it very hard for any newcomer to survive. With 500 million users and a net worth of about 33 billion dollars, the giant is certainly not going out without a fight. Despite all that, one company thinks there may be a few chinks in Facebook’s armor. The David facing off against the Facebook Goliath is called Diaspora.

 Loosely translated, diaspora means the spreading out of people. This new company aims to take advantage of two things, the first is Facebook’s privacy problems. Not long ago, there was a tremendous outcry when Facebook started changing its privacy settings. People were often confused by the new settings and many users felt their information was not being protected. Since then, Facebook has simplified its privacy controls but there is still a fear that the company will try to make more profiles public. That is good news for Diaspora, which describes itself as a “privacy-aware, personally-controlled” social network. Their goal is to give users more control over what information is shared and who can see it. That means users can choose who can see what on an individual basis. For instance, Your boss, won’t be able to see that hilarious picture you took of him at the office christmas party. The second innovation that may help Diaspora succeed is the fact it is open source. That means the company allows people to access the code that runs the programs. In laymen's terms, anyone can see how the program works. That gives apps creators and other software developers more access and means there may be more games and other customizable creations for the individual account. Diaspora is set to be released on September 15th. So far the company has raised more than $200,000 dollars. Among the initial investors was Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. With plenty of capital and some luck this new upstart could give Facebook a run for its money.

Do you think this is just hype, or a successful business venture?? Do you feel Diaspora can compete with Facebook? Let us know what you think about this new business and idea!


Blog Posted by: Tyler Griffin, Creative Director - Mindshift Media
Written by: Brad Girtz - Mindshift Media Blogger

The Secret Strategies Behind Many "Viral" Videos

 Anyone with online video, dreams of the day their creation will go viral. It is like winning the world cup and super bowl at the same time. A tiny investment in video is suddenly the most talked about thing on the web and everyone is watching it. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that any video will hit it big online. 

People have spent vast amounts of time and money on videos that have fallen flat. That having been said, it takes more than lots of luck to be the next big online sensation. Mindshift Media recommends the following important rules to consider when attempting to produce an online multimedia campaign that will ultimately go VIRAL!

Rule 1: Make a video for people who are bored at work. There are hundreds of millions of people around the world sitting at a computer with nothing to do. They surf sites like YouTube looking for funny or interesting videos and sharing them with friends. While the idea of so many slacking employees may scare any good business person, it has created one of the best and most lucrative avenues for viral videos. By creating a video these people will want to share, companies can tap in to a pool of viewers larger than that of any major television networks.

Rule 2: Use what Jonah Peretti (CEO of Buzzfield) calls “The Mullet Strategy”. That is, business in front, party in back. Keep the front page of your website serious and put all the crazy silly stuff in back. That way the site still looks professional but there is something fun as well to keep people coming back.







Rule 3: Brands should use big seed marketing. That means anyone trying to sell a brand needs to spend some money. By making a really good campaign/video and paying to have it in a few high profile places, social media will pick up parts of the video faster and businesses can get the viral boost they crave for free.

Rule 4: Target the maniacs. The goal of any good viral campaign should be to target people like Lady Gaga, Kanye West and Perez Hilton, because they are the people who get involved and stir stuff up. When they rant about something or get involved with a product, the world knows. The web is run by maniacs and when they speak, consumers listen.

Rule 5: Companies need to always be pushing themselves and looking for new customers and new markets. The moment they stop, so does the companies growth. The same is true for any viral video. The moment people stop pushing it, the video flops.

These five rules are by no means a guarantee that a video will go viral, but they are the result of a decade of hard work and research from many successful corporations and Fortune 500 companies. They may not always work, but ignoring them is a good way to loose the race to go viral.

Blog Posting By: Tyler Griffin, Creative Director - Mindshift Media

Written By: Brad Girtz - Mindshift Media Blogger