10 Examples of The Social Media's Presence Offline (and the compulsive nature of social media...originally written for a plussize costume site?)

Top 10 Ways To Promote Your Social Media Presence Offline
Written by Kristi Hines for Plus Size Costumes

When social media enthusiasts think about promoting their social networks, they usually only do so online in email signatures, website links, and other profile links. But why not take your social networking love offline as well. Here are 10 ways that you can share your social media presence in the real world.

10. MySpace Costumes



MySpace was one of the first social networks I had the pleasure of experiencing, simply to connect with classmates and friends. So it is not a surprise that the first social media profile costume was someone dressing up as their MySpace account. (Image Credit)
9. Facebook Costumes



Just like MySpace costumes, you know you are a social media enthusiast when you choose to steer away from the average Halloween costume and go for dressing up as your Facebook profile instead. It’s really not a half bad idea, though: I would bet that wherever this guy went that day, he acquired a new Facebook friend! (Image Credit)
8. Twitter Whiteboard



While wearing your social media profile is pretty inventive, making your profile interactive is an even bigger step in the right direction. The above Twitter costume allows you to do some live tweeting – with permission, of course. Use of their @usernames on the board would have made this perfect. (Image Credit)
7. You Like It



Victoria’s Secret found a very “cheeky” way for their models to get some attention for their Facebook fan page. (Image Credit)
6. Twitter Tees



If you’re not fully comfortable with wearing a full on profile, your next best bet is a t-shirt. T-shirt design companies that take custom orders can put your favorite tweet on any sized tee so you can wear your tweets with pride. This could be a great way to start conversation at large networking events and conferences. (Image Credit)
5. Charms



Charms can be a cute fashion statement – you can add them to bracelets, necklaces, key chains, and zipper pulls to display your affection for the Twitter bird or other social networking characters. Some good ones that come to mind are the HootSuite Owl or any of the strange but cute Plurk characters. (Image Credit)
4. Tattoos



I’m not sure how wise this one is, seeing that social networks that are popular now could be gone in the foreseeable future, but if you are super committed to your favorite network, you could always permanently proclaim that love with a tattoo. I might do a temporary or henna tattoo for a conference, but that’s about as far as I would go. I guess there are always removal procedures that you could get down the road. (Image Credit)
3. Bumper Stickers



Since I sometimes like to think of my car as an extension of my accessories, anything I place on my car would be something I was indirectly wearing. Therefore, another great way to display your social media presence offline would be via bumper stickers. Of course, if you drive like a maniac or flip a lot of people off, you might not want to advertise your identity. This could be particularly damaging to your reputation and/or your career if your bumper sticker advertised your company Twitter account or other online profile. (Image Credit)
2. Vehicle Wraps



If a bumper sticker just doesn’t say it loud enough for you, you could go the next step and have your whole vehicle wrapped. I think if you incorporated the facebook costume look on the side of a SUV or truck, you would be sure to garner some new friends. Again, consider your driving skills when you make this decision. (Image Credit)
1. Billboard



Are you looking to get a million followers on Twitter or Facebook fans? Do you have some excess funds to spend? Then you’re in luck – you can put your request for online connections on a huge billboard, just like celebrity Ashton Kutcher did. It paid off for him, as he’s now hovering over the 5 million followers mark. Of course, a reverse idea of this would be to make a billboard asking a celebrity to follow you – if you were the only one being followed by someone with millions of followers, you would definitely get some traffic just based on that! (Image Credit)


Written by Kristi Hines for Plus Size Costumes.


Read more: http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-ways-to-promote-your-social-media-presence-offline.php#ixzz1nzocx9DB

Funniest exam answers become internet sensation

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Website called funnyexam.com offers a hilarious pinboard for staff to expose the silliest answers they've ever seen.

Teachers from the US and UK are posting the best real exam answers from the pupils they teach on the website http://funnyexam.com

The students may have got an E in their tests but they've been creating chortles on the internet since the site was created.

Many of the answers range from the disturbing to the crude and the naive to the ridiculous. There are hundreds to choose from. Some of the funniest are in a slideshow above.

Funny and rude drawings, intentional or not, feature regularly on the site, as do lines directed to teacher, such as "I know I'm going to fail this" or a drawing of a snoring pupil.

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Some of the examples are from detention slips or appraisal forms. One boy in particular received a punishment slip for dressing up as Superman.

Another pupil gives the meaning of a hermaphrodite as "Lady Gaga".

Often the students will draw animals such as bears or walruses in a bid to distract from being unable to answer the question.

Readers can judge and rate which answer they find funniest. An impressive but slightly disturbing cartoon strip about abstinence is the most popular example at the time of writing.

The teacher marks the piece with the comment "I've arranged a meeting with your guidance counsellor".

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/9115418/Funniest-exam-answers-become-internet-sensation.html

The 12 Steps to Resisting Social Media: Or, It's Official -Social Media is Addictive (and more so, than cigarettes and alcohol)

Twitter is harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol, study finds

People are more likely to give in to urge to tweet or check email than other cravings, say US researchers

James Meikleguardian.co.uk, 

Friday 3 February 2012 05.37 EST


Twitter may be harder to resist than alcohol because giving in to the desire seems 'low cost', researchers said. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PA

Tweeting or checking emails may be harder to resist than cigarettes andalcohol, according to researchers who tried to measure how well people could resist their desires.

They even claim that while sleep and sex may be stronger urges, people are more likely to give in to longings or cravings to use social and other media.

A team headed by Wilhelm Hofmann of Chicago University's Booth Business School say their experiment, using BlackBerrys, to gauge the willpower of 205 people aged between 18 and 85 in and around the German city of Würtzburg is the first to monitor such responses "in the wild" outside a laboratory.

The results will soon be published in the journal Psychological Science.

The participants were signalled seven times a day over 14 hours for seven consecutive days so they could message back whether they were experiencing a desire at that moment or had experienced one within the last 30 minutes, what type it was, the strength (up to irresistible), whether it conflicted with other desires and whether they resisted or went along with it. There were 10,558 responses and 7,827 "desire episodes" reported.

"Modern life is a welter of assorted desires marked by frequent conflict and resistance, the latter with uneven success," said Hofmann. Sleep and leisure were the most problematic desires, suggesting "pervasive tension between natural inclinations to rest and relax and the multitude of work and other obligations".

The researchers found that as the day wore on, willpower became lower. Their paper says highest "self-control failure rates" were recorded with media. "Resisting the desire to work was likewise prone to fail. In contrast, people were relatively successful at resisting sports inclinations, sexual urges, and spending impulses, which seems surprising given the salience in modern culture of disastrous failures to control sexual impulses and urges to spend money."

The academics, who included one each from Florida State University and Minnesota University, said the subjective reporting of desire was relatively low for tobacco, alcohol and coffee, apparently challenging "the stereotype of addiction as driven by irresistibly strong desires".

They added: "Resisting the desire to work when it conflicts with other goals such as socialising or leisure activities may be difficult because work can define people's identities, dictate many aspects of daily life, and invoke penalties if important duties are shirked."

Hofmann told the Guardian: "Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not 'cost much' to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist.

"With cigarettes and alcohol there are more costs – long-term as well as monetary – and the opportunity may not always be the right one. So, even though giving in to media desires is certainly less consequential, the frequent use may still 'steal' a lot of people's time.".

Hofmann added: "We made clear to participants that answering the BlackBerrys did not count. Also people really did not feel a desire to use them – they only beeped once in a while and, if anything, that was more annoying than pleasing, I guess. And there was nothing else they could use the devices for."

Würtzburg had been the testing ground because he had worked there as an assistant professor until recently.

Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/03/twitter-resist-cigarettes-alcohol-study

That's The Job I Want! - A Social-Media Decorder

A Social-Media Decoder
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2011    BY DAVID TALBOT

Power shift: Deb Roy, CEO of Bluefin Labs, says social media have changed the relationship between media consumers and producers. Credit: Ian Allen 

New technology deciphers— and empowers—the millions who talk back to their televisions through the Web. 

From his 24th-floor corner office in midtown Manhattan, the veteran CBS research chief David Poltrack can gaze southward down the Avenue of the Americas, its sidewalks teeming. For more than four decades, it has been his job to measure people's television habits, preferences, and reactions. In large part, this has meant following the viewing habits of Nielsen panels of TV viewers and parsing the results of network surveys on their opinions. On a late September afternoon, with fall premieres under way, his desk was strewn with color-coded opinions from 3,000 Americans who had wandered into CBS's Las Vegas research outpost, Television City, at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino, and agreed to fill out TV surveys for the chance to win a 3-D home entertainment system.

But now he's also dealing with a growing force: the masses talking back through social media. Of the approximately 300 million public comments made online worldwide every day—about two-thirds of them on Twitter—some 10 million, on average, are related to television (though daily numbers vary quite widely). "¿Que sera two and a half men si[n] Charlie?" one viewer recently tweeted, alluding to the replacement of Charlie Sheen by Ashton Kutcher on the CBS sitcom. "The beginning of Person Of Interest is like Jack&Ben all over again," remarked another. (A couple of weeks later, another added: "I assume CBS will keep going with what's been working for them, and replace Andy Rooney with Ashton Kutcher.") TV executives like Poltrack must now grapple with these spontaneous, messy, irreverent remarks.

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/38910/

The Collective Tweet That Harbingers The Future of Advertising and Programming Trends

Super Bowl, and Its Ads, Set a Tweet Record
The surging social-media response to TV promises to shape future programming and advertising trends.
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2012
BY DAVID TALBOT



Tweet down: The Super Bowl generated far more social-media comments—12.2 million—than any previous television event.

During Sunday's Super Bowl, more than 5.4 million people made a total of 12.2 million tweets or other social-media comments about the game—plus nearly another million comments on the advertisements—in the largest-ever such TV-triggered outpouring in the history of social media.

The comment numbers, clocking in at six times more than for last year's big game, were another sign of social media's disproportionate attention to television content, a phenomenon broadcasters and advertisers are increasingly trying to harness. Most of the comments were made on Twitter, which saw total overall activity double—but not rise sixfold—in 2011.

Reflecting this outburst, GetGlue, a social-networking site that allows TV watchers to "check in" to note they are watching a show—and then share opinions and recommendations—enjoyed more than 150,000 check-ins during game night, an all-time high for the startup—and a sharp rise from 20,000 check-ins last year.

The surging discussion of television content on social media is being actively cultivated by social-networking sites, and harnessed by TV and ad executives as way to promote shows and products, and as a real-time barometer of what viewers like and dislike.

The game surpassed the previous record of 3.1 million social-media comments in relation to a TV event—a milestone reached during the MTV Video Music Awards in August 2011, according Bluefin Labs, an analytics firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Bluefin shared some of its analytics and generated the estimate that 5.4 million people commented on the Super Bowl this year—about 90 percent of them on Twitter.

The Super Bowl high point, in terms of social-media comments, came near the end of the game, when Giants running back Ahmad Bradshaw tried not to score a touchdown, despite an open path to the end zone, in order to run down the clock. Bradshaw accidentally scored anyway. In the five minutes that followed, 400,000 people tweeted or made other social-media comments referencing it. The company added that the Madonna halftime show triggered 862,000 comments, almost as many as were made in response to the 2011 Academy Awards.

For its part, Twitter itself staged such stunts as ad scrimmage, which asked users to vote and comment on Super Bowl ads. And in a blog post, Twitter crowed about the huge surge in Super Bowl tweets over the past four years.

From the broadcasting perspective, executives are well aware that TV viewers aren't just reacting to football plays, but also increasingly pecking away their TV-related observations and opinions about all sorts of shows. Broadcasters are growing more interested in helping to fuel this tweeting.


Trend line: Super Bowl comment volume varied throughout the day, but peaked after the final Giants touchdown, when about 400,000 comments were made in five minutes.

The reason is simple: "They will say [to advertisers] that they are not only selling you an audience, but selling you an audience that talks on social media," thus generating more buzz for a product, says Tom Thai, head of marketing and business development at Bluefin.

And advertisers are keeping a closer eye on viewer reaction to their content. (A Super Bowl ad featuring David Beckham modeling his underwear line generated the most comments, with 109,000, 83 percent of which were from women. Coming in second was the Clint Eastwood-narrated Chrysler ad, which garnered 96,000 comments, 65 percent of which were from men, Bluefin said.) By this time next year, Super Bowl advertisers, after closely watching viewers' positive and negative reactions, will likely order up changes in the versions of ads they post later in the game.

Alex Iskold, GetGlue's founder and CEO, says it's possible that something similar will happen with TV shows. As broadcasters analyze viewer reaction to shows and characters, Iskold says, the shows "will be proclaimed hits or canceled based on user feedback." He also predicted that "shows might even change depending on user feedback in real-time."

The TV industry isn't just reacting to tweets, but also trying to leverage social networks in sophisticated ways for marketing purposes, says Gayle Weiswasser, vice president of social-media communications at Discovery Communications, the media company behind several TV networks, including the Discovery Channel, TLC, and Animal Planet. "TV networks are making their content more shareable and accessible across multiple platforms, and are paying close attention to what their audiences want and do," she says.

This would be a natural extension of the rapidly growing role social media has in television. Already, some reality and contest shows are tweeting out highlights and showing comments from viewers during the show, and staff members at broadcasting companies routinely maintain Facebook pages and run tweet campaigns about shows to prime viewer interest.

SOURCE: http://www.technologyreview.com/web/39654/page2/

Generation Sell: Millennials, Social Entrepreneurship & Tech

How Millennials Are Shaping the Future of Social Entrepreneurship and TechnologyMelissa Richer Founder, Ayllu
Posted: 02/ 7/2012 5:41 pm

In 2011, the terms 'social entrepreneurship' and 'social business' began to make weekly appearances in mainstream media (see recent Huffington Post coverage here, here, and here). These startups are at the forefront of the 'new economy.' They make money by solving social and environmental problems, and they do not fit into the traditional nonprofit or for-profit mold. When I entered the workforce 5 years ago, I mostly heard that my generation was 'difficult to work with,' 'savvy with that social media thing,' and 'free-spirited.' Now people see us differently. In 2011, we were the entrepreneurs, survivors, and 'generation sell.'





Oftentimes people ask me about the future of social entrepreneurship. This is because I foundedAyllu, an organization that tracks social businesses in 80+ developing countries and reports on market trends. I tell them that right now social entrepreneurship is a hot trend and there are funders, conferences, university departments and newspaper sections devoted to it. I believe that in the not-too-distant future, social entrepreneurship will become so prevalent that it will no longer be a niche sector. It will simply be part of the new economy that emerges from today's convalescent markets.

In the years ahead, social entrepreneurs will take advantage of innovations in the technology sector. Here are technology-related trends that have major social change potential in 2012 and beyond:

Crowd-based Models: Crowd-funding brings people together online, and pools their money to finance a project. It is a big social entrepreneurship trend, which Kiva made famous a few years ago. Now many social entrepreneurs have innovated on this concept. Solar Mosaic makes it possible for anyone to fund community solar installations in places like schools or hospitals.inVenture realized small businesses in developing countries need growth capital, so they created a crowd-investing platform. And One Percent Foundation innovated on the giving circle concept by pooling 1 percent of its members' income and donating it to charities.

In the future, as technology becomes cheaper and more prevalent, social entrepreneurs will move beyond crowd-funding. They will use other crowd-based models to create social change. This trend is already manifesting itself in the mobile technology space.

Mobile Technology: Today, nearly 70 percent of people in developing countries have mobile phones. In just a few short years, more than 1 billion people who were formerly 'off the map' are on it. This market opportunity is tremendous in terms of size and scale, as are possibilities for social innovation. Social entrepreneurs are building new models: Labor Voices combats human trafficking with a 'yelp model' where migrant workers can rate and review their employers anonymously. In developing countries, Medic Mobile uses mobile technology to help rural health workers coordinate with clinics and patients. In Kenya, people use their cell phones like credit cards, and Kopo Kopo helps business owners accept mobile payments from customers.

Health Technology: Healthcare is one of the most diverse areas for social entrepreneurship.Lumoback, a mobile healthcare startup, designed a smart phone-powered device that improves posture and chronic back pain. Embrace developed a low-cost baby incubator to save premature infants in the developing world. And BioSense created a device that tests pregnant women for anemia in rural India, and can save thousands of lives each year.

These trends are part of the big data and collaborative consumption movements. With so much information at our fingertips, solutions are emerging to analyze and organize information (big data). And thanks to the Internet, online collaboration is creating new kinds of marketplaces (collaborative consumption).

In the past 10 years, we humans have become dependent on technology and it's difficult to navigate life without it. Sometimes it feels as if our devices are in control of us, and not vice versa. But, in the next 10 years technology will become 'smarter.' It will adapt to us and become more integrated with our daily activities. Millennials will play a large role in evolving technology to create social end environmental benefits. Social entrepreneurship is our way of addressing the immense global challenges we inherited (see here and here). We will use it to shift the global economy in a positive direction.

Source:http://www.huffingtonpost.com/melissa-richer/how-millennials-are-shaping-future_b_1260933.html

Infographics (Not Really) But.....Social Media Is Like Eating Donuts

SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150652892401972&set=a.10150261117236972.370374.299674901971&type=1&permPage=1

Saint Marshall Mcluhan: NPR's "Social Media Acts As Catalyst For Policy Change"

Social Media Acts As Catalyst For Policy Change

Listen to the Story
All Things Considered
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February 6, 2012

Websites like Facebook and Twitter played an integral role in last year's Arab Spring uprisings. But they've also brought about change right here at home. Audie Cornish talks to Clay Shirky, a professor of New Media at New York University, about how social media has fueled policy changes from Bank of America to Verizon, and the most recent backlash with the breast cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

I'm Audie Cornish. And it's time now for All Tech Considered.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CORNISH: We've heard plenty about the role that Facebook in particular has played in the Arab Spring uprising. But over the past few months, social media have also led to a very different kind of revolution here at home. Late last year, a social media-fueled backlash forced Bank of America and Verizon both to drop proposed fees.

Last month, Congress found itself similarly flooded with complaints and reversed course on a pair of anti-piracy bills. Then, just last week, it was the breast cancer charity Susan G. Komen for the Cure backing off plans to cut funding to Planned Parenthood.

For more on what this all means, we're joined by Clay Shirky. He's a professor of New Media at New York University. Welcome, Clay.

CLAY SHIRKY: Thanks so much, Audie. Thank you for having me.

CORNISH: So, has social networking really made a difference or is it just ramping up the speed of things?

SHIRKY: Well, I think that's those questions can't be asked in that way because faster is different. If you look back at, say, what Kate Hanni did with the Flyers Bill of Rights starting in 2006. She was the woman who was stuck on the tarmac for eight hours. Got enraged, started a political movement using, in the day, blogs and email to pressure Congress to alter their policy. That took her years to do that.

And you look at the Susan Komen thing and that took something like 48 hours to get them to reverse course on a fairly major decision. So, faster protests are different kinds of protests, in part because our emotions work much faster than our intellect. So, when you get people angry quickly, things can spread like wildfire, in a way that they can't on slower media.

CORNISH: Looking at the issues that we brought up - the Komen issue, Verizon, Bank of America...

SHIRKY: BofA.

CORNISH: Yeah, even the SOPA protest about anti-piracy bills. These issues are so different, but what is the common denominator in how those protests caught on?

SHIRKY: The common denominator is that the public has a medium in which they can synchronize real action on an issue, without requiring everybody to be activists in some kind of general ongoing way.

CORNISH: Which can be huge. I mean, if you think about standing on the street and trying to gather signatures for a petition. That's a lot less fun than just asking someone to post such and such a thing on their Facebook.

SHIRKY: Yes. And so not meaning everyone to be a committed activist, to get them to decide to take action is a big change. On the other hand, people can get on to issues much quicker but they can get off of those issues much quicker, as well. So it's actually very different dynamic.

CORNISH: Yeah, and what's the danger of that? Because, you know, after Komen for the Cure, Super Bowl was the trending topic. It seems as though, you know, these waves can shift pretty rapidly.

SHIRKY: Right. No, absolutely. The danger is that the inconsistent attention that comes from a mass of people has some salutary effects for democracy, but also carry some risks. And the risks are that we get ourselves out of policies that are entirely subject to the whims of peoples' readily-activated emotions.

But the overall change has been that the people's potential oversight and involvement is simply at a higher level now, because everyone can see the outrage. And so, there's no way for the target of the outrage to sort of, say, well, some people are calling this against us but other people are calling us pro - it is almost not even. Right? When the Susan Komen thing happened there was no way for Komen to stage manage the issue.

CORNISH: That's Clay Shirkey. He's a professor of new media at New York University. Clay, thanks so much.

SHIRKY: Thank you, Audie. Thanks for having me.

Copyright © 2012 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio.

SOURCE:http://www.npr.org/2012/02/06/146482653/social-media-acts-as-catalyst-for-policy-change

Report: Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites

Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites

How American teens navigate the new world of "digital citizenship" The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released a new study on November 9, 2011 at FOSI’s Annual Conference. "Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites" was conducted by the Pew Internet Project in partnership with FOSI and with the support of Cable in the Classroom. This study explores the unique issues teens face when using social networking sites as well as where they turn to receive advice about how to use the Internet safely and responsibly.

Key Findings


1. Parents generally feel their children are safe online, but  parents with younger children are more confident in their child's online safety than are those with older children.Top concerns about online safety relate to children's personal safety online.

• Online safety is not a heightened concern among parents, with a large majority (86%) reporting they  feel  their child is very  (42%) or somewhat safe (44%) online. Just 13% of parents say their child is very  (3%) or somewhat (10%) unsafe when it comes to their online activities.
• The proportion of parents who feel  their child is "very safe" decreases the  older the  child and the  more time he or she  spends online. 
• Among parents of children ages  14  to 17,  38% feel their child is "very safe" online, versus 52% among parents of children ages  eight to 10  who feel the  same. 
• More than half of parents of light Internet users (one to four hours/ week) feel "very safe" when their child is online, while confidence is lower (33% feel  child is very  safe)  among parents of children who spend 10 or more hours online per  week.
• When it comes to various online activities, parents express the  most concern about their children viewing sexually explicit content online (70% veryI somewhat concerned). 
• Communicating with a stranger online (61%) and  visiting Web  sites  with inappropriate content (61%) also  are  top  concerns expressed by parents, all of which relate to the personal safety of a child.
• Parents say that they  rely  most on  the  news media (38%), other parents (37%), and schools or teachers (29%) for  information about how to best protect their child's safety and  privacy online.

2.  The  computer is the  most ubiquitous means by which children go online, but  half of parents say their children access the  Internet using other platforms.

• Nearly all (96%) parents surveyed say their children access the  Internet using  a computer, laptop, or netbook.
• Half  (51%) report their child uses  something in addition to a computer to access the  Internet, versus 49% whose children only  use  a computer. When it comes to children's usage  of other devices to go online, 30% use a gaming console, 27% use a handheld device, and  21% use a smartphone.
• Nearly half (48%) of parents say their children use  two or more technologies, and  24% of parents say their child uses  three or more devices to access the  Internet.

3.  Parents feel  more knowledgeable about ways  to protect their children's safety and  privacy online using a computer than they do when it comes to protecting their safety while using newer Internet platforms-such as smartphones and handheld devices.

• Three in four (75%) parents feel  very  (44%) or fairly  (31%) knowledgeable about protecting their child's online safety and  privacy when he or she is using  a computer.
• Among parents whose children use  a gaming console to go online (30% of sample), nearly two-thirds (62%) say they  are  very  or fairly  kuowledgeable about safety protections. More than half (55%) of parents whose children use a smartphone or handheld device (48% of sample) express this  level  ofkuowledge.

4. Virtually all parents (96%) say they have talked to their children about their behavior and  the  risks and  benefits of being online, and  just over half of parents say they have used parental controls for  Internet use.

• Fifty-three percent (53%) of parents say they  have  used  tools or software to monitor or limit their children's Internet activity. Use  of parental controls is higher among mothers (57%), parents under age 40  (59%), parents who completed postgraduate work/ degree (62%), and parents who use social media (60%).
• A large majority (87%) of parents report awareness of at least  one of the  five  types oflnternet parental controls tested.
• Parental controls offered by software companies such  as Norton, McAfee, and  Microsoft are most widely known, with two-thirds (67%) of parents reporting awareness. Programs and tools offered by Internet service providers such  as phone and  cable companies also  are  widely kuown (60% report awareness). Awareness of tools from search engines (48%), video game companies (37%), and  wireless phone companies (35%) is lower.

5.  Among parents who do  not use  parental controls, the  most oft-cited reason is that parents feel  they are unnecessary.

• Among parents who have not used  parental controls (46% of sample), most report online safety tools and  programs are  not necessary, either because of rules and  limits already in place (60%), and/ or because they  trust their child to be safe (30%). 
• Parents are  notably less likely  to attribute their non-use of these tools to a lack  of understanding of how to use  them (14%), a lack  of awareness of them (8%), concern about their cost  (7%), or doubts about their effectiveness (6%).
• Just 27% of parents say they  chose not to use  parental controls because of a lack  of knowledge or concern about cost. Mothers (35%), parents age  50  and  over (33%), parents with a high school education or less  (37%), and  yearly incomes at or below $50,000 (32%) are  more likely to say knowledge or cost prevented them from using  parental controls to monitor their child's Internet usage.

6.  Parents report monitoring their children's Internet usage in a variety of ways.

• Of all 18 methods queried, setting rules or limits for online behavior were most common. Large proportions of parents also report blocking or actively monitoring their child's Internet usage across various platforms.
• Nearly all (93%) parents say they  have  set  rules or limits in one or more ways  to safeguard their children online. Among parents whose children use the  computer to access the  Internet (96% of sample), 79% report setting rules that  allow their children to use the  computer only in common areas of the  house. Three in four (75%) parents set rules about the  amount of time children can  spend online or the  time of day children can  be online (74%).
• When asked about six specific parental control technologies, a large majority (65%) of parents report using  one or more of them, including those provided by computer operating systems, online search engines, Internet service providers, videogame consoles, or smartphones. 
• The use of parental control technologies for  smartphones is least  common. Among the  21% of parents whose children use  a smartphone to access the  Internet, one in four says they  have  set up smartphone parental controls, and  16% have  dov.Tiloaded a parental control app. One-third of parents whose children access the  Internet using  a video game console (30% of the  sample) have  used  parental controls on  this  platform.
• Large proportions (61%) of parents say they  have blocked their children's Internet usage, or actively monitored (i.e., reviewed browser history, read text messages, etc.) their Internet activity (85%) in one or more of the  ways queried.

7.  Few parents find it difficult to exercise guidance and  supervision over their children's use  of various media. Overall, movies are deemed easier to monitor than a child's online activity, particularly when the  child is accessing the Internet on a smartphone or handheld device.

• Parents are  most confident in their ability to monitor the  movies their children watch: 92% say it is very  or fairly  easy  to supervise this activity, while just  5%  say it is difficult. Difficulty is only  slightly greater when it comes to monitoring video games ( 11%), TV  programs (10%), amount of time spent online (14%), and Web  sites  the  child visits  using  a computer (17%).
• Alternately, parents whose children access the  Internet using  a smartphone or handheld device (48% of total sample) find  it more difficult to monitor their child's online activity on these devices: 63% of parents say that  it is easy  to monitor, while 33% of these parents find  it difficult to supervise their child's usage.
• The older the  child and  the  more time he/ she  spends online, the  less  likely  parents are  to think it is "very easy" to supervise their online activities.

Source: http://www.fosi.org/research/963-teens-kindness-and-cruelty-on-social-network-sites.html

Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites (PDF) Teens, Kindness and Cruelty on Social Network Sites, Executive Summary (PDF) For more information visit the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project at: http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Teens-and-social-media.aspx

Stats: Search Engine Optimization Beats Pay-Per-Click and Social Media

Infographic: Digital Marketer Views On SEO, PPC & Social Media

Nov 2, 2011 at 11:30am ET by Search Engine Land Infographics

What has the biggest impact on lead generation? A new survey finds SEO beats PPC and social media. But PPC still gets more budget for those targeting consumers over SEO, and lest anyone believe social media is a waste of time, more than half have closed leads from social media channels.

These stats, along with many more — such as which social media platforms see the most use by marketers (hint: Facebook) — were compiled into the infographic below by the people atWebmarketing123, which backed the survey:

Want the infographic for yourself? It was sent to us as part of press materials today about the survey, which we covered in this story: SEO Beats PPC & Social Media For Generating Leads, New Industry Report Says. It hasn’t yet been posted online for others to use, but it might appear later on the Webmarketing123 blog.

Source: http://searchengineland.com/infographic-digital-marketer-views-on-seo-ppc-social-media-99648

SEO is the number one source of leads for both B2C and B2B marketers, beating out both PPC and social media marketing in a recent survey of online marketers. But more of those surveyed say they plan to increase their social media marketing budgets in 2012, ahead of SEO and PPC.

The numbers come from the 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report, which was compiled by Webmarketing123, a California-based online marketing agency. The company surveyed more than 500 U.S. online marketers in August and September; about two-thirds of all respondents identified themselves as B2B marketers.

Whether B2B or B2C, both groups of marketers agree that SEO has the biggest impact on lead generation. 57 percent of B2B marketers credit SEO as their primary source of generating leads, while 41 percent of B2C marketers said the same thing.

Both types of marketers say that website traffic is the primary way they measure the success of online marketing efforts. Brand awareness was at the bottom of the list for measuring success by both B2B and B2C respondents.

The survey asked a number of budget-related questions, including one about which channels get the majority of the marketers’ budgets. On the B2B side, one-third indicated that SEO gets the majority of their budget. But on the B2C side, more than 42 percent say that PPC gets the majority of their budget — about double the number of B2C marketers who said SEO is their top budget allocation.

Overall, 60 percent of respondents said they plan to increase their budget for social media marketing in 2012; 53 percent plan to increase their budget for SEO and 40 percent will increase their PPC budget.

Those increases in social media spending are likely field by another couple statistics from the survey: 68 percent say they’ve generated leads from either Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, while 55 percent have closed deals from social media leads.

The 2011 State of Digital Marketing Report can be downloaded from Webmarketing123′s website. You’ll need to provide name and contact information. There’s also an associated infographic with many statistic, which we’ve posted separately here: Infographic: Digital Marketer Views On SEO, PPC & Social Media.