According to the “Emerging Trends in B-to-B Social Marketing: Insights From the Field” report by BtoB Online, ninety-three per cent of B2B marketers now engage to some extend in social media marketing.

Other highlights of the report:

• Twenty-six percent of respondents cited LinkedIn as their most important social channel
• Seventy-two per cent of the respondents said they use LinkedIn as a way of connecting with audiences followed by Facebook (71%) and Twitter (67%).
• Branding is seen as the primary strength of Facebook, YouTube and blogging.
• The major strenght of customer communities are customer feedback and researching competitive intelligence.
• LinkedIn is cited for supporting lead generation, Twitter for traffic building and Facebook for events and product promotion.

A recent report by Netpop Research, “Social Animals: Who’s Sharing What and Why Online?”, found that women in their 30s are the most avid social media users making up over half of all social media activity. According to the report, those “heavy  users” engage in six or more social media activities.

Overall, 73 percent of internet users contribute online content using a variety of social media sites.

Men and women in the age 18 -34 are the most active social media users, with 82 percent contributing (women win with 78% vs. 66% men).

via Newsvetter

This is really funny because it’s often SO TRUE!

Some fascinating stats about social media usage in the UK:

Via Simply Zesty.

OK, this changes the whole definition of a digital native. I feel ancient now

As most of the social media enthusiasts know, on June 30 the world celebrated the Social Media Day (#smday). No, there is no ‘official’ Social Media Day (yet) but Mashable thought there should be one so they proclaimed June 30 a day to celebrate the social media revolution and encouraged people all over the world to organize #smday meetups.

I was invited to participate in the Social Media Day Meetup in Antwerpen organized by J-P De Clerck. I was excited to go and even more excited when I saw that a lot of my longtime Twitter buddies were planning on attending too (so lovely meeting you all IRL!)!

When I entered the room, the first thing that caught my eye were the gingerlove cups. Yeah, you might think I’m weird (not going to deny it) but I have a legitimate reason for that! And that is, when I go to my absolute favorite vegetarian lunch place in Antwerp, Lombardia, I always get their ginger tea or soy latte and it’s served in the very same cup I spotted at the #smday meetup. I had no idea what they were doing there but I enthusiastically started telling the guy standing next to me how I know these cups and how my favorite place serves that amazing ginger tea in them.  He was smiling and nodding and after I was finished with my sudden outburst of love for the place and their most amazing organic food, he thanked me for all the compliments. Yes, it turned out that I was talking to the owner of Lombardia (and one of the nicest people I’ve met!) – Alain Indria.

I was of course curious what he was doing at the #smday but as I quickly found out, Alain is a social media enthusiast like no other (he was almost as enthusiastic about social media as I was about his food!). But he is not the only person passionate about social media in his family, Alain runs all the social media activities for both Lombardia and Gingerlove together with his mom! Yes, now almost 70 and also the originator of Lombardia, Alain’s mom helps him manage the social media community!

*Since I really want to post a photo here (otherwise it looks like too much text and you might stop reading;)), I just want to show you how Alain’s passion for social media translated into the packaging of the gingerlove drink!

So why did Alain start using social media and how did he become so social media savvy? All thanks to his customers! It was the Lombardia loyal clients who got angry at Alain for not being on Facebook because they really wanted to connect with him and the restaurant online.  So he set up a Facebook account and that was when the social media world opened to him (what a great example of listing to the customers!). Right now, next to the Lombardia Facebook account, Alains runs the Gingerlove Facebook page, @LombardiaMenu and @gingerlovedrink on Twitter, YouTube channel and Flickr. He says that the best thing about being on social media is the appreciation from the customers, especially the Belgian ones, who as Alain says, are quite shy when it comes to giving compliments when they are in the restaurant. On social networks though, they show great appreciation and flood Alain with compliments – that’s something he has never experienced before!

I could write another 5 pages about how delicious food @Lombardia is and talk about the gingerlove drink being SUPER DUPER YUMMY (I am drinking one right now) but I suggest you visit the restaurant yourself when you are in Antwerp (Lombardenvest 78a)! And in case you don’t trust my taste , the biggest fans of Lombardia are Moby, Sting and Sigur Ros! And the Gingerlove drink is the official hot beverage at the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai!

All in all, as I always say, no matter whether it’s food or social media, where there is passion, there is success. And Alain is a great example of that!

Cheers!

My colleagues in the Porter Novelli Atlanta office created a video that gives great insights on women and social media in the U.S.:

This is a small reminder of our tweet up that will take place on Wednesday, June 23!

During the teet up you will meet with the Porter Novelli digital experts including:

Gary Stockman, Porter Novelli CEO
John Havens , VP, Social Media at Porter Novelli and the author of the book, Tactical Transparency: How Leaders Can Leverage Social Media To Maximize Value and Build Their Brand
Danny Devriendt, Director Digital Europe

and discuss social media in a lovely atmosphere – with snacks and bubbles!

The tweet up will start at 4:45 pm and last till 6.30!

Location:
Porter Novelli Office
Louis Mettewielaan 272
1080 Brussels

Tweet me @princess_misia or @pnbr5 if you wanna join!

I especially like this infographic because it illustrates the message I tried to convey through my guest blog post on CowBell blog – social media is all about DIALOGUE and HONESTY!

I think the infograpic should be called ‘How a business SHOULD change in the age of Social Media’. The left column of the infographic would represent the DON’Ts while the right the DOs. As you can see, I doodled a little over the infographic to make my point, for the clean version visit Visual Loop.