Social Media Fun Facts 2013

I frequently give presentations on social media marketing, social recruiting, and Social Media Superstars. During my research, I come across all sorts of interesting facts and statistics. This week, as I prepare for a presentation with HR.com's Quality of Hire event, I thought I'd share a few of the more surprising with you. 

The most popular hashtag on Instagram is #love, followed by #instagood, #me, and #cute. (ReadWrite)

San Francisco’s AT&T Park, once the most photographed location on Instagram, is now fifth. The #1 slot is now filled by Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok. #2 is in the same city – it’s Siam Paragon Shopping Mall. (Mashable)

The most retweeted tweet of all time is a photo of Barack and Michelle Obama, tweeted by the President after winning re-election. It has more than 810,000 retweets. (Twitter)

The most-followed person on Google Plus is Lady Gaga, followed by Britney Spears and Google CEO Larry Page. 69% of Google Plus users are male. (Social Statistics)

Still the champion after more than a year, Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta is the most visited location on Foursquare, with more than one million check-ins. (Foursquare)

Justin Bieber’s video for his song “Baby” is no longer the most popular YouTube video of all time. Korean pop sensation Psy now has that honor; his “Gagnam Style” video has around 1.5 million views. (The Daily Beast)

25% of all employee profile views on LinkedIn are by co-workers. 14% of LinkedIn members have no college degree. (LinkedIn)

The most repinned image on Pinterest is a photo of “garlic cheesy bread,” repinned more than 102,000 times. Twelve of the top 20 most repinned images are photos of food; none of the top 20 shows a human or animal face. (Repinly)

The Facebook careers page with the most “likes” is Verizon, with 165,489. The Twitter careers profile with the most followers is Park Place, a group of luxury car dealerships in Dallas: @ParkPlaceCareer has 69,264 followers. (Social Recruitment Monitor)

Besides Facebook itself, the most popular brands on Facebook are YouTube, Coca-Cola, MTV, and Disney. (Fan Page List).

Want to learn more about these and other social media sites, and how Brandemix can use them to help your consumer branding or employer branding campaigns? Contact me.

Brandemix Bonus Reel: Gamification for Recruiting

Director of Interactive Branding Jason Ginsburg explains what gamification is and how HR professionals can use it for recruiting, onboarding, training, and employee referral programs.

Register for Jason's FREE webinar, Socialize Your Talent Strategy, presented Monday, April 29, at HR.com.

Game On for Employee Gamification

While speaking at a recent HR conference in Vegas, I had occasion to meet Jane McGonigal, game designer, speaker, author, and probably the world’s biggest advocate for gamification, the idea of adding game incentives like points and prizes to non-game activities.  

While within the HR community gamification is still catching on (I find a number of my clients don’t even know recognize the word) gaming, in all forms, is incredibly popular. When the latest Call of Duty video game was released in November, one in four workers called in sick. Look at it from a productivity standpoint: The amount of hours it took to create all of Wikipedia’s content in 12 years…is spent every three weeks playing Angry Birds. 

During Jane's keynote speech, she cited the 2012 Gallup study that found that 71% of American employees aren’t fully engaged in their work, making it “impossible to innovate” and costing $30 billion in lost productivity annually. 

Infographic courtesy of Gigya

It's no surprise that she believes gamification can help. Evidently she's not alone. A study by gamification company Gigya showed that gamification increases website engagement by 29%, website commenting by 13%, and social media sharing by 22%. Here are some recent employee gamification success stories.

Motivating employees

Risk Management Services recently turned an internal re-branding into a trading card game. “Another email or intranet page just wasn’t going to get employees on board,” Vice President of Talent Acquisition and Employee Engagement Amelia Merrill told IABC. “This contest was fun and different from anything we have ever done.” Merrill said the initiative was a “smashing success.”

Orientation and onboarding

Recruitment marketing agency Maximum recently won a Creative Excellence Award for Best Interactive Media for its Deloitte China Virtual Tour campaign. Maximum virtually mapped Deloitte’s offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, allowing job-seekers to explore every department – and get a firsthand look at what working at Deloitte China is really like. More than 20,000 job-seekers took part in the tour’s game feature, Green Dot Mission, and shared their scores on China’s most popular social networks.

Health and wellness

Aetna recently partnered with social media company Mindbloom to create an enhanced version of Mindbloom’s Life Game, an online social game for personal wellness. Players grow an on-screen tree by attaining personal goals, ranging from health to relationships to finances. According to Forbes, activities include “substituting water for soda, taking the stairs to the office, cleaning your room each day, or simply thanking a friend.” Players earn virtual rewards while making progress in their real lives.

Employee referrals

Just last month, Herd Wisdom launched Most Wanted, a mobile app that gamifies the employee referral process. How? “Every action – from choosing an avatar to sharing a job posting – earns points and get participants in the running to win giveaways from Herd Wisdom,” the company says. The game offers “instant gratification,” since employees can earn points and prizes before they refer anyone, and features funny animated scenes to keep them engaged. Mobile apps like Most Wanted turn social sharing and mobile gaming, which just about everyone likes, into a talent pipeline for any company.

Are you ready to gamify your careers site, social recruiting channels, employee referral program, or other HR initiatives? Contact Brandemix and it’s game on.

Video: Surprising Social Media Recruiting Statistics

Think social media recruiting is only hype? Jason Ginsburg explains just how popular - and effective -  it really is.

No headcount for social recruiting? How to get the funds you need.

It appears that Social Recruiting is here to stay. The social recruiting site options are growing in number (I pity the person managing a global social recruiting campaign) and the expectations for a great candidate experience are mounting.

From Life on Demand ROI Research

While most of the, surveys, statistics and comments I’ve read from Jobvite, CareerXroads and ERE  (there are already 18 articles this year with the tag social recruiting) seem to indicate that the jury is still out on its effectiveness, one thing’s for sure. To do it well takes a passion, a strategy and a lot of time. And time is a commodity.

There are many lucky companies who have dedicated support people to manage the process, but most of the corporate recruiters in my network either squeeze it in among other tasks, or assign it to their latest intern. In either of those two cases, strategy may fall to the wayside.

As you plan budgets and headcounts, here are two very compelling arguments that you might be able to present to your CFO to get some dollars to support your social efforts.

1. Reputation Management.

 Employee referrals are hotter than ever from the traditional internal programs, to the latest social integration apps and options. Last month Glassdoor published a report on the highest rated CEO’s for 2013. Show your CEO and tell her (him) that next year you want her (him) to be on it. Do a Twitter search for “my boss is a jerk” and let them know that the conversations are happening and you want in. Is it really a good idea to leave it to an intern?

2. A New Way to Figure out SR-ROI.

There’s a new site called The Social Recruitment Monitor that will keep track of your share of social voice through the SRM Index. It comes from a company called Maximum, a recruitment marketing agency doing great things around the globe.

Though the site is still in beta, it uses advanced digital technologies to track data for the major social networks, and refreshes it weekly to keep figures up to date.

The SRM Index is formulated from a mix of 3 measurable parameters : popularity (number of subscribers) , activity (frequency of content) and interactivity (social engagement.) Once you sign up (it’s free), it will allow you to benchmark your performance against other employers in a number of specific areas, and to compare employers with one other.

The SRM Index will allow you to measure your SRM Index over time, and against your competition for talent, and provide real proof of the impact of your new social recruitment star.

So good luck and let me know how you did.

Brandemix Bonus Reel: Authentic Employer Branding

How can a company offer an authentic employer brand even during negative publicity? Director of Interactive Branding Jason Ginsburg shows how it's done.

How to Avoid the 3 Biggest Employer Branding Pitfalls

I travel around the country giving presentations on employer branding and building and promoting an employer value proposition. I usually highlight employer brand success stories. But as major brands like Goldman Sachs and Zynga stumble into PR crises, I thought it might be useful to help your company avoid the most common employer branding mistakes.

Don’t be inauthentic

Your employer brand embodies your employees, your culture, your vision, and your values; these are impossible to fake. So if you’re a fast-paced company with an entrepreneurial culture, don’t market yourself as a laid-back environment with unlimited vacation days.

I remember looking at the careers site for BP several months after the 2010 oil spill and being shocked to see that it looked the same as before the spill. Surely the eco-minded Generation Y or Gulf Coast residents affected by the disaster might hesitate joining the company afterwards? But there was only one acknowledgement of the situation – a tiny text link on the sidebar that asked “Why is it a good time to join BP?” Why indeed?

BP Careers, November 2010

Don’t get lost in the crowd

The are dozens of salty snacks on the market, so how does Doritos stand out? By having an attitude: Coming in crazy flavors with cool names and bright packaging. In the same way, your employer brand has to be distinctive. Avoid bland themes like “Grow your career with us” or “We offer work-life balance.” Almost any job can become a career and almost every job lets its employees go home at night.

Don’t get stuck in the facts

So many careers websites begin with, “Company X was founded in 1950 and now operates out of 75 offices in 12 countries.” Does that year mean the company is old-fashioned? Do those 12 countries mean employees get to see the world? Do the 75 offices mean employees can be transferred against their will?

Stand-alone facts like those can be both boring and confusing, a deadly combination for anyone looking to top motivate talent. Remember, you’re trying to create an emotional connection, so facts and numbers can only get you so far. Instead, talk about how your company helps people’s lives. Let employees share their stories. Show your workplace. Highlight employee events, rewards, volunteer work. Never be boring.

Be authentic and differentiated, and add an interesting and emotional component to your recruitment messaging.  If you can’t always leave them laughing, at least leave them hungry to learn more.

Let me know If you’d like to learn more – on LinkedIn, on Twitter, or right here in the comments.

Three Chances to See "Socialize Your Talent Strategy" This Month

Click here to register for the SHRM 2013 Talent Management Conference.

Click here to register for SocialHRCamp New York.

Click here to register for the Quality of Hire virtual conference on HR.com.

Thanks to my Curators and Creators - From Your #1 LinkedIn Voyeur

Last summer, Pew Internet Research reported that 46% of adult internet users were Creators; that is, they have shared photos and videos that they've created. 41% are Curators; they've reposted, retweeted or repackaged information that they've found online. 32% are Creators/Curators.

I presume it also implies that 54% are Internet Voyeurs -- neither posters nor creators. And while I don't fall into that category (I'm in the 32% batch), I have been getting a tremendous amount of inspiration from my LinkedIn network of generous professional friends, many of whom I've never actually met or spoken with. 

Today I want to thank:

Kate Billing

We've never met but share a passion for branding and bagels. Your updates  about leadership, happiness, and inspiration are always uplifting and I'm sure you are too. Also loved this great video about putting purpose into marketing (imagine that?).  I promise to get together on my next trip to New Zealand.

Debbie Laskey

According to my inbox, we're actually celebrating a 2-year anniversary of connecting.  Your updates are tailor-made for me. From the hottest trends in digital marketing to matching a consumer brand with a consumer experience, I'm always clicking, reading, and agreeing. Please keep it up.

And thanks to Michelle Sybert for this image!

Davar Azarbeygui
You made my morning with your share of TBWA Transforms Briefs into Art, from Branding Magazine. Inspiration is everywhere and today you brought me mine.

Pat Wadors

Finally, someone I actually know. Making The Most Of Your "Aha!" Moment was a fun read. I can only hope I have more of them because those gamma activities are the foundation of Brandemix's creative currency.

A friend recently wrote that thinking doesn't start when you arrive at the office and end when you go home. It starts when you wake up and continues when you read the news, when you look around, when you read books and blogs. It doesn't even stop when you go to bed. You dream your job. That's how you become great.

So thanks for all my #1 LinkedIn connections for helping me be great every day.