TA McCann from Gist.com spoke at the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals (AA-ISP) Seattle Chapter meeting, and among a number of really great insights he shared his 5-3-2 rule for social media content.  It’s fairly simple – out of 10 Tweets or LinkedIn updates or similar:
•     Five should be content from others, relevant to your audience
•   Three should be content from you, relevant to your audience (and not directly selling your products)
•   Two should be personal, something non-work related to help humanize yourself and/or your brand

Even if you don’t follow this to a tee, the gist (no pun intended) is simple:
•    Focus on your audience more than yourself
•    Humanize your voice, even if it’s from a branded social channel vs. an individual
Good advice.

by Matt Heinz

More at http://www.soldlab.com/news/2012/02/02/The-5-3-2-rule-for-social-media-content/

  Success in social media depends on a boatload of factors… one of which is the spreadability of your content. So, make like peanut butter and reach more of your ideal audiences by following the three principles below:

Aim for your network’s network

First principle to consider when it comes to spreadability: Would YOU share the article / update you just wrote with YOUR friends (or tech savvy grandma Agnes)? Does it bring any value to your followers / readers or are you just going through the motions? Creating something worth sharing takes time, insight and effort. To do this successfully, a brand must understand who they are, what they stand for and who they connect with. Your tone and style of writing will naturally vibe with a certain type of audience. Are you comfortable with who your readers / followers are? Are you writing for the RIGHT audience?

Read more at http://www.soldlab.com/news/2012/01/17/Peanut-Butter-Manifesto:-Are-you-spreadable?/

Microsoft came very close to winning the title for the most action via hashtag: #CES. Microsoft's press conference took the attention by grabbing the most tweets at any given moment throughout the event.

The interesting thing is that most of the people tweeting during the event tweeted about why the heck does Microsoft have an army of tweeters supporting them at their press conference.  I guess that is what it's come to... Stack on the social media Tweet army.

As most of you know, there are rumors surrounding a potential Facebook IPO. While they are probably not going to take that path, we've explored the facts and figures of a potential Facebook IPO. This infogrphic is brought to you by http://accountingdegreeonline.net

On Dec 13, 2011 AddThis, a sharing platform, and Clearspring, a social data aggregator, presented the sharing trends of 2011. AddThis is used by more than 11 million sites, which gives it aggregate sharing data for more than 1.2 billion users.
Here is some data according to AddThis Analytics:

• Facebook accounts for 52.1% of sharing.
• Twitter was up 577% this year and accounts for 13.5% of sharing.
• Tumblr sharing has grown over 1299.5%, and is accelerating.
• Digg and MySpace didn't do so well in 2011. Their sharing rates continued to fall (47.7% decline for Digg and 56.9% decline for MySpace.)

Check more bits of statistics at http://www.soldlab.com/content/readMore1/infobox/featured_news/template/default/active_id/5

The number-one pushback I hear from companies who want to better leverage social media but aren’t, is that they don’t have time. More specifically, they don’t have someone who can devote enough time each day to publishing, curating and engaging prospective customers, partners and influencers on the social web.

This isn’t a problem of bandwidth as much as it is about process. If you have a system to follow, every day, that effectively translates the tasks required for effective social engagement into a checklist, it’s far easier to not only find the time, but get the work done in a fraction of what you think it would take.

Below is a sample of a daily social media “punch list.” There are more explicit tactics behind some of these steps, but it’s a good start for separating the work required into easy-to-execute buckets.

Read more and see stats at http://www.soldlab.com/news/2011/12/15/How-to-manage-social-media-without-a-social-media-manager/

Do you find yourself constantly checking your smart phone even though you are on vacation? Historically, the holidays are times when we disconnect from work and spend quality time with our family and friends. However, with the growth of mobile technology, we are hyper-connected, so staying on top of what’s happening at work is easier than ever. According to the recent data by Socialcast, the number of Americans staying connected to work during the holidays is on the rise due to the use of mobile devices.

Read more at http://www.soldlab.com/content/readMore1/infobox/featured_news/template/default/active_id/5

Brands that include photos and calls to action see higher engagement rates with those posts.

Companies on Facebook and other social sites are always trying to determine what to post to get fans engaged. While each brand is different, and its fans will respond to different things, there are some common threads that companies can keep in mind when planning social media posts and status updates.

Read more at www.soldlab.com/content/readMore

GageIn, the best place to discover and share relevant business information, today announced the commercial launch of its content platform, adding integration with popular CRM and social business applications, such as Salesforce Chatter, aggregation of hyper-targeted local news and information, ability to seamlessly import contacts and companies from LinkedIn and Salesforce.com, new and advanced search agents, and enterprise-grade administration features. The company additionally announced that it has raised a second round of angel funding to expand marketing, sales, and research and development as it continues to expand its reach within the enterprise.