Are you looking for a Fall Getaway? Mollie Vandor from mashable.com shows how you can use social tools online to find great deals. This article outlines how to find a cheap ticket, watch for the best hotel rates and use cool applications to help save money while you’re out and about. A trip might be just what you need, and you don’t have to feel guilty when you utilize the social media sites to save money and ease your mind.
The sweet memories of summer vacation may be fading, but that doesn’t mean travel season has to end too. In fact, fall is one of the best times to travel, as many airlines and hotels try to fill their books between the summer and winter vacation seasons.
But, with rates falling faster than the autumn leaves, how do you hone in on the hottest deals happening right now? Fortunately, there are plenty of ways the social web can help you save money on major travel expenses like airfare, lodging and car rentals.
Read on for ways to save money on every leg of your trip, from take off to lights out.
At the Social Good Summit held by Mashable and 92Y, Chris Hughes commented on the upcoming release of a new social network designed for non-profit organizations. Hughes, co-founder of Facebook, explained his passion for Jumo, the new network. Jumo will primarily exist to build relationships between people and non-profit organizations. He believes that giving begins with a relationship, and Jumo will help create these connections. Watch this video to learn more about the innovative social network that Hughes has planned.
There has been an increasing emphasis on charitable giving in the online world in recent years. In 2009, people contributed $15 billion more online than the total given in 1997. Shane Snow, a New York City writer and entrepreneur, created this informative graphic which compares online and traditional offline donations and outlines who is giving and how they choose to give.
Young Internet users may believe that their parents do not have a place on Facebook or Twitter, but studies show that older adults have a different view. A new article shows that the number of social media users over the age of 55 has increased rapidly in the past year. Read this article by Samuel Axon at mashable.com to see the statistics.
A new study from Pew Internet found that between April 2009 and May 2010, social networking site usage grew 88% among Internet users aged 55-64, and the 65 and older group’s social networking presence grew 100% in the same time frame.
Young people still dominate social networks like Facebook, but their usage only grew 13% during the year covered by Pew’s report. Older adults are catching up at an incredibly quick pace, though it remains to be seen whether they will pass the youth or hit a ceiling at or below the usage levels reported by young adults and teens.
As culture changes, the English language evolves as well. A list of words that will be added to the Oxford Dictionary of English was recently released. One of these words is social media. The recognition of social media as an official word shows the influence that social media has. Read this article from buzz.yahoo.com about the new additions to the dictionary.
The English language is always evolving. There was a time when words like email, x-ray, and d’oh were nowhere to be found in the dictionary. Today, we add a few more new words to the tome.
The bookworms behind the Oxford Dictionary of English recently released a list of 2,000 or so new words that will be added to their next edition. Some of the new words include staycation, social media, and the groan-inducing chillax.
Perhaps the most high-profile word to be added to the dictionary this year is vuvuzela. For those who slept through the World Cup, a vuvuzela is the one-note plastic horn that creates a horrendously annoying sound. That’s our definition. The official one, via the Oxford Dictionary of English, is a bit more balanced: “A long plastic instrument, in the shape of a trumpet, which makes a very loud noise when you blow it and is popular with football fans in South Africa.”
Some other popular additions include frenemy (“a person with whom one is friendly despite a fundamental dislike or rivalry”), cheeseball (“lacking taste, style or originality”), and wardrobe malfunction (“an instance of a person accidentally exposing an intimate part of their body as result of an article of clothing slipping out of position.”)
Frankly, we’re amazed it took so long for that last term to make it into the dictionary. Thanks to Janet Jackson, Paris Hilton, and other Hollywood stars, it’s been part of the public discourse for years.
Social media marketers are continually improving the systems they use to monitor searches online. While these tools are becoming more complex and intelligent, they still need further development. This article by Jim Tobin at mashable.com shows why analytics are the key to improving these tools.
Jim Tobin is president of Ignite Social Media, where he works work with clients including Microsoft, Intel, Nature Made, The Body Shop, Disney and more implementing social media marketing strategies. He is also author of the book Social Media is a Cocktail Party: Why You Already Know the Rules of Social Media Marketing.
Over the last three years, social media marketers have gotten a lot more sophisticated about the programs they deploy and how they’re measured. Platforms like Sysomos and Radian6 have become vital tools in understanding not only the social universe in which you operate, but how that universe responds to your brand.
But for all of our success, we’re still largely entering strings of Boolean variables into a tool and waiting for matching results to roll in. Most tools have added sentiment processing, but that clearly has a long way to go. Beyond sentiment, however, how are these tools going to evolve to provide more insights? The answer is with math.
Watch this video regarding the humanitarian effort the social media industry has put into the world and the history of Jennings Social Media Marketing.
Social media has changed the world dramatically. We are seeing more and more charitable actions carried out by social media channels. For example, Twestival is the largest global grassroots social media fundraising initiative to date, raising over $1.2 million within 14 months for 137 nonprofits. Under disastrous circumstances, like the BP oil spill, Tumblr promoted awareness and raised funds by offering a new background color. When earthquakes devastated Haiti and Chile, Google Earth launched special search engines to help families find their loved ones.
Valerie Jennings, the founder and CEO of Jennings Social Media Marketing started the company in 2003. Coinciding with the US social and economic conditions, Jennings has been through the unstable post-9/11 period, inflation, recession as well as natural disasters. As a small business, Jennings not only survived, but thrived during the past 7 years. All of these made us reconsider our values and beliefs. Why are we here, what do our families mean to us and what are our life purposes?
Jennings Social Media Marketing is a full service company that utilizes the art of online storytelling with the science of measuring quantifiable results. Jennings creates comprehensive social media marketing and web advertising strategies from website design and development to viral videos. The company represents publicly traded to medium-sized businesses across the U.S. and overseas including technology, sports, sustainability, entertainment, travel, financial, health care and real estate.
Follow Valerie Jennings on Twitter @ValerieJennings
Like Jennings Social Media Marketing on Facebook here
Have you ever wondered how much time the average person spends on the Internet? And have you ever wondered how much of that time is spent on social networking sites? Thanks to Neilsen, we now know that people spend more time on sites such as Facebook and Twitter than on any other site. Here is an article from mashable.com by Adam Ostrow about the Neilsen findings.
Social networking now eats up twice as much of our online time as any other activity. According to new stats from Nielsen, sites like Facebook and Twitter now account for 22.7% of time spent on the web; the next closest activity is online games, which make up 10.2%.
The stats also show the degree to which social networking is displacing other forms of communication, with e-mail as a percentage of online time plunging from 11.5% to 8.3% from June 2009 to June 2010. Instant messaging also saw a significant drop in share, with a 15% decline from last year.
However, e-mail use on mobile is still on the rise – from 37.4% to 41.6% — presumably as users continue to migrate to smartphones from feature phones.
Social networking now eats up twice as much of our online time as any other activity. According to new stats from Nielsen, sites like Facebook and Twitter now account for 22.7% of time spent on the web; the next closest activity is online games, which make up 10.2%.
Valerie Jennings 
Cassie Stubs
Katie Stumpf
