Facebook just reported that it’s surpassed 500 million members. With that kind of proliferation we think its time for those on the fence to take the plunge and start leveraging social media marketing.

Here’s what the New York Times had to say:

Facebook Says Membership Has Reached 500 Million

Facebook, the social network created in the dormitories of Harvard six years ago, said on Wednesday that it now had 500 million members.

The company has grown at a meteoric pace, doubling in size from a year ago and pushing international competitors aside.

Each month, Facebook says, more than 30 billion photographs, links to Web sites and news articles are shared through the site, and its members spend roughly 700 billion minutes there.

“This is an important milestone for all of you who have helped spread Facebook around the world,” Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s 26-year-old chief executive, said in a company blog post.

Facebook’s dizzying rise has not been without some stumbles. Most recently, the company was the focus of intense scrutiny over changes to its site that encouraged members to make more information about themselves accessible to anyone on the Internet.

A recent survey by the American Customer Satisfaction Index showed that user satisfaction with Facebook stood at 64 on a 100-point scale, which placed it in the bottom 5 percent of the companies covered in the index.

Facebook’s popularity has also spurred competition from the likes of Google, which views the billions of links and hours spent on the site each month as a threat to its business.

But if anything, the site’s steady growth in spite of its setbacks only validates the company’s approach, said Ray Valdes, an analyst at the research firm Gartner.

Facebook has been aggressive in pushing users “to the edge of their comfort zone,” Mr. Valdes said. “But Facebook has proven that it can weather those challenges and still grow.”

Mr. Valdes, who estimates that Facebook is adding 50 million new members each month, attributed the company’s ascension to its continuous effort to change and improve the service. “That keeps it bubbling away,” he said.

If you’d like to discuss how Facebook and other social sites can increase exposure give us a call. To see how Atomicdust is using Facebook head over to facebook.com/Atomicdust

MTV has announced that Danielle Hohmeier, social media expert at Atomicdust, has been selected as one of the 20 finalists in MTV’s “Follow Me: The Search for the First MTV T.J.”

MTV used Twitter and Facebook to find applicants for a new job opportunity to serve as the first-ever MTV TJ ‘Twitter Jockey.‘  The winner will be hired to become a brand-new face and voice for MTV across social media platforms, including MTV.com, to expand the two-way dialog between MTV and its global audience.

Danielle will compete against 20 other social media enthusiasts in various Twitter challenges. The contest will culminate with a live televised finale on August 8, where the MTV viewing audience will choose the winning candidate and offer them his or her dream job.

According to MTV, “The newly created position expands upon MTV’s history of giving its audience a global platform to express themselves. MTV uses social media to make it easier for its fans to engage around loud programming moments—everything from Twitter visualizations for award shows and chat widgets for popular series like The Jersey Shore, to an active Twitter and Facebook following.”
“We are anxious and excited that Danielle was selected,” said James Dixson, Atomicdust Principal and CMO, “We’ll miss her when she wins, but the entire staff and I will tweet relentlessly to help her win MTV’s challenges.”

Danielle has held position of Social Media Expert at Atomicdust since November of 2009. Her efforts to improve Atomicdust’s reach have resulted in 758 Twitter followers and over 700 tweets. “Our web traffic has tripled since Danielle started,” said Mike Spakowski, Creative Director, “She adds a personal and conversational tone to @atomicdust and coaches our clients on their social campaigns.”

Ok, maybe I’m exaggerating. Facebook is not taking over the world (yet), but it is taking over the internet with their recent changes.

I’m not a Fan anymore…

In fact, nowadays, no one is. This was the first of the big Facebook changes. People are no longer ‘fans’ of your Facebook Page, but instead they ‘like’ it.

A lot of people are arguing that this devalues the relationship between the user and the Page. Really? Because that single click it took to become a fan carries so much more weight than the single click it takes to ‘like’ the page?

I don’t think so. At the Social Fresh conference a few weeks back, I was reminded that you can’t overvalue that one click. The emphasis should be on user engagement and loyalty- and that doesn’t change just because you change what you call the people who support your page.

Facebook is following you…. Everywhere

Facebook’s change from ‘fanning’ a page to ‘liking’ it made a whole lot more sense once they rolled out Open Graph at the F8 Developer Conference. Now, you can pretty much ‘like’ anything on the Internet. It started off with just a few partnered websites- CNN, Pandora, Levi’s, to name a few- but has quickly spread across the internet (all it takes to add the social plugins to your site is some simple coding).

What does this mean, exactly?

It means that your Facebook identity is following you everywhere. When you visit a site that has one of Facebook’s plugins, you will see a Like button that you can click to alert all of your Facebook friends via their newsfeeds that you like the page. But it gets way more in depth than that. Websites can also opt for more robust plugins that will show you how many of your friends like that page or even recommend other pages of the site you might like based on where your friends are.

Think information like that doesn’t matter? Well, I think you’re wrong. And so do 68% of Facebook users. According to a survey by market research and consulting firm Morpace, that‘s the percentage of consumers who say a positive referral from a Facebook friend makes them more likely to buy a specific product or visit a certain retailer.

“Google just found its nemesis” -Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus

Facebook’s recent developments are an effort ‘to make the web a more social place.’ Think about it: Now you aren’t just visiting a website. You are seeing which of your friends already like it and you are able to tell them that you like it too (all without leaving the confines of you desk… or putting down your cell phone).

As Charlie Witkowski of Social Studies Blog puts it, Facebook is paving the way for the web to move from an information-based platform to a social platform. Where Google’s emphasis is search, the emphasis with Facebook is interaction. Ian Schafer, CEO of Deep Focus, points out, “Instead of targeting people based on their click behavior or search behavior, it’s targeting based on their relationship to people and to brands and content.”

So, is Google in trouble?

I don’t think so. Sure, Facebook recently beat out the web giant as the most visited site in the U.S. and its user base is reaching a staggering 500 million users worldwide, but I think this just represents a shift in the way people are using the internet. Even the great Google has made efforts to add social components to their ever-expanding empire with Google Buzz.

‘Social media’ is a trendy topic for a reason.

People need to be social (I’m not making this up. It’s a tier in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs). Facebook and other sites with social networking aspects have flourished as people try to fulfill this need. Social media is working because people want that sense of community and belonging, even when it comes through the internet and not face-to-face interactions.

Danielle Hohmeier writes about marketing and design in the digital world for Atomicdust, with a focus on marketing convergence and social media.

If you want to sing out sing out

Danielle helps us find our online voice.

A real, genuine voice is, in my opinion, the most important aspect of social media. People want real conversations, real interactions. The Internet used to be filled with silly screen names and avatars of puppies and kittens, but nowadays, social networking sites are “helping to put the “human” back in businesses again.”

Read the full article →

That’s right, you can add a pickle to the list of social media-made celebrities.

It didn’t dance, sing, or bite someone’s finger. All the pickle did was get more fans than the band Nickelback on Facebook.

The page ‘Can this pickle get more fans than Nickleback?’ launched on February 3, 2010, and in just sixteen days, it met its goal, surpassing Nickelback’s fan page. Right now, the page has more than 1.5 million fans.

Read the entire article at Atomicdust →

Every one (and their mother) seems to be jumping on the social media bandwagon joining sites like Facebook and Twitter.

RJ Metrics recently released data on Twitter Users and Engagement, and, at first glance, the news isn’t very good. There were two big issues that RJ Metrics discovered in their research.

1. The number of new users is down 20% from July 2009.
2. Many of the accounts are inactive.

The second of those two points is definitely worse. You’re encouraged to get on Twitter because you can reach millions of people, right? Well, what if they aren’t listening? According to RJ Metrics, about 25% of Twitter accounts have no followers and about 40% have never even sent a single tweet. In December 2009, Twitter hit an all time low, with only 17% of registered users sending a tweet.

Should we jump ship? Is Twitter going down?

Not quite.
Despite these harrowing statistics, it is important to remember that Twitter ended 2009 with more than 75 million user accounts. And even though new registration is down, the site is still seeing around 6.2 million new users every month. That’s a new Twitter account every 2-3 seconds.

And there is even more encouraging news. RJ Metrics also discovered that Twitter users become more active over time. They found users that keep tweeting after the first week tend to become loyal, engaged users. RJ Metrics reports that the active Twitter user base is around 20% of the total users.

‘Only 20%?!’

So what? That still leaves around 15 million highly active tweeters. That still leaves around 15 million users that signed up for Twitter, thought it was cool and came back.

I think that Scott Bishop at Real Time Marketer said it best, “… The folks who do come back increase their usage over time.  That means that those who come back find value in the network and are there to stay.  This is great news for a marketer or user that can create value.  But like everything with social media marketing, it’s up to you to create value.”

While the active user count may be down, this just means you are reaching a more engaged audience.

(And talk about engaged. Twitter just announced on its blog that the company is seeing 50 million posts per day. That’s 600 tweets per second.)

Audiences want to be engaged.

Most people give up on Twitter because they don’t see any value in it. Maybe it’s time you give them what they’re looking for. If you provide value in the experience, you can expect to get some value of your own in return.

Danielle Hohmeier writes about marketing and design in the digital world for Atomicdust, with a focus on marketing convergence and social media.

Google jumped on the social networking bandwagon this week with the launch of Google Buzz, and even though it has only been three days, everyone is already taking sides.

(And by ‘everyone,’ I mean early adopters with Gmail accounts. And by ‘sides,’ I mean sentiments ranging between ‘we’ll see’ and ‘epic fail’).

Where do I fall in that range? Not sure yet. But here are some of my first impressions of Google Buzz:

It’s just that… It’s just buzz.

Remember when Wave and Voice came out and everyone was talking about it? What ever happened to those? I guess people like them. I guess people still use them. But beyond the initial launch, it doesn’t seem like they made much of an impression. Is Buzz headed down that same path?

Wednesday morning, when I tried to sign on to my GMail, I was prompted with the option to use Google Buzz. After having to beg others for invites to Wave and Voice, I was not about to miss the boat on this too. Did I really need this application? No, not at all. I just wanted to see what all the ‘buzz’ was about (get it?!).

Bottom line, I just didn’t want to be left out of the #buzz conversation on Twitter.

It should be necessary for me, but it’s not.

I literally can’t get through a day without using some sort of Google application.
I use Google Search, Google Maps, GMail, Blogger, GChat and Google Reader. Oh, and my HTC Droid is linked to Google too.

So using Buzz should be natural for me, right? It should be an easy way to combine most of these applications I already use, right? Eh, not really. So far, it just seems like another thing to check.

It’s not Facebook.

Notice all the networks you can connect to on Buzz. Which one is missing? I’m not going to try to analyze Google’s strategy, but if you ask me, they are trying to steal the social networking market away from Facebook.

Newsflash: not gonna happen. Facebook has over 250 million users. That means over 250 million people think of Facebook when they think of connecting and sharing content online. You can’t change that by coming up with an application that is a little different. You can’t try to imitate it. The only way Buzz will work is if it can prove it’s different from Facebook, and not just a competitor.

It’s just more clutter.

Maybe it’s just me, but with accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Social Media Club of Saint Louis, and countless others, I’m starting to see a little too much overlap. If I see your status update on Facebook, do I need to see it on Twitter too? If I read your blog post on my Google Reader, do I need to scroll though it again on Buzz? I understand linking your profiles. I understand cross promotion on different platforms. I’m just wondering when enough is enough.

It’s moving too fast (or at least marketers want it to).

This week, pretty much every business/marketing/advertising website put out articles telling you how you can leverage the power of Google Buzz for your business.

Slow down, people.

Facebook launched in 2004. Twitter launched in 2006. And marketers are just now starting to use them. I’m all for embracing new media, but you have to let that new media grow on its own first.
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Maybe I’m being too pessimistic. Maybe in a year or so, someone will dig up this post online, laugh, and say, ‘What a fool she was?!’

But I’m not writing Google Buzz off just yet. I’m giving it a chance and maybe (hopefully), I’ll be able to come back with a long list of things I love about it. And the big question marketers are wondering is how Google Buzz is going to impact business. Only time will tell.