Social media changed the nature of marketing. Facebook, MySpace and YouTube went from tiny start-ups to form a new centre of gravity in people's web experience. Now social media is on every marketer's agenda it's critical to get it right.

That's why readers asked us to collate the most interesting research from the last year or so into one special edition of Digital Intelligence.

We've added in a couple of the case studies we use when we coach teams on digital strategies for getting social media right.

• Social media forum for comments and questions
• Social media case studies

Our conclusion? This is still only the starting point: the role of social media and online social networks will reshape communication. Think Google c1999 and you're on the right track.

Enjoy the research, follow the links, share your views and mail me back if there are topics you'd like us to research for next month's edition.

Best from all @ Digital


Danny Meadows-Klue
Founder and Chief Executive
Digital Strategy Consulting

European social networking sites

Source: comScore
comScore: http://www.comscore.com

British teenagers spend 31 hours per week online
10 February 2009 - Two new studies reveal the online habits of the current generation of post-internet teenagers. More...

Social network audience reaches 80m in US
9 February 2009 - eMarketer estimates that 80m web users (41% of the US internet population) visit social network websites at least once each month - an annual increase of 11%. More...

Social networking audiences in the US

Source: eMarketer http://www.emarketer.com

Facebook swells to over 150m users
9 January 2009 - Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that Facebook now has over 150m members, with nearly half logging on each day. More...

MySpace to generate revenues from copyrighted content
6 November 2008 - MySpace in implementing a novel way of generating ad revenues and resolving copyright issues with regards to copyrighted video clips uploaded by users. More...

Over 14m UK internet users visited a blog during August
31 October 2008 - New research from comScore has found that 14.5m people in the UK visited at least one blog in August. More...

Leading blogging platforms: UK

Leading individual blogs: UK

Twitter: rapid growth in an emerging channel
22 October 2008 - The latest data from the US digital audience market flags up micro-blogging technology Twitter as being the hottest of the toolkits in terms of growth. More...

YouTube finds new ways to bring in the money
8 October 2008 - Two significant moves from YouTube this month point at how Google plan to effectively monetise the online video giant. More...

MySpace Music service goes live
25 September 2008 - MySpace has launched its new MySpace Music service with content from Sony BMG, EMI, Warner and Universal. More...

78% of UK web users viewed online videos in June 2008
17 September 2008 - New figures from comScore Video Metrix show that over 27.4m UK internet users (or 78% of the UK's internet population) watched 3.2bn videos during June. More...

Top online video sites: UK (ranked by videos viewed June 2008)

Top online video sites: UK (ranked by total unique viewers June 2008)

User generated content to generate mobile revenues of $7bn
16 September 2008 - New research from Juniper Research has predicts that total revenues from mobile user generated content (UGC) will reach over $7.3bn (£4.1bn) in 2013 from $1.1bn (£617.5m) in 2008. More...

Social media: growth continues
15 August 2008 - This summer's news from MySpace confirmed there's no slowdown in sight to the growing desire for people to build their own web pages and footprints online. More...

Microsoft in search and ad deal with Facebook
24 July 2008 - Microsoft has agreed a new deal with Facebook under which it will integrate its Live Search product and serve paid search ads on the social networking site. More...

Facebook takes 45% of all UK social networking traffic
23 July 2008 - New figures from Hitwise show that traffic to Facebook in the UK has grown 188% in the last year. More...

Top 10 social networking sites: UK

Top 5 social networking websites ranked by market share of US internet visits

Facebook overtakes MySpace
23 June 2008 - Facebook has surpassed MySpace in terms of global unique users according to new data published by ComScore. More...

44% of mobile Brits on social networks
21 May 2008 - Nielsen Mobile has found that 44% of UK mobile phone subscribers are members of online social networks. More...

Social networks accessed on mobiles: UK

Most Popular UK Mobile Social Networking-related Activities

Vodafone shops for mobile social network service
19 May 2008 - Vodafone has bought social networking and online management service ZYB for £25m. More...

Mobile Web 2.0 services to generate $22.4bn by 2013
15 May 2008 - A study from Juniper Research predicts that global Mobile Web 2.0 services (including social networking, user generated content (UGC), mobile search and mobile instant messaging) will be worth $22.4bn (£11.39bn) by 2013, from $5.5bn (£2.8bn) in 2008. More...

MySpace opens up... Facebook follows suite
09 May 2008 - MySpace is to allow its users to share their public profiles and data directly on other sites. More...

Almost half of all Brits will use social networks by 2012
01 May 2008 - A new report from Datamonitor estimates that nearly half the UK will be using social network sites by 2012. More...

MySpace set to provide legal music downloads
03 April 2008 - MySpace is close to signing a deal with Sony BMG and Warner Music to offer legal music downloads. More...

Brits head online to watch videos
26 March 2008 - UK traffic to online video sites grew 178% year-on-year from February 2007 to 2008. More...

MySpaceTV introduces first pre and post-roll ads
20 February 2008 - MySpaceTV is using pre and post-roll ads for the first time in a music video shown on the site. More...

Bebo makes itself compatible with Facebook
13 December 2007 - Bebo has launched its open application platform allowing developers to create applications and widgets which also work on Facebook. More...

Brits more social than other Europeans
12 December 2007 - A new report from Ofcom shows that British internet users spend more time on social networking websites than other Europeans. More...

Londoners most social Brits
08 November 2007 - Over half of Londoners are now using social networks, according to new research by YouGov. More...

Facebook ad platform signs up 100,000 branded pages in first 24 hours
07 November 2007 - Facebook have launched their new ad system, allowing firms to set up branded profile pages. More...

MySpace and Bebo sign-up to Google's OpenSocial initiative
02 November 2007 - Social network sites MySpace and Bebo have joined LinkedIn, Plaxo, Friendster, Xing and Google's own Orkut in signing up to Google's OpenSocial project. More...

Facebook overtakes MySpace to become UK's most popular social network
25 September 2007 - According to new data from Nielsen//NetRatings Facebook overtook MySpace in August 2007 in terms of unique visitors. More...

Most popular social networks in the UK - August 2007 - and growth across 2007

E.g. In August 2007, 6.5 million Britons (20% of all active Britons online) visited Facebook; 541% more than did so in December 2006

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings
Nielsen/NetRatings: http://www.nielsen-netratings.com

Fastest growing social networks* in the UK across 2007

*Minimum requirement of 125,000 Unique Visitors in August 2007.
**PerfSpot had no recorded figures until April 2007
E.g. Facebook's audience grew 541% from 1 million in December 2006 to 6.5 million in August 2007

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings
Nielsen/NetRatings: http://www.nielsen-netratings.com

Most engaging social networks by total time - August 2007

E.g. Britons spent 991 million minutes in total on the Facebook. The average visitor to Second Life spent 5 hours 29 minutes there during August 2007

Source: Nielsen/NetRatings
Nielsen/NetRatings: http://www.nielsen-netratings.com

YouTube places first ads
22 August 2007 - Google-owned video site YouTube has placed its first ads on the site. More...

Bebo becomes the UK's most popular social networking site
15 August 2007 - Figures for July from ComScore show that Bebo has grown 63% since the start of the year attracting 10.7m unique visitors during the month and putting it ahead of both MySpace (10.1m) and Facebook (7.6m). More...

Social media: Where the hell is Matt?
Matt Harding is back, and Striding with friends. The cult following of Matt got a boost when chewing gum brand Stride sponsored his next round-the-world adventure.
More...

Social media: Mentos and Diet Coke
A mint, a fizzy drink and a schoolboy prank taken to extremes. We must have watched this 50 times and still it gets a smile.
More...

Social media: STA Travel go Off Exploring
This pioneering use of blogging by the STA travel business found a way of engaging hundreds of thousands of customers.
More...

Case study: Submit yours
Send your case studies to Digital's team: submit online at www.DigitalTrainingAcademy.com/submit.

Digital Thought Leader: Ben Saunders
Ben Saunders is a record-breaking polar explorer and by his own admission an "extreme blogger". From the North Pole he wrote to millions using his blog, a PDA, a matchstick and a satellite phone.
More...

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