Social Media Marketing 2012

You are not alone to promote you business in social media, according to reports there are around 3800 marketers who use these social media for there business. These social media channels like facebook, twitter, Google+, linkedin etc.. Used to raise brand awareness, build communities and drive sales, and a full one third of these professionals invest 11 or more hours each and every week into their social marketing efforts.

According to reports 94% of marketers use social media to promote there business. In 2012 Around 83% of marketers said social media was important to their business where as in 2011 it was 62% .A significant 59% of marketers are using social media for 6 hours or more and 33% for 11 or more hours weekly. It’s interesting to note that nearly 15% of marketers spend more than 20 hours each week on social media.

There’s a direct relationship between the marketer’s age and time spent marketing with social media. The younger the marketer, the more time he or she spends on social media.

People aged 20 to 29 years spend more time than other age groups using social media marketing (with 43% spending 11+ hours weekly, up from 41% in 2011), followed by 30- to 39-year-olds (35% spending 11+ hours per week, down from 37% in 2011).

The main advantage of social media marketing is increasing publicity, exposure and traffic. A significant 85% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses. Increasing traffic was the second major benefit, with 69% reporting positive.

Marketers who have been using social media agreed that it has increased there sales. Even Small business owners with 2 or more employees were more likely to see improved sales from social media.

Those who invest the most time in social media marketing gain the most business partnerships. Of those with 3 years or more of experience, 72% saw new partnerships. However, 44% of people who’ve invested at least 6 months in social media marketing also report new partnerships were gained. Some of the Marketers who spent 1 year in social media where successful in building up the fans.

Facebook,Google+, Twitter, LinkedIn, blogs and YouTube were the top six social media tools used by marketers, with Facebook leading the pack.Selfemployed and small business owners are likely to use blogs and linkedin.Large business were likely to use facebook,twitter and google+.For marketers Facebook have become number one choice then comes twitter,linkedin,youtube and blogs.

How will marketers change their future social media activities?

When marketers were asked how they will change their social media use in the near future. Survey-takers were asked to indicate whether they will increase, decrease, remain the same or not utilize various social media networks and tools. Marketers plan on increasing their use of YouTube/video (76%), Facebook (72%), Twitter (69%), blogs (68%), Google+ (67%) and LinkedIn (66%) in that order.

When asked to marketers which social media tools they most want to learn more about. Google+ stormed into first place as the social network marketers most want to learn about, replacing Facebook as the leader from the 2011 report. Blogging was second and Facebook followed at a close third.

Social media outsourcing

When asked marketers if they were outsourcing any of their social media marketing efforts. The overwhelming majority said no. In 2011, the number of those who were outsourcing doubled since our 2010 report, from 14% to 28%. In 2012, the number increased slightly to 30%.Design and development, analytics and content creation are the top three areas that social media marketers are outsourcing.

Xero for online accounting,invoicing,billing and banking

Xero is an online accounting software product for small and medium-sized businesses, as well as for personal finance.I really got eager to know more on this product how does it maintains and support accounting, invoicing, billing & banking with online.Lets see it one by one.

Online accounting

In this you can easily see your detail accounts of your business.You can acess your accounts from work,home or on the go.Invite others to view your accounts by sharing your credentials and can ask for advice very easily.You can keep track of accounts,money incoming,money out going and expense claim easily from online,which gives you a accurate result.The dashboard for the account is good in look and fell,displays everything in graph.The data is completely secured even if your computer is lost.

Bank Reconcilation

Get your bank statements imported and categorized automatically.Including credit cards,paypal and support for over 160 foreign currencies.It helps to keep your business status up to date. Xero will match most of your bank transactions automatically. Just click OK to reconcile. You can also create custom rules to automatically match more complex transactions, like split payments

Invoicing

Get better control over income & revenue by scheduling your accounts receivable. Create and send professional invoices automatically & get paid online. Payments, returns and credits are tracked automatically.It also allows you to design your own template with your logo.You can apply different layouts for varios types of transactions and customers.You can also glance any overdue invoices.Allows you to add inventory items to speed up invoicing while tracking goods and services sold.It also provides facility foraccepting credit card payments,customers can just click payment link on your invoices and make direct payment using credit card or paypal.

Add-ons

It allows us to pick up a wide range of powerful addons. Manage all aspects of your business by integrating your accounts with advanced
payroll, CRM, inventory management systems, plus a wide range of other
specialized software. Setup is so easy, you can be up and running in a minute.

Security

Xero ensures highest level of security and never allows to lose your data even if computer is lost.It protects your financial information and does not allow unauthorized access and system failures.

Top 5 Social Netwoking Sites Of 2011

1.Facebook-Face stands at 1st place in 2011.It is the addition machine which hooks its users for hours and yet they are not bored. Its a slow poison . It took me some time to get a hang of it but when I got a hang of it, was too late I was addicted to Facebook. People use Facebook not just to Socialize but to play games, earn money, publicize their products and websites, create groups and lot more. Facebook has a whooping more than 500 plus million unique visits each month and is popular around the world.It has been said that due to its application and games and adds the users are using Facebook more.

2.Twitter-Twitter stands at 2nd in 2011.Twitter is an online social networking and micro blogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts known as “tweets”.Its drawbacks is less features compared to that of Facebook.

3.LinkedIn-LinkedIn stands 3rd in 2011.It is is a business-oriented social networking site.It is mainly used for professionals.

4.Google+-Google+ stands 4th in 2011.Google’s latest assault on the social networking space has made waves in the social media world.It is mainly used for apps,games,hangouts,page,adds and publicity.

5.MySpace-Myspace stands 5th in 2011.In case you are assuming that MySpace is on the border of its death already, you are might be wrong. MySpace is remaining alive and its users are somewhat faithful to it in spite the huge level of attractiveness and glamour that other sites provide. Usually, MySpace is remain as user friendly as this used to be so there should not really be a plenty of user relevant topic while it comes into this issue. The only concern regarding MySpace but is that it nearly never moderated its platforms in huge scale manner so making this looks such as a little collegial equated to other social media.