Last week you got all the news and updates about ever-changing social media, including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Google Plus, and LinkedIn.  Don't worry; we won't leave you hanging this week either.  In the past week there's been some interesting and useful advice on social media marketing, studies on marketing with Facebook, and much more.  Here's what you may have missed this week:

When to Post

On Thursday, an article was published by Mashable about mistakes to avoid when marketing with social media websites.  Some of these strategies may seem like no-brainers, but it doesn't hurt to take a look at recognized and useful advice.  The key points in the article describe when not to participate in social media for your business.  Holidays is one time when marketing can work either very well, or very badly.  Take, for example, the media backlash AT&T has had over a Twitter post on 9/11 that contained an advertisement for one of their phones.  Sometimes it's best to leave social media alone. 

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Facebook Marketing Studies

Another interesting article was published recently revealing a few different studies concerning Facebook, and how it can affect your marketing.  Some things these studies teach us: Facebook is used a lot.  So much so that 1/3 of the time spent on the internet is on Facebook, with users being mostly 18 to 34 year olds.  This can help businesses when determining which social media sites are best to access their target audience.  The study also reveals how businesses marketing with Facebook ads receive better feedback when the ads are placed on a user's profile page instead of their newsfeed.

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Social Media Impacts

Yesterday Forbes posted an article that will be important for large and small businesses alike: whether social media actually contributes in a positive way to businesses.  Over half of the businesses included in the study said that they aren't able to identify whether social media marketing has helped in any quantitative way.  Only 15% of the businesses that were part of the study had seen a positive quantitative impact.  Despite the findings in these studies, marketers are expected to increase their share of social media spending by more than 9% by 2018. 

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Learn Social Media

Could social media start to become so popular that there are courses for it?  Apparently so.  Even more, you can now get a degree in social media.  Southern New Hampshire University now offers an M.B.A in social media marketing, and Excelsior College also offers an M.B.A in social media management.  While at least two colleges are offering complete degrees, many other colleges are offering singular courses.  With the rise of social media as a marketing strategy, it doesn't seem unreasonable that these types of degrees will become a national trend.

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Dominant Markets

An article that was recently posted described how right behind the United States in consumption of social media is Brazil.  The average amount of time Brazilians spend on social media increased 208% just in the last year alone.  A recent study showed that 77% of Brazilian social media users have a positive attitude towards shopping and buying off of social media sites.  Because of this new influence in the market, big brands like Nike and Coca-Cola are launching new aggressive social media ad campaigns to capitalize off the millions of users social media sites see in a month.

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Happy Friday everyone!  To stay up to date with the latest social media, internet marketing, and web design news follow us on twitter @BlueArcherPGH or talk to a Blue Archer Professional.

Michelle Hawley

Digital Content Writer

@BlueArcherPGH