"71% of internet users will access social networking sites regularly this year."  source

One of the great challenges and great truths of social media is the quick speed at which everything changes. Whether it is your Twitter feed, the social news cycle or the speed at which each network grows, we can all count on everything changing and changing often. And the latest change is the stong push and focus on native social video by major social media channels.

It is always interesting to me to watch the ebb and flow of major events on social media. It is natural to see themes on our Facebook feeds as the news of the days becomes relevant in our daily lives. We’ve all seen news stories take over our feeds. It can be done well and it can be done in poor taste. The organizations who do it best make sure their shared or original content is relevant to the larger topic and is consistent with their overall mission.

In today's social media marketing world, it's hard to stand out.  It's even harder to stand out and connect with your community at the same time. One opportunity for social media marketing made its debut this year, Facebook Live.

Maintaining a successful social media presence can be a daunting task — juggling your profiles on multiple platforms while keeping pace with the ever-changing social media world is intimidating. Fortunately, there’s a ‘golden rule’ of social media strategy that involves a simple formula, but one that is often overlooked: The Rule of Thirds.

The U.S. Census Bureau reported in June of 2015 that Millennials are now the largest generation, outnumbering even the Baby Boomers. Thanks to the Millennial Generation the social media revolution has a large army of foot soldiers.

Fall in Vermont (or should I say autumn?) is chock full of delightful distractions, but that doesn’t mean you have to miss out on special treats. Here are our monthly top picks from around the web in September, plus the top five stories from the Change Conversations blog.

Is your business using Twitter? Maybe not, because you've heard tending to a business Twitter account takes lots of time or money. Finding links, creating amusing posts, and keeping up to date with hashtags and industry news can seem like a job on its own, which is a major drawback when your business has other priorities. But did you know there are ways to grow your Twitter following with minimal effort and without any cost to your budget?

It’s frustrating to be a small business advertiser or nonprofit advocate today, especially if yours is a visually driven world. The return on your promotional tools just keeps getting smaller. Television is weakened by DVRs that let your audience record shows and fast forward through commercials. There has been a 25% drop in newspaper readership for ages 18-24 from 1999 to 2014. In fact, there isn’t a newspaper readership age group that hasn’t dropped at least 20% in that time frame. And the “banner blindness” audiences have developed in response to website banner or pop-up ads has been well documented for years. But Instagram may be your best visual marketing tool ever.

Over the course of my internship at Marketing Partners, I’ve learned about a variety of different topics and acquired some important real-world skills. Working with a mix of clients has exposed me to all sorts of different industries, but here’s one of my biggest takeaways that applies to all of them – social media isn’t a choice for your business anymore – and, as we’ve written about before, using social media for business is very different from personal social media use.

While we often write about social media in this blog and how businesses and organizations can use it strategically as part of an integrated marketing plan, it's not often first-hand field research on social media use by tweens and teens can be shared.

Ever feel like there will never be enough time to use social media effectively?

In the real estate sales world, the mantra is “location, location, location.” In the social media world, it’s “relationships, relationships, relationships.” Any social media strategy – whether for a nonprofit organization or a for-profit business – needs to focus on relationship building and relevant content.

Recently, I came across a post entitled, “10 things clients get wrong about the media.”  Admittedly, the author—a publicist (aka a PR person)—was being a bit harsh to make his point in the article, but tone aside, I could relate to a couple of the items on his list.

Social media buttons seem to be everywhere, except when you want one. I am often frustrated by not being able to share an interesting article, or by the difficulty of finding a company or individual’s social media handle so I can follow them. I have finally come to the conclusion that the major reason for this sorry state of affairs is that many casual users cannot distinguish between social sharing buttons and social media follow buttons, and many professionals are sloppy when planning and building the websites and blogs where buttons appear.

This baby boomer has concluded that building your social media team is more a matter of depth, interest, and judgment than it is age. Personally, I’ve never been an early adopter of technology. I think I was the last one in the office to get a smart phone (and now, of course, I can’t imagine living without one). Social media tools like Google+, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and the rest were not around when I entered the advertising industry more than 20 years ago. I guess you could say I grew up on traditional PR and marketing. How times have changed! I have been around long enough to feel (and see) the effects that social media has had, especially in the PR world. Social media has not replaced traditional PR (nor will it ever), but it has greatly added to how we can develop relationships with the media and help our clients communicate their key messages and stories to their audiences and strengthen their brands.

The value of social media in the B2C market space, not to mention people’s personal lives, is well documented. However, the use of social platforms by B2B companies is still an emerging and evolving trend. A recent webinar by eMarketer, explored how and why B2B companies are using social networks to promote their services or brands. The number one reason? They’ve realized their customers and prospects are there. I’ve chosen to highlight some key findings from the webinar that illustrate the current state of social media in the B2B marketplace.

I never thought I’d be writing about septic tanks on our marketing blog, but here goes (and there is a marketing lesson here). I was standing at my child’s bus stop the other day chatting with a few parents and mentioned that we were having our septic tank pumped that afternoon. That comment reminded another parent that she needed to have her tank pumped as well. She decided to ask some others in the neighborhood if they needed their septic tanks pumped. (She was working to get six others so they could get a better price than going alone.) The next day she reported she had three others that needed to have their septic tanks pumped—and she was confident she would find the six to get the price break.I chuckled to myself and thought, “This is good old-fashioned social media in action.” This parent was demonstrating the power of social media only without using any technology at all—just word of mouth. And you can’t get much more social than that. Kind of refreshing in this day and age of technology overload!

We currently live in a technology-crazed world. More often than not while out at a social gathering, you’ll see (roughly) 6 out of 10 people glued to their mobile devices rather than talking face to face with their peers, myself included. This rings true at restaurants, sporting events, or even a house party. With access to social media accounts so widely available,  “leaks” and “uh-ohs” can happen very as easily.