Leadpile’s Blog

With Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, and LinkedIn it is hard to keep up with the growing social media trends. Over the past couple of years there has been a steady incline in social media users that until recently did not appear to have any end in site.
According to Mashable “The Social Media Guide” Twitter and Facebook appear to be flattening while LinkedIn saw an increase in traffic of 5.68% for the month of September. LinkedIn also announced today that they have now reached over 50 million users. LinkedIn states that 50% of its user are currently based in the US, while 50% are international.
While Twitter and Facebook are expanding their focus and going off in many different directions to attract as many users as possible, LinkedIn has always had the same focus – to connect professionals to each other.
Personally, I have two Twitter accounts, a Facebook and a LinkedIn account…Each for a different purpose. For me, LinkedIn has become a way to stay in touch with former colleagues as well as connect with people who I would not necessarily want introduced into my personal life through pictures or comments on my Facebook or Twitter accounts.
It is all changing so quickly, and hard to keep up with! As soon as I grasp how to connect on one site, it seems like everyone has moved on to the next. Staying “trendy” with social media is a full time job, however Leadpile promises to keep up with the trends!

Can it really be? Facebook to make billions within the next 5 years? Reuters is reporting that one of Facebook’s board members is predicting this. It seems that promoting more advertising, to really capitalize on the massive amounts of traffic frequenting the social networking site, is key. 225+ million users are on the site, so there has got to be some way to monetize this site to maybe earn these billions that are being predicted. However, will it follow the trends of Twitter where there are massive amounts of traffic not being capitalized on yet? I think the future of social networking really depends on these sites figuring out an effective way to capitalize on the users on their sites. What way(s) of monetizing the social networking site(s) will work best? What are the demographics of the Facebook? Who is coming and going on the site?
The users on Facebook seem to be a lot more diverse than the other large social networking site (myspace.com). However, where did myspace go wrong………. or did they NOT go wrong? They dominated the net just a few years ago, yet times seemed to have changed when the site became more of an advertising site than a place for people to network. Let’s keep an eye on Facebook and see if they stay on the right path to really do the right thing for their network… AND earn this BILLIONS of revenue! Maybe Facebook should contact Leadpile to do some lead generation!

There has been much written and talked about Twitter over the past few weeks.  Celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey and Ashton Kutcher have brought much hype and attention to Twitter.  It turns out that all of this discussion may just be hype after all.  Nielsen Online released some research this week indicating that new users of Twitter are not staying around very long.  In fact, their research indicates that over 60 percent of Twitter users have stopped using the micro-blogging service a month after joining the service.

With a retention rate around 40%, Twitter’s growth will certainly be limited in the long run.  Facebook and MySpace had retention rates nearly double of Twitter’s at similar times in their respective growths.  Even today, Facebook and MySpace have retention rates around 70%.

So, perhaps all those companies that are trying to capitalize on Twitter should take pause, and wait to see what the core Twitter audience will be.  If people are not staying with Twitter for long, the challenge will be to engage this audience and keep them engaged for more than a month.  Apparently, Ashton, Oprah, and others can bring a large audience, but unfortunately it also appears this audience is leaving very quickly.

Craigslist took over the top spot for the most searched term that Internet users clicked through to in the United States, during the week ending March 14. Myspace had held the top spot as the most popular term since March 2006.    According to Hitwise, “U.S. searches on the term “craigslist” have increased 105 percent for the week ending March 14, 2009, compared with the same week last year.”  Why is this?  Could this increase in searching “craigslist” be a result of the economic position many consumers are in?  Either way, this is positive for Craigslist!  

So, who will be the next king of the hill?

Publishers in The Leadpile Lead Exchange certainly look at Craigslist as a place to promote their websites and the Leadpile offers. Those that are not, should maybe look into this site as a potential source of traffic.

First, I would like to say congratulations to our next president of the United States. No matter who everyone voted for, we are all keeping an eye on how the future of our struggling America pans out.  Secondly, there was something that America should really pay attention to, and that is an amazing effect the internet had on the election of our 44th president.
The internet AND social networking tools contributed to the Barack Obama being elected. According to businessstandard.com,“Obama, on his part, has refined the digital act further — a fact revealed during his presidential announcement speech in Springfield last October when he said: “Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age…” A few examples of this being implemented, was in the case where almost 300,000 people created accounts on the barackobama.com website, he became the first YouTube politician, got involved on Facebook, MySpace, text messaging and all other avenues of the internet for fund raising and party awareness.
Another interesting aspect in this presidential campaign was, “Obama has proposed the creation of the nation’s first Chief Technology Officer (CTO) to ensure that the American government and all its agencies have the right infrastructure, policies and services for the 21st century. The CTO will have a specific focus on transparency, by ensuring that each arm of the federal government makes its records open and accessible as the e-government Act requires. The CTO will also ensure technological interoperability of key government functions”, according to Business Standard.
No matter who was elected, the excitement of the internet and the power it can have also excited Leadpile Lead Exchange. We are in it for the long hall on wherever this great internet craze LEADS us!

While the record labels are struggling to bring in revenue, social networking sites are where many companies are turning to help save them. According to Business Week, “The record industry has been hammered in recent years by online piracy and a dearth of mega-hits, with sales sliding steadily since their peak of $14.6 billion in 1999. As CDs sales have dropped, the labels have tried repeatedly to develop digital strategies to make up the difference, and they’ve all come up short. Last year was the industry’s worst yet in terms of revenue losses. The total value of digital and traditional sales dropped 12% in 2007, to $10.4 billion, compared with a 4.4% slide the year before, according to the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).”
Record labels are looking to utilize the internet to help this struggling industry, and why not partner up with social networking? Will MySpace Music be able to handle such a large partnership? They certainly have the audience for the record companies, but will it be used effectively? I guess we will all see how successful this partnership is, and if it works I am sure the rest of the record labels will be looking at social networking to increase sales.
Leadpile Lead Exchange works in affiliate marketing, and this sounds like another form of affiliate marketing that could also work effectively.

When I think of Sears, I think about hardware stores my grandpa and dad used to go to to get that new tool. However, over the years Sears has evolved into a store for more than just tools. No, REALLY! Trendy clothing lines, jewelry, and other non household items has turned Sears into a place all of us can shop at.

According to DMNews, Sears is now going to do some marketing in some social networking sites. They are looking to places like YouTube, Facebook and Myspace as a means to generate interest with the tween (for those of you out of the “loop”, Tween age is between childhood and teenage years) population.

This online marketing campaign is Sears trying to bring in some interest in their back-to-school website arrivelounge.com. There goes the days of Sears in 1886 when they sold watches as a mail order company. Times sure have changed, but I give credit to Sears for realizing that they need to continue to adapt to what is going on in the “world”, in order to stay a store people of all ages shop at.

This just goes to show you, if you want to survive and stay in business- you MUST be open to revising your current business plans, and be open to new ways of running your business. I can guarantee Richard Sears could have never imagined his company marketing to tweeners on social networking sites….social networking WHAT????????