Marketing Pilgrim

Here at Marketing Pilgrim we have an active job board which is nice because our industry, Internet and social media marketing, is growing quickly despite the dismal overall economy.

Our Infographics channel sponsor, Voltier Creative, has put together this pretty cool infographic (hmmm, I think I am seeing the connection here) about what is required for a career as a social media strategist. We are in a transitional time where this type of job is rapidly evolving and many companies are trying to figure out just what a social media strategist is (or should be).

Be sure to contact Voltier Creative if you have infographic needs for your business.

So click below to see this great use of an infographic about just what it takes to be in the social media field.

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The chart below says quite a bit all by itself. it comes from SAI’s Chart of the Day feature using data from Citi Investments (is that the part they have not renamed OneMain Financial so they can run away from their horrible reputation but I digress).

On a side note, what is maybe even most telling about this chart was the response it got from my 10 year old son. He said, “I know who Facebook, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are but who is AOL?”. Ahh yes, from the mouths of babes.

Bring me your tired, your huddled masses, your social media early adopters looking to get away from Facebook. Maybe that’s the tag line Google should have used when it became the refuge for those tired of being a part of the Facebook nation.

In its invitation only period the service was able to attract around 25-30 million users. Last week with its new “you don’t have to be some tech connected person to use us” approach, Google+ saw its number shot up to about 40 million users after just one day! The chart below from Experian’s Hitwise shows the dramatic rise in market share (although admittedly this chart was made this way to look dramatic but hey its numbers and they bend to the presenter’s whims every time).

This past weekend, I gave into temptation and bought myself an iPad2. I wasn’t as thrilled as I thought I’d be but that’s another story. This story is about apps, because one of the first things I did, when I took it out of the box, is look for apps to load.

I started with the ones I use most on my iPhone, like Skype, eBay and GetGlue. I also use a lot of shopping apps, but those didn’t make sense. I won’t be taking my iPad to the grocery store, but I do carry and use my iPhone there. Then I remembered the advice I’m always giving in this column — iPad apps shouldn’t simply be resized versions of iPhone apps or web pages, they should encompass the whole iPad experience. And therein lies the problem.

Marketers, start your Google+ engines! Speaking at Ad Age’s Digital West conference last week, Google’s Christian Oestlien, said it’s “close to unveiling Google+ business profiles.”

Right now, only Ford and General Motors have official profiles, but since Google+ opened the gates to everyone and anyone, a few “unofficial” profiles have popped up for brands such as Snapple and Taco Bell. Most of these branded pages are blank which leads me to believe people are place holding in hopes of a coup. It’s not going to happen, though, because there’s no limit to how many times the same name can be used.

If a company wants to complain about misuse of their logo, Google+ will listen and possibly shut down the offending profile, but it doeesn’t sound like verification will be a priority at all.

In the “this is not a surprise but I still have to be reminded of it “ research category comes the latest findings by the Pew Research Center and the Knight Foundation called “How People Learn About Their Local Community“. In a nutshell, the study, which analyzes how people get their local information shows two rather distinct categories.

• Young Internet consumers
• Older “other media” consumers

While the lines blur in some areas it is pretty obvious that the digital divide is as much a function of age as it is economic. This first chart shows clearly the differences in how local information is taken in with regard to age group.